but when I do, I DRP-4.

But is has already been done. An actual viable plan to get to Mars would be a new exploration, but no one has ever been willing to put up the cash for that.

Hold on, now. While I made mention of the Apollo 11 landing in my post there, my opinions on manned spaceflight in general should not be compartmentalized in the Apollo program. There are plenty of unexplored possibilities in manned spaceflight that go beyond simple (and I use the term "simple" loosely) moon landings.

But it was a colossal scientific failure.

Well, I would argue that not all things require a scientific or monetary purpose to avoid being "pointless." By your reply it sounds like you were impressed by the technological feat and awed by the accomplishment, at the very least. That hardly sounds "pointless" to me, if the program captured the hearts and minds of the American public (to say nothing of the rest of the world).

The one contribution it has made - fixing the Hubble - could have been finessed more cheaply and effectively simply by building and launching more Hubbles.

NASA was under extreme pressure to fix the current Hubble to avoid the political fallout of its initial failure, so time was a factor in their decision to repair instead of relaunch. It took a long time to build Hubble in the first place; if they'd taken the time to assemble another one, they'd miss their window to fix the mistake in the public's eye and regain their trust; failing to do that would almost certainly have cost them funding in the future. I'd say that from NASA's political standpoint, they made the right call. Unfortunately, the correct political decisions aren't always the most financially sound.

Been done in a completely automated experimental payload for a fraction of the cost and risk

I don't know what reality you're living in, but automated systems are expensive; especially since we're not talking about experiments done purely on machinery or electronics. A lot of STS-107 mission's experiments were in the fields of life science and earth science.

So the space program not only killed seven people, but needlessly killed seven people.

No one put a gun to their heads and forced them into orbit. They knew the risks of their jobs and accepted them eagerly. You insult their memory by even talking about their accomplishments being "needless".

Or lets take the Hubble repair missions. A repair mission on the Hubble costs a billion dollars plus. It would be cheaper just to strap a new telescope on a rocket and just launch a replacement instead!

Would it? The risk (in both time and money) involved in launching a brand new, unproven telescope doesn't even come close to the cost associated with maintenance on a time-tested, working telescope. Not to mention how long it took to build Hubble in the first place.

Manned space flight isn't about being "cost effective", "high priority", or "a good return on investment" (yes, I've heard all of these terms used in regards to spaceflight). It's about exploration, curiosity, and wonder. I challenge you to tell someone who was around on July 20, 1969 that manned spaceflight is pointless.

It's about doing something simply to show that it can be done, like the explorers of centuries past. I suppose some people find that concept unimportant or even boring.

I would say that those people are unimportant and boring.

You didn't mention the location of your school (probably wisely); however, it would be useful to know at least the vague region in which you live, as it impacts what's visible at different times of the year.

The moon, Venus, and Mars are good places to start. NASA has a "Near-Earth Object" program (http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/) that may be of interest to you.

Also, while man-made objects aren't necessarily directly related to astronomy, the International Space Station is also quite visible with the naked eye; I'm sure a telescope would make the observation much better. Again, this depends on your location and when the ISS will be visible there.

We don't need to do a lot of things. Magellan didn't need to circumnavigate the globe (yes, I'm aware he didn't quite make it, not the point). Columbus didn't need to sail across the Atlantic. You and I don't need to have hobbies. We don't need to have a sense of adventure or exploration. We don't need to have any amount of fun. We don't need to be curious about the universe in which we live.

This is what happens when you put a politician in charge of anything. The only thing they think we need to do is lead our drab little lives. Go to work, be a good consumer, pay our taxes; all so they can live fat and happy on top of the world while we spend our lives toiling away, chained to the desk of some office job. Sound fun to everyone?

To hell with politics and to hell with Obama. I knew there was a reason I didn't vote for him.

What's next? they are going to retire the IIS?

They've actually talked about deorbiting the IIS in 2016 (there's a previous article on /. about it; not bothering to link it, Google it yourself). I doubt they will, but it's been mentioned.

that's all vaporware

They said the same thing in 1976 about the Space Shuttle.

Around seven billion people are thought to suffer some kind of brain impairment, he said.

Fixed.

The summary is a bit sensationalist. Being a resident of Indianapolis, I know for a fact that there are a ton of hospitals around this area. Chances are St. Vincent's got a lot of those patients. I'm certain that Methodist would not have turned away any patients that they were not absolutely certain would receive adequate aid at another hospital, or if they thought that the patient in question was in no condition to be re-routed.

As for paper vs. electronic records, hospitals keep both. The point is that paper records take a lot longer to manage, and if they can safely do so, it's in everyone's best interest for them to send patients to other hospitals in order to get caught up on paperwork. If their paperwork keeps piling up, the chances of losing important data increase by a large margin, and that's bad for all parties involved.

No, I say that Methodist made the right call here.

I'm replying to the article, not you.