In fairness NASA’s proposed budgets for the mid 70s-early 1980s would have never flown through Congress anyway.
The AAP projected budget alone doomed NASA’s future plans. The expanded Mars missions in the 80s as originally conceived would have been the largest peacetime expenditure of funds in American history; it would have made Apollo look cheap.
So while I find it sad that NASA’s mission was scaled back dramatically under Nixon I am not surprised that it happened like it did. The proposed budgets were absolutely insane.
2 Likes
WuWei
22
Ah, so a sense of a more relevant purpose and higher moral.
I can see that, but offer that “moribund” was hyperbole.
I would like to see an orbiter mission to the Neptunian system.
Neptune hasn’t been visited since Voyager 2 in 1989 and there are a lot of interesting unanswered questions, especially regarding Triton.
Plus we need an excuse to develop nuclear pulse propulsion engines. If we ever plan on making the colonization of the solar system a reality we have to master nuclear pulse propulsion. It would cut down travel times to a fraction of what current chemical rockets and ion engines can do.
Have to renegotiate the OST, but NPP should have been excluded anyway. It’s fascinating tech and the theory was workable back in the 1960s; they did a lot of experiments with NPP using scaled conventional explosives.
WuWei
Split this topic
24
A post was merged into an existing topic: General Slop from Various Threads
Camp
25
Moribund probably is overly harsh.
I was thinking more along the lines of creativity and new goals.

1 Like
Camp
26
Exactly the kind of goal I am talking about!
More interest in mars…
Saying “the desire to explore and understand is part of our character,” President Bush Wednesday unveiled an ambitious plan to return Americans to the moon by 2020 and use the mission as a steppingstone for future manned trips to Mars and beyond.
https://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/01/14/bush.space/
3 Likes
Lofty goal Bush had but Constellation was a disaster from the get go. It was horribly mismanaged and underfunded. Obama made the right decision when he killed it.
1 Like
Yep and then there was a fun thread on these boards about nasa being turned into a Muslim outreach program
4 Likes
My thoughts are this is nothing but Twitter BS!
WuWei
32
Those look like Mark R. Whittingon’s thoughts.
Twitter BS? Initiated by a Presidential Tweet?
An alternate title for that article could be “Why I think Obama was stupid for not spending billions on space exploration during a major economic downturn.”
2 Likes
WuWei
34
Let’s not drift into failure please.
Zander
35
By “overly harsh” I think you meant “completely incorrect”
4 Likes
we need more tang (space exploration side effects)…
Bush wanted to go to Mars, he was into that ■■■■■
WuWei
Split this topic
38
4 posts were merged into an existing topic: General Slop from Various Threads
Only a decade late and billions and billions over on their latest space telescope. Ironically named after a ■■■■■■■ Democrat.
Adam
40
It happens sometimes. But the Webb Telescope is going to be amazing. But it’s not scheduled to launch till late 2021. Is that Trump’s fault? I mean, he’s been president for the last three and a half years. When it launches next year, possibly under President Biden, should Biden tout how he got it launched when Trump dropped the ball? And not sure I’d just label James Webb as a ■■■■■■■■ Democrat”. He never held office.
Adam
41
Oh my god! I just realized! You think the telescope is named after Jim Webb the senator! That is ■■■■■■■ hilarious!
1 Like