re: Space Shuttle was a colossal waste of money

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bot trying to be insensitive but what made them heroic?

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You don't think strapping yourself into a giant fricking rocket that blasts you into space is courageous and daring?

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We never landed on the moon either.

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Yep, and since I've never been to Australia either, I'm pretty god damn skeptical about its existence.

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It's the same thing with those assholes who invented boats.

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Don't make this about something it's not. A 4 year old can pilot a canoe - relatively safely.

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but what about the Titanic, we could have saved those people by knowing are place and staying on dry land instead of stupid water land.

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Or, you know, put enough fricking lifeboats on there to accommodate all the passengers and crew, instead of 1/3 that number.

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NASA should have developed a much cheaper crew launch system and coupled it with the Saturn V or some other heavy launch system for the big payloads. There was no reason to send that much mass into orbit each time just so they can fly it down.

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So why aren't you making the big bucks working for NASA?

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We shouldn't even have space, it doesn't do anything.

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I know. All it does it take up space.

I almost wasted part of my lunch break to explain things to a gnome. Rather, I will simply state that for anyone who actually feels the shuttle program was a waste or somehow a mistake should take the time to educate themselves on the history, particularly early history, and changes in government/military backing that occurred. This will lead to an understanding of 1) why the shuttle program was ultimately so costly (hint: partly due to US military backing out) and 2) just how much technological advancement in the last 30+ years can be traced back to NASA.

Here is a photo taken in 1985 of the Enterprise mated to its EFT and SRBs at Vandenburg AFB. Notice the USAF. This launch never happened. Had it occurred and prior tragic events not; history would be much different.

I agree with you that the military is the culprit, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a waste. We could have built so much more with more efficient launch systems.

I'm definitely a proponent of space flight and think more money should be invested in it, I just think that things like the space shuttle and ISS have other vested interest besides advancing our exploration of space and thus results in lots of waste.

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We shouldn't even have space, it doesn't do anything.

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I agree. If space is gone there would be no sun. That means every lsu game would be a night game.

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water is the "space" of oceans.

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...that made my head hurt