Not For Another Twenty Years

NASA has been told "NO" to any moon landings for at least another twenty years. Implicit in that denial is that there will be no Mars landing either.

Since any American astronauts we want in orbit for the next decade of so will be put there by a Soyuz spacecraft launched from a Russian Cosmodrome - at a minimum of 30 million bucks a pop - and since Vandenburg can easily handle all our unmanned spacecraft launches, it looks pretty much like Houston and Kennedy are out of business.

Close them down and eliminate most of our astronauts. We just don't need dozens and dozens of them sitting around for years waiting for their chance at a Soyuz ride. Astronauts are an incredibly high maintenance luxury for a nation with no manned spacecraft, and once we scrap the space shuttle, we have no real justification for astronauts, or for manned space centers like Houston or Kennedy.

No doubt Kennedy will try to justify their existence for the next twenty years by claiming a need to launch unmanned communication satellites and research spacecraft, but the reality is that there are now several nations with the ability to do the same thing... For much less cost.

The space station? It's almost finished, so we no longer need trained astronauts to build it or man it. It's an international effort, one in which our presence is no longer critical.

Keep in mind that communication satellites are built by private corporations that can use any number of launch vehicles and spaceports provided by other nations and at less expense. Many are doing exactly that today. Places like JPL - who builds things like research spacecraft and interplanetary vehicles, can use those same facilities.

The nasty reality us that we no longer have a need for either Kennedy or Houston, whose primary purposes are manned launches and support. Keeping them manned and operational for the next decade of two with no critical mission requirements is not logical and a complete waste of money, money we do not have.

Until Congress decides to re-fund our manned space effort, our astronaut corps and our space centers are huge money sponges with zero return.

We should shut it all down until the money returns... if ever.

A sad end? Blame the Neanderthals in Congress. The loss of our manned space effort is just another consequence of an out-of-control federal government that has been spending trillions of our dollars like drunken sailors on an endless binge.

We are facing hard choices wherever we look... This is just another one of them. Either we give NASA the money it needs for manned space exploration, or we quit fooling ourselves and shut it down.