US could get cut off from space....

[Golden Warrior]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/10828964/Russia-to-ban-US-from-using-Space-Station-over-Ukraine-sanctions.html

This was coming long before Ukraine, but Ukraine happened to be the event that triggered it. I blame Obama and congress for this but mostly Obama. He failed to stop Russia from taking Crimea which ended up in a ridiculous sanction bitch-slap fest and he's always been against NASA. Not that the bureaucracy in NASA isn't a problem but thanks to Obama, we will likely be cut off from space. The private sector which has had to start from scratch is nowhere near ready to take over to get Americans out in space again.

By the time we get ourselves straightened out, we'll be so far behind the other nations that it will be way beyond sad and pathetic....

We can argue that Obama had other priorities he felt were more important but fact is, if they had managed to fix NASA's problems it wouldn't cost nearly as much for them to do anything and we could have still remained the leader in space without breaking the federal budget more than it already is.

This is going to hurt us technologically and economically too. Since NASA can't even build damned rockets to launch satellites you don't have to be a genius to see how this is very bad for national security and the economy. Besides keeping an eye on other nations and collecting data for the weather, TV networks broadcast content over satellite. Even cable providers like Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Cox, have satellite dishes setup to receive the broadcasts to route over their cable networks to the customers' TVs. If those satellites 'break down' when we are cut off from space...well it wouldn't be pretty that's for sure.



OK I'm done ranting now. While I've come to expect a lot of failures from our government (which is sad in of itself) there are some things that go beyond the norm.

[Aegis Runestone]

Ugh... Obama (One Big Arse Mistake America).

NASA is one of my favorite groups, and it makes me sad our 'wonderful' president is taking us this way. Not to mention 'Obamacare' has made my life with health insurance a dream.

[/drippingsarcasm]

Yeah, I know Bush wasn't a great president either, but doesn't it seem like we're getting worse and worse presidents every four years?

[Sophia]

Ugh... Obama (One Big Arse Mistake America).

Are you really 28? Or are you actually a seven year old in disguise?

Just for the record, Obama is not a King, and the US government is not single-handily controlled by him.  At least lay blame on congress too, because they are often a significant factor as to why Obama doesn't act on specific subjects.

Pretty silly situation, but it was inevitable once sanctions went out.

[Aliem]

Yeah..  Imma have to agree with Sophia on this one.  It's not Obama's fault.  Any persident would have put sanctions on Russia for the crap they're doing.  Russia trying to cut us from the ISS has nothing to do with NASA, it's retaliatory for the sanctions we placed on them for acting like supreme cocksuckers, what with the annexation of sovereign nations.

I know you're a conservative, and that's fine, but not every problem that happens is a result of the president's actions.  Obama's not the best president; he might not even be a very good one, but he is not the direct cause of this.  Answer me this: which is worse, being cut off from a space station, or the very high liklihood of global war?  There are some (read: most high ranking republicans in congress) who would like to attack Russia.  Russia has a couple treaties with China.  If we attack Russia, China will more than likely attack us, and well, there we have World War III.  Consider the result of the United States, and whatever allies we might have left that would follow us into war, fighting Russia and China...  That's not an exageration.  That would be a global war, and the ramifications would be devastating.

One must pick one's battles.  I choose the side that doesn't lead to what could very well end in nuclear war amongst the US and Russia.

[Sophia]

There's also the fact that Obama didn't even end the space program in the first place; Bush did back in 2004. What Obama ended was the replacement program, Constellation. Which was having difficulty showing something, and given the issues with the 2011 federal budget, probably wasn't goin to get funded anyhow.

[Aegis Runestone]

Ugh... Obama (One Big Arse Mistake America).

Are you really 28? Or are you actually a seven year old in disguise?

Just for the record, Obama is not a King, and the US government is not single-handily controlled by him.  At least lay blame on congress too, because they are often a significant factor as to why Obama doesn't act on specific subjects.

Pretty silly situation, but it was inevitable once sanctions went out.

True that. The quote was just something funny I found on a car.

Yes, Congress is at fault, too. I know this has little to do with the space program, but remember all the Internet control bills that Congress tried to pass? Yeah, I'd agree that Congress is at fault for this problem, too. But, I wouldn't be surprised if Obama had a hand in it like GW says.

There's also the fact that Obama didn't even end the space program in the first place; Bush did back in 2004. What Obama ended was the replacement program, Constellation. Which was having difficulty showing something, and given the issues with the 2011 federal budget, probably wasn't going to get funded anyhow.

Source on Bush doing that?

[Sophia]

Source on Bush doing that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation_program#President_Bush
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Review_of_United_States_Human_Space_Flight_Plans_Committee
http://history.nasa.gov/Bush%20SEP.htm

Bush intended to fully retire the Space Shuttle program by 2010 and replace it with the Constellation program. But the Constellation program basically got it's knees cut off from under it for a variety of reasons. The biggest of which is that it hadn't made much progress in eight years, and the Augustine Committee found it wasn't going to happen without an uber budget increase. Which of course, wasn't happening when we nearly had a GOVEREMENT FRICKING SUTDOWN over the budget that year.

Everything basically went wrong at the wrong time for it, and no one single person is to blame for it.  You can point the finger at anyone you like, really. I am hoping that whoever succeeds Obama as president doesn't undermine his own space policy, because that would truly set us back.

As for the Russian sanctions, we must also not forget that NASA got its hands involved politically too.  Federal agencies were ordered to stop doing business with Russia after the incident with Crimea. Thus Russia's reaction is not unprovoked.

And of course, to top it all off, NASA is still pretty advanced in the area of having robots explore space. To say we've been cut off from space is an exaggeration.

[Aegis Runestone]

Thanks. Very informative.

Well, I hope you're right about the next President not shutting it down. But... what are the chances that s/he does? I'd say pretty high considering the loop we're going through. :/