Why is NASA so worthless these days?

Question

Why dont they send people to mars already! Stop fooling around with rocks and work on a manned space craft with extensive life support.

Answer 1

funding is being used for other things, and the drive to go into space isn't what it used to be, in order to get peoples attentions again there going to have to pull a darn big rabbit out of there thinking caps, figuratively speaking. The media is going to have to start making a big fuss over anything that N.A.S.A. does any more, because there in a public relations nightmare and the only way to win peoples hearts and minds again is to have a strong and focused leader like J.F.Kennedy and that isn't likely to happen anytime soon.

Answer 2

One word: management (or lack thereof)

Petty politicians are not willing to properly fund NASA, and would rather pay $5 billion four times than $10 billion once, so they ended up overbuilding and redesigning the space shuttle and the space stations some many times over the last 25 years, all the money went to non-flying items, leaving none for otehr things, like far away mission. Look what happened with the DC-X and the X-33; NASA paid for developement of scale model or demo components and not for a final, usable vehicle.

We are light years away from the 1960's "let's get it done" attitude that put men on the moon.

To get going, we would need a nuclear rocket, but lots of so called ecologists would vehemently oppose any R&D in that area.

Answer 3

It isn't possible to send men to Mars with our current technolgy. The trip would take 6 months there and another 6 months back and then whatever time was spent on the surface.

Currently, after 6 months in space astronauts are unable to walk when they return to earth and have to undergo weeks of physical therapy. Obviously if they stepped off the craft to the surface of Mars after a 6 month trip they would be severely disabled.

And that's only one of the problems that has to be solved.

We'll get men to Mars eventually, but not until at least another 10 years from now, if not longer.

Answer 4

I think it's such a shame that many people are so ignorant as to how NASA works. The government and society could give two sh|ts about whether or not we go to space or Mars, or Pluto for that matter. People have lost interest and part of this is probably to blame on the lack of funding. If ever this war ends, we can start focusing on missions to Mars.

Answer 5

Easy answer, dude.....$$$$$$$$$ Pretty lame to blame NASA for not getting us to Mars when the fault lies with Congress. All they have to do is fund the project and NASA would jump on it in a New York minute.

Answer 6

Sending people to mars is a hard work. They need to spend a lot of time to build a spacecraft. They need a tough spacecraft to land on the deserted planet. They need to study about the weather on mars because mars has an extreme atmosphere.

Answer 7

NASA is looking into mining Helium-3 on the moon. If people can invent economical Nuclear Fusion, then there is enough Helium-3 on the moon to last 10000 years on earth.

Answer 8

And just how would you propose they do this? And with what funds? There's a lot of technological issues that need to be resolved before we hoof it to the red planet, and these issues take time & money. Pretty drawings on paper just don't cut it. Give NASA time.

Answer 9

NASA might do better if they had a more awesome name. Who wouldnt want to go into space with the Alien AwesomeTrons...

somthing like that

Answer 10

I suppose you have some inside information that NASA isn't currently TRYING to acquire that technology?

Why aren't you working for them?