Our politicians have put human progress on hold until further notice

[Cyrano]

Today’s final flight of Atlantis into space marks a pause in the progress of humankind. The screen you’re looking at, whether it’s a desktop, a laptop, an ipad, or your cell phone, is just another version of modern technology that wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the U.S. space program. Virtually every high-tech “toy” we use today is a result of NASA’s Mercury/Gemeni/Apollo space programs.

And for now, it’s all over.

Imagine anyone today with the political will of a John Kennedy saying that we’re going to the moon. And then imagine people walking on the moon a mere nine years later.

Try to imagine our current merchants of greed attempting to put a man on the moon. Try to imagine a conservative Republican having the imagination to foresee what marvelous benefits such an accomplishment could reap for humanity. Try to imagine some thinking-impaired Tea Bagger telling us that if the founding fathers had wanted us on the moon, they would have put it in the Constitution.

John Kennedy inspired us to do what seemed "impossible." And now, Obama and the Republican maniacs with whom he seems to have allied himself, are taking us back to the horrors of The Great Depression where we have been before.

Human progress has been put on hold until further notice while the barbarians who rule us march us into a very dark past.

[BeFree]

1. We are a separate generation

The Space Shuttle generation. Our days are numbered.

The space program just keeps flying, but the old days of $750 million launches are over.
Not to worry, we will find a newer and cheaper way to send more men and women into space.

I for one welcome the coming progress. However, the inner space of our atmosphere, to me, needs to be better explored than outer space. And one great aspect of the space program has been that studying our inner space has been made so much easier by our satellites in outer space.

[Cyrano]

2. Unfortunately, far too many of our space satellites are watching and listening to us

NASA started as a totally non-military, or paramilitary program.

Unfortunately, the thugs who "need to know all" figured out that satellites could be used as "Big Brother's" newest doorway into our private lives.

I was a fool to have thought that the exploration of space wouldn't be usurped and misused by the powers that be. After all, that's the history of the world.

Perhaps, someday, our species will mature. And then our exploration of what's out there can truly begin.

[BeFree]

3. Yep

NASA is part and parcel now of the MIC.

Too, recall that some of the earliest rocket scientists were educated in Germany and developed rockets for Hitler. Of course, most every NASA employee is an American loving person who have patriotically joined in to further America's goals of "learn more so you can do more", and they have turned us on to so many great things that most of us ever could have imagined that are - literally - hanging over our heads.

All in all, our space adventures as first progressed to us by JFK, have been more beneficial to humans than has hurt. We have a great return from our money. Now we move on ever higher and farther. The Shuttle really is old tech. There is more and better to come.

[defendandprotect]

4. k

[Rex]

5. SO much for hope...in some ways I think NASA would have been

better off in another country. So many of them would KILL to have a space program like NASAs...sad, pathetic and WRONG!

Oh and we just bribed the MIC with 600+ billion for the next war to come...while we spent peanuts on NASA.

Our priorities are WAY OFF...we say 'fuck hope' and 'show me the money instead'!

Life is all about MONEY now and nothing else...got ambition? Look elsewhere.

[txlibdem]

6. You bring up some good points (K&R) but NASA is responsible for its loss of focus

During the 1960s we had huge chemical rockets to shoot a capsule of Astronauts into space. NASA's current plans for manned space: to engineer less-huge chemical rockets that can shoot a capsule of Astronauts into space.

Where is NASA's spirit of innovation? They want to do things pretty much the same as it was 50 years ago! They should be looking into advanced technologies that will bring down the cost of putting a payload into space:

Google the following:
1. Magnetically levitated space launch systems, http://www.launchpnt.com/portfolio/aerospace/satellite-launch-ring/
2. Space Elevator, http://www.orbitalvector.com/Orbital%20Travel/Space%20Elevators/Space%20Elevators.htm
3. VASIMIR propulsion system, http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-amp-space/article/2009-10/plasma-rockets-could-make-pit-stops-mars-and-beyond
4. Laser powered space launcher, http://www.spacedaily.com/news/laser-97b.html

And probably a dozen more that I have never heard of.

The reality of NASA is that it is a gargantuan bloated bureaucracy built of people who want to continue their own careers. Those are the people who have systematically thwarted any change in the "rockets and capsules" paradigm. If they allowed these revolutionary technologies to take hold, where would their own lucrative careers be, who would need their expertise on rockets, capsules, etc?

In similar fashion, the "auto experts" you read in magazines, on TV, and elsewhere do not like the electric car. Why? Because their $$$ career is tied to continuing the fantastically complex and inefficient internal combustion engine. Electric vehicles are so simple to build that thousands of people have torn out their gasoline engine and all its poisons and are now driving on pure battery power. Imagine if those with careers to protect were in a position of power so as to ensure that this threat to their career never sees the light of day.

Had NASA continued its early tradition of constant improvement as technology advanced, we may be in a different world right now. Instead, private companies will be taking over the job of putting humans into space. Brilliant career move!