NASA is pulling the plug on a mission to Mars; and, what’s more, the
space agency has inexplicably announced a new plan to reduce its
exploration of all other planets.
According to CBS DC:
“Two scientists who were briefed on the 2013 NASA budget that will be
released next week said the space agency is eliminating two proposed
joint missions with Europeans to explore Mars in 2016 and 2018. NASA had
agreed to pay $1.4 billion for those missions. Some Mars missions will
continue, but the fate of future flights is unclear.”
This bombshell has many seeing red, so-to-speak. Nasa’s former
science chief Edward Weiler, who until September was Nasa’s associate
administrator for science, is among those expressing outrage. He is
quoted at The Daily Mail
as saying: “To me, it’s totally irrational and unjustified. We are the
only country on this planet that has the demonstrated ability to land on
another planet, namely Mars. It is a national prestige issue.”
What happened with NASA? Why the sudden 180-degree pivot? The
official reason being given for this is that the budget for the space
program is suddenly operating under new restrictions; and the money
currently being spent on the space telescope programs already puts NASA
over-budget.
However, there could be other reasons. What’s notable, I think, is
that this sudden Mars cut-off comes shortly after a few different
reports of aliens on the Red Planet. Check out this brief timeline of
events:
In 1989, according to some UFO conspiracy theories, the Russian space probe Phobos II
had been deliberately “downed” by extraterrestrials. Several
photographs were published, which were made shortly before Phobos 2
failure, which seem to support this theory. Accusations have been made as recently as January of this year that allege there are additional Russian documents that contain information about Mars being inhabited.
Two years ago, President Barack Obama announced plans to put a man on
Mars. Just last May, experts involved in the planned mission to Mars
confirmed that they were still “pretty positive” that a trip to Red
Planet could happen in our lifetime. Advanced spacesuit technology and
other equipment was being put through the paces in a dry run in 2011. It looked like a manned mission to Mars was going to happen soon!
February 9 of this year, there were reports of an “alien craft” spotted
on Mars. NASA was quick to say that the object was one of ours.
Irene Klotz of Discovery News
explained: “It’s alien technology — ours! NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance
Orbiter (MRO) snapped this image of Bonneville Crater, near where
Spirit, one of NASA’s two roving geology stations, landed in January
2004. The scene was captured by the MRO’s High Resolution Imaging
Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera.”
Is it ours, or is that cover-story? (Cue the ‘X-Files’ theme here.)
Within 2 days of that picture, NASA pulled the plug on the Mars mission.
There’s another, third possibility. The government could be preparing to leave it to private companies; to just let SpaceX or Virgin Galactic
go to Mars. After all, they’re more likely to do it faster and cheaper;
and people like Sir Richard Branson will probably make it more fun and
commercially successful.
I’m pretty inclined to believe the third possibility. But how about
you? Think NASA worried about stirring up trouble on Mars, or only
avoiding trouble with the checkbook?
Related News Links:
news.discovery.com
ufocasebook.com
www.agoracosmopolitan.com
washington.cbslocal.com
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