Billions for bailouts, but nothing for NASA???

[kokopup]

I agree with 'Lady's Human' that the monies, spent by NASA, comes back into our economy many times over. Being a former NASA employee I saw first hand the technology that later flowed into main stream America and the World. If you look at the cost of all products, the only things that cost less today than any other time in our history are those things tied to technology. Technology that was developed by NASA or NASA contractors.

[Lady's Human]

The NASA budget for FY 2009 is 17.6 billion dollars.

That means each person in the US is paying 15 cents per day (Using the estimate of 305 million US residents) for a program which has had massive returns on the investment.

I'll take that bargain any day of the week.

[aTailOf2Kitties]

That means each person in the US is paying 15 cents per day (Using the estimate of 305 million US residents) for a program which has had massive returns on the investment

well I'd rather have my 15 cents go to help one of the thousands of people who lost their jobs in the Recession than to some overpaid nerd who figured out how to spend 68 million dollars on a couple of one-way probes to the moon.

I've been to Kennedy Space Center and enjoyed every second of it. Let's face it, space is mysterious and really interesting. I'm not saying NASA souldn't exist, I'm just saying I think the gov't needs to focus more money on fixing problems right here in the Good Ole U-S-of-A before spending billions of dollars exploring space. Don't suspend all activities, just tone it down a little.

[Lady's Human]

Let's try this one more time....

No (or reduced) NASA.........

No hospital room monitors

No MRI's

No CT scans

No microcomputers (At least highly improbable that they'd be available as consumer items)

A wide variety of high tech ceramics, plastics (Mylar), glass products.

No remote crop monitoring (Ya think people are hungry NOW?)

No weather satellites

No comms satellites

Cell phones? Nope.

cable TV? Nope. (no satellites for comms)

Fly by wire aircraft? nope (commercial aviation would be more expensive. Southwest Airlines $99 fares? Doubtful)

Composites? Nope.

and on, and on...........

and guess what? All those technologies and products EMPLOY PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!

Better to give them jobs than handouts.

[Lady's Human]

Those overpaid nerds who crashed two one way probes into the moon? (Nice, BTW, heck of a way to show respect to people who drive the economy......those engineers create the tech you play with at home)

1) They're government employees. They probably aren't overpaid.

2) They were conducting crucial research. If there's water on the moon, it means less mass to carry aloft to go elsewhere in the solar system. If there's water up there, it open up the whole solar system to manned exploration at a much, much cheaper cost.

[Lady's Human]

Resuming the countdown in 3:40....CLEAR TO LAUNCH!!!!!

[Lady's Human]

Good job guys!

From paper to liftoff in under three years?



(Now if we could just raise that budget a touch........)

[Cinder & Smoke]

Good GRIEF!

Better pass out the Dinner Menu, too.

NOW they've reset the clocks to resume the countdown at 11:26 am -
with plans to Push da Button at 11:30 am (Eastern) ...

HOWEVER, the Weather Gurl and her Observation Pilot won't "guarantee"
the weather opening will be LONG Enough to accomplish the launch.

UPPIEDATE:

"We're *ALMOST* clear - with a probable 10-minute window" ...
NOW we're thinking of Pushin da Button a minute or two earlier.

Better *wake* da Wagger - she won't wanna miss this!