LET's SELL NASA!

America's longest-running manned space program ended this morning - a significant milestone of Obama's legacy. In fact, Obama cancelled all future plans for a US presence in space, instead deciding to transform NASA into a "Muslim Outreach Program".

I say "Eff THAT ! ! !" - we don't need an Inter-Galactic Muslim Outreach Program! Especially at what NASA costs: if you step back and look at the Space Agency with a critical eye, what you see is the biggest white elephant in the Known Universe, and it produces exactly ZERO in profit. In an era time when we're 14 trillion in debt and flat broke, this is simply unacceptable.

I say: SELL NASA ! ! !





Now then, every time I throw this concept out on the table, people freak out. "NASA is our most popular Government program! NASA has been successful for all these years!"

Not exactly - sure NASA is big and exciting, produces lots of nice imagery, but can you name a single wealth-producing aspect of the entire NASA operation? Beyond Tang and velcro, that is. In fact, the whole concept of thrusting tiny little payloads into space by strapping them on to huge chemical rockets required to overcome the force of gravity is so archaic, so 1940s.

There simply has got to be a better way, and there has got to be something up there we can bring back that makes the whole enterprise worthwhile. We don't need a multi-bazillion-dollar orbital public relations campaign. Mine the asteroids. Recover the helium 3 reserves they've found on the moon -

In November of 2004 Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam told the International Conference on Exploration and Utilisation of the Moon that the moon holds about one million tonnes of helium 3: "The moon contains 10 times more energy in the form of Helium 3 than all the fossil fuels on the earth."

What we need to do is to find a way to make Space pay for itself; we need to commercialize it.




Privatizing space is not a new idea - consider the Pan Am Space Clipper in the film 2001 A Space Odyssey.


Consider: when Columbus sailed to find the New World, his operation was bankrolled by government funding - every school boy knows the story of how Queen Isabella sold her jewels to finance the operation. However, the New World was developed by private investment. Now just think; if two continents could produce as much wealth as the Americas have for five hundred years now, just imagine the wealth that awaits us in the ENTIRE UNIVERSE ! ! ! All we need is investors willing to take the risk!




SpaceShipOne was a suborbital air-launched spaceplane that completed the first manned private spaceflight in 2004. That same year, it won the US$10 million Ansari X Prize and was immediately retired from active service.


Early on Wednesday 4th May 2011, in the skies above Mojave Air and Spaceport CA, SpaceShipTwo, the world’s first commercial spaceship, demonstrated its unique reentry ‘feather’ configuration for the first time. This test flight, the third in less than two weeks, marks another major milestone on the path to powered test flights and commercial operations.





SpaceShipTwo (SS2) - named VSS Enterprise - has now flown solo seven times since its public roll-out in December 2009 and since the completion of its ground and captive -carry test program.



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The Branson operation with VSS Enterprise is a huge step in the right direction, but space tourism can only go so far. Here's where we can take a cue from that intrepid researcher Hugh Hefner:




Hef's DC-9 "The Big Bunny" had twelve onboard beds, a bar, a lounge, a disco, TV/video equipment, a sunken Roman tub, crystal dinner set for 32, and a king-size water bed covered with Tasmanian possum fur, with seatbelts.


Configure spacecraft with a romper room in it like that and people will be selling their kidneys to get a ride in that bucket.






STORMBRINGER SENDS




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