The future of NASA

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Fair or not it's the way it is, for the last half century, blasting people off this rock has been the most recognizable, visceral symbol of the allure of science.

Well, the allure of faux science anyway. But I understand your point, I just don't think it is sufficient justification for the spend, at least if they're going to lie and pretend it is actual science. If we're going to just go around doing things just because they make us tingly about our mighty engineering genius then there a bucketload more rivers that could be Hoover damned [sic]. If the president says "we're doing plenty of real science but we want to put men in space not because there's any real value in it because it's fun" then maybe I'll come around.

But it is also saddening that CP and others look at the manned space program and thinks "why doesn't the government do more science funding." It makes me wonder if manned space flight promotes actual science funding or instead gets the government off the hook to a degree from funding real science since we're all oohing about people living in low earth orbit for a few months at a time and the beautiful photos of a shuttle launch against a pre-dawn sky.


And as for the Constellation Program all the theoretical debate is fine but the fact remains that it was a project that if successful would have done what we already did 40 years ago (and was kind of boring America by then anyway) using technology not much more advanced and despite that was behind on a schedule longer than was taken the first time and was already way over budget.

Frankly, since I have no emotional investment in the United States being the "leader in human space flight" I'll be just as irrationally enthused if in 2025 it is a Chinese astronaut on the moon.