Slashdot Mirror
The Fight Over NASA's Future
swestcott writes "The New York Times has an interesting article about the transition to the Obama administration and NASA's transition to the new Orion."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
NASA will last exactly as long as the American people are willing to keep spending money that we don't have and adding to the U.S. national debt. Coincidentally; that is also the exact lifespan of medicare/social security without income limits, the Iraq military budget, the government bailout packages, and the budgets of a wide variety of unnecessary pork projects.
Sadly, NASA is a drop in the bucket compared to most of this other stuff and is doing important research, but it is still money spent that we just don't have. And if we don't get the deficit under control soon, the U.S. government is probably going to be looking at bankruptcy somewhere around 2020. And if that happens, it's going to make this current financial crisis look like a sunday school picnic (we're talking Germany in the early 1920's bad).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I think that maybe the only photo I've ever seen with someone in normal clothing anywhere near a piece of kit belonging to NASA and going into space.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
NASA will last exactly as long as the American people are willing to keep spending money...
I agree, it seems to me that if NASA quite whining about tiny budgets and actually started working on cutting edge projects, a la Apollo, they might drum up some public and maybe some private enthusiasm and thus some more cash.
Why are they just just rehashing the same missions with different names and vehicles?
Yeah, I've got nothing...
TFNYTA seemed head and shoulders above what I've read of Aries before. This quote struck me:
TFS wasn't nearly as good; the transition team was barely mentioned. Actually I was glad; there was more discussion of the actual Aries project itself and the problems with abandoning space for a few years while Aries is being finished.
Free Martian Whores!
All my ho's are on Earth, they keep me ballin'. Plus outer "space" is a MYTH! God said that only the United States really exists, the rest is a wicket image produced by HOLLYWOOD LIBERALS, you know who I mean!
Troll biter's rehab. Damn but it's hard to ignore the clueless trolls. I guess I'm off the wagon again, I have to respond.
"Pork"? WTF??? Do you have any idea how many technological advances, especially in medicine, that have come from the space program?
Do you have cable TV? A cell phone? GPS? None of these would be possible were it not for the "pork spending" on space. All of them rely on sattelites.
"physics"? What kind of drooling anti-nerd can't understand that launching a heavy machine into outer space doesn't use physics?
"Chemistry?" You realise how much chemistry work is involved in fuels?
If I were modding I would be undecided whether to mod the parent as "troll" or "funny". Who let all these clueless MBAs in here anyway?
Free Martian Whores!
I'd like to see a move away from the Ares-Orion stack and a move towards the more versatile Jupitor plan.
I'd also like to see us make serious use of the press and make our move back to the Moon and eventually to Mars as much as an event as the original Mercury-Gemini-Apollo missions. You have to make it romantic for the public so they feel like writing their Congresscritters to support funding.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
Quit whining about budgets and work on cutting edge projects?
HELLOOOO
Why do you think they are not? Simple because their budget isn't there. They can't pie in the sky because they aren't getting money. They don't generate enough votes.
Politicians look for votes. Our money buys them votes. As such they will put the money to where it gets the most votes for the least investment. NASA is a large investment for a small return, 10 billion spent at NASA doesn't cover nearly as many votes as 10 billion on a new bridge or entitlement program. I am quite sure they have lots of CE projects on file, they just know they will not even get a hearing because the politicians are more concerned about feeding the greed of America's new looter class because that class keeps them in power.
Science and Math will become a priority when they generate votes. Just like your child's education, when those kids can vote then education will become a priority, they don't worry about the parents because every parent thinks their school is fine - its just those other schools. Hence education gets dumbed down, kids don't learn, instead of wanting to become a scientist they want to play ball and space sits out there waiting for a nation driven by pride and hard work will be the one to exploit it.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
NASA is being set up to fail, because of the prevailing pro-corporate attitude in the US. The idea is that private entities are efficient, responsible, and capable of long-term planning and technological development. So nobody wants to be accused of being 'socialist' by giving more money to a government agency.
The original Apollo program cost $135 billion in modern(ish) money over about 10 years:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_program#Program_costs_and_cancellation
Whereas Constellation is being given $3 billion a year for about 20 years, or about $60 billion in current money.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/expectmore/detail/10004394.2006.html
So the US government is expecting a great deal more, for a lot less money, when there has been no real development in interplanetary manned travel since Apollo.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
i worked for a government agency in partnership with NASA, and unfortunately we were told last year that our budget was stagnant for 3 years in a row and wasn't going up (possibly down).
it is pretty ridiculous to keep budgets stagnant or to lower them and then expect the same output or better. inflation, hardware price increases (we used a lot of legacy systems that were very expensive), annual raises (believe me, not much), and everything else make up the shoestring budget that we were running off of. i don't understand all of the NASA budget cuts. it is an investment into science and our future. and a lot more goes on under NASA than just rockets and spaceships.
"I don't frankly know what the answer is," [Dr. Crowley, of MIT] said, "but I know it's a lot closer and a lot more complicated answer than the one playing out in the media and the blogs."
I think they're talking about us.
===
But in all seriousness, the cost of running the shuttle for 5 years is $x and the cost of developing the Constellation program in 5 years is $y. Meanwhile, NASA's budget is not x+y and if they wanted to try to develop Constellation in 3 years its cost would be closer to $y^2.
It seems like people can't grasp the rudimentary guideline of engineering development: you've got limitations in quality, cost, and timeliness, and on any challenging project you need to pick one of those limitations that you won't particularly worry about.
I do like the articles conclusion though... NASA's budget is way too small for the amount of good that it can do for the world and for the amount of high-tech science jobs that it can create. As long as everybody in the nation has food, shelter, telecommunications, and power... there is no reason NASA's budgets shouldn't balloon.
Support the 30 Hour Work Week!!!
there has been no real development in interplanetary manned travel since Apollo.
Sure, but there has been Apollo. We already went there. That's supposed to change some things.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
I agree that more money should be directed towards NASA but it's not like they are starting from ground zero. Even the basic research from the Apollo program is a good start.
If you want to die in a fire, then I suggest you go do so.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
NASA is being set up to fail, because of the prevailing pro-corporate attitude in the US.
One can only hope that this "prevailing attitude" actually does prevail.
The idea is that private entities are efficient, responsible, and capable of long-term planning and technological development.
Provided they are not influenced by the possibility of government manipulation of the economy, yes. Have we seen such a system to date? No.
Man, I like this guy more and more every day! "Mr. Obama expressed support for NASA and criticized the five-year gap between the scheduled end of the space shuttle program in 2010 and the planned debut of the first components of the new system"
Having a missile that can orbit the earth gives it the ability to have a longer range. Also, having a satellite that can shoot a laser with pinpoint accuracy would surely be very handy. In WWII and the Cold War eras aerial dominance was of great importance. That's partly why the Soviets and USA scrapped over the German technology after the WWII. Now however the main threat seems to be from the ground in suprise attacks carried out by organisations rather than countries. Why risk getting hit with nukes when you can hire an external 'terrorist' group to do your bidding? Thing is, although the newish threat of terrorism grabs all the news, the old threats are still there too. Or maybe the government just wants to scare you so that you become more 'patriotic' and allow them to hold power.
That's heresy in some quarters, but at this point, I don't think we can justify another trip to the moon, because we certainly aren't going to Mars anytime soon anyway, which was the whole point of going back to the Moon in the first place... to begin the process of setting up a Lunar base for future Mars exploration.
As expensive as it is, right now, the Shuttle is actually useful for some tasks that we're committed to... ISS support, for instance. The whole Orion program was basically just a re-do of Saturn/Apollo anyway. And we shouldn't do that if it's just out of nostalgia. It has to actually accomplish something significant.
During the 60's and the first race to the moon, NASA engineers were told that money wasn't a problem, time was. Unfortunately, money is very much a problem right now, and the "money is no object" days are long gone. Like anything else the federal government does, NASA's activities need a justification for the price. I simply don't think we can justify another moonshot right now.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
That raises an interesting point. How do you take a poo in zero gravity? (Side note -- that gives a whole new meaning to a "floater"!). Do they just wear diapers? Do they sit on suction seats?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
You're a fucking retard. Cell phones won't work without a master timing source (GPS). The content for Cable TV is distributed by satellite. You fail, miserably.
So... what exactly is your point? This is like arguing with a college student over why idealistic communism will fail.
Turns out reality has quite a bit more variables involved in it than Locke or Marx previously considered.
The moon program was sold in a time when people in the US were afraid of a world ruled by Soviets. Manned space travel needs to be sold better, or rather, it needs a reason to be. Science is a hard sell since robots can do maybe 95% of the same work with maybe 5% of the budget.
Actually, we have no freaking clue what killed the dinosaurs. But even if it was a meteorite/asteroid (as you smugly imply), it would still be a LOT smarter to pump our money into digging tunnels here on earth (where we at least have large existing supplies of oxygen, water, geothermal heat, and survivable atmospheric pressure) than pumping it into a pipe-dream of surviving the MUCH more hostile environs of any other reachable planetary body. Even after a large asteroid hit, I'd still rather be on Earth than anywhere else in the solar system.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Here is a video on how they work http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7425960.stm
for text try http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=getting-a-handle-on-space
Even after a large asteroid hit
Why do we have to take the hit if we have a workable space program? I'd rather deflect the damn thing than start digging tunnels while meekly accepting the fact that the vast majority of the human race and biosphere would die off.
The space program is pretty cheap if you look at it that way.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Turns out reality has quite a bit more variables involved in it than Locke or Marx previously considered.
That's a nice little bald assertion you've got there. Were you planning to affix any content to that... or were you hoping it would stand on its own?
I disagree. A large portion of US Government owned patents come from NASA. These patents are then licensed out, or auctioned off in exchange for money. Give them funding to create money for themselves and US. It's only a liability if you refuse to utilize it as an asset. Where the other things you mentioned are pork, funding NASA can easily reap economic benefits if the administration in charge would choose to use it like they did back in the 1960's.
How does that help you making a launcher with specs comparable to those of the Saturn V? Not much.
You just got troll'd!
and when we see the Russians and the Chinese putting miltary bases on the moon with nuclear missles what are we going to do about it?
Sure it will be in violation of treaty, but how will they care if they can reign down Nukes from the Moon and LEO.
The threat of hostile nations doing things with the Moon we would not like is more relevent now then in the 1960's. China has stated there intentions of putting a man on the moon by the end of the next decade. Putin is bringing back the old Russia of the 1960's. If we want to mantain parity in the world, we need to get our asses to the Moon and Mars or we will find ourselves irrelevent.
NASA needs to be folded into the Department of Defense and given as much money as possible. This is a matter of National Security, and the fact Obama is treating it as an extra just shows how much he disrespects the one thing in the Constitution that Federal Government is authorized to provide. Not social programs for welfare dead beat moms who can't keep their legs closed, but to provide for the common defense.
The second point is operative today. The domestic economy is in meltdown. Going ahead with this program is akin to giving the aerospace industry a bailout. If it needs one, then let's just give them the money outright.
No statement is true, not even this one.
Okay, sure. There are approximately 6 billion people in the world, all with their own particular values and opinions. You could surely collapse some values of certain swathes of people into a group of norms, but we're still talking at least hundreds of thousands of viewpoints, if not millions (depends on how specifically you try to categorize said opinions). Just looking at their books and various other writings, I can easily assume that they did not take into consideration hundreds of thousands of viewpoints. Therefor, they did not take into consideration all of the variables involved in reality.
I do not have to get more specific than that. They may have focused on the most prevalent viewpoints, but to say they considered every last aspect of humanity's individuality and its' effects on the average social viewpoints is patently absurd. The problem is, since everybody is different, the interplay between the individual and the social norm is subtle. The best way to describe the reality of society is to liken it to determining the weather. Chaos theory, perhaps, describes it best.
In essence, Marx and Locke focused on abstracts. The problem is reality has so many specific instantiations of unforseeable behavior that their economic models tend to break down the moment you put them into play with large groups of people. These models then need "fixes" applied, like patches, over time. It's not to say that Locke or Marx were idiots; they were quite intelligent men, regardless of your opinion on their socio-economic models. But to say the abstract models they specified will work flawlessly in society is foolishness. Every model currently in play in the world is an example of that. They were adopted with the purest of intentions, but patch after patch was overlaid upon them to rectify some perceived flaw in some specific case. Then you get American Capitalism, British Capitalism, German Socialism, Vietnamese Communism, Chinese Communism, etc, etc. They're all examples of how these models broke down upon entering society. In an ideal world, no one would want to modify the models at all, and then Locke or Marx's utopia would flourish and everyone would be dancing in the street as they basked in the fruits of their perceived "right way to live" socio-economic model.
But it has never happened and it never will happen, and therein is the entire point I was trying to make.
That's a nice little bald assertion you've got there. Were you planning to affix any content to that... or were you hoping it would stand on its own?
That's a nice little attack on his post you've got there. Were you planning to affix any content to that... or were you hoping it would stand on its own?
You can be lazy on calling people out on their ineffective arguments, but not many people will care if you don't provide any evidence to oppose such a post. And no, I don't care either way to comment on the topic, I'm just suggesting that your posts are as constructive to the conversation as this one is.
It depends a lot on where the money needs to be spent. There have been a lot of advancements in technology (especially computers) since the 60s, so I imagine that pretty much the entire control system would have to be replaced. Plus it's a larger rocket and a larger capsule which will require new design rules and testing. And it's hard to imagine that the price to actually build and operate the thing, once designed, has dropped a lot. The raw materials are still the same and the fuel is governed by physics more than by brilliance of design. (Given that it's bigger and has more people, costs have probably risen.)
Simply knowing the aerodynamics of rockets might not be that much of a savings. Or it might be; I can't say without better information than I think any of us here has.
The government budget is controlled by corporate interests who bribe our politicians. The only role of the 'American people' is to pay for it.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Actually, we have no freaking clue what killed the dinosaurs. But even if it was a meteorite/asteroid (as you smugly imply),
Given the evidence, the odds point to it almost certainly being an asteroid that did the deed. The crater at the same time, the iridium deposits, etc, all support the theory. Can we say that it was an asteroid without a shadow of a doubt? No, there is a slight possibility it was something different, but we're a hell of a long way from having "no clue" as to what did it. That's the same backwards ass thinking that throws up evolution as "just a theory" every time it's brought up.
As to the rest of your post, as another poster pointed out, a space program is far more useful in deflecting asteroids than in evacuating the whole planet. Something as simple as parking a satellite next to the incoming body for long enough (talking a span of years/decades here) can gravitationally perturb it enough to move it off of a collision course.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Why is it urgent to fly into space, just leave it a while and do it later.
Except that diverting an asteroid from hitting Earth isn't really NASA's area of expertise.
The response for such a threat would involve nuclear missiles almost certainly delivered by existing (or modifications of) ICBM rockets and infastructure.
...it would still be a LOT smarter to pump our money into digging tunnels here on earth (where we at least have large existing supplies of oxygen, water, geothermal heat, and survivable atmospheric pressure) than pumping it into a pipe-dream of surviving the MUCH more hostile environs of any other reachable planetary body.
So basically what you're smugly implying here is to... bury our heads in the dirt? Fascinating
Okay, sure. There are approximately 6 billion people in the world, all with their own particular values and opinions. You could surely collapse some values of certain swathes of people into a group of norms, but we're still talking at least hundreds of thousands of viewpoints, if not millions (depends on how specifically you try to categorize said opinions). Just looking at their books and various other writings, I can easily assume that they did not take into consideration hundreds of thousands of viewpoints. Therefor, they did not take into consideration all of the variables involved in reality.
Please note that the viewpoints of the irrational need not reflect reality. That Euclid did not discuss the feelings of triangles should not count against him. I will acknowledge that most people have not considered all viewpoints, but am not sure what your point is. We were originally talking about economics, and you've somehow drifted off to social studies.
In essence, Marx and Locke focused on abstracts. The problem is reality has so many specific instantiations of unforseeable behavior that their economic models tend to break down the moment you put them into play with large groups of people.
I will not defend Marx, with whom I completely disagree, nor even Locke, who founded natural rights in the Divine. With respect to your argument, though, I can respond.
The reason your argument bears no relation to mine - essentially, you are talking past me - is that you measure a model's success by its results. This is quite common today. Most people take the pragmatic approach of supporting any and all actions that get the most convenient, immediate, positive results to them, without regard for the means involved, or for the long-term consequences of such actions. You are right to say that in such a viewpoint as has been widely accepted (by yourself included), it is impossible to construct a model that will succeed. There are indeed too many variables.
For me, however, the ends do not justify the means. The means are everything. Thus the appeal of my argument is in its support for individual rights, not necessarily in the outcome. However I do think the outcome would be beneficial to the producer and consumer in the long run, although certainly not universally true. But the goal is not to help everyone all the time - such is merely the goal of central planning, to which I am opposed. The goal is freedom to pursue your values without force from or directed toward others.
Think again. Most of the deflection strategies I've seen don't necessarily require the use of nuclear weapons. Even if you were to use nukes to accomplish it though you wouldn't be using ICBMs to deliver them. ICBMs don't have the energy to achieve earth orbit -- let alone escape velocity.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
You need to look at Direct Space Transportation System...
The dinosaurs died because they didn't have a space program.
Why do you say that? Because some asteroid hit the planet and wiped them out? Maybe they just didn't have ships large enough to get the entire dino population off of the planet. Maybe they didn't have anything large enough to deflect the killer asteroid. Maybe there's a fleet of dinosaur ark ships fleeing to another star right this very moment.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
An interesting idea. But there is just one problem is equating this with NASA. NASA has, AFAIK, never done any research into deflecting asteroids and has never implemented or even proposed such a program.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
That's a nice little bald assertion you've got there. Were you planning to affix any content to that... or were you hoping it would stand on its own?
That's a nice little attack on his post you've got there. Were you planning to affix any content to that... or were you hoping it would stand on its own?
That's a nice little attack on his attack on the original post you've got there. Were you planning to affix any content to that... or were you hoping it would stand on its own?
You all suck. My evidence: your perty lips and vacuum inducing lungs.
How does space exploration have "no obvious returns"? The return is the ability to travel into space. Just because something is not profitable doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile.
This is why corporate space exploration will never be any good.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Yeah, lets just keep all of our eggs in one earth sized basket, where resources are limited and ecology is failing due to overpopulation. Awesome!
"Science is a hard sell since robots can do maybe 95% of the same work with maybe 5% of the budget."
Exactly, and that was even the case during the Apollo missions. Kennedy had been told that, in terms of science, all the work planned for human astronauts could be done by robots, which would be less dangerous and less expensive. Of course, non-scientists are not really aware of this...
Palm trees and 8
Spare me the neoliberal party line. Its clear your philosophy is bankrupt by opening any newspaper these days.
The profit motive isn't any good for driving large space exploration, for the same reason it isn't any good for managing credit risks; prices can only reflect what has happened before and have zero value in forecasting future risks.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
I'm not sure it matters so much where the money has to be spent - you can't expect 75% cost reductions in an area of design and manufacture that has been pretty much untouched since the last time it was attempted, 40 years ago.
There has been work done on space habitation aboard the ISS, but that is one of the easiest parts - there has been no work done since Apollo on manned planetary landers or very heavy lift rockets such as Saturn V.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Actually, I was always discussing sociology. I was discussing economic models and their implementation in reality. You cannot have a reality involving humans without social studies being integral. I guess you missed that part of my previous statement (way up there, when I mentioned "reality"). That was (in my opinion) the important part of my statement. I fear you may have focused on the rest and not on that one part. A communication error, perhaps.
I definitely see what you're saying and I can respect it. However, idealism rarely gets us anywhere. Invariably, ones ideals clash with another's. Then it's a question of struggle.
I, personally, try to avoid ideals, especially fanatic devotion to any ideal. I've seen where zealotry leads, and I have no desire to be there.
I guess my main problem with your position is that you seem to ignore that a large portion of the people feel that social programs (those things you don't feel governments should be in charge of) are important aspects of government. Is not government supposed to reflect the will of the majority of the people? Have they not used their most valued right (the right to vote) to make their voice and opinions heard? Have they not collectively decided that government's role should be expanded beyond protecting interstate commerce and defense?
I'm only surmising here, but I imagine your response would be "their right to define the government they desire is fine, as long as it falls within the boundaries of the constitution, which protects the rights of the minority from the majority". If so, my response to that would be "fair enough, but do you really want to force the issue? If it came down to allowing a federal government with social services, possibly in contradiction of the constitution, or amending the constitution, which do you think will really end up happening?"
I'm only speculating here, but people in our society have gotten used to social programs on some level or another. I cannot imagine an amendment to the constitution allowing the federal government to participate in social programs.
(I apologize if that wasn't going to be your response; feel free to correct me :D)
Again, it would be much easier and smarter to figure out how to preserve our existing ecology and resources than to attempt to colonize planets which have no ecology or resources to begin with.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I didn't "equate" it with NASA. I used it as a justification for keeping a workable space program in place. You seemed to shoot down the idea because it's a "pipe-dream" to think we'd be able to survive on other bodies within the solar system. I pointed out that a space program gives us multiple options -- including saving our own planet.
Besides, if not NASA, then who? Do we have another institution with similar spaceflight experience that I'm not aware of?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I'll tell you what my grandma always used to tell me when I was a little kid: "Better to have your head in the dirt breathing oxygen than standing on a planet with no atmospheric pressure trying to breath methane."
Grandma was a strange woman, but her advice does hold true.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Just exactly how would you breathe methane with no atmospheric pressure?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
This is why corporate space exploration will never be any good.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. If we are really facing a metals shortage here on Earth that could change. There's a whole solar system full of resources just waiting to be utilized.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
It will always be cheaper to find alternative materials here on Earth than it will be to bring them from space (at least with any technology we can expect to see in our lifetime). The ONLY way for mankind to start moving out into the solar system is to abandon the idea that everything must make a monetary profit.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
"ICBMs don't have the energy to achieve earth orbit -- let alone escape velocity.
Yes they do. Most modern ICBM's might not, but the older generations certainly can do both. Remember, the Russians used a modified ICBM to put Sputnik in orbit!
There has been much research done into the use of a small, dense spacecraft to alter the orbit of an Earth intersecting asteroid gravitationally over many successive passes. This is much safer than blowing it out of the sky, which would leave a large number of smaller objects all traveling the same path as the larger one was, and is possible with the technology we currently have.
Keep in mind, the first intentional RF transmissions sent by Hertz, which are admittedly very weak compared to what we broadcast today, have been travelling for about 130 years now. There are approximately 100,000 stars within that distance, and according to some interpretations of Drake's equation, there is about a 1:1000 odds of another intelligent, space faring civilization within that sphere. We don't want to be sitting around worrying about bridges to nowhere and socialized medicine when a hostile race that objects to us bombarding them with boy bands comes seeking vengeance.
Ignorance is Bliss -- And the Opposite is True -- Genius is Madness
And if it didn't exist, they'd use another. Hence satellites are not necessary for cellphones. Not that all phones are CDMA anyway.
I never said they weren't, in fact I never mentioned those uses. But Important != necessary. Columbus managed to cross the Atlantic without it. The Egyptians built fairly accurate pyramids without it. Kids today are just soft.
Of course not, and I never said otherwise. But cable TV has been around a long time, and it's not that long ago that the satellite links had to be booked in advance and were very expensive, hence they were only used for really special events. That's if they worked at all. In other words, satellites are not a necessary prerequiste for cable TV as Mr Soon-to-be-homeless stated. For some of the content, obviously yes, but that's a different issue. You might as well say that the internet won't function without a camera, because you need one to make pr0n.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I put a pie into low earth orbit on Christmas Eve. Unfortunately I miscalculated so the orbit was unstable and rapidly degraded. The pie didn't burn up on re-entry, though it did make a rather large mess on the kitchen floor.
Let me tell you how grandma died...
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
What makes you think they didn't have a space program? More importantly, what makes you think they are all dead?
I find it highly suspicious that we haven't been hit with an ELE from space in the past 60 million years. The most probable explanation for that would seem to be that, roughly 60 million years ago, someone or something blasted off into space with a mission to protect the earth from future bombardment.
It was probably the raptors (it always is). I'm guessing they saved as many as they could in the seed ships while sending hunter-killer probes after near-earth asteroids. Even now, a society of hyper evolved Raptors are probably awakening from their cryogenic fugue out in the Ort cloud. Any day, they'll be sending a probe our way to evaluate the habitability of Earth as they've no doubt done every 20 million years or so.
What's gonna happen when they find out an infestation of not so furry primates have taken over and are now molding the remains of their ancestors into cheap plastic hello kitty christmas ornaments? I'm guessing they'll either capture a comet from the Ort cloud and send it hurtling our way, wipe us out with death beams from space, or send crack teams of Raptor ninjas down to exterminate us in hand to hand combat.
Oh, it matters. If a substantial fraction of the cost for Apollo was just figuring out how the heck a rocket that size *works* and what people needed for the missions, we'd save a bundle of money by using that research again. I think that that's more or less what the post I was responding to assumed.
But I doubt that such costs were really a huge fraction of the Apollo cost to begin with and you seem to concur.
I love the idea of exploration for its own sake as much as the next man. However, when you're talking about government financing, you're asking the man on the street to bankroll it. In times of prosperity it may be defensible to take a substantial chunk of the budget and spend it on prestige projects, but I think it's a hard sell in a recession. Manned space exploration, in particular, has always been more expensive than unmanned space exploration, with greater risks entailed. Prestige/awesome factor aside, the real winner is the aerospace industry (or whomever gets the contract). If we're going to prop them up, wouldn't the money be better spent on newer, more fuel-efficient airliners?
No statement is true, not even this one.
NASA is being set up to fail, because of the prevailing pro-corporate attitude in the US. The idea is that private entities are efficient, responsible, and capable of long-term planning and technological development.
No. The idea is that greed is one hell of a motivator, and "let's get reliable space flight so that we can sell tickets to a space hotel" is potentially astronomically profitable. Consider an analogy with commercial aviation. The military gave airplanes a big bootstrap by proving the basic ideas useful and practical, but it really took off once pilots brought their war experience home and applied it to mail and cargo delivery, and later passenger travel.
Where would we be today if private companies had never risked air travel? Earthbound. Where are we today without private companies risking space travel? Earthbound. Don't get me wrong; I love NASA and I'm glad they're doing big projects. At the same time, I personally will never get to fly on a NASA mission. There's a real chance that I might get to reach space on a Virgin Galactic flight some day.
For reasons both selfish and historical, I really want to see private enterprise moving into space. As with airplanes, the government has proven the ideas to be useful and practical. Now it's time for corporations to make it common and cheap.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Talk about brevity.
"The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." -- John Ashcroft
From TFA:
Building a new rocket "is a hard thing," Dr. Crawley said, and initial test flights often end in embarrassment or even disaster because everything in a very complex system has to go right. "It's one strike and you're out," he said. "If you put every day of its development under a microscope, you'll find plenty of things to write about."
Right. I seem to recall having a lot of scrutiny from the Mercury moments on. We got to the moon. The American public shuddered at failures because we were behind in the space race - but they didn't kill the program. The arguments then were same as now - one side for, one side against the spending. But either way, the press provided what today's society needed a new term for - radical transparency (or some such buzz nonsense).
Didn't have that in the shuttle program. Part may have been the perceived lack of public interest (or abysmal NASA PR and abysmal reporting) - but either way, the press didn't step up to the plate and NASA was ok with that. In fact, NASA was insanely ok with that lack of oversight right down to the point that Dr. Richard Feynman - being ignored as an old man - sitting in the back row of a congressional hearing, decided to mention what happened to O-ring rubber in the styrofoam cup of ice water he was holding.
Think I'm out there or over-reacting? I can prove I'm not. Again, from the TFA, in reference to a competing system:
But that concept has gained few followers, and in April, Richard Gilbrech, NASA's associate administrator for exploration systems at the time, testified before the House Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics that "we can't justify, based on laws of physics, the performance" claimed by the plan's proponents.
Let that sink in people.
We've got a guy from NASA telling the US House of Representatives that some people at NASA are able to propose programs but at the same time are incapable of doing proper energy balance equations where propulsion is concerned.
Read that last sentence again and tell me how this or any other program at NASA should not be put under the brightest microscope we can find - on a daily basis.
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
Correct. Modified. In that they added four extra boosters to increase the burn thrust of the first stage. ICBMs don't have the capacity to put payload into orbit, but if you throw enough money at the problem, you can fairly rapidly strap a enough boosters at it to make it do so.
The return is the ability to travel into space...This is why corporate space exploration will never be any good.
Space exploration will absolutely be profitable in the future. How many people have signed up for just a plane ride into space with virgin galactic? How many more would be willing to pay millions of dollars to visit a space hotel? How much profit have satellites generated? Space exploration is already paying off in that respect. How many inventions came out of NASA during its big push to the moon? We wouldn't have any of that without space exploration.
Besides, when it comes to science, you should never say "never". It's a good bet that what will end up as the most profitable (in any sense of the word) part of the space program is something that hasn't even been dreamed of yet. Right now space is profitable for corporation, in not too long it'll be profitable for virgin galactic, and in the long term nobody can say how it will be profitable.
Further, people talk about spending money on "space" like we take the dollars, stuff 'em in a rocket, and shoot it off. Those dollars are spent here, on earth, and create jobs and opportunities for lots of people. Not to mention the spinoffs we get as a byproduct.
We can either just give money away (welfare), or spend it to create jobs and knowledge. I prefer the later.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Keep in mind, the first intentional RF transmissions sent by Hertz, which are admittedly very weak compared to what we broadcast today, have been travelling for about 130 years now.
Is that actually valid though? I seem to recall reading something a number of years ago that suggested that most RF modulation techniques would fade to background noise within three or four light years.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
It will always be cheaper to find alternative materials here on Earth than it will be to bring them from space (at least with any technology we can expect to see in our lifetime)
That's a pretty pessimistic viewpoint. Luna is nearby and is rich in helium-3 (which will be incredibly valuable when we figure out how to make fusion work) among other resources.
The ONLY way for mankind to start moving out into the solar system is to abandon the idea that everything must make a monetary profit.
Where do you get the idea that mankind thinks EVERYTHING must make a profit? We already engage in any number of activities that don't produce profit.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Wow. Best troll ever. You win, sir.
Ok, let's give it a shot:
And the trump card...
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
Oh please.
Even if it really was an asteroid that killed the dinosaurs (we don't know for sure as others have pointed out), the real reason dinosaurs died was that they had insufficient ability to adapt to a changing environment.
Although a hit on a large metropolis would obviously be a major disaster for the people in the region, the existence of a sentient race like ours is not seriously threatened by asteroids.
I might add that the number of people killed by asteroids over all of human history is dwarfed by the number of people killed in wars, or the number of people killed in famines or epidemics, or car crashes, for that matter. I see no reason to believe this will change in the next few centuries.
The whole asteroid thing doesn't even make the top 100 of threads to humankind. Stop believing everything Hollywood throws at you.
Maybe there's a fleet of dinosaur ark ships fleeing to another star right this very moment.
I guess that would be the 'D' Ark? Was it filled with dino-telephone sanitizers, middlemen, and hairdressers? I hope it doesn't end up like the 'B' Ark from Golgafrincham.
Cheers!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Yeah, it's not like there have been any major advances in computer-aided design or modeling since then. And materials research has been at a STANDSTILL.
And don't even get me started on the sorry state of the slide-rule industry...
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Cabin bellow rockets (Shuttle) was wrong. The narrow lower part of these rocket is also wrong. Yes, it's cool-looking, but it would be unstable.
NASA failed back in the 70s and because it is a government program it has continued to get funding. A private company is not suppose to do that. Of course the more everyone is accepting government dependence the more bailouts we will see until finally there will no longer be a free market and the ministry of plenty will provide all of our needs as they see fit. I for one welcome our new big brother overlord.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
They'll just bring along a tanker of barbecue sauce.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Its clear your philosophy is bankrupt by opening any newspaper these days.
Ah, yes, I recall reading those newspapers telling me that some idiots had pissed away tens of billions of dollars, and so instead of allowing them to go bankrupt we needed to take hundreds of billions of dollars from people who weren't pissing them away, all to fix the economy. How's that working out for us? The central planners are now in charge to the tune of trillions, so the economy should be all fixed now, right?
it isn't any good for managing credit risks
Really? The profiteers are getting handed bailout money by the trillions of dollars right now; they seem to have managed their own risks just fine. Of course, the rest of us might wish that their risks hadn't been taken with our money, but that was "teh gubment"'s doing, not just the market's.
prices can only reflect what has happened before and have zero value in forecasting future risks.
Really? So if people forecast that there's likely to be a future risk of a shortage in some commodity, and try to buy up that commodity early to prepare, you don't think that will cause the commodity's price to rise in the present based on those future forecasts? It's good of you to make it especially clear to us that you're not an economics major, but you hardly needed to worry; that was clear from your previous sentences as well.
I was being a bit facetious, you are correct that a frequency or phase modulated signal degrades to a very low signal to noise ratio as it passes through the dust clouds surrounding our solar system, however, the amplitude modulation of our earlier AM broadcasts is much easier to detect even with frequency drift and increased background noise. I was also off on my odds for there being life there, left off an order of magnitude, so it should be 1:10000. Of course, the Drake equation needs to be updated with newer values given the recent discoveries of the abundance of planets orbiting other stars.
Ignorance is Bliss -- And the Opposite is True -- Genius is Madness
by profit you really mean motive. Profit is just one type of motive although the most powerful one. Others may be pure good will, betterment of mankind or because it is there. Although in the end profit really covers good will and the betterment of mankind as well. Perhaps not monetary initially though. So you're really left with either do it for profit or do it just because it is there and/or nobody else has done it.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
The scary thing isn't the impact site, or the earthquakes, or the monster tidal waves. It's when the ejecta starts reentering the atmosphere and surface temperatures reach 1500 degrees Fahrenheit.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Its like a camping trip. Your first one you pack everything you can think of and forget toilet paper. You're later ones you bring what you need + some emergency supplies. Eventually you want a full on RV with all home essentials in it.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Actually no they didn't
Older ICBMs like the Atlas, R-7 "I think", and Titan had to throw really big and heavy warheads. They all could put a lighter satellite into orbit.
Modern US missiles have less throw weight but even then a Peacekeeper or Trident could reach orbit with a light enough load.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Bailouts should NEVER be just gifts of cash (as recently done). A quid-pro-quo should always be demanded. A space program as a bailout is not good (it should be done for itself), but it's far superior to a cash handout.
Similarly, the bailout of the finance sector should have resulted in massive government ownership and control of the sector. It should have then sold those things off as quickly as the market would bear, but a cash handout was extremely bad. It follows an extremely bad precedent and maintains it. The lesson is "It's ok to gamble recklessly with other peoples money. If you lose, someone else will pay."
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
And exactly what you are saying is why Democracy is doomed to fail. When everyone has a right to vote for what they may or may not get they'll eventually vote themselves benefits for which the economy cannot sustain. Why not just have a vote to make everyone a millionaire? Too much money?...how about $500k?....$1k?...$500? If handing out money some how makes everything better why is the economic stimulus so low? why not make everyone a millionaire?
The fight from the personal rights advocates are afraid of this eventual collapse, while the government support people look at the poor and seemingly neglected people and wish for them to have more. Both think they are right and both have a basis in a moral "good." Neither will function wholly in any kind of pure form. Between pure Free Market and pure Communism we have socialism. Socialism can be scaled in either direction closer to Free Market or pure Communism. finding the sweet spot is the difficult part and will be very dependent on culture.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Although a hit on a large metropolis would obviously be a major disaster for the people in the region, the existence of a sentient race like ours is not seriously threatened by asteroids.
A hit on a large metropolis, say New York City, by an object the size of a large family car would likely obliterate the Big Apple. Get up to the size of a medium home, and most of the state of New York would be devastated, this is approximately the estimated size of the object that caused Meteor Crater, Arizona. These are merely examples of a land impact, an ocean impact would cause tidal waves that would sweep the globe and resonate for months if not years, and possibly puncture the thinner crust beneath the ocean. The K-T impact was likely caused by an object about the size of an office building, leaving a crater a couple hundred miles across whose outline is still visible from space, saturating the atmosphere with iridium dust that can be found all over the world at the same geological time-depth.
I might add that the number of people killed by asteroids over all of human history is dwarfed by the number of people killed in wars, or the number of people killed in famines or epidemics, or car crashes, for that matter. I see no reason to believe this will change in the next few centuries.
It only takes one big one, and 10,000 years, or near enough, of recorded history is nothing compared to geological timescales.
Ignorance is Bliss -- And the Opposite is True -- Genius is Madness
There will ALWAYS be problems of one sort or another with the economy, wars, social security, health services, energy, and so on. If we always have to solve every other problem first then it will NEVER get done. And we may only realize the fact when it's much too late...
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
A hit on a large metropolis, say New York City, by an object the size of a large family car would likely obliterate the Big Apple...
Yeah, but the likelihood of that happening is so tiny, you might as well start worrying about spontaneous human combustion.
It only takes one big one, and 10,000 years, or near enough, of recorded history is nothing compared to geological timescales.
Precisely. Therefore, it is a waste of resources to plan against events that are infrequent even on a geological timescale. Let's focus on the threats that have more than a snowballs chance in hell to affect us or our children, shall we?
Well whatever killed the dinosaurs, keeping all their eggs in one basket did not help matters.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
"Whether or not others agree with me does not change the fact that projects such as this are entirely outside the proper role of government."
That's not true. They are outside the role of the US government, as stated by the Constitution. Whether or not it is proper is a mater of opinion.
If you were to ask me, I'd say that the government has no proper role whatsoever.
You've confused the right to vote with the right to others' money - the latter does not exist. Voting to take others' money away does not justify that action - it is still a violation of their rights. From there your whole argument, which was merely an appeal to middle ground, disappears.
As for your attempt to separate yourself from the notoriety of communism - the only difference between communism and socialism is the degree to which rights are violated. The same rights are being violated under both systems, and thus they should both be vehemently rejected.
I was referring to recorded human history as being insignificantly short compared to geological timescales. Asteroid impacts are fairly common on the geological scale, the Arizona impact being only about 50,000 years ago. Asteroid Apophis, which is due to make a very close approach in 2029 and again in 2036, below the level of geosynchronous satellites, would not require much of a nudge to send it crashing to Earth, and it is definitely of the dinosaur killer size, being over 300m in diameter.
I'm not saying there aren't other things to worry about for the future, but we shouldn't neglect an important area of exploration and discovery because you are more likely to need another stop-gap solution for alternative fuels than a viable defense against world-changing, life-ending impacts. You are more likely to be killed in a car accident than be struck by lightning, but that doesn't make it safe to sit under a tall tree during a thunderstorm.
Ignorance is Bliss -- And the Opposite is True -- Genius is Madness
It's a lot smarter and safer to colonize and try to expand our knowledge and resources as far as we can, so if something happens to our single planet like a meteor strike, humanity will live on and be able to rebuild without being thrown into the stone age.
I'm sure you would prefer if the internet resided on one computer alone, right?
This is certainly true, at least of what I've read, of Locke, who philosophized in the abstract about natural law and its application in the political realm. It is considerably less true of Marx, though if all you've read of Marx is the Communist Manifesto -- written, as its name suggests, as a political platform -- I can see where you would get that idea.
A large portion of US Government owned patents come from NASA. These patents are then licensed out, or auctioned off in exchange for money. And that's the patent system is such a revolting mess: Uncle Sam is in on the scam!
No, its not. The US Government literally cannot go bankrupt. Nor is there any particularly well-justified reason to expect a crisis of any kind due to government finance around 2020.
Well, after all, it's not rocket science... No, Wait!
Been watching Distant Origin?
What would worry me here is NASA's history. The Apollo 1 fire. Challenger. Columbia. The common thread in all of them is NASA engineers saying "We have a problem, we need to stop and fix it.", and NASA management going "It's OK, we haven't had a problem yet.". So when I hear NASA engineers saying "This isn't going to work.", and NASA management going "Everything's going to work, we just need to fix a few little things.", I start wondering what reason I have to believe things aren't going to work out just like the last few times.
NASA engineers are really good at solving problems. NASA management is very bad at acknowledging they have a problem that the engineers need to solve.
with all due respect to michael griffin and all of his phd's...to hell with the moon, we need to concentrate on the earth, basicly, the united states and the people that are trying to keep their homes but, we already knew this...
I've been doing materials research! so far i've found that fire is still hot.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
Well, since you asked...
The Jupiter is a straightforward evolution of the Shuttle system into a traditional rocket. 1) The Shuttle itself is removed from the stack. 2) The external tank is modified and strengthened to carry a payload on top and engines on the bottom. 3) The three expensive shuttle main engines are replaced by two expendable engines and moved to the bottom of the external tank. 4) A 10 meter payload fairing is mounted on top of the fuel tank, with a capacity of up to 20 tons of hardware. 5) The Orion spacecraft is placed on top of the payload fairing. 6) A crew escape system is placed on top of the Orion.
Now, that sounds complicated, but it is much simpler once you see the results: DIRECT Launcher.
What that gives you is a versatile rocket for placing a six man crew PLUS 20 tons of cargo at the space station in a single launch. This configuration by itself is almost a complete replacement for the Shuttle, except for the Shuttle's ability to return payloads to Earth. Or, the Jupiter could lift 50 tons of payload to LEO in an unmanned configuration. Ares-I can't do either of those jobs, now or ever. No existing or planned EELV can do that. Ares-V would be such a behemoth (if it ever flies) that it would be much too expensive to fly on a regular basis. That is why Jupiter-120 is more versatile than Ares-I.
The second phase of the Jupiter proposal is to add a second liquid rocket stage on top of the core stage, while at the same time adding a third engine at the bottom. That will enable the Jupiter to place up to 110 tons of payload in LEO in a single launch. For the lunar mission there would be two launches, just as for Ares. One launch would carry the Orion CEV and the Altair lunar lander. The second launch would just lift extra fuel and the upper stage. The Orion and Altair would dock with the upper stage, then use the upper stage to send them to lunar orbit.
Jupiter can also be used to launch exploration missions to Near Earth Orbit (NEO) objects, launch large scientific payloads such as really big telescopes, Earth recon sats, etc. Jupiter is small enough and affordable enough to be used on a regular basis, but still twice as powerful as any existing or planned commercial launcher (including SpaceX).
Because Jupiter is so cleanly derived from the Space Shuttle, it needs much less development money than Ares. In fact, the entire Jupiter project, including lunar capability, would cost less than half of what is planned for Ares. The Ares-I project is going to cost around $15 billion by itself, with another $16-17 billion for Ares-V. Jupiter is projected to cost less than $12 billion for both the initial LEO version and upper stage. This economy is possible because both versions use the exact same "common core", with only the addition of the third main engine and the upper stage to allow lunar missions.
So the whole DIRECT premise is to build a single new "medium" sized rocket from the Shuttle heritage, which can be used for Earth orbit and lunar exploration. Ares requires the development of two entirely new rockets, neither of which have much at all in common with Shuttle or each other. Jupiter can use most of the existing launch infrastructure, including crawlers, crawlerways, and the fixed portion of the existing launch towers. Ares-I and -V both require extensive modifications of the launch pads, and both launch pads will be dedicated to one or the other vehicle, since they are so different. And at this point, the Ares-V is getting so large that it may require completely new pads and crawlerways to be built.
Jupiter can be used with or without an upper stage. It can launch manned missions with or without payloads. It can launch payloads with or without crew. It can be ready up to three years sooner than Ares-I, which is actually planning their first manned flight for 2016. 2016! Jupiter will still take until late 2013, but that is because it has to wait for the Orion CEV to be finished.
And that's why Jupiter is more versatile, affordable, and sensible than Ares.
"The only good windmill is a tilted windmill."
This is the very reason why I have round door knobs.
Well they certainly know how to ram an object into one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Impact_(space_mission)
The only difference is some Physics-intensive calculation and a big boom.
Yeah, and screw the ecosystem!
Burying your head in your cradle is not an alternative to getting out and learning to walk.
The pathetic "stay at home" attitude of folks today is evolution in action: Only the tiny minority of humans who *do* give a toss about progress deserve to survive.
Our whole "modern" economy is based on the efforts of less than 1000 individual scientists, engineers and patrons. The rest of us are parasites unless we push for progress.
But there is just one problem is equating this with NASA. NASA has, AFAIK, never done any research into deflecting asteroids and has never implemented or even proposed such a program.
Thought I'd do some checking on this and share with the class:
B612 Foundation
We've been anticipating the conclusion of a contract we issued to Jet Propulsion Laboratory in early 2008, and it's now available. We asked JPL to analyze, in detail, the performance of a transponder equipped gravity tractor (t-GT) in determining the precise orbit of a NEO with which it has rendezvoused, and to evaluate the towing performance of the GT per se.
And elsewhere on their site:
NASA's NEO Report to Congress (see #15 below) has stirred considerable controversy due to both its rejection of Congress' request for a recommended program to support the new Spaceguard Survey goal and it's technically flawed deflection analysis. The analytic work supporting the summary report to Congress is being withheld from public review by NASA despite it having been published as a 3-color glossy "Final Report" and distributed internally.
The sky is falling, really:
The bad news? While this all looks fine on paper, scientists haven't had a chance to try it in practice. And this is where NASA's report was supposed to come in. Congress directed the agency in 2005 to come up with a program, a budget to support it and an array of alternatives for preventing an asteroid impact.
But instead of coming up with a plan and budget to get the job done, the report bluntly stated that "due to current budget constraints, NASA cannot initiate a new program at this time."
Why did the space agency drop the ball? Like all government departments, it fears the dreaded "unfunded mandate." Congress has the habit of directing agencies to do something and then declining to give them the money to do so. In this case, Congress not only directed NASA to provide it with a recommended program but also asked for the estimated budget to support it. It was a left-handed way for the Congress to say to NASA that this is our priority like it or not. But for some reason NASA seems to have opted for a federal form of civil disobedience.
I think this ties in with NASA's, and specifically Administrator Griffin's, emphasis on manned missions over unmanned missions. I hope Obama replaces the man. Because, not having a space mission is a good excuse for the dinosaurs, we can't use that one.
I find it highly suspicious that we haven't been hit with an ELE from space in the past 60 million years.
You may have been going for a funny mod, but...
Actually there was a "minor" extinction level event approx 35 million years ago at the end of the Eocene. There are several craters associated with this event, including the one under Chesapeake bay, and one in what is now Siberia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eocene-Oligocene_extinction_event is a good place to start if you want to know more. (Anyone with time please contribute to that, I wish I had time)
There are other minor extinction events that we still don't know the cause, or causes, of. It is very possible that a lot of minor extinction events can be associated with asteroid impacts - not all large (>1-2 km size object) will necessarily produce an extinction event. If one occurred in a very deep ocean location it would likely have very different effects than one that occurred on land or in shallow sea waters, and that's just a very basic view of the various impact scenarios.
As we continue to gather data about impacts and the fossil record, it's very likely we'll find more impacts associated with more extinction events, especially regional or local ones. The hard part is differentiating the impact scenarios from other local or regional events; but at least we have the tools to start doing so now that we didn't have just a few decades ago. I suspect that the next few decades will show us that impacts have played a much greater part in the evolution of life than we suspect.
We can only hope that the data will convince our public and politicians that we need to develop a capability to prevent such impacts. Even the impact of a smaller object - say, 1 km wide or so - would have global consequences to our civilization, no matter where it occurred.
Life on this planet isn't really that fragile - it's survived for many hundreds of millions of years. Our human civilization, however, is extremely fragile. Being aware of how nature can disrupt that should be of primary importance for us, now that we have the tools to figure it out. To not do so, to ignore what we could learn about how to protect ourselves from impacts, or global climate change, or the resources we consume, is extraordinarily short-sighted and points to a failure of our governments, our people, and our society to work for the survival of our species. (Most people want their family lines to survive...)
If we don't survive, then all we've done before, and all we do now, is pointless.
More than going to the moon or mars - "known quantities", we need to put much more money into finding, investigating and exploring near earth asteroids, in order to develop the capabilities we'll need in the future to deal with those NEAs (and comets, eventually) which may pose a threat to us; and also to begin the investigation into harvesting resources from them. This is where much of the political and scientific vision has failed in the last few decades.
There are those who will argue that it's not important. To them, I just say, isn't it best to spend our limited space access resources more wisely, to kill at least two birds with one launch? I don't think that a return to the moon, or a manned mission to Mars* (as great as that would be) would gain us as much as several unmanned and perhaps one or two manned missions to local orbital asteroids would gain us.
*Yeah, finding out whether or not there has been life on Mars - something that will likely only be done by putting scientists on it's surface - is a great thing. I just think it is outweighed by other considerations.
We would gain both the ability to track more of the threats against us, plus the ability to start mining objects that don't have any gravity well worth speaking of and aren't geologically differentiated objects
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
So tell me, how many millions of years must pass before the inevitable ballooning of our sun into a red giant becomes a reason to begin seeking ways to get ourselves off of this mudball?
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Dinosaurs died out ~65 million years ago. Humans have only been on this mudball for ~10 thousand years. It may not happen within the next couple millennia, but it's ridiculous to say that just because it hasn't happened to us yet, it's not a threat to humanity's continued existence (not something to get worked up about by the average person, but definitely not something humanity as a whole should completely ignore).
:P
And don't be such a pedant. The whole "dinosaurs died because they had no space program" thing was never meant to be taken literally. It's an allegory to precisely what you pointed out, adapting to a changing environment.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
So first of all, it's the space technology that would make it possible to find a probable "Dangerous" object approaching earth. Then provide us with a host of possible means to destroy or deflect said object before sterilizing the planet.
I don't know if you've read anything about the aftermath of such an impact, but let me help you fully understand the depth and breadth of the disaster. Okay, so you and your friends get down deep in a hiddy hole for what? 2 years? 5 years? 20 years?
Immediately after the impact, the molten ejecta make the entire sky red hot, anyone exposed to any part of the sky will know precisely how a steak feels under a broiler. The earth will be carbonized, the atmosphere will take on a HUGE carbon load. All shallow bodies of water will boil off. The entire surface of the earth will be sterilized. Even aromatic and volatile compounds will be cooked out of the ground. What will remain will be dead sand, and clay, and glass, and stone. The oceans will fair only slightly better with mid level and deep sea life surviving (I hope you like the flavor of jellyfish.) Sadly the oceans ph, chemical content, and temperature will be wildly perturbed and a massive die-off will ultimately reach all levels of the ocean.
So it's been (pick a number) 10 years and you climb out of your hiddy hole, because your supplies are beginning to run a little scarce, and it's time to begin building your new civilization. Only you have no soil to grow your plants in. Just sterile sand and clay. The Ozone layer was destroyed, so the UV levels are nasty, and besides blindness and skin cancer, you seedlings die almost immediately. Maybe you were smart enough to bring miles of UV filters for your farms. I hope you have some means of generating large amounts of fresh uncontaminated water (the natural process of removing toxic compounds has been broken when the biota got cooked. You only have the flora and fauna you decided to preserve (hope you saved entire ecosystems, because you're going to need them.) You have no infrastructure. You have little or no technology. Solar power is your only immediate source of energy, and if you don't figure out how to create a living soil real soon, you and any animals you might be trying to farm are going to end up in the fossil record just like all the other critter that got cook and covered right after the big rock hit.
Simple fact is that a thousand different things could happen any time at all that could render earth a crispy critter. Having humanity, and more important, LIFE in as many places as possible, means that bright happy thinking babies will be around to talk about the future even if earth does make it over the long haul. It's our responsibility to make humanity a hard target. Sentience may be a very rare thing indeed, and we should work to preserve it at all costs.
These advances are not enough to catch up with modern CPUs anyways. One moves faster than the other. Yeah, sure, maybe in a few decades you'll be able to make a Z80 for a few thousand dollars. Big whoop.
You just got troll'd!
Throwing large sums of money at problems is the same as using catapults against castles in the 13th century. So the new idea is to make a larger "catapult" => a larger Apollo-13 style rocket with larger engines. A 2YO could have come up with that playing with blocks. This mentality isn't mentality at all. It's bludgeoning a homeless person in a dark alley at night with a rock to have the stuff in their grocery cart. If that's all NASA can do, that's all they can think up, when Tesla solved it in the 1940's showing ways to do this stuff with magnetism and lightning, they need to be sent to the nearest metal recycling center.
You make good points about failure. There is a framework for a great government laid out and explained in the Bible but you'll never hear it from the Pope nor any major denomination. Why? Because they traded in the Bible for their own version that says every baptized believer has a hope of living in Heaven. When they started to doing that they left the framework of "God's Kingdom" behind.
They ignored where the Bible says there are two baptisms. The first one everyone can do: in water. But Scripture says the 2nd baptism is with holy spirit and not everyone gets that. Water baptism we can choose; God chooses who he wants to rule in heaven with his son later down the road, at which time He chooses them by bathing them in holy spirit as He did Jesus when he stepped up from water baptism. The churches have mashed the two baptisms together. In fact, they mashed the Bible into a comic book version where every believer gets everything written in Scripture; not so. Baptism by holy spirit is when an already water baptized believer is later chosen to be a "co-ruler" with Christ (Revelation Ch. 20). Only the best of the best. The majority of believers have the hope of everlasting life on Earth, the same hope originally given the first sentient man & woman, which hope was re-stated again by Jesus (Matthew 5) and again by John (Rev. Ch. 21:1-4).
When, and if, you get tired of being fed so many lies and being short-sheeted you feel like heaving all day long, ask Jehovah's Witnesses at their Kingdom Hall some time what God's Kingdom government is going to do, how it's made up. That is, when you get tired of the empty teachings of Christendom's churches. Godspeed buddy.
You say that as if any other reachable planet even HAD resources. Aside from some trace water scattered in the dust, there are basically no known resources on any nearby planetary body that would allow any colony to become even close to sustainable. Barring the unlikely discovery of some hidden ocean on another planet or moon in our solar system, it's almost certain that any attempt at colonization would only drain vast amounts of valuable resources from earth in an ultimately useless endeavor.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
More like billions. And even if humanity makes it that far, it's very unlikely they'll be anything even resembling the frail physical things we are now.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Even with all the calamity you portend (and assuming that we didn't divert huge water supplies into underground lakes, adapt to geothermal energy, and so forth), earth would STILL be *BY FAR* more survivable than Mars or any other planetary body within reach.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Big words for a guy who has chosen to live in a simple house or apartment when he could be in a coop, building an underwater lair 2 miles under the ocean. After all, it's progress to relocate to new places even though it's fucking stupid, impractical, and wasteful to do so; isn't it?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Considering it's only supposed to be ~5 billion years from now, I thought it more prudent to use millions rather than deal with fractions of billions.
And even if we are not the same bi-pedal, 46 chromosome species from now until eternity (I believe it is a possibility that we could remain relatively unchanged for as long as we desire), that does not change my point, which now that I am not dead-tired, I can re-iterate.
While it's certainly not something the average person needs to concern themselves with, at what point does something with such a guaranteed occurrence become something that we as a species should begin to spend any amount of time on? I'm not saying we need to spend any focus on it at this point in time. But it just seemed like you were implying there would never be a reason to need to leave this mudball.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
+1 Interesting *ducks*
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.