Comments on: CBO report offers up human spaceflight to reduce the budget deficit

By: Edward Jones

Edward Jones — Thu, 17 Apr 2014 21:20:54 +0000

Space flight will NEVER happen as long as conservatives support the multi-trillion-dollar corporate welfare & Wall Street welfare state. Giving the undeserved rich even more money is rightists’ #1 priority. Far above the poor, veterans, human rights, animal rights, ending torture of humans & nonhumans in all parts of the world.

Rightists hypocritically complain about college students living at home with their parents who protest high tuition. So what? They have the absolute free speech right to say & believe what they want. If they want to believe they have life difficult, it’s none of your business – no matter if you have a fulltime job or a veteran – to stop them.

As long as conservatives complain about the top 0.01% wealthy’s First World Problem of others criticizing them for being handed billions of dollars in free money by the government, civilization is doomed.

By: Reticuli

Reticuli — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 13:28:58 +0000

Exploration and expansion is not a means; it is an end.

By: Reticuli

Reticuli — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 13:25:41 +0000

I recommend firing all these goons and their bosses instead. Have they done a report yet on what their own elimination would save?

By: Dan

Dan — Sun, 24 Nov 2013 05:21:01 +0000

If we’re going to mars just to do science, we might as well not go at all. The real reason for going to mars should be to settle there. Dr. Zubrin makes a good case for why this is not beyond our technology and why this objective should be the priority of our manned space program.

By: Hiram

Hiram — Sat, 23 Nov 2013 00:55:44 +0000

“Eliminating the CBO and all its bureaucracy entails would be a much wiser fiscal move if not inspiring. After all, it doesnâ€™t explore not exploit space, it simply takes it up in buildings and cubicles on Earth.”

I think the CBO numbers two hundred or so people. That doesn’t hold a candle to the NASA centers, where a hundred times more civil servants, plus a whole lot of contract staff, are taking up space. Yes, I never thought of it that way, but NASA centers, with their buildings and cubicles are indeed marvelous exercises in space exploitation. As to exploration, it was once explained to me that accountants are those who can really “look under the hood” of a business and understand how it works. It’s been a long time since astronauts did any kind of exploration. Of course, there is no real question in any minds how LEO works.

We should not begrudge the green eyeshade crowd their inspiration. It’s only fair, considering the astronauts so capably inspire the maximum absorbent garment crowd.

By: Gregori

Gregori — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 22:50:14 +0000

At least accountants do something useful that pays for itself.

By: Hiram

Hiram — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 19:52:52 +0000

Thanks for the clarification. But we do have to be careful about not implying that “space exploration” equals human spaceflight. That is often done, not even implicitly. I know that you didn’t do that here, but it was in a thread about human spaceflight. The “science is good for us” argument is an excellent one, and that’s the kind of thing the CBO should be aware of.

By: Brett

Brett — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 19:39:44 +0000

I mentioned up-stream that if we could get a few more billion for the robotic missions, I’d be totally fine with cancelling the manned spaceflight program. I’m okay with defending the robotic missions on pure “science is good for us” grounds by themselves.

By: Hiram

Hiram — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 18:02:10 +0000

“I think we need to just straight-up defend the idea that expanding our pool of scientific knowledge in general enriches us culturally and politically …”

I couldn’t agree more. And that has what to do with human spaceflight? That’s what this was about. Aside from the effect of microgravity on humans, science accomplished by human spaceflight doesn’t come close to what has been accomplished with non-human spaceflight. Not even close. The Luna’s were returning lunar samples with great economy, and everything that Apollo did scientifically could now be done telerobotically. An improved version of HST could have been rebuilt for less than a Shuttle launch. I’d like to believe that human spaceflight could have a principal and enabling role in doing great science, but it just hasn’t demonstrated that yet.

Your second paragraph is exactly right, though it is hardly exclusive to human space exploration. I notice that you didn’t claim that it was. It takes a big set of blinders to do that exclusion.

No, human spaceflight ought to be good for many things, but you can’t defend it scientifically. We’ve moved way beyond that.

By: Brett

Brett — Fri, 22 Nov 2013 17:08:30 +0000

I think we need to just straight-up defend the idea that expanding our pool of scientific knowledge in general enriches us culturally and politically, and is worth doing in of itself for the relatively meager amounts of money that NASA gets compared to national defense and social security spending. We accept similar arguments in public funding for the Arts, and for places like museums – people don’t defend museums just in terms of them being potential tourist attractions or things to do on the weekend.

We should point out having a good space exploration is an extremely visual, recognizable, peaceful sign of national scientific and technological triumph. That’s why developing countries often do at least some space program as soon as they have the capabilities to do so, like with China and India.