RIP NASA Manned Space

[unixronin]

On the seventh anniversary of the fall of Columbia, President Obama has just de-facto killed NASA Manned Space.

I have no words.

Wait, yes, I do.

"Burn in hell."

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UPDATE:

I note that Bill Gawne (wcg) linked to an article er, quoted a NASA release pointing out that although the entire Constellation program is being axed and there is no other NASA manned booster presently left in line to replace the Shuttle, the shuttle is going to fly out its final five planned missions, and NASA plans to develop a future launch program more capable than Constellation (and hopefully with less reliance on the Morton-Thiokol solid boosters).  So the picture is not as black as the news reports first made it appear.  It's not the end-of-NASA-manned-space that the news reports made it out to be.  (I won't speculate on the reasons, but it's entirely possible they simply didn't understand.)

It is still almost the most callously insensitive timing possible.  To make the announcement now is, IMHO, a slap in the face to everyone who picked up after Columbia and said "We can go on, we can overcome this and do better."

Comments

[ganainm]

Come on, you should know better than to draw any conclusions from anything Fox News says. Yes, the timing was insensitive (assuming Fox got the date right!). But Fox's story says nothing about what NASA will be funding: unmanned missions that will return as much data for far less money than manned flights, which gets more sensible all the time with our progress in robotics. Sometimes (as with the Hubble telescope) you really need a couple of guys with tools, but most of the time you don't -- witness the Mars rovers.

I think in another hundred years people will wonder at our penchant for sending flesh and blood into lethal environments to do things that silicon and titanium could do as well for a tenth the cost and with none of the danger. Robots will be mining asteroids, terraforming Mars, and setting up factories on the moons of Jupiter, and we'll be kicking back with cold ones on the beaches of this sweetest of all planets. Those who crave danger and discomfort will still have Everest and Antarctica, or the Moon for the really hard-core.