To Boldly Go

Went to Cape Kennedy a few days ago. Watched one of their Imax movies, talked to an astronaut and some of the staff. I wondered what NASA planned to do, now that the shuttles are being shelved.

This is some of what I found out:

Congress won't allow NASA to have more than one 'project' going at any one time. So if they want to send more people to the moon (and they do), they had to stop sending shuttles to the space station. Russia can take passengers and cargo for us, but the price for a passenger rose from about $20 million per person to $68 million. As you can imagine, that would dig a big hole in NASA's budget, so they looked around for other ways to get people there. There are 2 or 3 private industries that could be ready for fairly regular excursions to the station in 10 years … or as little as 2 or 3 years, with a little help. Whoever I was talking to at the time indicated NASA would help those industries, in order to cut down its dependency on Russia, because Russia could decide to 'pull the plug' at any time. And with more than one entity providing this service, the price per 'seat' would come down.

Out of every $100 of federal taxes, NASA gets 42 cents. It will soon go to 38 cents out of every $100.

NASA asked for an increase of 2.5 billion dollars in its budget and was turned down. What the public doesn't realize is that Americans already spend $35 billion per year in tips for the pizza delivery guys.

The tax dollars that NASA spends are not loaded up on the shuttle and blasted into space. They are spent on the ground, in the form of jobs and contracts. Our exploration of space has produced many discoveries that probably would not have happened without space exploration. For instance, some medical research depends on crystals grown on the station, crystals that cannot be grown on Earth because of gravity.

I've got some research to do. One thing I'd like to know is how NASA's budget compares to the subsidies provided to oil companies, who already make profits in the billions. If nothing else, people, the Earth is getting crowded. Time to start looking for new places for some of us to move.