Obama says No to Moon Mission.

I found this rather depressing. I've always been a fan of space exploration. I'm one of those nerds who dream of the human race populating the stars like a good sci fi novel. It seems now that things are tight economically no one cares about the future evolution of the human race or the big picture though. Space exploration is just an unnecessary expense


Obama Will Axe NASA’s Moon Mission

NASA’s plans to return astronauts to the moon are dead. So are the rockets being designed to take them there — that is, if President Barack Obama gets his way.


When the White House releases his budget proposal Monday, there will be no money for the Constellation program that was supposed to return humans to the moon by 2020. The troubled and expensive Ares I rocket that was to replace the space shuttle to ferry humans to space will be gone, along with money for its bigger brother, the Ares V cargo rocket that was to launch the fuel and supplies needed to take humans back to the moon.
There will be no lunar landers, no moon bases, no Constellation program at all.
In their place, according to White House insiders, agency officials, industry executives and congressional sources familiar with Obama’s long-awaited plans for the space agency, NASA will look at developing a new “heavy-lift” rocket that one day will take humans and robots to explore beyond low Earth orbit. But that day will be years — possibly even a decade or more — away.


In the meantime, the White House will direct NASA to concentrate on Earth-science projects — principally, researching and monitoring climate change — and on a new technology research and development program that will one day make human exploration of asteroids and the inner solar system possible.


There will also be funding for private companies to develop capsules and rockets that can be used as space taxis to take astronauts on fixed-price contracts to and from the International Space Station — a major change in the way the agency has done business for the past 50 years.
The White House budget request, which is certain to meet fierce resistance in Congress, scraps the Bush administration’s Vision for Space Exploration and signals a major reorientation of NASA, especially in the area of human spaceflight…

Obama Will Axe NASA’s Moon Mission | Disinformation

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Substance does not undergo process. Process is primary and what we call substance is merely a temporary pattern produced by that process.

See also

Obama NASA Plans ‘Catastrophic’ say Moon Astronauts

and

Astronauts Blast Obama On NASA Plans

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Substance does not undergo process. Process is primary and what we call substance is merely a temporary pattern produced by that process.

Oh, I didn't realize that. Everything in space is "junk" and we (who ?) have proven that there is no life beyond the earth. I must not be keeping up with things because I was never aware of that. How exactly did we prove this?

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Substance does not undergo process. Process is primary and what we call substance is merely a temporary pattern produced by that process.

Obama spent all his money on socialism - no time for space exploration.

While I do not agree with his socialist agenda - I am not altogether opposed to this direction with NASA -- though I think that NASA having a primary mission of addressing global warming -- seems a bit odd.

National Atmospheric Salvation Admin?

What happens if NASA actually applies science to the task reports that global warming is not caused by humans using hair spray???

Did you hear about the SpaceX craft that just got back from a mission to re-supply the ISS?

It's long past the time for space exploration to be the domain of government expeditions, and hopefully private interest in space travel will continue to increase.

Don't count on government to colonize space unless you just want a few glorified military bases and research posts, or a penal colony. Did the government colonize America? Did they settle the West? In the far future there might be boom towns on other planets and "wagon train to the stars", and there's a good chance they won't have been organized by governments.

If space is going to be colonized, private interest is going to have to do it.

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"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -Rudyard Kipling

Good for Obama! Now is not the time for further space exploration. Will there ever be the money in the future for the costs involved? That remains to be seen, but for now, no.

If our ancestors had that same lack of curiosity and imagination we would still be living in caves.
You do know that we would have to examine the whole universe in detail before we could definitively rule out the possibility of life beyond earth in a scientific manner? The very fact that scientists are searching for life on other planets kind of gives the lie to the idea that there is some sort of scientific consensus that life doesn't exist anywhere else. We may already have evidence of microorganisms having lived on mars. The silence of the Bible on the subject is really beside the point.

Fossil Life in ALH 84001?

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Substance does not undergo process. Process is primary and what we call substance is merely a temporary pattern produced by that process.

Science now knows there are more planets in the universe than stars.

And we know that the Drake equation alone predicts that this would mean a lot of intelligent life in our universe - even by atheist standards.

Even the Catholic church is now proclaiming the existence of aliens on other worlds.

But we do not have the commercial technology to reach them. We either need more black-budget programs to surface or simply wait until the commercial world gets to the point of reliable means for travel. Frankly I doubt the black-budget guys have more than smoke and mirrors when it comes to actually leaving our solar system "reliably" and in all practicality.

in Christ,

Bob

Yes I did. A very exciting development for sure. Private space exploration is still embryonic though and I worry that not enough capital and effort will be put into anything other than sending satellites or tourists in orbit though.
That may be the case. Columbus did get here with government funds but a lot of the later exploration and colonization was funded by non-government players.

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Substance does not undergo process. Process is primary and what we call substance is merely a temporary pattern produced by that process.

I say we follow Tim Learys SMIL2E program

Space Migration, Exponential Intelligence Increase, Life Extension



SMI2LE: The Futurist Thought of Timothy Leary

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Substance does not undergo process. Process is primary and what we call substance is merely a temporary pattern produced by that process.