Brit boffin baffles NASA with $785 pics from space

[Iceaxe]

[QUOTE]A British hobbyist could teach NASA a thing or two about taking photos from space - and NASA is apparently willing to listen.

Robert Harrison rigged a Cannon camera to a helium balloon to take photos from the edge of space - images that NASA admits would have cost the space agency tens of millions of dollars to capture.

The whole project cost Harrison about $765.

[Scott Card]

Seems to me the private sector could teach government a lot about cost savings.....

[trackrunner]

Seems to me the private sector could teach government a lot about cost savings.....

so what do you think about Obama cutting orbital space exploration and having the private sector take it's place with NASA focussing more on deep space exploration.

[Scott Card]

Honestly, I am not sure. I don't know where private sector funding comes from in this arena. Part of me wonders if this was a good move since so much good science seems to come from NASA. Part of me also wonders about the national security issues of space. I belive that we need to stay ahead of the world with science and technology for amongst other reasons, national security that is why I tend to lean towards the skeptical side of Obama cutting the funding.

BTW, my comment was not leaning towards cutting NASA funding or that NASA was bad. I was only commenting that sometimes all that brain power thinks too hard and complicates things. Also, when you are not spending your own money, what the heck - spend away! The private sector has to spend their OWN money and therefore, tends to solve many problems more efficently and cheaper.

The bigger issue to me is--science for science sake. Most private organizations won't fund that kind of philosophy. Most private organizations must see a return on the dollar. I don't have any examples but I would imagine that NASA has done the science on a government dollar then someone has found a commercial use after.

So, in short, I still don't know how I feel about the cut to NASA. I don't know enough really to make a good decision.

[trackrunner]

well how I read it the taxi service of the shuttle would be contracted out in a few years. argument was to build the private sector space industry and get private sector savings. Human exploration of Mars, astroids, etc would be NASA.

[Sombeech]

Private Sector = Winner