Slashdot Mirror
USA To Return To Moon By 2015, Then Mars
securitas writes "This afternoon George Bush announced space exploration plans for the USA to return to the Moon by 2015, the design and construction of a new space vehicle fleet by 2014 (called the Crew Exploration Vehicle) to replace the aging space shuttles which will be retired in 2010, and the construction of a permanent Moon base, followed by manned missions to Mars. The initiative begins with a $1 billion increase to NASA's budget and $12 billion in new space exploration money over next five years. However Congress is concerned about how to pay for the new space policy initiative in the face of a $500 billion national budget deficit. AP via Yahoo has a Moon/Mars/space policy FAQ, and there's more at NASA and the New York Times among others."
And if a married couple goes up together NASA gets $1.5 billion more!
This argument never fails to frustrate me and I'm sure it's going to come up in this discussion.
Here's the thing, the federal budget is well over a trillion dollars. NASA's budget is around 17 billion. It's roughly 1 percent of the national budget. People get so scared about the word billion that they forget the scale of cash that the US has to allocate.
Does anyone honestly think that putting that bit of money elsewhere would solve whatever domestic problems you want fixed? Have we yet cured hunger, poverty, or undereducation? No? Well, we've been throwing billions at them so far. If you're looking for funds to cut and inefficiencies to uproot, look in defense and welfare. Diverting funds from NASA to domestic programs will not change anything except to kneecap our development as a multi-planet species.
Another misassumption is that if money is cut from one department, it automatically gets redistributed to others. That's not the way it works. And yes, I know we're running a deficit but a 1 billion increase over the next 5 years isn't going to contribute significantly to it. And IIRC, every administration except for 1 (maybe 2) has run a deficit and the country has not yet fallen.
But won't this cost a trillion dollars? No, not if done right. Father Bush's plan was scrapped because the estimate he was given was based on an outmoded model for Mars exploration. On top of that, it was subjected to a committee that took it as a chance to write themselves a blank check with their 90-day report. Bust the first was ignorant to any alternatives so he abandoned it. Read up on Mars Direct. It's a plan to do Mars missions on the same budgetary scale as the Apollo missions. Those were done for about the same budget that NASA currently gets. NASA doesn't need more money, just proper direction and it looks like they're finally getting some of that.
See my other post for more on the case for Mars and space exploration.
Blaze a trail to the New World
It's about time too. The current shuttle fleet has computers less powerful than the modern car and structural materials about as sophisticated as a shopping trolley.
I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
I have seen price tags from NASA people and other space scientists for the whole expedition fluctating from $60-175 billion.
It's probably difficult or impossible to make an accurate estimate of total cost this early in the process but nevertheless the current estimates deviates much from each other.
$60 billion is one thing, but $175 billion?
Yes I know going to Mars might create some jobs and promote technology and development but I would like to know the price tag anyway.
And with a $450 Billion budget deficit already I'm not so sure that this is a good idea.
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
2015!? Can't someone just leap outta damn shuttle as it flies by?
a backport? :-)
how Congress will aprove huge sums of money
the second anyone has Weapons of Mass Destruction,
but when it comes to creation or anything interesting, they don't care...
We could take that $87 bil. and build 10 perfectly
good NCC 1701s, except with M2P2 propulsion
instead of warp...
wait for it
.....NOW!
wait for it
...you could have spent $100B on NASA, getting people back to the moon and to Mars and been remembered forever.
Instead you chose to spend $100B on bombing Iraq, to be reviled forever.
Nice going, twit.
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
"the design and construction of a new space vehicle fleet by 2014 (called the Crew Exploration Vehicle) to replace the aging space shuttles which will be retired in 2010"
Anyone else concerned about the 4 year break from the retirement of the shuttle to the *planned* launch of the new craft? The last time we'll have stayed out of space for so long is before the shuttle launch (assuming we get back there following Columbia anywhere near NASA's schedule). There are already problems with the ISS given the shuttle's current grounding...
I am a big proponent of the space program but i think money would be much better spent developing resources on the moon as opposed to going to mars. I am not saying mars should not be an eventual goal but im much more interested in the moon as a future energy resource.
I would like to salute the ashes of american flags, and all the fallen leaves filling up shopping bags.
Insert Bush gives money and it's Wednesday so he must be good here. Tomorrow I expect everybody to hate him for being in Iraq again.
Q: What is the president proposing?
A: To send astronauts back to the moon and establish an "extended presence" there. Later in this century, astronauts would be sent on to Mars.
Mokey see, mokey do.
Sorry, couldn't resist :)
The master of financial strategery
yvan eht nioj
The astronauts should do what the rest of do when we need money for long road trips - donate plasma.
A lot more money are needed than this.
Mayby 10 times the money.
First lunacy: waste money bringing the space station up to snuff, then abandon our part in. That's one hell of a message to send to future prospective partners.
Second lunacy: only add $1B to NASA's budget. They will have to gut every other program to fund this return to the moon, and they appear to be eager to do so.
Third lunacy: nothing in this proposal has anything to do with making access to space cheaper.
What ought to happen is tell NASA to get out of the way of independent private companies who are trying to get into space for much less money than NASA spends just thinking about it. That's the key. Let NASA build satellites and telescopes and whatnot, but make it law that NASA has to go with the cheapest launcher of reasonable reliablity, and if that means going with some private company who can do it for 1/10th the cost of Lockheed or Boeing or Ariane, so be it.
Infuriate left and right
Or did President Bush say "Crew Expiration Vehicle" three times during his speech, and made reference to "expiration that will inspire today's students"?
I've been around Texas, and I tell you I've never heard a native Texan mispronounce a word like "exploration" so obviously, repeatedly, and to me, ominously.
Bleakness... Desolation... Plastic Forks...
IF we retire the shuttle fleet by 2010 and bring the new vehicle on by 2014, what exactly do we do for the grounded four year? Don't see any other option offered, and hitching a ride with the Russians only goes so far.
-G "We love to buy books, because we are buying the belief we have time to read them" - Warren Zevon
Well, stop bombing people would be a good start.
In 1961, Kennedy said that we would land on the Moon by the end of the decade. Eight years later we did it, and we had to develop the technology along the way. Now, in 2004, Bush says that we will be back on the Moon by 2015, and we have the technology already. Is it really going to take us eleven years to get back to where we were in 1969?
If the shuttle is retired in 2010, and the new vehicle is available in 2014 (later, if it's delayed), then this leaves nothing for four years. Not good.
Let us not forget that the first President Bush suggested much the same thing: let's go back to the Moon, let's get ourselves to Mars, etc. He did it in the waning days of his presidency, to help boost his decreasing popularity, and to take attention away from the declining state of the economy.
Now, Bush II does the same thing. First, he tried the immigration proposal, and that went over like a lead balloon. Now, he's throwing the next shiny toy in front of us, hoping that we'll forget the issues that his administration are glossing over.
This is not a Kennedy-type announcement. We are not going back to the Moon, we will not be going to Mars, and more than likely, we will not be replacing the space shuttles.
Headline from 2012: President Jeb Bush announces that we're going back to Moon, and then on to Mars...
Hooray, if it happens. As many people pointed out when this announcement was, er, announced a couple weeks ago, this is basically a no-lose proposition for Dubya. Even if he actually does approve a massive increase in NASA's budget this term, and even if he does win a second term as President, there's no guarantee that the subsequent administrations (or Congresses) won't reduce NASA's budget or otherwise do something to kill the project.
So Bush gets to look good to everyone who like space exploration -- which is most people -- without having to necessarily live up to his promise. Given Bush's track record as president and as a human being, I'm inclined to believe that he doesn't personally give a rat's ass whether we get back to the moon or Mars -- he knows that this is a simple campaigning trick (make a fantastic promise that you can't be held accountable for).
Yeah, I hope it does happen -- but I'm still not voting for the guy.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
does US have the right to do that on the moon?
to try to (further) militarize space. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the actual proposed funding was much more linked to the Back From the Dead SDI 'peace sheild' Death Star that the Republicans have been creaming for ever since they first saw Star Wars.
-------- In Soviet Russia, "Soviet Russia" sigs hate Slashdot.
Whatever you may say Bush's motivation is or what you think of Bush, this is a great announcement! I don't care if we are in a deficit. I don't care how much this costs. We MUST boldly go where no one has gone before, for the rest of the time our species exists.
How many technologies we are using toady are based (somewhere in their roots) on the Apollo missions or shuttle missions? What a great advancement for mankind!
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
Jeez, just yesterday I read about how they were searching for water on Mars, now we're looking for Bushes on the Moon? They aughta start with that young one ... I bet Jenna's fallen over and seen stars a bunch of times...
There are better ways to spend that money on science. Space travel is just the most dramatic and campain friendly.
...when they decide to try a Mars shot, they do it on a true interplanetary craft (i.e. something built in and made for nothing but interplanetary space) instead of trying to cram it into a shuttle-alike (i.e. something built for ground to orbit transfer).
Going to the moon first and setting up permanent residence there, and setting up mining and construction facilities, would certainly make it a lot more feasible.
Who cares? I think we've proven at this point that the national deficit doesn't matter and we've got a lot more debt to accumulate and other countries have a lot more arsenal building before it becomes a real problem. The nice thing is, if it looks like it will become a problem, you can just leave the country. A similar strategy worked well for Dubya back in his oil days.
Yes... but will it help NASA to estabelish a base on the Moon or the budget will still be too short?
rm -rf /home/leia
Eh, in my opinion its all a ploy to get people hyped up for the elections. Sure, you may argue its a little early but I will just say "NO."
I'd say its pretty damn obvious he has no interest in the space program itself. Besides, it seems like a really bad time considering the economy + iraq + afghanistan. Then again, since most of the Iraq/Afghanistan money was conveniently left out of the budget, I could see how Bush plans to pay for this.
What saddens me is that, even though the majority of informed individuals can see right through this, there's not a damn thing we can do. There's no powerful candidate to oppose him. Odds are that he will win, and that'll serve as a pat on the back for all the stuff he's done since he entered office (in his mind and that of his administration).
Anyway, I would welcome a space program if it was sincerely intended. But I don't think this particular thing will amount to much - its very easy to plan something that'll cost hundreds of billions of dollars in the future, because you're not the one who's gonna be in office when the time comes to commit resources!
Well, maybe, presuming inept bureaucracy didn't manage to create a black hole for the cash. At this stage I'd rather see them hand a mere $100 million into the X-Prize kitty. That seems a more productive use of funds at this stage.
Who wants to bet the X-prize gets claimed this year? Odds are looking pretty good considering Scaled Composties latest rounds of testing.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
If Rove thinks Americans give a flying fuck about Moon missions amidst our mounting national debt, 1 trilion deficit, unprovoked wars in foreign lands, and all the jobs lost under Bush's administration, he's sorely mistaken.
This pipe-dream initiative is not going to influence people to vote for Bush. I would be inclined to believe he announced this to secure a legacy, but after all the disasterous policies by this administration, not even discovery of alien life in a neighboring solar system will save Bush from being remembered as the worst President America has ever had.
Register to vote. Drive this madman out of the office to salvage this once great nation.
$12B is chicken scratch compared to all the revenue NASA's advances will create. If you compared NASA's budget from it's inception until 1980 againist the money made by all their advances. The price would be moot. The companies who NASA outsourced to are now using what they learned and discovered to create newer and better products.
Bugs are just features that have been fixed.
There must be gold and oil in them thar rocks.
The way he pays for everything else ... by cutting taxes, of course!
That's a poor justification. The same could be claimed of a great deal many pork barrel projects and useless programs. "Look! We're a miniscule fraction of the trillion dollar budget."
The truth is, on an absolute scale, 17 billion is a lot of money, and you could do a lot with it. So the question is, is it worth it?
... but i think bush's sudden interest in space is just campaigning.
if i remember right, he even CUT nasa spending at the beginning of his term. he's trying to create the image of the forward-looking, glorious-American presidential candidate.
by voting for him, he is saying, you will bring the glory of conquering the space frontier to America...
Investing forum
Good point. We have some many inefficiencies in government right now that it totally boggles my mind when people make the argument that we should redistribute a measly (yes, measly) 15 billion dollars to everywhere else. Hell, I bet we oculd save that much by just cutting some bureaucracy in defense, education or welfare.
That's also why I don't like tax increases eventhough we're well below the rest of the world. The money is there damn it, it just has to be used properly!
Now, I'm strongly in favor of the program. However, about your statement " NASA's budget is around 17 billion. It's roughly 1 percent of the national budget."
The entire budget, and debt and defecit mess is made up of nothing but "oh, it's only a few billion. It won't matter." That's what everyone says about their favorite pet spending program.
It does make a difference.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Transcript of the speech here Unfortuately the white house uses real audio/video:
audio
and that $1 billion dollars of extra funding over the next five years, will barely cover my salary!
How about a soyuz? They are tried, true, and tough as nails.
Diverting funds from NASA to domestic programs will not change anything except to kneecap our development as a multi-planet species.
Yup, while what you say about it not solving the countries social issues is probably over half true, there is the simple fact that most of us in the country don't have any desire to become a multi-planet species...
I don't care if we find intelligent life anywhere, if we do, I certainly don't want to threaten our way of life by inviting them back to see what we have over here, and my biggest complaint is that I just don't give a fuck. If you are going to waste $820 million dollars why not build shit right here in our deserts on THIS country? Let's see if we can get life to survive in the harshest areas RIGHT the fuck here.
Ever thought of that? Apparently not.
I, for one, welcome our new human overlords.
In the 1960's, it took us under 9 years from Kennedy's pledge to land on the moon.
Now we can do it in 11!
"I believe that the cult of the particular brings only death - for it bases order on likeness." St.-Exupery
I propose that NASA be authorized to create a lottery for supplemental funding. It could either be a traditional cash lottery, or perhaps they could make the prizes NASA related, such as getting your name on a space probe, or give away some NASA merchandise. The "Big Jackpot" could be a trip to the International Space Station valued at $20 million. If the eligible person can't qualify for health reasons, he/she could sell the spot.
Has it occurred to anyone that this is just a way of diverting large quantities of money to Bush's corporate friends?
Not that I object to going to Mars, far from it. Just the 1 trillion estimates I see really make me wonder just how much is going directly into people's pockets.
Holding my pinky finger to the edge of my mouth
Seriously this is chump change. I hope we can really get private industry on board and make this happen.
TO THE MOON!
I definitely feel that NASA needs some vary lofty long term goals. In my opinion scientific research in zero-g is not enough to justify the cost of NASA. We need some long term goal like the Apollo missions once were. Whether it's the colonization of the moon or a visit Mars i'm excited.
I would like to salute the ashes of american flags, and all the fallen leaves filling up shopping bags.
We got the the moon the first time in less then 10 years. We have much more advanced rockets and computer technology then we did in 1969, so it doesnt make sense that it is going to take that long to work program back up.
Mikey
I've always been the kinda guy to fall for the girl dressed like an eskimo.
....put George Bush into space
Aparently congress unanimously voted to give the money to DIEBOLD instead.
I guess Europe will beat us to Mars.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
The reason this worked for Kennedy in relation to the first moon missions was because we had somebody to compete against, the Soivet Union. The Soviets were on the way to the moon and we had to beat them there. Hes sadly mistaken if he thinks this will win him points in the election. But then again, when hasn't he been mistaken?
Lets see what happens when push comes to shove.
And people need to remeber how big the American economy is, even during a dip in the economy.
o k/geos/ us.html#Econ
$10.45 trillion (2002 est.)
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbo
The money Bush is proposing, even if the amount goes up is minute compared to the Federal Budget and the GDP of the US.
In 1961, when shit wasn't invented yet and people fought bears for vital food, President Kennedy had the balls to give NASA less than nine years to get to the moon.
In this day and age, when there's metric shitloads of technology all over the place and the internet makes valuable porn as free as air, President Bush gives it twelve years. What a tool.
Now I am reading more, and the deadline is actually 2020. That's seventeen years.
See, Kennedy had the balls to lay a firm deadline down. "You bitches will put a man on the moon before January 1, 1970 or I will come back from the grave and kick your ass," he said. He knew he was going to get shot. That's how hardcore he was. He also got crazy laid by Marilyn Monroe.
President Bush says, "You ought to think about just possibly putting a man on the moon sometime during this five year period."
President Kennedy showed us that you have to slap NASA around a little bit to get them to do anything worthwhile with manned space exploration. You can't be all lovey-dovey and set long gradual timetables.
And Bush mentions "the goal of living and working there for increasingly extended periods." So we'll have another Skylab ISS, but on the moon. The only differences will be that it won't crash into Australia like Skylab (it will crash into the Moon instead - that might sound hard to acheive since it would already be on the surface of the moon, but they will find a way to do that), it will leak more than ISS, and since it won't even be international we won't be able to bum rides from the Russians.
If Kennedy was alive in this day and age he would have said, "Fucking NASA, I am still alive in this day and age so you assholes better have a self-sufficient Mars base by the year 2013. Also make me a space elevator. And resurrect Marilyn Monroe." Then NASA would complain that it is not their job to resurrect people and Kennedy would punch NASA in the eye.
I bet the "Crew Exploration Vehicle" is going to blow the fuck up about twenty times too. You can probably trace the suckiness of manned space exploration to the decision to switch from cool names like "Mercury" and "Apollo" to crappy names like "Skylab" and "STS." When the Apollo blew up they fucking fixed it and came home, but when the Space Shuttle gets fucked up they make Powerpoints about it and ignore the problem.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
OK. So here's the 86 billion dollar question: Who is going to pay for all of this? I'm as much for space exploration as the next guy (Heck, I *work* for NASA), but let's be honest: BUDGET DEFICIT
Here's the scariest part of Bush's speech: "NASA's current five-year budget is $86 billion. Most of the funding we need for the new endeavors will come from re-allocating $11 billion from within that budget." Hey other NASA folks out there, you know what this means: The return of the "ISS Tax".
Developing a new vehicle, returning to the Moon, going to Mars... This is all going to cost a lot of money, will it be fully funded? Part of the reason that the Space Shuttle is such a failure is the fact that it was not adequately funded*. One of the contributing factors to our ability to go to the moon the first time was that NASA had a blank check.
* This is addressed in the CAIB report, if you haven't read the section on the history of the politics of the STS, it's worth a glance.
The more sober scientists tell you that robots can do more in space more cheaply than humans. However, they overlook the fact that sometime within the next million years, something is going to kill 90% of the life on this planet. Or maybe the next hundred million years. It *will* happen.
We have to get off this planet for that reason. Nothing else you spend the money on will be worth anything when that happens.
Diverting funds from NASA to domestic programs will not change anything except to kneecap our development as a multi-planet species.
"multi-planet" species? We can't handle one planet.
I am not sure whether any of this will benefit anyone. It is high time we got away from the socialist model of paying high taxes and hoping that the government spends it wisely!
All your favorite sites in one place!
I sure hope Bush doesn't intend to stay in office through 2015 to see this plan through! What a travesty!!
What saddens me is that, even though the majority of informed individuals can see right through this
There is nothing to see through, so if you see through it you are mistaken.
Eh, in my opinion its all a ploy to get people hyped up for the elections
Few care about Mars, actually. If he really was doing what you claimed, he'd come up with a real example of it.
I think it will be the private sector that will actually accomplish these things. Take a look at the X-Prize competition for an example. Several teams are ready for suborbital launch this year.
Personally, I can't wait for John Carmack (of id fame) to start working on a moon mission.
Looking at these private people and corporations' budgets, you can see that this sort of thing, if handeled properly, by skilled people, can cost far less than overpriced government programs.
So, I say "Yes, let's go to the moon, but let's fly Jet Blue!"
Really?
Bush also said the soil of the moon "contains raw materials that might be harvested and processed into rocket fuel or breathable air.". Presumably he thinks we will need some breathable air on Earth after all he's done to lower air cleanliness standards!
The sad thing is that this new space initiative has little to do with the true desire to explore new frontiers and everything to do with maintaining space dominance over China, India and anyone else who wants to challenge the US as the world's sole superpower.
...Bush's space exploration initiative is a deflection of media attention away from a steady diet of the overall cost of war and occupation.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Finally a worthy cause I support and I am glad my tax dollars will fund it. We should have never stopped going to the Moon. The scientific research alone is worth it. Once we're finally here, some scientist will come up with a way to transform the enormous reserves of Helium3 into a rocket fuel. Launching from the Moon is a whole heck of lot easier as a starting point for a manned Mars mission.
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
As main stream dems never advocate spending-just "Investing in Americas future", something tells me thats how this reather large nut will be shoved down Americas throat. Not that I don't support the space program, but is there anything G-duya won't throw money at?
I think I'll send him a letter askign him to buy this bridge that I have, its a regular cash cow, it already has a toll booth on it and everything.
We can it's just that people don't want to live in the desert...no Starbucks or burger joints.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
Well, since everyone else seems eager to bash Bush and his Moon/Mars agenda, I'll stick up for him. I think it's a damn fine idea to get back to the Moon, explore it for future possible energy resources, and go to Mars.
Even if we ended up not using the Moon as a base for the Mars missions (as most posters here seem to think is a bad idea), the Moon base could be a potentially valuable station for natural resources to be shipped back to Earth.
Not only that, but I personally think going back to the Moon would be great for pride in both our country and for humanity as a whole. I remember hearing about the morale boost the first Moon-landings provided in '69... Granted, there's no USSR now, but it sure would feel good nonetheless.
- Proofs of Sturgeon's Law Delivered Daily -
remember, paying cable is a small part of my yearly budget but I still don't see a need to waste $59.95 a month on it... Amazingly enough I have the self-control not to needlessly waste $60 a month and I get to spend it on other things!
... if Bush said he was volunteering for the Mars mission and taking Dick "deficits don't matter" Cheney along with him.
INRS, so, can someone point out why we really need to put living people on Mars? What can they possibly do out there (for just a couple weeks at best) that we can't accomplish with robotics at a fraction of the cost.
You know, the guy really will say just about anything. He doesn't pose real challenges that are hard and require sacrifice. He poses rediculious fantasies and then critisizes others when they call him on it. Glad there's no rule against trolling on the president.
And IIRC, every administration except for 1 (maybe 2) has run a deficit and the country has not yet fallen.
They make up for it in volume?
Yes, going to the moon again is a GREAT idea. Building a moon base is a GREAT idea. Going to Mars is a GREAT idea.
This is something that looks good in a 30 second spot, but falls apart when you look at it. How is Bush going to pay for it? Answer: He's not. The 5% increase is a joke - it's not going to get a man on the red planet. But we can pretend for the cameras.
See, he doesn't want to get caught like poppy lacking the "vision thing". So he comes up with this vision of a moon base that seemed cool when he was a kid and tells everyone we're going to do it.
Kind of like No Child Left Behind. All those reforms sounded pretty good too. Who knows, they might have been, but Bush didn't fund it. Still, it made him look good, just like this NASA announcement does.
I applaud the Bush for being the first President in a long time to get us excited about space exploration again. I just wish he really meant it.
/bin/fortune | slashdotsig.sh
Funding for welfare, etc., isn't designed to wipe out poverty. You can't wipe out poverty. It's designed to mitigate the damage caused by poverty, to wit, lawlessness, public health (poverty makes life dangerous for everybody) and human suffering (and it's no fun).
Taking money away from those programs to pay to go to space is dangerous. That's not to say we shouldn't pay to go to space - the question is which budget to cut, and my point is that cutting public service and public assistance budgets isn't likely to be cost effective.
The place to cut is in military spending. The war in Iraq would have paid for a lot of space travel, unfortunately it paid for blowing up buildings instead. We have lots of highly specialized weapons that are very expensive - millions of dollars per explosion. Military aircraft are not built using standard parts. Everything is custom. So everything is brutally expensive. Cut back on the custom nature of this hardware, and you'd save a lot of money. Cut back on unilateral foreign wars, and you'd save even more.
We could also eliminate a lot of special-interest tax loopholes that Bush introduced in his "tax cut." But for some reason, it's always public services and public aid that get cut, not corporate welfare, and not military spending.
Sigh.
Exactly, funds removed from NASA won't necessarily be reallocated to fix "leaky school roofs."
Many say we just wasted at least 80 billion dollars on the Iraq War and what do we have to show from that besides several hundred dead American bodies. Now I'm expecting that we're also assuring ourselves a lot of oil so that 80 billion may not all be a waste.
But damn, it annoys me so much when people rat on the space program! Someone at work was saying about the Mars Spirit Panorama, "What, we paid 300 million bucks for a pikcha?" AH!!!
This moon proposal is space infrastructure. It is an investment in humanities future in this solar system.
Also, the Moon seems like a much better place to start. It's close, we can do a lot of equally inspiring stuff there that would just be more expensive, dangerous, and would take longer if attempted on Mars.
Moderation: +1 pwnage
It makes me just want to rush out and buy the Revell model and imagine myself going back and forth between Earth and LEO in it, which is all that it will be doing.
On the other hand, maybe the name isn't clunky, but descriptive. The crew will be exploring themselves in it. That's it . . . NASA is getting into the space sex tourism business!
* * *
But seriously:
There's speculation that this will be a cone shaped "capsule," perhaps a bit bigger than the old Apollo capsule. I wonder what they'll use as a booster. A Titan with strap on boosters? A Delta? Some of the later variants of these rockets can carry a lot of payload, approaching the capabilities of the Saturn Ib.
They would have to be "man rated" first. I'm not sure what is involved with that . . .
I suppose it's possible that the CEV could be used for trips to Lunar orbit. This would probably require docking with a transfer stage. I think it would be interesting if this were a permenant resource, rather than something tossed after one round trip. It could concievably be the first nuclear-powered craft.
Stefan "Likes to think he's a rocket scientist" Jones
And the dinosaurs couldn't handle one asteroid.
I have read that funds would need to be diverted from other programs to make this happen. I just pray they don't touch LISA
Not to be cynical, but a moon base just sounds like a hair-brained space detour to me...
Although NASA would like us to believe that President Bush made his historic announcement from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration building, a few blocks from the White House, those of you with sharp eyes may have noticed something unusual when a camera briefly panned upwards during his speech.
As good a long term plan as this is, I think that the current cynicism will hinder it. Because it is politically motivated, even the staunchest space-travel supporter is giving cautious support to this. Not because it is unrealistic, not because it wouldn't be a great thing to do, but rather because their dream is being used as a tool in exactly the same way that Bush Sr. did. I hope that I am wrong.
Okay, prez Bush wants us to goto Mars. I can live with that but lets put the money into it and do it right. Lets not put 12 billion dollars into a single use space ship that will make one trip then we toss it in the bin. We need to spend the cash and basiclly build a space research ship that can make several trips to Mars. We need to make a reusable ship.
We need to a ship with sections that spin to produce gravity. We need a ship with nuclear engines that can make the trip in a quarter the time it currently takes. We need a ship that won't just go to Mars but if we wanted to we could take it to Jupiter or beyond.
People will complain that spinning sections are to complex. Bullshit, we went to the moon almost 40 years ago. If we want to do it we can. Nuclear engines have been on the drawing boards for almost 50 years and there has be working prototypes running for years. All we need to do is build the damn thing. We have the basic techonology just need to pollish the edges.
It will be expensive true, but if we can get a ship that we can use for 20 years it will be worth it. A ship that can take 2 years to cruse out to Jupiter and spend a few years studying the system.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
Everyone knows the moon is made of cheese and if the cow can jump over it, I know we can get there again too.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
Does anyone honestly think that putting that bit of money elsewhere would solve whatever domestic problems you want fixed?
Yes, I think that we could get government out of the space exploration business and help solve my overtaxation problem.
...except that his handling of economic matters has arguably already fit a significant portion of the bill...
and the dinosaurs weren't an intelligent species.
don't have any desire to become a multi-planet species
Come over here. That's right, right there on the bullseye. Now, just wait a bit, and the comet will be right along.
Where am I going? Oh, just over there (points up).
Bye now....
- - - - - - - - - - -
I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
Ever been to the Phoenix area? If starbucks and burgers are an earthlike environment, consider it terraformed.
See here and here. This could get interesting. . .
This post was generated by a Cadre of Uber Monkeys for Monkey-Man2000 (603495).
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/spacetravel-03i.htm l
And did you conduct a study or have some data to back up your claim that most of us in the country don't have any desire to become a multi-planet species...?
Also, why spend money to determine if life can survive in a desert when we already know it can? I happen to live in a desert.. there's plenty of life here. There's life in the Sahara.. Antarctica, ocean vents.. The point is, getting life to survive on this planet is fuckin' easy.
Humans are an exloratory species.. always have been. We've spread across the entire planet, have we not? So to continue our exploration, we need to go into the Great Unknown.. space! And that starts with Mars.
What is your penile percentile?
It would appear Las Vegas is a mirage then?
look around you....tell me how many things you have and tell me the number of materials you have things made of that did NOT come from Nasa.
is manned space exploration worth it? yes.....when we want to go to Jupitor, the weight costs of the food alone would be emence....now just think what figuring out how to feed the astronaughts on a Jupitor trip with out packing the ship full of food would mean to world hunger.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
I thought that was Pheonix...
Hook...Line...Sinker
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
He's already there.....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzz
Ever heard of a place called Las Vegas? ;-)
superblog.org: all your favourite blogs on o
Just give me $200,000 to help out my state and keep my public library open 7 days a week. Or how about just a few hundred thousand to keep my fire station open.
I mean that's nothing compared to the billion or trillion dollars right? Its chump change.
Why do I suddenly feel like a beggar asking for pennies....
Outdoor storage sheds and pet kennels
These guys didn't care about the deficit when in one year they gave the Pentagon $74 billion increase, $40 billion ($400 billion/10 years) to create a Medicare senior drug plan, or $12 billion in farm subsidies. Surely we can scrape together $1 billion this year to do some actual science... Incidentally, I happen to be a trickle-down believer, and any money we put towards NASA will only go to help provide jobs for scientists and engineers, something we really need to do to drive off what's left of the Dot-Bomb, and help rekindle the USA's technology drive.
I think if you read between lines, Bush is saying we need to invade the moon because it has WMDs
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
anybody disturbed that Bush wants to mine the moon? Why not just leave the rock alone? It's not Alaska.
I have extremely mixed emotions about this.
It is very good that we are changing gears about where we are going in space with NASA. NASA's track record has been less than impressive for manned flight and new launch vehicle development for the past 20 years (since the introduction of the shuttle). Anyone remember the X-30? The X-33? The X-34? The first two of those were such disasters it's embarassing to even think about them.
The second negative thing about this is that the first manned flight for the moon is in 2015. 2015. That's 3 terms of a president. Has almost ANY NASA project survived intact 12 years? The shuttle might be it! Now, 2030 for a Mars mission? 27 years from now? How many presidents? *flinches*
On the other hand, if it does pan out, the general strokes written so far are for a more sustainable model. Build the CEV for more than LEO. That's encouraging.
We'll wait and see.
BTW, anyone have a clue what $11 billion is getting reoriented in NASA? That mean the aeronautics section is getting cut? The supercomputing? The material sciences?
Oder was?
Actually, if Shrub wants to help give space a boost, designate a test range where Armadillo et al can test their possible shots at the X Prize and it's follow-ons without cost. THAT would move us forward...
Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
1989: President (George H.) Bush announces that we're going to Mars by 2020.
2004: President (George W.) Bush announces that we're going to the Moon by 2020. Then to Mars.
2013: President (Jeb) Bush announces that the Chinese have agreed to allow us to send an American astronaut to their new moonbase, but only if we abandon all remaining manufacturing efforts.
2022: President (Jenna) Bush sadly informs the country that the Moon has come to us - the Chinese are dropping asteroid sized chunks of lunar debris on us, a new weapon that even our not-yet-deployed Star Wars program can defend against.
2034: An American finally lands on Mars, although only symbolically. A statue of the last President of the United States, Jenna Bush, is erected in the new Martian People's Republic History Museum.
Right! NASA should start spending the cash tomorrow, as soon as the shops open, before someone finds a way to divert it elsewhere.
...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
Go ahead call me a troll, mod me into next week, but the technologies needed to go to Mars are the same as needed to survive on the earth without oil. The attacks on Iraq was the first move, and now he's moving to get the technologies ready for when the oil to run out in 2010-2020. Remember kids, its not _IF_ the oil is going to run out, its when. With China and India getting fully addicted to the black gold, its going to go fast. I would guess that 2010 is probably the start of the "crash" curve and 2020 is the expected bottom. Just google on Peak Oil if you want to educate yourself and not sleep for week or two.
This is retarded.
:) !!!
I should run for president and offer every family in the US a home on the Moon (by 2057). I'd say something about how scientists are about to unlock the awesome power of moon rocks... which, unlike earth rocks, can be turned into air, rocket fuel, timber, mad-cow resistant beef, and track housing.
When I'd win the election I would establish an official Board of Moon Security and Technology, that was staffed by all of my pot smoking college buddies. They would hang out, learn 3D max, and make fancy moon graphics to give to Fox News every other week.
THEN, when I was out of office, and 2057 rolled by, and we never made it to the moon, I could just blame it on the administrations that succeeded mine
So, Who want a free moon house? You DO like free houses and the MOON.... don't you?!
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Any other time and these pathetic acts of desperation by Bush would make him unelectable. Everybody knows that these goals are completely unachievable given the nudgetary restrictions, but the dumbmasses...err...the American public is just going to lap this up like they lapped up the prescription drugs and the illegal alien amnesty. 100% bullshit, opression of minorities, and pandering to big business. We can only hope that the race is close enough that Bush will peak too early and the useless sack of shit that the dems put up there can move in. I won't be voting for either one of them.
National Public Radio said tonight that Bush said we are going to the moon by 2020, or maybe it was "we are going to live on the moon by 2020. Either way, the current funding (with his proposed, bullshit, posturing increases) would still fall something like 20 billion short of required funds to pull that off by 2020/2030.
Plus all future presidents from now till then could knock that shit out of the budget pretty easily.
We will outsource NASA to India and China.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
SHOW ME THE MONEY.
technically its 1/500th of the big ol deficit. We should probably be getting more lean, not adding funding to projects utill we have the current crisis under control. I buy my vegetables organic ordinarily, on the whole I probably don't spend that much on food (at least at the grocery store!). When things are lean I don't go out and buy expensive organic beer, even if it only costs a few dollars.
Quack, quack.
Amazingly enough, he's right.
"However Congress is concerned about how to pay for the new space policy initiative in the face of a $500 billion national budget deficit."
How about you guys stop giving yourself pay raises and wasting tax dollars on pork barrel projects?
The program is the right thing to do.
It should have been started long ago, it's overdue.
Now is a bad time to do it, thanks to reckless spending and slashing revenue.
The motivation isn't purely political, it's because China and India are expressing interest and it 'looks bad' if the USA lets anyone get a leg up, in short it's for selfish pride.
This isn't the leader to kick it off, but he's the only one who has.
I feel the same frustration and exasperation, it comes with being educated.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Do I even want to think of the new positions thought up in zero gravity? *shudders*
Karma whorin' since 1999
Was anyone else horrified to read that this "$12 billion program" is only going to cause an increase in the NASA budget of $1 billion? As a strong supporter of all the recent advances in cosmology and observational data, this greatly concerns me and others in my field. Does this mean that $11 billion which would be otherwise spent on exploring the cosmos is now going to be redirected to funding a long-range plan that will need countless presidents and congresses to approve it?
What liberal fuck/12 year old moderated the parent? It's absolutely true.
what does cable provide? is it an investment? no.
for Nasa, the money spent has returened to us 1000% or more.
your argumnet is not a very good one.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Are there not enough trailer parks already?
...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
Has anyone explained slowly, and carefully to Bush that there's no oil on the moon or mars? ;-)
-psy
From the article: "The idea behind returning to the moon, after an absence of nearly 50 years..."
Didn't we last land on the moon in 1972?
So, in other words, Bush stopped talking about Iraq, and said, "Hey, look at that thing all the way over there!"
...and my reaction to that is "so what?". you value things differently than other people. that aphorism serves as the basis of modern-day microeconomics. whoopdy-doo.
Beagle Discovers Life On Mars
Beagle Discovers Oil On Mars
Bush anounces "Operation Martian Freedom"
Martians wellcome troops but "alien terrorists" from Neptune skirmish with coalition troops.
President Yaxcbat ( Neptune ) announces "Operation Freedom Earth"
Neptunians arrive at Earth and kick some Dubya butt
Neptunians introduce foolproof ballot punching machines using superior alien technology
Republicans thrown out of the Green House ( As the aliens renamed it )
Earth is happy.
The bikini - security through obscurity since 1943
Ya, maybe they'll set up a rail gun on the Moon.
Put it on the border between the dark and light sides of the moon. Then, you can point it one way shoot stuff at Mars, and the other way to shoot stuff at Earth.
boom boom boom
I understand your point completely - IMHO.
No, no one actually wants to live in the desert anymore than they want to live on the moon. Like the saying goes "It's a nice place to visit, with a heck of a view, but I wouldn't want to live there."
I think the whole idea is proposterous for the $ aspect alone. Yes. The money could definately be much better spent here on Earth. Let the Chinese develop new space tech. Just because it's their first go at space doesn't mean that we might not get some free advances from what they learn. I'm tired of us paying for science that gets exported all around the globe.
Just givin' prop's.
Stuff that matters.
I think Mars is premature until we have something like a space elevator going to get stuff into orbit. Or something to get the cost of getting to orbit under control.
With that, we can afford to take a big ship there. We can put in some infrastructure on Mars ahead of the astronauts getting there.
To send a person to Mars doesn't make sense to me. Spend the money on the space program, but not for this project please.
As if this was an anomal! Think Iraq
Help fight continental drift.
yes!, yes! yes! yeeeeeeeeeeees!
#
#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
#
GWB isn't a native Texan, he was born in New Haven, CT.
Background Information
Gender: Male
Family: Wife: Laura Welch Bush
2 Children: Jenna, Barbara.
Birthdate: 07/06/1946
Birthplace: New Haven, CT
Home City: Austin, TX
Religion: Methodist
The Mars ship may not be made in America, and the crew will be Dynagen contractors, but we can take pride in the fact that exclusive broadcast rights of the landings will belong to American big media companies.
It is a bold initiative to announce a return to the moon and then go on to Mars, but it will be expensive. It might turn out to be too expensive for one nation alone.
To save costs, China, Russia and the ESA should also be involved in the missions. China has announced its own plans to go to the moon in a similar time frame. Russia has some lunar experience, especially with their robotic craft in the early 1970s and their sample return missions at about the same time.
Joint missions to the moon are not a new idea. The Soviet Premier Khrushchev proposed a joint effort to go to the moon with the Americans in 1961 and 1963. It was rejected by JFK in 1961, but JFK was more willing to consider the idea when it was proposed again in 1963. Had JFK not been assassinated a few weeks later, a Russian might have walked on the moon in 1969 with an American.
If Bush is talking about "humanity", he needs to involve more of humanity in this new space exploration initiative than just Americans.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
but we, on the other hand....
...and he grinned, like a fox eating shit out of a wire brush.
I'm all for space exploration, but this just strikes me as nothing more than a political game.
That $1 billion increase sounds good at first, but spread it out over 5 years, and you've got $200 million/year. On the other hand, increasing NASA's budget at a rate consistent even with November's unusually low inflation rate of 1.77% would give a yearly increase of $230 million. So, in the best case, they're treading water. (For comparison, NASA's 2004 budget received a roughly 3% increase over 2003.)
What about that other $12 billion in exploration money? It "will come from reallocation of $11 billion that is currently within the five-year total NASA budget of $86 billion". So, NASA just got 13% of their budget reallocated.
Aside from the apparent fiscal impotency of the plan, the thing is just dripping with political rhetoric. From the white house release: "From 1992 to 2000, NASA's budget decreased by a total of 5 percent. Since the year 2000, NASA's budget has increased by approximately 3 percent per year." What an interesting point to suddenly bring up! Why yes, it is an election year!
I was going to put a sig here, but I had already submitted the message.
It's like the waning of the Roman Empire: Our rulers hope that as long as we're distracted by exciting spectacles, we won't cotton on to the nation's slide into decay and insignificance. Instead of gaping at the dog and pony show, I wish people would think about the very real problems affecting us right now. There are a lot of important things that can be done to directly improve our quality of life.
No, bolstering education and healthcare, for instance, aren't as exciting as flying a rocket ship to Mars. But health and education are far more important to our survival (and our preeminence) than any ridiculous scifi fantasy. Ditto the environment, the criminal justice system, transportation infrastructure, etc., etc.
I suppose that Spirit found evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction after only a few days! I'm sure Colen Powell will be at the next JPL press conference to support the decision to invade Mars.
Exploration is something humans must continually participate in. Who knows if or when a giant rock will slam into earth and destroy entire biosphere?
Maybe a nearby star is about to go nova...and take us with it.
Or some madman with an itchy trigger finger and a warehouse of nukes...
What would we do if the only home we have ever known in this universe were destroyed?
I like to think of space exploration as the next logical step in the human race's long journey through time - a step of ensured survival. I'd like to think that someday a human being will see, as part of that journey, the surface of a planet beyond our little solar system.
For once, I am in total agreement with our president.
I use Ajax on my sink, thanks.
As a comparison, 3.5 Billion dollars were spent on ring tones last year.. Personally, I think that money would be better spent by NASA.
Two scenarios:
1) Issue bonds with the return being first access to a space outpost at a later date or something like that. This would be like the Pan-Am sale of tickets to the moon, but these bonds have government backing as to avoid bankruptcy and gain interest when not used (2-3%?). If NASA gives up the initiative, the government bonds still have value. I'd buy quite a few and be happy to contribute to the program over the long term.
2) Lots of space technologies are dual-use for civilian and military, so why not get the DOD to help fund it? Insight into orbital mechanics and practical space vehicles would allow us a decent chance (better than 40%) to shoot down ICBMs and other long-range missles before they reached the US. Also, there is territory on the South Pole of the Moon that gives great visibility to most of the planet, so it is in their best interest to participate and lend a few billion to the plan.
(On the other hand we could always falsify reports that oil or Osama could be found on Mars/the Moon and get up there much sooner without having to worry about how it gets paid for...)
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
Bush just tell the taxpayers that he was going to Uranus
Diverting funds from NASA to domestic programs will not change anything except to kneecap our development as a multi-planet species.
Would someone please explain this obsession with space travel? What have we learned and/or benefited from our relatively short time in space? Are we a better society/species for it?
In short--how will our children benefit from us sending another few dozen humans into space?
I'm tired of us paying for science that gets exported all around the globe.
---------
That's complete crap. That's not how science works. Science is for the good of humanity, not one specific, transient country. Long after the US has gone the way of the Roman Republic (and it will, it is the nature of such things), its contribution to science and technology will endure.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Everyone else thought he'd stop after he got the Sudetenland. But he didn't fool me!
Damn it! I want to be on the moon now ! and hell mars a couple a years time! ...
.
okay maybe its gonna take a while... but 15yrs seem to be a hell of a long time
I just wish I lived in a country (I live in the UK) where our leader made such statements that could inspire the whole country. You yanks dont know how lucky you are in this respect!
Lets do something for mankind instead of bitching about or neigbors !
nick !
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
All of the science and all of the exploring that can be done by manned (peopled) mission can be done more easily and cheaply by unmanned missions. Witness all of the exploration we've done on Mars, Jupiter, Jupiter's moons, near the Heliopause, etc.
The only extra bonus to manned missions is national prestige and the added thrill of having a person to empathize with. (And of course it's fun for the actual explorer and the mission support people.) But can't we get thrills and employ the ground-support scientists some other (read: cheaper and more productive) way?
Well sometimes you just have to say "fuck'em." Sure it will piss the "naturalist", we call them tree huggers off, but fuck'em.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
Apparently they can't handle the truth! All I have read on Slashdot is how badly we need to go back to the moon, and now that Bush has plans for it, its suddenly decried as a horrible idea by Slashdotters. Oh the hypocrisy!
in making scientific decisions. Consider his decisions regarding: global warming (refuses to even discuss it), making our anti-missile system operational (before it has an established record of successful interception tests), research the potential of stem cells to treat a variety of illnesses (made it impossible to do such research), environmental protection (attempted to loosen restrictions on arsenic in drinking water and mercury emissions from coal fired power plants, opposes funding the endangered species act, favors allowing snowmobiles in Yellowstone, loosened "new source review" restrictions on power plant expansions and dropped pending lawsuits over prior violations). Seems reasonable to believe he doesn't know we've already been to the Moon.
You're pulling out of the ISS project by 2010.
So, for 4 years, you are't going to need a shuttle because you'll have no presence in space right? Satellites et al can be dumped up by (insert name cos I've forgotten) rockets. So that 4 year gap between 2010 and 2014 isn't an oversight, it's a planned break.
...the 'average guy on the street' have you? A small subset of humans are intelligent, the rest are just idiot throwbacks who weren't allowed to die off and are polluting our genepool.
Blar.
For 10 bilion bucks you can get shiny new space elevator. USA "war" in Iraq & Afganistan has costed till now > 100 bilions...
Oh no, if Bush doesn't get re-elected, the chances of a Mars voyage are shot. So now everyone HAS to vote for him now.
Shoot, I was going to vote Democrat, but not if they don't promise shiny spaceships...
Here, we pay $39.95 a month for Satellite. And we get the NASA Channel.
'cuz that portion of the budget now slated for NASA was suppose to go to them and into their pockets (or to their pet-projects).
./'ed on it are prime examples).
Just imagine how much funds NASA can get if they were to grab it from the salaries of politicians, especially since the same politicians make more than that with their kickbacks^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H"campaign contributions." (Former governator Davis and Feinstein, both who've been
I'd rather see a couple small teams be organized to pull off incremental science missions. When their work looks promising, and we have the technology and reason to sit on Mars or the moon, great!
If we spend $1 billion this year on this goal, then I want SOMETHING that we can show for it. Either a fleet of moon landers that do real science, or a working, low-cost rocket system that can carry nice sized payloads outside of earth orbit, etc.
I just don't want to spend $1 billion for a bunch of soon-to-be-obsolete technical drawings of a prototype lander that'll bring 2 guys to poke around the moon for a few days and then call it quits.
In other words, this should be about the science of it FIRST. We need practical deliverables OTHER THAN just being able to watch TV on Mars or the Moon.
Terraforming of Mars should be complete by years end. Dedication of Ice Station Reagan on Uranus is set for Christmas. If all goes well, the Iraqi United Federation of Warlords is expected vote on their first draft 'constitution' within 5 years.
Mod the parent up - I haven't laughed that hard since the day I found the Robot Ron website.
And yes, this post is redundant.
man is machine
For instance, if we allocated a billion of those dollars to public education they'd probably waste it teaching kids to read and right.
We will be out of IRAQ and Afghanistan by 2020....
Anyway, I know that there are a lot of good reasons against this... People have said that it won't really help with jobs since it would be a "makework" approach. People have said that the millions would be better spent on domestic programs. These are all very valid points, but I think the one thing that justifies the space program more than anything is the fact that planet Earth won't be here for ever.
The Earth has very finite resources. When seen from a billion miles away, the Earth is a tiny blue dot. To paraphrase Carl Sagan, that's it... Everyone you've ever known, everyone that has ever lived and died, all on that tiny blue dot.
In as little as 500 million years and no later than 5 billion years, this planet will no longer support human life. There a few options. Option one: humans die. It's likely we might nuke ourselves to death long before this point, though. Option two: Humans become a truly spacefairing civilization and live among the stars a la Star Trek.
I would prefer option two. Is that possible? Some would say no, but without taking this initial steps, these baby-steps into space, it will be impossible.
So, regardless of all the good reasons not to go to the moon or Mars, one reason that is so good that it's like a sucker-punch to all the drawbacks remains: The survival of the human species.
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
You asked:
Has almost ANY NASA project survived intact 12 years?
The answer is that not even shuttle survived intact. Go back and look at the initial plans. It was for a flexible launch system that was fully reusable with a wide range of achievable orbits. What we got was a crippled alternative, with very high cost of turnaround, SRBs that must be almost completely rebuilt before reuse, and a maximum of Low Earth Orbit. Not much return on the dollar if you ask me.
I am also concerned that this announcement will drain all remaining funding from the current unmanned exploration programs. These are the programs that have been the greatest successes of NASA... and they are the ones learning to go with reusable designs, small and light, lots of flexibility. If we're being asked to drop those and pursue a single exploration strategy of manned missions, first to build a permanent presence on the moon and then a trip to Mars, it seems wrong. Let's not put all our eggs in this one basket.
Yes, in general this is a poor argument to use. However in this case the additional spending is far out weighed by the economic advantages of space exploration. Instead of building a bomb which has a negative economic impact (not to mention cost) we are building spacecraft that have the potential to generate huge economic benefits.
Not to mention the advances in science and technology that the program alone generates. One example of technology developed from the Apollo program is the circuit board which of course led to the personal computer.
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov
If you had been much of an industry watcher, you'd be well aware of all the roadblcoks NASA has thrown up. The major one is their attitude, that only NASA can do it right, and it requires tons of money. They would like nothing better than to make private launches illegal. They hate the X-prize.
I am only talking about management, of course. The engineers don't think that way.
And besides, you apparently forgot to read the rest of that sentence, something about cheapest if reasonably reliable.
Infuriate left and right
AbsoFUCKINGlutely!
Is it fascism yet?
My protest placard that highlights the budget deficit under Bush keeps going obsolete quicker than my installation of the Mac OS. I'm not kidding either.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
And the dinosaurs couldn't handle one asteroid.
So we'll dodge the next killer asteroid by ferrying everyone to Mars? You have a thing for drama!
I'm not against space travel or against establishing distant colonies. Someday. But what about pacing ourselves? Fix the problems relevant to 2004 first; for example, by getting a balanced and sustainable budget. Then we'll be more prepared to achieve scientific greatness in the next centuries.
Everyone's got "The the moon and beyond!" as their story title. Why not "To infinity and beyond!" - it's much more catchy...
Have you ever been to the desert southwest? It's already taxed and the water is about to run out (no fair trying to drain the Great Lakes or divert Mississippi river water.) Growth in the southwest has boomed in the past two decades. Las Vegas is over 1 million and litterally living off the Colorado River. You can drill wells, but the water still has to come from the same place.
Not too likely people will want to live on other planets, but you know industry is just itching to get a peek at any advantage to be gained by getting something somewhere else, cheaply and selling it here. Seems a long way off to get make money in space, but someone will find a way and take advantage of economy of scale. Then people will simply follow to live near work.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
We're only going back to the Moon because we're running out of space to put people in at Guantanamo Bay!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Bush is just riding the Mars craze, trying to get his pop points up in an election year. If this guy had any balls, he would claim that we could be completely independant of foreign oil in ten years. Now that would be cool! This is just a PR stunt stealing steam from NASA's success.
Like crack, the first hit is free.
Funding for welfare, etc, isn't designed to wipe out poverty or mitigate its effects. It's designed to perpetuate poverty, because a permanent underclass of non-producing food tubes dependent upon the government to steal wealth from the producing food-tubes can be relied upon to always support the government.
If you're at the top of the food chain, the more poor, and the worse off they are, and the faster they breed, the more power you have over producer and parasite alike.
Consider the relationship between shepherd, sheepdog, and sheep. Sure, the sheepdog gets to have lots of "fun" by running circles around the flock. The "fun" the sheepdog has is immaterial to the farmer's purpose for the sheepdog, namely to have a few animals running freely enough to keep the flock in a predictable state, grazing contentedly until harvest time.
Just like the science that was left over from Rome? The years following weren't called the dark ages for nothing.
He can make grandiose claims for plans all he likes, and this being an election year he will, but his "plans" will never come to fruition. Congress has to first approve the budget, and then approve the appropriations before NASA would see a dime. With a trillion dollar deficit staring us in the face, there's no way any congresscritter is going to paint themselves with the dark side of the paintbrush Bush is handing them.
And even if they DID pass it, a future president with more sense (one who can actually count and doesn't believe in imaginary money) will be forced to cut back or cancel this, unless the deficit is fixed first.
Bush has no more intention of seeing this carried out than his father did in 1989. Remember what Bush Sr. did to the space program. He put Dan "Mars is essentially in the same orbit... Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe" Quayle in charge of it. I'm still shocked over that blatant slap in the face, and the audacity it took to claim to be pro-space afterwards.
This is apparently obvious to a lot of people already. Stock in space program contractors dropped today.
It's an election year. Wait until December before you start the count down.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
The problem with not addressing welfare and other social programs is that we are spending billions of dollars on these systems and they are broken. We should be completely stopping our current corporate welfare trends while also attempting to fix our social welfare programs. Eliminating the one and fixing the other would greatly help our budget, there is absolutely no good reason run the country with a deficit.
1.) Since when is the economy going great?
2.) Iraq going well? Yeah you are reading CNN aren't you - thought so.
3.) Afghanistan success? Hrm.
Once more today I ask for someones smokeables. It must be awefully strong man. So strong it hides the truth.
After Grover Norquist and his merry band of cryptoanarchists finish with this country we won't be able to orbit a weather satellite, much less reach other planets.
Dream on, Chimp-in-Chief.
OK, this will be modded flamebait, but it's actually true and you guys know it...
I'm surprised there hasn't been stupid, repeatitive "+5, funny" comment, like this:
"Maybe the US would get to the moon faster if they told Bush there were WMDs there! Ha! Aren't I funny???"
... is offtopic, you motherfucking hetero white wiener.
Remember: the GNAA is right behind you!
The figures speak for themselves. Bush is the most profligate president in the history of the USA. Period.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Hehe, that's funny, really, ringtones, hehe, hehehehehehe !!
:p
lmao
(btw, mod parent up)
See, he doesn't want to get caught like poppy lacking the "vision thing".
.... A mars mission! By 2019! Link here.
But he is only following his fathers direction. You see in 1989, Bush made front page news by announcing
Hmm, I frankly stunned at this new initiative. It surprises me that son immediately wanted to follow father into Iraq, and, now follow father with mars... I dunno I wouldn't go to far with the follow father thing...
-Sean
Build the biggest coolest shit you want, in the deserts or anywhere else, and one decent-sized asteroid will take it out at the same time it kills everything else above the level of the cockroach and creates long-term nuclear winter for the lucky roach..
If we don't get off this planet, then one simple day of cosmic bad luck is all it will take, and everything -- the $820 million dollars building cool desert shit, the wars fought, the ideas created, everything -- all of it will be for absolutely nothing. The only way we'll be able to leave then is if we start working on the problems now. The asteroid with your name on it does not give one single flying high-impact shit about your way of life, nor your fears of alien invasion, nor your "not giving a fuck".
Ever think of that? Apparently not.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
For a general estimate: the moon landing would have cost $100 billion in 1994 dollars...convert that to 2002 dollars and it looks more like $127 billion. That's about 42% of what the Pentagon had budgeted for it last year. That amount is comparable to NASA's total budget for the next 8 years.
I was going to put a sig here, but I had already submitted the message.
December 21st, 2012 A.D end of Mayan Calendar and possibly the human race.
2015 end of the christian church (if they don't comply with molestation lawsuits :)).
2032 the y2k for old Unix based computers.
Talking about project busters :).
"called the Crew Exploration Vehicle"
I am the only one would immediately thought of cavity searches..?
Why? Rome's contributions didn't seem to live on very well in the short term. Why would another empire's?
Put identity in the browser.
Who is going to pay for all of this?
I'm not sure. But I know one thing for sure. Halliburton's going to get it.
-Sean
The place to cut is in military spending. The war in Iraq would have paid for a lot of space travel, unfortunately it paid for blowing up buildings instead. We have lots of highly specialized weapons that are very expensive - millions of dollars per explosion. Military aircraft are not built using standard parts. Everything is custom. So everything is brutally expensive. Cut back on the custom nature of this hardware, and you'd save a lot of money. Cut back on unilateral foreign wars, and you'd save even more.
To perhaps put a more direct example in the light, the US has (by civilian knowledge) 21 plane B2 bomber bomber (mostly built in the last 3 years or so). While originally designed to fly long range missions to drop nuclear bombs on the Soviet Union, they now only have regular bombing duty, a role already filled by the enormous fleet of B1 and B52s. In fact the US General Accounting Office found the B2s actually have trouble doing even those missions; since they where originally designed to fly a single M.A.D. mission, they are not very sturdy. In fact every mission they fly causes extensive and expensive damage because of moisture in the air damaging the stealth covering.
The cost, as stated, for this space program is 13 billion. The cost for the handful of B2s was $45 billion (even if you exclude research costs and assume mass production, each plane costs over $1 billion to produce, let alone actually maintain). What worse is that the B2 is a somewhat cost efficent project as compared to others in the military industrial complex.
Why was JFK serious? It wasn't just bragging rights. Up through Ike's time, most US college grads had a degree from which department? Liberal Arts. The USSR had gotten over Stalin, it was energetic, and it was pumping out more math, hard science, and engineering grads than we were. We were coasting on wartime technical advances. Kennedy needed something that would get Americans off their soft asses and get more than the 3 Rs and attorneys out of their education system.
Going to the moon was a means to an end, and boy did it work
So, what is GWB's goal? Take out the trash overseas? Nope, he was less active on terrorism than Clinton 'til events forced themselves on him. The errosion of our technical or manufacturing base. Nope, he hasn't lifted a finger while jobs and plants continue to shift overseas at a gallop. Education, social programs? Only the Medicare drug bill, which the AARP wanted, and if our senior citizens do nothing else, it's go to the polls.
The only thing GWB cared about was tax cuts aimed at the upper 1%. Estate taxes, capital gains taxes, all gone, and whatever chump change you saved wasn't the goal. George got what he really wanted, and if it hadn't been for 9/11 happening on his watch, he'd be completely out of ideas, just like his old man.
The fact is, the ISS and Shuttle fleet has sucked up almost every dollar from a budget that Congress has been chopping for 20 years. NASA was throwing water balloons at Mars for years because there was no money to do it right. The current landers and orbiters are working because NASA chopped or delayed virtually every other planetary probe project to come up with the cash to do it half way right, and then they prayed.
As much as I'd like to think that NASA will get a budget to match it's current mission, plus the extra to do the spadework to go to the Moon and Mars years hence, I don't think George is going to call in any chits to do it, and no one else does, either.
Luke, help me take this mask off
To help you get into the right state of mind to remember way back then, here's some 20th century geek-freak for ya:
I. IN THE MONTHS LEADING UP TO DECEMBER 31, 1999
This time-period extends from the first wide scale panic until 1/1/00, so I'll be brief.
1) At some point it will penetrate the popular mind that no one is going to be able to pay their bills or collect on their debts after 1/1/00. This will result in people pulling out of the stock market and withdrawing their money out of banks. My guess is the trigger to this panic will be the growing awareness of the Y2K problem combined with a market adjustment that turns into a slide which turns into a rout.
2) This panic will lead to everyone all at once cashing out their holdings including selling or mortgaging their house to buy food, gold, guns and land.
3) Given the results of a stampede, everyone will turn to central government to solve their problems. And the government will no doubt take immediate steps to impose peace and order -- gas and food rationing, restriction of travel, wage and price controls, an increased military presence to supplement the local police and other time honored methods of maintaining order.
4) A central government authority will decide what electrical, water, sewer and telecommunication systems are most important and what can be left to crash. They will conscript men with electrical engineering expertise, to work on the embedded chip problems in these systems. Much of the computer repair that needs to happen in the private sector is not directly relevant to the nation's critical infrastructure. The Central Authority will take computer repairmen away from it and apply their talents to wherever they think it is most needed. By the way, those who abandon their part of the remediation could be viewed as treasonous -- not just by the government but by their neighbors as well.
5) Everyone will soon realize that if the electrical, the water and the sewer systems aren't fixed, life in large metropolitan areas will become impossible. (Not difficult, but literally impossible. Figure a 1 in 10 survival rate without these services and given the large numbers of people who must evacuate with no place to go in the middle of winter.) Once the cities start to unzip, you will not be able to put this civilization back together without starting from ground level after the dust settles. Keeping the residents of metropolitan areas in those metropolitan areas will be government's job-one -- if not by continued electricity food, water and sewage treatment, then by force.
6) To keep the people in the cities and prevent food riots they must be fed. This is not a daunting task -- it is an impossible task given the limitations on gasoline. Even so they will prepare the basic supply routes from the grain fields to the cities. They will use price controls to freeze the price of food and pass anti-hoarding laws which will further inhibit food distribution. Whatever chance of preparation the average person might have had will be lost. Hopefully they will not use those who already have prepared as scapegoats. Hopefully they will be too tied up in the cities to pay much attention to those who have already left and are trying to survive in the country. Hopefully.
7) Banks will probably not fold completely at first because we will simply shift to a cashless society. Far more dangerous to the bank is the loan dilemma. If they don't lend money they can't make money. On the other hand, if they do lend it they won't get it back after 1/1/00. This dilemma will be slightly offset in the economy by the fact that the
just get out of Irak, and other illegally occupied countries.
.. And the budget for Moon is easy to find : just stop giving billion dollars to israel.
At first I was almost ecstatic when I read the article. Then I renembered the ISS. No one will care about this project coming 10 years away, and that will kill it. Maybe this would work after China goes to the moon, but not now.
After Rome fell, much of its science and technology was preserved. It was not widespread, but mostly carried along by the scholars of the Church. This preserved knowledge was a major factor in the early Renaissance, when society was ready to accept these ideas again. Had Rome not preserved its knowledge and technology, the relatively rapid period of rediscovery during the Renaissance would have been much longer.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Another way to look at it is that this additional $1 Billion could come from pulling out of Iraq ONE week early. That's right the cost of operations in Iraq not including one time costs like moving the troops to and from the country is aprox $4 Billion per month. I am all for what we accomplished in overthrowing one of the most evil men of the last two generations but we should find a way to quickly return the country to self rule and withdraw our troops before it becomes a significant drag on the economy and the loss of troops becomes a long term weakener of military moral.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
No, the leader who kicked it off was JFK. The last White House resident who sort of made big mumbles about it was actually Poppy Bush--but most people don't even remember his Mars by 2035 mumble. Dubya is just trying to get it back on Daddy's schedule.
In terms of doing something useful in space, probably the strongest claim would be the international space station--but Dubya is destroying the international cooperation that depends on. Only natural, since Dubya's real motivation for supporting space flight is military dominance.
Actually, I'm a big supporter of real science, including the space program. However, you also have to deal with the economic realities, and if Dubya keeps losing 20% of the dollar's value every year, the US won't be able to afford anything remotely resembling a real space program.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Do you like the computer you are using right now? Well better thank NASA. The circuit board was developed during the Apollo program because vacuum tube computers were impossible to back into a rocket. This of course led to the development of the Personal Computer.
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov
What the hell kind of name is the "Crew Exploration Vehicle"? At least the shuttle didn't have some crazy name; it was the shuttle. And it is a shuttle, so that was an OK name.
Then you had the Apollo landers. The name of a *god* who rode through the heavens in a flaming chariot. Now *there*'s an appropriate name. Or the "Saturn V". Named after another god (or a planet, but whatever). Still better than C.E.V.
Has anyone tried to *say* CEV? Chev? Chevy? How are we supposed to pronounce it? I swear, it sounds like a suppository.
This is a sign of bad leadership somewhere. It has to be. No one but a comittee would call a Mars craft the "Crew Exploration Vehicle". I don't want to explore the crew! Eck!
Oh well, I guess some old-timer there has some strange fetish... it is the end of all hope.
You know, a country with a deficit of 40% of GDP (unchartered territory in the industrialized world) probably ought to be thinking of diverting fund to anywhere but Mars...
Does anyone honestly think that putting that bit of money elsewhere would solve whatever domestic problems you want fixed?
Absolutely. Even if its only $1,000,000 it will make a difference to some individuals/families etc.
While I agree scientific research is important, it should be being done to provide benefit to mankind. At the moment it is very doubtful what benefit to mankind space research will provide. Whereas the same money spent on improving social issues will certainly improve mankind and certainly benefit individuals.
I believe that we should only be spending money on space research out of our excess, and not going into debt to do it.
I personally don't believe there is intelligent life out there, but IF there is and IF there is anything to be gained from them, it's likely they'll find us before we find them.
Also, we still have plenty to learn about our own planet. I heard the other day that we've only explored about 3% of our own oceans!! We've only dug down into about 1% of the earth!! We can still discover a lot without leaving our own planet!
"Does anyone honestly think that putting that bit of money elsewhere would solve whatever domestic problems you want fixed? Have we yet cured hunger, poverty, or undereducation? No? Well, we've been throwing billions at them so far. If you're looking for funds to cut and inefficiencies to uproot, look in defense and welfare. Diverting funds from NASA to domestic programs will not change anything except to kneecap our development as a multi-planet species."
I've been saying this for years. The increasing expendature on domestic issues will increase exponentially untill there are no money and/or resources for any real space program. It's got to be done now. The 'public' might think that the money should be spent on domestic issues, but the 'public' is full of complete fucking morons.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Whitey will go back to the moon.
CNN has a poll for Yes or No on the moon $$$. www.cnn.com/360 Perhaps we can tip the polls the other way, its 1000+ for no and 500+ for yes...
of course, the Slashbots are in action! MOD IT DOWN!!!!!!! SHOW THE WORLD THAT YOU REFUSE TO ACCEPT THE TRUTH.
We don't live in a world where the X-Files rules, remember that before you mod down.
Now just step aside and we'll elect somebody financially competent to pull it off.
Don't these sort of announcements usually get spouted out at election time ? :-)
Mining the moon, among other things, may provide an excellent return on our investment in the program. Moon resources could even provide the funding for the program in the future.
Imagine the economic boost to our country if it had a ten year head start on mining operations. Like the US, China has alot of gas tanks to fill, and light bulbs to power. They have clearly stated thier intention to use the moon for its energy resources begining in the near future.
--
What is the sound of this sentence?
I watched the announcement about this with interest. Most of the media seems to be claiming that it's likely to cost upwards of $400 billion in total, although that's probably an underestimate if experience is anything to go by.
Assuming it goes beyond the electioneering stage though I've been wondering how much of that will end up back in the US economy anyway, which is often what happens with government spending and one of the reasons that governments sometimes spend large amounts of money on projects like this.
Does anyone know of any estimations or figures of how much of the spending might be paid back to people and businesses in the US (who will in turn pay taxes back to the government) or otherwise end up back in the states, versus money going overseas?
We all know that the circuits we use now were reverse engineered from parts from the crashed Roswell ufo. Sheesh!
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
This program is going to suck all the money from the REAL science that NASA is doing, just to make some popularity rating go up 5%. Humans aren't fit for space, and whatever scientific discoveries made are going to be 1/10th of what would be discovered with the same money in probes. What technology will be discovered trying to do what we did in the 60s? This project is going to die, and kill NASA with it.
Neither is yours because you pulled that 1000% number right out of your butt.
NASA hasn't stimulated the economy any more than any other government bureaucracy of a similar size.
i think that most of the debate here is a bit off point...
yes, 17 billion isn't a gigantic sum, and yes, nasa brings good to all people, but has anyone thought about comparing that measly sum to the proposed 15% increase in the defense budget, that will bring it up to an amazing 380 billion?
i don't think that those brand-new small-scale nuclear weapons bring good to people...
and remember the 'project for a new american century'-stuff, you know, the paper from the end of 2000 that, besides talking about the need to invade iraq, also talks about starting a new 'space' branch for the military. what could the plan be? turning the moon into some kind of death star?
h357
If living on Mars or the moon is the end goal, then sure, your argument has some merit. However, that isnt the end goal at all. To quote a popular TV show, our goal as a species has always been "...to go boldy forth where no man has gone before..". If we establish a presence on Mars, there will always be a rock further away that we will want to land on. And if we land on that rock too, there will be yet another rock further away. The reason to go into space is not because of tangible or intangible payoffs, or because we havent got anything better to do, but because it is our destiny.
Anyway, even if living on Mars was the end goal, there are still some issues with your argument. Today there are folks living in really harsh environments like the Sahara and the Arctic. They know about alternative places where the environment is much kinder to the human body, yet they choose to continue living there. While it is true that Mars is much more inhospitable than these environments, who is to say that future technological improvements wont make Mars so hospitable that people might actually want to call it "home".
As regards to your argument that "the money could be better spent elsewhere", that is your point of view and you are entitled to it. But the last I checked, the US has a democratic process, and your elected representatives are speaking for you. If you dont like how they spend the nations money, cast your vote accordingly. If the majority of the US voting population like the way they are spending money, you are SOL.
Those who dont vote, dont deserve to get their complaints listened to.
There is no such thing as luck. Luck is nothing but an absence of bad luck.
We have come light years ahead in technology since we spat the first chunk of metal up into space. Breakthru technology has happened time and time again because of research done in or for space. I think its great that we're finally getting back off this hellhole of a rock we call home and starting the move to other planets.. I only wish that id still be around when it comes to to buy a piece o' marz. Who cares how much it costs.. we can find a motherload of diamonds on mars and pay for it all!
So post hoc ergo propter hoc, rather than being a logical fallacy anymore, is now proof that space programs are good?
A country that can't pay its bills; has millions of people without access to healthcare and has a substantal amount of money allocated to Defense spending is now going to spend a fortune on manned spaceflight.
I just graduated from college with a terrific debt and the first thing I thought of when this proposal came up was how we would spend money to go to space but not to assure college education to anyone who wanted it. Then I thought about how my generation was going to pay the bills to support the retiring baby-boomers. Then I thought about how many friends / family members are having trouble finding jobs in this economy.
I guess solving real problems doesn't get any attention in an election year.
I bet the "Crew Exploration Vehicle" is going to blow the fuck up about twenty times too. You can probably trace the suckiness of manned space exploration to the decision to switch from cool names like "Mercury" and "Apollo" to crappy names like "Skylab" and "STS."
If you really want to explain the difference between the successful Apollo days and the failed promises of the Space Shuttle, it's to your credit that you've identified the problem as psychological, but you've failed to understand the specific psychology.
What is the most distinctive difference between the Saturn V (and all it's successful kin, including the current ultra-cost-effective Russian rockets servicing the ISS) and the Space Shuttle? The Saturn V looks like a penis.
Come on, think about it. These are rocket scientists here. Many of them aren't getting laid, and the rest aren't getting laid very frequently. If you aren't even going to let them subconsciously work out their frustrations via overcompensating engineering, what reason do they have to get out of bed in the morning, much less reach for the stars?
spin doctor. If Dean made this a campaign pledge you wouldn't hesitate to support it.
Ladies and gentleman, one way or another we as a species are going to have to band together and figure out how to get off this lovely little rock we call Earth or our species will eventually go bye, bye. Granted we have billions of years before the sun engulfs the Earth in flames but it's eventually going to happen. The Sun won't last forever, all stars die. When the Sun enters it's latter stages it's going to expand and engulf the Earth, killing everything on it. That is, if we can even make it that long without a really big asteroid heading our way and colliding with our planet taking us all out first.
We've got to figure out a way to get people off of Earth and Mars is pretty good way to start. I mean just think of what a great accomplishment it would be for humanity. No human has ever set foot on another planet before and after hundreds of thousands of years humanity is finally very near the point where we are finally ready to do so. What an absolutely amazing accomplishment considering that a few hundred years ago the vast majority of us still though the Earth was flat.
We finally have a president that is going to set out a proposal for getting us to Mars and half of you poo poo it because you don't like the guy. While I'm no huge fan of Bush, I don't really care who the heck proposes the trip to Mars. At least it's out there now; at least it will be talked about. At least there is a possibility that it will happen. 10 years is a realistic goal considering how much it will cost. Even if it ultimately takes 15 - 20 years, so what? If NASA starts now and plans correctly, there will be plenty of money available. It just won't be there all at once. It will require careful planning and probably scaling back and eventually ditching the aging shuttle fleet, but again, so what? The current shuttle fleet has nearly outlived it's usefulness.
Perhaps many of you don't like the idea because we've already been to the moon. Well I was born in 1981 and there hasn't been anyone on the Moon in my lifetime, nor in the lifetimes of subsequent generations. I, for the life of me, cannot figure out why, after so many successful missions, we would stop sending people into space with the hopes of going father and farther and exploring more and more. Heck, I would be happy just to see us send someone back to the moon so I could witness it with my own eyes (via TV that is). Think of all the good things that could happen if we do send someone to Mars. Think of all the technological advances that are sure to arise as a result. Think of all of the children that might be inspired to become engineers and scientists.
American scientists and engineers are a dieing breed. There were very few from my graduating class in high school that planned on studying science or engineering when they went to college. A manned mission to Mars could provide an inspiration to all of the young kids out there to become interested in science and engineering. Hey, it happened during the space race in the 50's and 60's and it could certainly happen again.
In short, don't shoot down the idea because it comes from Bush. A manned mission to Mars wouldn't require a huge increase in funding if it is something that NASA starts planning for and funding now with the goal of getting someone there in say 10 - 20 years. We have absolutely nothing to lose by trying to go and we have quite a lot to gain. With all of the things that presently divide this great nation, a manned mission to Mars is something that almost every single American man, woman and child could get behind and be excited about regardless of who the president happens to be and regardless of what other circumstances we may find ourselves in. In my humble opinion, something like that is definitely worth pursuing, no matter the cost or the time it actually takes to get it done.
Damn Good Looking. No "Before 6 Beers, After 6 Beers" needed with her.
Your link argues 0 economic advantages of space exploration. You should be modded down for lack of basic reading comprehension.
What it does describe is how materials could be made on the moon (probably for a significantly greater cost than on earth).
So why don't you write them a check?
What you're really saying is you think other people's money would be better spent on NASA.
I think having a self sufficient breeding population off of this rock is a problem for 2004. It's the best investment in our future we currently have available. When the rock hits, it will not matter that the US has managed to reduce it's particulate emissions by 0.01% because it will A) be dwarfed by the ejecta and B) there won't be anyone around down here to care.
Without a self sufficent population off planet, we are one slip up from lacking existance. A moon base is a good first step (although an asteroid base or twenty would be a better first step)...
Realities just a bunch of bits.
Eat that moon hoaxers!!!....
oh, they'll still think it's a hoax won't they???
Not if people like the RIAA have their way !
Yeah, it's a shame that we don't have a no child left behind program to not only spend money on education, but also hold schools accountable to actually teach their students something. Oh wait G. W> Bush introduced that as well.
I think it's interesting that we'll spend almost, but not quite, as much money in the next FIVE years, as we spent fighting marijuana LAST year alone.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
nah! look at belgium (i just happen to live there :) here we have a deficit of 60% of the GDP, now THAT is a deficit :p)
(that is also how we pay our welfare system
What type of new technology will this bring us? While it's true that you can't really predict it before its invented, putting a man on the moon was done in the 60s. There was a ton more money spent on the Apollo project. What has the ISS given us?
Nasa's original charter way back in the days of yore was definitely one of bold exploration. Somewhere along the line that vision was stomped to death by bean counters and other vermin. It's been too long that we've just sort of spun our wheels and have gone nowhere new.
Bring on the next Saturn V class of launch vehicles! I want to see those babies FLY!
Is it fascism yet?
I think we will be able to track and divert "rocks" before we have self sufficiency in space.
Old man bush is spending like one of his teenage daughters with a credit card in a shoe store.
"Man, I lost $10,000 so far in Vegas. Ah! What's $1,000 more?? Put it on red!"
The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
Actually, I once used that comment in a post somewhere and got an e-mail from someone at the Dirksen Library who said they would love to have a reference to any transcript or other document where the Senator is known to have said that, because they couldn't find one.
I also note that Carl Sagan used to insist that he never said "Billions and billions," a phrase constantly attributed to him.
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
Hopefully, they'll include plans to bring them home, unlike Iraq.
Erm, actually, 2/3rds of the earth's crust is covered in water, and there are no self-sustaining settlements on or under the water. I think Dick Cheney and Osama live underground, but their basically the only ones. We are fragile too.
anonymous called be an idiot. boohoo. now i'm going to cry.
what did i assert that was unfounded?
/bin/fortune | slashdotsig.sh
To perhaps put a more direct example in the light, the US has (by civilian knowledge) 21 plane B2 bomber bomber (mostly built in the last 3 years or so).
uhh, not even close. bomber #21 was delivered in 1997.
In fact the US General Accounting Office found the B2s actually have trouble doing even those missions; since they where originally designed to fly a single M.A.D. mission, they are not very sturdy. In fact every mission they fly causes extensive and expensive damage because of moisture in the air damaging the stealth covering.
the issue w/ the stealth coating has nothing to do w/ how many missions it was designed to fly- it's simply the nature of the technology at the time.
The cost for the handful of B2s was $45 billion (even if you exclude research costs and assume mass production, each plane costs over $1 billion to produce, let alone actually maintain). What worse is that the B2 is a somewhat cost efficent project as compared to others in the military industrial complex.
the reason the per plane cost for the B2 was so high was that gov't approval kept shrinking regarding orders; the fewer the planes built, the higher the per unit cost (since you were wrong about the $45b figure- that cost *does* include development, as well as procurement and military construction costs). it's a fact of life that the gov't is fickle, constantly changing requirements, making it likely you'll run over cost. this is applicable to space programs, and social programs as well. it's funny how you keep saying "in fact" when you don't appear to know about the facts... =)
But seriously, if it's not much money, then let's also spend a billion dollars on all my pet causes, regardless of whether or not you want to pay for it.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Well hopefully we can start a community off of this planet, and start it the right way. We are more knowledgable of what is dangerous to us now so we can possibly create a civilization free from pollution or be much better at handling it. Also the earth is very limiting compared to what else is out there. We can learn a million things from traveling to space and it will also solve the problem of the earth overcrowding. People's life spans are expected to increase to 150 and by 2100 we may possibly never die and our bodies may not even be carbon any more (yes this sounds like science fiction, but technology increases at an exponential rate, something catastrophic would have to happen in order to stop it i.e. nuclear war). We've almost used up all of our resources on this planet so we should expand out before we destroy ourselves. Also by spreadng our civilization out across the galaxy/universe we are insuring that we go on as a species because one asteroid won't be able to knock us all out. By exploring space we can learn more about spacetime and possibly time travel or new highly dense materials. The possibilities are endless. We can't really start warping the timespace continuim unless we leave the planet and can gather things with the mass of such planets like Jupiter. Many experiments are already conducted in space that help us. Flame resistant materials are created, cancer research, organic growth and many more (google it, there are too many to list).Certain things can only happen in 0 gravity. We can better examine the earth and we will be able to build super giant paritcle accelerators that stretch planets in length. We will also gain new insights into things such as fusion. Space travel is necessary and we can't stop it so we might as well not try to slow it down. Besides all of the knowledge that we will gain, we will be insuring our species survives. One other cool thing would be overclocking you computer in a vacuum and absolute zero (or near it) temperatures, it couldn't possibly overheat:) Okay well the list could go on, but in short leaving this planet is the best thing for us. We are so constricted here that we don't even realize it yet and in a few hundred years or so we'll look back and say "Wow I wonder what it was like never leaving that planet and not knowing what was on the other side of the Milky Way" just like today we look back at Christopher Columbus and those of his era and we think "Wow what was it like not knowing that half of the earth existed and never being able to cross the continents". Personally I'm looking foward to all this new traveling, it should be a good show.
Regards,
Steve
What has been lost, for the most part, is the fact that concealed in Bush's proposal is a catch-all kill line that basically targets all pure-science research by NASA. Anything that doesn't support this new directive is going to be "scrapped" or "scaled-back" -- which is hardly a surprise from the least science-literate president in recorded history. (See: UPI Article)
/.) believe that everyone who works for or receives funding from NASA is an astronaut. Not true -- much space science research is in fact funded NASA scientists, although it seems that may be coming to a bit of a close.
Furthermore, the idea of using the Moon as a base of operations to reach Mars is laughable at best. Easterbrook (normally only moderately eloquent) wrote a great piece doing back-of-the-envelope calculations regarding the various payloads and fuel requirements for travelling to Mars.
This is not a good thing. As an astronomer, I lament the 'scaling back' of non-Moon/Mars projects -- many people (evidently many here on
It may not be one, but it has one.
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
Problem: Incompetance
Solution: Use terrorist as a scare tactic to use Congress for his own personal agenda.
Problem: "War on terrorism" not working
Solution: Distract people by invading a country under false pretenses.
Problem: Occupation a complete failure
Solution: Distruct people with promises of space travel and extra terrestial habitats.
It's reassuring to know we have some real bright people governing this country.
What about the roads? Surely the roads go without saying. How about Public health? The aqueducts? The wine? Sanitation? Medicine? Education?
Ho! Haha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!
Maybe you should cry and bitch to your local goverment and not federal.
however inflatiion *has* gone up since apollo, 17 billion then was a lot more than 17 billoin now, not to mention NASA has more on its plate now( space station, mars)
Agree with your post in general, but one factor that hasn't been mentioned so far (which surprises me) but is alluded to in your post is the military aspect of all this.
However there are those that argue that the whole space program is entirely about the military and I find this argument persuasive from several angles. Control of space is currently up for grabs. The International Space Station has been an interesting experiment, but for practical control of space a moon-base would probably be more practical. The control of space has always been an issue and has recently become a policy goal of the USA.
The presence of a large slush-fund for "space exploration" provides a huge amount of money for the companies in the Military Industrial Complex who are able to apply technologies developed for that ostensible purpose back to military and commercial projects.
So, guess where the money is going? To the kids that lack textbooks, healthcare and lobbyists or to the slick, plausible, verbose representatives of millions of dollars in campaign funds?
And before the Middle Ages, by the Arabs, used in a generic sense the way Europeans were classified as 'Latins' or 'Greeks' at that time.
The church had its history of book-burning as well, and let's not forget Galileo.
The existence of multiple civilizations make it possible for knowledge to survive the destruction of Rome, and later, the stagnation of the Arabic world. Makes one shudder to contemplate the consequences of having One Global Culture.
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
Hardly any of the sea bed is mapped, they're finding all kinds of bizzare looking life all the time down there. I'm all for space exploration, but maybe it's a case of running before you learn to walk.
waste it teaching kids to read and right.
I'm hoping that was intentional.
Put identity in the browser.
Maybe your state should help itself.
Macintosh humor! MacComedy.com
"If we spend $1 billion this year on this goal, then I want SOMETHING that we can show for it."
You realize we'll spend more than 10 times that much just trying to suppress marijuana?
I rarely work up the energy to be funny anymore.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
I've said it before & I'll say it again. This is NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. The USA borrows $500 billion a year from the rest of the world just to pay for the trade deficit. If you really think that the US govt as presently carried on, in the present circumstances, is capable of the long-term planning and huge expense needed to put man on Mars, I've got a proverbial bridge you might like to take a look at.
Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
yeah, cause an extra billion will make a difference when the $750B we currently spend doesn't seem to be working so good: 2002 expenditures
I would like to remind everyone that there is a great series of books by the the author Ben Bova (www.benbova.com) on the very topic of manned exploration of the solar system. Great reading. I wonder what his take is on this announcement.
Can you imagine how much one of those Alan Shepard golf balls would fetch if someone could bring one back? Or how much a (factory-refurbished) Lunar Rover might go for?
Okay, so that would mean that NASA would actually have to get people there and back to fetch the stuff, but it's not like the feds haven't spent money before they've collected it before....
First lunacy: waste money bringing the space station up to snuff, then abandon our part in. That's one hell of a message to send to future prospective partners.
Bush stated that we would fulfill our obligation to the international space station. That sends a very positive message to future prospective partners.
Second lunacy: only add $1B to NASA's budget. They will have to gut every other program to fund this return to the moon, and they appear to be eager to do so.
How is that lunacy? If a moon platform better serves NASA's research goals then cancel the obsolete platforms.
Third lunacy: nothing in this proposal has anything to do with making access to space cheaper.
Making it possible rather than impossible to get to the moon and then mars is clearly a cost reduction in space access. Any further reductions are in the domain of business, not government. Once we are on the moon, it is government's responsibility to manage our property claims.
What ought to happen is tell NASA to get out of the way of independent private companies
Would you care to name some independent private companies that NASA is standing in the way of? XPrize contestants seem to be making good progress. Lockheed and Boeing are both public corporations which owe a great deal of business to NASA.
NASA doesn't build any satellites or rockets, that work is typically contracted out.
Pfffpht. And where did that get us?
Macintosh humor! MacComedy.com
McCoy: What do you get when you feed poor people?
Kirk: Fat poor people?
McCoy: No, you get more poor people.
Troll. There's a huge difference between having a state of the art stealth coating damaged during a long transcontinental mission, and not being "sturdy." The idea that the nuclear deterrent mission is no longer required is sophmoric at best. Picking defense spending as the place to cut government spending is silly. We've cut more out of the defense budget over the last 14 years then was wise, and the consequences are readily apparent to someone with a clue. Try to find one.
Also, the $13 billion is only for the R&D phase of the program. The entire project (if followed through with) will undoubtedly take much more money. I'm all for the space program, though not through NASA. I'd much rather have the US government offer a prize for putting someone (or someones) on the moon. Say $50 billion for putting 10 people on the moon for a 6 month habitation mission. If we entrust this to NASA, there's no chance of success.
Yeah of course 17 billion is a lot of money, but when you look here, at table S-7. You will see that NASA's budget compared to the defense spending is miniscule. Of the total US budget, 48% goes to defense. That is ludicrous. And more money gets spent on Homelad Security than on NASA.
Spend a bit less on blowing up Iraqi's, Afghani's, Serbs and developing more nuclear weapons, then spend what you save on putting the human race onto other planets in our solar system and beyond. It may still be a lot of money but you are doing something non-destructive with it...
If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
Just like the science that was left over from Rome? The years following weren't called the dark ages for nothing.
The period after the Roman Empire was not the Dark Ages. You are off by hundreds of years. Do your history, and do your math. Besides, the Dark Ages were known in Europe only. I don't remember a Dark Ages in India, the Americas, Asia, Africa...
You missed one of the most likely possible cures in your list: Cell Encapsulation.
v f95_5.html
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/News/research/ravf95/ra
Of course, the process requires a zero gravity (or microgravity) environment to work. The leader in this research is Dr. Taylor Wang, a Vanderbilt prof. and former astronaut. The program is an outgrowth (and is still funded by) NASA microgravity research. Dr. Wang also happens to be a former boss of mine, and when I ran into him last year at the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts meeting he told me that animal trials had gone well and they were very close to human trials to fix diabetes with cell encapsulation. Don't be so quick to strip money from space research if you want a cure for diabetes.
Now is always a bad time to do it.
Do it anyway.
Is it fascism yet?
Funding for welfare, etc, isn't designed to wipe out poverty or mitigate its effects. It's designed to perpetuate poverty, because a permanent underclass of non-producing food tubes dependent upon the government to steal wealth from the producing food-tubes can be relied upon to always support the government.
Alas, no mod points at the moment. The parent post is both ontopic and insightful. While opponents of the space program in general (or the present poposal in specific) may object that it is nothing more than a cynical attempt to swing votes at the taxpayer's expense (heck, I think that and I'm strongly in favour of the space program), it is important to remember that the same is true of other programs, such as wellfare and the millitary.
-- MarkusQ
One thing I want to know (couldn't find it on Google) is how long an "age" is.
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
So we'll dodge the next killer asteroid by ferrying everyone to Mars? You have a thing for drama! :D
we need the stargate for that one
Remember the hydrogen infrastructure announcement a while back? That within 10 years we'd have a hydrogen based economy? Seen any progress towards that?
Lasers Controlled Games!
From the Associated Press story on abcnews.com:
"...outlining a costly new effort to return Americans to the moon..."
How wonderful. Someone at the AP has already done the math for us and determined that this effort is "costly."
Outfuckingstanding. Now how come all they do is whine about how we have a deficit rather than reporting on how we can eliminate it. They seem to have all the answers.
And then you have all the liberals bashing the plan because we need the money on the war for terror. Funny how they didn't support that war until we wanted to spend money on the space program.
Might as well give up now and call it a day. The AP says it's too costly so we aren't going to get enough benefit out of it.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
return on investment does not mean tehy directly stimulate the economy.
see that computer you are typing on, see the cell phone you are using, see that velcro, teflon, anything small, anything modern, anything you see around you.....it has been made possable because of the work NASA did in the 60's to get men to the moon.
our entire modern economy is based off of research done by NASA in the 60's. you are being short sighted.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
I say bring back Orion! They you can get to the moon and Mars easy.
Sure it releases loads of radiation, but probably less likely to cause cancer then smoking
I'm waiting until the "State of the Union" speech to decide if the president actually intends to follow through on this plan. Actually, the fact that this announcement wasn't held back until the SotU address already has me wondering about the sincerity of it.
Somebody floated a trial balloon on this at least a couple weeks ago, I wonder why?
what could the plan be? turning the moon into some kind of death star?
hopefully.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
> the reason the per plane cost for the B2 was so high was that gov't approval kept shrinking regarding orders
The argument is that the government should have shrank their order to 0 because they don't need 'em.
Rome lasted about 1300 years from foundation to fall. The U.S. has only been here about 400 years from its foundation (first non-indigenous settlers, not the formation of the country). If we last as long as Rome did (not likely), we've got some time to go.
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
Now he is going to look for WMD in the moon? Those evil terrorists!
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
This _IS_ the leader that wants to do it for re-election reasons, however. He doesn't want to be a dud/non-visionary like his father. Especially in an election year.
I say more power to him. It will give the Dem's ammo going into the 2004 election (how many Americans are unemployed again?), so he can hopefully be replaced in 2004. I doubt it will happen now that Florida and many other states are on paperless-trailed voting machines.
I'd just like to see him ousted from power simply because of the controveriality (is that a word?) of the 2000 election. America needs a new President just for the sake of keeping the Democratic-Republic integral.
It's not 1984 yet, so at least let us think we still have voting power until the paperless voting machines invisibily take our rights away.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
>> jobs and promote technology and development
Oh great! And here I was worried about US tech jobs being sent overseas!
Headline in 2030 - Mars attacks! Dell transfers their service department to Olympus Mons!
The value of money is ambiguous. It seems to be an artificial means of measuring wealth. There is plenty of money in the world. If no one ever spent money, what would it be worth?
As a genuine NASA geek (ie employee) I find it amusing sometimes how politics can get in the way of real science. I personally know of a mission from the previous administration (read Clinton) scrapped by the current administration for only being a mission from the previous administration. I also know of a mission manager who attempted to prohibit the launch date of a mission from occuring near his wedding anniversary (insert picture of rocket scientist trying figure out how to alter the motion of the planets here).
The point is the engineers and scientists working at NASA should be the ones giving direction to NASA's future, not politicians. The space shuttle was the result of the mettling of Congress and the DOD, not the culmination of sound engineering decisions. The space station is largely a joke, other than the medical data on long term exposure to microgravity, the science "experiments" being performed there are more of a show and tell level than useful science.
I want to goto Mars, I want to put humans on the moon again, I want a Pluto mission, I want an extra-solar mission, I want more Earth science missions. There are a lot of good, visionary, dedicated engineers and scientists at NASA, but politics and $$$ always seem to have the wrong resources being allocated to the wrong people. If we want to be leaders in space, the primary focus and resources should be developing a vehicle that will reduce the cost per pound to LEO by 2 orders of magnitude (ie 100$/lb). With cheap transportation to space, all other things will follow. Screw $12B for a moon base, we need a space elevator, or space plane, or an antigravity flying machine!
I didn't see him mention being a Dean supporter anywhere. But if he was, maybe its because Dean isn't making campaign pledges like this.
If you're willing to open your wallet, than I'll think about going to the moon. Very funny that Bush will also be proposing another tax cut as the newest fashion for the political season ...
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
You shored up that all important Geek vote!
Well, we've been throwing billions at them so far.
$5 trillion since 1970.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
The monies being spent will not go to Mars; it will stay here on Earth. This will create jobs, and boost our economy. The science to come from this will be revolutionary, which I'm sure everyone will benefit from someday. Eventually, millions of years from now (maybe sooner), it will lead to the terraforming and relocation/expansion to Mars for the human race. Do the math.
Gee, none of the links that I click can be found:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/error-404.html
is the error-redirect that I get when I click on each one. Even changing the URL to fy2002 provides dead links.
Anyone else getting the same result?
I smell a rat.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
For much less money, a more exciting science and technology project would be to send a probe to the center of earth. If possible, we should even bring a sample of earth's core. The advances in material science, geology, volcanology, siesmic forcasting would be astronomical. And how can you equal the joy of understanding our own home planet so much more intimately.
So the loss of troops is only a problem because it weakens morale. Shouldn't you be more worried that the troops are getting killed in the first place?
Just think the US could have funded some rebel group in Iraq with $10 billion dollars and they could have gone and fixed the Saddam problem. The same rebels that are currently killing troops from the biggest and most armed army in the world on a regular basis. $10 billion could buy a lot of RPGs and AK-47s...
If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
" Funding for welfare, etc., isn't designed to wipe out poverty. You can't wipe out poverty. It's designed to mitigate the damage caused by poverty, to wit, lawlessness, public health (poverty makes life dangerous for everybody) and human suffering (and it's no fun)."
No, it's designed to purchase some people's votes with other people's money. The art of governmet consists of taking money from those who aren't going to vote for you anyway, and using those fund to purchase votes.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
He's either the biggiest moron in the world or he's(his advisors) a genius
Sending a man to permenantly live on the moon can take care of three outstanding problems in my view: 1) We can propel Dubya out into space and make him the first astduhnot - he can let us know how things are goin' up there. Give him an LED flashlight and a book on Morse code. 2) We can test out Carmack's new rocket with the first human passenger. After all, it's just Dubya. 3) No more Dubya. Did I mention that? Then we can start working on *gasp* helping people live above the poverty level. Yes, I see bright things ahead in our future!
I think the idea in "Red Mars" by Kim Stanley Robinson is a pretty good one. Haul dozens of Shuttle fuel tanks (or are they O2 tanks, the big ones anyway) into orbit. They should be pretty cheap to get there; There would be no people or valuable equipment of any kind, so a large safety/cost-efficiency tradeoff could be made. Just a simple motor with just enough fuel to get into low orbit would be needed, these could be almost mass produced.
Then, when there are enough of them in orbit, herd them into a group and weld them together. Voila, one huge-ass ship, or the exterior at any rate. The internals could then be made on earth and shipped up, or constructed in situ. Either way, we wouldn't have to build discrete modules on earth and then fly them up one-by-one.
Building some of the innards in orbit would make more sense, the raw materials could be shipped up, and once the shell was pressurised and spun up, it could be done without expensive space-suits.
Dude, JFK made the effort because the US wasn't looking so good in the world community and he needed something to spice things up. After he exceeded the US Recomended Daily Allowance of lead, nodoby would have the heart to can the project. ;)
Gentoo Sucks
I won't get excited about the Moon base and Mars Mission until I see how big the tax cuts are that Bush will use to fund it. It wouldn't be prudent....
That amount is comparable to NASA's total budget for the next 8 years. ;D
which is more or less the time it took them to get this up... so, pure accounting states that it still works
Will the initiative end when they discover that there is neither oil nor Al Quaeda operatives hiding on the Moon or Mars?
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
You are contradicting yourself. First you say taking money away from welfare type programs is bad for numerous ethical and practical reasons. Then you say we're wasting money in Iraq blowing up buildings, and that we should cut miltary spending. Now, removing Saddam from power allows a more humane govt. to be put in place in Iraq, which allows all the ethical and practical benefits for the people of Iraq that you claim we need domestically. So, by ignoring Iraq, we are doing the same thing as cutting the budget on domestic social programs, which you argued against. So either you're arguing the US should remain an isolationist nation that ignores world problems, or your arguements contradict each other to some extent.
Vote for Pedro
No, you have to build the space station seperate from the moon. How else can my grandchildren look at me strange when they point up and ask if that is the moon and I reply with a chuckle, "That's not a moon. That's a space station."
Actually, the current political system suggests that it's more cost effective to buy votes using disinformation than it is to buy votes using bread and circuses. The evidence for this is that the current administration is sucking up to the people who can give them money to buy disinformation, not the people who can give them votes (assuming, as you imply, that the poor are a sufficiently large percentage of the population to win a popular vote, which I'm not convinced is the case).
Yeah, but you start talking about a billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it starts to add up to real money.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
Its fun to buy stuff with other people's credit cards. Hell, I wish I could run up my credit without having to worry about paying it off somewhere down the road.
What it does describe is how materials could be made on the moon (probably for a significantly greater cost than on earth).
So how is a new source of material creation not an economic advantage?
The initial costs of exploiting a new resource are always high, but we don't get to advance without them. Or would you rather we sit here on Earth fighting ever nastier wars over diminishing resources.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
First of all, NASA's budget for FY04 is approximately $15.47 billion according to NASA's website, not $17 billion. That's a pretty big difference. NASA's entire aeronautics budget is a bit less than a billion if you want something for comparison. I'd love to see an increase in NASA's budget. It benefits me since I work in the aerospace sector. But I can't agree with this initiative at a time when we're facing record deficits.
It's nice to see that NASA is finally getting some sorts of long term goal (the aeronautics side needs one still). It seems like there hasn't been one in a while. I also wonder what programs will be cut or scaled back to reallocate the $11 billion that Bush mandated that NASA pull from programs that do not support the moon initiative. Since much of NASA's budget gets outsourced, has anyone considered the impact on the companies (and local economies) that have NASA contracts?
I personally feel that this will fizzle just like Bush Sr.'s push for Mars. I'm sure there will be a lot of noise and excitement about this for the next few months, but when all is said and done, it will prove to be too costly. If Bush doesn't get reelected, I think it will probably go away, if he does and he keeps pushing it, it will become another albatross around NASA's neck like the space station. On the other hand, I'm sure someone is considering China's ambitions and their impact on our prestige.
You are not reading closely enough between the lines. The Moon is only a stepping stone on the way to Mars because that is where the WMDs and Osama Bin Laden actually are. And as a bounus, it reminds him of home because it looks just like West Texas.
Is it just me, but Bush isn't doing this for the right reasons. I'm all for space exploration, its just cool beyond measure. But he's doing it to get votes. He doesn't have the time left in office to turn this out, and when it comes down to it, he's trying to get the geek vote. Just like the bill to grant illegal immigrants legal status when we have 1000s of green card residents legally waiting in line to become citizins - to get the hispanic vote.
I guess he figures going to the moon worked for Kennedy, it will work for him. I pray some of our presidential nominees support this bill, as they will most likely get my vote if they do.
You'd be hard-pressed to find a bigger proponent for space exploration than me, but this is a clear indication that Bush is out of his !@#$ing mind and believes his advisors when they tell him, "don't worry, the recovery is in full swing."
My
Limekiller
You think those explosions in the Australian outback are a coincidence? That ain't a fractionator mate, it's a launch tower! Those weren't gas explosions, they were rocket fuel!!! Think Dubya is being a mongrel by not signing Kyoto? It's not that he doesn't like it, just that it is irrelevant, 'cause he won't be here!!! Is he a bastard for tearing up the ABM treaty? He needs that gone so he can get his launch vehicles away! Dick's affilation with big business is just a front for the collection of global fatcats who will be riding the rocketship to freedom, away from environmental disaster.
Up until now the only bit we haven't been able to figure out has been the destination. Now we know! It's Mars!!! First stop will be the moon, from where Dubya and friends will move onto their new Martian Utopia while the rest of us fry back here on earth!!!
As I write this, I'm boucing through the outback, in a ute with my comrades, tinfoil akubra on my head. Our objective is to save civilisation from this menace . It's a tough mission, but someone's gotta do it. Wish us well and pray for us as we roll towards our destiny...
...the people of the US could use a non-destructive national goal.
The problem is that the evironmentalists don't want you to disturb the desert tortiose.
They also want more fuel efficient cars while mostly driving cars (like 30 year old volkswagons) that pollute more than the worst modern SUV.
They also want recycling, even if it turns out to waste more resources than not recycling.
They also want wind power, but don't want the poor little birdies to get hurt...
Hydroelectric is OK as long as the little fishies aren't disturbed.
Definately no nuclear, even if there hasn't been a single death or any pollution attributed to nuclear power in the U.S. since it's first use.
And even if they accept destroying the natural habitat of the sand mite, they uniformly have that old relative of the NIMBY syndrome, the IOFYBNFM (it's ok for you, but not for me) syndrome. In other words, you can go live in the desert, but it's not going to be their bag. Just like hybrid cars... they want everyone else to use them, but it doesn't quit fit in with the hippy image, does it?
I agree we should probably concentrate on solving the problems we have here first, but it seems, as many have pointed out, that a lot of useful technology and innovation has come out of NASA. Maybe by figuring out how to exist on the moon, it will be a simple matter to exist in the desert.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
"I'm tired of us paying for science that gets exported all around the globe."
Get real. The U.S. rarely shares its own space intelligence with its OWN citizens. You think other countries get to benefit from what NASA does? Hell, the United States itself doesn't even get to benefit.
Wake up and smell the so-called "failed" Mars probes. Why do you think the EU and Japan had to launch their own failed probes? So they too could learn about Mars without their citizenry finding out.
Played like a trout.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
OK maybe he wasn't that eloquent.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
not federal problems.
Every town in every city has problems like yours that just take "a little bit."
It's your city/state's job to bring in enough money to fund local problems like yours. The Federal government can't. If they help one city in such a way they have to help every city.
You're barking up the wrong money tree.
"It's a new budget-saving pattern for the Bay Area's fourth-largest city. Starting this month, whenever three firefighters can't work because of illness, the city will close one of four fire stations to save $400,000 in overtime costs and prevent firefighter layoffs."
So by closing one firestation because the people who work there are wasting money they save $400,000 they can use to fix other problems.
There's your money for the library.
Fix your city's budget problems before you start pretending it's the federal government's job.
You think Uncle Sam is going to bail out CA? What makes your problems more serious?
You're in the Bay Area. I'll willing to bet there's another library that's open 7 days a week. If not, get your stuff done when it is open. What's more important to you? The money that can be put towards more important things or convienence?
It's certainly not worth $200,000 to staff a library an extra day if nobody is visiting. That's generally why they close one day. It also allows for fewer full time staff (which allows for higher wages) while still giving them a day off every week to keep them sane and happy.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Thankfully, our president isn't going to let a little dotcom bust rain on his buddies parade of wealth. We have TAX DOLLARS! Line up BOYS!
Boys and girls, someday, YOU will get to go into space, yesiree! You just wait! Big shiny stars, happy,happy. Keep paying those taxes, and we'll be just fine....
I'm not bitter...:-)
sig mind freed
You always hear this argument about space advancing technology but every time you hear it the advances cited seem to came from the Apollo era. I'd really like to see a list of advances, with earth bound applications, that have come from the space program in the last 10 years. I really doubt there are many. NASA simply hasn't done a whole lot worthwhile in a long time, especially in the context of the space shuttle and the space station.,
@de_machina
Frankly, I'd rather close half our libraries and me assured of men on Mars in six years (not that closing even all the libraries would probably pay for that).
If you were not talking about taking money away from Nasa to fund libaries, then I apologize - there are many other places money goes that are much lower on my priority than libraries. I just think that the boost in spirit of the people of the planet would do more to further public education than all the libraries put together. People only learn if they want to...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
While the parent was marked funny, it is laughable that throwing more money at education might result in smarter kids.
Extra money seems to go to football stadiums, and condoms, and milk programs and extras and not to actual education.
----- LoboSoft specializes in Digital Language Lab
kippy writes:
"Does anyone honestly think that putting that bit of money elsewhere would solve whatever domestic problems you want fixed? Have we yet cured hunger, poverty, or undereducation? No? Well, we've been throwing billions at them so far."
You're making the tacit argument that if we don't erradicate a given social problem, it's pointless to even bother.
The bottom line -- and an unavoidable one -- is that a billion dollars spent on the space program is a billion dollars worth of food that is not eaten and tens of thousands of humans that are not taken care of medically. You'd be very, very hard-pressed to find a person who feels that space exploration is more valuable than me. But when you're hanging on by your fingernails, you don't go waving your arms around (that's a quote from The Abyss).
My
Limekiller
>Instead of building a bomb which has a negative economic impact (not to mention cost)
Nobody (who is rational) builds a bomb thinking about how it will make them poorer. People build bombs because they believe that having the bomb will benefit them by:
1. Preventing others from taking their stuff, and/or
2. Allowing them to take others stuff.
As a hypothetical, suppose the United States had not spent any money on nuclear weapons or missiles after WW2. Imagine that that as a result of a lack of deterrence (Mutual Assured Destruction), there was a WW3 fought between the totalitarian regimes of the Soviet Union and China and their puppets against the democracies of Western Europe, North America, and Australia. Do you think that the negative economic impacts of that war could have been worse that the costs of building the doomsday weapons?
I'm not a war monger, quite the opposite. I prefer butter to guns. But I am realistic and see that humanity has not passed the point where we can all throw down our weapons and just love each other.
If you look at the prevalence graph diabetes is a lot more common for old people to have than young. Old people dying is a good thing, they are big medical black holes for a family's (or country's if national med.) money and produce little. What we need is a Right to Death rather than pumping all this money into filling old useless folks full of pills and cures.
Better than teaching them to read and wrong.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
What do you mean return to the moon? We've never been there.
Joe
No, people die. In the military more so than in the general population at a young age. Even when not in combat the military is not a good place to be if you want a long life. A soldiers life expectancy is significantly lower than the general population even in peacetime. Moreover training accidents occour at a fairly high rate. For instance accidents including vehicles in the army motor vehicle pool resulted in 225 fatalities in the years 1987-1998 Source, and the marines had 193 non-combat related fatalities from 1999-2003 Source. So yes more people are dying in Iraq but at only a couple times the rate of death that occours in the military even in peacetime.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
All the guys at JPL have to do is fake some soil sample results from Spirit, claim to have found oil, and we'll be landing on Mars within 5 years.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
"So, guess where the money is going? To the kids that lack textbooks, healthcare and lobbyists or to the slick, plausible, verbose representatives of millions of dollars in campaign funds?" Well... As a recent student in the Arkansas school system, with my father being a teacher, i can assure you there is PLENTY of money out there for text books... The problem is how the schools are organized. We need reform, not more money. Before you mod me off topic, this applies to ALL areas of government. In the school instance, i was in a small rural school, and we borrowed math textbooks from a neighboring school because we "couldn't afford them". Yet, during that same year, the school began construction on a $2,000,000 Gym and put $45,000 of new sod on the baseball field. We need to restructure and reorganize most of the gov't. And o yeah - Go Bush! :) Flame away libs :)
Learn about Photography Basics.
Without a self sufficent population off planet, we are one slip up from lacking existance.
So, you want to ensure the survival of the species by colonizing space. Okay, fine.
But pumping funding into NASA now is not necessarily the best way to accomplish that.
Space colonization is not something that you do overnight. It's not like buying a new computer, where you pay for it and then you've got it. It's research, and the definition of research is that you don't know what the results will be.
So you need a long-term, sustainable effort for who-knows-how-long.
But space exploration doesn't happen in a vacuum. (oh, I guess it does -- heh). I mean, it's not the only thing happening here on Earth. There is the economy, the environment, etc. This is a complex system.
Think of an ecosystem. You look at the ocean and you see fish. To get fish, you need the stuff that fish feed on, like insects. In fact, you need lots of other things too, like light. You need the whole ecosystem before you can have fish.
Your space mission is analogous to my fish. To have space travel, you need scientists, materials, and lots of other things. To get those things, you need an economy. In fact, this is a really BIG fish, so you need a sustainable economy that will be healthy for a long time. I bet that you'll need a sustainable environment, too. I don't seriously believe that we'll outrun the need for a sustainable environment by jumping planets.
So, to accomplish space exploration, nations need to deal with ordinary things like health care first. It's all one ecosystem. That is why I want to see a balanced budget more than I want to see a new Mars initiative.
You'd need one massive astroid to make the entire world less hospitible than mars or the moon. In fact, the lack of oxygen on those places means the bottom of the ocean, the middle of the sahara desert, or antarctica are all better places to go than mars.
But i think, just like IRAQ, the true motives behind this direction is based on two things that have nothing to do with science. 1) To challenge china as we did with Russia during the cold war I think this is perhaps a strategy to try and take down china, seeing how china is now entering the space race. 2) I have a feeling that a lot of the money will find its way to the many of military technology companies that bush and pals have their hands in.
All hearsay bullshit.
You might as well credit the Bureau of Reclamation for all that stuff, because they are responsible for it as NASA is.
Read The Case for Mars.
Zubrin estimates we could be there in six years with the CURRENT Nasa budget. Even if you think his estimates pretty wild, even double that seems pretty reasonable.
The key is making Mars the only job for NASA to acomplish, which is part of the proposal - drop the space shuttle, drop the space station. Zubrin would think going to the Moon a waste of time though, given that it's not a bold goal like Mars is, and also really less hospitible to life than Mars (though the moon is certainly closer).
I was at a recent talk where Zubrin was asked about a potential (at that time) announcement from the president of this sort. His thoughts were that he was worried the goals would be too far out to affect the current administration, and thus not real... I imagine he is non-plussed by this announcement, seeing what comes of it from NASA.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
A lot of that defense budget _does_ bring good to all people. Wasn't it just the other day that there was a slashdot article about USAF grants? Doesn't DARPA fund several open source projects, not to mention their role in creating the internet? Then you have cases where, like NASA, military funding leads to breakthroughs in technology that have multiple applications unrelated to weaponry. There is also the fact that a ton of money is spent on the non-military education of soldiers.. Just because the ultimate goal of the military is to kill people, doesn't mean everything associated with them is evil.
Perhaps part of the problem is that the US is more interested in "solving problems" in other countries than dealing with domestic problems. The US currently spends 4-5 times more on the military than it does on educating its own citizens. See page 51.
However, I don't understand why only a few measly billions are being devoted to this. I think the budget should be more like, say, a trillion dollars a year for space stations, ten trillion dollars a year for the moon, and a hundred trillion dollars a year for Mars, and a quadrillion dollars a year to send manned missions to Pluto. All they have to do is cancel all the stupid government programs, like the health care bullshit, who cares about that anyway, and divert the money to space.
I wouldn't put it past this administration to develop some sort of "Homeworld Security Agency".
Cthulhu Barata Nikto
"but he's the only one who has"
Well actually his dad made a similar speech declaring we would go to Mars. It was empty rhetoric in an election year too. Clinton and Gore and I think Reagan had the NASP and various other SSTO vehicles all of which went no where. They cynic in me thinks this a way to win some votes in key places like Florida where there are lots of aerospace workers. Aerospace workers will flock to Bush because of it. No one else will care one way or another.
I really hope this programs does gain traction and it does come to fruition but it really sounds like a lot of past bold new initiatives. Some money will go in to the pockets of each NASA center, some in to the pockets of Boeing and Lockheed. A bunch of studies will be churned out at the cost of billions of dollars, maybe they will start to bend metal, but costs will then start exploding due to political, bureaucratic and contractor corruption, schedules will slip, it will become prohibitively expensive and the program will either be scaled back to the point its useless or be killed all together.
If you really want to do a space program again you need to start with a blank slate with a new agency or company that is built from scratch and from the ground up to get something done, with people being hired based on merit and the ability to get things done. The old Lockheed skunkworks being the absolute best model to follow.
NASA and the contractors that feed at its trough will devour these small budget increases without a hiccup and without anything useful coming out the other side.
@de_machina
So congress doesn't have to worry about deficit spending as much... Do away with funding complete crap like that.
ISS hasn't even finished being constructed yet.
I think it is you, my friend, that has been caught off guard ;)
Thats because NASA hasn't _done_ anything worthwhile in the past 10 years. That is the entire point of this new initiative. I'm sure, however, that there have been advances in robotics due to NASA in the past 10 years.
You Sir, have lost you mind! There is no way any county can spead 48% on defense. The title say discretionary spending not total for the year. Look at S-2, 2004 390B defense, 429B Nondefense, 493B Social Security + others. 390B out of 2,343B 16% and that is higher than normal. Some NASA funding is in Defense and so is rebuilding Iraq.
Bush hating moron. Oh and by the way, Clinton bombed the Serbs.
When the Apollo blew up they fucking fixed it and came home, but when the Space Shuttle gets fucked up they make Powerpoints about it and ignore the problem.
Fantastic post but that last statement is just Fucking Brilliant!! (c)2004 Bono
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
I haven't seen much mention of this, but Bush was proposing to use moon resources to advance the program. Whilst yes, this gets around the issue somewhat of having to lift resources out of Earths gravitional field, there should be rather strict limits to the amount of mining to be done on the moon. After all, we only have one moon, and it shouldn't be seen as another resource to be plundered. God knows its not like humans have done enough of that already...
I think that the government should give me a million dollars!
I would spend it all and help the economy create jobs! Economists tell us that the muliplier effect of consumer spending in the market is many times the actual initial expense.
Giving me a milllion dollars will go a long way to solving the individual problem (mine) of underemployment, poverty, and you-name-it. It will definitely not be wasted by jacking it off into space! Even if you can't solve all of society's problems by throwing money at them you can make a damn-good all-American try by starting with giving me a million dollars!
And it's ONLY one-millionth of the federal budget!! Where else can you get such a bargain?
Speaking of bombs.. I have little doubt that it is in the interests of Bush (and friends) to create a distraction during election year and a way to make himself "famous" (does he really care about any of this stuff?) .. as well as part of a plan to enable military dominance in space for one country.
Just like the current Iraq campaign may be more about establishing the US as a "pro-active" military state, rather than primarily to do with oil (though a lot of Bush's friends are going to get incredibly rich if the dependency on oil is continued till the day the price HAS to go up).
It may be considered part of a gamble to provide certain people with a lot of power, all the while taking the rest of a country along without full disclosure, with truth distortion, and great risk.
c-span has it here.
So how is a new source of material creation not an economic advantage?
Because it costs a shitload of tax money to create them and there's no reason to do so.
Or would you rather we sit here on Earth fighting ever nastier wars over diminishing resources
Yes, I would prefer to enjoy air and water here on earth as opposed to sitting in a bubble on the moon refining minerals for the sake of doing so. Think about it, trekkie.
And we have nothing to show for it!
Actually, about half of US discretionary spending goes to defense. Discretionary spending excludes all the big social programs the government is obliged to shell out for, and so defense is nowhere near half of the total budget.
AC.
Do you realize just how immensely expensive it is to design, build, and develop spacecraft? The standards and tolerances have to be so high and so accurate, the components of such a high quality, the people running the mission so thoroughly trained and educated, that it ends up costing hundreds of millions to billions of dollars in order to put together a project like this.
No doubt, as with most human endeavors, there is some amount of waste that could be excised; but even in the best-case scenario, you can't send a fleet of people to the moon for a billion dollars. It just isn't realistic.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
yup. "the guys that built the nuke", thats how you'll be remembered.
but because it is our destiny
Luckily for me, I don't believe in destiny. My horoscope says so.
"I think this line is mostly filler"
Yeah, sure beats this for a campaign slogan, "Vote Bush, because 50% of every tax dollar just pays interest on the debt and in another four years it'll be 75% of each dollar, but 'hey', we'll have a full employment of foreign engineers building economies in their home countries because NASA outsourced engineering and nation building is a good thing."
It's not 1984 yet, so at least let us think we still have voting power until the paperless voting machines invisibily take our rights away.
You didn't see in the news the bit about airports scanning background information on passangers as threats, did you? That information has to be collected and stored. We're getting there.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
That's ironic, the Taliban and Osame Bin Laden started that way.
"I think this line is mostly filler"
I wouldn't call it a rock solid source, but it pretty well meshes with what I learned in history class, and its the best I could do on no notice.
It's overdue? We've only been able to get twelve feet off the ground for 100 years and have only had things in orbit for 50, have only had a reusable vehicle, which pretty much functions as an orbital chunk of shot that needs to be catapulted into orbit, for 20 and we (the United States) still haven't accepted the fact that it makes more sense to drink filtered urine than to haul up tons of water and you think it's "long overdue" that we should be living on the Moon and freaking MARS?!
Beyond the obvious questions of budgetary priorities, really even "only" $17B/year adds up fast after a couple years, the experience closer to home just isn't there. Hell, after twenty-five years we still can't even make atmospheric supersonic flight on our own planet economically viable. Sure, we can hurl an unmanned probe the size of a Mini pretty well these days, but permanent human population is a massively different story. For god's sake, we've spent billions on a space station that sustains a handful of people and we're already springing leaks just after their shuttle burst into flames. Howsabout we worry about how to keep people alive within a few miles of the dirt before we shoot for Mars?
The word of the day is: HUBRIS
Velcro? Swiss inventor, 1948.
Teflon? Ohio researcher, 1937.
Care to try a few more? Plastics, maybe? Nope, 1908!
Smoke detector? Nope
Computers? No. Night vision goggles? No. Cell phones? No. TV? No. Radio? No. Microwaves? NO. Tang?......NO! All of these things I have heard people mention as spinoffs, and NONE OF THEM ARE TRUE. Some even came from the 19th century!
Most of the advances they have contributed have been minor improvements on existing ideas. That's not to say that they havn't contributed anything, but it isn't vital to our current state of technology. The most important things they have come up with has been in the field of treating osteoporosis, on account of having to deal with it in astronaughts who had been in space for too long...
Oh, and data compression. They hold a whole whack of patents on various methods of compressing images and other data, and 40% of their funding comes from these royalties.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
The same in my country... until it fell. Hard.
"I think this line is mostly filler"
IMHO, the A-Team midi on my phone is completely worth it. Screw NASA, give me more bad 80's TV themes!!!
NASA did many great things at a very crucial time in history. NASA has screwed the pooch due to the Synergistic Empowerment Leveraging inside of it while the dedicated workers pull their hair out.
Take away the stupid "my party can beat up your party" nonsense and you can see more clearly. Sadly, what you see is continued entrenchment of bureaucracy, continued increases in taxes and decreases in results, and all the while anyone with real capabilities and true interest in inovating (the real kind) is held back and waved off.
NASA should be phased out to act as a centralized resource group that helps coordinate, educate, and advocate what could one day be a space industry.
Yay socialism!
And the dinosaurs couldn't handle one asteroid.
Actually, they could! They had at least one very large impact event in the Jurassic that *didn't* wipe them out, or even affect them in any noticable way. So far we haven't even had one!
Standard rant on K/T theories:
It's important not to just uncritically accept the asteroid impact theory. There's currently no decent explanation for why this would kill off the dinosaurs that I have seen. Currently it's at the level of "an impact happened *around* this time therefore is *must* be responsible somehow" followed by some vigorous handwaving and dismissal of contradictary evidence.
Cretaceous/Tertiary extinction event
It sure sounds exciting though! Certain theories are just more "marketable" than others, I suppose.
You know, it means a vehicle to explore the crew, should a medical emergency occur. Like in Fantastic Voyage...
It accounts for what, $20 of your taxes?
Condoms and milk programs seems good enough.
"I think this line is mostly filler"
You'll be so enthalled by the space mission which has little redeeming value (compared to, i dunno, RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT) that you'll forget all about the massive hyper-inflation/debt burden (one or the other) which made this possible.
cburst
"In principle it would be quite simple to waste the surplus labour of the world by building temples and pyramids, by digging holes and filling them up again, or even by producing vast quantities of goods and then setting fire to them. But this would provide only the economic and not the emotional basis for a hierarchical society."
-from _1984_ by George Orwell
How about the totalitarian regimes supported by the democracies of Western Europe and North America?
"I think this line is mostly filler"
War on Poverty, War on Drugs, War on Terrorism. We need a War on Mars! Lock it in the budget forever!
"...while history is usually explicable it is often irrational" --Roger Spiller
This is great. This is the type of stuff the human race was made for. Now I have reservations about the projected timeframe. Kennedy gave a decade for the initial moon landing. Back then a lot of stuff hadn't been figured out. A lot of mistakes have not yet been made. It took a decade jsut to get the technology up to snuff and to figure out the variables of manned space flight. Now in the 2000's we know all of that stuff. We have the technology in the bag. As far as a technological considerations are concerned, we can pull this off next year. The real issue I think would be the financial needs for such a mission today. Can enough support be drummed up. Can the US market cope with such expenditure? I think it can. If we can send Mars rovers in space to cavort around on a shoestring budget (relatively speaking of course), I think the advanced technology in this day and age, and the increased knowledge about spaceflight will allow us to perform the relatively minor feat with a much more decreased total cost than what was possible 30 years ago. The difference is in the goal of what will be accomplished. We will probably implement a manned Mars mission outpost. This in and of itself is vastly more technologically challenging than simply landing and walking around collecting stuff. However, I feel that the level of sophistication our technology has achieved thus far since then has made this endeavour rather trivial. The cost may be able to be absorped by private interests as well as federal budgets. If this country pulls together, I feel we can see this through without impeding on any other national budget concerns.
I feel that the rising commercial interest in space we see these days may enable financial support for future space endeavours. Now this is not an IDEAL situation lest we have a McDonalds arch on Mars scarring the landscape, but we have already put a shiny flag on the Moon, so what is the difference. That is just the way we humans are. I am all for this and i see how it is very easy to obtain this goal. I am very optimistic and happy that we are returning to the Moon.
>>>>>> Chewie, take the professor in the back and plug him into the hyperdrive.
intends for regime change, plans to go to Mars accelerated... Martians said to be not concerned.
Eventually this planet will die. Expanding through the galaxy is humanity's only hope of survival. In fact, as far as we know, our space program is the only long-term chance for life itself to survive. There could not be a more noble use of our tax money. Better health care, feeding the hungry, all of these short-term, unsustainable goals are completely insignificant in the long term compared to the space program.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
How much are the pilot and crew worth?
Stealth bombers are important because they're highly survivable. You can fly one into a heavily defended place (like downtown Baghdad) and get back out again with an extraordinarily high probability of survival for the crew.
Of course, if you prefer you can use a standoff weapon like the Tomahawk. Problem is, Tomahawk cruise missiles are far too big and too inaccurate to be considered acceptable in this day of "zero acceptable collateral damage."
So basically it boils down like this: we either pay billions to build stealth bombers, or people die.
You pick.
Bush didn't destroy international cooperation, he forced the issue and demonstrated that nations like France, Russia, and Germany were not our allies, unlike some people were insisting and for some reason continue to insist today.
Bush did not destroy cooperation, the other nations destroyed it by not cooperating. I guess people like you think that was a sign to pick up your things and go home "oh well, the French said no, so I guess we shouldn't do this after all".
Nations have no permanent friends, only permanent interests.
Errr, yeah, I do realize the expense. I worked on some components for ISS.
;-). Heck, a billion$ didn't even buy a one half of a B2 bomber.
Sorry, I should clarify: when I wrote that we should get something out of a $1 billion investment, like a fleet of moon landers to do real science, I was talking a fleet of unmanned landers. Yeah, it's hard to build a fleet of manned moon landers for a billion
But for a billion dollars you can do a lot of quality science, AND as a nice side effect you can do a lot of engineering. Both of which can be of use iff human moon or mars landings are determined to be cost-effective in terms of science.
I'll probably get modded through the toilet or flamed in the replies for this, but oh well.
I'd like to lift a 2-paragraph or so quote from the CNN article on JFK somebody linked to earlier:
"Some derided the dream as lunacy. Others viewed it as just another strategic move in the Cold War chess match between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Kennedy had just been humiliated in the Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba, a communist ally of Moscow. In his speech, he called for many measures to combat communism, requesting billions, for example, to stop red insurgencies in Southeast Asia."
Now granted, in this day and age it's going to be pretty damned easy to beat the terrorists (in place of Communists) to the moon if the terrorists have no intention of going there in the first place. But still, both administrations had a chosen enemy: Kennedy the Communists and Bush Muslim extremists. One could argue that Bush also has an enemy in red China (and that they are the space program's intended target), but that seems less likely considering our trade volume.
Also, both presidents were coming off a controversial military action. America had the need for the containment of Communism drilled into its collective skull ever since Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech (if not before), and America has had the "War on Terrorism" drilled into its collective head ever since late 2001. Both presidents were realizing that military action was losing popularity, and both needed something to invigorate the national imagination (to paraphrase the CNN article's title). Now, I'm too lazy and this forum is too casual for me to research specifics of federal budgets and electoral politics during the Kennedy administration, but there may well be some similarities there, too.
In summation, my basic point is that it's possible Bush's intentions may be no less pure than Kennedy's were. Bush is certainly a popular target now, but he's still a part of current events and we don't have 20/20 hindsight through which to evaluate his actions. Current politics taint (or add flavor) to any discussion of this space plan, but only time will tell how it will be remembered.
Quite frankly, that is the most fucking insightful thing I've read on Slashdot in ages.
It's both arogant and frightening that you dare compare your country to the Roman Republic.
Romans ruled the World for centuries, you're not even close to that.
Many say we just wasted at least 80 billion dollars on the Iraq War and what do we have to show from that besides several hundred dead American bodies.
How about, peace in a country where there was no peace before? How about, democracy where previously there was none? How about, security instead of the absence thereof?
I'm fucking sick and tired of these assholes calling the liberation of Iraq a waste of money. Just because your life hasn't gotten any easier that doesn't mean it wasn't worth doing.
Piss off you selfish wanker.
Read and left, dumbass.
It's very exciting, but I hoped that the Slashdot crowd wouldn't be vulnerable to such a farce. He's throwing promises, money and visions of glory at us. I wish we had the sense to do some good policy analysis.
In other words, is this the best ROI we can get for the money? Any time I see something this spetacular, I strongly suspsect it's great spectacle, but poor ROI.
And I'm not just talking about ROI in the space program, or the sciences in general. For example, maybe the money would be better spent to reduce the deficit, on other federal (or state or local) programs, or not taxed at all and therefore spent or invested by the private sector.
These are just the basics. It's dissapointing that none of the posts (that I see, modded to 4 or 5) even approach the issues. We can think about it now, or face the consequences later.
OK, no "Moon Unit Zappa" jokes, and no "Oooo, it's too expensive" comments.
The first astronauts to spend a significant amount of time on the moon have a "chicken and the egg" problem: They need to construct a shelter to protect them from solar storms and cosmic radiation, yet they need somewhere to live while building it. This seems like an opportunity for slashdotters to practice their robotics skills by building some teleoperated bulldozers.
This could even be a good opportunity for some corporate product placement -- Imagine yellow Caterpiller or green John Deere heavy equipment being shown to a worldwide audience: "When NASA needed to build a home on the moon, they came to for our construction expertise!"
Chip H.
In my opinion, this is not really an offer to go anywhere. My guess is that its a response to the Chinese, in public relations only.
However, I would bet my first real paycheck that we will indeed see the first part of the plan come true: The elimination of the shuttle fleet. After that, of course, we will see service launches to the trimmed down ISS from Russia (until it is mothballed and allowed to fall, of course) and a continuation of unmanned probes.
I don't think Bush even has a real interest in maintaining a true manned space program in the US. It just doesn't have the economic benefits for Lockheed or Boeing that defense contracts do.
What?
Teflon was not a product of the space program. It was discovered by fortuitous accident at DuPont in 1938. It saw its first major application in gaskets for the uranium hexafluoride tanks used to separate U-235 from U-238 for the Manhattan Project.
There were many new technologies developed during the US space program, but Teflon, or polymerized tetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) wasn't one of them.
Me personally I think science is great and all but science missions will never hold the attention of politicians or the general public or justify the staggering price tags. Searching for life which keeps coming up as some kind of prime objective for exploring the solar system is an interesting question but finding microbes on Mars doesn't justify spending billions of dollars nor will it sustain an ambitious space program. Odds aren't in your favor your going to find life either.
Searching for water or other precious resources needed for a colony, now that counts for something, because there is really only one really good reason for a manned space program and that is put colonies out there. Colonies that will become self sustaining, grow and expand our biosphere. Perhaps cases can be made for mining, gathering helium isotopes or generating power but we are a long way from proving the economic viability of those and they aren't worth it until they can be made economicly viable.
Colonization is the reason for sending people in to the solar system, and to be honest to start by putting a base on the Moon is a dubious choice. The moon is a bad place for a manned presence. It has a hard vacuum, it has severe temperature extremes, very low gravity, and nasty soil that gets in to everything. Its only plus its not on earth and its not as far away as Mars but I really doubt you are going to effectively develop technology on the Moon for Mars. I wager everything for Mars will be different. I really doubt its going to be any good to stage trips to Mars or elsewhere. The Moon probably wont prove to be a good place to manufacture anything other than high mass, low tech shielding (unless water is found on the Moon). I wager nearly everything will come from Earth for a long time and I'm not clear on what the benefit is of staging it through the Moon.
@de_machina
Nice catch...
If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
Instead of giving us a goal like reach mars to help get our minds off the stagnating economy, why not use some of that money to create jobs... like building another hoover dam. Bush damn? dam bush? but you get the idea. somthing that would be useful to more people here now, i think would be better than spinning our wheels to mars 30 years down the road
Unfrickin' believable. You want Star Trek to happen for real? It has to start somewhere, and here comes the best thing to help that along, and all you can do is bitch
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
However Congress is concerned about how to pay for the new space policy initiative in the face of a $500 billion national budget deficit.
Damned if you do and damned if you don't. All those huge tax cuts helps the economy, but they hurt other things. These two wars in the Middle East cost billions, and now billions more for science but the monies are gone. Less Incoming, more spending, equal your screwed. Bush will have no choice but to raise taxes, he will just be lucky enough to not have to do it until after he gets re-elected. After that it won't matter.
Expect your bill soon. Someone will have to foot it.
Good, bad, imho, NASA, i have though, has needed a bigger budget for a long ass time--more than a measely 1B budget too... its sad imho that these projects will probably deplete resources from other projects of NASA.
I do also STRONGLY feel this county needs to try and zero its deficit within the next 25 years (it'll never happen, i know). the amount that is WASTED just to PAY DOWN THE INTEREST is just plain ugly.
while i'm on the subject of our country's problems, more cash needs to be allocated to school spending, out children/next generations are our future---i dont know about you, but i think societies goals should always be to help make the nex generation better than our own... and w/o proper education to the MASSES that just wont happen.
I know, i say we should eliminate our debt, yet i'm saying these two programs need more spending..... the places to cut spending are our military, and the war on drugs... those are the two huge ones i think need to be curtailed ASAP.
there's no need to spend 400 bil. for DEFENSE! (hi, also no need to spend more than #2 through #24 world military budgets combined), we also need to drop the war on drugs. legalise it, tax the HELL out of it, REGULATE it, and goddamn, get (not sure on the exact number here but its something like 50%) of the people in our prisons out of jail on the goddamn drug charges. Goddamn, so much money would be freed up through prison costs, court costs, and all that bullshit if drugs were legalised... arg, i'll stop, i'm straying from the topic..
go nasa! big goals! woot? (still i have mixed views about bushes proposal)
Troll, Troll, go away and flame again some other day
Don't forget blood for oil and Halliburton, Halliburton, Halliburton! rofl. I can understand that you may not like George W. Bush, but at least respect the office. While he's in office he should be referred to as President Bush, not "Dubya" or "Chimpy" or "Dumbya". He's the President of the most powerful nation on Earth and he deserves our respect. Why is it that Republicans always seem to be portrayed as bumbling fools BTW? Is it small penis syndrome on the part of the democrats?
Then why are you worried about morale if people die in the military without going to war? Maybe those deaths are the US's way of cleaning the gene pool a bit...
If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
As pointed out in the CNN article, the overall NASA budget would stay at about 1 percent of the federal budget. Yes, Bush is contributing an additional 1 billion, but that's chump change considering what the military gets ($379 billion in 2003 and growing). NASA's total budget is less than the cost of one attack aircraft. As far as I'm concerned, this is a ploy to make Bush Jr. look generous. While everyone is looking up at the sky thinking of how great it would be to land on the moon again, Dubya and his cronies will be busy manipulating things on earth for their own benefit.
Open your eyes people. While I think it would be great to return to the moon and visit Mars, this isn't anything more than a PR tactic for re-election. The numbers speak for themselves.
and then he promptly shoestrung the budget for it...
I never said I was smart, I just said I was smarter than you
Voter turnout among those in the segment receiving small to moderate tax breaks is fairly significant. Thus the current strategy of advocating tax breaks over social services (favored by Bush et al., for example).
Since the fall of the empire is now inevitable, what we clearly need is something to reduce the length of the oncoming dark age! To this end I will create two Foundations at opposite ends of the Earth ...
it's an election year. Six months after the election this will all go away.
Eventually this planet will die
However, Eventually != soon.
I completely support space exploration, but I think that Bush's deadline is more about his reelection than about cosmic adventures. He's just trying to be a second JFK and that's laughable.
From my point of view, space exploration should be done carefully and I don't see in the immediate future the need of a manned mission to Mars. In the short term, it is dangerous, too costly and unnecesary. We should continue with unmanned missions for quite a while.
Setting these deadlines is just a proof of the political motives behind his speech.
Hmmm.... aerospace in texas, california, and florida. ... and your president announces 5 billion worth of new spending in a year leading up to an election? Pretty clever. :) ... how many Republican presidents make a big aerospace committment when they're about to run for their second term? Anyone? I'm curious.
'Don't thank me, thank the moon's gravitational pull.'
The Simpsons
"I think this line is mostly filler"
I'd really like to see a list of advances
It's not difficult, by looking in the obvious place to find entire publications and databases to suit your request.
If you really wanted to see a list, that is.
They're trying. Why do you think they're running submarines with Windows NT? <shiver>
Evil? You've been listening to Bush's rhetoric and BS for too long. Saddam has nothing on his contemporaries of "the last two generations". Ever heard of Pol Pot? He was orders of magnitude worse.
GWB supposedly speaks to the President of Mexico in Spanish. Are we to believe that GWB's Spanish is better than his English? If not, why aren't we at war with Mexico?
I don't think those figures include Bosnia, Afghanistan or Iraq. (Maybe they need a new budget category called "Offense" :)
Furthermore, the Veterans Dept, parts of DOE, and parts of Homeland Security are counted as "non-defense" when they are clearly part of the cost of the nation's defense.
So, somewhat more than 16%.
Also, "discretionary" spending is the relevant category to quote, because that's where NASA's budget comes from (as well as highway programs, etc).
I think your question is fundamentally flawed. You can't ask "What do we use *now* that NASA invented 10 years ago?" Most of the things they are using now won't be in serious commercial use for another twenty years. So most of the things we're using now were invented over 10 years ago.
But, to answer your question anyways, here is an article on Video Image Stabilization and 2D Barcodes. This is another on Superstrong Plastic Films/Strings and Lightweight Composite Actuators.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
maybe you should learn some fucking civic duty prick!!
maybe nasa should ask the military for help in what they have at area51.
Unless they are already on the moon which would make nasa look real dumb wouldn't it.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
The real problem is the vast amounts of money spent on remedial education and accommodating the "edge case" students. Ever wonder why so many bright kids hate school? They have nothing to really occupy them, it's all going towards the students who can least appreciate and leverage it.
Ha! W is just trying to get us up there before the Chinese and Indians so we can plant artifacts from "previous" lunar missions before they find out they've been had! Why else would it take another 11 years to go where we've already [supposedly] been? I smell conspiracy!
America: This is just an election year stunt. You're trying to paint yourself as a "spacefaring president" like your Dad did just before the economy lost him his election. You'll be out of office 12 years before any of this happens...
Bush: You Americans have big penis! Gargantuan penis! I have such small, tiny penis.
America: Hey, you're not such a bad guy after all! Vote for Bush!
No, it's designed to purchase some people's votes with other people's money. The art of governmet consists of taking money from those who aren't going to vote for you anyway, and using those fund to purchase votes.
Poppycock. If the system is designed to only function in one way (pursuit of profit), some people arent going to be able to particiapte. Sorry, ANY systems will have people who are marginalized. So, if you are willing to stand for the chaos that ensues when you allow the strip-mining of a community for the profit-mongers at the top, while the marginalized are left in the street so be it.... just dont come crying to me when they rob you, grift you, rob a bank, steal your food, riot, or otherwise start a revolution.
Fair and equitable distribution of wealth is a noble goal. How you get there may be a debate, but if it is not your goal, god help you.
Here, in reality, people understand that poverty is not always a person's choice -- and not the worst fate of a person.... maybe they are smart enough to realize you need them (as part-time labourers, artists, parents (raising children instead of working))
Are you willing to live in a culture where only a peron's Economic Output is valued?
In thinking about my own post I think the important point is that technology spinoff is not really a very good argument for a space program. Fact is we spend billions in defense and we also get technological returns. Look, for example, at GPS which was developed entirely for military purposes and is yielding huge civilian and economic benefits that surpass anything recent I can think of NASA has done.
Fact is if you spend billions of dollars on any technological endevour you might get spin offs of substantial value, and you might not. I really doubt the spinoffs from space exploration are certain to justify the spending versus investing in fusion research, nanotechnology, biotech, defense or any other technological endeavour
I wager Apollo was something of a fluke simply because they hade to make huge leaps in things like electronics just to do it. I doubt you are going to see any similar leaps when we go back to the moon, the same place we went 35 years ago. In fact it sounds like NASA is planning to avoid high risk technology and may well just attempt to reinvent and refine a lot of the stuff they did 35 years ago and that is not something conducive to big advances in technology.
Having said all that, I could see trying to put a self sustaining colony on Mars as a potential source of big advances and spin offs since it would compell major advances in things like energy, food production and terraforming. Putting a knock off of the ISS on the moon, supplied from earth isn't likely to lead to many breakthroughs.
@de_machina
This crap gets modded up? please.
No, the leader who kicked it off was JFK. The last White House resident who sort of made big mumbles about it was actually Poppy Bush--but most people don't even remember his Mars by 2035 mumble. Dubya is just trying to get it back on Daddy's schedule.
Perhaps you noticed that the reasons we had a space race are gone? That race is over. This oculd be a new one. And So what if it was his dad's idea or whoever, that makes it less of a good idea? No you're just spouting off crap and you're obviously biased against GWB.
In terms of doing something useful in space, probably the strongest claim would be the international space station--but Dubya is destroying the international cooperation that depends on. Only natural, since Dubya's real motivation for supporting space flight is military dominance.
Please. We certainly are doing nothing with the ISS Destroying relations? Please. I believe that we helped a fair amount with the Beagle 2 and that we had some help with our rovers as well. Only motivation is military dominance? Another pointless spouting of crap. Perhaps you haven't noticed, we already have that. We spend more money on our military than every other country combined in the world. And because of that, we develop a shitload of new ideas, discovery, researching whtaever.
Continuing my reading on the plan for the moon and mars, I am even more sure this is nothing but a plan to eliminate the US Gov't sponsored space program. It was made clear early in GWB's term that he would like to privatize the shuttle fleet, with NASA leasing the shuttles for launches. However, following Columbia, that was probably ruled out. After all, who would buy them?
If the plan is to phase out the shuttle after completing our treaty-level obligations to the ISS countries, and then rely on Russian, Japanese and European launches to service it for the four years until the replacement is ready, does anyone really think that we will pick it up after a four year lapse of no real launches by the US?
What?
No. It isn't. Several other countries do develop technology, but for instance, take pharmeceuticals - who foots the bill for research and development? The good ol' USA. And besides, what did the space race do to the C.C.C.P? If you answered "Bankrupt" and or "cold" you iz just about right.
Science is for the good of humanity, not one specific, transient country.I agree. Science (should be) is for the good of all, but have you ever heard of patents? How about gouging American customers for research and development. Spending on NASA DOES achieve stuff, no question, but we want the payoff, not some pie-in-the-sky promise about trickle-down science. There is progress, but lets slow down (R&D) and bring the price to deploy currrently possible products to the masses. Let's build up the Sustenance Infrastructure, thereby feeling good, and producing even more scientists.
Long after the US has gone the way of the Roman Republic (and it will, it is the nature of such things), its contribution to science and technology will endure.Again, I agree. We're still using fire and electricity and that is likely to continue. However, Rome had little more than brute strength, borrowing their logic and math and religion from Greece and the East. We are much like Rome to be sure. Anyone with enough capital and enough minds can develop new stuff - why they should constantly do so is the question. The law of diminishing returns comes to mind.
I just think we have SO MUCH technology that we should slow down. A hundred and fifty years ago, and all time prior, you and I would most likely be farmers or hunter gatherers. Not such a bad life except that it was only, on average, 335-50 years long. That 150 years of preogress has brought us light years ahead, and I for one don't need much more stuff.
Colonizing other worlds is on my agenda, even if I never live to see it - I think it's neccesary for the survival of the species, but we gotta pay to play, and I'm one for paying as you go. If we secure our sustenance infrastructure first, feed, educate, etc., then we can more readily pay for space travel. In the meantime, why not let other countries figure stuff out? Or, just wait for supercomputing to really develop and alot of stuff will figured out for free over time. While we perfect WHO is going to rule/live in space. Comparing us to Romans in this way could easily be construed as an omen to slow the fuck down.
Stuff that matters.
At the rate we're exporting entire segments of the economy overseas, I wouldn't imagine that we have 30 years left. Not to mention the government is rapidly disintegrating financially. The money of this country is rapidly condensing into a very, very few people, while the majority are like a gas giant orbiting a black hole...slowly being drained.
You would also be surprised how much of that technology was developed in Germany and was merely confiscated by the US after the war.
The entire Apollo program was directed by ex-Nazis.
The reason we haven't seen anything in the last 10 years is also why we couldn't develop anything without German engineering. Necessity is the mother of invention, and the people of Germany were organized and motivated to survive.
The reality is outside of these fun computers we are typing on, the world isn't that much differen today as it was in 1940.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
who needs 'em.
pr0n fueled the rapid growth of the internet (Kurzweil said it in The Age Of Spiritual Machines, read it), why not fund space exploration too?
Cursing in the French language is like wiping your ass with silk.
"In terms of doing something useful in space,"
Why does it always have to be "useful?"
No, I'm serious. I've been really disturbed by some of the things I've read from people who are against the idea and words cannot describe the pity I feel for those that are incapable of understanding the "Because it's there" argument.
Are we that incapable, as either a nation or a species, of having big dreams and pursuing them every once in a while? Do we always have to wait for something to be practical before we get around to doing it? Yes, we have war, famine and pestilence. Yes, this will probably take away some funds from fighting those scourges. Whether or not that loss of funds will be noticable is another issue but ultimately the whole thing is a red herring. We're trying to feed people and save lives for... what exactly? So that future generations can also try to eliminate them better than us, feeding the cycle? What's the point in saving and lengthening lives when nobody's actually living?
Sure, there's the "practical" argument that we could always wait until all these problems were solved and then we could follow our dreams of going out there. So we wait and wait and wait and before you know it we're all pensioners in retirement communities still waiting "just another ten years..." If waiting until everything is "just so" isn't a vague, amorphous, intangible and ultimately hollow goal to work towards, I don't know what is.
The moon. Mars. They're right there. We can go there. Now. That stirs up passions even in me, and I'm a jaded, cynical bastard.
If we as a culture and a species are that incapable of dreaming, even about something so utterly attainable as the moon, then maybe we shouldn't be going up there. We deserve to chase our tails over "standards of living" until the sun goes nova. Heck, maybe that's the solution to the Fermi Paradox; they're not here because they had more important things to do or they simply couldn't be bothered...
Prersonally, I'd rather live in a country that bankrupts itself trying to get to Mars than what I seem to be living among today. Hell, set up a "Mars or bust!" fund at NASA and I'll gladly start tithing to them. Anything but this malaise.
Well, there are people in the USA who will die tonight for want of a few dollars. I guess part of that 17 billion could have been well used.
Shit, there are charities tryign to do good work that cry out for pocket change.
I happen to live in a desert.. there's plenty of life here.
you dont live in a desert with a desert's resources -- you probably divert/pipe in your water from elsewhere so you can water your fucking lawn.
We cant sensibly live on *this* planet (as an exampble, wasting water in LA's swimming pools while farmers fight for it...). We are not capable of living on this planet properly, why would we want to destroy Mars?
The answer for that would take many hours to list. The ISS has generated a ton of new technology developments. I work for a NASA contractor with expertise in vision systems, from using 2D cameras for tracking and pose estimation for assembly to now 3D scanners for inspection, collision avoidance, and a variety of other tasks. We have just begun to spin this technology off into terrestrial applications and they are pouring in, from automated mining vehicles to geomaterial classification and automated plant growth monitoring, to name a few. And that's just one small company from one small component of the ISS. A study we'd previously done showed that every $1 invested in developing the technology has spun off into $40 for the economy.
A) There is a direct correlation between the health of the U.S. Economy and the budget of the U.S. Military. So, the more the DoD gets, the better.
B) We wouldn't be having this discusion right now if the DoD didn't get DARPA to figure out how to make a computer network work (Other than mainframes and dummy terminals).
C) There is no need for weapons on the Moon, if the UN even allowed them.
D) The first successful rocket launch NASA had was using a MILITARY ROCKET. The DoD and NASA have a nice good relationship, or have had ones at times.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
How about this?
What do you think ISN'T Bush's fault?
For Christ's sake.
3cx.org - A truly bad website.
Depends how you define "poverty". Personally, I define it as having the ability to exercise your rights as specified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (or some similar quality of life specification). Under my definition, it's okay if the rich get richer, so long as the least wealthy are having all their needs (ie: Maslow's Hierachy of Needs) fulfilled.
So when it comes to things like the necessities of life, a space program, or any other R&D funding, can certainly help. The less time and effort everyone is required to spend on their fundamental needs, the more time and effort they can spend on things like self-actualization. And technology is the mechanism by which their time and effort shall be saved.
I would sacrifice every single person currently on welfare if it meant that poverty would be permanently eliminated. However, I believe a strong social safety net is necessary for the development of technology that will decrease the cost of that net in the future. So for the time being, our resources must be carefully balanced between social welfare and technological progress.
Don't be fooled. This is an election year ploy. If Bush gets re-elected, expect it to either quietly disappear from the media (like so many of his other lies) or get held up due to funding problems, insurmountable technical difficulties, and the like. Sure, it sounds good, but so did No Child Left Behind (which has rapidly become No Behind Left), all his "small government" talk (increasing the budget by over $300 billion from the height of the Clinton era is by no means small), individual rights...
Speaking of bringing "good to people", not only does the War on Terror bring such goods as new nukes, but your old-and-busted War on Drugs (remember that?)
How about funding a plan in Colombia to use an untested pathogenic fungus -- fusarium oxysporum -- to wipe out coca. Critics say the plan proposes illegal acts of biological warfare, poses major ecological risks to Colombia -- one of the world's most bio-diverse countries -- and will increase suffering, by wreaking havoc with human health, water quality and food crops.
But hell, what is one out-of-control war-on-%something% from our well-meaning leaders like the Good-ol USA?
Mmmmm, butter.
I dont know here- I understand other posters' points about the need to get off this plaet for species-preservation reasons- but is this really the best way to be doing it?
I think it is *seriously* premature to be even thinking about *anything* beyond the moon.
Our knowledge of physics currently leaves us with propulsion and transportation devices that very simply, will not work.
Yes, I'm quite certain that with enough money spent, we could successfully transport people and equipment to Mars in a couple decades.
The bigger question is how many people, and how much equipment?
Think about it for a sec, and you realize it is *ludicrous* to even think about things like "colonization" with current technology. (and it's subsequent advances)
I think that prior to any pie-in-the-sky thoughts like this, much more work needs to be done on elemental physics. We are totally mystified by all sorts of forces and effects we encounter every day- and mastery of these forces and effects is (I MO) absolutely crucial to any sort of Space exploration- and I feel that any attempt like this is just going to prove fruitless and will represent a big wasted effort.
Control gravity- then explore space.
I browse at +5 Flamebait- moderation for all or moderation for none.
Despite my arguments against the Bush administration, I believe that this is a Good IdeaTM.
The last time this country focused greatly on space exploration, education in the US improved greatly. The number of technological advancements was phenominal and common interest in science and mathematics was a geek's wet dream. I believe the US has the money to invest in the space program and to provide for the common good. Advancements are all about pushing the bounderies and space exploration has been that line in the sand for quite some time. I think its high time we stood up to the challenge and stop this exploration stagnation which has plagued us since the end of the lunar missions. For once, thank you Bush.
"multi-planet" species? We can't handle one planet
I am sure we all agree that things aren't handled too well on earth. However, your argument goes one step further by saying that we should stay away from other planets, in order not to spoil them also.
I disagree with that view, because it assumes that pristine planets have value in themselves. IMHO other planets are just a bunch of rocks in space - they are valuable only when we enjoy them. If we stay away from Mars until a big rock falls onto our heads then Mars will be preserved in its original form. But what is the value of that if no one will ever see it?
Tor
I found an interesting link while looking for temperatures of the moon and mars called The Artemis Project. I didn't look at it much, but they seem to indicate we'd have to build an underground habitat in order to endure those cold temps for long perids. Another good point they bring up is how the cold temps will simply cause tools to break down with use more easily.
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
if the US government took just 5% of the huge defence budget (which could be saved by not spending it on crap like "Missile Defence" or the various unnecessary wars and actions that US troops are involved with) and gave it to NASA, NASA could do really great things with it.
[snip]
NASA simply hasn't done a whole lot worthwhile in a long time, especially in the context of the space shuttle and the space station.,
Dude, open your eyes. NASA's scope goes way beyond the space shuttle and space station, they're only the two most well-known projects to the general public. You're totally missing NASA's mission, which includes space technology and space travel, but is also aimed at Space Exploration.
For example, the Hubble Space Telescope is performing shitloads of worthwhile astronomical data, along with Chandra for X-Rays, SIRTF (I think it may have changed it's name) for IR, and many others.
As for technology advances, I can specifically firsthand tell you that the telescope was called a few years ago SIRTF (Space IR Telescope F-something) funded technology development (by NASA, of course) for microwave and higher frequency (THz range) bolometers and mixers. I know this because some people at the lab I used to work at were trying really hard to bandgap engineer some novel solid-state materials to work at these THz frequencies. Really hard stuff and totally pushing the envelope of technology, even by today's standards for 5 years ago.
And that same lab also designed and built the CCD's for Chandra, which was no easy feat either. X-Ray sensitive CCD's, including the connectors (I know the flexible data bus to the CCD's gave some problems).
So there are 2 examples, just off the top of my head. Those are just two specific projects with immediate advances to solid state research, though it probably will be a decade or so before these advances are readily commercially available. And those are only some of the few projects I've known about. I can't imagine how many other technological advances are being funded for the other spacecraft.
make world, not war
There are a number of islet encapsulation techniques being worked on. They don't all require zero-gravity to work. I half-expected my rant to be modded down, but there IS a relationship between America's ridiculous health-care costs and its inability to pay for GOOD things like space exploration. A couple of years of concerted R&D to solve money/life draining diseases would free up significant resources.
Is this sig nificant?
"Fair and equitable distribution of wealth is a noble goal"
True, but the only Fair and equitable distribution of wealth is allowing those who created the wealth to retain it. It's called Capitalism.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
As much as I want us back on the moon, there are some issues that need to be addressed. How many mistakes has NASA made? Most of them caused by Metric -> US conversions. Mistakes happen, but what have we done to correct these mistakes? I heard that in the 1970's, NASA was an organization that tried really hard to change us from the Imperial measurement system to the Metric system. The lumber industry was unwilling to make the switch from 2x4's to 5x10's. The lumber industry apparently won in the choice of our measurement system. Now, with 30 years of technology development since the last time we had a man on the moon, it shouldn't be as difficult, especially the way a "new" piece of technology goes out-of-date in 9 months... or is that estimate out-of-date as well?
That is not and end goal, they are in fact highly probable, we will do it I believe. I just think we ought to wait awhile to do so; 50 - 100 years? I hate seeing people suffer in poverty while the technology exists that could put an end to it. Fuck capitalism when it kills people. Patents are a freaking joke, just like yachts.
who is to say that future technological improvements wont make Mars so hospitable that people might actually want to call it "home".You're right. If we survive as a species to get there our ancesters will call it home. But do you really think we'll get out of the solar system after that? I know, I know, they said man could not fly, but have you ever heard of the law of diminishing returns? Maybe there's not alot more to learn??? Maybe we'll learn that we know as much as is possible, and we're just screwed in a solar system of 9 planets and alot of asteroids. We could live and thrive here for a LONG time, but teraforming is gonna happen way before we go to other solar systems pursuing some damn "destiny".
the US has a democratic process, and your elected representatives are speaking for you. If you dont like how they spend the nations money, cast your vote accordingly. If the majority of the US voting population like the way they are spending money, you are SOLYes. We do. The veracity of which neither of us could prove or disprove. The point is moot. I do vote. I do volunteer in my community. I do know you and I will be dead before humans can travel to other planets or moons en masse. It is a great goal, and most likely necessary considering the Pope's view on contraception, which kind of illuminates my point on taking care of business that is at hand in the first place.
Stuff that matters.
Why is it that Republicans always seem to be portrayed as bumbling fools BTW?
I believe it's because they are, in fact, bumbling fools. Need some examples? Use your Imaginamation.
Sadest part about his is the $1B isn't even close to the level of spending needed if we truly intended to do this on the proposed schedule. I heard one expert today say it should be funded at a level around $20B if we meant it. Bush jr's financial ineptness has a history. Poppy gave him a $500m company and he bankrupted it. The current budget fiasco is going to hurt many things unless it is rapidly reversed. No space program is going to be funded at anything near the right levels in the future if we don't get our own house in order. You can't have the government swallowing up huge amounts of the available credit like a drunk in a liquor store and expect the economy to run correctly and efficiently. Greenspan dosen't have the courage to say anything, the coward. So don't worry about the Mars program. It will fade away next year just like Poppy's program did.
Here's a link to NASA's own list of technological spinoffs.
make world, not war
That's weird - simoniker slightly different headline but the rest of it is identical to the submitted post.
I know this comment may be somewhat OT but I had to add a comment. Anyone know what's going on with this? Maybe related to the many 500-class errors I've been getting lately?
Where do you get these stats on 'most environmentalists' driving old ass VWs. Secondly many are aware of the problems of implementing various solutions like wind power. If you place the power concientiously and use adequate safegaurds then they can be a boon. Cost/Benefit analysis isnt' purely in your domain you know. In fact, it doesn't seem to be at all as you seem to be quantifying all costs equally which is nonsense. Many environmentalists are FOR nuclear power. You're stereotyping, quite poorly might I add. Yes there are wacky hippies doing exactly what you say, but then there are wacky people on both sides of the aisle. Until you provide some proof that those whacked out people are have as much control as you seem to think they do then you have no point.
Photos.
Humans are an exploratory species. We are also a species that likes to murder and kill each other but that doesn't mean it's a good fucking idea. We have serious problems to deal with here on earth first before we go fucking up other planets.
Capital budget; operating budget. Keep voting for smirking chickenhawk deserters if you don't know the difference.
As a matter of fact, I do. Bill Gates once said that the development of Windows 2000 cost a billion dollars. A top game costs just a few millions.
With 1 billion dollars per year, the world could be moved from Windows to Linux very quickly. You could then use the savings on software licences to go to Mars a couple years later.
love that doomsday justification. Give me a fucking break. Go use it on your mother...
The Treasure Department has already found a way to fund this, and then some.
And this is the same president who appointed a fraud to lead our education infrastructure? Greaaaaaaaaaat.
Photos.
OK, you don't like deadlines? How about this. If we have a self-sustaining colony on the moon and some good ships for getting us there and back, we could sell several million dollar vacation packages there. The space program would be MORE than self-funding in 30 year's time. If you look at it that way, the sooner we do this, the more money we SAVE. And when I'm old, retired, and realizing my mortality, I think I would be more than willing to give my entire net worth just to be able lie down on the moon and watch the Earth spin by, framed by the blackness of space and the overwhelmingly bright and numerous stars.
Oh, and a place with really low gravity would make a great retirement community.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
can be solved by simply throwing more money at it.
Whinning because we're "taking money away" from public programs fails to consider that maybe we're spending too much on those programs to begin with.
It's not always about money. It's about being effective. We're being blindsided by tax and spenders that try to win public support simply by throwing money at things. This is very convenient as the public only expects money. They don't actually expect the people throwing it at them to think about what they're trying to accomplish.
It's not just about the space program. We need to stop putting prices on everything and then raising it when shock of all shocks money isn't solving the problem. Instead of "how much is it going to cost to feed the people in Ethiopia?" how about "how much is it going to cost to overthrow the government so the people can feed themselves?"
We waste rediclous amounts of money alivating symptoms instead of putting it towards solutions. Which wouldn't be so bad if problem causing the systoms was being addressed at the same time. People want to ship over a few tons of rice and then pat themselves on the back when all they've done is delay the inevitable.
You will never be able to feed the whole world by writting a check everytime someone asks. You need to address why they're starving in the first place.
We have billions to put towards solving the problem of space exploration. Good for us. Sure we could put it towards something else but trimming down and reallocating funds when bloat is found I don't see a problem with.
I don't see any reason to believe we're taking away funds that were needed in the first place. Just because one program gets less money doesn't mean it's not being properly addressed. It just means it's a less expensive issue.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
True, but the only Fair and equitable distribution of wealth is allowing those who created the wealth to retain it. It's called Capitalism.
Except that A) The workers create the wealth
B) Capitalism relies on the middle/lower classes to particiapte. Too much unequal distribution and you get a 30's depression (lotsa stuff/no-one to buy it)
C) In a Democracy, people can make rules for the benefit of the community -- those rules are the eco-system in which 'the market' operates. Legislation can (rightly) change the market drastically.... one of those can be "make profit and money goes to help the community".
I dont give a shit about being a multi-planet species and no one that I know does either. What normal people give a shit about is access to healthcare, employment, a safe clean environment to raise their children. Sometimes I think Slashdot dorks and nerds are from another fucking planet. Do they ever get to talk to normal people? We like it here on Earth where the beer and women are and think the space program is a gigantic waste of money.
I wish you would login to post such "brave" comments. My son was diagnosed at 13 with Type I diabetes. There was a 2-year-old diagnosed at the same time. In case you haven't noticed, Type II diabetes is now common among American teenagers. Some are calling it an epidemic. Granted, much of Type II diabetes is caused by fast-food eating, sedentary lifestyles, but there are still millions of Type I diabetics trying to cope. As for "filling old useless folks full of pills", well, given the mortality rates and the state of the U.S. healthcare system, I wonder how many actually get treated. I hope to see the day when astronauts walk on Mars. I'd just rather see it funded with a "health dividend" instead of a tax.
Is this sig nificant?
it's a space station!
Dude, those are advances made by the space program for the space program. We are talking about advances that have benefits when they are spun off in to non space applications. If the X ray CCD's have applications in, and are affordable for, areas other than an X ray telescope then you would have a good example.
@de_machina
The thing that really gets me whenever any president makes some sort of decision, is all the people that automatically go for/against it based solely on their political party. They do no thinking into it whatsoever. I'm sure there's many here against Bush's plan for space exploration simply because he's republican and the other person is democratic (or just doesn't like Bush). They think nothing of the plan itself and the great positive impact it can have on us. But if Gore was elected and had the same exact plan, then they would be all for it (and of course the republicans would be complaining
"President Bush has stated that in order to ensure the highest chances of a success for a manned mission to the moon, the mission will only be launched during a full moon..."
nice twist. but he mentioned nothing about NASA inventing these things - improving upon them can make all the difference in the world. as a fellow nerd, you should realize the importance of space, and the industry that orbits above us. communication satellites, gps, dish tv, the stinkin' internet as we know it. you use this crap everyday. sure, nasa didn't launch most of these satellites. but do you suppose any technology was gleaned from them? say like, oh i don't know, rocket technology? radiation hardening? maintaining stable orbits?
i feel like i'm trolling, but damn. get a f'n clue. to dismiss what nasa has done as "minor improvements on existing ideas" is ludicrous.
Unfortunately, this seems to be what's happening.
My girlfriend works for the Space Telescope Science Institute (ie, the group that controls the Hubble Space Telescope, as well as planning for the James Webb Space Telescope, etc).
The 1 billion increase in NASA's overall budget is good thing. But this increase is totally dwarfed by 12 billion funding re-allocation that also accompanies the budget increase. And they're really worried that alot of that funding will be taken away from the hard science missions (Hubble, Chandra, etc).
This is what alot of people, even here on /., don't realize when they bash NASA. NASA doesn't only fund the space shuttle and ISS and Mars rovers. There's a whole slew of astrophysical observational experiments, both earthbound and in orbit, that are contributing hugely to scientific research.
This funding shift implies NASA will be shifting it's focus, away from science and towards engineering. While the budget increase is good for the space travel programs and probably ISS, it's not so good for the pure science and observational programs.
Just my two cents.
make world, not war
The only thing we know is how long until the oil we *know about* is going to run out.
We have no idea how much oil earth actually contains or even how exactly it's formed naturally. Which means we have no clue how long it takes for the Earth to generate oil.
We also know how to make synthetic oil out of waste in very reasonable amounts of time.
If it is about alternate and more effecient fuels then great.
That's sufficient without the doomsday mumbojumbo about running out of oil in X years.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Good post, foiled by a single abhorrent spelling error.
A S T R O N A U T
Well if thats the best you could do I dont think you've won the point. Image stabilization might be an OK example though some research would be required to figure out who really invented it in the form its widely used. The other examples you cite dont seem to have any proven uses outside NASA. 2D barcodes is a distrubingly bureaucratic thing that is more of a damming statement about the shuttle and NASA that they would need to invent something like that to catalog the towering pile of bureaucracy and complexity that is the space shuttle.
You need to realize that NASA has a rather large bureau dedicated to trying to prove that everything they do results in spinoffs as a means to justify their budget. Back in the day I was a NASA contractor I had to go to an entire convention NASA holds each year trying to convince the world they produce spinoffs. The problem is they end up with a pretty bad tendency to take anything that might even remotely have spinoffs and stretch it to the hilt, usually beyond reality.
@de_machina
awesome point!!
Amen. I'm glad someone else understands that.
*sigh* Absolutely untrue... the US actually spends almost 3 times as much on educating each student as we do on the military.
Clinton?
Or perhaps just a shopping list:
Pound pastrami
can kraut
six bagels
--bring home for Emma.
load "windows7"
Very simple: it can act as a test bed for technology to get the Mars effort going.
When we did Apollo, did we go straight to the fucking moon? No. Remember: the first to land was Apollo 11.
Now, the moon is a several day trip, so it's not a huge investment of time (by human scale), but Mars is. So how do you TEST a Mars ship?
The International Space Station.
Make the space station (or something like it) into a mock up/test bed for the Mars ship.
Need to grow dinner on your ship? Practice on the ISS. Need to figure out to survive MASSIVE solar flares? Do it on the ISS. Need to practice landings on Mars? Use the Moon and the ISS. Need to figure out how to lock a bunch of goody goody militarist fuckwits into a tin can for months on end without killing each other? do it on the ISS.
Ya dig?
If we ditch the ISS, we handicap our ability to test the things we need to test for the Mars Mission. Getting to Mars on top of a rocket would consist of a few minutes of takeoff and nerve wracking tension, followed by several months of interplanetary travel and boredom, followed by a few minutes of nerve wracking tension, followed by several months of nerve wracking tension leading to tension fatigue and a weird relaxation on Mars itself, and then reverse the process.
Getting rid of the OSS gets rid of the most testable and reducible phases of the mission: the several months spent in space travelling to Mars.
And while I know that EVERYONE on /. is a primo coder and doesn't REALLY need QA, I really do think that something like the first and following Mars Missions DO need QA, and the ISS is the most immediate and useful device for testing a Mars mission.
Canning the ISS is a BAD idea. A moon base is a GOOD idea (test bed for Mars colony). Canning the shuttle is a GOOD idea.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
2015, huh? So *THAT'S* where all the programmers are going!
--Leo
What could 160 billion over two years buy you?
(a) A war in Iraq
(b) Fiberoptic network to every home in the USA
(c) Moon base in 3 years, manned Mars mission in 7
(d) Discount the cost of hybrid cars (air pollution)
(f) b, c, d and e
the moon will be getting internet access
Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/
I'm curious, what do you do for a living?
You're wondering what the benefit is for THz and near-IR devices? Whole new classes of electronics, bringing in orders of magnitude more bandwidth than available now. Think communications, for example. Also, perhaps, better ways to detect IR. And mixers, who doesn't want a better higher-frequency more-linear mixer? You could do some kickass up/downconversion if you had THz and IR mixers. Again, think communications.
If the X ray CCD's have applications in, and are affordable for, areas other than an X ray telescope then you would have a good example.
What technology is ever affordable shortly after it's been devloped? Well, transistors do hold the record for the fastest transition from lab invention to the store shelves.
Again, just off the top of my head, X-Ray CCD's could be used instead of X-Ray film in medicine, perhaps allowing much much shorter durations of exposure to the harmful rays.
And to finally give you a ridiculous example for your suggestion of advances by the space program for the space program. That's just like the 3-terminal semiconductor device developed at Bell Labs 50+ years ago which could barely amplify current. It was made by the phone company for the phone company.
make world, not war
But how do you answer the question:
"What about the children?"
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
World hunger is a non-existent problem. More food is produced every year than can be consumed, and is wasted. The problem with starving people is that the governments in their countries are too unstable or are at war. In short, the problem is politics, not a lack of food. The only way to stop all those people from starving is to send in invasion forces and conquer their crappy governments, then set up new colonial governments to manage the places properly. Of course, there's no money to be gained by doing this (these places usually have no natural resources), and countries with this ability don't have unlimited budgets and troops to do this. Plus, it's generally frowned on for richer countries to invade poorer ones, even if it is for their own good.
The only rational solution to the problem is, for most of us, to ignore it. Throwing money at the problem and shipping food over there doesn't solve the root problems (and in fact, many times it's stolen by the governments that are supposed to be responsible for these people). If change is going to come, it has to come from within those countries, not be imposed by outsiders.
Besides, since when did smoke detectors drive our economy?
Now, removing Saddam from power allows a more humane govt. to be put in place in Iraq, which allows all the ethical and practical benefits for the people of Iraq that you claim we need domestically.
Come on. Except for allowing Al-qaeda to finally get a foot inside Iraq, I don't see what this was accomplished. With all the billions the war cost, you could probably feed all of Africa for a while.
So either you're arguing the US should remain an isolationist nation that ignores world problems, or your arguements contradict each other to some extent.
So the US is "joining the world" (not being isolationist) by fighting a war that the whole world opposed to. To be more precise, the only two countries where more than 50% of the *population* was in favor of the war were the US and Israel (and even then I'm not 100% sure). Sure you might want to blame the big bad peace lobby that pours billions of $ to make the people think they don't need a war...
Now let's talk about isolationim. What's the most important country that hasn't signed Kyoto? What about the "International Court" (don't know the exact Engligh name for that one)? Or maybe the ban on antipersonnel landmines? Or the last negotiations about access to drugs for 3rd world country?
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
Undereducation...
Okay, google is failing me, but I remember hearing of a study of the cost of public education over the course of the last 30 years or so. The point was, the money spent per student has increased at a dramatically steeper rate than inflation during the same period of time. And we perceive our education system to be worse despite a long track record of throwing more and more money at the problem. Give students something to strive for, like science and technical jobs at NASA and associated contractors, for the next 30 years. Sounds good to me.
Oh, and while we're at it, let's do everything we can to keep the federal goverment *out* of funding (e.g., administrating) our local public schools. I'd rather pay those tax dollars locally and have a voice through the school board on how to spend it. Better chance of getting what we want versus having the entire country reach concensus.
One of Zubrin's points is that without a real goal, NASA will just keep piddling away money - he compares the X33 program vs. the Saturn V. In the case of the Saturn V they had a defined goal "Moon by the end of the decade" they had to meet. In order to meet that goal, the Saturn V had to lift X pounds by X date - and they met that in four years (the target timeframe). In the case of the X33 they spent five years playing around and abandoned the whole thing - without issue, because there was no defined need for an outcome to begin with!
Sure a base of some sort (moon or space station) is a nice stepping stone. But it's not required and if you consider things, it's probably actually easier to set up a long-term habitable base on Mars than the moon (Mars at least has hospitable temperatures sometimes and at least a little atmosphere). Certainly far more dangerous, and requiring more equipment and supplies, but once your lifting a lot of supplies into orbit you might as well send them to Mars as the moon.
Mars also has more minerals you can mine to produce things, like fuel for the return trip from mars (which is what Zubrin advocates). For a moon trip you'd need return fuel.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
and Spell!
Have you looked at welfare in the past 10 years?
Most of the progams require you to a)get a job, b)being training for a job or C)looking for a job. Not exactly food-tubes, although it does say something about the wealth distribution in this country if the people working on the lowest rungneed government assistance in order to survive.
Also, welfare beifits 1) do not cover all of the cost of living, just some and b)often have cut off dates, so much for unending support of the government.
And just one question, how much does a secretary produce? or a storew clerk? or a CFO?
Are you on Crack?? This is what the US (not the people, the people with power) did to Afgahastan! Flatten a country, say "We have brought you freedom", then leave it for another country - which gives a shit about something other than it's ownself interests (again speaking of the people making the choices not the voters) - to try to clean up. I feel sick that no one has stood up to the US (again not the average Joe American), and when I think about the day (and it will come) when someone draws a line in the sand I start to gag. The political ideals in the White house will no doubt drop this planet into another World War, one that will not be won by anyone. The victor will determined by the country with the most surviving cockroches, and the shallowest craters.
"Velcro? Swiss inventor, 1948.
Teflon? Ohio researcher, 1937."
So it *wasn't* aliens???
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
No the people who created the machines the workers use are the primary creators of the wealth. The People who invested the funds needed to create the machines, and to link them togather in a production system are the secondary creators of the wealth. The Workers simply operate machines they are incapable of creating or financing.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
(1) I'm curious as to what the solution is and (2) Why are you convinced that a technological solution will solve a social problem. History seems to show us otherwise.
Yes I have. Its used in the humanities. And "law" in the humanities means something very different from the scientific definition or the definition from logic. It roughly means : "Here is what we think will happen, because this is what happened before in this particular field". So while a law of diminishing returns might apply to production profit margins, it may not necessarily apply to the rate of technological progress. In fact, if you look at the history of technology, it appears that the opposite of this "law" applies - the higher the technological level of a state, the faster its level appears to advance. This is just an empirical observation of course - not a predictor of the future. But the same is true of your statement too. That is why I dont believe that using what we may or may not be able to do at some point in the future as an argument for not doing something now is not a argument.
There is no such thing as luck. Luck is nothing but an absence of bad luck.
And spell.
Isn't our current, dying, spacestation; international? Whats wrong with making the moon project a collaboration between the US, China and India? Oh yeah, Bush doesn't know they exist, or if he does he doesn't care!
TK
You tout the economic benefits of GPS yet doubt 2D barcodes have one? Believe me, the manpower saved using online postage stamp systems *alone* (both by users and by the postoffice) trumps any amount of GPS-enabled tractors that could possibly be in use.
I could be wrong, but I'm not seeing *any* productive uses for GPS, which, btw, wouldn't exist if it weren't for lots of technology that NASA pioneered to begin with. Prove me wrong.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
For more than a decade now, Americans of all sorts have been loudly proclaiming that the US is "the only remaining superpower". Bush has started wars of conquest to enforce the idea that "we're in charge here". If you're not on our side, you're with the terrorists.
...
So, yes, everything that goes wrong in the world is now his fault. Any five-year-old understands that, if you're in charge, you get the blame for any problems. You could have fixed the problems; if you didn't, they're your fault now.
All this "Why do they hate us?" stuff is ridiculous. If you're the biggest bully on the block, of course everyone hates you. Why would you expect otherwise?
Human psychology really isn't all that complex
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
nasa is sending a real estate agent up with the shuttle - to handle the lunar real estate scenario
|/________
|\A|ALYS|
I'm Sorry....
I don't get it....
Canticle for Leibowitz was the second reference, but I don't get the first.... Foundation by Asimov?
LongTail SSH Brute Force analysis tool is here!
I'm not sure whether to mod you 'troll' or 'funny'... So you'll just get a reply instead.
among other things, employment for a whole bunch of scientists and engineers. Massive projects like Apollo, SSTL and ISS may seem like dead-end or pork-barrel projects to the general public, but they create jobs in science and technology, thus creating demand for scientists and technologists, thus causing more people to major in scientific fields. At least they're not becoming lawyers, and beyond that they're generating new tech for us all to enjoy.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
That's because most of us here are Westerners, and most of us Westerners live in the USA (this being an American website), most of the inhabitants of which are descended from Europeans, so when someone refers to the "Dark Ages", it's pretty well understood what period of time they're referring to.
Most of the rest of the world has either always been "dark", or hasn't had such huge changes in its society, so there's no reason to even think of those places when using the term.
The human space program is driven by desire of one person to go back to Arkon...
They survived very well in the long term. Part of the reason the Renaissance happend so quickly was that the west rediscovered all the Roman knowledge that had been squirreled away by monks in the Church. Also, a lot of advances in architecture were greatly accelerated by the fact that Roman structures still stood. The first domes built in hundreds of years in Italy were due to architectures studying the Roman Pantheon and applying that knowledge to their own structures.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I'm all for it. In fact, is there a way to donate to NASA to help with this? I'd love to support this even more than my normal tax burden requires.
Fellowship 9/11
The Republicans are not bumbling fools. How could bumbling fools attain such a high level of power? I would say the Republicans are highly organized, motivated and intelligent.
The Democrats on the other hand are bumbling fools. They had a chance to beat Bush in 2004 but blew it with their petty party in-fighting.
It's funny that Joe Liberman and Hillary Clinton turned out to be George Bush's biggest allies. Everytime they open their mouth George Bush sees his chance of winning the election increase. The Age of the Democrat is over in this country. Things have to get worse before they get better.
Yes, but the revival of learning, knowledge, etc, in the Renaissance was fueled by preserved Roman knowledge. If that knowledge had been lost, Europe would have been set back hundreds of years. Its much easier to copy an existing Roman dome than to rediscover how domes work!
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
The reason we haven't seen anything in the last 10 years is also why we couldn't develop anything without German engineering. Necessity is the mother of invention, and the people of Germany were organized and motivated to survive.
You're absolutely right. I humbly bow before the technological advancement of the people of Germany
...when we're still giving countries like Israel 6 billion dollars (75 percent of which is earmarked for military spending) yearly.
I say cut the fat, that includes first world buddy countries that can do just fine on their own.
Not if it goes on Dubya's resume. Don't fucking do it in a million years. The murderous drunk doesn't deserve it and hasn't earned it.
The first part is correct. The second part is *completely* off base. In between prosperous dynasties in China and China, for example, were long periods of chaotic darkness.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
?! NASA's annual budget is 17 billion AFAIK. Are you saying that 6.8 billion a year is generated from their royalties?
The 'public' might think that the money should be spent on domestic issues, but the 'public' is full of complete fucking morons.
Well, that would certainly explain where we keep getting these Presidents.
At least on this particular issue the blind squirrel has apparently found his acorn.
paintball
I am by no means your average Slashdot jingoist :) I was simply making the comparison in the sense that both countries were/are the most powerful in the world at one time, and things like that inevitably do not last. I do not believe the bullshit "The United States is the most powerful country in the history of the world!" that our politicians are always spewing out.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I believe printed circuits were first used in the Nazi guided-missile programme in WWII.
-----
PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
I realized immediately after posting that GPS probably has made surveying quite a bit more productive.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
> Voter turnout among those qualified to receive welfare is far too low
Now that's true, but the political calculation in the 1960s was different.
One of the main reasons the Democrats are no longer the majority party is because they burned an enormous amount of political capital on the Welfare system, but failed to gain any voters from it. Not a smart move -- if even a small percentage of people in poverty got off their ass, the US political landscape would be a very different place.
Of course, Social Security and Medicare (recently expanded by GOP/Bush) are also techncially "Welfare" programs, but we'll exclude those because Ronald Reagan is collecting off them.
The presidents plans are sheer and utter madness.
He wants to ditch the space station and build a moon station. He wants to use the moon as a "launch pad" to Mars. He wants to toss the shuttle away.
He's also not proposing any more money for NASA. He's proposing changes NASA's "focus". So basically all those space robots that provide data for science will go on the back burner so we can send astronauts to drive four wheelers on Mars.
Part of me suspects that this is part of the far-rights deep hatred of astromers and cosmology. In other words, the more data we collect the more we figure out that god shaped the universe in a way somewhat more complex than that described in the bible.
So, if they move funding away from advanced telescopes and Europa probes, the natural creation sciences have less data. You can also shift money away from people studying global warming. If you cut off their thermometers, they can't observe the subtle changes in temperature that give evidence for the phenmenom.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
Uh, surveying, navigation (ships, airplanes and increasingly cars and trucks, increased safety for ships is huge), real-time tracking of freight carrying trucks, emergency location of accident victims, pinpointing brush and forest fires (from helicopters to ground crews), and in the not to distant future probably all kinds of unmanned vehicles, not just tractors.
@de_machina
EOM
If Chaos Theory has taught us anything, it's that we must kill all the butterflies.
The idea that any school district in the country spends a noticeable amount of money on condoms is ridiculous. Stadiums, yes. Way too much. Because that's what people want, unfortunately. But not condoms, despite what Limbaugh and co will tell you. But in the FoxNews world, a ton of ignorance is worth a ton of paying for the consequences of STDs and pregnancy.
I'm glad you are in no sort of position to decide how funds are spent or what projects are worked on. People like you never bother working on anything that lacks immediate gratification - since that sort of behaviour is self limiting the people who actually create things with long term value can get on with getting things done.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
Well actually figuring out how to get off this planet is probably the only worthwhile thing we can do as a human race. One day everything on this planet is gonna be gone. If we aren't by then we will be to.
Its prounounced:
See Eee Vee
And frankly the name doesn't matter. I'm sure if you took a survey you'd find that most people don't know who "Apollo" is. A lot of them will probably say something stupid like "Isn't that the skater from the last olympics?".
What matters is how the thing performs, and what missions are performed using it. We look back fondly on Apollo because humans landed on the moon in that project.
Which brings up my final point, which is that Apollo is the name of the entire project dedicated to landing men on the moon, where the CEV is the vehicle. Apples and oranges, my friend. The Apollo vehicles had similarly boring names. Well, Saturn 5 is pretty badass, but again, thats the rocket and not the crew module. Even todays rockets have cool names for the most part.
I'm sure the project name for landing men on Mars will have a similarly sexy name as "Apollo". Maybe they should name it "Aphrodite" - thats about as sexy as they come. But probably more fitting that they save that name for sending people to melt on Venus. No, the project should probably be named "Ares" - duh.
// harborpirate
// Slashbots off the starboard bow!
>The place to cut is in military spending. The war in Iraq would have paid for a lot of space travel, unfortunately it paid for blowing up buildings instead. We have lots of highly specialized weapons that are very expensive - millions of dollars per explosion.
Hey, I know the Iraq war was a distraction for the patriotic, well-meaning but uninformed populace... but think of the alternative:
If we DIDN'T *blame* Iraq for 9-11, invent a story about Saddam buying uranium in Africa (then "out" the CIA agents who could correct that story)... where would we be today?
Answer?
In Saudi Arabia. For a few days after September 11, the news actually stood up to Bush by trumpeting:
WHERE THE HIJACKERS CAME FROM
-and-
WHO TRANSFERRED MONEY TO THEM.
As they said in "All The President's Men", Follow The Money. How close is the Bush family to King Fahd? Isn't MOST of the Bush family wealth tied up in investments in Saudi Arabia? Hmm.
When it comes to screwing over America, the Bush family wins 3-0 (oh yeah, the 3rd Bush act against us: paying
Iran to hold the hostages until AFTER Reagan was sworn in... as if Iran/Contra deals REALLY happened after the hostages were safely home... puhleeze!)
Invading Iraq was stupid but necessary. Besides his personal wealth at stake, Bush knew if we invaded Saudi Arabia, we'd be at war with EVERY NATION between Indonesia and Morocco! We're talking major war that the US could not possibly win without using WMD's.
Iraq was a Faustian Bargain, and one that ALL SIDES are prepared to live with.
No. It isn't. Several other countries do develop technology, but for instance, take pharmeceuticals - who foots the bill for research and development? The good ol' USA.
------
That's not the point. The US does a great deal of R&D now, but it didn't in the past, and it won't in the future. While we are at the top, it is our responsibility to contribute to the knowledge of humanity.
And besides, what did the space race do to the C.C.C.P? If you answered "Bankrupt" and or "cold" you iz just about right.
--------
The space race didn't do that to them, it was a mix of bad economic planning and the arms race.
I agree. Science (should be) is for the good of all, but have you ever heard of patents?
----------
Yes, and I also know that they are a temporary monopoly. Even if the patent lasts for decades, that's really a small amount of time in the grand scheme of things. We're talking about the macro scale here.
How about gouging American customers for research and development. Spending on NASA DOES achieve stuff, no question, but we want the payoff, not some pie-in-the-sky promise about trickle-down science.
-------
That's not a great way to do science. If scientists were beancounters, we'd be fucked. Consider quantum mechanics. It was purely intellectual mastrubation for several decades after its invention in the early 20th century. Today, the practical applications of quantum mechanics underly 30% of the US GDP!
Again, I agree. We're still using fire and electricity and that is likely to continue. However, Rome had little more than brute strength, borrowing their logic and math and religion from Greece and the East.
-------
They made enormous original contributions to engineering and architecture. Concrete, for example, was a Roman invention. They scale of their architecture was unmatched in the West for more than a thousand years after the fall of the Empire. They were not original in the "pure" sciences, but they were in the applied fields.
I just think we have SO MUCH technology that we should slow down. A hundred and fifty years ago, and all time prior, you and I would most likely be farmers or hunter gatherer.
-------
Eh? There were almost no hunter-gatherers in the West (not counting the native Americans) 150 years ago. A 150 years ago, the world was quite modern. Maxwell completed his theory of electromagnatism precisely 149 years ago in 1855!
Not such a bad life except that it was only, on average, 35-50 years long.
------
The average lifespan for a male in 1850 was 60 years old. The average lifespan overall was 47, but that was brought up by high child mortality. The decrease in child mortality was not completely due to technology. Much of it was just teaching people proper practices, and doing proper pre-natal and post-natal care.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
How about a US MagLev transport system????
... How bout funding for those scramjet engines? How about the space inferometer project? How about funding for carbon nano-tubes that will enable a space elevator which will cut launch costs to a tenth of what they are now?
How about funding more mass transit systems that lower peoples need for cars and hence more interstates. Wouldn't be nice to be able to hop on trains and get pretty much ANYWHERE in the US. How about 400 MPH on the ground without the 2 hours to get in and out of airports. How bout wind farms on the Great Lakes that would provide a profound amount of green power (the really BIG ones turn slow and don't kill birds)?
How about a great new effort for PEDESTRIAN super-highways. If you've been on a rail-to-trail you know what a great concept this is. A safe place for kids and adults to get from one place to another on their bikes, skates, etc... Add lots of pedestrian bridges. After all, America is facing a crisis of obesity. A lot of this can be attributed that we spend profound amounts of time in cars on our asses instead of WALKING.
How about more money for border patrol to secure our nation from illegals of ALL kinds? How about more resources for first responders (the money Bush promised but didn't deliver) to deal with a chemical or biological attack?
How about universal preventative and emergency health insurance (this would benefit small business)? How about building more $5 million dollar schools instead of $750 million dollar stadiums? How about more cops to keep our cities safe, even the "bad" parts?
How about raises for our civic heroes: Cops, fireman and teachers. Yeah we revere them but we pay them DICK!!!
Mars is likely a trillion dollar mission. And what will it deliver to the US in return??? A new improved version of Tang?? Was teflon really that much better than an oiled iron pan??? Was there really any technology that NASA delivered that wouldn't be developed by private industry when they needed it???
Speaking of NASA technology
Oh yeah, and all that fiber-optics sounded really good too. Actually Kucinich is pimping free secondary education at a price of 27 billion annually. This is a gem of a bargain compared to a trillion of ten years.
So, there are some other things to spend money on besides "muddin" on mars.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
-1, Paranoid.
O'Keefe was also the head of the Office of Management and Budget, which was probably more relevant to his being hired for NASA.
While there are some military connections, NASA is a civilian agency. The DoD has its own space capability, they don't want a civilian agency doing military stuff that they can perfectly well do on their own.
And while there were some military payloads launched on the shuttle, the DoD wasn't thrilled to use the Shuttle to begin with, hasn't used it for quite some time, and has not shown the slightest interest in using it ever again.
Come on. Whatever one's opinion about the President's space exploration plan - and I for one approve wholeheartedly - let's argue it based on the facts, not on completely ridiculous accusations.
If you're planning on going to the moon base, make sure you turn up at the departure gate at least 3 weeks in advance. You will need to be finger printed, psychologically tested, DNA scanned and anal probed. All astronauts will be forced to travel naked to ensure they aren't concealing anything that could be used as a weapon. And eating spicy food is outlawed for at least 3 days prior to launch, to ensure the astronaut isn't concealing any flammable gases.
Of course, travelling from the moon back into the United States...
What has NASA ever done for the internet? The internet developed from a Deparment of Defense project as a means of maintaining communications in the event of a nuclear war.
You will want to pay closer attention to the infomercial. They say it was developed with space-age technology. That means pretty much anything invented after 1960.
While you're at it, "memory-foam" is just a fancy name for foam that goes flat the first time you use it.
I don't think that ANYONE would doubt that satellites are useful and helpful to human civilization. The debate seems to be whether HUMAN BEINGS personally launching satellites is beneficial.
;-)
Rather, robots seem to do a good job at pennies on the thousand dollars compared to manned space flight. There are very few things that robots CAN'T accomplish in space that humans can. For example, it would be difficult to make a robot that hits golf balls on the moon
I'm sure at some point in the future we will be a space-faring race. And by that time, we will have MUCH better robots that will be perfectly capable of hitting golf balls along with all those other HUMAN tasks besides eating.
If we ever DO colonize Mars, the VERY last delivery will be the humans. The robots will have built all the dwellings before humans arrive.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
Conspiracy theories are great fun, of course, but I'm skeptical that there's any cohesive force acting to make anything like this happen. It sounds like there is from time to time, and I'm sure there are people who do actually make it their goal to make this happen. But they're isolated idiots, not a vast global conspiracy.
You're confusing actual advances with flashy projects that attract a lot of attention.
NASA has to show people like you something shiny so their budget doesn't get slashed to pieces.
"A million here and a million there, and pretty soon you're talking real money."
- President Harry S. Truman
Umm... I'm not sure I'm reading this right. Are you saying that, if the astronauts stayed here instead, they wouldn't eat anything?
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Military innovation is usually classified, non-exportable, insanely expensnive, etc, etc, for years...
NASA innovation is most often rapidly usable.
I'm guessing they see it as a source of funds, wereas the military see it as a potential weapon.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
So -- who told the Republicans that there's oil on Mars?
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Nope. They'll be remembered as "The guys that used the nuke."
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
How do *you* know the contents of simoniker's rejected story submission?
--
make install -not war
I agree with you. I would add that money is just a bookkeeping tool, and not an actual resource. As long as we have rocket fuel and rocket scientists to spare, we have enough resources for space exploration. Money is no object.
same thing in my neighborhood. large expansions on two school that added ZERO student capacity. yet the schools needed voters to pass a referendum for money in order to make it through the year financially. The money is there but it is wasted. It's a game. Even if the have extra money they spend it in order to have an excuse to ask for more money.
Military aircraft are not built using standard parts. Everything is custom. So everything is brutally expensive. Cut back on the custom nature of this hardware, and you'd save a lot of money.
done
the joint strike fighter is a new fighter platform that will share a common chassis and subsystems, while allowing for customization for the roles required by the various services (ob google). this will allow the navy version to land on carriers, the marine version to have VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) ability, and the air force version to be maximized for speed/range/maneuverability. and all while maximizing the commonality of the supply chain and support crew
Fermat's other theorem: "I have a simple proof, but I can't write it down as I fear it's a DMCA violation to discuss it"
Of course. The more US spends on space research is the less they have left to spend on wars against other countries.
Less is more !
I realize I'm off topic here, but anyway...
Just because the ultimate goal of the military is to kill people, doesn't mean everything associated with them is evil.
Last time I checked the goal of any military was to protect the country and it's government, at any means necessary. Killing people may be the means, but not the end.
.: Max Romantschuk
The idea that the nuclear deterrent mission is no longer required is sophmoric at best.
;-) I'd call it the Space Transportation Administration.
Umm, thats what we have MISSLES for. That was the whole bitch about a stealth nuclear delivery system. It's only an effective FIRST STRIKE weapon.
It's useless as a retaliatory weapon because it's sole tactical target (Nuke silos), would have all been launched in a first strike.
We should be quite happy and content knowing that we can incinerate the world 5 times over with our current strategic nuclear capacity. There is no need for a "stealth" nuclear bomber.
That having been said, we do have a need for a large to medium capacity bomber that can deliver multiple "LARGE" precision payloads on a single mission. The B-2 weakly fills that role. In fact, the Air Force doesn't want any more but congress forced them down their throats a couple years ago.
Regarding funding of a Mars/Moon Mission???
I would like to see NASA split into two divisions. One would be responsible for furthering human knowledge through science and space exploration. The other would put men in space
One of the biggest risk in this boondoggle is that they will divert money away from building robots. Them robots do all the effective grunt work of space science. They also cost pennies to the thousand dollar when compared to manned space travel. Humans in space are tourists first, explorers second.
Yeah, those astronauts DID bring back all kinds of moon rocks. And they DID add to human knowledge. But it's really nothing that robots couldn't accomplish given a bit more time and a LOT less funding.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
We should spend lots more on space industry, including exploration. Hell, the billions taxpayers spend subsidizing *oil exploration* should be spent on space energy projects. The ROI is much greater, and could return to taxpayers, rather than funding better ways to rip us off at the pump and the Pentagon. The fuel cell is just the most topical NASA tech to offer us a way out of our terrestrial jams. Not to mention the vast array of other lucrative tech for space, and the pioneer spirit synonymous with America, nowhere better earned than in space.
The point of complaining about spending more on NASA today is that we've already spent the money on lower priorities. It's not just whining, but a cry for rational space enthusiasts to grab their share of the agenda, rather than throwing our money at Haliburton and other oil/military complex welfare corporations. Peace and space have always gone hand in hand, and with finite funds, we're natural allies. Join together and take back our country, before its squandered for a few Enrons.
--
make install -not war
Actually, over 90% of public education money goes into compensating teachers, administrators, etc. who do a lousy job, and have vastly more generous retirement packages than any employee in the private sector.
Choice and competition is the only way to break the horrible monopoly that is Gov't education.
Actually, the religious monks were among the few well educated people during the dark ages. And the church was one of the few sources of literature and education. If it was not for the work of some monks, we probably would have lost an even greater amout of classical literature and information. The dark ages weren't caused by the rise of religious fundamentalism, it was caused by the fall of a powerful and relatively stable government and it's replacement with a feudal system more of more or less glorified war lords.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
Prersonally, I'd rather live in a country that bankrupts itself trying to get to Mars
Yes, but should we tax the living fuck out of the rich so a bunch of geeks can have their wet dreams fulfilled? Think of it this way: if we take away all of the money that Bill G. spends on (to name a few) getting rid of AIDS in Africa, we might have enough to go to the moon on. (Actually, I've heard some people advance similar arguments against private philanthropy.)
I'm not anti-big-government, because I'm a federally financed researcher and big government pays my salary. I'm happy to have my tax dollars spent on making our country a better place, even including (up to a point) bloated welfare and military budgets. I am not willing to see it wasted on programs that whose practical or scientific value is miniscule compared to their expenditure, and it's sickening to see so many Slashbots who don't understand either the economics or the science of manned spaceflight, but whose conception of space travel seems to be right out of Star Trek.
The 'public' might think that the money should be spent on domestic issues, but the 'public' is full of complete fucking morons.
Yeah, how dare they decide how their fucking tax dollars should be spent? Let's let a bunch of unemployed 20-something geeks decide it for them!
A> The only correlation between "the" US economy health and the US military budget is how the military saps the strength of the economy. The minimal efficiency of the military in defense of the US and our economy are obviously correlated, but not the profligate waste beyond that.
B> If DARPA hadn't produced the Internet, someone else would have - it was an idea whose time had come. Even if your tired old saw were true, if we had spent the entire $4 trillion coldwar defense budget on the Internet, it would be a *lot* better.
C> The need for weapons (in US or even enemies hands), or the UN allowing them anywhere, has been proven to be a total nonissue for Bush/Cheney. As has "deficits", which according to Cheney, "don't matter".
D> NASA had always been R&D for ICBM research. Sensible capitalists (not "state capitalists", mafiosos indistinguishable from "communists") want to dissolve that vampiric relationship, and fund just the lucrative NASA.
Drop the rationalizations, back the drive to explore space, and leave the deathstar behind in favor of growth.
--
make install -not war
It's a concept called the Triad. ICBMs and SLBMs may not be as invulnerable as we'd like (and eventually stealth will lose its protection). Defense planning also needs to take into account capabilities of potential opponents. Russia still has numerous ICBMs that are designed as first strike weapons. In fact, this one of the few areas Russia is actually purchasing military hardware (as opposed to selling it to the first person whose check clears).
"Five times over?" You should take a look at the cutbacks in the nuclear forces in the last 14 years. Peacekeeper? Gone. Trident boats? Cut dramatically. B1's? Taken out of SIOP. Same with B52s. B2 is our only airborne strategic nuke platform. You can recall a plane, can't recall an ICBM.
Hey, I love using robots too. I just think that getting folks in space is important too. It's too bad the International Space Station is such a drain. The cost of that boondoggle would fund quite a few dozen robotic missions.
US Recomended Daily Allowance of lead
rimshot.
In the meantime, millions upon millions of dollars are being wasted on pseudoscientific programs such as space-based protein crystallography. This is all in order to justify the bloated ISS (and shuttle) budget, since most laymen don't know a thing about protein crystallography and wouldn't understand that it's much better done here on Earth.
My point is, the spinoffs from manned space exploration do not by themselves justify manned space exploration and its absurd budget. Why not try to invent these advanced technologies without spending billions attempting to shoot people into space? If they're useful here on Earth, odds are they'll be available soon anyway, without flushing all those tax dollars down the tubes.
Amen, well said! Mod parent up!
Gene Roddenberry was right about so many things. Foreign policy is probably his greatest stroke of genius.
We are seeing first hand our limitations in meddling with the affairs of other nations. See Dubaya claims he invaded Iraq on behalf of the Iraqi's (and that BS weapons of mass destruction shit).
But in the aftermath of the war, we see that Bush is reluctant to give Iraq back to the Iraqis. You may say they aren't mature enough to build their nation. I say it's none of our business. It's THEIR country.
Here we see the ultimate irony of fundamentalists opposing a fundamentalist government in Iraq. It's not good for Washington. But it's NONE OF OUR BUSINESS!!!! It's not our country. The country belongs to Iraq.
We get into so many scrapes globally because we dick around with democracies that don't cow-tow to Washington. We practically turned most of Central and South America over to brutal dictators for the sake of corporate exploitation and under the guise of "anti-communism".
Even now Washington is waging black ops against Venezuela and their elected president Hugo Chavez. Why??? Because he refuses to cooperate with the WTO. He refuses to turn his countries resources over to the control of foreigners.
For some reason, Americans sometimes think they have the right to force policies upon foreign countries. Why??? Because we have a bigger military. Yet, the mere hint by foreigners that America is wrong brings howls of protests from right wing politicians.
We are seeing in Iraq first hand evidence that we CANNOT unilaterally force puppet governments on foreign countries. Sometimes they simply have too much fight. The exact thing happened in Vietnam.
Oh you say these are Baathist extremists? Why don't their neighbors simply turn them in? Why are Iraqi's sympathetic? Because Washington is dictating their civil affairs with no input from them. And they are doing a SHITTY job of it.
The situation has already passed the point of no return. We have to swiftly and aggresively turn Iraq over to Iraqi citizens. Get out ASAP and let the Iraqi's run their own affairs. If they ask for assistance, we will assist them. But it's THEIR country and THEIR show.
Thats the application of the Prime Directive. We are engaged when our presence is requested. When we are asked to leave, we leave. We defend ourselves and allies when they are threatened. We actively support democratically elected governments irregardless of whether they are white or whether they talk nicely to Castro.
The Prime Directive should be the HIGHEST law of foreign policy!!!!
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
Spend ten billion dollars to go someplace with no real plan for what to do once you get there.
Millions of hungry Americans welcome their Canadian liberators!
--
make install -not war
I've always held the belief that the ISS shouldn't have been created, and instead a Lunar base of some sort should have been constructed.
The ISS has become a huge money sink. The Russians really need to get their act together money-wise (though in the delivery department they are currently better than us considering the shuttle fleet is grounded).
More money up to this point should have been put into low gravity (and zero-gravity) manufacturing.
In order to even conceive of building a lunar base at this point, a lot of money is going to have to be sunk into researching this. Manufacturing at low-G in hostile environments is not the same as manufacturing here on earth.
For any of these plans to succeed, NASA needs to get it through their heads that wings are a bad idea for orbital/lunar space flight. Why? The benefits are more negative than positive.
They are only used on landing - therefore on takeoff (where weight is a very important factor) they are the most inefficient waste of mass because they aren't used at all! I also believe that a reusuable, technologically sophisticated, recoverable capsule (similar to Apollo) will be cheaper to build, cheaper to launch, and cheaper to recover than any winged craft will be.
There needs to be a another X-prize, but this time its for building the cheapest, most efficient and economical manned reusable space (not near-space) vehicle. I think that if NASA licenses a technology developed in the private sector we actually have a chance of making some of these timetables that have been put forth, instead of new technology being bogged down by bureaucracy and stubbornness.
In this day and age, the part of NASA that manages manned space exploration is all about not taking risks but ducking their heads and making sure nothing disastrous goes wrong. The Apollo missions were a HUGE RISK undertaken by NASA. But since the last Apollo mission hardly any risks are taken any more because of fears of spending being cut, etc...
NASA needs to return to being able to take calculated risks for the good of exploration. I think this lack of any risk-taking has also stifled any new technology from going into current spacecraft.
You tell me how were gonna get send billions of people to Mars and ill take another look at your rants.
How about a Space Elevator. NASA estimates, although from 2000, are that exiting the gravity well could cost as little as $1.48, meaning that a person, with baggage, weighing a total of 150Kg could be sent up for $222. If the US stopped spending any money on defense, about 450-500 billion a year, we could get 250 million people per year *into* space. Assuming we had the will, and i'm pretty sure we would given certain death would be the other option, I couldn't be too hard to figure out how to actually survive.
What i'm really saying is that we should be focusing on a space elevator instead of spending more money on crap we don't need.
A blog about stuff.
-The Crying Orc
The President says he's going to improve budget for space exploration and suddenly every nerdy conspiracy theorist pulls out of the woodwork.
So far I've seen:
1. He's doing this for political reasons.
2. He's doing this to help get his dad's words back on track.
3. He's doing this to fund his corporate friends who will be contracting for nasa
4. He's doing this to gain military dominance
5. How's nasa going to operate with such a small budget?
Geez people. Shut your whiney mouths up and give the man props!
I know all you liberals hate him, but he's doing the best he can and he's trying to advance our country. For just an instance shut your pie holes and appreciate that!
Anonymous to avoid being labeled a troll.
Note that greater than half of our budget is "non-discressionary" Including Soc Sec. Medicare/Medicade and Interest on the Debt
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
Canticle for Leibowitz was the second reference, but I don't get the first.... Foundation by Asimov?
:)
Yes. Obviously it's now too obscure or my reference was too oblique.
However, I don't get the *second* one, probably because I'm unfamiliar with "Canticle for Leibowitz". I just can't see how a pound of pastrami is going to shorten the dark age - perhaps Seldon (protagonist in Foundation) missed something important there!
That money is spent here, in the USA, on engineers and such - right on down to the guy who sweeps up the turnings from the lathes at Boeing.
At the very least, that money has a chance for spin-off benefits.
If you think of it as "welfare for the military industrial complex", at least it has a chance of a payback. I'd rather give hard-working engineers "welfare" rather than "poor" people.
Pure social spending of Gov't dollars is money down the drain (unless you are trying to create/reinforce a dependent class of "citizens").
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Uranus Experiment, Part 2.
That's the name of Bush's marriage promotion.
If Space weaponry ever becomes a reality it will quickly become the same as nuclear weaponry. Why???
Because those things we spend into space are VERY fragile. So deploying systems that DESTROY other satellites will be trivial. Deploying satellites that can withstand explosives, nukes, or microwave radiation bombardment will be VERY difficult.
So a space arms race would mirror the nuclear arms race. There would be TONS of destructive capacity and very little defensive capacity. Essentially there would be mutally assured destruction in orbit.
Furthermore, like the doomsday of nuclear war and it's associated nuclear winter, there is also a possible orbital doomsday. NASA has been very concerned about space litter for quite some time. It's very pervasive and it NEVER goes away.
It has been proposed that a critical mass of space debris would set of a catostrophic chain reaction that would render orbit to dangerous for any satellite. Now imagine 3,000 orbital defense weapons blowing up all the satellites in space and imagine how that would add to the volume of orbital junk? We could lock ourselves onto our own planet perpetually.
So I do agree that the control freaks of the tri-lateral commision want to "control" space. But I realize that there is:
1) Very little to control.
2) The pursuit of such warfare is ultimately as futile and self destructive as nuclear weaponry.
From that perspective, it may be relevant just to get killer satellites deployed BEFORE the Chinese do. In this way we aren't caught at a strategic disadvantage. Not that sending all our manufacturing to China isn't a disadvantage???
I sometimes wonder how much "thinking" occurs in think-tanks.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
NT
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
Anonymous Earthling Coward, you should thank your lucky stars that the geeks have enough influence to complete longer range plans like NASA. Otherwise you would be living in a Malthusian nightmare, with no beer, and diseased women, and *nothing else*. Until you have something constructive to contribute, to the world or the discussion, just keep your fingers away from the keyboard, that geek playground.
--
make install -not war
For as little as $5, I am sure you could "fuck the hungry". See Thailand as an example.
China and China? There's two of them?
I was unaware that there were dark ages in China; I had thought they were relatively stable for thousands of years (though not a world leader), until the Communists took over.
Budgetary increases in one area tend to be offset by decreases in related areas. So really what we are talking about is 1B$ that will be spent on NASA instead of other scientific research. Realistically I think that the question isn't "what social programs could we spend it on instead?", but "given 1B$ to spend on scientific research in the next year, what can we accomplish?"
That makes it a lot more clear that this is a cynical "bread and circuses" ploy on the part of an administration that doesn't have much respect for science or truth.
-A young postdoc who just got sold down the river
Compare last year's government revenue to this year's. Economic activity has a multiplying effect. Thus a tax cut can increase tax revenue, by increasing incomes. If the economy grows more than the rate is cut. The point isn't that most tax cuts pay for themselves, but a 6% tax cut doesn't result in 6% less money. Read up on some Keynes. Deficits aren't always bad, just that our debt should grow slower than the economy, on average.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
I meant China and Persia. Neither were continuous empires, but rather a series of very different ones.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I'm not one of those "fix our problems here first" people, as we would never explore space if we waited till all the problems were solved on earth first. However, that doesn't change the fact that we need to go about this with some responsibility. Republicans claimed they were the party of fiscal responsibility...now we have big tax cuts AND huge military spending AND increased domestic spending.
Its not that we shouldn't try for a moon base, its that the administration needs to stop is gross fiscal irresponsibility and get the budget in line before we talk about sending humans to Mars.
Things have to get worse before they get better.
At least you acknowledge that it IS getting worse!
Already we have a big schedule slip. That's so NASA.
Ok lets use the martian rover mission cost of 800 million for two launches with Delta II's.
/ bo eing_delta_2_fs.htm
l ec ted_Mission_Weights.htm
I say give NASA 5 billion over the next 4 years or 20 billion dollars. That includes 20 times the research development money for the mars rovers, 40 times the launch budget.. IE 40 delta II launches. Lets see How much weight that is.
http://www.losangeles.af.mil/SMC/PA/Fact_Sheets
12,820 pounds to LEO.
40 launches represents 512,800lbs to LEO.
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_18-37_Se
Is that enough weight for a lunar mission ? Apollo 17, the heaviest lunar landing mission wieghed in at 107,161lbs at EOI ( earth orbit insertion ).
*** just as a side note how stupid were we to let the saturn V go.... more than 8 delta II launches to put the same amount weight into LEO as a single Sat V launch. Delta II's cost ~50 million a launch, Sat V would cost about 300 million not to mention with new composites and engine design streamlining would probably have increased its payload a fair amount meaning that 300 million a pop would launch even more mass into orbit, by comparison Shuttle tosses 50k lbs of PAYLOAD into orbit to the tune of about 500 million a launch ***
So YES 512,800lbs is more than 4 times as much mission mass as was available for the heaviest Lunar mission. Your going to tell me that 107klbs was enough in the 60's and not enough now ? Hell we should be able to cut the weight if anything and do MORE. Inflatable habitats, carbon fiber technology, computer design.
I am sure some amalgamation of snap together modules launched aboard deltas could be arranged to create a very capable manned lunar expedition.
Oh but wait we can't possibly develop a mission for that amount ? Why the hell not. Its not an unknown, we have done it. We know what is needed, we have better space technology and we can damn sure make something as capable as what we made 40 years ago. We just have to DECIDE that is what we want to do and set a reasonable goal.
I am sick and tired of the defeatist waffle position. OH it can't work, it can't be done for less than a zillion dollars. 23 billion in the 60's over 10 years sent us to the moon the first time. 20 billion in 4 years with what we now know should be MORE than enough to send us back.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
that's a pretty ignorant analysis designed to rile
troll
It has to be useful because your proposing using public funding for it.
... Robots!!!!
Typically, people want to see some return of services from their tax dollars. The closest analogy to manned space flight is the military.
Well, the military keeps this country safe and secure. Manned space flight delivers bad telivision at best.
Manned space flight is a conclusion looking for a motivation. It's a wonderful dream. But lets try to stay with reality when where chucking around hundreds of billions of dollars.
You know, a lot of people call for comprehensive mass transit systems. And each time the critics say "IT WILL COST TOO MUCH". But it does provide a LOT of benefit.
Well, I'd wager we could crisscross the nation with elevated Mag-Lev trains for the 1 trillion that a Mars mission will likely cost. Such a system would provide enduring value to the nation and provide a vital redundancy in travel. It would also cut down dramatically on greenhouse gasses through reduced auto and airline use.
And yeah, it would be really fucking expensive. But here we see people proposing hundreds of billions of dollars in spending for ZERO enduring value. Only a nice trip for a few individuals.
I believe that colonizing Mars will be a great shared human adventure. But it should be undertaken after we've sorted things out on earth. I don't see that happenning anytime soon. And even then, armies of robots should build everything before the first human sets foot on Mars.
So please, lets leave space exploration up to dedicated carreer professionals
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
Email me for low cost quality moonland, as sold to stars such as Travolta, Madonna, and Jackson. You're sure to get a profit after GW Bush colonizes the moon, then wants to drill for oil, he'll need to buy the land from you to drill first.
Just think you could own the very land that some astronaut takes a shit on which cost the US taxpayers only 2M to get into space!
*** Hurry land is limited ***
So your saying that you'd like to live on the Moon or Mars. You want to live on a desolate wasteland????
... WATER right their on the surface. There are also penguins to eat (but you have to be quick ;-)
Why not just move to Antarctica??? It is equally deadly, but has breathable air and
So before people start talking about the "opportunities" of Mars and the Moon. Please remember, that there is an entire uninhabited continent right here on earth. It has thousands of time the resources as the Moon or Mars. It has a breathable atmosphere. It will cost trillions less to live there.
Let me know when you go????
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
The defecit is a bigger deal because it means the US governement is sucking up too much investment capital. Treasury Bills are the safest of the safe as far as investments go, and their rate goes up when the government runs s deficit. When their rate goes up, it makes it harder to get loans/sell bonds elsewhere in the economy, because nothing from a risk/reward standpoint can hold a flame to a high interest rate Treasury Bond.
Want to see every step I took to start my company? http://www.rowdylabs.com/blogs/pitchtothegods
I for one am thrilled at President Bush's announcement. One of the most serious problems that NASA faces is brain drain. A third of the workforce is said to be within five years of retirement. To make matters worse NASA hasn't been attracting "the best and brightest" as it once did. That's because there is nothing really cool and inspiring as during the Apollo era, when many of the current work force were attracted to NASA. The Shuttle is now old and has been in "maintenance" mode for a long time. Much of the space station development is also winding down and never was very inspiring. It certainly didn't break any new ground. Smart people are attracted to hard, interesting problems. If you don't provide them with hard, interesting problems, they'll go somewhere else to find them. So, if we really want a manned space program, then NASA (like all of us) must have some interesting goals. If we wait too long, and the critical mass of good people is lost, the point will become moot because they won't be capable of it. I grew up dreaming that the space travel of 2001 a Space Odyssey and so forth were inevitable. But since Apollo, it doesn't appear to me that we've really made much progress. I don't believe that I'll see what I dreamed of during my lifetime, but I'd at least like to see it get started.
Think, $23,919 per person isn't that much when you consider many people have multiple credit cards, are paying off 1 or more vehicles continuously, buying new houses, giving personal loans, as well as a mess of other things. The car alone can temporarily put a person into $30000 or more debt. Yes, temporarily, assuming that they pay it off. But then, what happens when 3 other people get a car? More debt. Plus, more population = more debt. It's a fact of life and has been ever since America was founded. Their was a severe depression and debt immediately after the Revolutionary War because we no longer had the economic support of England. We never fully recovered. If you think about it, in a way we are still recovering from the Great Depression.
Anyways, getting back on topic, the money Bush is proposing to spend is contibuting to the Deficit (ran up by the government - that's why they are the only ones that ever talk about paying it off), not the National Debt, although that doesn't create a pretty picture about the intelligence economically of the American Public.
Well, I know one place that would be a first strike. A certain airbase in Missouri where ALL the B-2s are kept. Shit it would be worth it just to airburst the B2's paths from Missouri to Russian targets. They really aren't that sturdy.
Yeah, you can recall a plane. But bombers don't start nuclear wars. ICBMs start nuclear wars. And once they start, there is no way to stop them.
By the time the bombers arrive, there will be nothing left but ashes.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
n/t
[One example of technology developed from the Apollo program is the circuit board which of course led to the personal computer.] Pfffpht. And where did that get us?
Although IC's were NOT invented for Apollo, Apollo was a very large customer of early IC's, and probably pushed the technology a bit as a result.
Still, it is hard to say what impact Apollo had on our economy without comparing a "with" and a "without" side-by-side.
As far as raw space science, manned missions are NOT the most cost effective way to do it. Robot missions could bring samples from a far wider range of sites on Mars for the same or less money. The "onsite geologist" argument is a bit wimpy. Some of the best samples from Apollo came from non-geologists.
Table-ized A.I.
Frederick Gray: My God, what's Bond doing?!
Q: I think he's attempting reentry Sir!
Uhm, no, I'm saying it's a completely asinine idea and a total waste of resources. Moreover, if one gets passed the science-fiction sex appeal and looks at the political economic side of it, this proposition is in perfect Bush character and is just a signature Republican cash grab. Get the bulk of society to foot the bill for a "mission to Mars" and just gloss over the bottom line: hundreds of billions of dollars of your hard-earned tax dollars going straight into the bank accounts of the contractors whether or not a single human foot ever touches Martian dirt. It's a cash give away designed to appeal to American pride. Oh, the surprise at the timing. Just in case "the war on terror" goes south in six months as Iraq descends into greater chaos --POOF-- "WE'RE GOING TO CONQUER MARS!" Oh, friggen brilliant and people are eating it up.
Rumsfeld and his cohorts have repeatedly riffed on the need to put weapons in space. He's even talked about an orbiting fleet of "space bombers". This would allow the USA to bomb any square inch of the planet at any time without any costly deployment phase.
Google space bombers if you don't believe me.
A grand, Kennedy-style "peaceful exploration" space project would free up the funds necessary for the space bomber abomination and would also develop the tech necessary to put it into action.
You said
"...That's not how science works..."
i think you mean
"...That's not how science worked..."
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I think that Earth is void of reason so naturally we seek it in space. I think we need to exhaust our search of the space between our ears before we inflict our brand of love on the universe at large. Once we have discovered ourselves, we will then be better suited to share with others we might find.
I think about our so-called Judeo-Christian values. The cognitive dissonance between our idealized values and our actual values are lightyears apart. We polute our water and land and it has now it full-circle accumulates in our bodies. We idle by and by while the fruit of our labors supports those who will efficiently (and honorably) KILL innocents in their sleep (eg. on an airplane flight) when told to do so. These same leaders presume holy relationships: praying, visiting churches, and "God Bless" a common phrase ending many a speech. I think we need to close the gap between what we say and what we do before we spend our billions exploring half-heartedly.
How many billions are spent the world over in all countries on doublespeek "defense" and "peacekeepers"? Why not brand these with words with real meaning "KILLing" and "KILLers".
We infight like Clark/Kubrick's 2001 hominid ancestors while the next asteroid, CME, errant black hole (or other as yet to be discovered nano-dna-phenom) comes to take us to be one with God.
Nature is a terrorist with superhuman powers! If this isn't a reason to fear God and love one another... well I don't know a better one.
Evolve! GROW UP!
We share 99.9%+ DNA. We are all related. We are all family. We are all brothers and sisters.
There is a message "Do not Kill!" it needs to be taught at birth and reinforced in childhood and enforced as law. Killing is senseless and stupid.
Solutions abound that cost no thing "do unto others as you would have others do unto you", "love thy neighbor", "be nice".
Happy Valentines Day!
If you send this post to a friend, you will increase the love in the world, if you send it to ten friends...
they will want to kill you.
-- Each tock of the Planck clock is a new world and here we are still life. --
that Ohio researchers name was John Bigbooty...
nyuk nyuk nyuk
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
that's my beef with the space program -- if you want my money ya better do something useful with it. i didn't give it to you so you could realize your dream. my dream is to travel the world and meet cool people and get it on with all the hot ladies(*). but the government won't give me more than food stamps(**) which don't even buy alchohol.
(*) if the space program could find space alien women like the ones on star trek i might reconsider. but i expect aliens women to look more like sea horses and behave like praying mantises.
(**) ladies, i'm not really on food stamps anymore. not that there's anything wrong with that.
fear is the mind killer
Just to balance out the positive replies, I'm going to state for the record my firm opinion that the parent post is totally full of shit.
Korrect. Administrative waste (incompetence and malfeasance, including embezzlement) is completely out-of-control. Nepotism and political cronyism is also ridiculous. There's no reason why California needs $60M of Oracle licenses, or should pay $150+ for a textbook. My high-school never saw the technology grants allocated to us, because the district danced around it so they could spend it somewhere else, we never saw a dime. This was 1993-1996, we were forced to use PCjr's, IBM PS/2 Model 25 & 30s. We only got one (1) IBM 486SL2-50 donated to us. That was our fastest machine. Additionally, it seems that some districts find it justified to give their administrators luxury vehicles, expense office furnishings, and expense accounts. The fundamental issue is that their is NO PROFIT MOTIVE/INCENTIVE TO SAVE MONEY!!! Real competition (not corporate welfare and cronyism) seems to be the way to cut costs.
How on earth did that get modded as a troll? It's true, for Christ sake!
GPS was largely the result of the work of NASA. Where do you think the military got the technology to build satellites? Where do you think the military got the technology to build rockets to launch satellies into orbit? NASA, of course. Without NASA we wouldn't have GPS.
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
Perhaps if his school had an extra nickel, he would have used the correct 'write'.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"Jupitor"? "emence"?! "astronaughts"?
Jesus Christ, I'd say postpone the trip until this guy learns to spell.
Most of us in California wanted an aging bodybuilder/action movie star to run the world's sixth largest economy. Time will tell if we were right or not.
You can't buy a person out of poverty, but you can inspire one's spirit which can enable them to do better for them self and those around them. With our governments revenues being $1.946 trillion (2002) with a growth rate of 2.4%, $1 billion over five years is small by comparisons of the rate of growth let-alone the total revenues. Everyone is arguing the pros and cons on a materialistic level ($$$). These types of endeavors can't be measured in monetary value. These accomplishments in life transcend all other actions done by man at that moment in time and they are universal because all people and all nations can share in the experience. One of my hero's was specifically inspired by some of these past events and now has come full-circle and might be a very large contributor to these next round of events and directly effect others lives who will at some later date come full circle again to inspire others lives at some future date. An so on... Check out Franklin Chan-Daiz http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology /vasimr_rocket_020807-1.html and his complete story is even more interesting which Discovery or one of those science magazines did a story on. Talk about the priceless value of being inspired.
Welfare is a *SAFETY NET* for *REAL PEOPLE* It's not the stereotype of cadillac driving welfare queens or the projects that has been forced in to your skull. If you think the tax burden of social programs is too great, imagine the nation without them. Imagine soup kitchens and Hooverville shantytowns.
Non-producing food tubes my ass. Eat shit and die. Please. Now.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
Bush Mission to Mars: it's all about militarizing space
Excerpts from Bush's "space exploration" speech delivered earlier today:
America is proud of our space program. The risk-takers and visionaries of this agency have expanded human knowledge, have revolutionized our understanding of the universe and produced technological advances that have benefited all of humane's (sic) doing an excellent job.
Certainly, some of it has benefited people who live in affluent nations -- most notably, the aerospace industry, otherwise known as the "defense" industry. The vast majority of mankind, however, lives under conditions of grinding poverty and the advances gained from the space program do not benefit them in the least. In fact, many of the "technological advances" of the aerospace industry have resulted in widespread death and destruction -- for instance, the development and use of stealth bombers and cruise missiles. For untold numbers of Iraqis and Afghans, the American space program translates into GPS guided bombs killing their children.
Our investment in space exploration helped to create our satellite telecommunications network and the Global Positioning System.
See the previous comment.
Our first goal is to complete the International Space Station by 2010. We will finish what we have started.
Bush's "first goal" is to realize plans spelled out by the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization, chaired by Donald Rumsfeld in 2001. A report issued by the Commission demands the US "have the option to deploy weapons in space to deter threats to and, if necessary, defend against attacks on U.S. interests." In other words, the US will build a new generation of space-based weapons to further realize Pax Americana. Of course, this will motivate other countries (most notably China) to waste money and precious resouces on developing space weapons of their own, initiating an arms race.
In fact, China has already started its own space weapons program, according to a report released by the Department of Defense. "The report focuses on the current and probable future course of that country's growing military-technological prowess, including the use of space to assure military advantage," Leonard David writes for Space.com. "This year's report cites a comment from Captain Shen Zhongchang from the Chinese Navy Research Institute. He envisions, according to the DoD, a weaker military defeating a superior one by attacking its space-based communications and surveillance systems." For more on the strategic thinking of the Chinese, see Chinese Views of Future Warfare.
[Secretary of the Air Force Pete Aldrich] has tremendous experience in the Department of Defense and the aerospace industry. And he is going to begin this important work right away.
Aldrich does have "tremendous experience" -- he is the overseer of the Defense Departmenta(TM)s Missile Defense Support Group (MDSG) and reports to the DoD's Senior Executive Council (SEC) and the Missile Defense Agency. "The SEC, which is chaired by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and includes the service secretaries and Aldridge, recently was assigned the task of considering whether elements of the Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) should move to production and deployment," writes Alaska Missile Defense Early Bird Weekly.
In other words, Reagan's Star Wars reinvented.
"[The] real scandal [of BMDS is] that the defense being developed won't work -- and few in Washington seem to know or ca
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Hmm. It's an election year, the economy is still in the shitter, the invasion of Iraq is slowly turning into the next Vietnam and there is new evidence that the president personally used the deaths of thousands of Americans as an excuse to line his pockets.
Does anyone honestly think this is going to be on the table come Nov 12?
(*) extremely accurate clocks
(*) special waveforms with nice correlation properties
(*) ionospheric correction (dual frequency L1, L2)
(*) tropospheric correction (pressure, water vapor)
(*) general relativity correction
To seriously get the space program off and running it needs to be sponsered by big companys. Our government will not have the infinite bottomless pockets to fund a program of this magnatude. If you ever watched "Mission to Mars" you will notice ads on the rover, something similar will have to happen in order to reach mars in a timely mattrer.
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
Don't also forget the middle and lower classes make up the vast majoraty of consumers. So by being a greedy, self centered Scrooge and stomping on those lower than you is retarded, because you're stomping on your own customers.
Look at the shadows! They are all pointing in the wrong direction! And the reflections on his head don't line up with the overhead lights! And if you analyze the echos of the applause, you can tell that the room it was recorded in has wood panelling and not the plaster that you see on tv! All of this proves the speech was faked!
At N-A-S-A we don't make the products, we make the products better!
Uh huh. You failed to mention a couple of things:
1) The annecdotes about "welfare queens" were mostly bullshit
2) Ok, lets go ahead and end all welfare and medicare. Then see how much selfish, self-centered conservatives like it when their property values drop and their crime rate increases.
I think Zubrin does a good job of prooving the moon a rather poor choice as a stepping stone to MARS.
Moon has almost no gravity, Mars is 1/3 earth normal which is a serious problem for long duration habitation. Moon has 28 day cycle of day/night, mars has almost a 24 hour day. Moon has no atmosphere to provide UV filtering Mars has a substantial atmosphere by comparison which significantly (along with greater distance from the sun ) reduces cosmic radiation exposure. Also mars atmosphere means suit designs for Lunar surface exploration and Martian surface exploration are very different. One similarity however may be longevity regarding dust wear and tear on the suit joints/seals.
One of the biggest fallacies is that the Moon is easier to reach. It is in some ways more difficult due to its lack of gravity/atmosphere. The moon offers little to help you slow down. The delta V needed from your engines to reach the lunar surface is actually more than that needed to reach the surface of mars thanks to gravity capture and aero breaking avaialble at mars. Thus total delta V to the surface is in the 6k/s. Hohman transfer delta V to mars is 4.5km/s and Mars slows you down, thus you actually have greater delta V on the mars mission but less of it is supplied by rockets which require fuel which is heavy.
In otherwords the reality of orbital mechanics and checmical rocket technology means it takes more gas to go from the earth to the moon than it does from the earth to mars. In simpler terms refuling on the moon is like driving from Atlanta to new york to get gas for a trip to D.C. Duration is longer, but energy expended is greater.
The other problem is the lunar refuling proposition still has not acounted for both elements of the rocket fuel. Oxygen is bound up in the regolith in large quantities.. 50% or more by mass in many cases. But you need something to burn with it and that is not as easily found. The best hope for this is finding ICE gathered in the craters. Otherwise you have to process regolith for elements found in the parts per million range rathere than signifigant portions. That takes some serious equipment, all of which takes more energy to land on the moon than it takes to land it on Mars directly from earth. Or of course you could lift it from earth. Thus if your reason for a lunar base is a staging point for Mars it dosn't make a whole hell of alot of sense. You could have put all that mass on Mars to begin with if you had enough energy to land it on the moon. Not to mention making rocket fuel on Mars is a hell of alot easier than making it on the Moon.
Don't get me wrong. The moon is a good destination for exploration in and of itself. I just want to point out the 'common sense' idea of using the Moon to get to mars is flawed.
Lets go to the moon to go to the moon and go to mars to go to mars. One does not require the other. I for one would love to see the plan of establishing an observatory ( a telescope or series of scopes ) on the moon. In such a mission there are some mission elements that would be germain to both ventures ( habitats, shielding, some elements of long duration mission suit design ). SO going to the moon could provide some insight for a mars mission but its not a pre-requisit by any stretch of the imagination.
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
began construction on a $2,000,000 Gym
News flash: buildings cost money.
and put $45,000 of new sod on the baseball field
Sports fields also cost money.
You need to provide better details; just listing a couple of price tags is not sufficient reason for reform.
I don't think I'm quite cynical enough to believe all that, but there's definitely a kernel of truth to it. You may find it an interesting theory, since it ties in with what you're saying.
large expansions on two school that added ZERO student capacity
So? What was the student average per class before the expansions? If you're in one of those Arkansas disctrics with 40 kids to a classroom, I would certainally hope they'd do it that way.
Were that not true, then everything in economic growth outside of the employees of an assembly line is a complete sham, which of course doesn't explain why companies have spent untold trillions of dollars over the past 200 years or so in wages to these supposedly "unproductive" workers.
This is so very true.
There is lots and lots and lots of money going to education at the federal level. Not to mention money coming from the states and money coming from the county and the money from the city. (Yes, my english sucks)
Does anyone have any Idea how much money we spend a year on education? You'll never guess. Nasa is going to get a supplement to its already 17 Billion dollar budget, yes? Back 1989-1990 the income the federal government generated was about 915 billion dollars.
In 2001 to 2002 and the estimated education expenditures were 745 BILLION not million but BILLION dollars. That is twice that of defense spending. Education is important, I think all can agree. In terms of the bang for the buck people like to think is happening, it's simply not true. Money doesn't make all problems go away. Better processes make the problems go away.
Heck with the things we'll most likely discover on the way toward the goal of putting someone on mars, we might find better energy sources, cures for things, create a renewed interest in science and education, faster ways to communicate, sexual positions of orgasmic delight in a near 0G environment....who knows, it's the journey that has proven itself to be more useful than the destination, when it comes to space.
I know the grammar sucks, but at least the spelling is good.
And there is perfect spot on the Moon for the ...
base - right next to the Chinese base
Looks like space race starts again - this time it is US vs. China.
If China is first with the Moon base and the
Mars this will be a huge blow to US worldwide
image as the most advanced nation.
Something like putting Gagarin in the space.
Just this time administration noticed China efforts before it is too late to compete.
Pull-eeze, they're at least 2 decades behind US.
Even in 1000 years we'll likely have technology that makes whatever we learn now pretty irrelevant. I remember someone hypothesised that if we were to launch a sub-lightspeed generational ship towards the next nearest star (ie. not ours
So really, the timeframe for useful Mars research is much shorter. "Getting started" will be a waste of money if we're always playing catchup (like 3D games do; take too long, oops our engine is out of date; start again; lather, rinse, repeat). A Mars colony would be way cool, but I don't think the public has the stomach to handle the kind of expense required to get a useful, and most importantly, self-sufficient base up there using current technology.
If we're not hardcore serious about an offworld "disaster recovery" colony, space exploration would be better off targeted at resource harvesting - that at least has a chance of paying for itself. Once the Govt proves it can be done and can be profitable, the corporate whores will step in and spend ungodly amounts of cash developing better spacecraft and space-related technology trying to out do the rest. Costs for a Govt Mars colony go down, or simply written off as R&D for the aformentioned corporations.
Opportunity knocks. Karma hunts you down.
I'll agree, but say that regardless of the original intent, the perpetuation of poverty is what it turns out to do.
You forgot that its other purpose is to break things.
His father told him to make this announcement when the time is ripe for the Americans (and the rest of the world that admire the US) to be more proud of their country and to reenlighten the fire there once was for manned space flight. Kennedy showed us how to do it, so lets give 'em something to believe in. Bush seniors' plans are now I don't know where and juniors' will follow them. After all, Bush is the one who finally caught Saddam Hussein, the greatest of all foes. Now after no longer having any other problems (a really really BIG mess in Afghanistan and some as of yet not discovered WMD or similar nifty stuff do not count, they are for presidencies to come...) why not head for Mars? Ever thought of the fact that there will be some elections this year over there in the US? Visions are always good. And why not check in with a president that has any? I do not believe any of this shit.
Black holes were created when god tried to divide by zero
Actually it's states and cities that fund libraries mostly. And book sales, lots of book sales...
So you want to save the planet? That's great. I'd like the option of a whole other planet to get to, primarily so I can leave behind people like yourself that are only interested in keeping people wallowing in misery. Rather than teach a guy to fish I'm sure you'd prefer to give him one fishstick a day, through a slot. I'd rather give one person a shot at a productive and fulfilled life than make 10,000 happy for one day.
It's people like you that hold down real progress that actually does benefit everyone, who think that all life is a zero-sum game.
I am not interested in a Mars photo-op either, but a real, live, growing base that really does present a new frontier for people to travel to. That is no photo-op, that way lies growth for us all.
Your blathering about kids not needing cool, high visibility real-life science when they could just watch "shark-week" on the so-called "Discovery" channel ignores the very real effect the Apollo missions had on a whole generation of kids (including myself) and what a total sham things like the Discovery channel are today. You call that science? I call that bullshit. The Discovery channel is a masturbatory exercise in TV viewing that makes you think you are learning something, when you retain almost nothing and in the end all you are left with is an afterglow. And I say that while paying $10 a month for Discovery HD!! It is nothing more than scientific porn vs. a real relationship.
There is nothing about the Discovery channel that would draw a kind into the sciences the way a real base on some other planet would be (even a moon base would be better than nothing in that regard). And for our government to spend hardly more than they do already on the effort is asking almost nothing of everyone. Focus your efforts on stopping the war or shutting down subsidies for farmers or something. I'm not trying to shut down libraries per-se, I'm just pointing out that a real manned manned base on Mars would have far greater benefits than the costs in incurs in a way things like libraries (or public internet feeds) cannot.
Besides, didn't you hear? Libraries are almost mostly very cheap DVD and CD rental units in most places now. Go take a look at your local library sometime!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The bottom line -- and an unavoidable one -- is that a billion dollars spent on the space program is a billion dollars worth of food that is not eaten
Yes we could spend a billion dollars on food that's not eaten but that seems pointless...
Instead take the billion dollars spent on food uneaten and move it somewhere useful...
I wrote:
"The bottom line -- and an unavoidable one -- is that a billion dollars spent on the space program is a billion dollars worth of food that is not eaten and tens of thousands of humans that are not taken care of medically."
Stray7Xi replies:
"Yes we could spend a billion dollars on food that's not eaten but that seems pointless... Instead take the billion dollars spent on food uneaten and move it somewhere useful..."
This is perhaps the most poorly-executed strawman attack I've ever seen. It doesn't even merit a response aside from notifying you of how ham-handed it is.
My
Limekiller
Thirty miles high
JeR
I'm sure there must be other posts pointing this out, but if you want a well researched look at what might work for living on Mars, try Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars.
a state of war becomes a money making option for very influential people (I would really like to live in an imaginary country where nobody is allowed to make any profit with arms or supplies if the country is at war...)
companies that sell arms try mainly to increase their own profit, not to supply the country with the most effective weapons. Private research and development projects get their priority on potential profits and not on ultimate effectiveness.
These points, IMHO, outweight any good aspect you describe.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Seriously. He is only doing it as China said they were first. If they hadn't the money would of gone to one of his friends in the Oil Biz (instead of one of his friends in the space engineering biz).
Man you sound exactly like my parents telling me to do my taxes when they're late.
Look up "scientism".
what if he gave good example and went there first?
afidel wrote:
;)
>
> we should find a way to quickly return the country to self rule and withdraw our troops before
> it becomes a significant drag on the economy and the loss of troops becomes a long term
> weakener of military moral.
And especially before the Election.
... Will the air marshalls get overtime?
Bush doesn't give a damn about going to Mars.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Commentary on WSJ.com
Trust me. This is an inactive account. Regardless of what the
Is America at a state in its evolution where this (space exploration) is the next right thing to focus on? Is everything else taken care of? Nothing more to improve? It strikes me how Bush has had no real agenda, no purpose, no call. I guess he just wanted to be president (with help/push from his father) - just because it is good to be the king (Mel Brooks). Some of the former presidents had ideolological reasons to want to become president. To fix America. Turning the giant into a gentle one with a sharing society to be proud of and envied by others instead of the violent hotdog it has become. For me it has come down to muting, turning off or switching channel on the TV whenever Bush comes on.
Or at least they would be if we hadn't handed over so much technology to them.
Trust me. This is an inactive account. Regardless of what the
It's revolutionised navigation, both air and sea. Wankers with GPS in their SUV consoles aren't the only applications.
> Now, removing Saddam from power allows a more humane govt. to be put in place in Iraq
Right now the de facto government of Iraq is shooting its citizens in the streets, to say nothing of arresting "suspects" and the kinfolk of "suspects" en masse.
> So, by ignoring Iraq, we are doing the same thing as cutting the budget on domestic social programs, which you argued against.
Where is the social program for the 50% of the Iraqi population that has been out of work since the war started, while Haliburton rakes in cash by the billion?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Chicken-scratch or not, the 12B is *PUBLIC* money, and I'm not interested in using it to provide this corporate welfare, absent some kind of direct *PUBLIC* benefit in return. I.e. things that the market won't provide. (Potential trickle-down benefits of corporate exploitation of technology aren't really what I have in mind.)
It may be starry-eyed and somewhat naive to think that simply spending this money on hunger (for example) would actually wipe out hunger... but it's certainly just as naive to think that giving this money to companies will actually better our society in any tangible way.
Putting aside romantic ideas about space, this is just an announcement of public subsidies for a certain category of industries. The policy discussion should start with that reality and proceed from there.
W = (-president)^1/2
HA!
As my father lik@(munch munch)...
Slashdot crowd and your video games!
If this has been in GB.v2.0's agenda before or shortly after the election was handed to him, then he would have a claim to be a real visionary that means what he aays.
With the situation in Iraq (and Afghanistan) not under control, a huge deficit, tax cuts that have proven to be a joke, pumping money on Iraq for which nobody will see any return (read my lips: we are not safer) and having mounting evidence that this individual you have for President is a vulgar liar, then tell me, why should people trust him at face value?
If anything, Batman, this guy should be judged with increasing skepticism.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I recently got a dental X-Ray.
The dental assistant used a CCD plate instead of film.
She mentioned that the radiation exposure was lessened due to the increased sensivity of the plate.
Also, the image appeared on the screen just seconds after it was taken.
They even printed out a hardcopy for me.
The only (very minor) downside was that, because the plate was reused and couldn't be autoclaved, thay had to encase it in a thick plastic bag with the wire hanging out of the end.
Also, the plate doesn't bend like film.
These things made it slightly less comfortable in my mouth than film would be.
These were minor inconveiences when compared to less radiation and lower cost.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
yes! ship the old and decrepid off to the moon, and when they kick the bucket, just toss 'em off the rock and let 'em drift into black oblivion!
....
My concern is one day looking up at the moon and seeing the Golden Arches or a Nike swoosh. The commercialization of the moon is something that now seems inevitable, and the earthlings born after the transformation will have no idea why they called it the Sea of Tranquility
Soon after, all of Earth will be a ghetto, the poorest unluckiest slobs born into a polluted, crumbling culture and dying planet as the rich fucks sail overhead to resort towns built in geodesic domes on planets we can't afford a telescope to see.
it'll avert a class war by separating the classes by so much distance that a revolution would be impossible. How to behead the incumbants when you can't build a ship to get the guillotine to Mars?
The real problem is the fact that we have systematically used up this planet and will do the same to every other planet we inhabit. HUMANS ARE NOT WORTHY TO SPREAD TO OTHER PLANETS. Our race is a violent, underdeveloped, overestimated, neaderthalic bunch of viscious self-centered twits. True, some good has come from humanity, but that good is either only good for US, or good in the sense that it is trying to reverse the horrific effects we've had on the ecosystem thus far.
I don't trust humanity enough to let them loose on the cosmos. It is a recipe for disaster. My only hope is that we are wiped out before we spread out of this solar system, and our genes will be engulfed in a fiery atomic explosion that wipes every trace of our existence FROM existence. Forever.
Ok... so if we colonize the moon and move a large chunk of our population to the moon... so what? If some huge asteroid smacks Earth out of orbit, or destroys it completely, what do you think will happen to the moon? It's what I like to call the "drunken gravitational flopping around kiss-your-ass-good-bye effect".
Apparently somebody has told Bush that Marvin The Martian has stocks of WMDs.
Ah, let me fix this for you.
Well, stop liberating people would be a good start.
There you go.
There is a reason why it'll take longer to go to the moon now.
NASA engineers didn't have Slashdot access in the sixties.
Of course. The more US spends on space research is the less they have left to spend on wars against other countries.
Translation: the less it has to retaliate against aggression from other countries, and the less it has to liberate oppressed people from tyrants. Is this a good thing? Of course not. But Saddam Hussein, Hitler, and you think it is good.
the west rediscovered all the Roman knowledge that had been squirreled away by monks in the Church
This was exactly the point of my post. It didn't work in the short-term.
Put identity in the browser.
Was it just me that immediately thought of what happens to the Moon in The Time Machine when a base on the moon is mentioned? (ie it gets blown up and kills most life on earth)
> Just because the ultimate goal of the military is to kill people, doesn't mean everything associated with them is evil.
actually, yes, it is evil for that very reason. Your argument assumes that without the military, none of these technologies would exist. Possibly true, but very sad. The fact that xenophobia and meglomania is the only motivation for technological improvement is a government attitude that should not be accepted.
This war money could just as easily be spent on research, education and so on, but fuck, America might not be top dog then, would they?
I don't care what the research ends up providing society, the initial goal is how to kill other people more effectively.
I can remember the heady days of John Glenn in Freedom Seven, the Gemini missions and the mind blowing Apollo missions. They were very exiting times for me as a high school student back then. The whole world stopped to watch Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. The picture quality was crap but no one cared. This was the most monumental event in human history.There was a lot of very nasty shit going on then too, Vietnam and the the cold war being just two examples. JFK was accused of trying to distract the public from the troubles of those days. Maybe he was. All that stuff becomes unimportant in the big picture. Man has always explored and always will. There may not be a USA , as you know it, if it weren't for Christopher Columbus, or an Australia if it weren't for James Cook. Almost the entire planet was opened up by explorers who took risks and those who believed they could do it. I hope that those of you who weren't luck enough to be around for the moon landings will get as much exitement out of it as I did. Good or bad for better or worse mankind will allways be an explorer.
That's no moon...
I'm sorry.
we are building a religion
a limited edition
we are now accepting callers
for these pendant key chains
Or the government could simply invest more in helping world hunger...
oh, but wait, that's not gonna pull the votes is it? world hunger, that's old news.
We need something new,and education in sensational, exciting....
You could have fooled me!
And there I was, thinking the invasion of Iraq was done for geo-political reasons with the no-where-to-be-found WMD and the non-existing ties with Al Quada as a flimsy excuse.
But you've convinced me: they were only protecting the USA!
So a "Jupitor" trip is going to help world hunger? Are you insane? Perhaps spending the ONE TRILLION DOLLARS (insert pinky) on feeding people rather than on a jolly for General Dynamics and Haliburton would be more effective?
Or we could spend it on education: I'm sure it'd be of "emence" value.
Oh, and my teflon frying pans, photochromic sunglasses and my fricking Fisher Space Pen have bog-all to do with NASA, thank you very much.
Funding for welfare, etc, isn't designed to wipe out poverty or mitigate its effects. It's designed to perpetuate poverty
What a retarded statment to make. Say you go ahead and eliminate welfare. Whar are the corresponding slums and increased crime rate going to do for your lifestyle and property values, Captain Self-Centered?
The space station is useless. It is of an age similar to that of the Space Shuttle. Until we leave orbit and build somewhere like the moon Space exploration and exploitation will forever be constrained.
We can the next 100 years putting things in orbit and it will get us no where. A base on the moon will at least be PERMANENT.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
What's the problem? Russian space ships are flying on a regular basis, much cheaper than US's ones, and sure much safier. Budget deficit? No problem, US technologies are unefficient and the most expensive around the world anyway. Just outsource the space exploration business to Russia, as it's already done with other US industries already outsourced to Mexica and China. Space-tech outsourcing is good for US budget, for Russian economy and for saved lifes of crews.
Less is more !
No more oil on Earth, W is going to search for it on Mars...
With 12 billion, they sure can buy an awful lot of copies of Zubrin's "The Case For Mars"!
Actually, much of its science and technology was *lost*.
Without NASA however, we wouldn't have much of a global communications network, and all the enormous flow-on effects from that. It has had a n impact everywhere on earth - with enough equipment on the ground (and not paticularly expensive stuff) you can talk to anyone anywhere. Satellites can take photos of any point on earth (many satellites are not on equatorial orbits) at almost any time. Big oil spill in the Niger river delta? People were looking at photos within hours and doing something about it. NASA helps everyone - but not with silly putty.
"(these places usually have no natural resources)"
Mostly they do - copper, diamonds, bauxite, uranium, oil, etc. Last time I checked many African nations were quite rich in natural resources.
um, NASA's budget is 0.14% of US GDP.p hp/aid /963/Space:_the_forgotten_frontier_.html
http://www.oecdobserver.org/news/fullstory.
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
Details? We had to borrow books! What more details do you want? The fact is, books cost a LOT less than buildings! My school graduated 27 people in 2002... Do we REALLY need a new gym? Its not like we decided to put in an athletics program, we HAD a gym.
Learn about Photography Basics.
Um... no. There were only 300 kids k-12, and 27 people graduated in 2002.
Learn about Photography Basics.
So how is a new source of material creation not an economic advantage?
When you're looking at an outlay of $Trillions (which you don't have) on a return of $Millions.
Promises of $Trillions come cheap in election year.
--
This sig is inoffensive.
While the cynical non American part of me thinks that this is very possibly an election year exercise in yahoo vote gathering, the other part of me wishes that it will come to pass, and for one reason only: Survival of the species.
While an American moon base and mars mission would be excellent for American morale, it would perhaps also serve as a stepping stone for the real colonisation of space by the human race. And I think it is vitally important that we as a species expand beyond our planet, but more on that later.
I don't think it will be possible to get the Bush programme working on the budget that he claims and even if the programme isn't cancelled by the next president after Bush (or by Bush himself after getting reelected) the costs will probably balloon into five or tens times the initial amount before it actually gets there. Simply taking a look at the ruinous costs of the American war effort in Iraq ($4 billion per month) and the way that massive cronyism led to connected companies such as Halliburton being able to charge what they wanted for gasoline, and companies such as Bechtel charging $10 million to repair a bridge where a local Iraqi competitor was offering to rebuild it for $500 000, and thereby blow costs in the war wildly out of proportion, I don't think, given the way that the current American administration is run, that it would be possible.
Even the so called spin offs from a space programme are mostly propaganda myths. It is true that space provides bountiful resources and the ability to develop whole new techniques in engineering, medicine and science, such as those advertised by Permanent.com, but obviously those things would primarily be of interest and value to colonists in space, not to people on earth.
But that doesn't mean it should be done. Even the tiny chance of an asteroid or comet hitting the earth could mean the extinction of our species, and given how humanity is incapable of living in peace with itself or even solving easier problems such as hunger, disease and the enironment on our own planet, it is not unthinkable that we might wipe ourselves out in the future. It's not like we haven't been close to that point in the past (Black death, the Cuba crisis).
Nothing has really changed much in human nature, really. We still fight and squabble, oppress and murder, cheat and steal, suffer from greed and egoism just like we have throughout history. Yet in spite, or perhaps because of those dark sides of our nature (The discovery and colonisation of America was mainly a commericial and political power venture) we have achieved great things. I think it is important that we as a species accept ourselves for what we are, intelligent primates but animals none the less, and expand off our planet to colonise the solar system.
I don't think anyone alive today will ever see the first true colonists making the first martian version of a homestead, and not even our great great grandchildren will see the terraforming of mars, but we as a species need to go, I think, simply because it's a part of what life is about.
I guess that's why I'm not a liberal.
I prefer to subsidize achievement.
Liberals prefer to subsidize a lack of it.
Progressivism: Parasites helping parasites to help themselves - to other people's stuff.
3.5 billion dollars on ringtones at $3.50 per tone is 1 billion ringtones, or 1 for every 6th person on the planet. Doesn't sound right to me.
Then you have cases where, like NASA, military funding leads to breakthroughs in technology that have multiple applications unrelated to weaponry.
I am not trolling. I am genuinly curious. What are these breakthroughs?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
The dinosaurs didn't have hands!
qntm.org
"So basically it boils down like this: we either pay billions to build stealth bombers, or people die."
;-)
This must be the most ironic joke I have ever read!
Indeed! Let's build weapons, so people don't have to die!!
maybe but ask the american soldiers in IRAK how they like it in the dessert, with a Pizza hut and MC donalds
Bush unveils Indo-US nuclear, space programme.
Now that Bush has given this country the largest deficit in its history, he knows damn well that he'll never get the required funding for such a project. But when Congress inevitably rejects the plan he can then blame it on the Democrats.
What's worse than a tax-and-spend liberal? A tax-the-rich-less-and-spend-more conservative.
I disagreed with bushes election.
That said, Im not unhappy with his performance. I believe anyone who makes it to the presidence, sets out with the best of intentions. (even tho thats not where things always go) I think he knows, like the rest of us, that nasa has been in need of a clear mission for far too long.
The space industry has changed our lives more than any other in the last fifty years. It seems to me that investments in apollo have paid us back ten fold...
So why is nasa, this powerhouse of world change, sitting on its duff carrying out (seemingly) useless experiments?
Their new mission is clear even if the details are vague.
I think its a good thing.
"Give a man a fish, and you will feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish, and you will feed him for life."
Perhaps the starving people could be working for the space project, and spend some of the money they make on food?
I fail to understand how we are going to precisely fulfill our committments to our international partners...the cancellation of the X-33/34 project and the cancellation of the CRV mean (and have meant for what, two years now?) that yes, the ISS is not really able to accomplish alot. It was a little difficult for the 3 person crews to accomplish significant science with 1 science module attached to the ISS a year ago, and since the shuttle has been grounded, there's only two-person crews...for those that don't know, the ISS was designed for 7 full-time residents, and all those modules we let other countries build for us (which are still sitting in labs somewhere waiting there chance to go up in space) kind of rely on 7 people to staff all of them. No CRV (crew return vehicle) means that we'll have to indefinitely continue relying on the Soyuz capsule as the only escape method, which means that only a maximum of 3 people can be left onboard...so even IF all the modules are assembled in orbit, how can a crew of 2 to 3 people accomplish the same as 7 or more? The guys up there have hard enough a time already, just keeping the damn thing running. NASA has backed off of 'keeping up their commitments' to their international parters for some time now.
And if I were anyone employed (directly, once was contracted indirectly by them) by NASA NOT involved with men to moon/mars, I'd be terrified by the plan.
Was there any announcements made as to the status of the pluto/kupier probe that seemingly not even NASA wanted to build, or the next round of mars-bound probes at next launch window? I know robots are cheaper than humans, but those 11 billion dollars have to come from somewhere...hopefully they won't come from JWST or SIRTF/Spitzer or one of the other high-profile projects (and damn them all who want to just abandon Hubble...the original plan was to bring it back down and put it in the smithsonian, however now a) noone wants to send the shuttle after it and b) that'll likely be the first target for money re-allocation so c) it's sure to burn up over australia in 6 years...).
As to mr. bush's promises...yes I'm gung-ho about anything space, and fairly excited about the opportunities, but he's got a pretty bad track record when it comes to ACTUALLY funding big projects that sound great as sound bites (AIDS in africa, no child left behind, etc...), so when the money starts materializing under president dean next winter, i'll sigh relief...
NASA will close all US instalations and relocate it on india, pakistan, indonesia... where job cost will be a lot cheaper... also, that is why China is so interested in space now; they want the next boeing space works to be done in guang-dong, just side-by-side the new levis.
12 Billion? Naaaaa...
Going to the Moon and Mars are pointless excercises unless we have an adequate space infrastructure.
ie a safe, cheap, reusable surface to orbit vehicle to service the international space station.
There is absolutely no point going there and then, after knocking a few golf balls around, coming back! We can now make robots that can do that stuff.
GWB's only desire is to appear to be doing something to return to the Moon
before the Chinese beat us there and erect a take-out restaurant.
Such a course of (in)action will also stimulate the economy to a small degree.
I happen to work with a large contractor who would probably receive monies to perform such tasks.
It's all a PR song-and-dance. Ignore the man behind the curtain.
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
Establishing a base at L5 rather than the moon for the pruprose of a permanent waystation to Mars would reduce the overall tons launched, and hence a significant cost savings. Can anyone hazard a guess as to how much? Seriously, what advantage does Luna offer over L5 that's worth this tradeoff? One side of a base that doesn't leak?
Is it a rule, that there's an exception to every rule?
From ze Germans of course! von Brauns V10 was the granddaddy of many of the USA's rockets.
Like the X prize but with ever increasing goals. It'll encourage companies to find low cost ways to meet the goals.
...
... ...
Start small with half a dozen prizes very similar to the X prize for companies who can get manned and reusable craft into space twice in 2 weeks. 1st gets 100 million, second 75 million, 3rd 25 million, 4th 10 million, 5th 5 million, 6th 2 million. This seeds the market with a bunch of small efficient companies who now have a load of money and expertise to start on the bigger challenges.
1st 100% commercial company to orbit Earth with manned craft.
2nd gets 50 million
3rd gets 20 million
1st 100% commercial company to orbit the moon.
1st 100% commercial company to land on the moon and return.
2nd
3rd
1st 100% commercial company to build a permanently manned settlement on the moon. Make this one bigger, say half a billion.
etc etc.
And then you have a commercial space economy without the need for NASA and a 17 billion dollar per year budget. The government doesn't run the airlines, it doesn't run the ship lines, cars or busses why oh why does it insist on monopolising space?
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
failing that, lookout bullow.
consult with/trust in yOUR creators... the best known method for surviving the greed/fear/ego based georgewellian fuddite corepirate nazi execrable life0cidal assault on the creators' planet/population.
can't buy yOUR way out of this won.
Bush just wants to change the subject away from illegal aliens.
Perhaps we might find some illegal aliens on Mars.
- Gentlemen, start your hybrids!
More deficit spending for future generations to deal with.
ABB in '04
Lop off an annual hundred billion or so from our bloated Defense budget, which vastly exceeds that of Russia, China, France and Germany combined.
We don't need a bigger military or a ridiculous Homeland Security department to fight terrorism, just better field intelligence and operations.
Due to funding needs, per members of Congress and others:
http://www.galvnews.com/story.lasso?wcd=16888
not sure of what you position was on my post? You agree or disagree with me? lol.
I agree with the things you wrote here btw.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
...and exactly *where* on the curve do you think we were already, genius?
When thats done then the dramatic boost to the global economy will easily allow for the massive financial investments in off-planet travel. But right now its very premature: a few moonshots over 20 years ago does not make a space travelling nation. It will take generations to effect this if past history is anything to go by (seafaring travel).
politicians, especially republicans, always make big talk of centrist, lofty ideals during an election year.
-don't believe -ANYTHING- shrub tells you!-
The man lies every time he opens his pie hole.
However, what you say may turn out to be quite an accurate prediction.
Stick Men
Pay no attention to that war behind the curtain. Pay no attention to the homeless, the jobless, the hopeless. Pay no attention to wrecking of privacy and human rights. It is all good for the economy - i.e. the rich.
Enjoy your astronauts and TV, coppertops!
First we need to realize that the USA needs the space program for advance of technology and for many other reasons. It is a good idea.
Unfortunately with the crop of "Free Traders" running around the USA at the present time if a spin off occurs it will spin into China. There is no benefit to this! In fact it is counter productive. It sabotages the existing industries in the USA and empowers our enemies.
This is why the people in Iowa and other places don't see benefits from the space program.
What we have here is a problem that would be like a water system. The water pressure is chronically low so we definitely need to fix the system. It is a good idea even essential. The problem is that it matters little how many new pumps we buy or new wells we drill or treatment plants we build for the system if we don't hire a welder to fix the hole in the water tower!
If our Federal Policy remains a Trade War against the American people, it really doesn't matter how many spin-offs NASA has. The Country will continue to have troubles with its economy. In fact all of the mechanisms that might otherwise fix our mess only serve to make our situation worse until we fix the real problem. Then we can get back to investing in our future.
The trade situation under the "Free Trade" deals has made it so that American Workers are tariffed (Taxed for those who don't know the definitions) 150% on their wages while their foreign competition is not so taxed. Lucky employers who actually earn money from these over taxed laborers find that if their profit is 2.5 times or greater that of the freight to import their product or service, they must export the jobs to survive and avoid US Taxes.
Under this situation investment in NASA is insane. If you look at it properly, the NASA spending increases the taxes on American Workers and Buinesses. It increases the modernization and efficiency of their for foreign competition while depriving US Businesses of the means to do so themselves.
I am the son of one of the men who put men on the moon. I like space exploration and most eagerly want it back. But this is like launching a rocket with an on board fire or a Bomb set to go off on board. It will not work!
Never Politically Correct ~ I prefer the facts If you don't like what I say, get a life, or comment yourself.
To really see the impracticality of the proposal, see what Gregg Easterbrook has to say about it.
If space exploration stopped, and we still wanted to get the development, we'd have to replace NASA's budget with about the same budget put into paying for the development of technologies for terrestrial applications, or else the technologies would just not get developed or at a slower rate. In that sense, we're getting the space exploration for free. You can think of it as a funding or investment program for the development of terrestrial technologies and their economic spinoff, and at the same time get some knew scientific knowledge and understanding out of it.
You seem to separate the two, as in "Why no try to invent these advanced technologies without spending billions attempting to shoot people into space?" Where do you think the money goes? It primarily goes to pay for the development of the technologies. True, there's some inefficiency in NASA, but that's because of the organization, not the concept of spending money on space exploration.
this reminds me of "Fix a man's computer, and it will be fixed for a day. Teach him how to fix his computer, and it'll be broken for life" .
Seriously though, going into space exploration isn't exactly a money spinner.
Yeah. Sand, no arabs, possibly life, oil is dead life. We go there.
Dyslexics have more fnu.
Points:
This is the wrong way to go to space again. The nadir, the opposite, the way it shouldn't be.
I've been a space fanatic for 35 years. And emulating the Apollo model of spectaular and ultimately useless manned shots was proved a dead end thirty years ago. It is a dead end now.
We should go to the moon, but to establish mining and material processing plants. We should use mass drivers on the moon, rather than rockets, to move material into L2, L5, or earth orbit for contruction purposes. Using the moon for a launching platform for Mars is a terrible idea -- if you are in orbit, in zero G, you can use an ion engine to get to mars in weeks. But to launch from the moon, you have to use a high energy rocket, which actually gets you to Mars more slowly than the high-efficiency and always-on ion engine.
Build in space, not on the moon. Move lunar materials to Earth-moon space using an electric mass-driver on the surface, and make aluminum, steel, and titanium by the thousands of tons in lunar orbit or L5.
If you want to go to space as a nation, you go BIG, which means you proceed deliberately. No spectacular space shots of interest to geologists only. You build up industrial capacity in orbit and on the moon, and after that you can go anywhere at a much cheaper cost than lifting tons of miniaturized and fragile components from Earth, because you simply make what you need at the launching complex from raw materials. It's more expensive in the short term, but it the long term it pays for itself in materials and energy (powersats), AND you get the solar system as a bonus for cheap.
Additionally, if you industrialize near Earth, it means normal people could go and live off planet, because there would be enough resources to actually build habitats, regular shuttle services, make powersats for selling juice back home. Launching it all from Earth guarantees that although the "mission" of landing some miltary pilots on Mars would be accomplished, that no one else could go, and ultimately the whole program would be shut down because,and it pains me to say this, all we would have for our money would be some rocks, some video, and a small cadre of semi-military men who actually got to go to another world. It didn't work for Apollo, and it won't work here. This idea is pure Old NASA, and should be stopped immediately. Space should not be the province of ultrahealthy supermen who go up and come down. It should be about resources, economically sound exploitation, and the ability of a normal human to participate someday.
And finally, Bush's (Old NASA's) dream is a crock. The money will not be there after Supply Side 2, the Looting. The old dream will die again as the neocon party ball goes dim in the next ten years and all the bills come due.
G. R. (Rocky) Bush Jr. will announce the destruction of earth as we know it. Nessicary to "strike the final blow to terrorism" were a few Multimega Atomics, that will have the side-effet of disrupting Earth's core.
No problem however, as the mars mission successfully put a man, and a woman on Mars (Both 100% American Mayflower descendants) to ensure "The American Way of Life"
"/Dread"
Na, he means an asteroid will destroy the Mars base as soon as it's there, so we shouldn't bother.
.sigs - is there anything they can't do?
And we have nothing to show for it!
We have lots of marijuana.
Lots of petrified grits
Who do you want controlling space and the Moon, us or the Chinese?
I'd just as soon no one "control" space and the moon, thanks. An arrangement such as the one that exists for Antarctica would be a much better option.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
Just wondering - anyone know how much money the USG 'n Rummy gave said evil man before they decided he was not as useful as he used to be?
Disband NASA. The $86B, spend it elsewhere. Except for about $3-5B... use that as and Xprize type fund. Give it to the first privately funded group to get to Mars. Call it the M prize.
17*1.15/380*0.15 = 0.343
I won't call 34.3% of a huge chunk of money measley -- not even in comparision.
However, it's cheap for buying the support of the public -- give them bread and circus, and they'll forget all about being controlled and exploited, or being at war.
Indeed, Bush making a huge announcement about a space initiative has been expected for years now -- even the timing was expected. It's done not to further science at all, but to win votes. As such, it's a ploy and a charade, and ought to be exposed for what it is.
Regards,
--
*Art
Not according to the budget. Do you have a source for this information?
Go read up on the history of the internet, it was originally a defense project to build a computer communications network that was immune from a nuclear attack.
BTW: What's the value of the internet?
Why not build the space elevator first and then surely lifting all that hardware up into space will be a whole lot cheaper?
Stop reading my sig you geek!
This sure sounds to me like a project crying out for international cooperation. Besides, didn't the U.S. sign on to treaties making extraterrestrial bodies the common property of all nations, or something like that?
(I suppose it only applies to *uninhabited* bodies. The giant purple eating machines of Venox VII need not be alarmed; we come in peace and, after getting a look at you, will be happy to leave with celerity.)
My school graduated 27 people in 2002... Do we REALLY need a new gym?
:|
Maybe more people would go to your school if it had a decent gym.
just = (My)Opinion.toCents();
If the weapon industry doesn't get wars, it gets rusty. They need wars as umbrella manufacturers need rain.
You want to know the problem with the U.S. education system:
PROPERTY TAXES PAYING FOR SCHOOLS.
That is single-DUMBEST thing I have ever heard of in my life. Rich people get good schools, poor people get bad schools. Rich people stay rich, poor people stay poor Forget the right-wing viewpoint of the water rising raisning boats; one boat is a luxury liner and the other is a leaky rowboat!
You guys kills me.
just = (My)Opinion.toCents();
Why would we want to go to Jupiter? So we can have astronauts in orbit?
Jupiter is a gas planet and as such there could be no landing! The toxic gases would vaporize us even before reaching something that resembles a solid.
now just think what figuring out how to feed the astronaughts on a Jupitor trip with out packing the ship full of food would mean to world hunger
Learning to grow corn in a zero-g environment doesn't tell us much about how to distribute more effectively the food that we already produce. World hunger is not caused by an inability to grow enough food. It's caused by not getting food we have to people that need it. There's no such distribution problem on a space vehicle that might be all of a few hundred feet long.
So tell us, just what would figuring out how to feed the astronauts mean to world hunger? As far as I can see, it only means $17B that won't be spent on food distribution.
Shouldn't he have announced a new round of tax cuts to fund it?
Those "brand-new small-scale nuclear weapons" would be exactly the thing to power an Orion NMPP drive... the project was canned because they couldn't get the funding to develop mini-nukes.
Yeah, but it'd be kinda cool to see the "Independence Day" type movies of the planets we overrun. They'll have the slimy alien punching Will Smith in the face... :D
Two, in fact.
1. How could a country claim ownership over a piece of land in the moon? Any legal experts here?
2. Did they really go to the moon on the first time?
Actually, I think it was that half-twist on the quote that threw me. It originally was "two foundations at opposite ends of the galaxy" (or similar), but your twist to "opposite ends of the earth" threw me into thinking this was a reference to another book that I hadn't read yet.
Nice reference though.
And, BTW: "Canticle..." is worth reading, and it's not that long of a book either. ;-)
LongTail SSH Brute Force analysis tool is here!
Bush's grandstanding on space is pure plagiarism of the Space Exploration Act of 2003, (HR3057) by Rep. Lampson (D-TX), in September of 2003, and is
still in committee.
This bill calls for returning to lunar orbit within 8 years; to return to the Moon to stay within 15 years, and to Mars within 20 years. In addition, it would create an Office of Exploration in NASA to plan and manage future exploration for the long term.
Bush's discovery of space comes from Rove's discovery of the tech vote, and will, like No Child Left Behind, will leave behind funding and
commitment, once the election is passed.
I'm unbelievably mad about this, becase he really doesn't *care* about space, while some of us have been waiting our whole lives for the
promises of the sixties to be met. He's stealing The Dream for his goddamn political games.
mark
Then you checked through rose-colored glasses.
Were the Koreans about to attack the United States? Were the Vietnamese? The Iraqis (then or now)? Was Panama? Was Granada?
Most American military deployments over the past 100 years haven't had squat to do with protecting our country. They've been about protecting "U.S. interests" - that is, the political and financial interests of the ruling class.
Even Pearl Harbor was not an attack on the U.S., as Hawaii wasn't a state but a territory (invaded and illegally annexed); there hasn't been a direct military defense of the States against foreign attack since 1814. (Terrorism by non-state entities not being a military action.)
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
- 1. A personal anecdote (especially one unsupported by any verifiable reference) doesn't contribute anything to the debate. The facts are that On a further note, I'd agree with you that reform of government is needed: the introduction of voucher/privatization schemes has been massively inefficient and wasteful and should be replaced with a publically accountable redistribution of money from the wealthy to public school programs. In other words let's crank up the welfare state and big government so that it really works instead of starving it of funds.
- Even if your example is kosher it seems to prove my point in that the situation you describe is a microcosm of what is happening with the funnelling of public monies into the space program. If we continue down this path then kids will remain without textbooks (and possibly gyms and sports fields) while the nation basks in the glory of manned space missions.
Honestly, can't any of you people think? All this squabbling about Bush or "libs" is so beside the point that it's not even funny. Drop your high-school pom-pom and start looking at the wider picture.How do *you* know the contents of simoniker's rejected story submission?
I know the original contents because - if you look at the posted story - it was written by me. That's what's weird about it. It shows up as rejected when I log in. I'm just wondering if it's yet another symptom of the various 500 errors. Another gremlin: my previous comment was submitted even though I clicked the preview button to check for any errors. When I clicked the submit button after only one preview, the response from the server was that the form had already been used and submitted. It didn't include everything that I wrote, but I figured why bother with another comment hat was substantially the same.
Correction to post: the $12 billion is not new money, but will be diverted from other NASA programs to the manned Moon/Mars program.
Also, the online chat transcript with NASA Chief Scientist/Astronaut Dr. John Grunsfeld discussing U.S. Space Policy is now online.
Your accusation of contradiction makes the assumption that military spending is the only way to bring about ethical and practical benefits for places like Iraq. I don't think the parent was making that assumption, and therefore is not being contradictory.
You can argue about the *assumption* there perhaps, but you're jumping the gun trying to call it a contradiction when *you're* introducing the assumption.
Idiot.
It doesn't have to be a conspiracy. No one sits down and plans this stuff out. It just happens because one person does their small little job and the next person takes their work and adds their small little job, and after a lot of people work together something bigger happens.
Watch the movie "The Cube." It's pretty good and has some points that explore this a little, although not comprehensively. But it's interesting nonetheless.
Give a man fire, he will smoke for a day. Set a man on fire, he'll smoke for the rest of his life.
You see men sailing on their ego trip,
Blast off on their spaceship,
Million miles from reality:
No care for you, no care for me.
It's entirely possible that you did, indeed, need a new gym. We have no idea of the state of your old gym.
Second, books and buildings come out of different budgets. In Illinois there are strict rules keeping the budgets separate. Additionally, the funding may not have entirely come from your district, as the state/federal government may have provided significant matching funds or grants for building.
Third, if your district is that small, did they look into consolidation first? Or is the building project to make them more attractive for consolidation?
My father is on the school board for the small district from which I graduated (36 in my graduating class, and they're getting smaller). We just went through a building project about 4 years ago during which the middle school was completely rebuilt and the elementary school was significantly renevated, including a new gym. Yes, it was expensive, but the buildings WERE needed. It would be possible for me to make the whole project look irresponsible if I just quoted figures out of context, but the fact of the matter is that it is the practice of doing so that is actually irresponsible.
Either provide more details or shut up. You might be entirely right, but without more details, there is no way for us to know.
Curing world hunger would appear to be a political problem as you point out. (Though I think you underestimate the ability of international political organisations such as the U.N. to bring about positive change).
Spending money on putting a man on Mars is also a good investment for bringing about positive change in the world
This is because politics is all about the resolution of competing ideas through voting in democracies and negociation and diplomacy between nations. Given that the USA has the ability to fund space exploration and reap the cultural kudos that this brings world wide it would seem to be an obvious but admittedly unquantifyable boost to the political influence of the USA in the realm of diplomacy. The leaders of any badly run nation whose people see the positive side of space exploration will have a far harder task in resisting the idea that aspects of American culture and the diplomatic pressure of American leaders are powerfull influences. It was definitely the case that old soviet style communism lost as much through the inescapable observation that people had a better standard of living and a more visably enjoyable life in the West than through a military victory in the cold war.
Seen this way the high ideals and aspirations of NASA could look like an excellent investment. Certainly a far better investment than merely using space as an arena for military activiy on its own. Investigation of the potential of space for military activities will occur whether or not civilian space exploration occurs, this is the nature of defence; all avenues of weakness must be and will be investigated unless you plan to lose.
America needs to improve its standing in world opinion. However justifyable the recent actions in the middle east, much of the world feels disapointment with American political leaders. Yes America is powerful and can and will look after its geopolitical interests through military might but it has failed politicaly to carry the body of world opinion as seen by the failure of the U.N. to fully back its actions.
Now would be a very good time to remind us all of the other side of American cultural values. The aspirational side, the forging of human history, the cleverness and technological inovation of the American people. Space exploration is a terrificly good motivational activity and it is also very impressive. It is no suprise that China is becoming more active in this area, it would not surprise me at all if they have plans to try to beat America to Mars, after all at the rate they are expanding they will be able to afford it.
In the meme war spending money on NASA is very good value for America both internaly and externaly. I look forward with much excitement to further sucess in the exploration of space by America.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
That's a big school. My little brother's class was the largest graduating class in the history of my hometown with 26 in 2000.
OTOH, the school handled the budget poorly, but to a different extreme. They were so under budget for so many years, that the state finally told them to spend the savings or lose it. That was when we finally got computers better than apple IIe.
-
"Vengeance is fine," sayeth the Lord.
But isnt it funny that presidents always set these goals for well after their terms? By 2015 Bush will be out of the Oval Office, with a best selling book, and he can blame america's not getting back to the moon on our next PHB commander in chief.
Just change the term for it and suddenly everything's better!
How many iraqi civillians were killed by our liberation of them?
Kennedy gets a lot of credit for launching Apollo, but Eisenhower was responsible for starting the space program in the first place, and Von Braun made it possible.
Actually the Air Force and their need to develop ICBM's had far more to do with developing basic missile technology in the U.S. than NASA. Atlas and Titan were developed by the Air Force, ostensibly without German involvement though they no doubt stole a lot from the Germans. Atlas was first launched in 1957 before NASA was even chartered. Atlas was later modified by NASA to form the basis of the early Mercury launches.
i ta n/Titan_Missile_History.htmr s.net/space_rockets/atlas_mis sile.htm
r oc ket.htm
http://www.strategic-air-command.com/missiles/T
http://www.astronome
Descendents of Titan are still a mainstay for launching satellites. You are mistaken to think NASA is the only agency in the U.S. that launches satellites. The Air force and Navy probably launch more satellites than NASA.
Delta is the remaining NASA developed, civilian, expendable launch vehicle:
http://www.astronomers.net/space_rockets/delta_
@de_machina
If we want to get humanity permanently into space, we need to stop thinking in purely engineering and short term economic terms.
One of the reasons North America got settled relatively quickly, IMO, was that kings passed out huge chunks of land to cronies so they could set up colonies to profit by shipping goods home.
With space it's harder. Information is the main thing valuable enough to ship to earth - and the value of scientific information will decline rapidly after the first few missions to any place. (He3 may be worth shipping from the moon to earth - we'll see.) So we need to quickly bootstrap space settlement off of the value of scientific exploration, but rapidly reduce the costs of getting there and staying there.
Zubrin's plan is elegant and far cheaper up front - and does establish some infrastructure on Mars. But the cycle time of growth is very slow, not concentrated in any one location, and doesn't do much to reduce the cost of subsequent Mars missions. Maybe we'd keep that up for 10 years before deciding we weren't learning enough to bother maintaining the program. On to Titan, abandon Mars!
But if we build up a base on Luna - whatever the up front cost - it will make economic sense to maintain and expand it - initially as a much cheaper source of LOX for rockets, later for other exports supporting space exploration and settlement.
So - call it a con job if you wish (well, please don't tell the politicians), but taking the slower, more costly Moon-first approach seems more likely to get us permanently into space. I prefer to think of it as an investment in humanity's future.
I recognize that there are many things in heaven and earth that bear merit for our efforts and resources, but the task of space exploration is of an entirely different magnitude of value.
What could we accomplish with the resources that will eventually be absorbed by space exploration?
Issues of social service, government subsidies, military spending, tax rebates or decreases seem to eat most of the budget of the United States. We certainly should not abandon spending on these issues - they are the bedrock of the functionality of our government.
On top of those issues are the United State's humanitarian responsibilities. Fighting disease, hunger, poverty, oppression, etc. these are the measure of our humanity.
I can't discount the importance of these items. I encourage you to think, however, about the merit of space exploration. Imagine the world a thousand years from now. What will remain?
If any country that exists now can still exist in that far future the effort expended to remain viable will have been well spent. Certainly the continued existance of the United States must be paramount in it's own budget creation. But the projects that hound our space program today will have vanished like dust. This blip in the economy, that pork barrel project, social spending here, military spending there. Some politician and his desire to strip money from our space program in order to buy something that will get him re-elected. All will have been lost to time. As the events of the year 1000 effect us in a 'butterfly effect' manner so will we control the future in an unpredictable, unknowable, and anonymous fasion.
Space exploration is an entirely different sort of undertaking. In the bright future I imagine humanity is in several locations in our solar system. The Moon, Mars, the Jovian system, who can say what humanity will manage to adapt to. Perhaps they eye the edge of our solar system as the next frontier, or perhaps we will have managed to grow beyond that as well.
As a species we will no longer fear the simple destruction that befell so many forms of life previously on Earth. It's easy to be unconcerned about the threats to our species' continued existence. Asteroids, plague, environmental collapse, world war, overpopulation, none of these are going to happen tomorrow. The individual generally need not act upon their threat at all. I imagine not one dinosaur ever gave it a thought.
Further, in the future I propose, imagine the variety of human experience. Humans may paint landscapes under the light of Jupiter. Art and philosophy will be profoundly effected not only by the fact of it's own existence remote from Earth, but by the existence of other thoughts and philosophies developed in other environments. This variety, this ocean of experience will be a benefit to humanity that the people of 1000 years from now could not imagine being without. As the peasant of the year 1000, (never travelling more than 20 miles from his home!) will those who live in a future containing space travel look back upon those times when man dwelt only upon the Earth.
This is all to say nothing of the benefit to science and technology. Benefits and resources so unimaginably vast that words fail and I can only write this short paragraph about them.
Little will survive the next 1000 years in any recognizable form. We must continue to attempt to mitigate suffering and maintain the well-being of our nation, but individual efforts will swirl and vanish in the chaos of human progression. In the future, space travel or no, there will still be those who have and those who have not. In 1000 years people may die still from hunger or disease, or from lack of as-yet unimagined medical techniques or they may lack access to some future life-improving technology.
In contrast to all else that we may do in this time, 1000 years before that future, the development of space travel will stand out. The colonization of the universe off of this sphere will be like the development of FIRE, or the invention of the WHEEL. It will be of fundamental imporance to the entire human race.
Adam Thorne
Yeah, that's all true.
:)
But
I want to go.
So there.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Why settle for a neglected ISS when you can neglect a moon station, too! (Hmm. I'm currently reading Heinlein's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, interesting..)
Yesterday I heard some whitehouse staffer, in defense of the Mars/Moon initiative say of Bush, "He likes to think big thoughts." Yeah, well how about that deficit, that's a pretty big thought. Oh, wait, Cheney said to Paul O'Neill, "Deficits don't matter." Guess I'm wrong again.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
In the long term, who knows? Gas mining operation?
The point is, by undertaking immense challenges like sending humans to Jupiter, we learn a lot. I think that learning is important to the advancement of civilization, although some may differ.
[javac] 100 errors
Yes, we could save money outsourcing the space program to a company in India.
Because you can't piss on the moon. But you can apparently have a pissing contest to get there.
I hope you lazy fucks are going to get off your asses and VOTE this November. . . Because this horseshit plan is going to GUT space exploration as we know it.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I think it is time for a little Bohemian Rapsady gentlemen.
I see a little......
--"Sorry for the inconvience." Gods Last Words to his Creation
DNA, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
This is the second or third time some of my comedic writing has been compared to Douglas Adams. Stop doing that. He's way better than me.
Tim
Omnia vestra castrorum habetur nobis.
Who cares about the short term? This is about long term discovery and preservation of knowledge. The knowledge of the Roman Empire was not lost, just hidden away. After it was rediscovered, it was terribly useful to mankind.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
NASA has contributed very little in the way of new patented technologies... Those that it has are various sensors, electronics, programs..... They however can be responsible for the implimentation of these technologies into mainstream society. They found uses for existing technologies that spawned new uses in everyday life. In the case of TANG and dehydrated Icecream they have created markets for goods that had no practical use until the space program. Other systems like most personal computer technology they helped to develope into smaller lighter components that are easier to produce and use for civilian applications. We cannot rate a public endevoer on it's "produced cashflow" or direct market contribution. For proof of this look at the CCC and WPA created to alliviate the depression. The numbers show them as massive cash intensive failures. These failures are still in use today and in my personal opinion are the reason the US was able to recover economically for WW2 without increased military production.
--"Sorry for the inconvience." Gods Last Words to his Creation
DNA, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
It's like Space:1999 all over again. See moon. See moon fly away...
You've got to ask yourself, why is it we're funding public education.
Are we doing it to make sure that every American knows how to read and write, and that every American will be able to compete in the global job market, so that we can attain a standard of academic excellence in our nation?
Or is it so we can get everyone hooked on sports to fuel the pro sports/entertainment industry?
Traditions are fine and dandy - but they should NEVER take precidence over the real purpose of school.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Yup. I agree completely.
And?
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Sure, they're state problems. I agree.
.76 and send the rest to the state. Or just spend it myself. Tax cuts are good, right?
But putting aside the whole notion of unfunded mandates (seen the cost of the "[fuschia? mauve? whatever.] alerts" that are passed to states / cities?....
California gets $0.76 back for every $1.00 it sends to Washington. I imagine we might have a much, much rosier state budget situation if I could multiply my tax-due total by
Sometimes things ain't as easy as "just go to another library," or "it's the damned overtime's fault." Sorry. Try getting your information from something other than Fox"News" or the am dial.
Well, the Swiss chap had two heads and called himself Gnnxl...
So, what was the last nuclear war started by ICBMs? IIRC, the last two nukes used were air-delivered. Other than that your post makes no sense, but that fits with your sig...
And if either:
a) the asteroid had not hit, or
b) the dinosaurs had survived
would we even be here to have this discussion? We ASSUME that we are better (perhaps even the pinnacle of evolution), but who is to say for certain that if we were annihilated by a "global killer" asteroid that something better would not happen on the next evolution of the species on this planet?
See my blog at Who's Who
I can't believe the crap I'm reading here. Slashdot, what has happened to the majority of you. Most of the slashdot community are so blinded by politics that they are starting to betray themselves.
Bush has increased the NASA budget and set plans to return to the moon and to mars. WE WONT GET TO MARS FOR ANOTHER 30 YEARS! And people are saying ITS TOO EXPENSIVE!? HUH? How long should we wait!? AFTER IM DEAD!? I think 30 years is plenty of time to wait, and for those who think that a 1000 new government buildings are more important than this, ask yourself, are you a nerd? Think of how different the world is today because man has walked on the moon. What if that never happened because people believed it was "TOO EXPENSIVE"...
I prefer to subsidize achievement.
Then invest in the stock market.
People aren't "things" or "machines." Nobody is perfect, and sometimes crap happens to people outside of their control -- debilitating car accident, significant other empties the bank accounts and disappears, someone slips on your sidewalk and sues, your child gets sick and requires expensive medical treatment, your apartment burns down, you have an IQ of 50, etc.
People who think that people deserve to starve or live without a roof on their head "because they don't try hard enough" make me sick. Seriously, who the fuck wants to live like that? What makes you think that someone would want to live like that?
It accounts for what, $20 of your taxes?
I'm sorry, I didn't recognize that the morality of theft was based on the size of the item stolen.
HUMANS ARE NOT WORTHY TO SPREAD TO OTHER PLANETS. Our race is a violent, underdeveloped, overestimated, neaderthalic bunch of viscious self-centered twits.
Hey comic book guy, you have a low self esteem don't you? What other race are you comparing us to? The ones you see in Star Trek or something? Surely we are the MOST developed of any creature we know, the most self-sacrficing, and the smartest. You don't see and humans jumping through hoops at sea world for a fish, do you?
I realize I may be threading deeper into the mud here, but I started this little offshot so I may as well bite the bullet and attempt to finish it ;)
Last time I checked the goal of any military was to protect the country and it's government, at any means necessary.
Then you checked through rose-colored glasses.
Were the Koreans about to attack the United States? Were the Vietnamese? The Iraqis (then or now)? Was Panama? Was Granada?
I respect and second your opinion, but I do think you made a rather over-enthusiastic job of making me sound like a U.S.-loving militarist, when I'm actually not much of the sort.
My original comment was refering to the remark made by a previous poster: Just because the ultimate goal of the military is to kill people
I felt compelled to comment on this, but jumping to the conclusion that I would support the U.S. military's actions is a little rushed. Fact is, most of the time, I'm rather on the opposite side of the compass.
.: Max Romantschuk
Well since we didn't have ICBMs at that point, it's kind of a moot issue. If they COULD have delivered the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs via missle, they WOULD have.
Oh yeah, and it wasn't a nuclear war since Japan had no nukes. In a nuclear war the #1 thing is to get gauruntee delivery of your nukes and try to knock out the other guys capacity before they can launch. Thats what all those missle submarines are for. Thats ALSO why each and every one of those missle boats are chased by one or more killer subs whose mission is to destroy the missle boat if it attempts to launch.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that a nuclear war is unwinnable.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
On any Google search, you're going to get some irrelevant results. If your eyes are closed, that's all you'll choose to see. But on the search I gave you, the first three pages also held:
US investigates space bomber
Pentagon planning for space bomber
Bush plans 'space bomber'
Pentagon planning for space bomber;
Documents show how X-plane could be used by military
NASA Brings Back Plans To Fly X-37 Demonstrator In Orbit for 270 Days
A Defense Agenda for 21st Century Warfare
Check them out, Mr. Coward.
When the hell are we going to impeach this idiot before he wastes any more of our country's tax dollars on stupid projects like this while the economy is in the toilet?
For God's sake, please don't vote this fool back into office this year...
Wow, youa re the saddest, sickest person I have ever known. You would rather see a dead rock float through space for all eternity than let humans terraform and bring life to it? You would rather see life itself perish than bring life to the rest of the universe? This is a joke, right? Try falling in love, you'll change your attitude on Life.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
First nuclear war we won. Japan not having nukes doesn't mean it wasn't a nuclear war, just that it was one sided (the best type of war).
There's no evidence that a nuclear war is unwinnable. A total exchange of all the nukes in existence would be a bit uncomfortable, but there's nothing that proves a war between say India/Pakistan would lead to global nuclear war.
Now you're saying SLBMS are the key, not ICBMS? SLBMS have better survival abilities than ICBMs, but their accuracy (even with Trident D5) is lower than Peacekeeper used to be.
Plus you haven't given any proof other than your opinion that B2s wouldn't be survivable as a retaliatory weapon. Care to try again?
You can't look at it that crassly, and I'll tell you why. I support welfare programs (though I think ours could be done better) for the reasons listed by the grandparent post. However, I am not on welfare. In fact, it's my tax money that's going to support welfare. Therefore, am I buying my own vote?
You are correct in a way, but that doesn't mean welfare serves no purpose and is wrong. I think it's an important part of our social infrastructure. I like to know that if distaster befalls me, there will be some sort of safety net there to help lift me up, that I won't be at the whim of the charity of the wealthy.
That doesn't mean our current welfare system is perfect. And I'll stop there...
Anytime your budget deficit is already nearly half a trillion dollars, that's a bad time to do much of anything other than balance the budget. As soon as we've done that, *then* I agree with the parent - better things we could do here on Earth? Sure, but let's go anyway. We can do both, if we can only get our finances in order first.
Is this rhetoric or reality? George Bush (the first one; Sr) also made similar proclamations and it went nowhere. George Bush Jr also makes similar gestures but it is questionable if this will amount to anything. My personal opinion is that nothing will come of this.
First of all, only $1b is new money being allocated. You cannot do anything for $1b. The increase just covers inflation. As Bob McDonald of CBC remarked on tv yesterday, the $11 billion is just reshuffling existing NASA money and this may damage other areas of NASA. Bob was concerned about sacrificing robotics at the expense of human missions. Even with that amount of money, nothing major will be accomplished.
You basically need hundreads of billions to do anything major. This money hasn't been allocated.
Secondly--and most importantly--the only major endeavours in the past have been due to political reasons. Let's face it: As long as there isn't a political threat (however bogus), the public isn't going to be too keen on supporting any major projects. Unless USA initiates some massive propaganda campaign and brainwashes people into thinking that China, Russia, India, Japan, Europe, or whoever else you can come up with is a threat, nothing is going to be done.
Lastly, USA is running a massive deficit. The deficit is around $500 billion this year and unless the economy picks up, it might even get worse. Granted, this isn't a big deal for a big country like USA (at least according to theory), but nevertheless it will have SOME impact. Getting to public to support a massive tax cut for the wealthy is easy (just initiate some propaganda and you'll be ok). It is also easy to increase the military budget by claiming the imminent threat of others. Similarly, increasing budgets for DEA, CIA, and others is pretty easy--you just have to claim you are fighting a very important "war" (in these cases, drugs, and terrorism). You can also get the public to support a missile shield (which in all likelihoods won't work (automatically, the effectiveness against terrorists is 0% since terrorists use asymettric covert techniques)). HOWEVER, getting the public to support a scientific mission is pretty tough.
So to summarize my thoughts... not enough money is allocated... there is no political will... US fiscal situation isn't good enough to get public support... All this can just mean one thing. This is political rhetoric before an election. Nothing more; nothing less!
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
News Flash: most of our space science comes from unmanned machines such as the Space Telescope, the Mars Spirit Rover, the Stardust comet explorer, and others. Did I mention the Mars Global Explorer, the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe satellite, GALEX, the Cassini mission to Saturn, Genesis solar wind sampler, the New Horizons Pluto-Kuiper Belt mission (planned for 2006), etc, etc. Voyagers 1 and 2 have been operating since 1977 (are they older than you?) and are approaching the heliopause. Now that's what I call space exploration. The truth is, in space, robots rule!
Folks, I'm sorry to inform you; but unless there's serious funding, this is at best a publicity stunt, and at worst a president micro-managing NASA in a way that will get rid of the few remaining actual science programs.
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
Yeah, it's somewhere online. You're assuming only the federal government spends money on education, which is naive. Actually the US spends more, per pupil, on education than any other country in the world, after Canada.
- The idea that people on welfare vote seems pretty dubious to me.
- There has been some scholarly research done on public assistance in this country with the thesis that it has been consistently maintained at a level sufficient to keep the unemployed from rioting.
In light of the latter argument, this is going to be a very interesting election year with the jobless recovery entering its third year and welfare sharply curtailed.
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
I've never been on welfare, but I've inspected a TON of welfare houses (I was a building inspector for 8 years) for many years.
Believe me, for every one of you, there are 10s, if not 100s of cadillac welfare queens.
I saw so many I was disgusted and it eventually changed my personal and political viewpoints.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
I am not a fan of the Bush administration, or any US political party for that matter but, I do support the administrations decisions made in response to 9/11 and I will vote for the Republicans only because I feel they can better handle this international crises and not make more of a mess of it like the other parties would.
;-)
There are a lot of selfish people in the US government, military and business but from my experience; they are far outnumbered by pragmatic bureaucrats and decent people trying to make the system work, not work the system.
Yes, history has shown that the US isn't above pulling a dirty trick or two to get what it wants and that US political, military and economic leaders have been known to take advantage of a situation. Corruption will happen and does happen to this day but I disagree to the extent to which you carry this conspiracy.
I place most of the blame for the current crisis on the 20th century dead end experiments with fascism and communism and the failure of recent weak world leaders, who being more into the big party following the communist blocks downfall, mostly ignored pushing the reform of brutal dictatorships or establishing order in the countries in chaos or down on there luck.
Instead, we probably had one of the greediest periods in recent Western history. It's no wonder the underprivileged world got angry with examples like the US President breaking the law, getting away with it, living high off the hog and flaunting his Willie at anyone with the guts to speak against him. There where simply too many examples of this kind of decadence going on all over the affluent world. Now we are paying for the complacency of past administrations and finally getting to the task of cleaning up the mess. I just hope the current administration doesn't make a similar mistake with these Iraq contracts but I think no matter what it does, someone will see a conspiracy simply because all trust was broken long ago.
Sorry, I'm going off on a rant. Back to the subject...
There will be military spin-offs from the technology of permanent facilities on the moon and expeditions to Mars and the military sector will likely covertly exchange information to accelerate this development. It's happened this way since the beginning of the space age. So what? I feel it is more important to go to these places than fret over which power block will gain advantage using this technology and furthermore, I don't see the money spent on US and allied space exploration as sustenance being taken away from the needy here or abroad especially when it's such a tiny fraction of the governments revenue spent over decades. Projects like these employ people who spend money on business that employ more people and so on.
As for the US government/military world dominance takeover conspiracy, you're right, there is one. If you threaten to slaughter innocents or support those that do, we will come buy land, sea, air and now space
Don't feed the monster excuses to put you down. Be nice and it will consume itself in due time.
27b-6
You make several good points. I just wanted to point out that satellites can also be used for fire detection.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Take a look.
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
Dan Quayle
I think I get it. We don't have the funds to send hardware into space, so we build a space elevator using the money... Wait, where do those funds come from again?
gotta reply..
silly boy.
he means that in developing a way of feeding astronauts on the way to jupiter they will probably advance food science significantly.
The original post was about the end of the US and that someone would just take over after that, because they always do. I said that that's not necessarily the case and raised an example as proof. I'm not arguing anything else.
Put identity in the browser.
Don't worry, it's not going to cut military spending. It is military spending! What do you think the potential military implications of this project and its progeny are? Like it or not, amazing things have been done, militarily, and protection of self-interests won't be limited to Earth's surface in the future. Do you really think the federal government would consider spending a dime on anything if it were just for curiosity's sake?
Details? We had to borrow books! What more details do you want? The fact is, books cost a LOT less than buildings! My school graduated 27 people in 2002... Do we REALLY need a new gym? Its not like we decided to put in an athletics program, we HAD a gym.
Means nothing. Was your old gym condemned? Deemed a fire hazard? Had too much asbestos? How about the baseball field? Does the school make enough money from tickets so that spending $45,000 once a decade make sense? What was the student/classroom ratio? 30:1? 35:1? 40:1?
And math doesn't change. There's no reason why you couldn't take a bunch of well written math books from 1910 and use them in your classrooms.
Without more details, you have no case. All you are doing is yelling 'LOOK! They spent money on something other than textbooks! Corruption!!!!'
People aren't "things" or "machines." Nobody is perfect, and sometimes crap happens to people outside of their control -- debilitating car accident, significant other empties the bank accounts and disappears, someone slips on your sidewalk and sues, your child gets sick and requires expensive medical treatment, your apartment burns down,
Then give money to charity.
you have an IQ of 50
Speak for yourself.
People who think that people deserve to starve or live without a roof on their head "because they don't try hard enough" make me sick. Seriously, who the fuck wants to live like that? What makes you think that someone would want to live like that?
It's not a matter of wanting to be poor, everybody wants to be rich. It's a matter of how bad they don't want to be poor.
You can go down the skid row of any major city in the world and find people who don't want to live like that.
Unfortunately, they want to avoid being sober more than they want to avoid living like that.
The jails are full of people who don't want to live like that.
But the want to make a quick buck more than they want to stay out of jail.
It's a matter of setting your priorities.
People who think people should be taxed to give money to people who make bad decisions make me sick. Seriously, who the fuck wants to work for that? What makes you think that someone would want to work for that?
Progressivism: Parasites helping parasites to help themselves - to other people's stuff.
No, he's no tyrant. Just an elected leader. In fact, due to such things as tax cuts (now we can keep more of our own money), the government is less tyrannical than it was under Clinton.
I had a funny thought - what if the Bush administration and President Bush have it in their heads to sink the space program in the public opinion? This is the way to do it: announce an underfunded-but-expensive-sounding initiative, say, a manned Mars mission on an additional $12B during the highest budget deficit ever. Then, wait. Public opinion will tear apart the idea as profligate spending, say things to the media and the pollsters like "why fund the space program when we have mouths to feed" and politicians on both sides of the aisle will revolt. There you have it, conspiracy fans. The Bush Administration is out to kill NASA.
Uh huh. And how do you get trained for a job? You take a government-sponsored job training programme (private contractor, government porkbarrel).
And how do you prove you're looking for a job? You fill out forms that get processed by the government's army of clerical employees.
And where does the government get those clerical workers? From people it sent to training programmes.
So in order to pay out your $3/hour in welfare, the government has to pay two other people to process the forms. And run the bogus training programmes. The dollars that actually go to the food tube on welfare are a small portion of the dollars actually spent in the process of feeding the food tube.
To bring us back on topic, welfare is a bureaucracy - it strives to perpetuate its own existence, rather like NASA, the Shuttle, and the ISS :-)
> And just one question, how much does a secretary produce? or a storew clerk? or a CFO?
CFO: By making good strategic decisions, he adds billions of dollars in shareholder value. (When he fucks up, he costs the company billions.)
But no matter how many good ideas I have, if I write "ok guys we did good this year but we need too ad lotta shrholder vallue next year to" in my annual report, I look like an illiterate ass, and investors dump my stock. I cost the company billions.
Secretary: If I'm a CFO, my time is worth hundreds of dollars per hour. A secretary turns my gibberish into "We are pleased with our performance in 2003, and continue to stress the need to add shareholder value in 2004."
If you're a major shareholder, or a potential acquirer, she's very nice to you and forwards you to my phone, which I answer, and I tell you about all the great things I'm going to do. She also says "Mr. Tackhead is unavailable at the moment, I'll forward you to his voice mail" (and then forwards you to /dev/null) if she thinks you're a telemarketer.
If I'm a CFO, my secretary produces my image, and she saves me a lot of time. That's worth a lot of money to me. But there are a lot of literate, articulate people with good phone skills, so I don't have to pay the secretary $100K/year. (But at the CFO of a fortune 500 level, maybe I might, because I want the fucking best secretary the market has to offer. For $100K/year, she probably knows half of Wall Street's top analysts by voice, and knows who's worth forwarding to me, forwarding to my voice mail, and who can be /dev/nulled.)
Store Clerk - exactly the same analogy. If I sell widgets in a store, a guy who puts 'em on the shelf and doesn't fuck up the pricing produces "accurate pricing stamps stuck on shelved widgets", and that's worth the $5/hour I pay him.
Unfortunately for the clerk, unskilled labor is almost always available at the minimum wage. And he can't add value to my organization in the way that a good secretary can.
I just wish I believed any of this new initiative to space was actually planned.
I don't think Bush is doing anything except trying to make a bunch of
There isn't going to be any grand program. There isn't even going to be adequate funding for what we already have, robotic exploration of Mars and the ISS. That extra billion will get spent this year, and that will be it. After that, it's back to bombs, prisons, and oil 24/7.
If you don't think so, remember the $15 billion for Africa to combat AIDS, the Billions that was going to rebuild New York after 9/11, and all the Children Left Behind when the money for No Child Left Behind wasn't budgeted as promised.
Lies are cheap. This is cheap sucker bait from the biggest liars on the planet.
Fundamentalism is a crime against humanity
Yeah, we weren't under budget by any stretch, but we had an Apple IIgs computer lab on campus unitl 1999, when we upgraded to Pentium 3 500Mhz machines padi for by the EAST Initiative... A major improvement.
Learn about Photography Basics.
Is NASA a bad thing?
Just because its a bureaucracy does not mean that it does not complete its core mission objective, which in the case of welfare is to move as many unemployed people into the job market as possible and to help create a more perfect meritocracy by reducing the impact of the wealth of previous generations into the advancement of the next. Clearly, this is not going to be very successful, but it will help to some degree.
According to you, a secretary create value by assisting the work another, therefore allowing him/her to create more value. This increase of value is attributed to the secretary, even though s/he directly produced no value.
One could easily make the same point for a teacher who allows the prospective CFO to create value (maybe). Does this mean the teacher is also a secondary producer of value?
Do the CFOs parents also contribute value solely because their children did?
The concept of value added is entirely subjective, and we clearly define it differently.
Oh yeah: point out a fact, be rated a troll.
Gotta love Slashdot...
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller is a must read for anyone who cares about what happens after "the day after." Like a lot of 1950s science fiction, some details are a little dated now, but the overall message is very relevant today, and not particularly encouraging.
It begins about 600 years after the human race has almost wiped ourselves out with nukes (in the late 20th century, IIRC). Like the dark ages after the fall of Rome, knowledge is preserved in a handful of monastaries, one dedicated to "Saint Isaac Leibowitz." After the Deluge of Fire, Leibowitz hid books from the bookburners (there was a backlash against intellecuals, who were blamed for the war).
The "pound pastrami" references a holy relic, written by the saint himself, discovered in an ancient "Fallout Survival Shelter" by a novice early on in the book.
We'll have to look more closely at "value" here - which is the point of your post. I submit that the secretary adds substantial value, both in terms of offloading work from the CFO (freeing up his time to do things that add more value than pressing "delete" for every telemarketer in his voicemail), and in terms of doing things the CFO can't do (namely, "making his ideas look as good in print as they sound when he dictates into his speech-to-text software" :)
> One could easily make the same point for a teacher who allows the prospective CFO to create value (maybe). Does this mean the teacher is also a secondary producer of value?
Interesting set of questions you pose.
Teacher: Yes, but only insofar as the education enables someone to become a CFO. An eighth-grader is not a CFO. The teacher has not created a CFO. The teacher has added no value to the company, only to Little Johnny in eighth grade. How much value she's added to Little Johnny is something to be decided by Johnny's parents, who are paying the bills.
Depending on the quality of education offered, some teachers are underpaid, and some teachers are overpaid.
A private school (versus a public school) can charge more for its services only so long as it offers a better product (better teachers) to those paying the bills - parents who want Johnny to grow up to be a CFO. It uses that money to hire better teachers -- teachers who are more likely to create future CFOs.
A public schoolteacher giving private-quality education to public school students is grossly underpaid. (And given the quality of public school students, will eventually get disillusioned with working within the bureaucracy and leave for the private sector anyways :)
Conversely, a private schoolteacher giving public-quality education to private school students is being grossly overpaid... and will soon be out of a job as soon as Johnny's parents see an "B+" beside "i rote this essay cuz i dont want to loose my hole langage skills" in English.
> Do the CFOs parents also contribute value solely because their children did?
None at all. Squeezing a kid out of your nether orifice doesn't make you a producer of anything other than yet another food tube.
If those parents invest in Johnny's education (or hire nannies and tutors :), however, Johnny may turn into a CFO. If Johnny chooses to take care of his parents after he becomes CFO, however, Johnny's parents will have gotten a great return on their investment.
(If Johnny's parents hire nannies and expect a return on the investment, they'd better make damn sure they're good nannies, because Johnny won't give a damn about his absentee parents. If Johnny's parents are already millionaires, that might be fine, because they won't need Johnny's money when they're old and grey. If they're too poor to afford to send Johnny to private school, they might have one of them stay home to educate Johnny where public school fails him. Johnny will grow up to be well-educated, no matter how badly his public school teachers try to screw him up, and he'll be immensely grateful to his parents. The parents "sacrifices" a $5/h minimum wage job, and if Johnny does well, never has to worry about eating dog food for retirement, because Johnny knows who gave him a good education. That's a great ROI for the parents :-)
> The concept of value added is entirely subjective, and we clearly define it differently.
Agreed. This started out as an economic discussion - I define value as a function "return on [financial] investment". That "financial" doesn't have to be dollars - it can be an opportunity cost.
For instance, if I take the afternoon off to play golf, it's a net loss for me and my employer. I pay m
Wow, youa re the saddest, sickest person I have ever known.
You don't know me - and if I am the saddest, sickest person you've come into brief, text-only contact with, then you haven't been paying very close attention.
You would rather see a dead rock float through space for all eternity than let humans terraform and bring life to it? You would rather see life itself perish than bring life to the rest of the universe? This is a joke, right?
Yes, Yes, and No.
Try falling in love, you'll change your attitude on Life.
Did that. But to be honest, my personal love of life and its infinite possibilities are far overshadowed by the greed and corruption that drives our society as a whole. And since the whole of human experience adds up to be as important as nada to the nothingth power, I don't really see why you're so rah-rah beating your chest over the notion that it would be a good thing to have humanity overrun the galaxy with wars and pestilence instead of perhaps letting nature and evolution takes it course on other planets, possibly bringing about a race far superior to our own.
When you can tell me beyond a shadow of a doubt that the first step that man takes on a foreign planet will absolutely not crush, decimate, or otherwise hinder an organism or collection of proteins that just may evolve into its own type of sentient being, then we'll talk. Until then, keep your pro-humanity propoganda to yourself. We've done nothing to prove our worthiness in this endeavor.
Hey comic book guy, you have a low self esteem don't you?
If you're referring to my roomates, then yes. But I don't read comics, and my self-esteem is fine. Its the esteem I hold the rest of society in. So, if anything, you could say I'm narcissistic, but if you did, I'd punch you.
What other race are you comparing us to? The ones you see in Star Trek or something?
When did I say I was making comparisons to other races? I'm merely speculating that we should be put back into the evolutionary oven to bake a few more eons before we undertake this mission without fully understanding the implications.
As far as Star Trek goes, well, I don't know what to say there. I try to keep fiction out of my assessments of the real-world problems that I face. I'm not one to draw analogies from a 40 year old sci-fi show.
Surely we are the MOST developed of any creature we know, the most self-sacrficing, and the smartest.
Actually, I'd put dolphins ahead of us here.
You don't see and humans jumping through hoops at sea world for a fish, do you?
Again, the dolphins are in complete control here. Without them, humans wouldn't pay the insane ticket prices that fund the salaries of the fish-feeders, whose jobs are infinitely harder and have less day-to-day rewards than the jobs of, say, the dolphins.
Technological advancement is NOT a sign of intelligence, merely laziness. Most humans can figure out a VCR if you leave them alone with it for a little while. When most humans can BUILD a VCR from scratch, then I'll agree that we're sufficiently advanced enough to go gallavanting around the galaxy.
You, and the responses like yours, are short sighted - you have been blinded by your allegiance to your base protein structures and fail to take into account that fact that in no case is the subject of a study or experiment qualified to judge their own competence in that study or experiment. We should be judged by an independant counsel of extraterrestrial space explorers. So thpth!
Welcome to this guys world of monkey going to space, well I mean a monkey making a plan for a trip to space. Why? We all know in our minds this man is a retard, but what on earth could of POSSESED him to decide to help send people to Mars, YOU KNOW HOW MANY TRIPS THAT WOULD NEED!!: 1. The people (Duh!) 2. Life sustaining supplies 3. Gas for trip back home, and gas for that craft too! I think we are doing GREAT with the rovers.. Now he thinks he can splurge all of our money on a space exploration idea that is impossible, Mars, meh, I would like the moon idea, but the colonization is impossible. It would take a whole lot of remote controled robots to build the proverbial "Life sustenance dome" And then the supplies, hell, you thought imported luxiories were costly... Wait until you see this go up into flames, I only know 2 people who could pay for the moons "Importing fees" and "Astral-Tarrif" My dad's boss "the president/CEO" And Bill Gates, (better than a private island) To sum this up, this is stupid, unreasonable and quite down to earthly retarted (cute pun, huh) We need money for education, budget defecits, and medicare.. We need to take care of this before we can consider populating another big sphere.
but we didn't recover much before the war. Also we may very well have come out of the depression at about the same time without either a war or the new deal.
"We have got to make Stan understand the importance of voting, because he'll definitely vote for our guy." - South Park