Obama kills plans to return to the moon by 2020: thoughts?

MARIAH!!!
I’m saddened too :(

Yeah it sucks, I’m all for exploration as well, but times are hard so…just like individual citizens, you have to tighten your belt to pay off debt. It’s not a hard concept, everyone understands saving money and cutting back in their own lives, but when it comes to a larger scale, there are so many questions and opposition…strange.

We’ll make it back to the moon eventually. It’s likely that one day, there will be brown people there for us to bomb. Seriously. But not in any of our lifetimes.

I’d like to spend on this, but I’d like to cut the deficit too. Seems that, to his critics, Obama can only do two things wrong, spend money or not spend money.

i am very sad about this. very sad. actually really sad. im starting a moon fundraiser. i fucking love the moon. its so damn cool.

@deni Lol!......Internet sarcasm cracks me up…..

I’ll start this off by saying that the exploration of the cosmos makes me indescribably excited. Though I’m not someone gifted enough in the realms of mathematics and science to aim for a job in the field.

Space exploration is expensive.
I can understand them halting it for the time being.
We’re not going to get any monumental scientific advancements by taking a few more trips to the moon, as cool of a place as it is.
And hey, in the 10-year break, I’m sure we’ll have some badass new tech that’ll be applicable to space exploration. I plan to spend my 10 years digging in Egypt for another Stargate

So what exactly is gained by putting a man on the moon? We already have some rocks from there. Why not shoot a robot there and let that do the work? Like we did on Mars.

And manned missions hurt NASA. Nobody cares when a robot burns. But they care when a shuttle with seven people explodes.

@Blackberry AWW BUT I WASNT BEING SARCASTIC :( lol

It would be entirely irresponsible to spend money to go to the moon, unless it was to colonize. That time may be near, as this planet is becoming undersized rapidly.

Understand this people…folks gotta die, and folks gotta work. If we do not find a way to thin the herd or at least put the herd to work, we are going to need the moon to house overflow.

I think we have problems here we need to deal with before “exploring”.

I approve of this move – we can’t afford to play space games right now.

Okay by me.

Personally, I am in total agreement. Priorities, it’s all about priorities, or it should be anyway. Who decides what is most important? That is a moot point I know but hell I can think of far more useful things to spend billions of dollars on, especially at this point in history.

Like everyone’s saying, there are certainly more immediate things to spend money on right now. Sure. BUT, I can’t help but keep in mind that there are always more immediate things to spend money on than space exploration. At any given time, if an announcement is made about plans for space exploration, there will be many, many people who complain that it’s an irresponsible use of money. If we put it off every time this argument comes up, it will never happen…

But, obviously things would be different if the economy were stable right now.

They spend outrageous amounts on space exploration and many good things have come of it. I loved my trip to nasa. But, priorities, as has been said.

Let’s focus on developing robust nano-scale production technologies. The universe isn’t going to go away in the few decades this should take.

I would like to add that I am fine with spending for NASA. I think 95% percent of what they do is fantastic. Hubble = best money ever spent.

If we want to save some cash we need to look at the Pentagon first. They need some serious cuts.

entrepreneur’s in space…. I will finaly be able to own part of my own space station…now I have a goal…U.S.S. Bill Gates or Virgin Galatric Mars missions anyone?

I think future space exploration will really be tackled by the public, non-governmental collectives and individuals.

Consider The X Prizes. More specifically, Google is currently offering a lunar X prize, a challenge which a large and diverse group at my university has eagerly accepted and is already well into tackling. Their current projections outline success falling around May of 2011. While the mission will be unmanned, it will feature some interesting technological innovations, along with a cultural payload as a collaboration with the Art program. Such a quick response and solution (especially on a relatively limited budget,) as well as the overarching message the mission plans to convey gives hope for the future of space exploration in general. With willing investors and motivated individuals, I can certainly see far more creative, inexpensive, and ambitious accomplishments coming from the public than NASA.

Space exploration is no longer simply a noble manifestation of science fiction whimsy and is a huge big buck gamble. The US can no longer go it alone and even selling off on board experiments to other countries to help subsidize the space exploration…we are too broke to afford the parking fee for the space shuttle. For better or for worse private entities who have the vision to see the commercial potential and the secure venture capital is about all there is left to keep man boldly going where no man has gone before. I’d rather see homeland security and education stay fully supported by our government for now and let Branson and pals pave the way to the new space frontier!

This decision is disappointing but none the less the right one at this time. The priorities of average Americans trumps long-term goals of interplanetary travel and exploration.

What do you expect? He’s a fucking useless idiot.

Since every good right winger knows that the free market can and will do everything more efficiently if only the Government gets out of the way, good news, boys. The gubment’s out’n da way. Go to the moon and beyond. Clearly private enterprise will be there in a heartbeat now. :-)

Bringing men to the moon is a neat idea, but really, what purpose would it serve? What more would they be able to get out of returning to the moon? Figuring out how to set up moon colonies?

I think much more information about the universe can be obtained in other means without expensive manned missions. Let’s learn more about Europa, for instance. That seems pretty cool.

Don’t get me wrong, I think astronomy is extremely important and interesting. But sending men to the moon doesn’t seem like something that would reap enough benefits for the amount of money it would cost. Then again, I don’t know much about what the plan was intended to entail. So don’t entirely trust my opinion.

Once the economy is better, yes, I definitely think we should set some more goals for space exploration. But people would friggin’ riot if they knew that their tax money was going towards space ships instead of putting them back to work.

You know that Richard Branson, who owns Virgin, is already selling tickets to tour around the moon. Private companies will be going to the moon in no time

So that’s where he came from. That answers a lot of questions.

IMHO, we have long had a secret space program and probably have a moon base. It makes my head spin to continually hear people falling for this line of bullshit that in 40 years we’ve completely regressed in our ability to reach the moon. It’s a minor marvel to see how long this lie is perpetuated in the public sphere.

I think it is time that humans branch out. There are only a few choices. We institute a world-wide birth control program, over-crowding causes a world population decrease by war, disease or famine, or we start colonizing off world.

The space program offers new inventions, a chance for humans to express our pioneering spirit, unlimited natural resources. Without expanding off world, we are doomed to eventual extinction. Getting rid of the moon project diminishes us all.

I suggest that we divert the money we are spending in Iraq to the space program.

Just get Halliburton etc. to fund it…

I say skip the moon and go straight to Mars. Or we could harvest all the Helium 3 and exploit it’s inhabitants.

@Bugabear I agree completely

Kevbo is right. We’ve had a manned moon station for the last two decades.

lets just go to a black hole instead. who would say no to that.

Couldn’t the government just borrow Dr. Evil’s moon base? I don’t think he’s using it right now…

(Wonders how the Soviets missed our “permanent manned secret moon base”.)

(Wonders how amateur astronomers with expensive telescopes have also missed it. Must be some sort of stealth technology included, or they’re all brainwashed by Men In Black, or a giant shield is in front of it, or the moon we see is actually just a giant projected image, or….)

or it’s underground.

or the moon doesn’t rotate. connivant.

We’re really not supposed to talk about it.

Right, we built an underground base without being detected and/or sent multiple spacecraft (undetected) to the far side of the moon to build one (that is invisible to lunar and other probes). It all seems so plausible.

In Soviet Russia, far side of moon photographs YOU!

Very saddened. It means that the next US expedition to the moon will have to get Chinese visas most likely.

The aliens that built the pyimids also built things on the moon, look it up…lol

I love science and can understand your disappointment however I never could see the justification of spending billions of dollars on a huge rock up in space and let thousands die of starvation here on earth. I can understand the need for satalites but lets face it. If something where to happen to the moon there would be nothing we could do to stop it. What ever the moon was like billions of years ago makes no difference in my life today or in the lives of millions. I’m sure Nasa won’t shut down and will have other projects in the future.

@deni A ku klux clan member who hates giving anal!

Any who have read Heinlein’s “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” will understand the security value of possessing the ultimate high ground at the top of the gravity well. Whoever builds a mass-driver on the moon can hold the entire earth hostage to “rock throwing”.

Fusion energy may be dependant on the relative abundance of the Helium-3 isotope on the moon, extremely rare on earth.

@stranger_in_a_strange_land
If we have been doing fine for thousands of years without the use of Helium 3 why would we need to spend billions to retrieve it. It will cost us more just to send someone up to get it and transfer it back than what it will probably save us in the long run. I also don’t think that other countries interested in having some gain over us are as interested in spending billions either. Why go all the way there to try to lord over us. They can do it from dry land and it won’t cost as much. They can always try to build something to destroy us from there an we will always build something to conteract it. It will just get expensive and become a waste of time.

We’ve already been back to the moon, and Obama is a puppet

@YoKoolAid are you one of the conspiracy theorists? I’d like to hear your moon theory.

@stranger_in_a_strange_land There is more He-3 on the moon, embedded in the upper layer of regolith, than there is on earth. It has been building up there over the eons due to open exposure to the solar wind. There’s no lunar atmosphere to shield the moon. And BTW, there isn’t very much on the moon either. The concentration of He-4 in the lunar regolith is only 28 PPM and He-3 is a minuscule 0.01 PPM.

Besides, we are getting He-3 from gas wells right here on Earth. When we perfect level II fusion reactors, we won’t need a large quantity of He-3 to fuel them. A little goes a very long ways. We can probably get by with what is here naturally and if not, supplementing it with tritium would be cheaper. Tritium has a half life of 12 years and decays into He-3. It can be made in either a Fission or Level I Fusion reactor by irradiation of lithium.

It’s right to focus on important short-term problems first. It’s wrong to give it up forever. Space matters. And very much so.

Something else to chew on:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/feb/02/lunar-us-china-race-moon

@kevbo – Interesting article. Thanks for sharing!