Americans, how do you feel about the demise of NASA?

I watched an amazing documentary on the NASA Shuttle missions over the weekend. It looked at all of the NASA space Shuttle missions over the years. What struck me was the amazing ingenuity, bravery and dedication of those who worked on those missions. From the astronauts, to those who worked on the ground. Seeing astronauts repair the Hubble space telescope was a highlight for me. Watching men climb inside a huge telescope and manually fix it while being in space.

This was surely one of America's greatest achievements. It seemed to encompass all that is great about America and it's pioneering spirit. Yet the end of the documentary was quite sad. To think that America now has to rely on the old enemy to get their astronauts into space. The NASA employees in the documentary seemed very upset by the prospect that now Russia, China and even India will be back on the moon before America.

It just seems so sad that the noble pursuit of getting man off this planet, has been replaced by endless wars and bailouts. All that money, think what could have been done for the betterment of mankind.

Over the past three decades, the agency’s shuttles have played a crucial role in constructing the International Space Station (ISS), launching the Hubble telescope and sending astronauts and millions of tons of hardware into space.

Since Columbia’s maiden launch in April 1981, the five shuttles – Atlantis, Columbia, Challenger, Discovery and Endeavour - have completed 134 flights between them, and travelled a combined total of 537,114,016 miles (864,401,218km), spending 1,320 days in orbit.

www.channel4.com...

I cant find a direct link to the documentary, so I guess this will have to do fo now. Hopefully the doc will be on youtube soon.


Hubble space walk.

Its about time the government monopoly over space has ended. lets see what the private sector can accomplish. I bet it won't take them 40 years to set a base on Mars.

reply to post by woodwardjnr


Cheated.

Not only do we not get access to the information acquired..

now.. after all is said and done..

there is no NASA..

It's being shut down because it's now dangerous to take those current shuttles in space..........the evidence is everywhere.

reply to post by ohioriver


I too am very interested to see what the private sector can do. I think that we will see the rate of technology increase even more.

Besides, NASA isnt dead. Just the current space shuttle.

Originally posted by ohioriver
Its about time the government monopoly over space has ended. lets see what the private sector can accomplish. I bet it won't take them 40 years to set a base on Mars.

I strongly beg to differ. Not 40 years before there's a BASE on mars. No way, will never happen, it's too cold and there's nothing there for us, other than extra space. We'd be better off with a base on the moon. Unless you can think of a good reason for us to setup shop there?

Will we VISIT Mars by the next 40 years, yes probably.

Originally posted by geraldcole

Originally posted by ohioriver
Its about time the government monopoly over space has ended. lets see what the private sector can accomplish. I bet it won't take them 40 years to set a base on Mars.

I strongly beg to differ. Not 40 years before there's a BASE on mars. No way, will never happen, it's too cold and there's nothing there for us, other than extra space. We'd be better off with a base on the moon. Unless you can think of a good reason for us to setup shop there?

Will we VISIT Mars by the next 40 years, yes probably.

Mars can be terraformed very easily, we could do it within 100 years if we set our minds to it. Research Dr. Chris Mckay, a NASA astrophysicist/astrobiologist.

In the span of 100 years, we went from firing cannons and using muskets, and knowing next to nothing about modern medicine, to landing a man on the moon and then saving lives, being able to perform open heart surgery with the patient surviving, and reattaching severed limbs with micro surgery. We can put satellites in orbit with doppler radar, we can tell when its going to rain and see when major thunderstorms are a threat and detecting tornadoes before they hit.

If there are people with the will to advance and evolve and create newer and better technologies, we can accomplish anything. The human mind is only limited by its imagination. In the late 1800, early 1900's there were boys who imagine one day putting man into space, or launching rockets into orbit and sending animals and then men out and have them return safely.

Although nowadays in order to get that technology you have to ducktape dollar bills to the schematics to get people to even look at them.

reply to post by lonewolf19792000


Sure we could transform Mars to fit our wants and needs, but having a base setup there in 40 years I don't buy it. We have no need to teraform Mars unless we run out of room here.

Terraforming mars is not an easy process,in fact it is near impossible.
Mars don't have magnetosphere, so atmosphere would be blown off by solar flare.

when I was a child nasa for me was like star trek's federation of planets in the infant stage. the first steps to mankinds growth off of this planet. nasa was the gas that fueled my imagination, I dreamed of becoming an astronaut. I envied those that worked there. I wanted so much to be apart of that organization to possibly travel to outer space, land on the moon or mars, to make first contact. but as I grew older and learned of the lies, blurry images, hidden photos and videos, the mismanagement of the federal funding. I became disillusioned the reality of nasa became apparent. nasa was/is a smokescreen a joke played upon the general public. what really put a nail in the coffin was in over 40 years why have we not gone back to the moon. the govt and others scream we dont have enough resources but the moon is rich in minerals and now as we have recently found out water. why have we not gone back?
then buzz aldrin one of my early childhood idols claiming what they found on the moon and last but not least learning of a naval space command. I thought nasa was a branch of the airforce. then it dawned upon me nasa was a sham. Now I say let nasa die serves no valid purpose anyways. since the 1950's they have not advanced that much while technology we take for granted has grown by leaps and bounds nasa has but grown at a snails pace. why?
meanwhile I hear rumors of the naval space command and there saturn operations . I am beyond disgusted why is this farce allowed to continue? nasa either needs to come clean with everything they are hiding or file for bancruptcy either way I will never ever trust or believe anything they have to say again, the one good thing is now that nasa is firing there staff there secrets will trickle out nothing worse than an ex employee with a story to sell.........................

reply to post by lonewolf19792000


I dont know if I would say that Mars could be terraformed VERY easily.

It is do able yes but it is not like flipping on a switch.

Thanks for the excellent replies. I think the private sector will play a big role in mans future space exploration, and I guess like with aviation, we will have more Pilotless drone/robot probes sent into space rather than humans.

Going off on a tangent here, but if we look at how our space programs develop, it can give us clues to how possible alien races would visit other planets. Most likely to be some kind of robotic droid than an organic/human like creature. Whio knows?

Thought this response intresting :per zetatalk

TextThe aging shuttle fleet has been fraught with so many problem that it has been difficult to get a successful launch of late. Not all of these problems have been due to the aging fleet, as many were signals to NASA that their continuing role in the cover-up over the presence of Planet X was not appreciated. They are clearly using the ISS as a spy station, to triangulate the position of Planet X. Now that the shuttle program has been archived, will the Russian Soyuz shuttles begin to have the same grief? Yes. As long as NASA continues to lead the cover-up, this type of grief will follow their endeavors.

The loss of a 'rocket' agency is no loss to me. Now let's get on with development of a (public) antigravity and f-t-l space agency. It's a big universe out there.

Its a sign of a shift in thinking. Apparently exploring space is not an important part of the current mindset of the people who run the country. Sad really. Global control and stealing the money to fund said global control is the current mindset. When we start thinking collectively again as a nation or as a planet, priorities will shift back toward space exploration and other projects for a higher understanding of the world we live in..

The process of terraforming would take hundreds of years, maybe thousands. But it could definitely be done. You are right though the magnetosphere on Mars is practically non-existent.

Private industry will not take any lead in space exploration because it is not revenue generating, launching satellites to LEO is. Private industry involved in space needs cash flow, return of investment, they need more successes and a viable industry to eventually go public, and when they do they will have to answer to quarterly projections. You think they will ask their stock holders to donate their investments because they want to send a space probe to Pluto? No, they wont/can't.

Nobody I heard of wants to part with a billion or so of money they earned to travel to big dead space rocks.

People holding on to the fantasy that private industry is going to lead space explorations with zero returns are watching too many sci fi movies.

I'm embarrassed for my country.

We're throwing away our legacy.

We are going to rely on our enemy to transport us to the space station we spearheaded.

Yes, I said enemy.

reply to post by 2012srb


It's a shame I cant get the video of this up yet, I will try, but your sentiments were those expressed by the NASA employees interviewed in the documentary. These guys had been working on the projects for decades, when Russia was the enemy and the main competitor in space. Now America will rely on Russia for getting astronauts into space. Although I imagine it will be the Chinese who will be the first to start mining on the Moon.

I don't see the "demise" of NASA. The end of a program that was scheduled to end long ago is no the death of an organization. NASA has new missions to perform.

One of the strengths of the US is the expansive, highly developed and deep pocketed private sector. Where there is a need, invention and innovation will follow. This the birth of private enterprise in space.

NASA will now move on to lay the ground work for moving outwards into the solar system.

NASA GROUND WORK-

-How to build space worthy craft.
-How to launch craft into orbit.
-How to navigate in space.
-How to land on another object in space.
-How to return to Earth.
-How to build structures in space.

Now, How to move humans into outerspace and interact with a small object with low gravity and return.

With many, many steps inbetween these stages, NASA plays it's role as the test bed for future private enterprise which will revolve around tourism, scientific research and harvesting resources.