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Taking cheap insults by Undertoad
Tom, YOU TELL ME what to think of an engineering type who blatantly makes facts up to support his position. Shouldn't you be appalled at your own behavior in this thread? Why should any readers trust your future statements?
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NASA's published budget alone does not reflect the actual budget. The 1990s were about establishing trust between the US and Russia. Fundamental to establishing trust was a program that involved Americans and Russians from the highest levels of government down to cooperation among technology workers. That program was cooperation in space, and its centerpiece, ISS.
But ISS ballooned from $8 billion to support 12 passengers to over $150 billion for only 3 occupants. Where does that extra money come from? Its not all in NASA's budget. Much funding for ISS was through alternative budget entries. Those alternative funds are how the Clinton administration covered ballooning ISS costs and a funding shortage in Russia.
Depending on who you talk to, NASA budgets remained stagnant or dropping as much as 40% over the past 10 years. But what really changed is when alternative funding programs expired during George Jr's administration (actually end of Clinton's administration) . In reality, NASA was suppose to cut or phase back on programs that were too expensive to operate.
However that did not happen. Somehow NASA was expected to keep Columbia flying, keep ISS growing, and channel few other funds to robotic space exploration, all on the same budget without that supplemental funding. X-37 rescue craft was canceled due to lack of funds. But NASA must establish a new strategic objective more in line with limited funds. That objective has not been defined.
Having recognized problem they were creating by so much funding cuts, George Jr's latest budget offered a $1/2billion budget increase for NASA. It is something. But it is too little for what NASA is expected to perform.
Necessary is a new strategic objective for NASA. Science in the manned flight program is all but non-existant because a program of cooperation (ISS) is soaking up all funds in cost overruns. So why are we still manning and operating ISS? It has no purpose other than continued cooperation between Russian and American organizations.
In the meantime, acidic insults by UT that have no relevance to the thread. Maybe he does this to entertain his sidekick Sycamore. Either way, UT has posted a paragraph of wasted bandwidth while ignoring the point of that post.