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“Obama lauds NASA for Mars landing, pledges continued investment.”

“Obama lauds NASA for Mars landing, pledges continued investment.”

What a joke. This Reuters’ article is so busy campaigning for Barack Obama that it fails to note one fundamental fact: It is the Obama administration that gutted NASA’s science program so that there is little likelihood of any missions to Mars, or elsewhere, in the foreseeable future. As noted correctly in this Science article describing the same Obama telephone call to JPL,

The president’s sweeping endorsement of research, however, carefully avoids the fact that his 2013 budget would cut funding for NASA’s Mars exploration program by nearly one-third and end the country’s role in two Mars missions planned jointly with the European Space Agency for later in the decade. Both the House of Representatives and a Senate spending panel have added back money for Mars exploration, although Congress is unlikely to settle on a final budget for the agency until next spring.

Look, I freely admit the federal budget has to be cut. And I am freely willing to have those cuts occur in NASA. What I can’t abide is the kind of junk journalism seen in the Reuters piece above, selling Obama as a big supporter of space research when he clearly has not been.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


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"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

7 comments

  • there is a lot of junk journalism out there bob , thats why we come to behind the black ^^

  • wade

    there is a Lot of info gathered from Our Presidents words. and his tongue in cheek antics. rockets to Mars or Anywhere Else are a thing of the Past. if Robert Goddard was alive Today, he would take his gadgets Home. our existing passions to reach out into Galaxy have been realized. have a look at both American and Russion patents since the 1970s.

  • Joe

    Obama is now doing to the robotics program what he has already done to the HSF BEO program (that is eviscerating it).

    That really should not come as a surprise any more than his taking credit for current successes – paid for in the past – while trying to stop any chance of future successes (remember Nixon and Apollo) or that Reuters will go to any length to flack for any democrat..

  • wade

    i agree Joe, and the published “through media” supposed Landing of Curiosity is a white washed attempt at ” gathering the people” no Matter how They flung it . i have No Doubt that one of our exploratory rovers is on the surface of another planet. i am not whitewashed to “buy into” the whole story delivered by mass media.

  • wodun

    The Mars missions have been just about the only area where NASA has been doing a good job. It sucks to see future missions in doubt.

    Putting the decisions to undertake these missions off for another x years adds to the already long lead time in planning, construction, and travel required. In the meantime, our expertise will degrade.

    ***

    While Reuters and other media in general is trying to pump up Obama, you really can’t expect them to get the information right on any complex subject.

  • Chris Kirkendall

    If I can be permitted to use a Yiddish word, “Chutzpah” is the only way to describe Obama’s brazenly hypocritical remarks. To take credit for a program he clearly had NOTHING to do with, and that began many years before he was ever president, while at the same time drastically cutting funding of similar future planetary exploration is just stunning. It suggests a monstrous ego – whatever I say is the truth! He knows the MSM will never point out the massive contradictions in such statements, so he’s free to try to “Fool all the people, all the time” – it ain’t workin’ for most of us, though. This Emperor clearly has no clothes…

  • wade

    you said it Best Chris.

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