Both parties win with this mission.

From article, "Trump could replace Obama's asteroid catcher with a SpaceX-backed mission to Mars"

(What's more, Grunsfeld's presumed mission would line up with the plans of SpaceX and its founder, tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, who is hellbent on colonizing Mars — and sooner rather than later.

Musk has said he'll initially land Red Dragon space capsules on the Martian surface. Although those spacecraft are being designed for people, Musk noted there's plenty of room for a rover and other science experiments.

That's probably why Grunsfeld envisions contracting the company to send a small rover and sample-returning rocket. His rover would grab Mars 2020's samples, put them onto a small rocket, launch them up to his satellite's SEP-powered module in Martian orbit, and bring the rocks and dirt home for analysis by 2025.)

Me, My main concern is the slow movement out of humans into space. Either to the Moon, Mars, and other space places. We have all this technology and what do we use it for? 

If you consider that a pocket calculator has more processor speed then the U.S. Lunar Module's onboard computer system, you can see my frustration. With all our faster computing power technology we should have had a colonized Moon and Mars by now.

So, this idea, put up by former astronaut John Grunsfeld, of using an unmanned Red Dragon space capsule, which is already being planned by SpaceX to go to Mars, as a contracted mission to recover Mars soil is very important. 

It would be a great service for Trump to commit to because, one, the capsule is going their one way or another. So it isn't something that has just been thought up and needs a lot of government money to commence with. (The Rocket launch, and Red Dragon are free bees.) The only thing needed would be a rover that can collect soil samples and a mini-rocket that can blast them back into space for the ride home.) Two, if it succeeds we will finally know exactly what the soil of Mars consists of and can then better plan ways of converting it for future astronaut farm use. 

So it benefits Trump with low cost, mostly planned out, and it also benefits Elon Musk because he too needs to know about the soil if he is to get his astronauts to live off the land.

Both parties win with this mission.

MTA? Call me when everything is finished. Not before.

From article, "Second Avenue subway construction nearly complete, but still no launch date, MTA says"

(Staff has been trained, signals have been tested, but there’s still no opening date set for the Second Avenue subway.

With nearly all work completed on the line’s first phase, MTA Chairman Tom Prendergast said at a Monday committee meeting that he’s “cautiously optimistic” that the agency will open the Second Avenue subway before the year’s end. 

And he wouldn’t elaborate further. 

“That’s as clear as I can state it,” Prendergast said. 

The last of the work needed to open the $4.5 billion project is on track to be completed by Dec. 24, 2016, according to a report from an independent engineer presented to the MTA board on Monday.)

Me, "It's amazing that the MTA has the balls to claim the Second Avenue Subway will arrive on time after all their other projects, Extension of the 7 line, (opened 2 years late) and East Side Access (which was to be completed in 2009) may not be done until 2023.

It's not that I look down on the MTA or its projects. It's just that they start going out of control. I mean how hard is it to drill a tunnel, lay track, add signals, and construct stations? We've been doing it since the 19th century.

 I would ask the contractors at these projects but for some reason they are either not working or out to lunch as the head of MTA Construction Projects, Michael Horodniceanu recently found out.

It comes down to accountability and I don't think the MTA is accountable. Think about this: they are publicizing the first phase of the Second Avenue Subway as the main event, when we still have 3 more Second Avenue Subway phases of construction to commence. 
MTA? Call me when everything is finished. Not before.

Stealth is Dead.

From article, "Trump Calls Cost of F-35 Fighter Jet ‘Out of Control"

(President-elect Donald J. Trump said on Monday that the cost of building the military’s next-generation fighter jet, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, had spiraled “out of control,” and he vowed to save billions of dollars on military programs once he enters office next month.

In a Twitter post on Monday morning and a series of comments since last week, the president-elect assailed cost overruns for the Lockheed Martin-built fighter jet that have pushed the project’s cost beyond $400 billion, making the plane the most expensive weapons system in military history.)

And...

From same article, (In an interview on Sunday, and in a speech to supporters in Michigan on Friday, the president-elect accused military officials of failing to negotiate good deals with private-sector contractors because they know they might be hired by the companies after their military service ends.

“The people that are making these deals for the government, they should never be allowed to go to work for these companies,” Mr. Trump said on “Fox News Sunday.” “You know, they make a deal like that, and two or three years later, you see them working for these companies that made the deal.”

Mr. Trump said military officials who are in charge of negotiating multibillion-dollar deals like the F-35 project should be barred for life from employment with the companies that they worked with. That would be an expansion of the president-elect’s proposal that people who work for his administration be barred from lobbying for five years.)

Me, "The problem seems to be an I gotcha problem. These defense contracts are negotiated so as to give the government the best bang for its buck, at the time, but the problem is that once the government signs the contract, these defense contracts start running into all kinds of problems. It could be something overlooked in design. It could be construction workers wanting more pay or better health insurance, or the construction materials have gone up in price. Or, they just undervalued the true cost of the project.

Whatever the reason, our government can't say no to the contractors because they have been promised an important new weapon and they want it despite the cost. 

What should be evident is new policy that states that if the full cost of a project goes over a certain amount it is either killed or the contractor has to eat the costs. The American taxpayer should not be left on the hook paying for a weapon that is being rammed down the government's throat.

One final thing we should look at is the fact do we really need another manned Stealth Fighter? In an age where foreign countries are building new radar systems to detect Stealth, what's the point? 

We are basically creating a vehicle that a person will sit in and has to be protected from being shot down. We could have thousands of Unmanned Flying Vehicles (more commonly knows as drones) built for the same amount of money. These drones, could then be flown over enemy space and sure hundreds could get shot down but most will do their job and return to base. The future is not more stealth. The future is, remove the pilot from the aircraft, and build cheap drones that if they got shot down it doesn't matter. Stealth is dead. And, so is high cost projects."