I can’t seem to find any. As I said in another thread, I would make a deal with the Devil incarnate to get us back on the road to the Moon and Mars.
I hope I won’t have to, but I mean it. This is the best chance we’ve had in 30 years to get us back in the business of true human space exploration, and I will not support a candidate who’s just going to kill it as soon as he is elected. If we piss this chance away, I know I won’t live long enough to see another one.
I mean it. I detest Bush, but if he’s the only one who’s going to get us back to the future, I’m going to hold my nose and vote for him.
Dean has said in the past that he supports a “Mars Mission”, although as far as I know he’s been silent on the new initiative.
Gephardt is a classic, “Don’t spend money on space while workers don’t have jobs” kinda guy. He opposes increases to NASA’s funding.
Kerry’s probably Clinton as far as space goes, and that’s not very good. His policy statements on NASA refer to research in global warming, and that we should ‘continue’ with space research.
Clark seems pretty strong on space issues.
Lieberman has come out against the new initiative. He says we should not spend more money on space until everyone has full healthcare, better education, yada yada. In other words, never.
Edwards has been silent on space in general.
Of the frontrunners, ranking them in order of their support for space would look like this:
Clark
Dean
Kerry
Gephadt/Lieberman tie, 'cause they both suck
Edwards is an unknown.
I can’t see not supporting the space program to be good for any of the candidates so I wouldn’t expect anyone to actually speak up against the new initiative completely.
In fact I’m fairly surprised that some of the candidates said what they did. I’m certainly not surprised Dean said “I support the space program.” He supports anything. :rolleyes:
while I am all for continued space exploration, I don’t see where Bush is going to get the money to fund this program. Seems a lot like some of his other promises that while they sound awfully good, he has failed to actually support them. Like for instance his “no child left behind” initiative that looks set to leave them ALL behind. Or even his promise of aids funding in africa that also is not being funded at anywhere near the promised levels.
Have you actually looked at the program? It gets the majority of its budget from cancelling other NASA projects like the Shuttle and getting out of the International Space Station. Actual new funding is only 1 billion over 5 years - which is about the rate of increase it’s gotten in the last three.
It always amazes me that people get so financially frugal when it comes to relatively tiny increases at NASA, while they look the other way at all the other funding that goes on. From hearing some commentators, this new initiative will bankrupt the country, at 1 billion over five years. In the meantime, Bush proposes a new 400 BILLION dollar entitlement for seniors and people go, “Ho hum”. 18 billion a year extra for the Dept. of Education, and everyone goes, “That’s not bad.” But give NASA an extra 200 million lousy dollars a year, and suddenly we’re headed for fiscal disaster.
What of it? The current funding levels will provide something like 80 billion dollars, without increasing NASA’s budget above the 1 Billion Bush has promised over five years. The Shuttle and ISS consume over 6 billion dollars a year.
Yes. The ISS has been a boondoggle. And it’s not like it’s going to vanish - it’ll still be in space, only NASA’s role in it will go away after 2016. Plenty of room for private industry and other countries to become involved. NASA is committed to finishing its construction.
Losing Hubble has nothing to do with this new initiative. And Hubble will be replaced by a much better telescope, the James Webb telescope, which may actually get moved up in schedule.
Can you say, “I’m claiming stuff with no evidence, just because I hate the President”? In another thread I was taken to task for claiming that many people’s opposition to this program was just partisanship. Thanks for helping me out on that.
You know what? The house is NEVER in order. In a world of finite resources, you can always find something else to spend money on. “Getting your house in order first” is a prescription for doing nothing at all, ever.
AtomicDog, I have to wonder why this issue is so important to you. Is the idea of a man standing on Mars, as opposed to robotic exploration, really the most important issue facing this nation today!?!
It sure has! And it’s the direct result of following through with Reagan’s “visonary” space policy. Given Bush’s record of politicizing science, his Mars initiative deserves to be looked at with a skeptical eye. I’d love to see a permanent return to the moon, Mars exploration, but we still have little idea of what the opportunity cost will be. It’s far too early for any of the democratic candidates to sign onto the Bush Space Initiative. No one really knows what it is, and even when we find out, there’s a good chance that the democratic candidates, smart guys all, can come up with a better plan to get the job done.
It is important to me because I see space as the ultimate destiny of humanity. I want to see humanity as a spacefaring speces. For thirty years I’ve been told that we have more important things to do first. There will always be “more important” things to do. I’m just tired of waiting.
To me, and I’m the only one I have to answer to, humans space exploration is the most important issue facing the human race today, and I intend to vote accordingly.
There are many, many reasons for the ISS turning out the way it did. The shuttle turned out to be more expensive than it was supposed to be, and fly fewer missions. The Clinton administration’s continual cutting of NASA’s budget. Screwing up designs for crew return vehicles, forcing NASA to use Soviet capsules as the return vehicle (and therefore limiting the crew to 3, so that science couldn’t be done). Bloated designs. The economic problems in Russia. The list goes on.
Well sure, it was his vision. All the other screw ups you mention, and I don’t mean to minimize them, arose from efforts to achieve that vision. Before leaping in to embrace Bush’s vision, I’d like to see some evidence that it isn’t just a repeat boondoggle, or a stillborn like Bush Sr’s space plans. The bare outline we’ve heard so far sounds great, and the president deserves kudos for coming up with a plan to get NASA turned around. I just think that we’ve gotten burned enough times on space exploration to merit some caution before going all starry-eyed.
I was just listening to “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me,” the news quiz on National Public Radio and the host summed up the Mars proposal thusly (I’m paraphrasing a bit here):
Well, I found it funny…and perhaps having a bit of deeper truth behind it to. The divisions and passion on this issue seem rather bizarre to me.
Personally, I think the most important issue facing us is making sure we don’t screw up the planet we live on too much. (And, I don’t really see trying to establish a presence on other planets as a viable alternative to this.)
Squink: *Before leaping in to embrace Bush’s vision, I’d like to see some evidence that it isn’t just a repeat boondoggle, or a stillborn like Bush Sr’s space plans. *
I’d also like to see more discussion about the possible role of space commercialization and militarization in motivating this initiative. A lot of the boost seems to be coming from (who else?) Cheney’s firm Halliburton and others in the energy exploration industry (article):
Seems to me this requires some thinking about. I think space exploration is as cool as the next person, and I can see advantages to opening up some aspects of it to commercialization. But I don’t want to be seduced by a bunch of starry-eyed speeches about the final frontier and humankind’s quest for new worlds and all that, and then wake up to find that the reality is mostly corporations fighting over drilling rights and nations fighting over space bases, with noncommercial and nonmilitary projects (having served their purpose as PR bait to juice up the public) being pushed to the wall.
Contrary to Sam’s suggestion, this concern isn’t anti-Bush partisanship for me: I’d want to take a long hard look at these questions no matter who was President. But particularly given Bush’s record, it seems much more plausible that he’s using the “Quest for the Stars” theme as a cover story for commercialization/militarization projects (as well as a “Weapon of Mass Distraction” to divert attention away from less upbeat topics) than that he’s really all fired up about the glories of scientific progress and exploring the universe.
Man, it’s a real stretch to spin a Mars program into a Haliburton conspiracy, based on one article years ago where a scientist who works for Haliburton points out that their expertise in drilling could be spun into Mars contracts for scientific drilling opportunities. This is just standard, boilerplate exploration of new markets. All companies do it. But the word Haliburton is like red meat to those on the left. All you have to do is mention it and their teeth start to gnash.
As for military purposes, I think that is equally ridiculous. Outside of science fiction, there is no military value in the Moon or Mars, at least not in the forseeable future. If Cheney was shilling for the military, he’d be advocating a new space station with military capability, or cheap access to orbit research so the military could put up more satellites or SDI components. Again, it’s really hard to spin NASA putting their money into exploration and research as a military conspiracy.
jshore: *Personally, I think the most important issue facing us is making sure we don’t screw up the planet we live on too much. *
AD:So, you work towards your passion and I’ll work towards mine. I happen to think there’s room for both of us. Don’t you?
Well, if you’re really willing to “make a deal with the Devil incarnate” for the goal of space exploration, that might be kind of counterproductive for the goal of not screwing up our current planet too much.
Seriously, if you are going to “hold your nose and vote for” Bush even though you avowedly detest him, and if Bush is disproportionately contributing to the screwing-up of the planet, then I don’t see how your “passion” (or at least, the means you take to pursue it) can avoid being in conflict with jshore’s.
