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So your argument is someone else gets to squander money so why cant I? You should have heeded the warning about ignorance.

You know, it is possible to play devil's advocate without being a prick. Your problem is that you're confusing a counter arguement, to the idea that NASA is breaking the national budget, or that cutting it out completely would accomplish anything besides giving a few people a smug sense of superiority, for the main argument. No one in their right mind argues for space exploration because it's not a huge part of the national budget.

Money spent on NASA isn't squandered. The shear number of technologies you utilize on a daily basis that exist because of government spending on space exploration is huge. NASA employs engineers, scientists, highly skilled laborers long term. NASA is one of the few places where you could create a national drive to accomplish something that doesn't involve bombing the gak out of some brown people first.

I had a big long rebuttal for a lot of what's been said here but I've seen this all argued so many times by so many people so utterly unaware of how much space exploration has influenced their lives that I'm just burnt right the feth out on it.

Space is Beautiful

That and pure exploration and discovery are the only reasons that should even be necessary. Frankly if you can look at the kind of things Hubble has unveiled, read reports about new planets being discovered, water being confirmed to have been on Mars, or see pictures of humans walking on another heavenly body and not be inspired and want that to continue then a great big part of your soul is absolutely dead and no amount of discussion will ever fix it.

Tyyr wrote:

Space is Beautiful

That and pure exploration and discovery are the only reasons that should even be necessary

Tyyr wrote:

Space is Beautiful

That and pure exploration and discovery are the only reasons that should even be necessary

IMO, that's incredibly naive and wasteful. Humans explore for specific economic/political/etc reasons. If NASA's programs had shown more economic or technological benefits -- and if the agency had shown any ability to keep its programs under budget -- it wouldn't have suffered all the cuts.

The new space telescope was supposed to cost $2 billion, it's now $7 billion and climbing. The ISS was supposed to cost $8 billion, and the final cost was something like $100 billion (and years behind schedule). $100 billion dollars. And consider NASA's cunning strategy. Build the shuttle first, even though you have no station to shuttle to. Then build the station at about the time the shuttle fleet is ready to retire. For years we had a shuttle to nothing, now we have a station with no way of getting there without hitching a ride with the Russians. Brilliant.

If NASA wants to know who's to blame for its fall from grace, they need only look in the mirror.

gorgon wrote:

Tyyr wrote:

Space is Beautiful

That and pure exploration and discovery are the only reasons that should even be necessary

IMO, that's incredibly naive and wasteful. Humans explore for specific economic/political/etc reasons. If NASA's programs had shown more economic or technological benefits -- and if the agency had shown any ability to keep its programs under budget -- it wouldn't have suffered all the cuts.

Nonsense. Political budgeting has nothing to do with how good the program actually is. See: Planned parenthood

The new space telescope was supposed to cost $2 billion, it's now $7 billion and climbing.

I mean I hate when that happens, but that's always how large projects are, in space or not.

The ISS was supposed to cost $8 billion, and the final cost was something like $100 billion (and years behind schedule). $100 billion dollars.

See above point. Things come in off budget on land on sea and in sky. It's not because it's in space that it missed the budget.

And consider NASA's cunning strategy. Build the shuttle first, even though you have no station to shuttle to. Then build the station at about the time the shuttle fleet is ready to retire.

Um, what? The shuttles and the station had ELEVEN YEARS of overlap.

For years we had a shuttle to nothing, now we have a station with no way of getting there without hitching a ride with the Russians. Brilliant.

Which is it, is there no way to get there or are there Russians? There cannot simultaneously be no way to get there and a way to get there.

And you were just complaining about cost. Hitching with the Russians is WAY cheaper. You should be thrilled.

If NASA wants to know who's to blame for its fall from grace, they need only look in the mirror.

Yes, because NASA is a monolithic being. It never changes directors, it never adjusts policy.

I mean yeah, NASA has screwed up TONS of stuff, but the vast majority of their problems in the last 20 years were public perception, politics and circumstance.

gorgon wrote:If NASA's programs had shown more economic or technological benefits

That is the thing about exploration and discovery, you can't know exactly what you are going to get. The journey itself has already created a bunch of innovations and technologies that wouldn't have been guessed beforehand. There will be benefits but we can't say with certainty what they will be as it is the nature of inquiry into the unknown. It isn't as if all our discoveries and inventions came only from knowing we were going to end up with them. We've stumbled upon things quite often. No one is saying we should devote all our money or time to this avenue, but to completely ignore it, to me anyway, seems even more naive. Curiosity is an important part of being human and the ocean and space both need to be on the agenda.

I predict the ocean first for exploitation. Has pretty much a lot of resources we need. Then say a sea colony that thrive in the ocean can be reverse engineer to thrive in space...once a suitable source makes it profitable. Also when we remove any lifeforms that might say no.

Jihadin wrote:I predict the ocean first for exploitation. Has pretty much a lot of resources we need. Then say a sea colony that thrive in the ocean can be reverse engineer to thrive in space...once a suitable source makes it profitable. Also when we remove any lifeforms that might say no.

It depends on how you define it. It's not like the a big flag appears and says EXPLOITATION COMPLETE.

I mean if you are counting the first big haul, well we got that when we pulled fish out of it thousands of years ago. If you're counting completely clearing it of resources, the ocean will obv be first there too, since it's infinitely smaller than the entire rest of the universe

But it's not like they're mutually excusive. We're not going to stop one to do the other. We're not going to mine every inch of the ocean then go "whelp, got it all, cut all ocean funding and go into space".

So ocean/space is kind of a false dilemma.

As far as ocean COLONIES go, we've got a space colony orbiting right now and we've already had several medium term habitations under the ocean, so both are really already accomplished there.


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Longterm people living on the ocean surface or on another world WILL be the ocean first, but the kicker is that we'll do it using technology we used to go into space, then we'll take the things we learned there to go into space better, then we'll learn things in space that we'll adapt back to ocean.

See how that works? There's no reason to choose one. They have synergy over time.

Space Exploration will be viable when we have mastered nuclear fusion.

Tyyr wrote:

Space is Beautiful

That and pure exploration and discovery are the only reasons that should even be necessary. Frankly if you can look at the kind of things Hubble has unveiled, read reports about new planets being discovered, water being confirmed to have been on Mars, or see pictures of humans walking on another heavenly body and not be inspired and want that to continue then a great big part of your soul is absolutely dead and no amount of discussion will ever fix it.

While I like the sentiment, it will not do as an answer, not with such high stakes regarding funding. You are talking about manned exploration when only a handful of people can see the sights you describe first hand, yet everyone can see them from a camera on a probe.

Space probes are relatively cheap because they are light self contained and don't even need a particularly large rocket to launch.

You can still get your 'space is beautiful' fix soon first hand from Virgin Galactic.

NASA needs better reasons. The benefit of 'space is beautiful' is when people want to bring the beauty and serenity back with them. Space can be a peacemaker, it most certainly helped in the Cold War. Future missions might help with China.

A better reason to walk on Mars is to trailblaze for the expansion of humanity, a scouting trip preceding a policy of colonisation for a future generation. That plus what we learn from it. As mentioned on another thread 'America feth yeah!' also plays a major part.

Medium of Death wrote:Destroying Religion - If you want to finally crush religion, Space exploration is the answer.

Oh, I'm sorry, were these little green men not in the Bible?

I'm certain that's going to sell people on the idea.

"Well, there are tons of practical reasons to fund space exploration, but first let me tell you how it crushes ideologies."

Easy counter to that. "God petridishes" (spelling)

Jihadin wrote:I predict the ocean first for exploitation. Has pretty much a lot of resources we need. Then say a sea colony that thrive in the ocean can be reverse engineer to thrive in space...once a suitable source makes it profitable. Also when we remove any lifeforms that might say no.

Private companies have been doing that for twenty years. Heck my grandfather helped build the first offshore oil rig.

But yea, thats true high tech, not mamby pamby IDump.


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Orlanth wrote: Space can be a peacemaker, it most certainly helped in the Cold War. Future missions might help with China.

.

Can be, b ut the most groundbreaking - pardon the pun- were anything but that. People weren't afraid os Sputnik because it went Beep beep, but because it meant the mother of Little Katyias could drop fusion love on Little Rock.

mental note. Fraz on after 0700

They don't call the phantom of the office for nuttin!

(Ok the associates call me a lot of things I am sure).

Rented Tritium wrote:See above point. Things come in off budget on land on sea and in sky. It's not because it's in space that it missed the budget.

Wait. $92 billion over budget and you say "I hate that when that happens?" Blowing your budget by $92 billion almost qualifies for public executions. Painful executions.

Um, what? The shuttles and the station had ELEVEN YEARS of overlap.

During which the station was still being completed. Oh wait, actually the station *still* isn't done and the shuttle is already kaput. It's terrible, wasteful planning and management.

And don't forget about the 15+ years that the shuttle flew before even a single module was in orbit.

Which is it, is there no way to get there or are there Russians? There cannot simultaneously be no way to get there and a way to get there.

And you were just complaining about cost. Hitching with the Russians is WAY cheaper. You should be thrilled.

I was completely clear in my comment. The US is now held hostage to the Russian space program. If Putin says "no ship for you", we have no way of accessing the station on which we've spent $100+ billion dollars. Unacceptable and outrageous.

Regarding the cost, you're proving my point. The shuttle was concepted to be a *cost-effective*, reusable transport to orbit and a station. And like with almost everything NASA, the final product ended up being enormously expensive. The reason the Russians are cheaper is because NASA didn't deliver what they promised.

Yes, because NASA is a monolithic being. It never changes directors, it never adjusts policy.

Directors may change, the waste stays the same.

I mean yeah, NASA has screwed up TONS of stuff, but the vast majority of their problems in the last 20 years were public perception, politics and circumstance.

And exploding shuttles. Don't forget exploding shuttles, dead astronauts and lost landers and probes.

As I said before, it's only the Star Trek fantasy that keeps that agency afloat at all. If NASA was about oceans and not space and had the same track record, I think people would see its many problems more clearly.

Ahtman wrote:That is the thing about exploration and discovery, you can't know exactly what you are going to get. The journey itself has already created a bunch of innovations and technologies that wouldn't have been guessed beforehand. There will be benefits but we can't say with certainty what they will be as it is the nature of inquiry into the unknown. It isn't as if all our discoveries and inventions came only from knowing we were going to end up with them. We've stumbled upon things quite often. No one is saying we should devote all our money or time to this avenue, but to completely ignore it, to me anyway, seems even more naive. Curiosity is an important part of being human and the ocean and space both need to be on the agenda.

I understand what you're saying, but my opinion is that things like velcro, Tang and the computer mouse could also have been invented without all the enormous expeditures on semi-useful space equipment.

gorgon wrote:During which the station was still being completed.

We made the shuttle on the promise that it would build a space station.

The shuttle built the space station.

Problem?

You realize we had a space station as soon as the first module was up. It's not like it doesn't count as having a space station until it's 100% done. We've been using it the whole time.

gorgon wrote:I understand what you're saying, but my opinion is that things like velcro, Tang and the computer mouse could also have been invented without all the enormous expeditures on semi-useful space equipment.

That is a nice cherry picked list, but also doesn't change the fact that they weren't invented elsewhere. You could make the argument that anything that was invented might have been invented under different circumstances. It also ignores the discovery side of the coin as well, most of which would not be possible at all without space programs. Then their is the utility of space programs: satellite TV, GPS, GIS, ect.

It took the Korean airliner incident with Russia to free up GPS for civilian use. Might as well throw in internet was started by the military for emails.

Jihadin wrote:Might as well throw in internet was started by Generals/Admirals to share amateur porn.

I always suspected as much.

LOL they will never learn. Never Ever DL porn onto a gov't computer and then try to blame a virus on it.

thats what thumb drives are for...moving porn to SIPR and JWICS

Rented Tritium wrote:

gorgon wrote:During which the station was still being completed.

We made the shuttle on the promise that it would build a space station.

The shuttle built the space station.

Problem?

LOL. The problem is everything I've already said that you're intentionally ignoring.

You realize we had a space station as soon as the first module was up. It's not like it doesn't count as having a space station until it's 100% done. We've been using it the whole time.

FYI, the first module wasn't even habitable. But the definition of "space station" has nothing to do with my criticisms of NASA's planning and budget control.

Ahtman wrote:

gorgon wrote:I understand what you're saying, but my opinion is that things like velcro, Tang and the computer mouse could also have been invented without all the enormous expeditures on semi-useful space equipment.

That is a nice cherry picked list, but also doesn't change the fact that they weren't invented elsewhere. You could make the argument that anything that was invented might have been invented under different circumstances. It also ignores the discovery side of the coin as well, most of which would not be possible at all without space programs. Then their is the utility of space programs: satellite TV, GPS, GIS, ect.

Because that argument can be made, it's disingenuous of NASA to say "if it hadn't been for us (i.e. you giving us countless billions of dollars), we wouldn't have..." They've played that PR game for years because they know cost-benefit analyses aren't going to come out in their favor.

I'd also suggest that those satellite technologies never really required a single human being to be shot into space, and it's manned spaceflight that gets overly dangerous and expensive. Manned spaceflight is romantic and cool, but it burns vast sums of money with little actual payoff.

gorgon wrote:Because that argument can be made, it's disingenuous of NASA to say "if it hadn't been for us (i.e. you giving us countless billions of dollars), we wouldn't have..." They've played that PR game for years because they know cost-benefit analyses aren't going to come out in their favor.

I don't think you understand the argument if that is how you are reading it. The argument you are making is that anyone can make anything so it doesn't matter who makes it, whereas the reality of any given invention is that certain people or circumstances did lead to it. You can create imaginary scenarios but they are clouds, these people actually did invent them and to deny them their credit is a bit childish.

gorgon wrote:I'd also suggest that those satellite technologies never really required a single human being to be shot into space, and it's manned spaceflight that gets overly dangerous and expensive. Manned spaceflight is romantic and cool, but it burns vast sums of money with little actual payoff.

Simple satellites like Sputnik can probably be ignored, but we have far more complex machines orbiting the Earth that require attention on occasion, and waiting for them to fall back to Earth isn't really an option. It has had quite a bit of payoff in many ways, both sublime and gross.

We should be funding space travel internationally. It's vitally important that we reach for the stars IMO, and that is far more important than all the petty squabbles we have between countries. Expansion of knowledge and exploration are real goals in life, and as a species. People who disagree are small minded IMO. It should be something to unite us as species. We should be pushing for Mars as a world united, not individually counting the pennies.

We are easily running out of resources. Fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas are limited. Iron ore, even aluminium are quite limited. If you've ever seen the mines firsthand, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Humanity is no longer in it's hey-day. We are in a twilight, our world is failing, our governments are bickering and conflicting ideologies are decimating our world. The threat of our world ending is not some *armageddon* or Deep impact scenario. It's from ourselves.

Yes, rockets and training costs money and lives. But if we get it right, we can recoup the costs tenfold, heck even a hundredfold. How many billions of tons of viable metal are in the asteroid belt? We could be using nuclear charges to cool down venus (Nuclear winter). and expanding our colonies within our solar system.

In my opinion, the possibilities outweigh the costs of making the rockets and losing the men. Its that simple.

I think the most fundamental reason that Mankind strives for the stars is the very same reason that we climb mountains: "Because it's there", as someone once said although the scientific benefits are monumental to say the least. I also find the reasoning that it's a "waste of time" as some posters have said staggeringly short sighted.

I think that space-borne impactors are an ever growing threat to our civilisation that requires an immediate and concerted effort to put a strategy into place that we WILL need at some point in the future. Our apathy could be our undoing if we can't get past all the insular, selfish 'looking out for oneself' rubbish.

However, the biggest problem that we face at getting round this obstacle, in my opinion, is from an altruistic perspective. The kind of technological effort that is needed would be one that took the efforts of many nations and I'm not entirely convinced that that would happen any time in the near future (sadly). Maybe if we were faced with imminent destruction we would put our differences aside but that very imminence would probably deny us the opportunity.

If we were going to go into the heavens and spread to other planets the technological effort would almost certainly span the duration of numerous generations and I wonder if it's realistic to think that any generation would pump the required funds into a project that they would probably not live to see the fruition of, I tend to think that THAT kind of altruism would be beyond us although I HOPE I'm wrong on that one.

space exploration belongs in the private sector. My tax money could be better spent.

space exploration belongs in the private sector. My tax money could be better spent.

The first establish presence in space would be a military one. More along the line of an "Eye in he Sky" thing with probaly anti ICBM missiles or lasers. The establishment of a vable space colony would have to be the moon. Which I would dare say probaly be a military facility there first fr another strategic reason. Extracting resource would have to make it viable. If we have a cheap way of bringing it down from orbit. Gravity is "no mercy" on a screw up.
I can see the private sector doing a wait and see attitude. Let the government/military hammer out the design till their satisfied they have a working product. Which would mean a lot of contracts to private sector corperations.

Jihadin wrote:

space exploration belongs in the private sector. My tax money could be better spent.

The first establish presence in space would be a military one. More along the line of an "Eye in he Sky" thing with probaly anti ICBM missiles or lasers. The establishment of a vable space colony would have to be the moon. Which I would dare say probaly be a military facility there first fr another strategic reason. Extracting resource would have to make it viable. If we have a cheap way of bringing it down from orbit. Gravity is "no mercy" on a screw up.
I can see the private sector doing a wait and see attitude. Let the government/military hammer out the design till their satisfied they have a working product. Which would mean a lot of contracts to private sector corperations.

Yep. It's gonna be both sectors developing for and buying things from each other. The government will be willing to spend money on things that aren't profitable yet and the private sector will do a lot more when someone is willing to foot the bill.

Historically, major discoveries have been backed by government, then once the waters are tested, the private sector floods in and develops things.