Lets not forget that the NASA budget is still larger than it was last year, along with the focus now is on new space tech instead of repeating feats they already did, along with how far NASA was behind of its schedule.

The rovers seem to be one of the best investment for NASA to bad they could not place more on different planets.

If one only goes by the news reports, it would sound like NASA conducts manned space flight and manned spaceflight only. Not so! For years, aerospace research has been chronically underfunded to maintain the shuttle launch schedule and then to cover for budgeting shortfalls for the Constellation program. Now we will finally get the focus back on gaining knowledge about ourselves and the universe. And rather than spend $ to perpetuate old fashioned, inefficient methods of getting into space, NASA can finally afford to pursue breakthrough methods again. Hooray for NASA!

Here’s an apples-to-apples comparison: Shuttle launches cost, on average, about $1.3b. The Mars Rover program, with its 2 rovers, cost about $830m. The current mission to pluto is about $650m. So every time the shuttle goes up that’s almost 2 less space probes that could have been launched instead. And the overwhelming majority of research data we’re getting back is from those unmanned probes.

And, as a built-in bonus, any one of us has the opportunity to particiapte in the analysis of the data at the same time as the rest of the scientific community. In some cases we could even help teleoperate a remote probe. How cool is that?

And meanwhile NASA is not turning its back on manned spaceflight; it’s just handing the non-R&D aspects over to private launch companies, which is as it should be.

It’s good to see NASA go back to a role of leadership in space research!

Why isn’t there a guest representing the view that we never actually landed on the moon? This is typical NPR liberal bias.

Mankind is not destined to colonize and live in space, nor on worlds alien to our own evolutionary development (gravity, atmosphere, etc.) Recent studies show that humans do not and will not develop properly in-utero and later outside our own nurturing environment.

Space travel is and will forever be little more than a very expensive form of entertainment.

It will become an issue of acceptible risk. What is acceptible to a profit driven corporation is not to a government agency. Delays in time and money are common when the death of astronauts is not acceptible. NASA will have to become an oversight instrument with the ability to impose severe financial penalties for violations of proper regulation.

I believe we need to spend our money on learning more about the planet we live on. Space exploration is not the direction we need to go. Why don’t we have something like the space station, here in the Ocean’s of the world?

We need to know more about Earth, we haven’t even scratched the surface of knowledge under our feet! We know more about the stars in the sky than the depths of our sea’s. I would like to know more about the rock I sit on than the one I can’t get to (yet). Remember the old saying the grass looks greener on the other side, but it’s not when you get there.

I hope we do get stuck on the moon until we get out selves together here first.

With all due respect, Buzz Aldrin is just plain wrong. There is no successful future in the cards for the colonization of Mars by the human species. The very real possibility exists that Earth is destined to appear almost exactly like Mars due to the devastating appearance of Homo sapiens on our own home planet. Being smaller and drier, Mars has even less to offer our species for survival than a wasted Earth.

Let’s save our money. We’re going to need it for our own salvation right where we are.

The NSF uses the Air Force to fly into McMurdo, not a private contractor. I agree with the point, but it’s a bad analogy.

Wow. Some of the guests on today’s show are reading way too much science fiction. Capitalism in space? Sure. As an entrepreneur I’d love to spend billions to sell widgets to a few hundred “hermits” living in space.

As a scientist who has been to Antarctica a couple of times, by way of New Zealand, I wanted to correct your guest’s assertion that the travel from New Zealand to McMurdo Base is provided by private contractor. The “contractor” for these flights is the U.S. Army New York Rangers, who fly the scientists down in barebones (read, webbed seats and a bucket for a toilet) C-130 Hercules planes. I don’t believe any commercial airliners (e.g., United) fly to Antarctica for the reason that they have to be able to fly all the way there, turn around and fly back without landing if the weather is not just right.

Two comments: 1) As bad as government is at doing anything, private enterprise is ALWAYS worse. First, they constantly cut corenrs in order to maximize profits. Second, they only focus on their profits not on the program goals. I ask that anyone provide one example where privatization worked better for society. They cut safety, they cut wages (resulting in less skilled employees) and they do shoddy work.

2) It is interesting how the same people who demand total awe and worship of NASA and the “wonderful” work they do always start talking about how incompetent they are when they see an opportunity to provatize NASA.

One thing that seems missing from all of the space exploration proponents is the “many good reasons” for sending humans anywhere. We went to the moon to prove that the USA was better/stronger than USSR. Yet there are many human reasons to spend the money on have an impact on the lives of taxpayers and citizens in this country. How about cancelling the four remaining shuttle missions and spending the five billion dollars on increasing renewable energy. That kind of money would clearly lead to reductions in cost and increases in efficiency.

I agree with the general sentiment of many posters here. The business opportunities in space are nearly as thin as the vacuum itself. The guests are the shills pandering the fuzzy idea of some obscure potential.

As poster Bracy stated “Entrepreneurship demands business profits, not tomorrow, not today … but yesterday. ” … This is absolutely correct. All explorations of the past were based on the quest for wealth, (natural resources) to be exploited at minimal cost and maximum profit. Even then, for industrial exploitation to be considered, it required a ROI from harvesting gold and silver (already discovered, and mined), and slaves.

Lets not forget that empty space, is EMPTY. Although there will be a market for harvesting satellites soon. The ROI for any business to exploit the high frontier is large on expense, and huge on loss. Its not going to happen.

I believe this privatization is being offered as a placebo to bridge the gap between the typical expectations of the citizens of the once great empire, to the new reality of unaffordable research and exploration, and the inevitable demise of all space research.

The bottom line is that we live in a nation where the major profit center is privatized gains on the back of socialized warfare.

The space “program” will simply run out of money sooner than later. As mentioned earlier, privatization will not happen because there is no profit in this venture. I suggest the vast distances in space is natures way of preventing us from exploring the universe. We’ve certainly screwed this planet up enough, I take some comfort in the fact that we can’t do the same to others. Perhaps we’ve been watching to many episodes of Star Trek.

Why is it so hard to go back to the moon? After all those decades?

We walked there, we drove a lunar jeep and played golf there. With all the new and improved technologies we should have been able to put a small colony on that satellite by now!?
Why can’t someone question the veracity of the moon landings?( without being punched in the face by Buzz Aldrin!)

There is room for an healthy debate without name-calling.
Governments have lied before many times, people skepticism is justified.A Town in Switzerland has just discover that the a rock allegedly from the moon, given to them as a gift by the US governmemt was in fact just a calcified piece of wood!
There are legitimate questions that have arise from the released pictures and films related to those moon walks and landings, and NASA has done a poor job of explaining.
I’m not saying that we didn’t, but it’s not absolutely clear that we did.

Has NASA added “to study the earth” back into its mission statement?

This component of NASA’s mission was removed by Bush.
If the study of the earth’s natural processes and human impact on them is back in the mission, they can probably do that from low earth orbit.

If it isn’t back in the mission, let’s cut NASA’s budget to the point where all they can afford is unmanned robotic missions, which everyone agrees are enormously more cost effective in terms of scientific research per dollar.

Cory,

Good idea. I was struck by the similarities between the issues on the NASA show and the recent Blackwater show.

For the record, I was joking about moon landing conspiracy nuts and the tendency for the media to always find an opposing view regardless of its validity.

What is in it for me?

I ask this honestly. Because if there is not anything in it for me, then it is less likely that there is anything good for anyone either.

If there is a health care system, I know I get health care, and I know my neighbors do to.

If we spend technology development resources on super high speed rail, I know that will give me a reasonable option of affordable high speed travel. It will also help create jobs while we decentralize the economy away from oil.

If we support our troops who protect us and our friends from terrorism and dictatorship, I live more freely.

So if we educate people to research technology that heals us, moves us more efficiently and cleanly, and increases our ability to defend ourselves, then I am with you.

But if you take FROM those goals, to send people to the moon or to mars, then I cannot respect that. I can’t eat empty pride while I breath gas fumes from my gas guzzler.

I guess Nasa is relegated to makeing paper air planes untill some one else does the work for them. The government wants to put them out of business and put the money in there pockets like everything else! will it’s up to us to give them our money and fund streets parks and even do nasa’s work with all the money we have just sittin’ around in our what do you call tem again? oh yeah bank accounts…