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Related: About this forumThe Onion Predicts Real Life: Republicans Block NASA's Asteroid Plan
By Asawin Suebsaeng|
President Obama's plan to have NASA lasso an asteroid, tow it toward Earth, place it into the moon's orbit, and claim the space rock for the United States of America has hit a congressional snag. The New York Times reports:
But the space agency has encountered a stubborn technical problem: Congressional Republicans...[T]he science committee in the Republican-controlled House voted to bar NASA from pursuing that faraway rock. In a straight party vote 22 Republicans for, 17 Democrats against the committee laid out a road map for NASA for the next three years that brushed aside the asteroid capture plan, the centerpiece of the Obama administration's agenda for space exploration. The plan, instead, included new marching orders, telling NASA to send astronauts back to the Moon, set up a base there and then aim for Mars (and to do so with less money than requested).
Not only would the asteroid-lasso initiative have astronauts travel to the space rock to conduct mining operations and test technology for missions to Marsit would allow NASA to research strategies for deflecting future, potentially world-ending asteroids.
In a way, the Times got scooped on this story. By the Onion. More than two years ago:
more
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/07/onion-predicts-real-life-republicans-block-nasa-asteroid-lasso-plan
phantom power
(25,966 posts)Chemisse
(30,793 posts)When we could instead pretend we went to the moon - and even Mars - for the cost of a Hollywood set or two? Hell, the Republicans could even send us to another solar system for an extra few million!
Also, preventing the earth from being annihilated by a stray asteroid would make Obama look heroic. Space-style lasso in hand, he would be the ultimate cowboy, making Texas Republicans look downright silly (or sillier).
Instead, have Obama do more space exploration, then gripe about the Dems wasting our money on the space program. At the same time, groom the Repub Party's candidates to grab the lasso asteroid idea and make it their own.
Lugal Zaggesi
(366 posts)can one day be used to kill Evildoers,
or else they will think it is a waste of Taxpayer Dollars.