Flying Robots

Who would have thought?

The U.S. spends hundreds of billions of dollars to help build the Space Station. Then we scrap or Space Shuttles and become dependent on Russia to transport our astronauts who then charge us a arm and leg.

Space Station

 Russia will charge the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)  $71

million to transport just one American astronaut to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard its Soyuz spacecraft in 2016.

That’s more than triple the $22 million per seat the Russians charged in 2006, according to a July 8 audit report by NASA’s inspector general. (See NASA IG-13-019.pd)

NASA spent $60 billion of U.S. taxpayer dollars to help build the ISS and that figure would increase to $100 billion if the cost of using space shuttles to assemble the ISS was factored in, the IG report noted.

NASA still contributes $3 billion annually to cover the space station’s operating costs, and signed an agreement to provide the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space an additional $15 million annually “to manage non-NASA research on the ISS.”

But NASA has little choice but to pay Russia's inflated ticket prices. Ever since August 2011, when the U.S. space agency mothballed its 30-year-old space shuttle program, NASA has had no way of getting American astronauts to the space station. The Russian Soyuz is now “the only vehicle capable of transporting crew to the ISS,” the IG report noted. 

FULL STORY - CNS News

Looks like time for private companies like to pick up the slack.

List of private spaceflight companies

FOOD STAMP - WELFARE FRAUD

Nobody should be all that surprised.
Just give stuff away and the recipients have no appreciation for the value of the gift.  Not keeping track of where the gift goes is tantamount to fraud.

Well, what politician is going to do something when all he/she will experience is grief from name calling and accusations of racism, not caring  for poor etc. 

We all know that.

NYC welfare food is shipped in barrels to the Dominican Republic - then sold on the black market 

Food-stamp fraud in New York has turned into foreign aid — to black-market profiteers in the Dominican Republic.

Last week, The Post revealed how New Yorkers on welfare are buying food with their benefit cards and shipping it in blue barrels to poor relatives in the Caribbean.

But not everyone is giving the taxpayer-funded fare to starving children abroad. The Post last week found two people hawking barrels of American products for a profit on the streets of Santiago.

“It’s a really easy way to make money, and it doesn’t cost me anything,” a seller named Maria-Teresa said Friday.

The 47-year-old Bronx native told The Post she scalps barrels of Frosted Flakes and baby formula bought with welfare money in the United States.

Maria-Teresa said she gets new barrels every few weeks from her sister, who buys everything at a Western Beef on Prospect Avenue near East 165th Street in Foxhurst.

The scamming sibling pays $75 per barrel to transport the items to the DR through Mott Haven’s Luciano Shipping. Sometimes the family fraudsters take advantage of a special: three barrels for the price of two.

Maria-Teresa said she uses some of the products but vends the rest out of her Santiago home, providing markdowns of $1 to $2 compared to what her buyers would pay in local shops.

The black-market maven even takes her customers’ requests for hot-ticket items. Her best-sellers include a 19-ounce box of Frosted Flakes, which goes for $6.50 at Dominican supermarkets. She sells it for $2 less — after her sister buys it on sale for $2.99.

But because the sister uses her Electronic Benefit Transfer card, she actually pays nothing — taxpayers foot the $2.99

FULL STORY - NEW YORK POST