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| Science & Technology |
| NASA plans revamped space program |
| 2010-04-11 |
| [Iran Press TV Latest] The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has announced new plans for developing the technology needed to send people to Mars. The new program aims to develop commercial space taxi services and launch satellites to monitor climate change from the Red Planet. All NASA field centers will collaborate in the project with the Johnson Space Center in Houston, which is in charge of a $6 billion, five-year program to oversee technology demonstrations. The Kennedy Space Center in Florida will manage a $5.8 billion five-year project to help private companies develop orbital transportation services. The Maryland, California and Ohio centers will be in charge of an Earth-observation campaign to keep a close watch on the impacts of climate change. "This is step one, to identify programs that are going to be funded by this budget," NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden told reporters. This is while NASA prepares to end its space shuttle program in the fall, causing thousands of contract employees to lose their jobs. US President Barack Obama has suggested adding an extra $2 billion to NASA's annual $18 billion budget, which in Bolden's opinion should result in more jobs. "We're expanding the amount of programs that we have so that we can try to put people to work who are interested in being part of the space program," he said. "A very serious and real concern for everyone is the jobs, but this is what we call progress," Bolden added. "Unfortunately, if you look at every area of technology in this country, as you advance, there are fewer and fewer manual-type jobs." |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #4 A gas station as well as a smelter, fabrication, etc... to use the materials mined there there. Don't bring it here for refining, fabrication,etc... and then have to just push it back out the gravity well again. Build the industry out there - in orbit. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2010-04-11 23:47 |
| #3 Anonymoose, the most significant thing they could do would be to create a gas station in orbit so private industry could get up there and mine the asteroids. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2010-04-11 20:39 |
| #2 The single most significant mission NASA could make in the near future would be to raid near Earth asteroids for their wealth. Just one of these, called 433 Eros, which is 12 miles by 8 miles in size, is believed to have more gold, silver, and several other metals than the entire crust of the Earth. Other, smaller asteroids have as high as 10% concentrations of platinum group metals, and to harvest just one would pay for every mission NASA had ever made ten times over. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2010-04-11 19:24 |
| #1 Let me explain climate change to youz: This is step one, to identify programs that are going to be funded |
| Posted by: Shipman 2010-04-11 04:28 |