Yes finally NASA starts listening to me.

Just in time too, for I was about to start kicking some butt up there. :p
Yep, you don't want to piss the green man off.

/Regards

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/Mav

We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean.
We are ready at last to set sail for the stars.
(Carl Sagan)

Before they do this, they have to support Seti!!!!

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From Mray:

The U.S. tried to do too much with the Shuttle. They should have worked towards separate vehicles for different applications. The Shuttle tried to be a people transport, cargo carrier, repair vessel and assembly vehicle all at once and it ended up doing all those tasks poorly. As for the space station, I'm not sure they ever really figured out what they were going to do with it, other than build it.

Mray, I think that the shuttle managed all of the above tasks sufficiently. It would have probably cost much more to develop, build, operate, and maintain multiple specialized vehicles to do the same tasks.

Even if not much science has yet taken place on the International Space Station, it is a proving ground for technologies in the long-term support of life in space. It is much better to test those technologies when communication has only seconds of delay, and complete evacuation is within a few hours. If we didn't use the ISS to test these technologies long-term, and found a problem with them on an interplanetary mission instead, communication has at least minutes of delay, perhaps hours or days depending on your orientation, and new parts are months or years away.

From Walla:

The money could've been better spent on more robotic spacecraft, telescopes and designing ships to carry us to other planets.

I too would like to see more robotic missions. I go to the JPL website regularly to stay updated on the Mars Exploration Rovers, Cassini, and now Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. I was sad to see the Jupiter Icy Moons Mission cancelled. That mission looked very promising to me, but maybe it was to ambitious too soon. I'm now looking forward to the Phoenix and Mars Science Laboratory missions.

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The planetary society needs your help to restore more of NASA's funds for space exploration, sign the petition now @ http://planetary.org/programs/projects/sos/

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The U.S. tried to do too much with the Shuttle. They should have worked towards separate vehicles for different applications. The Shuttle tried to be a people transport, cargo carrier, repair vessel and assembly vehicle all at once and it ended up doing all those tasks poorly. As for the space station, I'm not sure they ever really figured out what they were going to do with it, other than build it.

When the first decision came down that they weren't going to repair the Hubble, it was pretty much a statement that the Shuttle program was a faluire. Repairing things like the Hubble was one of the primary design goals of the Shuttle system.

Hopefully, this time NASA will put a little more thought into long term goals instead of short term goals prompted by politicians seeking limelight.

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The space shuttle and the space station in my opinion are huge wastes of money, we haven't really gained much of anything from them and they cant go anywhere, they are forever stuck in orbit around the Earth. The money could've been better spent on more robotic spacecraft, telescopes and designing ships to carry us to other planets.

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Only 2 important steps in space travel and exploration to come before that:

Manned missions to the moon - projected to resume in 10-15 years.

Cheap/Efficient sub-orbital shuttle or alternative launching program.

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Kolch - Crunching for the BOINC@Australia team since July 2004.
Search for your own intelligence...

A report on the BBC says the US plans permanent base on Moon

Anybody going to volunteer??

Andy

I would. I suspect the beer gut and general lack of coordination might rule me out of the space program though. Damn.

If this is for real, it's about time. That was one step in 1969, but this is a step in the right direction!

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Account frozen...

A report on the BBC says the US plans permanent base on Moon

Anybody going to volunteer??

Andy

I would. I suspect the beer gut and general lack of coordination might rule me out of the space program though. Damn.

A report on the BBC says the US plans permanent base on Moon

Anybody going to volunteer??

Andy