Hey Barack, keep your hands off of NASA!

[unclejimbo]

I've just read that Obama is talking about gutting NASA to pay for his education plans. Ummm, like there isn't some other agency to go after first? The DOD is wasting $10 billion a month in Iraq, maybe you can siphon off the money there and find more savings by bringing the troops home!

NASA has been running on a shoestring budget since the end of Apollo. That's why we have a half-assed shuttle design that is as likely to kill you as to get you into orbit. It works, but that's just a testimony to the people who are working on the project. And as an American taxpayer, I want to see us back on the moon. I know seeing things like that accomplished will inspire the next generation of scientists and explorers. We need it. In this time of hardship, we need it now more than ever.

I will be VERY disappointed if they follow through on this. NASA has been stripped to the bone already. Now it looks like they're finally coming for the bones.

Comments

[reannon.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't mind a massive reform of NASA, but not a cut in funding. I'd like to see less highway-robbery subcontracts going to big campaign donors and more money steered toward actual R&D. Focus subcontract money to real R&D in the private sector so we get a space race going between industries (hey, it's not like we don't need a manufacturing sector that still manufactures things) instead of throwing billions of dollars at Boeing et al to make the same expensive shit over and over again.

[drlaurac.livejournal.com]

Amen. And NASA is about a lot more than "just space." Lots of important research that impacts everything else comes from there, too. There's certainly better places to cut!