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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."
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
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.
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
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!
$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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
...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
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.
And the dinosaurs couldn't handle one asteroid.
They will begin testing the Crew Exploration Vehicle in 2008, and will start using it by 2010 if it is ready. 2014 is the deadline to get it ready and doing maned missions. The old shuttle fleet may be used thru 2014 if the new one is not ready.
:(
ISS is supposed to be done by 2010 and moon base in 2015.
The bummer part is redirecting 11 billion of the current budget todo this. That means about 6-10 other missions will be canceled. Maybe it will be the Hubble space telescope replacement JWST.
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?
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
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
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.
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
This isn't mankind's idea, this is the idea of a United States president searching for ways to get himself re-elected without actually having to do anything, by setting crowd pleasing goals decades in advance that he will ultimately have no responsibility for.
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!
The problem is that there is still no person or organization that is qualified to speak for mankind, nor does mankind have an unified message it wishes to convey to the universe. Mankind's current technological maturity is already thousands of years more advanced than its social maturity, causing all sorts of problems from the vast inequities in use of the earth's resources, to the constant threat of planetwide annihilation. Unless we spend the next few hundred years building a more mature society that is capable of handling the technological advances it has brought upon itself, mankind is going to burn out (figuratively and literally) much sooner than you expect. You might even live to see the end yourself...
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
"That I could get excited about, backed by real funding now."
And there's the key. NASA had a budget of about 70 billion dollars in the 60s IIRC. Now it's about 15. Bush wants to provide another $11 billion for the moon and mars programs. That's still well under half of the *yearly* budget of NASA when we made it to the moon.
Getting a base there in 4-6 years would probably require funding back on that level. I don't think even *I* could support that when we're already have a deficit the size of Jupiter.
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.
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...
Going to Mars would probably cost far more than that. considering all the new tech than has to be developed, such as the new crew module, the lunar base, and whatever other vehicles it would take to go and land on Mars. From what i've heard it takes 9 months each way to get to Mars, plus they need to stay on the surface for around 2 years to wait for the next launch window to open. That's 3 1/2 years worth of food, water, and air they will need to either haul with them or figure out how to grow.
What kind of world do you live in where a budget doesn't have to take into account the current economic situation?
Tax cuts have reduced government revenue -- they haven't paid for jack. And the "stimulus" they've provided (much like the stimulus your lifestyle gets if you max out your credit card debt in a month) has not grown enough to cover the cuts themselves, let alone the drastic increase in spending Bush has overseen.
See this article for starters.
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.
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
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.
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)
Consider the Galileo probe, which lasted for 3 times as long as it was designed for, taking several times as much radiation as it was designed to and was built with 1980s technology and was only crashed because they didn't want to chance it crashing into a potentially-inhabited moon. Or Magellan, which was also built with similar technology, used aerobraking (which it wasn't designed for), similarly had an extended mission using 1980s technology. Or Mars Global Surveyor, which was built with 1990s technology and has similarly been doing research beyond its design lifespan.
They do, in fact, build them just as good, if not better, than they did in the 1960s. The shuttle's problems are design and engineering issues, not anything to do with what generation of technology they are.
In fact, overall, the whole "they don't build them like they used to" is just a case of survivor bias. Everything from the 1940s that still works is on the mutant end of the MTBF curve and everything that didn't has been junked.
Gentoo Sucks
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.
"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
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
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.
He won't. Read up a bit on his history, both as Texas governor and as US president.
His MO is to announce big, impressive new government efforts, get them passed - and then block their funding.
If his history is any guide, here's what he'd planning: He will get bills passed declaring missions to the moon, Mars, whatever. He'll get lots of publicity from this. Hidden in the bills will be the elimination of existing NASA programs. Then, when the funding bills come up, he and his cohort will work hard to make sure that the funding isn't passed.
The end result will be to terminate most existing NASA programs, and fund no new programs. But he'll talk loudly and often about the great space programs that he has established.
For further details, google for the phrase "starve the beast".
(But the US military will get funding for an expanded space effort. That should reassure everyone in the world.)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
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
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. 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 doesn't have any intention to go to the moon, or mars. He'll be out of office by then even if he gets elected. His dad suggested the same thing and it didn't happen. It isn't going to ever happen. We don't have the money and it isn't worth it anyway. Congress is never going to vote for it.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
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
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
"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.
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.
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.
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."
Wallets of Mass Destructions?
Weapons of Mass Distraction is more likely...
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
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?
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.
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?
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.
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 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. --
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
Ah, let me fix this for you.
Well, stop liberating people would be a good start.
There you go.
Well if he is black then they have improved his rights a ton.
If he is an illeagal alien then he has a far easier time getting employment and citizenship.
His average household income has gone up dramatically in his life. (NOTE: the average american home now has less people than in 1960)
The court system in America if FAR FAR FAR more liberal than it was in 1960, and tends to find in favor of ridiculous lawsuits against major companies.
America the most feared country in the world.... Well I guess you and I saw something different on TV when the U.S. came in and freed Iraq.
They have increased terrorism.... Umm.... let's see , you can either attack terrorist or be attacked. You obviously believe in negotiating with terrorist, and the current administration doesn't. Let's see now... negotiations has worked sooo well for Israel in the last 40 years... Please understand that I am not saying negotiate with other countries, but terrorist. There is a differece.
The U.S. is cutting back on... WTF? What do you call a cut? When the program gets $1 Billion a year and they don't get $2 Billion the next. Name a MAJOR program other than the military and NASA that has actually been cut. What people like to do is ask for a 100% increase in spending for their program and then when they only get 10% they say the administration CUT the budget.
You are either with us or with the terrorist.... Yep that is correct. It seems fairly clear. How many first or second world countries do you know that openly support terrorism? Why would they want to? If they do then aren't they basically declaring war on the U.S.? Should the U.S. wait until they kill another 3,000+ citizens before doing something? So to the previous poster... you are actually safer now, because the U.S. is not sitting by waiting for some governement funded terrorist to slam a plain in to your building.
They personally profit from the war... The U.S. and every other country that helped should gain some money back if possible. I understand that this is different than what you would do, i.e. give the terrist money and hope (but not pray) that they don't hurt us.
I could go on also.
The posters previous comments were on the mark. He has been given an opportunity to improve his social status with little true intervention from the government, short of possibly being drafted (he is too young for this).
Other things I can think of.
He has not had to worry about being gased. (Iraq)
He has not had to worry about starving. (Africa)
He has had one of the worlds best medical care.
He lived in a society that works to achive equality among it citizens.
His economy isn't run by the mob. (Italy)
His water is clean. (Africa and most 3rd world)
His information isn't driven by the government. (Many) Heck in this case it is just the opposite.
He could choose what type of career he wanted, and even still at 40+ could change it completely. (Ton)
He could get in to politics and drive the future of his country.
He could openly say how bad the U.S. is and how he hates our president. (kind of like you).
He has the ability to worship God freely.
America is a government by the people for the people... If you don't like it run for freaking office. Change it.
The more I learn about science, the more my faith in God increases.
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.
And today Congress would have told such an uppity President where to stick those balls and not passed his budget. And vast numbers of hyper-cynical citizens would have called Kennedy's challenge empty political posturing to woo the ignorant come next election. And every politician from the opposing party would have cut off one of their balls to keep the plan from working lest someone other than they look good.
The race to the moon was all about proving that the USA was better than those stinking commie Russians. Without that, we'd still be bickering amongst ourselves.
- Jasen.