US Presidential Candidates views on NASA - Episode 008

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US Presidential Candidates views on NASA - Episode 008

Duration: 30 minutes and 44 seconds

Country: United States

Language: English

License: CC Attribution

Genre: Video Podcast

Producer: Benjamin Higginbotham

Director: Benjamin Higginbotham

Posted by: spacevidcast on May 16, 2008

Like it or not, space and politics go together like peanut better and jelly and that is the main focus for this weeks show. Which candidates support NASA, which don't, or do any of them? In the news we have a earthrise, sunflares, missing supernovas and catholics can now believe in aliens. All that and more, oh so much more in this 30 minute edition of SpaceVidcast, episode 008. Show Links: Sun flares - http://io9.com/389753/the-sun-is-exploding Send your name to the moon - http://lro.jhuapl.edu/NameToMoon/index.php HD earthrise from the moon - http://io9.com/389392/kaguya-satellite-shoots-stunning-earthrise-and-earthset-videos Missing supernovas - http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/may/HQ_08126_Chandra_Supernova.html Buy some of Mars? I don't think so - http://www.marsshop.com Lunar investment properties? Can't fool me! - http://www.lunarinvestmentproperty.com/ SpaceVidcast paper on space and politics - http://www.spacevidcast.com/politics/ Additional resources on the candidates and space - http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/04/24/mccain-obama-and-clinton-on-nasa/ Why is space important? - http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2008/04/14/what-value-space-exploration/

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Video Transcription

(dramatic music)
(Ben) My name is Benjamin Higginbotham. Sitting to my left, your right, is the wonderful, beautiful, and talented...
Cariann Higginbotham. This is SpaceVidcast Episode 008. (laughter)
I was waiting for that. (Cariann) (laughter) (Ben) I knew that was happening.
For, what is it, May 15? (Cariann) Something like that. (Ben) 2008.
We're going to be talking about space and politics today. We had an episode earlier,
but we've been doing a lot of research on this topic. Because like it or not,
space and politics are linked at the hip. And there's not a lot you can do to get around it, so.
So, that's going to be our main topic for this evening. It's actually, we're doing this again outside.
We've got tiki torches. Look at that. Beautiful tiki torches right behind us.
And we're working on making kind of a set work. We actually had some nice lights in the background.
We were gonna light up the trees and then we blew a circuit breaker.
(Cariann) It was awesome. (Ben) So uh, we are gonna have to figure a way around that.
But we are getting closer. Every show we are getting a little bit better, kind of doing something fun.
And of course for this show we are battling the rain. You can maybe see a few drops
kind of in front of us. We're hoping that it doesn't pour too much.
But if we suddenly just like stop broadcasting and run, it's because it's starting to rain
more than we're comfortable with and we decided that... (Together) (laughter)
(Ben) So let's get started with the news. (Cariann) Alright. SPACE NEWS.
(Ben) Oh yeah, you're going to do the ah...let me bring up the ah. You know, and part of the show
is of course the interaction with everyone online through Ustream. (Cariann) Yes!
(Ben) So we've got the banner at the bottom, so you can see what they're saying live.
And of course joining us every night... Thursday's at 9 o'clock PM Central Daylight Time.
Which is negative five GMT. (Cariann) Of course it is because what else what it be. (Ben) Yeah, exactly.
(Cariann) Really. (Ben) Give me some Space News women. (laughter) (Cariann) Fine!
So, I don't know if you guys heard lately or not, but space has its very first lawyer.
(Ben) (laughter) Oh, great. That's all we need - Space lawyers.
(Cariann) Actually the article is very funny. It says "As if rampant piles of orbiting
junk weren't enough, humans have now given outerspace another one of our finest creations - a lawyer".
(Together) (laughter) (Cariann) "The law student's name is Michael Dodge.
He graduated this last weekend from the University of Mississippi with the first-ever,
at least in the U.S., certificate in Space Law." (Ben) Ok. (Cariann) ...and not a moment too soon.
(Ben) Now I, this is probably a newbie lawyer. Yeah, you know...does this have to do with why not a moment too soon?
You like how we just read the news to you off of other websites, isn't it nice?
(Cariann) Well I just - I don't know. (laughter) Umm...it says "With all the hubbub surrounding
weaponization of space, an immerging industry of privatized space interests on the horizon,
there's sure to be plenty of casework for Dodge and anyone who happens to follow in his footsteps."
(Ben) Right, and there's also a lot of law and restrictions in getting even the fuel neccesary to get into space.
And it's very difficult and painful to make happen, so I can see where that would actually be neccesary.
Assuming he is fighting for space and not against space. (Cariann) Well I, I think...
(Ben) Use the force young lawyer! (Cariann) Well, yeah right. It says "Space law has been around in one form or another
for about 40 years, mostly to prevent countries from going to war over who owns the Moon."
Who was it that brought up when we get to Mars who owns it?
(Ben) Oh, someone in the chatroom actually. (Cariann) Was that Fox? I think it was you Foxy.
(Ben) I don't know - that would be to clever for Fox. (Cariann) Oh sad, wow. And now he's yelling. Ok, awesome.
(Together) (laughter) (Cariann) Um, it says, "Things have gotten a little bit more entertaining since the rise of the Internet,
as entrepreneurs come out of the woodwork claiming that they own Mars, the Moon, etc.
And are selling extraterrestrial real estate online." (Ben) Wow, really? (Cariann) Yes.
(Ben) You know what - we need to find some of those links and add them to the show notes.
Do we have some of those links? Hey, anyone in the chatroom...if you can find some of the links
for people selling real estate on Mars. Now we've brought on guests before
who are trying to colonize Mars, but they're not necessarily selling...selling
Mars on thier website. (laughter) (Cariann) That would be awesome.
(Ben) I almost think that I want, I want to do it myself now. (Cariann) Yeah?
(Ben) I'm going to create a MarsForSale.com. (Cariann) Is that like sending your name into space?
(Ben) Oh hey, you can do that by the way. (Cariann) Or a star? (Ben) I'll add a link to our show notes.
But you can actually, on one of the next...what is it - the lunar...one of the NASA projects.
You can have your name embedded onto a chip and it will go either to the Moon or into space.
So I'll give you a link in the show. (Cariann) Well, thankfully the Moon is in space.
So even if it just gets to the Moon. (Ben) Yeah, thank you the LRO and it's Starbucks,
as everyone is saying marsshop.com. And I assume that's where you can...buy Mars. (laughter)
(Cariann) Buy a piece of Mars, man. (Ben) How many people are going to put that link in the chatroom?!
Wait I've got one, two, three, four, five...five people that put that.
(Cariann) Or at least five. Very nice. (Ben) Thanks, you know if everyone could put it in there -
that would be great. Seriously (Cariann) That would really be great. Oh man.
(Ben) As Totalrecall mentioned the LRO, do you have a link to that website Total,
that people can go to...to grab the um...? No, not marsshop, not marsshop, Total.
(Cariann) You guys are too funny. I know we wanted interaction, but really?
(Together) (laugher) (Ben) Oh, man. (Cariann) I love it.
(Ben) Alright, let's move on to the next one. And actually this is an interesting story
because I was doing a...was helping out with a business class DOC SIS 3.0 install for a cable modem,
which is 50 Megs down and 5 Megs up. And um, the installer was complaning because
he had been saying his cell phone hadn't been working right. It was like the tech gods were against him.
And it was just all acting wanky and calls were getting dropped and he just couldn't figure it out.
And he was like and most of our electronics are just kind of outta wack this week.
And I thought to myself, I'm like, yeah there's probably some giant solar flare going on.
But I didn't say anything cause I figured I'm just this space geek, right?
So he'a gonna be like yeah right solar flare. Turns out... (Cariann) The Sun is exploding.
(Ben) The Sun's exploding. (Cariann) Not exploding, exploding, like you know...
a star explode and all that other fun stuff. But it is shooting off spouts that look like lava.
They look like mini volcanos just pa-cha all over the Sun. (Ben) Pa-cha
(Cariann) Yeah, that's what I said. It says "The Sun is giving off such solar eruptions so massive
it looks like a huge volcano". We actually have some pictures, that was the link that I put into the room.
(Ben) We have pictures? (Cariann) Well, yeah. (Ben) You should let me know if we have pictures,
I could put them into the... (Cariann) I was actually setting up the tiki torches at the time.
(Ben) Well you should let me know before...just let me know there are pictures and I can...
This is a visual medium, we can show people. (Cariann) (laughter)
What's the URL? Let's see if I can hack this into the show somehow.
(Cariann) Alright, hold on. (Ben) Oh, forget that - I'm not typing that in.
(Cariann) Well why? Here. (Ben) No, I'm not gonna. (Cariann) Here. There.
(Ben) I can't click on...oh wait, can I? (Cariann) Why not? Yes, you should be able to.
(Ben) Hang on, I have the power. Alright people, I'm going to try and show you a picture. (Together) (laughter)
(Cariann) Oh, man. (Ben) This is all new for us, pictures in the middle of a video screen!
Wow, the technology! (Together) (laughter) (Cariann) Have a goodnight Fox.
(Ben) Oh, man. Alright so...keep going. I'm sorry...the Sun is exploding.
(Cariann) That's pretty much it and then we have pictures. I mean that's like the whole thing.
(Ben) Well at that point we're just going to move on. (Cariann) Right.
(Ben) I mean in not going to be able to... (Cariann) Hey, I wasn't y'know.
(Ben) Oh, man. Well keep talking about it somehow, so I can stage this and make it go.
(Cariann) Ok, the other cool thing that I have video of. You want that too? (laughter)
(Ben) Oh. Why do you do this to me? (Cariann) I didn't mean to. It's awesome, though.
(Ben) Yeah, but from now on you've gotta...you've gotta just... Alright, so here's a picture.
I got it. You see how quickly I was able to get that. (Cariann) Yes, Yes! (Ben) Man, jeesh.
You know that's hard. Alright, so in order to get out of the picture I'm actually going to have to do this.
And then do this because I had to stage that and there's no way to undo that.
So there we go. (Cariann) Alright, so the next story that has video, that has video that I didn't tell him that we had video of.
(Ben) (annoyed sound) (Cariann) It's kind of boring to be honest, but it is very pretty.
(Ben) Oh the Earthrise, actually if you go to...if you watch our open, there's a shot of that.
I'll see if I can't find that in the opening and you go ahead and keep... (Cariann) It's the...
(Ben) Earthrise? (Cariann) Kaguya...Ka-guya...Ka-guiya? (Ben) Watch this...
here we go. Now it's going to start playing some of our open, I'll mute it, but here you go.
This is just a quick shot of the...of what she's talking about. Oops that not gonna do it.
(Cariann) No, that's not quite it. (Ben) There's a bug in the software. (Cariann) It's somewhere - there it is. Ooh!
(Ben) Look at that right there. (Cariann) This comes from the Japanese Kaguya...Kagya...Kaygyakagu...
It's K-A-G-U-Y-A Satellite and these are high-definition videos of...there's actually a sunrise...a sunrise,
an Earthrise and an Earthset. (Ben) Yup, yup. (Cariann) And they, they're just gorgeous and it's some of the only videos
that we have that are like this. (Ben) Yup. (Cariann) And they've recently been screened at the
Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. (Ben) They're beautiful and that's part of the reason why they are in our show open.
So when we roll the show open a little bit later, watch for that - I mean they're so good
I was like I wanna show that everytime. They're just stunning, stunning shots.
And of course in the show notes we'll have... Is that another picture? (Cariann) (laughter)
No, no. (Ben) Yeah it is. (Cariann) Wait, wait, wait here I have this story and there's no pictures.
(Ben) Well alright if there's no picture in this story post the link to the other story somewhere.
Like private message it to me and then I will prep that and then by the time you come back to the other story...
We were so prepared for this show. (Together) (laughter) (Cariann) We were.
(Ben) This is...this is live TV at its best. (Cariann) That's why you guys like us.
(Ben) Yeah. See clearly we're not in some sort of fancy-dancy broadcast studio...
(Cariann) Oh no! (Ben) The producer hanging out over here. No, no. (laughter)
(Cariann) That just doesn't make any sense whatever. (Ben) Alright, so you just do your news story.
I'm going to be quiet and over hear for a moment while I practice.
(Cariann) Ok, while we're talking about politics we might as well be talking about religion.
(Ben) Oh great. (Cariann) The Pope, for all you Catholics out there. The Pope says
it's ok to believe in aliens. (Ben) Oh, well there you go. (Cariann) See, it was a good story.
I wasn't like bringing anything in. It says "The Vatican has now given the all clear for Catholics
to believe in life beyond our planet". Ah..."The Jesuit Director of the Vatican Observatory stated in an interview
that our Universe is just simply too big to rule out additional forms of life, even intelligent ones."
(Ben) Haha. (Cariann) See there you go. It goes on for a little bit. Blah, blah, blah.
And then the person who wrote the article is actually quite funny and it says,
"So do aliens have to believe in Christians as well?". (Ben) (laughter)
Like what if the aliens are Jewish or believers in Eckankar for instance? Is there an alien heaven?
But you know those are...that's a whole other topic, as far as I'm concerned.
I'm just glad that finally the Pope has said something I can agree with. How's that? (laughter)
(Ben) Works for me. I'm ready with your image. That was lightning speed. (Cariann) Wow.
(Ben) Wow. Here we go, here we go. Are you guys ready for this? Let the image speak for itself.
Here it goes, here it goes. Ooh. (Cariann) It's pretty isn't it? Very cool.
(Ben) It's pretty. What is it? (Cariann) It's a supernova. And we're worried that someone has stolen our supernovas.
(Ben) How dare they? (Cariann) I know. (Ben) How can you steal a supernova?
(Cariann) "This picture happens to be the youngest known supernova in our galaxy,
a mere 140 years old. The unassumingly named G1.9 0.3", at least I think that's how you say it,
"is at least 200 years younger than the previous youngest known supernova.
And it grew by 16 percent over just the last 22 years. However, NASA's Chandra Observatory
was able to confirm North Carolina State's Universities astrophysicist Stephen Reynolds's suspician...
(Ben) You know you could learn how to pronounce it before we go live. (laughter) (Cariann) that it was a supernova."
I could but why bother. (Cariann) There's just one problem. "NASA officials admitted
in a teleconference,"Our galaxy is still missing about 50 Supernovas."
(Ben) How dare they. (Cariann) The idea is that, "NASA's only identified 10 percent supernovas
of the supernovas in our galaxy". (Ben) Wait, was this the NASA announcement?
(Cariann) It very well could have been. I don't know. (Ben) Ok. (Cariann) "There sould be about 60 of them.
We've only identified 10." (Ben) It got windy all of a sudden. (Cariann) It is very windy.
I hope you can hear me! (Together) (laughter) (Cariann) So that means that we're missing supernovas.
Or we don't know how to identify them. They must clearly look different than what we thought they were.
And ah who knows or is our galaxy just simply different from other spiral galaxies
in that we just have a lower supernova count than everyone else. (Ben) Could be.
Now I believe it's actually true that our Sun will never go supernova. (Cariann) Huh, what?!
(Ben) Never ever. I think it's Starbucks or people, Kat in the chatroom here back me up.
I believe it is not possible for our Sun to actually go supervova. (Cariann) The other fun thing again about this article,
I apparentely like to read articles about people who like to write they way that I think.
If that makes any sense. (Ben) Yeah, yeah yup go ahead. (Cariann) Ok, it says
"The NASA conference call", that this person wrote or had with NASA, "was mostly civil
except for one guy who broke in in the line in a frenzy of pound sign pressing and then yelled,
"Hi, uh I wanna talk to you. I wanna talk let's talk about your consortium with China."
The operator hurried him off the line and then the call ended. Thinking they'd already
been disconnected one of the NASA scientists remarked, "Well apart from a couple of loonies,
I think that went quite well." (Ben) (laughter) So that was the NASA conference call.
(Cariann) Must have been. So there you go. (Ben) It made me snort, that's how funny that was.
(Together) (laughter) (Cariann) I know. There you go. Is that enough space news for you guys?
(Ben) Oh man. That's great. Alright when we come back we're going to have for the first time,
I think ever, we're going to have to air disclaimers to make this go. So we are going to be talking space and politics.
That's the main topic of the chat for the night and we've got pages and just information.
And we are going to be talking about Presidential Candidates and where they stand
with NASA and the United States. So stay with us. Ooh I have to hit buttons.
(dramatic music)
(Ben) Boom, check it out disclaimer. Basically saying that these are our opinions.
(Cariann) Well Ben's opinions. (Ben) My opin...well you know your opinions as well and anyone that's considered
a sponsor on the show or associated with the show. It is not their opinions, they are just opinions.
By the way we are allowed to change our opinions if the data changes as well.
We're not people who have to just stick one opinion, you can never, never go around with it.
So if data changes or if something is different in the data, then of course we can say
that wasn't quite right, I was wrong. You know this is where I think we should go from there.
(Cariann) Absoutely. (Ben) So that's our disclaimer. And this is designed to be civil.
You know politics sometimes people get really passionate about. And that's not what this is for.
This is basically to tell people um...a disturbing problem that I found, I wanna say on accident,
but I was basically doing research on politics and space and who I would vote for
based on their backing of the space program. And I'm in the process of writing an article at
SpaceVidcast.com/politics. Now it's not quite done, but you can read it, the work as it's getting done.
And there are three canidates right now. We've got McCain, Clinton, and Obama.
And if you are a fan of the Constellation Project, then the best person to vote for is absolutely none of them.
It turns out. None of them... (Cariann) I say write in Neil Armstrong. (Ben) (laughter)
None of them seem to have a very strong postion on the Constellation Program.
And Obama is an interesting creature, we'll start with Obama. Wow. (laughter)
The weather does not want to cooperate, it's blowing stuff my way. It's like don't talk politics!
(Cariann) Yeah, but I look so sexy right now. (Ben) The hair, with the wind blowing.
(Cariann) Yeah. (Ben) What about me? (Cariann) No. (Ben) (laughter)
So Obama has come out and said that he wants to funnel money away from the
Constellation Project and into his pre...his what preschool? His pre-kindergarten,
that's preschool right? (Cariann) Yes. (Ben) His preschool program and delay the Constellation
by five years. Now he doesn't actually talk about how he's going to do that.
Thank you for the link Ed, we'll add that to the show notes as well.
So he's going to funnel money away and is going to delay Constellation.
And then he's kind of...a lot of people have asked him why are you pitting education against the space program?
That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. (Cariann) Not at all. (Ben) I feel like they go hand in hand.
(Cariann) Absolutely. (Ben) Why steal from this...there are...we don't have an unlimited budget.
I'm not crazy, right? I mean you obviously you need money to make...
(Cariann) You can't just print more? (Ben) Right, yeah well we could.
(Cariann) Hey, there's an idea! (laughter) (Ben) Don't quite work that way. Great, Total I'll talk about that in a minute.
So I lost my train of thought. Oh, oh so we don't have an unlimited buget,
so we've got to find this money somewhere. But why do we have to steal it from NASA?
A company...not a company, an organization that is already pretty underfunded.
And in the article at SpaceVidcast.com/politics I lay out what I think are our three options
that I think that we should do. One is either give NASA more money, the money they need to succeed at the programs
that they have on their plate. Specifically doing a manned mission or a human mission to Mars.
Two - leave NASA as the status quo, which I think is the absolute worst option possible,
and I'll explain that in a moment. Or three, basically for all intensive purposes, revamp NASA into more of an FAA-type
organization that just monitors and sets policies on space. But allow to privatize sector to actually
do the space travel. (Cariann) Ok. (Ben) The reason I think option number two simply doesn't make sense,
is that right now NASA is so big and they've got enough money where it makes more sense for the private sector
to try and win the NASA contracts, then is does for them to try and go out and do it themselves.
(Cariann) Ok. (Ben) Now a few innovators and a few visionaries, like Branson and you know... (Cariann) Right.
(Ben) those guys. They're doing it all on their own. (Cariann) Mhuh. (Ben) But....
Oh the chat box is frozen. (Cariann) Ha! (Ben) That's amazing. That just totally threw me off guard.
I haven't had that happen before. (Cariann) (laughter) (Ben) Alright let's try doing that,
let's try doing this. (Cariann) Actually, dsgamer is saying in the chatroom that you apparently
can't see because out chatbox is frozen. So I apologize for that. That NASA needs to stay as the pioneer.
(Ben) Yeah, but well they don't...screw it we're just going to drop the chatbox and I guess we won't have any graphics
on the screen. That makes me sad. (Cariann) Weird. (Ben) Yeah, I know that's the first time
we haven't had graphics. I guess we will just have to...we'll read the chat to you is what we'll do.
We have kind of a telepromter in front of us, so we can actually. So the...yeah,
but if they stay the power, if NASA stays in charge right now let's be frank...
NASA is the world leader in space travel. (Cariann) Yes. (Ben) I mean...
they are the two billion pound gorilla. (Cariann) Yes. (Ben) And I have no problem with us going either direction.
(Cariann) Right. (Ben) They can the leader, but they need to have the funding to do that.
(Cariann) Right. (Ben) Or they can go away. (Cariann) Yeah. (Ben) And let the privatize...
because if what I'm saying is true... (Cariann) Mhuh. (Ben) and there actually is
money to be made in space, the private sector will find ways to make money. (Cariann) Oh, oh for sure.
(Ben) So those are the two things I think. Now if we just leave the status quo, it's just...
you know nothing is going to get done on either side. We spent the last thirty years in low Earth orbit
without going back to the Moon or onto Mars. If we leave things as the status quo, we'll spend another thirty years
in low Earth orbit without actually moving foward. I'm SICK of low Earth orbit, it's time to move on! Right?
(Cariann) Right. (Ben) So anyhow, Obama...I kind of got of track there. But Obama, taking out of education...
I'm sorry taking it out of NASA giving it to education. And he's been very up front and straight forward about that.
Now McCain and Clinton, they kind of play politics a little bit more. They try to give you the warm fuzzy,
but when you read into it a little bit you kind of go...huh? (Cariann) Yeah. (Ben) Yeah.
So Clinton has basically said we need to bring back science and we need to get back what we've lost in science.
By equalizing our manned spaceflights and our robotic spaceflights. Now, there are two ways you can look at that.
Right now NASA is very heavily manned spaceflight. (Cariann) M-hm. (Ben) If...
she's talking about equalizing it, you'd have to go one direction. You'd either have to
lower the manned spaceflight budget down to the robotics or raise robotics up to manned spaceflight.
And when she was pressed on that, it sounds like she wants to do this...and kind of bring the manned stuff down
and really move toward the robotic spaceflight. (Cariann) M-hm. (Ben) There are some great quotes in that article
at SpaceVidcast.com/politics. There are some great links to read up on that.
Ah, but that was a little bit scary as well because... (Cariann) If I may for just a second? (Ben) Sure.
(Cariann) Pilot_51 in the chatroom is saying that my only fear for further exploration, so sooner or later
we're going to lose someone up there. Ummm... (Ben) Of course. (Cariann) That's kind of the risk we take though, y'know.
(Ben) Yeah, you know what a lot of people died trying to find the new world.
Exploration is costly, not in just monetary, but in lives too. And I don't want to play that down,
every life is valuable, obviously. (Cariann) Oh for sure. (Ben) But these are the risks in advancing humanity.
I know that sounds cheesy and corny, but you know . Alright, we are gonna try this one more time just to see if this works.
Alright we'll leave that up for just a moment and if it doesn't work we'll bring it back down.
(Cariann) (laughter) EdSG is saying more people die in car accidents, so maybe we just shouldn't drive.
(Ben) Ya'know there are always ways to play the numbers and make it all do different things,
but ahhh...you know ahhh... it's just people will die. That's the way things work - people will die.
(Cariann) Yeah, it's unfortunate. Don't get me wrong, we're not trying to send people to their death,
but we need to figure out what's going on up there. We need to figure out how to better ourselves
to getting there, to getting to the Moon, to getting to Mars, to getting beyond all of that
and unfortuately there are going to be some casualities. But I think the people who train themselves to...
in those programs in order to be astronauts are fully aware of that and they are still willing to do it.
(Ben) Of course. (Cariann) We're not yanking people of the street and shoving them up into Never Neverland..
And so I think with that it's not as terrible as it sounds, if that makes any sense. (Ben) So that's uhhh...
that's... Max says they are scared to run into the Borg. (Together) (laughter)
(Cariann) Borg is in the Delta Quadrant, oh no. (Ben) Yeah, so Pilot_51 actually has a very good point ,
it's not so much just the fact of death it's getting through the first death. Because let's be frank,
it's going to get a lot of press. (Cariann) Yes. (Ben) At which point everyone is going to question, why are we doing this.
(Cariann) Right. What's the point? And that's when the people that go like this, and live their life through blinders and say
we have so many problems here, why are we doing that up there. The people who I call anti-visionaries ummm... they're going to come out
of the woodwork. And they're going to try to kill the program anyway they can. Cause they want to funnel
that money into things that they feel are more important. (Cariann) Right. (Ben) And of course
until the giant asteroid starts coming towards us and then they realize "Oh haha oops". So anyhow. And then there is McCain.
Now McCain has a really, really feel happy-go-lucky stance. Which is "I love NASA, go NASA,
space exploration rules". (Cariann) He's kind of goofy. (Ben) (laughter) Ok. (Cariann) In general, he's just kind of goofy.
But the weird thing is in his statement he actually says...he goes on for a paragraph.
And in that paragraph effectively.... (Cariann) Sorry. (Ben) That is giant looking bug.
(Cariann) I know! (laughter) (Ben) Effectively says nothing. Yeah eww, I don't want that bug. (Together) (laughter)
So the uh...he says nothing. It's politics. Yeah alien bugs, no kidding Colten. It's this huge... (Cariann) I think you killed it.
(Together) (laughter) (Ben) I wish...I swear to god it's like this big. (Cariann) Wow you guys.
Ahhh, we've gotta find a way around that. (Cariann) Yeah we do. (Ben) Yeah, alright.
So that's what... (Cariann) McCain. (Ben) That's what McCain didn't say about space travel.
And I don't really understand his position on space travel. So that, I think that needs to be researched further.
And the point of this is, none of this...none of these options bode well for NASA at all.
So if you are a fan of NASA, this kind of sucks. (Cariann) Yeah. (Ben) So what can we do?
In my opinion it only takes one voice, just one person to make a difference. And I realize that it may seem that the
government is huge. And Total why did you have to paste an entire paragraph?
The government is huge, nothing ever happens. But you know what, if you can educate people, if you can make them
understand why it's important. If you can get the point across, just one lone voice will turn into two.
And two will turn into four, six, eight, so forth and so on. And before you know it you'll have
a movement on your hands. Not a scary like zealotorious whatever. Just you know
people getting passionate about it and saying no this isn't right we need to do something about this and make
sure the candidates themselves understand that this is an issue. And let's be frank, this is a silent issue in this election.
The Space Shuttle is retiring in 2010. We've got nothing after that, for five years we have nothing.
(Cariann) It's 2008. (Ben) We are two years...we are a year and a half away from retiring the Space Shuttles.
When we do that we will have no way for...well we really don't have no way, but the US is stopping its ability to really get to the
International Space Station. And we are stoppping our way to explore. So it's time
to really think about this stuff because this next President is the one. This is a tipping point right here that we're at.
And either we are going to move backwards or we're going to move forwards. But we will not stay right where we are at right now.
Something will happen in the next year and a half. Like it or not it has to. Cause the Space Shuttle is going away.
That won't be stopped. So we either move into Constellation with Obama and delay it by five years.
Which means we'll be TEN YEARS without a space vehicle. (Cariann) That's awful you guys.
(Ben) That's amazing. (Cariann) That's ridiculous. (Ben) So really think about this, this a huge issue for us.
For everyone, well everyone across the world in my opinion. And we just need to let the canadites know that, you know that this isn't ok.
(Cariann) Well and like I said before... (Ben) Hold on I'm gonna go read. (Cariann) a lot of people are,
keep bringing up the concerns about the things that are going on here on Earth, ya know?
People are in war, people are dying, people are going hungry, all of those things. And I'm not saying that those things
don't count - they do. But if we don't get off this rock and it expodes, none of that matters anymore. None of it.
And we don't have time to waste to see oh maybe something will happen or maybe
something won't happen or maybe the Sun won't go supernova, so we're not going to worry about that.
(Ben) Well the Sun won't go supernova. (Cariann) But you see what I'm saying? (Ben) Yeah, of course. (laughter) It's the
same thing we chant every week, so you understand the point. (Cariann) It's scary. (Ben) It comes down to every single person in
the chatroom, us included. (Cariann) Yes. (Ben) Contact your Congressman or woman, contact your Senator, contact the people
that are in your state that run your government and let them know that this is an issue.
And contact the uh... (Cariann) NASA? (Ben) no the people running for President.
The canadites! (Cariann) Oh those people. (Ben) Wow!
(Together) (laughter) (Ben) I think we're ready to be done soon here. Wow. Ummm..Total mentioned earlier in a nice little
paragraph. One other plan is to freeze all domestic discretionary funding. And so that is another one
where McCain had basically said he wants to freeze the discretionary funding. Man that's hard to say.
(Cariann) I know. (Ben) But also wants to help NASA move forward, well you can't do both. So either NASA is going to have to have
an exception to that rule, or they are going to get their funds frozen and it just doesn't work both ways. Something is going to have to
happen there. So be aware that that's a problem. Colten wants Ron Paul back so does Kat.
It's ya'know and Total is talking about McCain I believe, he's double talking it. And frankly I think he is too.
A little bit more politics. As much as I completely and totally disagree with what Obama is saying,
at least he is laying it out for us. (Cariann) Right. (Ben) At least we know exactly where he stands on the issue. (Cariann) Right.
(Ben) I don't agree with him at all, but I know where he stands. (Cariann) Right. (Ben) Now we have to
change his mind. We have to make him understand that takeing away from eductaion is not the way to go.
We have to do the same thing to Clinton, we have to do the same thing to MCCain. That is the homework for everyone here at
SpaceVidcast. Not only do you have to contact the canidates and contact your Senators and make sure that everyone
understands that this is a big deal. And let them know why it is a big deal, but you need to talk to just a couple of people around you.
Get them excited about this. Eww. (Together) (laughter) (Ben) Get them going and we need to really rethink the outside thing.
So alright we're going to call that a night for now. Thank you so much for watching.
Tune in next week, next Thursday, when we'll be inside away from the bugs. (Cariann) Awesome.
(Ben) That thing is huge. Alright, stay tuned for us in post-show. I'm going to try and get a shot of one of these things.
They are like this big. They're from StarShip Troopers, I swear.
So alright, thank you guys for watching. We'll see you next week.

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US Presidential Candidates views on NASA - Episode 008

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