India plans manned space mission in 2016

I hope India succeeds. By that time the US won't be able to place a man in orbit because of the current adminstration (who are democrats) anti real science and technology stance. That and we will not have two dimes to rub together.

Great to see India entering the manned space flight arena. I imagine a space race with China is likely to develop; which is no bad thing. It might inspire the US to leave low Earth orbit.

...and, to the previous poster - it was the bankers that broke the bank, not the Democrats. It amazes me how short peoples memories are. Maybe they only remember what suits them. I guess the facts don't matter to you, 'freethinker'.

progressive leftist forced banks by using legislation to lend to people who they knew couldn't affort home loans. It is the default of the loans that caused the meltdown.... but that is off topic... if you want more info on this please PM me.

Having leftist democrats in power is destroying our spaceflight dreams. Belows story shows that Obama is abandoning the moon project.

http://www.orland...04.story

Its very sad that India and China is humanities only hope for space travel.

I seriously doubt India will make it by 2016, 2025 is more like it. India has far too many distractions. Money for the US Moon program could be had by firing the two thirds of NASA engineers who don't do anything but collect a paycheck.

@freethinking.

The bankers were not forced to lend 15 trillion dollars to America's poor. If they were: America's poor would not be poor. The amount of money lent by the banks to the poor was relatively insignificant, but it was the 'touch paper' that lit the powder keg that was the 'over leveraged', or irresponsible (quick buck) financial industry.

The financial industries were over leveraged because they were unregulated; no one was watching what they were doing (which was borderline criminal). Regan, Thatcher and the right wing economists of the '80s were responsible for this. Deregulation was their mantra.

The financial industry broke because the banks realised that after twenty years of imaginative dealing in imaginary money they didn't know who was holding the very real hot cheques and IOUs - the reality was: they all were. The result: the banking industry froze.

btw, i work for the IBRD. It's my job to know the facts.

@freethinking

The Democrats put us on the moon; they also gave us "the bomb". The "progressives" made the USA a superpower. It was the Republicans under Nixon that ended space exploration condmening us to decades of thumb twiddling in low earth orbit.

Obama can't commit to an extensive space program because the bankers bankrupted the country.

Dunbar,

Please research the fact instead of repeating Democratic talking points.

Banks are overregulated. If you dont lend to the poor, who cant pay back, then you cant lend to others. It was known for a long time that the banking practice was unsustainable, but at every turn, progressives were stacking the deck.

When you stated that if bankers did lend to the poor they wouldn't be poor, shows your ignornace. Lending to a poor person who you know cant pay you back, wont pay you back, will not make the person rich. It will just make the both of you poor. Funny.... Isnt that just what happened???

India?

@Freethining

The banks have cost the US tax payer 15 trillion dollars. Yet, The banks did NOT lend 15 trillion dollars in mortgages to the poor. If they had it would have meant that each individual that defaulted on his mortgage (8 million people foreclosed in 2007) would have been the recipient of $1,875,000 from the banks. No poor person was lent nearly 2 million dollars. The average subprime loan was 10 times less: around $180,000. So why is the tax payer giving the banks $15 trillion?

We are giving banks the money because they have been gambling money they did not have. They were ‘over leveraged’, they had gambled more money than they had in reserve and could not cover the losses if the 'futures' trades they were gambling on turned 'bad'. When the subprime market began to tank, they panicked and stopped lending. They got into this position because they were unregulated.

Government regulation, had it been in place, would have prevented the crisis.

For the risk of going off topic. I think We agree banks should not have been bailed out, neither should the car makers. Let these institutions collapse and allow new companies to emerge.

Banks and Insurance companies are very highly regulated. But it was government regulation, government Incompetence, government rules, that caused and allowed the banks to do what they did. The government cannot be absolved of their involvement and those in Government involved should be prosecuted.

Interesting fact... which party did the banks and insurance companies give the most donations too in the last decade? If you said Republicans, you would be wrong. It was the Democrats.

As for progressives, they gave us Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Chavez, and our own economic collapse. History shows us where progressive thought leads to. That is why I am an independant. If a Republican lies, don't cover for them. If a Democrat lies, don't cover for them either. Hold elected officials accountable.

It was the lack of rules that caused the crisis. The banks were self regulating; they were given the freedom to make up their own rules. Alan Greenspan, a student of Ayn Rand, is on record as stating, in front of a Senate committee, that his philosophy was 'wrong': the deregulated, 'free' financial markets didn't work as he expected.

If the banks had not been bailed out, their collapse would have dragged the entire economy with them. Without capital, all businesses would have failed. There wouldn't be a 'Dollar', or a United Sates probably.

If it wasn't for 'progressives' we wouldn't have democracy, or capitalism. Half the population would be slaves and kings would wield arbitrary power, and Christians would burn scientists at the stake for telling the truth. They probably still would if they could get away with it.

(btw, there was no financial crisis in Sweden; all the banks are state owned.)

Sorry Dunbar, the enemy of democracy and capitalism is progressivism. You sound reasonable, so please read up on progressivism. It gave rise to Hitler, Stalin, Mao, eugenics, communism. It is a very distructive philosopy it is one that believes only the elite can rule, the rest of us are too stupid to know what is good for us.

Ad Astra India! Maybe we could hit a ride to Leo with there space program. P.S. Off Topic gentleman! where's the Mod on this site?

freethinking

Throwing the Democrats in with the great dictators is stretching the the definition of a 'progressive'. The dictators you list were certainly 'Utopians', although Hitler's utopia was for the few. One thing that united these totalitarian regimes was their dogmatic public adhernce to ideology. Anyone driven by ideology is a dangerous individual, whether they are for total government; or are anti-government.

Capitalism is a revolutionary idea; Adam Smith's ideas were certainly 'progressive'. Smith saw a better way to organise society that he believed would eventually benefit everyone, even if it meant destroying the 'old world' of Kings, peasants, guilds, monopolies and the forces of conservatism.

Democracy is the most revolutionary, progressive, idea ever conjoured by mankind.

@High_Evolutionary, i apologise for derailing the comments. I should save it for a politics forum.

Stalin, Mao, utopia was for the few as well. If your a Progressives today you believe like Stalin, Moa, Hitler, that a few elite should rule the world, and that the masses are too dumb to know what is good for them. They believe in Government control of peoples lives.

I agree with Dunbar, we should save this discussion for a politics forum, I just wanted to point out that the democrat party, contrary to what it says, what the media portrays them as, is not the party of science.