Should NASA be disbanded/suspended during $ crisis?

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Gravity drives are Still the stuff of science ficton. The point is that a new, working form or spacecraft propulsion is badly needed.
Once it's developed, space exploration will be able to more forward and hopefully there will be a succussor to the shuttle.

Well, we can always buy landing rights from the Chinese...

They're going to the moon. They have our money, they have our technology (don't ask). We're actually considering getting out of space for a few years, once the Shuttle's lifespan is up (oddly enough, the Air Force is flying B52s that are older than the pilots, and will be flown for a few decades more before retirement. Meanwhile, we're mothballing something that was created nearly 30 years after the main production run of the BUFF...)

This leaves the International Space Station in the hands of the Russians. Wonder how hard it would be for them to just seize it? What would we do? We don't have a space program until the Ares rockets (pretty much done on the cheap) are in production.

Just refer to us as the 'Portuguese of Space'...

You don't have a very realistic opinion, you should try delving into things yourself rather then spewing whats fed by the 'War'. This is a topic about NASA anyways, an organization that needs more funding... a lot more.

Okay, okay. Riddle me this, How will NASA solve the current economic crisis?

If any of their energy production research pans out it could eliminate the constraints on economic growth that we're currently suffering.

People think money is a unit of "value" when really its a unit of energy. Everything takes X amount of energy to produce even the extraction of raw materials. The larger X is the more it costs.

The better our domestic energy production the better our economy since we don't have the overhead of buying imported energy at prices inflated by supply shortages that will only get worse.

NASA has had a lot of great ideas that have been mothballed due to uneducated government officials. Project Orion from the 60's comes to mind (I'm sure a handful of people here know what this is). It's not NASA's responsibility to solve the economic crisis, I don't understand what kind of point your trying to make, if your going to try and criticize NASA at least have something tangible to do it with. That pie chart is a pretty good example of why NASA doesn't need to do anything other then maybe get more funding and A LOT more public interest. I'm sure if it had not been for the numerous nuclear treaties NASA would have developed a working Fusion reactor by now, considering the TOKAMAK is pretty old already. Imagine never having to change batteries or re-fuel your car? Sounds like its worth a few billion to me.

That' just it. There's nothing except space-junk. Where is this new technology that will solve the energy crisis and break the shackles of global oil dependancy? The ball is definitely in NASA's court, if in fact they're the ones to do it. So far, what has NASA done for us in that regard?

That is Not NASA's job slowmutant..

No, it isn't. That's my point. NASA can do nothing to address more immediate human concerns like poverty, domestic abuse, and drug addiction. To suggest that NASA can better society here on Earth is pretty ambitious.

[quote="slowmutant"]No, it isn't. That's my point. NASA can do nothing to address more immediate human concerns like poverty, domestic abuse, and drug addiction. To suggest that NASA can better society here on Earth is pretty ambitious.[/quote

It isn't directly their mandate, but they have a fair chance of helping in any manner of matters through their research and work. Its an innovative area, like the military, and some very useful and productive things have come from that.

'Space junk'? Its not NASA's responsibility to solve the energy crisis. It IS their responsibility to further Human understanding of the cosmos, and in so doing develop cutting edge technologies. There are far more organizations with absolutely no altruistic goals that you could be wasting your time criticizing and yet you keep spewing the same misguided drivel about NASA and its 'space junk'. Right...

Medicines grown in space have saved how many lives?

Giving children something astonishing to aspire to, despite abusive circumstances has indirectly helped how many children? (ya know, other then me)

NASA employs how many hundreds of thousands of people? For example the city I live in wouldn't exist, and this area would still be undeveloped, if it weren't for the Marshall Space Flight Center, Redstone Arsenal, and NASA.

Lets not forget all the advanced technology that was invented for, or as a result of, our space program. The same technology that is responsible for the vast majority of our exports.

See? Those are three totally random things unrelated to NASA's mission statement and NASA has still helped our society in those areas.

The US is still the worlds richest nation and we certainly DO have the resources to fund the space program AND get through the economic crisis we are facing. Povery in the US has a lot to do with size of our country(3rd largest in the world)as well as its diversity. Russia continued its space program EVEN when it faced economic collapse and government bankruptcy in the mid-90s; if they can do it why cant we?

The money allocated to NASA isn't that much compared to other government programs. Whatever the savings would be from disbanding it and diverting their funds elsewhere would be negligible.
One of the failings of NASA is not selling itself to the public. The results of the scientific research done in space (Space Station and before that Spacelab) generally goes unheard of by the public. That and it's a matter of national pride to have a space program.

actually, NASA funds a lot of research into many different fields. They have a bulliten/magazine, etc, whose name escapes me, but it's out there. Just research paper after research paper.

If'n I remember correctly, ORION was an nuclear-powered rocket. Maybe in orbit, but I don't think the upcoming administration would fund it...

Maybe we could just have NASA take dollar bills into orbit and drop them over the nation as a stimulus...

They'd burn up on the way down