Americans: your country can no longer make it to space on their own.

[MountainMan]

Thanks President Obama! You did us proud!

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[Tasty Champa]

Not true.
Too many people do not seem to realize space programs are being moved to the private sector.
Much easier to espionage citizens and land grab resources through privately held corporations.

[haydent]

besides that they got way bigger things to worry about ...

[Vladimir]

Why bother with maintaining the space program when you can simply print a few billion dollars and hire someone who still accept them to do it all for you.

[giantdragon]

Russia become space monopolist in the world, U.S. government probably have to pay them many times more for launches and delivery.

[Tasty Champa]

Why bother with maintaining the space program when you can simply print a few billion dollars and hire someone who still accept them to do it all for you.

even do it cheaper too. xD

you remember the story a couple years ago about the british guy that set up a telescope (something like a Dobsonian I think) in a shack in his backyard that rivaled the best observatories we have?

[grantbdev]

Not true, our debt has already reached mars! 

[em3rgentOrdr]

OH NO!!!!  Without the government to organize and fund missions, how will we ever be able to go back into space!?

[cpunks]

Don't worry, if all else fails, Copenhagen Suborbitals will eventually restore space access. They don't have a tax collector included in their organization, though, so they would benefit from donations. Their yearly budget is about 30'000 euros.

http://www.copenhagensuborbitals.com/

[qbg]

Thanks President Obama! You did us proud!

Thank Bush instead.

[Littleshop]

Thanks President Obama! You did us proud!

Only Russia can make it into space right now.  For everyone else who you might consider able to put a man in space, the US has similar capability.  Only Russia can schedule and so it safely nearly on demand. 

Nobody in the know would blame this directly on Obama.  He carries some of the fault because he canceled an project that was billions of dollars over budget and years late.   Most of the blame goes straight to NASA and congress for designing a shuttle replacement that was meant to please specific constituents vs doing the best job for less.

Something more like DIRECT would have kept us in space.  This would have had to be done in 2008 or before. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIRECT

[Anonymous]

The us spent billions of dollars creating a pen that can write in space. The russians used a pencil and paper....

[em3rgentOrdr]

The us spent billions of dollars creating a pen that can write in space. The russians used a pencil and paper....

Ahh I love state capitalism. Wait, wut?

[Littleshop]

The us spent billions of dollars creating a pen that can write in space. The russians used a pencil and paper....

Sounds good as an anti-government reply.  It is not true.  Reading the article, the Russians are using OUR PEN.   From wikipedia below with bolding added by me.

"Uses in the U.S. and Russian space programs

A common urban legend states that, faced with the fact that ball-point pens will not write in zero-gravity, NASA spent a large amount of money to develop a pen that would write in the conditions experienced during spaceflight (the result purportedly being the Fisher Space Pen), while the Soviet Union took the simpler (and cheaper) route of just using pencils.[1] This story is in fact false, as the development of the Fisher Space Pen was done independently of NASA, using private funds, and only sold to NASA (and the Soviet Union) after it was completed.

Russian cosmonauts used pencils, and grease pencils on plastic slates until also adopting a space pen in 1969 with a purchase of 100 units for use on all future missions.[2] NASA programs previously used pencils (for example a 1965 order of mechanical pencils[3]) but because of the substantial dangers that broken-off pencil tips and graphite dust pose in zero gravity to electronics and the flammable nature of the wood present in pencils[3] a better solution was needed. NASA never approached Paul Fisher to develop a pen, nor did Fisher receive any government funding for the pen's development. Fisher invented it independently, and then asked NASA to try it. After the introduction of the AG7 Space Pen, both the American and Soviet (later Russian) space agencies adopted it."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen

[niemivh]

The us spent billions of dollars creating a pen that can write in space. The russians used a pencil and paper....

Sounds good as an anti-government reply.  It is not true.  Reading the article, the Russians are using OUR PEN.   From wikipedia below with bolding added by me.

"Uses in the U.S. and Russian space programs

A common urban legend states that, faced with the fact that ball-point pens will not write in zero-gravity, NASA spent a large amount of money to develop a pen that would write in the conditions experienced during spaceflight (the result purportedly being the Fisher Space Pen), while the Soviet Union took the simpler (and cheaper) route of just using pencils.[1] This story is in fact false, as the development of the Fisher Space Pen was done independently of NASA, using private funds, and only sold to NASA (and the Soviet Union) after it was completed.

Russian cosmonauts used pencils, and grease pencils on plastic slates until also adopting a space pen in 1969 with a purchase of 100 units for use on all future missions.[2] NASA programs previously used pencils (for example a 1965 order of mechanical pencils[3]) but because of the substantial dangers that broken-off pencil tips and graphite dust pose in zero gravity to electronics and the flammable nature of the wood present in pencils[3] a better solution was needed. NASA never approached Paul Fisher to develop a pen, nor did Fisher receive any government funding for the pen's development. Fisher invented it independently, and then asked NASA to try it. After the introduction of the AG7 Space Pen, both the American and Soviet (later Russian) space agencies adopted it."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen

You can't show libertarian ideologues examples of a government program or research project working well in real life.  They are too busy typing their vapid belief structure on a computer (using Microprocessors brought to you by NASA) and then sending it over the Internet (brought to you by DARPA).

[myrkul]

You can't show libertarian ideologues examples of a government program or research project working well in real life.  They are too busy typing their vapid belief structure on a computer (using Microprocessors brought to you by NASA) and then sending it over the Internet (brought to you by DARPA).

See, this is why you guys always end up being called trolls... Because you inevitably stoop to insults. So stop trolling, and act like a human for a while, 'k?

[em3rgentOrdr]

You can't show libertarian ideologues examples of a government program or research project working well in real life.  They are too busy typing their vapid belief structure on a computer (using Microprocessors brought to you by NASA) and then sending it over the Internet (brought to you by DARPA).

Everybody knows NASA still uses Intel 8086's.  NASA has always and continues to purchase microchips from private companies.  According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microprocessors#Firsts, microprocessors were first developed by the private companies:  Intel's 4004, Texas Instruments TMS 1000, and Garrett AiResearch's Central Air Data Computer (CADC).  I think you meant to say that computers were brought to us by the government.  While it may be true that many of the initial computers were built with government funding at universities during WWII era, those were huge bulky slow machines.  And there is no reason to conclude that without the government, computers wouldn't be invented.  Computers may have been built later or even earlier, considering that the government wars diverted many resources away from consumer electronics.  Same deal with the internet.

[MountainMan]

The US spent billions millions of dollars creating a pen that could write in space. The Russians used a pencil and paper ... until they tired of antiquated writing implements and joined the world in buying billions of dollars worth of pens produced by American companies that licensed the technology developed by NASA. And everyone lived happily ever after.

FYP.

Also, they use those old-ass chips because the cost to retrofit the shuttles outweighs the cost of replacing existing parts. When you're talking about a machine that can explode if there is a half centimeter gash on the surface in the wrong place, you don't want to mess with anything that already works. Cost benefit analysis goes a little deeper than wanting the latest greatest chips.

Also, I am aware that private American companies will be shuttling astronauts within 2 years. When government outsources work to people who have to make every penny count, it pays less and gets better quality. Simple economics ensures that. These private companies don't have guaranteed jobs if they screw up. Government employees, however, don't go away until they're pensioned or dead. Not much incentive for quality control, since gung-ho patriotism is out of vogue. Gimme free enterprise any day.

[myrkul]

Also, I am aware that private American companies will be shuttling astronauts within 2 years. When government outsources work to people who have to make every penny count, it pays less and gets better quality. Simple economics ensures that. These private companies don't have guaranteed jobs if they screw up. Government employees, however, don't go away until they're pensioned or dead. Not much incentive for quality control, since gung-ho patriotism is out of vogue. Gimme free enterprise any day.

Which is what I've been shouting all along.

[compro01]

Everybody knows NASA still uses Intel 8086's.

that's for ground based testing equipment.

the shuttle itself uses multiple redundant radiation hardened AP-101 systems made by IBM.

Even the latest greatest computer systems used in space are a customized version of the processor found in the original imac, as radiation hardening is non-trivial.