Mare Tranquilitatis

The reason we do not have a space program now is because that money can be spent much better by The Demagogue to buy votes.

The United States is on a downhill slide. It is that simple. We have now reached that point in a Democracy, (Republic), where voters have discovered that they can elect people who will promise to take from others and give to them.

. the Demagoges know this, and exploit this major weakness in our system.

. Originally Posted by Jackie S

Looks to me like the majority of the entitlement programs money is spent on the elderly....who vote mostly GOP.

http://www.chron.com/opinion/outlook...ng-5626464.php
According to the Congressional Budget Office, in 2013, the federal government spent a little over $2 trillion in benefit payments. Over $1.1 trillion of that went to Social Security and Medicare recipients. The total cost of Medicaid was about $265 billion, but around 20 percent of that money goes to older Americans, as well. Another $150 billion or so is paid to federal retirees. In all, something around 60 percent to 70 percent of all transfer payments, or about $1.4 trillion, are for older Americans' retirement income or health care.
For all of the other welfare programs, including food stamps, Supplemental Security Income, the child tax credit and free school lunches, the tab comes to only about $280 billion. And even some of those programs benefit older, poor Americans. If you add in the Medicaid expenditures that do not go to older Americans, we spend something less than $500 billion on welfare benefits to people who are not elderly.
That means that of the payments typically included in the term "entitlements," about three-quarters goes to older Americans. In the last presidential election, about 56 percent of voters over 65 voted for Romney. So the GOP is actually winning a substantial majority of those who receive the lion's share of entitlement payments

If one can barely afford the two children one has, one doesn't add more. The same applies to cars, houses, pets, furniture, vacations, and/or whatever else one may desire. This country can't sit on its ass and sop up entitlements from "the government" and expect "the rich" to support the lazy asses who believe their are "entitled"! That's not how this country was built, and that's not how the space program was developed ... it WAS "the symbol" of this country's ability TO DO. Originally Posted by LexusLover

Amen brother! I don't hate America either, but I hate the current direction it is taking. Originally Posted by Jewish Lawyer

What direction is that? A bunch of old white grumpy dipshits wearing 1176 garb bitching about little babies taking their money?

One of my personal heroes


Gene Kranz was responsible for writing many of the procedures in the early days of the space program.
Better known for his "failure is not an option"(he never actually said that) attitude in getting Apollo 13 back home safely his legacy was secured when as the flight director of the Apollo 1 tragedy he addressed the team with what would become the known as the Kranz Dictum which is still the culture at NASA.

"Spaceflight will never tolerate carelessness, incapacity, and neglect. Somewhere, somehow, we screwed up. It could have been in design, build, or test. Whatever it was, we should have caught it. We were too gung ho about the schedule and we locked out all of the problems we saw each day in our work. Every element of the program was in trouble and so were we. The simulators were not working, Mission Control was behind in virtually every area, and the flight and test procedures changed daily. Nothing we did had any shelf life. Not one of us stood up and said, 'Dammit, stop!' I don't know what Thompson's committee will find as the cause, but I know what I find. We are the cause! We were not ready! We did not do our job. We were rolling the dice, hoping that things would come together by launch day, when in our hearts we knew it would take a miracle. We were pushing the schedule and betting that the Cape would slip before we did. From this day forward, Flight Control will be known by two words: 'Tough' and 'Competent.' Tough means we are forever accountable for what we do or what we fail to do. We will never again compromise our responsibilities. Every time we walk into Mission Control we will know what we stand for. Competent means we will never take anything for granted. We will never be found short in our knowledge and in our skills. Mission Control will be perfect. When you leave this meeting today you will go to your office and the first thing you will do there is to write 'Tough and Competent' on your blackboards. It will never be erased. Each day when you enter the room these words will remind you of the price paid by Grissom, White, and Chaffee. These words are the price of admission to the ranks of Mission Control."

Too bad there aren't more men like this in the world today!

I've never met the man but have talked to several who actually worked for him. He is held in the highest regard by those men and women alike. More than one of them have said when Kranz walked into a room there was no doubt who was in charge. Not because of his title, or his accomplishments but by his presence.

A young family member recently got to meet him and chat privately for a few minutes during a private tour of NASA when Kranz just happened to be there leading a tour of his own.. I don't know what they talked about(you know how teenagers are) but that single meeting was enough for this young man to become enthusiastic about NASA, Space and science in general.