No more shuttles?

[Freshman]

So apparently somebody (US government, NASA, Shadowy organization?) has decided that we won't be sending up any more manned space shuttles. Heres some stuff that mentions the end of space shuttles, in case you don't believe me...

http://news.discovery.com/space/next-to-last-shuttle-reaches-launch-pad-110311.html
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts133/110309fd14/index2.html

...but I can't seem to find out who it was that decided we don't need them anymore, or whether we have any plans to replace them. I'm sort of hoping somebody just got a better design or something, but my neighbor seemed to be implying that NASA won't do any more manned missions.

Does anybody else know anything about this? Presently I've heard things ranging from "president slashed NASA to save money" to "Well you don't really need to send manned missions into space anymore..." So who knows things?

EDIT: I just found another article about this sort of thing, not sure about the validity of the website (not much experience with .uk)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1247782/Obama-No-Monopoly-money-Nasa-Moon-mission-scrapped.html
EDIT: 2 so it seems that Obama has cut the budget for NASA to save money, but I'm not sure to what extent yet.
But that fucking sucks. Of all the things to take money out of, NASA? That really makes me kinda hate the guy. You can't seriously tell me he can't find a better area to trim the fat. how about all the useless ass beurocrats in Washington, or quit the whole "rich people pay less taxes" thing

 

[Psycho Cat Industries]

It was Barack,he cut NASA's funding.

 

[Freshman]

It was Barack,he cut NASA's funding.

Yea that seems to be what I'm finding out right now

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

This was decided a while ago. Mostly because the current Shuttles, designed in the 60s, are flying death traps.

The current issue is funding - no one wants to pay for a new program. Which sucks. Personally, I'd like to see some of those defense dollars get funneled to NASA, since NASA actually advanced the US military more than any other group the past 50 years or so. We wouldn't have all of those nifty missile systems if it weren't for the space program.

But yeah, it sucks. Not cause of the shuttles - those things needed to be replaced ten (if not twenty) years ago.

What we really need is a Farscape program - the part about a one-man airplane/space craft that merges the two technologies seamlessly. Not that a wormhole wouldn't be cool....

Captcha: expensive situps

 

[TeeBs]

Heres what bothers me, we all want the deficit to go down, but we ***** whenever we cut spending on something. I'm sorry, Space interests me too but why don't we worry about it when we have money too spend.

 

[Anarchemitis]

[img_inline caption="Space-travels original Playstation"]http://wizbangblog.com/images/2009/07/SaturnV.jpg[/img_inline]
They retired them because they're old. They are in fact the successor craft for heavy space lifting to the Saturn V. They will be replaced with newer, more efficient and reliable rockets.

Which ones has yet to be decided.

 

[Ensiferum]

Indeed. Thanks partly to the president-mans' poor handling of our economic situation, we can no longer have nice things like spaceships.

 

[Freshman]

Heres what bothers me, we all want the deficit to go down, but we ***** whenever we cut spending on something. I'm sorry, Space interests me too but why don't we worry about it when we have money too spend.

Fair enough. I still believe there are far more useful places to reduce spending though.

 

[TeeBs]

Heres what bothers me, we all want the deficit to go down, but we ***** whenever we cut spending on something. I'm sorry, Space interests me too but why don't we worry about it when we have money too spend.

Fair enough. I still believe there are far more useful places to reduce spending though.

I agree, but if we are going to lower it to a point where we would be making money instead of losing it, I would defiantly take this away plus part of our defense budget, and other programs.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

The worst part about it is that no one seems to care. Everyone looks at space exploration like some kind of rich hobby that doesn't need to be pursued. At least in this country.

 

[Blue_vision]

This is incredibly old news.

The problem is they're retiring the shuttle without any future plans. There are a lot of private companies currently exploring spaceflight, which may turn out to be compatible with the ISS, and there's always non-NASA agencies that'll keep the ISS in use.

I don't really care that much. I think that the commercial sector should get maybe a decade to innovate and test out designs, then we may be in a better position to bring back a bigger dream of more widespread space programs. But really, space is basically the biggest luxury that any country can do. Even talking about the military, at least the US military is actually doing something fighting insurgents, being on guard, and patrolling international waters and such. Space is definitely one of, if not the most sensible thing to cut if you're going to be making budget cuts.

Though I will agree, taxing rich people seems like a no-brainer.

 

[emeraldrafael]

They were talking about it for a while. They want to make a better craft, but then funding got cut, so they're just not going to keep searching for now.

Right now though, I can see why. Its not a huge deal really, this is more something to worry about when you're not in an economically hard times.

 

[Louzerman102]

Yeah, the small problem that America has no money is creeping up. The decision was made that constellation (man on moon by 2020) and the shuttle were a "waste" when people are taking about the collapse of social security.

just remembered if your depressed about this look up VASIMR on wikipedia. (VASIMR is made of win)

 

[Freshman]

This is incredibly old news.

sorry about that bro, I didn't get the memo.

 

[viranimus]

Well cutting Nasa's funding all together would equate to roughly 1% of the US budget. Cutting it would be like a drop in the ocean. Infinitely better places to find the money than cutting it from an agency that benefits every state in the union.

As for the shuttles, they are long overdue for retirement. Its like a line I heard in a film once about the international space station. "Remember the station is 15 years old, Most of us dont even have cars that old."

However the need for Nasa IS diminishing as it will likely be the corporations that really expand on space exploration and colonization anyway.

 

[Caligulove]

Like most things, I thinks there isn't a simple answer.

I know that it was known that the latest Discovery flight would be the final flight of the space shuttle. I think that NASA and international space agencies, as well, are trying to phase the shuttle program out in favor of a cheaper, more efficient means for regular space travel. Combine that with how manned space travel isn't always needed anymore, along with a bad decade of the Government cutting funding to NASA and other scientific fields- and basically, forces those affected to get creative.

Regardless, it's a damn shame. When I learned more about the Space Race in the late 60's I was enthralled, then quite angry that everyone just seemed to stop caring after we officially felt like we had beat the Soviets at "Space" Then the Cold War ended and people started to care less. All goes along with the trend of moving interests away from Hard Sciences and too much towards some ol' bullshit like Investment Banking or some other useless Financial sector focus job. Thinking we were so goddamn clever to phase our economy to focus on Finances and Services- while laughing at countries like Germany or Japan that maintained a firm Manufacturing and Exports base to their economies (because, after all, those assholes lost World War II! What do they know!) But look who's laughing [a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/14/germany-new-boom-making-stuff"]now.[/a]

 

[s0m3th1ng]

It was Barack,he cut NASA's funding.

Nope...he only scaled back the manned portion of NASA...he actually increased their budget overall.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

The biggest problem was shuttle upkeep. It was getting to the point where building new shuttles would have been cheaper than fixing and repairing the ones we already had. Beyond that, they weren't big enough. The next thing NASA is working on now is heavy lift rockets to move people and large objects out of orbit.

For comparison sake, the shuttle was able to move 24,300 KG into orbit. The Ares V would/could move 160,000 KG. It would be the first step to going back to the Moon and on to Mars.

 

[tomtom94]

Yes, let's pour millions into space research so we can screw up some other planets without dealing with the issues on our own one first.

This is, in the circumstances we're in currently, not merely a good thing but a necessity.

(As someone who grew up after the space program ceased to be a big, new, revolutionary thing, this will continue to be my policy. And if your argument is "But it looks pretty!" or some variation thereof, you will not be acknowledged.)

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Yes, let's pour millions into space research so we can screw up some other planets without dealing with the issues on our own one first.

This is, in the circumstances we're in currently, not merely a good thing but a necessity.

(As someone who grew up after the space program ceased to be a big, new, revolutionary thing, this will continue to be my policy. And if your argument is "But it looks pretty!" or some variation thereof, you will not be acknowledged.)

Space exploration can fix just about every problem we have on Earth.