The Space Shuttle Program Ends

Add in the losses in the tertiary businesses and that number may double...

Ending this program is one of Obama's biggest mistakes, IMHO...Compared to many programs, it's not that expensive and the discoveries and the benefits from them far outweigh the costs...

 

Labor pool increases, wages go down. That's called supply & demand. 2 billion people competing for jobs in China is half the reason they work for 12 cents an hour in miserable conditions with nothing even remotely similar to OSHA. (The other factor is the government controlling labor rates to KEEP it that way)

 

Open your eyes a bit.

It takes many long years to build these things.

Now, how many presidents have been in office since the last one was built?

I actually believe the first step in the death of the space industry was the last Apollo mission. The shuttle program was okay, but we failed to go ahead with anything since then.

 

Agree, which is why stopping it for any length of time is a huge mistake...Getting back to building them won't be as fast as if they were constantly doing it, it will take much longer now...They cost approx $1.7b each, if we got out of the wars that cost $2b/wk you can see how easily we could afford to keep this program going...

 

I added a comment to my post.

I believe it started to die in 1972 when the last Apollo mission ended.

The Shuttle program was nothing compared to getting to the moon or Mars.

 

The shuttle fleet was actually scheduled to be retired YEARS ago. NASA having failed to get funding to develop a replacement vehicle, was never able to do so, so they kept extending the retirement date for the fleet.

Even though EVERY president since the Apollo program has made a speech full of great promises like returning to the moon and landing men on Mars, it's always been for publicity.

We can blame ALL of these presidents, as well as Congress for this dismal failure to develop a replacement.

There was a program, started under Bush Junior, to develop a replacement based on disposable rockets and parachute landings in the ocean much like the Apollo program, using rockets that could be used either for reaching earth orbit or going back to the moon. It was supposed to have lower operational costs than the shuttle fleet.

THAT is the program Obama cut the funding for.

 

Sounds like a pipe dream and no real basis in the future development of space travel on the long term.

Maybe it was wise to cut it.

Probably be something that we should have expanded it to, but with all government programs, NASA is over fluffed with problems and graft.

 

NASA was the only bloated government bureacracy that was ever a source of national pride and patriotism, other than the military. When Neil Armstrong made that "giant leap for mankind", the whole world was watching and it was arguably this nation's proudest moment.

If this thread was in the politics section I'd have a LOT more to offer to this conversation.

 

Does this mean that horrid crap Tang will go the way of the Dodo now?