No wonder NASA lost funding

you could skim 1% off of the military budget and near double NASA's budget...

In reply to Duke:

Why you need a boat to go across the water far enough away to not view the village? think of the wood and manpower involved and how many canoes that could be built from the wood. Viking ship funding is counterproductive.

Duke wrote: Didn't you get the memo? Welfare spending is like 2% of the federal budget. The Occupy Wall Street graph I saw proves it.

Yeah, I'm not going to touch this one.

Way too much "NO U" which all boils down to "All spending is bad unless it spends money in ways that I understand."

In reply to drummerfromdefleopard'sonlygotonearm:

I think the Vikings were a good indicator....you either innovate or you continue to be irrelevant.

The Vikings were much bigger traders than most people realize. They had relations from Moscow to the Middle East where they helped foster the Slave Trade. They may not have sailed their directly, but the people they captured and sold off went all over the known world.

As for Russia, they would carry their ships overland to the rivers to trade.

Gary wrote: In reply to Curmudgeon: Pretty much my view, except how does one differentiate from the programs with truly great potential and those that could be classified as second or third tier with less potential. And, one never knows what might be accidentally discovered in second or third tier programs. Problem is, although it would be great, tax dollars can't fund everything. So cuts are a reality.

Excellent question. The answer is, we don't know what we don't know. What seems to be a second or third tier program can suddenly turn out to be something world changing. Like the story of the liquid crystal display. Basically, the inventor worked for RCA and after an initial flurry of interest RCA decided it wasn't something they wanted to chase any more. An inventor outside of RCA improved the power consumption and contrast, the rest is history.

http://www.circuitstoday.com/invention-history-of-liquid-crystal-display-lcd

http://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/audiovideo/how-rca-lost-the-lcd

In reply to Curmudgeon:

Definitely a conundrum!

Conundrum eh?

yamaha wrote: Who needs an overpowered weapon when you have an asteroid to threaten the entire world with.....

Instead of "rods from god" it can be "balls from god"?

racerdave600 wrote:

Duke wrote:

racerdave600 wrote: I should also point out that most of the work for NASA is performed by private companies that had to bid the contract, many of these now minority or female owned companies.

...on paper, anyway.

And many not on paper. I used to have go to most of the tech companies and interview the owners for my old job every year. Most people don't have much knowledge about what really is happening in the tech / NASA / military world, nor how it operates.

I don't really have experience with the tech side, but I have plenty of experience with the architecture / engineering / construction side. Much of the so-called "minority participation" is either from false front shell companies, or minority firms that are hired as window dressing but don't physically do any significant portion of the final work.

yamaha wrote: In reply to drummerfromdefleopard'sonlygotonearm: I think the Vikings were a good indicator....you either innovate or you continue to be irrelevant.

and if you don't continue to innovate, you lose 4 Super Bowls in the 70's and don't ever go back there again.

In reply to novaderrik:

I see what you did there........and you're right. History is repeating itself(as it usually does)

I feel as if this whole thread has just gone to hell in a hand basket!

moparman76_69 wrote: Conundrum eh?

Oh good, I'm not the only one who watched that show.

Now I'm sure of it.

moparman76_69 wrote: Conundrum eh?

He's got boobies!

Geez, that's wierd!

In reply to aircooled:

Give me a break. Do you how how hard it is to find a good picture to represent a character from an obscure TV show that aired on upn 15 years ago?

Space- berkeley Yeah!

Where is OP?

z31maniac wrote: Where is OP?

???? NASA funding baaaad. Wait a minute.....

z31maniac wrote: Where is OP?

NASA FTW!

BTW the circle of insanity around Government I find best summarized by:

• Well to do want new homes= urban sprawl
• Urban sprawl means man meets wilderness = more wild animals in contact with humans (sometimes in bad ways like bear vs soccer Dad)
• Well to do demand action plus don't want Bear extinction = call scientists.
• Scientists work on way to track wild animals near urban sprawl = tracking collars on large mammals
• Proving tracking collars are able to be secured to the animal properly while not hurting animal = building treadmill for bears.
• Well to do and others blast government for "wasting" tax payer dollars on treadmills for bears. = tax funding cut
• no bear tracking = soccer dad lunch for hungry bears
• Blame government scientists for not fixing bear issue fast enough.
• Outsource to contractor with 37 times the government scientists' budget.
• Celebrate success of private contractor ingenuity!

Gimp wrote: Sometimes it's weird working for the part of NASA everyone forgets about (earth science)

I cannot figure out why NASA has an earth science component rather than just reorganizing or combining them with NOAA and or USGS.

Or visa versa.