https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbIZU8cQWXc&feature=player_embedded
Don't be skipping this, it's good.
Yawn.
Without the bank bailouts people wouldn't have credit, would have lost their homes, unemployment would be far greater than it is today, and even fewer revenue would be collected from taxes. Then where would NASA get its funding?
Gotta love how he seems to blame Obama for the "cutting" of the shuttle program... In reality, the program had long passed its expected life and Bush canceled it. Obama shifted more of the programs onto the private sector. Boeing, for example, has been involved for years. The mere fact that conservatives/repubs are fighting Obama over this just goes to show how ridiculous they have become in order to score political points. Had Obama increased NASA funding they would have cried foul and demanded that the private sector share more of the responsibility. Since he did exactly that, now they're crying that more funding should have been given to NASA.
Ultimately, Neil's point is well taken. We funded the space race because of war. War is what determines where our funds go.
Today, we aren't at war with a country that has the capability to launch missiles into space. Today, we're fighting with an enemy that threatens to shut down oil wells.
What we really need is for China or Brazil to start another cold war and start launching crap into space. Nothing would increase NASA funding and change our focus back to space more than that.
I also don't buy that we're not producing the engineers or developing the technology as we should. We're still producing engineers. Who is developing the technology to spy on Iran? Who is developing the new weapons we are using? We're still developing new technology. Perhaps it is less "space" based. But that doesn't take away from the fact that wars in the ME have led to drone aircraft, stealth helicopters, and cellphones. True, different technology may have developed had we kept aiming for space. But then again different technology would have been developed had we waged a war against water based creatures or aliens from outer space.
I'm down with exploration w/space. It is a new frontier. It is thee frontier. I just don't buy the doom and gloom that this video presented.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program
The shuttle program, which was scheduled for mandatory retirement in 2011, saw the final launch with Atlantis launching on July 8, 2011, in accord with the directives President George W. Bush issued on January 14, 2004 in his Vision for Space Exploration
https://www.boeing.com/defense-space/space/hsfe_shuttle/index.html
Boeing is the major subcontractor to United Space Alliance, NASA's prime contractor for Space Shuttle operations. As such, Boeing's Space Exploration has performed design engineering and support for the Space Shuttle fleet since the first flight in 1981.