NASA May Have to Buy Trips to Space 256
MattSparkes writes "Budget cuts could leave NASA without a Space Shuttle replacement, and leave it reliant on private firms to get payloads into space. A similar scenario happened between 1975 and 1981 when NASA made the transition from Apollo to the Space Shuttle. It seems like a strange state of affairs when a magazine can take people to space, but the USA can't."
We would be able to buy all new shuttles (Score:3, Interesting)
And a whole lot of other useful things like teachers, public housing, additional health care and other benefits to our country if we weren't spending our money somewhere else at the moment. [costofwar.com]
Re:Private trips to space (Score:3, Interesting)
However, the problem here seems to be partly developmental as well as funding based. If I recall correctly, a gap between the shuttle's retirement and the CEV's first launch was expected, just not of this duration.
Re:Sorry, but I had to (Score:1, Interesting)
I do not, however, believe space exploration is within the constitutionally defined limits of what the federal government should be doing.
NASA is a huge, wasteful organization that should be dismantled. If there is value in space exploration, let that be done by the private sector, who has a fiduciary incentive to not waste money.
Take the hit now (Score:2, Interesting)