The movie The Right Stuff is not a document of historical fact nor is it a serious attempt to contribute to the debate on whether or not human space flight is worth doing. Its not even an attempt to get people interested in space flight. It was an attempt to make profit for film producers.
Will the Obama administration and the 111th Congress go down in history as the politicians who turned out the lights on the US human-spaceflight program? That is the fundamental question several lawmakers are asking as they pore over options and observations that were presented by a panel charged with reviewing America's human-spaceflight effort.
Well, this citizen wants manned space flight.
I dunno, the free-market economist in me wants to see what'll happen if NASA gets cancelled altogether.
Quote from: Diagoras on 10/27/2009 09:31 pmI dunno, the free-market economist in me wants to see what'll happen if NASA gets cancelled altogether. There is a role for NASA in the free market. Pure research is not done by industry
A little but not very much pure research is done by industry. The universities do a lot. From the outside NASA does a little pure planetary research but mostly performs engineering research.
Quote from: A_M_Swallow on 10/28/2009 04:10 amA little but not very much pure research is done by industry. The universities do a lot. From the outside NASA does a little pure planetary research but mostly performs engineering research.But NASA doesn't do much of any pure research on its own. It's usually in partnership or supporting another gov't agency, or university/university scientist, or a combination of gov't agency and university/university scientist.Even the planetary research is done within a NASA mission, and with a PI who is with a university, or an outside entity and not directly employed by NASA (like Southwest Research).
Contrary to myth, the private sector does tons of science — because it is so profitable.