And the stars beyond the....
"Even during NASA’s heyday in the 1960s.... polls suggested that most Americans didn’t think Apollo was worth the expense (The only exception was after the landing in 1969, when a poll indicated that a bare majority of 53 percent of Americans supported the spending)....
Regardless, winning the kind of overwhelming public support that existed at the height of the Apollo program - when the United States was locked in a space race with the Soviet Union - could be difficult. A new Gallup poll found that a majority of Americans - 58 percent - believes the benefits of the space program are worth the expense. But while nearly 60 percent also said they support current funding levels or an increase in investment, that share has steadily decreased over the past 25 years."
If the Globe LIES about how popular the program was (and attacks those who question it), then why should we ever believe them?
I haven't taken a position on this issue (and won't) because I deal with earthly things. Hey, I love Star Trek and Star Wars, but that is the movies, not reality.
I'm along the lines of this guy:
"I know very little about the Apollo 11 flight and the surrounding controversy."
"As NASA marks anniversary of Apollo 11, it looks to future; Space agency’s new boss will try to correct course" by Nelson Hernandez, Washington Post | July 19, 2009
WASHINGTON - In 2004, President George W. Bush proposed a voyage to Mars, but critics saw it as a ploy to distract the public from the war in Iraq, and it was hardly referred to thereafter.
Even President Kennedy, who issued the challenge to land on the moon by the end of the 1960s, framed his goal in the context of a Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Union that intensified when the Communist regime hurled the Sputnik satellite into orbit in 1957.
They always gotta turn JFK into a cold warrior, huh?
“I am not that interested in space,’’ Kennedy told James Webb, NASA’s administrator in late 1962. “I think it’s good. I think we ought to know about it. But we’re talking about fantastic expenditures.’’
Oh, JFK, I LOVE YOU MORE EVERY DAY!!!!!!!
Most Americans would seem to agree.
Yes, HE DID REPRESENT US -- the last president who truly did, and you saw what happened!
Even during NASA’s heyday in the 1960s, when the agency’s expenditures stood at 4 1/2 percent of the federal budget and it employed nearly 400,000 civil servants and contractors, polls suggested that most Americans didn’t think Apollo was worth the expense, according to Roger Launius, chairman of the space history division at the National Air and Space Museum. (The only exception was after the landing in 1969, when a poll indicated that a bare majority of 53 percent of Americans supported the spending.)
Gee, MAYBE it WAS FAKED!
Related: The 40th anniversary commemoration of Apollo 11 & subsequent Apollo missions: One of the Greatest Hoaxes in the History of Mankind"
Absent the fury of the space race, now NASA employs about half as many people as it did at its peak, and its budget is less than 1 percent of the federal budget.
It's still $18 billion dollars.
To return to the moon would take renewed political support and a clear vision of how to get there. But when asked what it would take to rally support behind an aggressive push into space today, historians and experts were mostly stumped.
“As Americans we tend to respond best when we think there’s a crisis,’’ Launius said. “But, you know, it has to be a clear threat.’’
Too bad there are no 'terrorists" in space, huh?
--more--"
Or ARE THERE?
See: Spy Satellite Shit and Rods From God
And I WENT into ORBIT when I read this piece today, folks! I think you know what is coming.
"No resolve for a US return to moon; Future missions in space uncertain" by Bryan Bender, Globe Staff | July 21, 2009
WASHINGTON - Forty years after the first moon landing, it’s no sure thing that astronauts will ever return....
Maybe they never even went!
Part of the problem, specialists say, is simply money. While NASA’s proposed budget for next year - $18.6 billion - would be 5 percent more than this fiscal year, that level of funding will not be enough to sustain the human space flight program and NASA’s other activities, including earth science and unmanned space missions, according to Representative Bart Gordon, a Tennessee Democrat who is chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee.
Unreal! They are GETTING A RAISE while SERVICES are CUT and they are COMPLAINING ABOUT IT! You are LUCKY you are getting a DAMN DIME, NASA!
“Flat funding . . . would make it very difficult to make progress on a number of important programs, including the exploration initiative,’’ he said in a recent budget hearing.
And the Death Star in the Rods From God post.
Another major hurdle is technology. Efforts to build a rocket capable of launching future spacecraft have encountered serious problems. The panel of specialists set to report next month has signaled that it believes NASA will need to scrap the Ares I rocket, which has cost an estimated $3 billion over the past four years.
It's called WASTED MONEY, taxpayers!!!
The back-to-the-moon-and-on-to-Mars program, known as Constellation, is estimated to cost at least $150 billion. And other major leaps in technology that will be needed could significantly increase the price tag, specialists say.
Let's SCRAP the WHOLE THING until we get DOWN HERE FIGURED OUT, huh?
Jay Apt, a Springfield native who flew on four shuttle missions and now teaches engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, said among them will be shortening how long it would take to travel vast distances and finding ways to generate enough water for the crew.
Related: First Endeavour of the Day
That's just as important, readers.
He said it would take more than seven months with current propulsion technology to reach Mars, a trip that could be cut to as little as one month with much more powerful plasma engines - a system in early testing that would use radio waves to superheat rocket fuel such as hydrogen.
Apt took part in a study by the National Academy of Sciences that recommended earlier this month that the International Space Station be used solely to research how to tackle the challenges of long-distance space flight.
Many of them will be biological - Kathleen “Kate’’ Rubins', 30, an MIT biologist who was one of nine Americans selected for NASA’s 2009 astronaut class, area of expertise: “Learning how humans can really live in space for extended periods of time presents us with formidable challenges,’’ the astronaut candidate said, including cellular and muscular loss.
Meanwhile, there remain deep disagreements over where to go first. Apollo 11 crew member Michael Collins recently expressed concern that a moon mission would divert attention from the ultimate goal of reaching Mars. And Apt believes the next step should be a mission to an asteroid, followed by one to Phobos, one of Mars’s two moons. Returning to the moon, he said, “does not expand the frontier.’’
Regardless, winning the kind of overwhelming public support that existed at the height of the Apollo program - when the United States was locked in a space race with the Soviet Union - could be difficult. A new Gallup poll found that a majority of Americans - 58 percent - believes the benefits of the space program are worth the expense. But while nearly 60 percent also said they support current funding levels or an increase in investment, that share has steadily decreased over the past 25 years.
F***ing liars!
The Pew Research Center also found in May that 12 percent of Americans cited the moon landing or space exploration in general as the greatest scientific achievement of the 20th century - down from 18 percent a decade ago. One rallying point may be competition from other nations, such as China, which has pledged to send humans to the moon by 2012. But many see far more benefits than technological advances for any one nation.
“Forty years ago when we reached the moon people around the globe didn’t say the Americans had done that. They said, ‘We did that,’ ’’ said Apt. Despite the challenges, he believes NASA can reach Mars at a reasonable cost. “It’s not a pipe dream,’’ he said. “But it requires thinking the whole thing through.’’
So what stage is that being shot on?
--more--"
My advice to you, readers: MAKE UP YOUR OWN MIND and DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT!
MSM using this issue to SLAM REAL TRUTHERS and the BLOGS KNOW IT!!!
Related: Truth needs no laws to support it – Lunar Landings vs Holocau$t
The Moon Landing: Was it a Hoax?
