A few days ago the space shuttle Atlantis landed on Earth for the last time. With that we (the USA) have retired our fleet (what's left of it) of shuttles and ended the American space program almost completely. NASA is a former shell of what it once was, devoting more time to climate change (a hoax) and making nice with muslims (that don't care). American, might, industry, ingenuity and pride are being swept out to sea. Thanks partly to the Bush and mostly to the Obama administration's murdering of our economy.
The cost of the entire Apollo program and the Shuttle program combined is right at 400 billion dollars*. While four of five years ago that may have seemed like a lot of money, keep in mind that Obama's failed stimulus that was supposed to keep unemployment under 8.5% cost 800 billion. So for half the cost of the stupid so called stimulus we put men on the moon and space ships going back and forth for 30 years. Add the ISS (international space station, that's called international but essentially we paid for and built the whole thing and let other countries paint their flag on.) in for another 100 billion and it's still sad. The future lies in space and America is giving the future away to China and Russia.
Russia is celebrating, they are now the kings of space and we have to pay them millions of dollars to take our astronauts out to the ISS. Far less glamorous than our shuttle, the principle of Russia's Soyuz rocket and capsule system for sending humans into space has changed little since Yuri Gagarin became the first man in orbit in 1961. Yep we're flying in over fifty year old Russian tech. But it's not that bad, last year they switched the Soyuz capsule from an anolog computer to a digital. Yeah last year...
So the question whether space exploration is really desirable at a time when so much needs doing on here on Earth comes to mind? It is a serious question that requires a serious answer. There are many arguments, from jobs and education to technology development and national security, for keeping us in space. Though one argument stands out, that argument is exploration, and that we should continue to challenge ourselves for the one basic reason; self-preservation as a free creative, intelligent society. As opposed to a stagnating, socialist slave society.
* All dollars adjusted for inflation to 2010.
A few years ago I vowed that in five years "global warming" would be a thing of the past, and I am on track to be proved correct. Even now at the UN climate summit in Cancun Mexico (cool and rainy btw), the once great delegation is reduced to suggestions and making no actual decisions. The cost of this monster hoax has got to be in the hundreds of billions and now thank God it looks like it may be fizzling out.
This week Republican Speaker-elect John Boehner (OH) has said he will be dismantling Nancy Pelosi's pet project the "Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming". While the UN climate summit says 2010 will be the second warmest year on record, the actual numbers seem to say different. The planet has been cooling since 1998 and in the last year we have seen some good evidence to back that up like the first snow in Baghdad and China reporting it's coldest winter in one hundred years. In fact all four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously, no anecdotal evidence needed. The drop has been so precipitous it has wiped out the last hundred years of warming. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C a staggering drop with makes me wonder if Time magazine needs to bring back it's ice age cover from the seventies.
Even the mighty AlGore is scaling back his "Alliance for Climate Protection" which once held offices in twenty five states is down to seven. Of course they are calling it "a mobile and nimble operation... moving to areas where it’s most effective." That has got to be tough for Algore who in 2008 launched a three hundred million dollar advertising campaign to help pass climate legislation on Capitol Hill. Thanks to the new Congress he can kiss that money goodbye.
One day we will know the full extent of the damage "global warming" has really done... to our wallets. Think back to the early nineties when all this babbling started with the "hole in the o-zone layer" to the evil "chlorofluorocarbons (CFC's)", changing all our Styrofoam, aerosol cans and now light bulbs just to find out it was all a big political power and money grab. I only regret that it took over twenty years for us to come to our senses.
