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Top 10 Reasons for a Space Program
Its_My_Hair writes "Space.com has an article on the top ten reasons for a space program. Most of the reasons seem to say that our space programs are here for our safety." The only necessary reason is "because it's there".
We've already commercialized the Earth to the point of destroying our own habitat. We are dying from our pollution. We are poisoning ourselves.
I don't want to see humanity destroying the entire Universe, too. I wonder if perhaps special measures should be set up to protect the resources of the Universe, such as the planets around us and our Sun.
I would rather spend those "billions" of taxpayer's dollars on something like this that could help us all, rather than the reported 8 billion per month the US is spending to occupy Iraq.
What are we getting out of that? Dead soldiers and a whole new generation of Muslims who will hate the US enough to fly airplanes into offices towers.
That money spent on better Global Communications, space based energy alternatives, space based medical research and just expanding our knowledge of the universe would do more to bring about peace and understanding than all the Apache helicopers put together. Sharing the wealth and prosperity and all that.
Crazy idea, eh? Ever heard the saying you get more flies with honey than vinegar?
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
That's like saying "a roach is better than a cockroach any day."
HINT TO YOU, CLUELESS LEFTIE: Fascists ARE socialists!
(Ahem, "National SOCIALIST Party" ring a bell with you?)
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
" And while we are at it, thank you NASA for inventing fire, the wheel, alphabet, pottery and everything else." -- Is that the best you've got? Because you don't like that I made valid points, you belittle the idea?
"not really hard if you get billions of dollars in funding" -- Not true, billions go into research that goes nowhere all the time.
"Anyway, the point that I wanted to make was that space should not be our top priority. You didn't disprove it." -- Actually I did by pointing out the research introduced into the economy and technologies is invaluable. To belittle the accomplishments by saying "NASA has R&D capacity and it developed some useful things" is simply stupid. Any space agency has to have the research and technology development capability to push new 'frontiers', not to focus solely on advancing technology, especially since most technology finds it's own way into the economy anyway, while NASA trudges on.
Now onto your less important points:
1) your 'rough estimates' fail to take into account the cost of infrastructure, the personnel to maintain, the cost of installation, dealing with contracting, dealing with hardware changes, and even if you got a fibre only nation, how long before the next big thing came along and someone was saying "why not just re'install the lastest technology across the nation?"... On top of that, your estimates only take into account the cost of not only communications within the US but around the world. Think global, not local; then start moving onto thinking Universal, and not just global.
2) Energy from fusion is nonsense... and is NOT feasible. Fusion is what physicists looking for grant money use to get politicians excited about free energy. Every couple years a theoretical nuclear and particle physicist comes out with a paper on the subject. Let me make this clear to you -- it's crap.
3) The last time you checked our defense plan was still in place and the world knew we continue to improve our defense capabilities. That's why you don't have warheads falling on your head. An arms race for the sake of an arms race would be stupid, but logical deterance through proactive and known defense intiatives work.