Why has NASA been dismantled?

NASA is not being disassembled.

I think NASA was a product of the Cold War, the direct competition between america and the great Union of Socialist Soviet Republics to militarise and colonise space. The unfortunate collapse of the great Union of Socialist Soviet Republics caused the end of the Cold War, and the need for a strong presence in space has subsided with it.
Despite the propaganda spewed by kennedy, “because they are hard” was never a reason for the space programme. Neither was science or exploration. The real and only reasons were politics and a military and technological superiority over their Soviet nemesis.

What is your source for putting out this false information? Can we see it?

NASA isn’t being dismantled, just changing. They’ve “discontinued the space shuttle program and that kind “low earth orbit stuff is going to be privatized.

And they just launched their largest Mars Rover ever, this past November and it is scheduled to arrive on Mars in August of 2012 and are collaborating with the European Space Agency to launch another rover in 2118 They’re not going anywhere soon.

@digitalimpression
My source is a speech by Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Astrophysicist.
And besides, your source supports my position. NASA will get less money next year, while the defence budget gets inflated even further.
The space shuttle is dead, low orbit transport is being privatised (code for “we don’t give a crap”), that new rocket they were developing has been canned. Compare that to the focus it received during the cold war, and it just screams that the space programme is becoming irrelevant. The real push into space basically peaked with the moon landing, and lofty plans for a manned mars mission were abandoned, because the Soviets lost interest (that is also why they abandoned their own manned moon landing ambitions.)
Now all that is on the books are some pathetic robots, probes and telescopes and that international space station.
There are no plans for a manned mars mission, no plans to build an orbital shipyard, no plans for a permanent moon base. There is no passion, no ambition.

@ragingloli Hahahaha. That guy is out of his gourd. Awesome.

With the discontinuance of the shuttle program and no replacement in the works(it was cancelled by Obama) there were a lot of layoffs. NASA did not go away, it just got much smaller.

Interestingly the more secretive Navy and Air force space programs are expanding.

@ragingloli Just something I heard. I guess I heard wrong, thankfully.
http://www.space.com/12387-nasa-american-spaceflight-future-plans.html

I know SpaceX is ordering parts from my company, and more of them. While NASA may no longer be relevant, that does not mean our space program is dead.

I think it’s about the right time for private industry to start taking over orbital flights (imagine if the airline industry was owned and operated by the FAA), and for NASA to set their sights for longer distance goals (even if that means robots instead of than manned missions).

NASA is too expensive right now.

It’s not that NASA is too expensive. Science never stops. It’s just that the U.S. would rather keep high monetary flow into this military over NASA. It’s bullshit.

Hmmm. @whitetigress Shall we say that it isn’t a budget priority of Congress? I’m sure all of us could reorganize the budget priorities of this nation if we were given the power. But you know what? I’m going to stick to my interpretation. I think Congress has decided NASA is too expensive.

@wundayatta Agreed.

@digitalimpression Neil DeGrasse Tyson is one of the most respected scientists in the world. What is your source for saying he’s “out of his gourd”?

P.S. Your obviously biased self doesn’t count as a source.

Questing, curious, inquisitive minds make for poor drones. As worldwide neo-fascism tightens its grip on the Western world, it is systematically banning, criminalizing, sabotaging, or destroying every traditionally mind-opening institution, such as the use of psychedelic drugs, liberal arts education, scientific inquiry, and the arts. Each is being replaced with a harmless facsimile of the original which people are now too stupid, blinkered, and pig-ignorant to recognize as being a hollow shell.

That’s why they’re gutting NASA.

Don’t panic. There will be a time after the current debt crisis. NASA will be eventually gain new momentum. There’s a lot to be learned from exploring space.

NASA isn’t being dismantled completely but it certainly keeps getting cuts it doesn’t deserve. The problem is that space exploration isn’t urgent, and we are so short sighted that we are not interested in putting money towards things that are not urgent, even if they’re important.

??
NASA has been scaled back.
I don’t approve. I think the leg up in technology comes from working thru the issues of travel off the planet.