What happened to America's space program?

RWP · #1 03-23-2010, 01:34 PM

Sadly America is about to lose our ride into space. We will have to PAY the Russians to take our guys up to our Space Station when the Space Shuttle program ends in a few weeks. Nothing political please but how can this be?

karrot-x · #2 03-23-2010, 01:45 PM

I don't know, it blows my mind.

MatticusMania · #3 03-23-2010, 01:47 PM

Its political. Not your thread, but the answer to 'how can this be?'

MakiSupaStar · #4 03-23-2010, 01:54 PM

Maybe they can have Chrysler build our next ride to the moon.

Relic · #5 03-23-2010, 02:01 PM

I'm not sure that you can even discuss this without it getting political.

Gard · #6 03-23-2010, 02:09 PM

.

(...anything else I say will be deleted. It sucks to be the group of people to have done so much with their manned spaceflight program, and now to not even HAVE one. Unconscionable.

...whoops, there I went...well, we still have GM, Chrysler, and AIG...)

MX21 · #7 03-23-2010, 02:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RWP

Sadly America is about to lose our ride into space. We will have to PAY the Russians to take our guys up to our Space Station when the Space Shuttle program ends in a few weeks. Nothing political please but how can this be?

It's actually the International Space Station isn't it? And the people they take up come from various countries, but yeah, disappointing that the US has no personnel space transport. Wonder what it would take to put a docking port on the Virgin Galactic VSS Enterprise.

I wanted to be an astronaut as a kid and was sure that even if I wasn't that by now I would have visited space. The overall space program is quite disappointing.

MX

EricF · #8 03-23-2010, 02:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RWP

We will have to PAY the Russians to take our guys up to our Space Station...

I'm guessing that someone figured out it would be cheaper to do that than use our own.

rakirksey · #9 03-23-2010, 02:34 PM

Based on the latest trends, American dominance in the upper stratosphere seems to be going private and working with the public sector. It definitely isn't a smooth transition, but in some time frame, the US will probably have private means of shuttling passengers and gear to space.

Philbiker · #10 03-23-2010, 02:45 PM

Who'd a thunk it, huh?

How does the old saying go .... "They can put a man on the moon, but they can't....

* put metal in a microwave
* make a coffee pot that doesn't drip
* ....insert today's frustration here.

Well today you could say "they can put a man on the moon but they can't put a man in low earth orbit".

I grew up in the shadow of the space race. If you would have told me in 1972 that in 2010 the USA would be completely reliant on Russian Soyuz spacecraft (more or less the same design they were using in 1972) to launch USA Astronauts into space I would have told you that you were nuts. Funny how things change.

Apparently LOE is not a priority of the US Government. We're more concerned with Earthly things like shoring up the "Captains Of Industry" at AIG, GM, the big banks, etc. and with implementing health care to people who can't afford private insurance. Can't say that sounds that bad to me personally.

ehque · #11 03-23-2010, 02:53 PM

hrmmm. I guess the Cold War ended.

groooooove · #12 03-23-2010, 03:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ehque

hrmmm. I guess the Cold War ended.

RWP · #13 03-23-2010, 03:14 PM

I have mixed feelings about maned space flight. On one hand robotic technology has advanced to a point that many space missions could be performed without risking the lives of astronauts. However, there is a more important aspect to space travel, a purely esoteric value that is has worth far beyond the cost in dollars.

Relic · #14 03-23-2010, 03:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RWP

I have mixed feelings about maned space flight. On one hand robotic technology has advanced to a point that many space missions could be performed without risking the lives of astronauts. However, there is a more important aspect to space travel, a purely esoteric value that is has worth far beyond the cost in dollars.

A little off-topic but that's the way I see a lot of things headed these days, especially military combat aircraft. With the cost of the F22, and the F35 turning more and more into a clusterfudge every day, I can really see the next generation of combat aircraft being unmanned. Or at the very least there being a larger unmanned proportion filling more various roles, including combat.

L-A · #15 03-23-2010, 03:22 PM

I heard the Russians got ahead of them.

RWP · #16 03-23-2010, 03:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Relic

A little off-topic but that's the way I see a lot of things headed these days, especially military combat aircraft. With the cost of the F22, and the F35 turning more and more into a clusterfudge every day, I can really see the next generation of combat aircraft being unmanned. Or at the very least there being a larger unmanned proportion filling more various roles, including combat.

I think you are right. The need for conventional manned weapons may soon be a thing of the past. I just hope we can stay ahead of Communist China in those areas.

rakirksey · #17 03-23-2010, 03:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Relic

A little off-topic but that's the way I see a lot of things headed these days, especially military combat aircraft. With the cost of the F22, and the F35 turning more and more into a clusterfudge every day, I can really see the next generation of combat aircraft being unmanned. Or at the very least there being a larger unmanned proportion filling more various roles, including combat.

It's already going that way .... here is an interesting article in Popular Science. The short summary is that the US trained more UAV pilots than fighter and bomber pilots combined.

FL Knifemaker · #18 03-23-2010, 03:34 PM

What happened today pretty much answers the question

jonathan_matos5 · #19 03-23-2010, 03:40 PM

if the research and development for space programs was the same as for breast augmentation then we would have colonized the moon by now

DigMe · #20 03-23-2010, 03:42 PM

It's supposed to just be temporary as we phase from the space shuttle model into using the Orion Spacecraft, which is kind of a throwback to the era of rockets but with a modern take. From what I understand Obama canceled that program and it's now under private sector control. Until Orion is up and running (2015 at the earliest) we will be hitching rides to the space station.

I attended a conference on Nanotechnology and NASA had a big presentation there about the whole Orion thing and Project Constellation and future manned trip to Mars.

bc