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Donald Trump Thinks Going To Mars Would Be "Wonderful" But There Is a Catch
MarkWhittington writes: Donald Trump, the mercurial real estate tycoon and media personality who, much to the surprise of one and all, has become the front-runner for the Republican nomination for president opened his mind just a little about his attitude toward space exploration, according to a story in Forbes. In an answer to a question put to him about sending humans to Mars, the current focus at NASA, Trump said, "Honestly, I think it's wonderful; I want to rebuild our infrastructure first, ok? I think it's wonderful." In other words, dreams of going to Mars must take a back seat to more Earthly concerns. It is not an answer many space exploration supporters want to hear.
Many people would like to see Donald Trump go to Mars.
But the Martians would probably consider him to be an illegal alien and might expect us to pay to put up a wall to keep him out.
We spend next to nothing on space exploration. The tons of waste and needless pork projects in government needs to go first. If trump is half as capable at business as he claims then there should be plenty of surplus to do both without cutting funding or raising taxes.
> In other words, dreams of going to Mars must take a back seat to more Earthly concerns. It is not an answer many space exploration supporters want to hear.
That sounds perfectly sane. Sending people to Mars now, is a waste of resources. We send probes, probes tell us basically what we already know (its slightly less inhospitable than say...Venus) and we learn some new details about the inhospitable conditions. Artificial Intelligence or Genetically Engineered creatures to send to Mars is a much more efficient approach. Let's get that working on Earth, first and we can talk about the myriad of inhospitable places that open up. That's very long term thinking, which is part of what space exploration is about. I don't think Trump supposes to know anything about long term technological viability. He just happens to be on the right side of this.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
The Berlin Wall was built by East Germany to keep people from leaving not to keep invaders out.
The real problem not being discussed is you can either have open borders or a welfare state. You can't have both for long.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Can you name some scientific advances and inventions by the soviets in the space race, or only (if that) the ones made by americans. Many have argued (including Richard Feynman) that the advances of the space program were not technological, but organizational (not a trivial problem when here are hundreds of thousands of people involved)
The (economic) question is however are those advances better (more progress/$) than direct funding of consumer products? Analysis shows no.
I am aware of such analyses, but do not know if such analysis is the consensus opinion or more a conjecture at this point.
I would still argue that overall the other benefits I listed imply that government funding of such things would be good. If nothing else, business is sometimes very risk averse, and once government research proves something is feasible, then they will jump on it (see the various businesses that have popped out of projects started at FFRDCs, for example). So such funding would then jumpstart consumer products that wouldn't have been tried in the first place by the private sector.
Honestly, the biggest problem is financial cost.
There's plenty of cash hogtied up in the derivatives markets. And there is over 4.5 trillion in "excess reserves". Personally, I'd rather see it used for California desalination plants, but whatever. Like the water itself, the money is just not where we need it. It is being used to fix the toilet on somebody's yacht.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
You are entirely neglecting the fact that the reason the toxins are there is from mining by a private corporation that never cleaned up its mess. But EPA bad, corporation good, right?
Moron
> To the contrary, I think he might actually be better than most at diplomacy -- he knows how to negotiate and strike deals, even or especially with people who are hard to deal with.
Yep, that's EXACTLY what he's very good at, negotiating deals. That's why his book is called The Art of the Deal.
I won't vote for him, but I will acknowledge what his strengths are. He figures out what the other side ACTUALLY wants and what he actually wants, and comes up with a way for both sides to get most of the what they want. He _might_ help negotiate through the gridlock in Congress by proposing or supporting bills which allow most people to achieve their ends.
I say "what they ACTUALLY want" because most of the time, what people ask for isn't what they actually want. Software developers understand that. Somebody might propose a ban on SUVs when they want cleaner air, a foreign leader might make all sorts of demands when what they really want is to save face, to tell their constituents that they stood up to America. Trump's skill is to find a way to allow the foreign leader to declare victory while giving us what we want.
That said, I think his weakness is that he speaks too soon and too much, without first thinking about what he's going to say. I have a reputation which exceeds my actual skills and knowledge. The myth is that I know a LOT, that I almost always have the correct answer, that I'm virtually never wrong. The truth is that I simply keep my mouth shut when I don't know. It's not that I always have the right answer, it's that I don't often argue for an answer that's wrong. I shut up or just ask questions unless and until I have the right answer. Trump isn't like that.