And this is why China and maybe Russia will be the ones who actually colonize space.

>>51671473
Oh well. We'll be dead before it happens anyways.

;_;

>>51671473
why is this why? did i miss something

BANG

wait so america's space program is over? when the shit did this happen?

>>51671595
When the US realized they had no money.

are we giving up on space exploration?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=123IpZoQJq4&feature=player_embedded
Was listening to this while watching.
;_;

>>51671595
Shuttles are all retired after this mission, replacements won't be ready until like 2014 or something. Until then we'll be using Russian shit, I think.

>>51671595

When their politicians decided it was a good idea to take bribes and cut taxes for rich people while at the same time funding multiple wars over a thirty years or so period, resulting in the state nearly going bankrupt and forced to take loans from the Chinese.

>>51671621
Because stupid religious people.
Christians should be put to death.

>>51671636
for fucks sake america. who is the retard who decided we'd stop using our shuttles three years before the new ones are done?

>>51671655
>we'd probably have a moonbase by now.
JOHNMADDENJOHNMADDENJOHNMADDEN

I can't picture a moonbase any other way....

what's up with no noise cancellation mics.
fuck that shit.

>>51671595
It's not over, they're just replacing the shuttle. Until the replacements are done, NASA will have to pay someone to take their astronauts into space.

NASA gets less funding than we give to air condition stuff in Iraq/Afghanistan. But since it's "discretionary", and most people think it takes much more than it does, it gets cut very easily (hint: the budget deal happening right now is going to cut even more).

NASA's still around and still doing stuff, but we have no replacement manned spaceship ready to replace the shuttle. This has all been known for a year or more. If you're just hearing about this now, you really honestly need to follow the news better. I'm serious.

ITT: Kids who think that the shuttle program ending is a bad thing.

Its allowing us to move to more advanced systems

>>51671705
Russia will fly everyone in the space as usual.

>>51671727
It would be better if those more advanced systems were actually present. At this point, we're just getting rid of the shuttle without having a replacement set up yet.

>>51671650
>for fucks sake america. who is the retard who decided we'd stop using our shuttles three years before the new ones are done?
The shuttles are way past their used-by-date as it is. They did the best they could to keep them going, but the fact is the Shuttles have aged too much.

NASA is the biggest fucking waste of money. Maybe if we shut it down we'll be less in debt.

>>51671646
Okay, whoa.

We can bitch about politics but that'll lead no where.

It's mostly economics.

China simply has taken its greater economic potential and is realizing it while economic wealth and abundance over 100 years has lead naturally to complacency and over-promising in the advanced democracies.

I assure you, once China's economy begins to mature and 100s of millions of chinese begin to retire with no one to take up their jobs, China will be in much worse shape than America is right now.

>>51671763
-3/10

>>51671763

You ape.

>>51671655
But SCIENCE on the moon isn't PROFIT for the rich! Well, maybe the guy who'd end up owning the moonbase through stocks and shares and make it into a tourist trap for the elite.

>>51671763

You can stay on the Earth, with your soul held down by gravity.

>>51671763
>The Federal Government is the biggest fucking waste of money. Maybe if we shut it down we'll be less in debt.
FTFY,

>NASA getting shut down

Now we'll never get to launch K-ON blurays into deep space

all i want to be a lowly trash collector
in space
oh the pain of having a dream that will remain forever unrealized ;_;

let's get some anime in this thread!

>>51671844
Sup, Planetes?

For all the doomsayers, it's not really the end just yet. There's still a couple designs for NASA manned missions in the works, and SpaceX has a ISS resupply craft in the works (soyuz style capsule thing). And if they get done fucking around with carbon nanotubes and make a space elevator the whole game will be changed.

Plus honestly as awesome as manned spaceflight is, for deep-space missions unmanned really is tons cheaper while still letting most science go on.

>>51671871
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tia8dZbuywU

American needs to stop the nostalgia. Space shuttle was a terrible program.

Soyuz are simpler, safer and cheaper.

Space is the Place

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2a7clqqbHZI

>>51671843
If the aliens want them they're going to have to torrent them like everybody else!

>>51671890
oh god space elevators.
reminds me of this scifi trilogy i read in high school about colonizing mars.... why can't that be real

>>51671844
Will you have her by your side IN SPACE?

>>51671815
Retarded.

>>51671780
Possibly.

>>51671650
Retarded.

>>51671707
Troof.

>>Nasa getting shut down already

I see the Space Defense Front have started early.

>>51671950
>forgot all about the NASA shutdown
Awwwww, I'll never be able to declare Spacenoid independence now!

>>51671950
Oh you

>>51671927

They're not...impossible. They've got a checklist of technologies that need to be developed to construct a basic one and are working their way through them. Carbon nanotubes are the big one, and they're coming along. I've heard someone say that we could construct one on the moon to L3 (for getting moon payloads back to earth much easier) with current technology if we wanted to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_J5rBxeTIk

Obligatory

>>51672045
there is anything of value on the moon to send back to earth

>>51671843
>launch K-ON blurays into deep space

Do you want alien races to erase us?

Relevant: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/07/07/congress-puts-nasa-and-jwst-on-the-choppin
g-block/

>>51672117
I've always imagined Daleks entering the Light Music Club room, because there's always the possibility Yui would put cat ears on one of them and ask it to "Nyan."

>>51671929
Whatever. The Fed Gov't is still bloated as hell and wastes money like there's no tomorrow.

NASA pretty much gave up on being a player in flying people or light payloads into space. This will be done by private companies, with government encouragement. NASA's rocket development will be centered around a heavy lift vehicle.
In a way, I'm okay with this. Small rockets are profitable enough to be left to the private sector, and small rockets adapted for meat shots are likely to be profitable too. It's the heavy lift part that requires the most support, so it makes sense to invest only in it while letting the market take care of the rest.

cut spending to nigger programs
redirect funds to nasa

kill off minority welfare leeches and colonize space.

can you say double-win?

>>51672175
And then the Daleks would destroy mankind for producing counter-evolutionairy shit like k-on

>>51671844

Never give up, and remember to hold to your dreams.

>>51672289
Too bad obese welfare leech basement dwellers such as yourself would also get killed off.

Though, that IS win-win

>>51672107
The moon is full of SCIENCE.

OP here, I didn't realize people here cared that much

Oh god.

Just image if some advanced civilization retrieved the K-On blue rays, and they tried to analyze it.

>>51674072
Yeah, and then they come to earth clamoring for more moe and we trade them Lucky Star and Hidamari for FTL travel and other crazy technologies.

>>51674072
>Just image if some advanced civilization retrieved the K-On blue rays, and they tried to analyze it.
Better K-on than Transformers 3. You might hate K-on for being a show with cute girls, but it certainly would be better advertisement for humanity than most stories Hollywood pumps out.

>>51671595
US government has pretty much given up on NASA. so now space exploration is moving more toward the private sector

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5smPcN8AoE
was listening to this while watching

:D

Anyone ever see Cleopatra DC where they're basically frame-by-frame recreate the Challenger explosion? It's pretty jarring.

>>51671249
>filename

Good job Obama.

It's not like 3/4 of advanced technologies we use today came from space programs.

>>51674706
Wonder if that song would have been made if they sent a black person too the moon.

Never stop dreaming. Glad to see /a/ cares about this.

>>51672107
Assuming we ever get fusion, it would have tons of Helium3, which is pretty neat for fusion, from all the cosmic radiation that hits it.