Way to go, USA.

[Sionnach Glic]

Who are you talking about?

[Deepcrush]

*The Astartes jump and fall through my hologram*

Oh, please! They are so easy! HAHAHAHA!

[Reliant121]

Who are you talking about?

your arguments with Teaos. Thinking about it, you could have daily post arguments so my comment was utterly pointless.

[Deepcrush]

Do you have a life?

Yes but I have a BlackBerry that allows me to stay in contact 24/7

Or do you just spend your time subjugating people and being evil to Rochey.

Well I do work for the US government so make what you will.

[Sionnach Glic]

your arguments with Teaos. Thinking about it, you could have daily post arguments so my comment was utterly pointless.

Basicaly, he'd make a post and go to bed. I'd wake up and reply, and then go to bed. We argued while the other was sleeping basicaly.

Well I do work for the US government so make what you will.

That would be a yes, then.

[Reliant121]

Both good points

[Jordanis]

I will admit that my response was a touch simplistic, but I can never resist the one-line zingers.

The problem is still traceable to Bush, though. The thing is, the 'cost of the Iraq war' business generally only talks about the day-to-day expenses of rations, soldier pay, equipment upkeep, ammunition, etc. The DoD's budget in general has been bumped the hell up, too. And they readily admit that they lose and can't account for billions of it.

Past that, Bush has reduced the available money by cutting taxes and driving the value of the dollar into the ground. Good job cutting revenue and raising expenses, you twit.

As far as NASA's budget goes, it may be the same as it always has been, but previously, that budget has been used to send up 3-4 shuttle flights a year plus aeronautical research and unmanned missions. Now it's supposed to go into developing this whole new capsule, and support regular missions to the moon to set up some damn moonbase? NASA has been forced to cut several promising unmanned missions already.

If you adjust for inflation, NASA's budget is currently half of what it had in the mid-60s. And they are being asked to do far, far more with that now. What this means, in the end, is that they are doing it slowly.

Of course, the most frustrating thing is that the whole moon and mars business will likely be scrapped by the next president. I'm actually pretty fine with that--I'd prefer to send a fleet of rovers for now. The problem is that the launch windows for a lot of those interesting unmanned missions will have come and gone by then, so they won't go up anyway. I find I have to blame Bush again--he set the goals, and he set the economic terms that make canceling the goals likely.

[Tsukiyumi]

Exactly, my friend.

[Captain Peabody]

I seriously doubt that anyone's going to scrap the manned missions...say what you will about them, but they're much, much more popular with the general public than unmanned probes and rovers. Most people could care less about unmanned satellites taking pictures of Jupiter or studying the cloud cover of Neptune...manned missions are the kind of thing that fires up the imagination, not boring ol' scientific missions. Rovers may be more effective, but a manned missions to the moon and Mars, and a moonbase? Now that's just cool. Most of the general public could care less about scientific surveys or data; in their minds, NASA is supposed to be about exploring space...if they cancelled the missions now, there would be hell to pay.

I seriously doubt any popularly-elected president will scrap these missions...

[Mikey]

I would like to agree with you, but these things are very easily swept from the public eye when there is something earth-bound over which to whip up hysteria - for example, a war...?

The president is a public servant, it's true, but it is an unfortunately simple matter to manipulate the public to give you whatever mandates YOU want. Remember, Spengler didn't kill all those "witches" in Europe; he wrote a simple little book with a catchy title, and let the "public" do the rest.

[Jordanis]

I seriously doubt that anyone's going to scrap the manned missions...say what you will about them, but they're much, much more popular with the general public than unmanned probes and rovers. Most people could care less about unmanned satellites taking pictures of Jupiter or studying the cloud cover of Neptune...manned missions are the kind of thing that fires up the imagination, not boring ol' scientific missions. Rovers may be more effective, but a manned missions to the moon and Mars, and a moonbase? Now that's just cool. Most of the general public could care less about scientific surveys or data; in their minds, NASA is supposed to be about exploring space...if they cancelled the missions now, there would be hell to pay.

I seriously doubt any popularly-elected president will scrap these missions...

I really haven't seen much excitement, myself, outside of Popular Science/Mechanics doing their usual breathless articles about the gizmos. Anyway, it'd be easy to cancel them. Say you're sending the money to primary education instead. Most of the country will nod their heads and deem this practical, and that's the end of it.

[Tsukiyumi]

And, now there's this:

http://www.spacedaily.com/2006/08010809 ... o4qqy.html

[Jordanis]

Russia can't afford it. It may move along, and we will, as usual, be led to believe it is further along than it is, but ultimately Russia can't afford it and it'll be cut before the big bucks are spent.