Apollo Astronauts Blast Today's NASA

Apollo Astronauts Blast Today's NASA

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The International Space Station, which has cost $100 billion, is "almost a white elephant," said Jim Lovell, who flew on both Apollo 8 and Apollo 13, according to the Washington Post.

"Until we can really get a return on our investment on that particular project, then it was money wasted," Reuters quoted him as saying.

Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon with Apollo 17, pointed out that the station, only nearing completion now, will be sent to burn up in the Earth's atmosphere in 2016 because NASA hasn't got the money to keep it up past that year.

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Back in the sixties, NASA received a huge portion of the national budget toward the space program. Now, it receives 0.6 prcent, and the public feels it is too much. Well, don't count me as part of the public in that one. A lot of scientific discoveries have been made due to experiments in space.

To not fund the research that is needed for the long term survival of the human race (by long term, I am referring to thousands of years), just seems whacked. I don't blaim them for blasting the decisions made by today's decision makers.

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Ever saw the movie "the astronaut farmer"?

A farmer made a rocket ship to take a trip round the earth
it worked

Nasa did not want it to work or the people to know about it because it would raise questions on how if a farmer could make a rocket to go into outer space then why does NASA require so much money to do the same.

reply to post by ModernAcademia

Yeah -- but that was only a fictitious movie. I've seen a lot of things in movies that aren't necessarily true.

Do you have any reason to believe that the idea of a common person being able to do that is anything but fiction?

By the way, NASA is not the only people in the U.S. who build and launch rockets. There are private companies that also do this. In fact, after NASA retires the Space shuttle next year, there are private companies that will be in charge of launching re-supply missions to the space station. Someday, those companies may be even launching humans to the space station.

Also, Russia and China also have manned space programs.

Originally posted by ModernAcademia
Ever saw the movie "the astronaut farmer"?

A farmer made a rocket ship to take a trip round the earth
it worked

Nasa did not want it to work or the people to know about it because it would raise questions on how if a farmer could make a rocket to go into outer space then why does NASA require so much money to do the same.

Although I agree with your premise that a little bit of ingenuity and good old American tenacity can go a long way, on a minimal budget, I do believe that NASA often requires so much funding due to their increasingly technical workloads, and the inflating costs of services and procurement pertaining towards such.

The bottom line however is that NASA is a bureaucracy, and as a result of such they are at the mercy of politicians. I find it extremely frustrating, and downright sad in a sense, that we have for so long done no more than confine ourselves to Manned Missions only within the Earth's lower orbits. It is actually quite pitiful that we send manufactured Satellites up to higher orbits than we do Manned Missions these days. Until the politicians do what is right however, and stop bugging around with needless garbage science such as "AGW" and the "Green Movement" for instance, we will never be able to fully realize our rightful place in Space.

I have recently met a member of NASA and the original Apollo moon Mission, he also backs what the Astronauts in the OP are saying, I believe him fully.

Even though we have technological advantages today it certainly does not reflect the safety measures taken in the past by good old human inginuity and awareness other than computer simulated and relied upon as they do today.

They were a close team back then, it is different today for sure.

I am currently working on an interview for ATSNews so will not say much more for now other than Happy Anniversary To the Apollo 11 Moon Mission and their hard to beat team of experts!

history.nasa.gov...