I am doing a project on the space program and need some cons of the topic. Any ideas.
122538
The US states spends all that money on the space program, then when a disaster hits within the nation, there is "no money" to help the people.  Something is wrong with that picture.
96288
Most scientific research has no prospect of payback in the near or medium term future, if ever. Would you suggest cancelling all scientific research to eradicate povery also, even if some research could, in the future, change all our lives for the better? \n\nIt could be argued that the importance to America of their astronauts being first on the Moon was to establish a political benchmark against which the rest of the world would have to be measured. If a nation could make this supreme achievement, then what would be impossible to it?  I think America owes it's current prosperity in part to the feelings of pride and confidence generated by landing on the moon.
111444
Did you visit www.nasa.gov?\nThere are billions of constalation, but we can't know for sure cause some are just too far...
454196
Is it scary, or ironic?  One third of the US space program is run by aliens!\n\nThe Space Shuttle was built be the lowest bidder!
337635
Lotsa problems : \n\nTime : it would take like 2 years to get there\n\nHuman body : after 1 month in space, the human body has troubles with its bones because gravity doesn't work anymore, imagine after two years\n\nSpace : sun radiations would be very dangerous\n\nHuman himself/herself : who will volunteer for such a task? Imagine been crammed with 6 other folks in a room no bigger than your average kitchen, they'd probably kill each others before reaching Mars...
140904
We don't need space weapons - the rest of the world is not poised to invade, that is a myth perpetrated by the military-industrial complex. The scientific value of sending people into space is also I think questionable. We should concentrate on missions that will bring benefits to all mankind through better knowledge of our universe and decommision the weapons to spend the money more wisely on reducing poverty and suffering in the world.
47040
Yes - we learnt that there was no cheese in the moon or that there were no green men in mars.\n\nJokes apart - improvements in space travel - hs helped in improving sea going vehicles (submarines etc) also treatment of paraliysed people, also treatment of muscle atrophied etc...\n\nalso the satelite age heraled the ability for us all to better predict weather changes and also determine where the next oil deposit could well be...etc\n\nso you need to look at it all in the context of the benefits of space travel...so yes its important...\n\nand the money spent is well spent
115236
Trust me, the US space program was not a farce. You may have seen the old movie Capricorn 1 but that much could not have been faked. We can barely simulate weighlessness with airplane flight for a minute or two--there is no way we could simulate it lasting for days, weeks, and months. There is no way to fake the changes on the human body from prolonged weightlessness.
342943
Space is good.  We like space.\n\nYou can deal with it by not over reacting.
45360
Go to NASA at http://www.nasa.gov/home/index.html?skipIntro=1 They have a ton of information about anything related to space
296064
Supposedly it's true, there were visitors around the ships, I think that they (Astronauts) refered to them as "Space bugs", they were (and are) seen floating around the ship on several occassions, NASA is well aware of them, they show up on just about every launch, supposedly harmless, but still a life form of some sort. One school of thought is that the reason the moon shots were cancelled was because, NASA had found evidence that now, or at one time the moon was being used as an observation post for another life form that was studying Human behavior on Earth.... Perhaps they got sick, after seeing how we treat each other, and left ! Pretty interesting stuff, Huh ?
495366
No matter how good something is, it can always be improved.  If people just settled for things, there would never be any technological advances in any field.  It's possible that NASA could come up with a more fuel efficient, faster shuttle than the current space shuttle.  Actually, I'd say that's inevitable if they keep doing research.  It's only a matter of time.
156882
I suggest you begin with two searches on Wikipedia. One is 'space race' and the other is 'John F Kennedy'.
38064
It's all a waste of money, but it's a better and more inspiring waste of money than the real drains on the government's budget.  Actually, I'm already having second thoughts on that comment.  Read "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" by Richard Feynman.  Before the Challenger disaster, there were indicators everywhere that the shuttle shouldn't be launched.  Thanks in large part to the beauracracy of NASA, seven astronauts lost their lives.  It's a tough issue, but I still think NASA deserves more funding and attention.
548814
The assembly of rockets and other space components is still extremely expensive for a number of good reasons.\n\n1. The performance demanded by these applications require a very low tolerance on the parts and use exotic materials and engineering practicies that are expensive.\n\n2. It takes a very long time to assemble an engine. I imagine the shuttle engines (liquid) may take a good portion of a year with a rather large engineering team.\n\n3. A lot of the costs are involved with development and testing. When compared to the commercial sector, rocket development is still quite expensive per unit. While a number of rockets have been produced, 20 rockets is a lot different from 300 aircraft that the commercial industry sees.\n\n\nHere is an example using information from actual technical documents,\n\nThe space shuttle main engine (SSME), uses turbines much like jet engines to pump the fuel and oxidizer into the combustion chamber. These turbines have to pump about 1000 lbs of fuel and oxidizer to the chamber per SECOND! These turbines have blades in which each blade (that will fit in your hand) produces about 600 horsepower.\n\nThe preburners operate at about 5000 PSI and at about 1500 degrees F.  \n\nThe main combustion chamber face plate (where all the fuel is injected) has a diameter of, try to picture this, 17.74 INCHES with an operating pressure of about 3000 PSI at about 1700 degrees F.\n\nImagine a large dinner plate with 1000 lbs of fuel and oxidizer flowing through it /second operating at those pressures and temps and you'll soon understand why its expensive.
139781
Satellites are always in danger of dust and micrometeorites. Since they are above much of the atmosphere, they are not shielded. Cosmic radiation also degrades the circuitry and even the collectors.  As far as insurance, my guess (and it is only one) is that someone is willing to bet on that. Insurance, after all, is betting that something will or will not happen.
560340
I woke up to a news report on the radio about how NASA had lost contact with their shuttle, and there had been reports of falling and burning debris. I was sad.\nHonestly... We should be surprised that things don't go wrong more often. Launching into space is a delicate and dangerous venture. There are far more people who are killed each year by toothpicks than die for the purpose of space exploration. This is something we should be proud of.