If you are a fan of the Space Program, then today is your lucky day For anyone who understands how the space program has created the technology you enjoy today, two news items should send you over the moon and maybe even land on mars.
First off:
Obama Backtracks on NASA Capsule
By Irene Klotz
http://news.discovery.com/...
In the face of united bipartisan opposition to his plans to cancel NASA's follow-on shuttle program, President Obama is reviving the capsule component of the scuttled Constellation program and setting a time frame for development of a new heavy-lift booster intended to take astronauts beyond Earth's orbit for the first time since the Apollo moon missions ended in 1972.
Obama is scheduled to speak about the new policy on Thursday at the Kennedy Space Center. In advance of the president's speech, the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy Tuesday night released some details about the revamped plan.
Woot! Until we got the space lifter to a space shipwright sorted, we're still going to need heavy-lift boosters. Since the Plan A, Space Elevator, is still a decade or two away, I am excited to see the new research and development of the next generation of rockets.
And it gets better!
Obama to propose $6 billion NASA budget increase
Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/...
White House officials said on Tuesday that Obama wants NASA to begin work on building a new heavy lift rocket sooner than envisioned under the canceled Constellation program, with a commitment to decide in 2015 on the specific rocket that will take astronauts deeper into space.
"This is a rocket that is going to happen two years earlier than would've happened under the past program," a senior White House official said.
Obama would restructure the Constellation program and allow NASA to develop the Orion crew capsule to provide stand-by emergency escape capabilities for the International Space Station.
His policy would also direct NASA to launch into space a steady stream of robotic exploration missions to scout locations and demonstrate technologies to increase the safety and capability of future human missions.
All systems go, Mr. President!
So unlike Bush Jr. who said we're going to Mars and then funded it like No Child Left Behind, President Obama has removed the bloat from the Constellation program, funded his mandate and proposes to get it done two years sooner.
I know what kind of stuff that is, it's: