NASA to Get $100 Million for Asteroid-Capture Mission

[GodFearinGunTotin]

I wasn't sure if this belonged here or in the Break Room...

NASA to Get $100 Million for Asteroid-Capture Mission, Senator Says | Space.com

I certainly hope they snag a diamond encrusted, gold-filled asteroid...we're gonna need it.

 

[Mackey]

I wasn't sure if this belonged here or in the Break Room...

NASA to Get $100 Million for Asteroid-Capture Mission, Senator Says | Space.com

I certainly hope they snag a diamond encrusted, gold-filled asteroid...we're gonna need it.

What if they get all excited and just snag an ice covered hunk of iron ore? Could happen..

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

What if they get all excited and just snag an ice covered hunk of iron ore? Could happen..

I'm betting this never even comes to fruition. I'll bet the only thing they snag is more voters voting for which ever politician will keep the tax dollars keeping these jobs afloat flowing in.

 

[raptrbreth]

We could use some of the depleted uranium drone rounds that are being sold and save the government a ton of money.

 

[Kirk Freeman]

L. Neil Smith call your office.

 

[BogWalker]

Wasn't there a private group of billionaires setting up asteroid mining sometime in the next few decades? A single asteroid can contain more iron ore than our entire planet. If such a thing were successful can you think of the economic implications?

 

[mrjarrell]

Meh. It's a drop in the bucket of what's needed and NASA just wants to try and get there before Planetary Resources does. The idea of asteroids being captured and mined by the private sector scares the **** out of them. Sadly, NASA is sliding into irrelevance in the space game.

 

[indykid]

If nothing else it might put a few people to work, but unfortunately it is using tax money to pay these people, so it appears to be just a better profile welfare program.

On the other hand it would be nice to see NASA actually doing something that the tax paying public can see.

 

[avboiler11]

Sadly, NASA is sliding into irrelevance in the space game.

Not really NASA's fault.

Remember that whole "by the end of the decade, we'll have a man on the moon" stuff? The US government had literally the smartest men in the world working on that project. And we did it.

Here we are, nearly 44 years after Neil Armstrong took "one giant leap for mankind", and there's no Space Shuttle replacement - Americans have to rely on the Russians for a lift to the ISS. GWB's proposal for man going back to the Moon and then to Mars was laughed at by those on the left AND right. The smartest men in the world probably aren't Americans, and if they are, they're in the business world instead of science, and wouldn't work for Uncle Sam if their lives depended on it.

Uncle Sam's pocketbook is mighty constrained these days, but we as a citizenry should recognize the importance of continued manned exploration of space.

 

[jedi]

Not really NASA's fault.

Remember that whole "by the end of the decade, we'll have a man on the moon" stuff? The US government had literally the smartest men in the world working on that project. And we did it.

Here we are, nearly 44 years after Neil Armstrong took "one giant leap for mankind", and there's no Space Shuttle replacement - Americans have to rely on the Russians for a lift to the ISS. GWB's proposal for man going back to the Moon and then to Mars was laughed at by those on the left AND right. The smartest men in the world probably aren't Americans, and if they are, they're in the business world instead of science, and wouldn't work for Uncle Sam if their lives depended on it.

Uncle Sam's pocketbook is mighty constrained these days, but we as a citizenry should recognize the importance of continued manned exploration of space.

the only reason we put a man on the moon was to get those artifacts that the transformer robots left on the dark side of the moon.

SIGH did you not watch the Transformer 3 movie!