GreekChat.com Forums  

Go Back   GreekChat.com Forums > General Chat Topics > Chit Chat
Register FAQ Community Calendar Today's Posts Search

Chit Chat The Chit Chat forum is for discussions that do not fit into the forum topics listed below.

» GC Stats
Members: 329,717
Threads: 115,665
Posts: 2,204,947
Welcome to our newest member, Vortexref
» Online Users: 1,724
1 members and 1,723 guests
PGD-GRAD
 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Prev Previous Post   Next Post Next
  #1  
Old 04-14-2010, 10:59 PM
DaemonSeid DaemonSeid is offline
GreekChat Member
 
Join Date: May 2007
Location: In a house.
Posts: 9,564
Apollo astronauts decry Obama space plans

Washington (CNN) -- The Obama administration's vision for the future of manned space flight will bump the United States to "second or even third-rate" status as a space-faring nation, the commanders of three U.S. moon missions warned Wednesday.

The letter was signed by the first and last men to walk on the moon -- Neil Armstrong from Apollo 11 and Eugene Cernan from Apollo 17 -- and James Lovell, who commanded the heroic Apollo 13 flight.

"Without the skill and experience that actual spacecraft operation provides, the USA is far too likely to be on a long downhill slide to mediocrity," the letter said. "America must decide if it wishes to remain a leader in space. If it does, we should institute a program which will give us the very best chance of achieving that goal."

President Obama is scheduled to announce his space plans Thursday during a visit to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the White House announced. The White House said the five-year strategy involves a $6 billion increase in NASA's budget and additional support for new space technologies.

Armstrong, Lovell and Cernan praised Obama's increase in total funding for space exploration, which includes money for research, the international space station and a heavy-lift rocket. But the astronauts said the decision to cancel the Constellation program for manned space flight "is devastating."
"America's only path to low Earth orbit and the international space station will now be subject to an agreement with Russia to purchase space on their Soyuz (at a price of over 50 million dollars per seat with significant increases expected in the near future) until we have the capacity to provide transportation for ourselves," they wrote.

NASA's space shuttle fleet will be retired at the end of this year, leaving the Russian Soyuz capsules as the only avenue into space until commercial ventures are ready to do the job, expected to be years away. Obama's proposal to use commercial transport to reach orbit "cannot be predicted with any certainty, but is likely to take substantially longer and be more expensive than we would hope," the astronauts said.


link

You know...as much as I love stories of space travel, we have problems going on here on Earth that space is a 2nd priority
__________________
Law and Order: Gotham - “In the Criminal Justice System of Gotham City the people are represented by three separate, yet equally important groups. The police who investigate crime, the District Attorneys who prosecute the offenders, and the Batman. These are their stories.”
Reply With Quote
 


Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Obama/McCain and space exploration cheerfulgreek News & Politics 104 11-05-2008 02:27 AM
NASA lets astronauts fly drunk OneTimeSBX News & Politics 18 07-31-2007 01:00 PM
Decry the prisoner abuse all that you want.... wreckingcrew News & Politics 85 05-16-2004 09:23 AM
Showtime @ the Apollo DOVE1920 Zeta Phi Beta 5 11-20-2002 04:47 AM
Knights of Apollo Erik P Conard Tau Kappa Epsilon 2 10-29-2002 12:28 PM


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 05:52 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2025, vBulletin Solutions Inc.