NASA, idiots or geniuses?

well now NASA has stopped all future space travel via the space shuttle program, and now got all Space shuttles a home in various museums. And all this after spending and investing billions of US dollars into the program. Although at first it was to beat russia and the other "power" countries. But after beating them (hoax or not) they had nothing else to waste money on. and there for built the international space station. probably the most expensive item built by man kind. Which has only just being completed a year or so ago. so why cancel the program and the only source to actually get astronaut's to and fro the space station. because now the only means to get there is the Russians (although there too busy making a few more stupid flights into uk air space to see our air force response times which also makes me wonder?) but they are now only interested in getting there men back safely, which in Russia is a hard task in any given circumstance. They have also planned to manually push the space station back into the earths atmosphere and let her fall ( and break up into a million bits) back to earth somewhere in the pacific ocean so that neither they or the Russian's can get any of the kit after its abandoned (some kind of 5 year old thing still on-going between them) this is all because the appollo program is set to come back into the game. now does this sound a tad like a repeat of history? We should never go back but only forward.

now would this not be classed as the biggest waste of money ever by man kind?

all this from source's too! not just a forum whine!

BTW the planned bringing down of the ISP is 2015

Well, there's some awful big dumbasses in the UK too. Here's the latest "excuse" doing the rounds for NOT adopting alternative energy strategies. Apparently, wind turbines upset the MOD's listening equipment which they use to detect seismic patterns which might indicate that some far away country could be conducting nuclear tests. Never mind the threat of climate change. I bet it's in case some toffee nosed git of a chinless-wonder officer might end up with a windmill near his back garden. Pathetic, or what??? The MOD waste millions with stuff thats not as important as looking after the troops and maintaining a proper defence force. Look at those aircraft carriers which won't even see service with the Navy. The RAF scrapped the harriers and they would've been more use in Libya than the overpriced replacements.
You don't need to cross the atlantic to find world beating, money wasting stupidity. Britain still leads the field in something, at least!

Whilst climate change is a fact - because historically it has always happened, and forever will; you could, infact, argue that it changes on a daily basis - there have been many studies - some more conclusive than others, which conclude in both directions that mankind is both responsible, and not responsible directly, for changes to the climate.

To me, that all seems rather inconclusive, and that scientists still aren't looking in the right places to find more conclusive proof.

Either way I look at personally though, as I personally believe in logic - that it's likely that at one point or another before human beings came into existence, there was no pollution, and as such we shouldn't pollute our planet - and look for ways to increase the amount we do pollute.

But back on topic!

There are other countries - such as the UK - who are developing their own space program, (I read recently, one such effort to remove some of the flotsam on the edges of space in our orbit, from past space missions).

What you have to remember, is that there aren't really any destinations for space yet. We are going to see a rise of the next generation of X Prize craft - such as Virgin Galactic - because the destination is to look at our own planet.

But let's face it - without other planets to visit, there isn't exactly the demand to fly anywhere just yet.

"The New York Times, among other newspapers, recently published a new Hubble Space Telescope photograph of distant galaxies colliding. Of course, astronomers have had pictures of colliding galaxies for quite some time now, but with the vastly improved resolution provided by the Hubble, you can actually see the lawyers rushing to the scene."

Whilst climate change is a fact

Of course climate change is a fact on a dynamic planet. All change is a fact on a dynamic planet otherwise it wouldn't be a dynamic planet, but a dead one instead.

Never mind the threat of climate change.

I presume you are referring to so called "man-made climate change"? I have a question; is man not part of the natural ecosystem? Is not every atom of your body composed of Earth Materials? Do you imagine that humans arrived on this planet from somewhere else? Even if you subscribe to the "God Theory" poor old God couldn't just make man out of nothing (Guess he must have been tired after creating everything else out of nothing) he had to make him from dust, an Earth Material.

So man is JUST a part of the ecosystem and as such everything he does is being done by the ecosystem to the ecosystem and if the ecosystem decides man is no longer required by the ecosystem then man will depart the way of the dinosaur.

I think we ( Humans) were just a type of species that evolved a lot better,fast and more intelligent than the rest.

We are a cocky type of species that once got to the top, deicded to kill, cage,eat and do much more to the other type of mammals that now live with us. We knew how to put a selection of materials together and then produce something much better from them ( example being sand,lime,water) and its evolved so much over time.


But we wont last for ever, we WILL kill our own species off.

I could ague that the average cat or dog is far more intelligent. They get fed, groomed, and pampered by their owners (who owns who is another question) without having to work 18 hours a day just to make ends meet, plus they don't have to worry about climate change; if it's cold they curl up in front of the fire and if it's hot they go sleep under a tree, with no worries at all.