NASA recently completed construction on a huge 30 story tower which had a huge vacuum chamber designed to test rocket engines that would be used on spaceships to go to the Moon. The building cost $349 million. However, NASA isn't even going to use it. Instead, they mothballed it as soon as it was finished. This means that they basically shut it down, and closed everything off, so that people wouldn't wander in. The reason for this was the project ended up costing 3 times more than they thought, and took several years longer to build than they thought. Several years ago President Obama shut down NASA's mission of returning to the moon, so this tower was not needed, but they finished it anyway, because they thought they might use it in the future. The story talks about how this situation is a monument to how the American Space Program has lost its sense of direction, and is falling apart because of lack of direction and funding.
I think that this is something that is alarming about our current government and space program because this was something we used to pride ourselves about, things like being the first to the moon and being on the leading edge of technological advancement, but now we are wasting taxpayer money on stuff like this rather than either putting it into something to help people or putting it into a project we'll actually use.
What do you think about the direction the American Space Program is headed?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2014/12/15/nasas-349-million-monument-to-its-drift/
Replies
Good job overall! Be sure to hyperlink correctly and comment more regularly as you only commented two days.
Well if they spend that much money on a useless tower, they are not gonna do well
I think they are headed downhill. That was such a waste of money. I cant believe that our government us one of the richer because we are so far in debt.
How could they spend that much taxpayer money on a worthless building that won't be used. How could our country throw away $350 million. I believe that NASA has formed this country and is responsible for some of its greatest accomplishments. Even though NASA's is crumbling it needs to come back and help our country return back to the top. If the NASA program continues to do this it will never return back to it's once great self.
I don't know how our government can be one of the richer nations and still be this far in debt, and as for our space program they should ask them self the question presented and see which way the program is headed.
It's been going downhill for a while now. Seriously, since the first moon landing, what was the biggest headline to come from them? Obama realized that people weren't exactly too worried about space exploration, so he just shut down their mission because another moon landing basically ends with "Oh hey, they landed on the moon. You should play your turn on Trivia Crack." Do you think that's worth the money? Nah.
I think that it's going downhill.
I think they should at least finished the project because that is such a waste of money.Nasa either needs to stick to there projects and finish them or just shutdown.
I think our space program has been going downhill faster than people would like. If President Obama didn't shut down the mission to return to the moon NASA might not be in this downward spiral.
I agree, I think NASA needs a goal that we all support.
-
1
-
2
-
3
-
4
of 4 Next