Space Exploration

Are NASA's future missions and budget justified?

  • It's worth the time and expenditures

    Votes: 223 66.0%

  • Complete waste of money

    Votes: 41 12.1%

  • We need to explore, but not at the current cost

    Votes: 74 21.9%
  • Total voters
    338
#926
#926
Humans are explorers and we should be exploring and settling the universe. One day our earth will be uninhabitable for one reason or another, for the human race to survive we need to colonize.
 
#927
#927
hog88 said:
Humans are explorers and we should be exploring and settling the universe. One day our earth will be uninhabitable for one reason or another, for the human race to survive we need to colonize.
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The money isnt worth it at the moment. We dont need to waste billions on trying to get to a planet that far away. Any money needed to go to Mars would be much better spent here on Earth. Want to go back to the Moon? Cool with me.

Mars isnt hospitable to human life. And geoterraforming would take way too much time, effort and money. Also, why would you terraform a planet just to live underground on?
 
#929
#929
BigOrangeTrain said:
The money isnt worth it at the moment. We dont need to waste billions on trying to get to a planet that far away. Any money needed to go to Mars would be much better spent here on Earth. Want to go back to the Moon? Cool with me.

Mars isnt hospitable to human life. And geoterraforming would take way too much time, effort and money. Also, why would you terraform a planet just to live underground on?
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There is no way to know that.
 
#931
#931
Grand Vol said:
Mars still has a significant enough atmosphere to burn up a lot of stuff. But it's not like they are getting pelted on a daily basis. We likely would have seen a catastrophic impact had it happened.

And I'm not sure the moon really has enough gravitational pull to help as much as you infer. It probably helps, sure, but our gravity is probably far more influential on Near Earth Objects than the moon.

Anyway, BOT's theory was since Mars orbited next to the Asteroid Belt, it was more dangerous for humans. Not quite the case... Furthermore, I challenge him to prove Mars gets hit more often. Something he claims NASA said. I'd like that link.
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Mars atmosphere is less than 1% of the earth's and mars is hit by many more impacts than earth.
Pow! Mars Hit By Space Rocks 200 Times a Year
 
#932
#932
BigOrangeTrain said:
So billions of dollars wouldnt be better spent on biomedical research, education, healthcare, infrastructure, the homeless, veterans and updating our power grid?
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I'm a huge fan of the space program and the idea of expanding humanities reach, but you are 100% correct. There are extremely valuable communications and defense reasons for us having a presence in spce, but a Mars colony or research base would be almost completely dependent on Earth for supply and support at this time. It would be a giant white elephant.
 
#933
#933
Madscientistvol said:
I'm a huge fan of the space program and the idea of expanding humanities reach, but you are 100% correct. There are extremely valuable communications and defense reasons for us having a presence in spce, but a Mars colony or research base would be almost completely dependent on Earth for supply and support at this time. It would be a giant white elephant.
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At the moment, the only group really pushing forward with plans to visit and colonize Mars is SpaceX. Sure, NASA has "plans" to go in the 2030s or so, but by and large, the only group really pushing forward is a private company.

And before some of the mouthbreathers go off about how much SpaceX depends on government funds, do your homework before posting.
 
#934
#934
Grand Vol said:
At the moment, the only group really pushing forward with plans to visit and colonize Mars is SpaceX. Sure, NASA has "plans" to go in the 2030s or so, but by and large, the only group really pushing forward is a private company.

And before some of the mouthbreathers go off about how much SpaceX depends on government funds, do your homework before posting.
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If they want to drop their capital into that kind of project that is their prerogative. Private industry is private. Mars sounds sexier than farming the asteroid belt for raw building materials already in space, which I would expect would actually be closer to a viable off world industry.
 
#935
#935
Madscientistvol said:
If they want to drop their capital into that kind of project that is their prerogative. Private industry is private. Mars sounds sexier than farming the asteroid belt for raw building materials already in space, which I would expect would actually be closer to a viable off world industry.
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The point being, NASA isn't spending great amounts of capital trying to go at the moment. There isn't a current day Apollo Program pushing with no holds barred to get us there.

As posted in the original link, NASA's budget is about $19 billion a year. If the government was serious about Mars, there would be a concerted international effort as well as tripling (or probably more) NASA's budget.

Though I do agree asteroid mining is likely more economically beneficial and helpful to the home world. But who says we can't have colonies supporting that mission out there?

Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot live in a cradle forever.
 
#936
#936
Grand Vol said:
The point being, NASA isn't spending great amounts of capital trying to go at the moment. There isn't a current day Apollo Program pushing with no holds barred to get us there.

As posted in the original link, NASA's budget is about $19 billion a year. If the government was serious about Mars, there would be a concerted international effort as well as tripling (or probably more) NASA's budget.

Though I do agree asteroid mining is likely more economically beneficial and helpful to the home world. But who says we can't have colonies supporting that mission out there?

Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot live in a cradle forever.
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Gotcha, I think we are definitely on the same page here.
 
#937
#937
hog88 said:
I wonder if this argument was used to lobby against Columbus' voyage?
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You mean the argument that it takes more than mans lifespan to get to the next land mass or the argument that those land masses have no oxygen and radiation abounds. If Mars was an earth like planet your argument would be valid. I personally want to visit all habitable parts of Earth but no parts of Mars.
 
#938
#938
IPleadInsanity said:
You mean the argument that it takes more than mans lifespan to get to the next land mass or the argument that those land masses have no oxygen and radiation abounds. If Mars was an earth like planet your argument would be valid. I personally want to visit all habitable parts of Earth but no parts of Mars.
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uh, they didn't know what was out there. for all they knew they were sailing off the edge of the earth. hardly habitable land. and they sent three ships in case/when something bad happened.

it takes 300 days (at the closest) to get to Mars, wtf is this nonsense about the trip taking more than man's life time?
 
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#940
#940
LouderVol said:
uh, they didn't know what was out there. for all they knew they were sailing off the edge of the earth. hardly habitable land. and they sent three ships in case/when something bad happened.

it takes 300 days (at the closest) to get to Mars, wtf is this nonsense about the trip taking more than man's life time?
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You missed the original post where we said no man will exit this solar system traveling to the next solar system due to life span. Robots we create maybe but not us. The original explorers sent explorations that proved what living conditions were like before sending colonists. Do you think the colonists would have embarked if they had found Mars like conditions in America? Maybe but I doubt it.
 
#942
#942
IPleadInsanity said:
You missed the original post where we said no man will exit this solar system traveling to the next solar system due to life span. Robots we create maybe but not us. The original explorers sent explorations that proved what living conditions were like before sending colonists. Do you think the colonists would have embarked if they had found Mars like conditions in America? Maybe but I doubt it.
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Columbus was the explorer. maybe I missed more than i thought. I thought it was Mars (uninhabitable and blasted by radiation) we were talking about.
 
#943
#943
LouderVol said:
thanks for the correction. 162 days on average, and generally in the past we have timed launches with close(r) approaches to reach an object.
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I think flybys and whatnot will skew those numbers. I'd imagine to place one in orbit the average would be higher (lower approach speeds).
 
#944
#944
BigOrangeTrain said:
So billions of dollars wouldnt be better spent on biomedical research, education, healthcare, infrastructure, the homeless, veterans and updating our power grid?
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Who knows what discoveries would be made in getting to Mars?
 
#946
#946
LouderVol said:
Or just in pursuit of getting there.
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Just look at the massive advances made in the Moon race.

I don't know if you've ever seen the HBO Miniseries "From the Earth to the Moon" but one of the shows focused on Apollo 14 and Alan Shepard. Long story short, it was portrayed about how amazed he was at the huge technical strides made from just Mercury to the Apollo craft. In less than 10 years they went from a 3,000 pound single man capsule with basic controls and a thermometer shoved up the backside of the astronaut to a computer controlled three piece monster that weighed almost 50 tons that went to the moon and back.

Imagine the strides that could be made for up to a two year mission to Mars...
 
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#947
#947
Grand Vol said:
Just look at the massive advances made in the Moon race.

I don't know if you've ever seen the HBO Miniseries "From the Earth to the Moon" but one of the shows focused on Apollo 14 and Alan Shepard. Long story short, it was portrayed about how amazed he was at the huge technical strides made from just Mercury to the Apollo craft. In less than 10 years they went from a 3,000 pound single man capsule with basic controls and a thermometer shoved up the backside of the astronaut to a computer controlled three piece monster that weighed almost 50 tons that went to the moon and back.

Imagine the strides that could be made for up to a two year mission to Mars...
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Yup. before my uncle died we would talk about this very thing. he always said if they had kept the patents on their stuff we would have already been on the moon (base) and NASA would have been a net positive on the government coffers.
 
#948
#948
Theoretical Physicists Are Getting Closer to Explaining How NASA’s ‘Impossible’ EmDrive Works - Motherboard

apparently there are functioning prototypes of a new engine type that our physics can't quiet explain. theoretically it can get us to 40% light speed without nearly the fuel requirements of traditional engines. they say they would be able to get to alpha centari in about 25 years. incredible stuff if true.

also while reading this article I learned about the Mach Effect which is the basis of this idea they are testing.

Mach's principle–the idea that local inertia is determined by distant masses and the structure of the universe at large—could be a starting point. Physicist James F. Woodward has speculated on "Mach effects,

The simplest Woodward Mach effect, which has been proposed as a theoretical basis for EmDrive and other reactionless propulsion methods, predicts local mass fluctuations that can be harnessed for propulsion without the need for a reaction.

"Woodward [devised] a method to use these mass fluctuations for a novel propulsion scheme: Push the mass when it is heavy and pull it back when it is lighter," explains physicist Martin Tajmar in a recent paper. Tajmar leads a breakthrough propulsion physics group at TU Dresden, focused on testing "the latest EMDrive and Mach-Effect thruster models, the two most promising revolutionary thruster concepts that are presently under investigation at various labs."

Woodward effects could open the door for other more exotic, sci-fi-like propulsion methods, hinted at in the title of Woodward's book " Making Starships and Stargates: The Science of Interstellar Transport and Absurdly Benign Wormholes."
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I find this stuff incredibly interesting. Especially since a very popular game used this very theory of Mach Effect as its propulsion. the game? Mass Effect. My respect for that series jumped up several levels. I love when games take psuedo science and actually come up with plausible explanations and technology off of it. really blurring the line of art copying reality, or is reality copying art?
 
#950
#950
I'm a big proponent of space exploration and basic research of all kinds. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory has an array of fascinating projects--probes, new space telescopes, etc.--in the works. I also strongly believe--and anyone with the least intelligence and power of observation has to agree--that we are steadily ruining this planet. Too many people, far too much development, far too much pollution--rampant deforestation, oceans that are overfished and teeming with plastic, toxic waterways, polar ice caps melting. (And YET we have a president and a major party, and major block of GOP supporters, who don't believe in conservation or environmental protection as helping Big Business make money in the short term is more important to them. Astounding ignorance--and we progressives should make sure the word is passed down to future generations as to who treated the idea of environmental protection with disdain.)

That said, I don't really get this impetus to put man on Mars. It is a very inhospitable planet that will not support human life---though perhaps there is a tiny chance of water being deep underground-- and so any people living there would be constrained to an indoor life. That would mean building massive structures at tremendous costs. Is that our best alternative? We might as well just colonize the moon--it is a lot closer. This is why the U.S.A. should be a leader in environmental protection, conservation, space exploration and basic research in general--and yet instead we've got conservatives who don't give a damn because giving tax breaks to the rich is most important to them.
 
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