View Single Post
  #1  
Old January 17th 04, 12:24 AM
jacob navia
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default The end of the american space program.

Today, NASA Administrator O'Keefe announced that
the american space telescope will not be serviced
by the shuttle anymore, and we start hearing about
the "fiery reentry". An automatic engine will precipitate
this instrument to the surface of the earth. No need for
scopes. We are going to the moon. Science is not
needed for that, nor the scientists, that cost a lot of
money.

The shuttle fleet grounded, americans aren't able to
service the space telescope, a few hundreds of kilometers
higher up. And Mr Bush talks about servicing a supply
line of 300.000 Km?

A class-mate of Mr Bush (Molly Ivins) writes:
(I quote from "The mother Jones")

"...in what is becoming a recurring, almost nightmare-type
scenario, the minute he visits some constructive program
and praises it (AmeriCorps, the Boys and Girls Club,
job training), he turns around and cuts the budget for it.
It's the kiss of death if the president comes to praise
your program.
During the presidential debate in Boston in 2000, Bush said,
"First and foremost, we've got to make sure we fully fund
the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which is a
way to help low-income folks, particularly here in the East,
pay their high fuel bills."

He then sliced $300 million out of that sucker, even as
people were dying of hypothermia, or, to put it bluntly,
freezing to death.

Sometimes he even cuts your program before he comes to
praise it. In August 2002, Bush held a photo op with the
Quecreek coal miners, the nine men whose rescue had
thrilled the country. By then he had already cut the
coal-safety budget at the Mine Safety and Health Administration,
which engineered the rescue, by 6 percent, and had named a
coal-industry executive to run the agency".


End quote.

Announcing that the space telescope will be destroyed
would have provoked an outcry if not enveloped in a
good mixture of "good space news": we are going to the
moon, of course.