New Mars Forums

The Bush plans for Mars, a real class act !! 

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George Bush tryin' a Fool us with a nice Martain stunt

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The IMF warned that increased federal debt from the deficits would make funding social security and healthcare more difficult.Robert Rubin, former treasury secretary under Bill Clinton, along with other senior economists, last week published a report warning that the Bush administration's record deficits will have "severe adverse consequences" for all Americans and is unsustainable. Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) is sounded a note of caution
"Cost estimates for the new programs range from $550 billion to $1 trillion," said CAGW President Tom Schatz. "Until the federal government brings the record deficit back down to Earth, it should not launch expensive new space programs of questionable scientific value."
The Congressional Budget Office estimated Monday that the federal budget deficit would swell to $477 billion this year, a record in terms of the sheer number of dollars involved
Bush hasn't offered any more specifics for cutting the deficit, and -- according to some analysts -- what plans he has proposed seem more likely to grow the deficit, including:
What's more, spending on Social Security and Medicare -- "mandatory" budget expenditures -- will skyrocket by the end of the decade, as millions of baby boomers begin to retire, de Rugy and other analysts say.

"This is like running up a credit card debt and asking our kids to pay for it in the future -- it's fiscal child abuse," de Rugy said.

NASA gets cut down on Apollo 11 Anniversary

I wonder why

[

  :angry:

"It would still be our only means into space, shortsighted no matter how you look at it."

Really? Why?

ANYTHING has to be better then Shuttle is, an upgraded Delta-IV Medium with a $50-100M CEV would cost roughly a quarter what a Shuttle launch does, maybe less, and be several times safer. And if it does what we need it to do, I see no reason why such a vehicle could not provide for NASA's launch needs with higher reliability and a fraction of the price until it is time to start thinking HLLV. The EELV rockets were designed with modularity in mind you know, a single-core vehicle for light and manned LEO flights, tripple-core for medium payload up to 30MT (ISS cargo?), and tripple-core + SRMs for loads up to 40-45MT for Lunar missions.

And yes, without a project for NASA to "do," then the money will be too tempting and it will probobly go away... that is really why we got Shuttle you know, that NASA wasn't going to have the money to use Saturn-V for any kind of sustained Lunar program, nor build a giant space station with the remaining launchers after Apollo, so NASA needed somthing else to draw in the dollars... NASA has suceeded in almost everything it has ever done, and Shuttle's true purpose - keep engineers employed at any cost - has been perhaps even more sucessful then Apollo...

I don't think you realize how big a move it was to declare that Shuttle just had to go and the implicit requirement we go back to expendable boosters...

Before Columbia, NASA was talking Shuttle upgrades that would have kept the Golden Goose flying until 2025, maybe longer, to the ISS. Twenty more years! Twenty years of spending every dime NASA has for manned spaceflight on going in circles and trying desperatly to have somthing to show for it at the cost of $80-100 billion dollars on Shuttle flights, and another few tens of billions on ISS support.

And then what? NASA would build Shuttle-II, or try to with money that it doesn't have, so we can keep going in circles... Telling NASA "NO MORE!" has done much more for manned spaceflight then you realize, as NASA seems to have been bent on flying Shuttle or somthing like it forever, maintaining the status quo indefinatly.

deagleninja,

Brilliant idea.
This is the best idea I've seen for teraforming mars in ages.

Everything other than the frozen fish popsicle sound great

You are correct SpaceNut, they aren't making their weapons. Almost all of the weapons that terrorist use are old US or Russian weapons. This is the problem with suppling short-lived allies with weapons to fight our at-the-moment enemys (thank you Reagan and Ollie).

Winning the war on 'terror' is actually quite simple. It's a radical policy change that will prove difficult. We, as Americans, need to stop looking down on these people. Calling them fanatics and evil does nothing but recruit more terrorists. These aren't video game pixels, they are people. Human beings that dream of a better life for their children just as we do.

When we bomb cities with innocent people living their lives, it creates terrorists. What is a terrorist? This is a great question that I haven't heard asked nor answered by our media. A terrorist is a man or woman who desires change yet has no voice in their government or others. They are typically limited to small arms fire and are often incapable of reaching their intended targets so they lash out at the people of their target in the hopes that people like you and I will ask, why are they so mad?

Now before some of you get irrate at my definition and retort that they are 'cold-blooded heartless godless killers', know that I am not approving of their tactics. I am simply trying to get you to understand that these people are very very anger and feel powerless.

Some of that feeling of helplessness comes from their own countries that don't recognize their point of view, but a lot of it also comes from US policy. We have no right, no right at all, telling these people how they should run their countries and who they should worship. Granted, we don't come out and say be Christian, but too many of us think it, and we do tell them to be democracys (capitalist).

'So Democrats are bad for the economy, is what you're saying.    Doom and gloom...  '

Now that isn't fair Cobra. Bush started saying the economy is in trouble when he took office. He's had three years to do something about it, and hasn't. Now that it is election time, is Kerry supposed to say that the economy is fantastic?

'Except when it's good. War can be the greatest economic motivator there is.'

If your country is stagnant like we were after the Great Depression, then yes I agree. So is Bush's plan to enter another Great Depression so he can get the other two in his axis-of-evil? 

'I'll assume you're referring to the tax cuts, which are not "trickle down" but across the board cuts. But when you cut all brackets in a progressive tax scheme then -gasp!- rich people get more money. But everyone who pays income taxes gets a percentage reduction. This does help the economy.'

73 percent of Americans say they were unaffected by Bush's tax cuts, doesn't sound across the board to me. Truth is, the wealthiest Americans pay the most tax. They also pay a higher percentage of tax than Joe Blow. So when you cut taxes for the rich (ie capital-gains, dividends) you are left with two choices, tax the poor harder and/or rack up deficits.

'You've actually got something with this one. If only there were a candidate who would actually balance the budget without doing other economy-killing actions at the same time.'

Ah, if only Clinton could have had a third term. Btw, anyone remember our projected surpluses in the last years of Clinton? Whatever happened to those? Oh yea, tax cuts.......yay? Bush should have listened to Greenspan who was against those tax cuts.

'Damn Democrat social spending.'

Yep, it's all those greedy money lovin single moms and their free EBT milk!!! How can we afford to wage a respectable war in Iraq and Afghanistan when they keep drinking all that milk!!  :angry:

'And we're decadent infidels. And let's also not forget that we're dealing with a culture that likes to think of itself as superior to others yet hasn't accomplished anything of note in a thousand years'

Good point! In just under 300 years we've managed to enslave thousands of Africans, commit genocide against the natives of this great country, round up hundreds of Jap-Americans into concentration camps, and drop two atomic bombs on two different Japanesse cities! Why just this year alone we've killed over 200,000 people in Iraq!  ???

'A family member went to see Fahrenheit 9/11 when it was first released and was telling me about it. I was invited to go along back then, but couldn't bring myself to give money to a war profiteering propagandist, but at any rate, the praise of it wasn't just the film itself, but the audience. "They were all Democrats" I was told excitedly, "everyone laughed and cheered at the same times" on and on. Apparently it was quite a wonderful experience.

Sounded a bit like a Nazi rally to me. Largely the same mindset in both cases as well.'

I noticed the same phenomenon when I went to see it. I think the release of pent up feelings after months of being silenced is why people leave the theater feeling so good. When Bush started leading this country into another war with Iraq, I was horrified. Surely, I thought to myself, no one is going to believe that Saddam is somehow linked to 9/11 and has been busy building WMD right under UN inspector's noses. But then it happened........and the great silencing came to pass. Honest, inquisitive questions were now considered treasonous and I began to be attacked by people saying that 'We must stand united for the safety of our troops'.

I always thought that they were supposed to be fighting for our freedom of speech. You can imagine my shock when I learned that questioning weither we should be diverting troops from Afghanistan to Iraq could somehow cost a life half-way around the globe!

I urge anyone who loves this country as much as I do, to see Michael Moore's movie about 9/11. I was skeptical at first, and even afterwards. Somewhere in the back of my mind I kept thinking 'this can't be real, why didn't I hear/see this on the news?'. However, the facts are real, unfortunately.

Bush knew about the first tower being hit before he went into a second grade classroom. He sat there in the classroom for over 7 minutes listening to the teacher read 'My Pet Goat' after being told that the second tower had been struck by another plane.

If you don't want to give Michael Moore any money, fine, rent it, Moore gets not a cent if you rent it, only the video store. But please, keep an open mind and watch it and do your country a favor and vote for Kerry. I don't hate Republicans and I don't love Kerry, but he cannot be as bad as Bush.

I see we are going far into space with that attitude , I hope that is not a general space community feeling, or gonz the gorilla will get to mars before the human race will.

Deagleninja, c'mon now. You're too smart to be ranting like a Party hack. Let's step back.

Bush has made mistakes. Bush didn't steal the election. Bush is spending too much money. Bush hasn't done a whole hell of a lot to further the space program, though backing a vague shift toward a coherent policy is huge, relatively speaking.  :hm: The Iraq war wasn't vitally necessary in that Iraq was not poised to invade us or smite us into utter ruin, it could have been put off. Of course, based on the same reasoning... well, better not to follow that tangent just yet.

Now Kerry. He hasn't said much on space either way. His record is clearly against it. His stand on the war is murky, he voted to authorize it but not to fund it, he has said we shouldn't have gone to war with Iraq, but also that he would have done the same.  :hm: He has made it clear that he will raise our taxes though to pay for... whatever he decides to do.

Bush appears stronger on defense by his record, has no real substance on space, and is spending too much money on military ops and useless social programs. Medicare prescription drug benefit for example, just watch the pricetag on that explode.

Kerry appears weak on defense by his record, has a history of opposition to the space program, has been known to vote for military and intelligence cuts but has a history of backing increases in social spending as well as taxes. We can conclude that he too would spend too much money, just in somewhat different areas.

We got ourselves a couple of turds, folks. If anyone is actually going to vote based on the space program, Bush is the narrow winner. On other issues, that's a matter of individual belief. In neither case should we allow the drivel-spouting hacks of the Party propaganda machines to determine those beliefs.

Well, back to passing out copies of the 9/11 report outside the local theater. 

Well as much as I favor a renewed manned space exploration effort, I can't vote for a president that is ruining his country to make a few extra dollars for his buddies.

My vote cannot be bought, sorry Mr Bush. You should have done more than vacation before 9/11 and settle your daddy's grudges after 9/11.

In addition to the much over-hyped nature of the Chinese space program (so far all they've done is copy Soyuz) China has two major problems looming on the horizon. First, their industry is not as independent as many people tend to think. For example, the "booming" Chinese steel industry depends in large part on imported ore due to the substandard quality of the ore mined in China. They are just as locked into the rest of the world's problems as we are. Then they have a growing demand for oil that will begin putting pressure on them.

But of greater significance is the demographic bomb the Chinese have made for themselves. All those population control measures that drove families to favor sons over daughters is going to result in a large population of lonely, frustrated Chinamen in short order. So if you're governing an authoritarian country facing industry grinding to a halt through lack of resources and a huge population of aggressive malcontents what do you do? Collapse... or war. Channel that energy and grab some goodies while you're at it.

The Chinese are going to have bigger things than their space program to worry about in the coming decades, as will we.

Further, What really bothers me about Kerry is his lack of vision in anything to do with technology, the one exception being biomedical tech..
His energy policy leaves us still dependent on fossil fuels for the forseeable future, he seems to be totally against anything nuclear. Project prometheus may have a tough time surviving his administration.

I don't really think that that is accurate.  He isn't very interested in space, but he seems to think that technology is very important, especially for energy sources that do not use fossil fuels.  For Kerry, reducing our dependence on Fossil fuels is an economic issue, an environmental issue, and a national security issue.  In fact, at his speech that I went to, I heard him compare the search for alternative energy sources to the Manhattan Project in terms of importance.  He also stressed the need to for our universities to produce more scientists and engineers, and he proposed some economic incentives to encourage more students to study those subjects.

As for project Prometheus, it seems as though it might be cancelled right now by the Republican congress.  How unfortunate it will be if that happens.