Space Exploration

Are NASA's future missions and budget justified?

  • It's worth the time and expenditures

    Votes: 218 65.7%

  • Complete waste of money

    Votes: 41 12.3%

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

    Votes: 73 22.0%
  • Total voters
    332
#76
#76
PKT_VOL said:
If we were just going to go to the Mars for a quick visit, sure. Going there and building a sustainable place to live without new supplies for very long periods of time, no.
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What I was saying was we didn't follow up on the logical next steps of the Apollo program. Sure we had Skylab and the STS missions, but nothing exploratory in nature like those first steps we took in the late 50s and 60s.

Like I said, it's almost like we got bored with it.
 
#77
#77
Grand Vol said:
What I was saying was we didn't follow up on the logical next steps of the Apollo program. Sure we had Skylab and the STS missions, but nothing exploratory in nature like those first steps we took in the late 50s and 60s.

Like I said, it's almost like we got bored with it.
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It served it's purpose which was the space race/cold war. There wasn't much left to do with the technology at the time.
 
#78
#78
PKT_VOL said:
It served it's purpose which was the space race/cold war. There wasn't much left to do with the technology at the time.
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Except continue to evolve and perfect that technology, create new technologies and take the next logical steps into the cosmos.

It's kind of like James Lovell said in his book. What would have happened if Columbus would have never came back to the New World? Or probably more aptly put, what if he had never gone past Hispaniola? We've reached the Hispaniola of the New World (the Moon), but never have taken those bold steps past it. And it's like the spirit of adventure spiced with a bit of danger has left us and we are willing to let probes and robots do the job for us.
 
#79
#79
Grand Vol said:
Except continue to evolve and perfect that technology, create new technologies and take the next logical steps into the cosmos.

It's kind of like James Lovell said in his book. What would have happened if Columbus would have never came back to the New World? Or probably more aptly put, what if he had never gone past Hispaniola? We've reached the Hispaniola of the New World (the Moon), but never have taken those bold steps past it. And it's like the spirit of adventure spiced with a bit of danger has left us and we are willing to let probes and robots do the job for us.
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I enjoyed your analogy.
 
#82
#82
Grand Vol said:
Except continue to evolve and perfect that technology, create new technologies and take the next logical steps into the cosmos.

It's kind of like James Lovell said in his book. What would have happened if Columbus would have never came back to the New World? Or probably more aptly put, what if he had never gone past Hispaniola? We've reached the Hispaniola of the New World (the Moon), but never have taken those bold steps past it. And it's like the spirit of adventure spiced with a bit of danger has left us and we are willing to let probes and robots do the job for us.
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The analogy doesn't hold. The technology, the ship, was already there. All one needed was the testicular fortitude (and money for support) to explore.

That is not the case with colonizing Mars. The technology wasn't there so we turned our attention to research at the ISS and building an advanced satellite network (both were very practical to human life). Colonization of the moon, let alone Mars, wasn't. Despite that, we have explored Mars with the technology we do have.

However, there is only so much one can do with the current technological platform (Newtonian propulsion). If we are going to have transportation which can supply colonization, we are going to need another form of propulsion (space-time warping perhaps). One could argue that we might/probably have such technology setting out in the desert waiting to be used. And there lies a big problem. For the last 40 years, our best and brightest minds have been working with the best materials, best computers, unlimited black budgets, etc. to develop such technologies in secret for defense. If they were successful, and they probably have been, revealing such technology would be a national security situation.

Anyways, point being, the analogy doesn't hold.
 
#83
#83
PKT_VOL said:
The analogy doesn't hold. The technology, the ship, was already there. All one needed was the testicular fortitude (and money for support) to explore.

That is not the case with colonizing Mars. The technology wasn't there so we turned our attention to research at the ISS and building an advanced satellite network (both were very practical to human life). Colonization of the moon, let alone Mars, wasn't. Despite that, we have explored Mars with the technology we do have.

However, there is only so much one can do with the current technological platform (Newtonian propulsion). If we are going to have transportation which can supply colonization, we are going to need another form of propulsion (space-time warping perhaps). One could argue that we might/probably have such technology setting out in the desert waiting to be used. And there lies a big problem. For the last 40 years, our best and brightest minds have been working with the best materials, best computers, unlimited black budgets, etc. to develop such technologies in secret for defense. If they were successful, and they probably have been, revealing such technology would be a national security situation.

Anyways, point being, the analogy doesn't hold.
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The analogy does hold though. When Columbus returned from ths New World, it revolutionized the shipping industry. People were tripping over themselves trying to build bigger, faster, stronger and more capable ships. And that's not even going into how a whole new field of math was created to aid in the design. Or how navigation was revolutionized as well as the need for accurate means of keeping time. And that's the top of the iceberg really.

And you look at the way the technology grew by leaps and bounds during the early days of the space race. We went from barely being able to loft a hundred pounds into orbit to landing a man on the moon and retuning him safely in fifteen years. And then it just kind of fizzled out since we didn't reach past the "Hispaniola" of the moon. The ability to create and develop that technology was there and we failed to pursue it. The items we are discovering today about space were well within our grasp then, but we lacked the fortitude to go get them.
 
#84
#84
govols09 said:
This is one area we should actually spend more money in. Any savings we realize from cutting NASA will be spent on something far less important. Even as a conservative I wish we'd pump a lot more into NASA and less into defense
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Less important? How could you possibly know that? What if that money went into helping more of the planet to have access to clean water? Or what if that money went into biomedical research and provided a cure for cancer? Or malaria? Or how about fixing the ailing power grid in our country? Or maybe create the next line of antibiotics? Sorry but your statement is shortsighted.

One if the greatest discoveries in the history of mankind had nothing to do with space exploration.
 
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#90
#90
PKT_VOL said:
Build out more observation infrastructure (both hardware and software) and hire more astronomers to scan the skies. The better the first part is, the less you need of the latter.
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I would think we are at or near the point where computers would do a better job of this.
 
#91
#91
Grand Vol said:
And you look at the way the technology grew by leaps and bounds during the early days of the space race. We went from barely being able to loft a hundred pounds into orbit to landing a man on the moon and retuning him safely in fifteen years. And then it just kind of fizzled out since we didn't reach past the "Hispaniola" of the moon. The ability to create and develop that technology was there and we failed to pursue it. The items we are discovering today about space were well within our grasp then, but we lacked the fortitude to go get them.
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We're not talking about a faster sailing ship here. We're talking about an entirely different type of ship. Not an improvement in technology; a breakthrough in technology.

You're argument is kind of like saying the reason we don't all have flying cars today is because no one has tried hard enough.
 
#93
#93
Velo Vol said:
We're not talking about a faster sailing ship here. We're talking about an entirely different type of ship. Not an improvement in technology; a breakthrough in technology.

You're argument is kind of like saying the reason we don't all have flying cars today is because no one has tried hard enough.
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No, not really. The point being there are alternatives to the standard rockets these days. Ion propulsion and nuclear engines are just the two off the top of my head. But other than the ion engines, nothing has really been pushed forward as a viable alternative and had the research and kinks worked out. Why? Because we've never really needed it. When you're just tossing something into orbit or even on a gravity assist from other planets, what we have works. And without a place to go so to speak (Mars as an example) research into alternate power takes the back seat to proven technologies. The breakthroughs are there, they just haven't ever been pushed because what we have works for what we need it for.

So without having a goal in mind we negate the need to put forth major research into new technologies and designs. The goal back then was to reach the New World as quickly as possible and stake out a claim which needed the better ships. These days? There is no significant goal to reach for to stake out our "claim" in the cosmos.
 
#94
#94
Grand Vol said:
The analogy does hold though. When Columbus returned from ths New World, it revolutionized the shipping industry. People were tripping over themselves trying to build bigger, faster, stronger and more capable ships. And that's not even going into how a whole new field of math was created to aid in the design. Or how navigation was revolutionized as well as the need for accurate means of keeping time. And that's the top of the iceberg really.

And you look at the way the technology grew by leaps and bounds during the early days of the space race. We went from barely being able to loft a hundred pounds into orbit to landing a man on the moon and retuning him safely in fifteen years. And then it just kind of fizzled out since we didn't reach past the "Hispaniola" of the moon. The ability to create and develop that technology was there and we failed to pursue it. The items we are discovering today about space were well within our grasp then, but we lacked the fortitude to go get them.
Click to expand...

Velo Vol said:
We're not talking about a faster sailing ship here. We're talking about an entirely different type of ship. Not an improvement in technology; a breakthrough in technology.

You're argument is kind of like saying the reason we don't all have flying cars today is because no one has tried hard enough.
Click to expand...

Velo gets it.
 
#95
#95
BigOrangeTrain said:
Less important? How could you possibly know that? What if that money went into helping more of the planet to have access to clean water? Or what if that money went into biomedical research and provided a cure for cancer? Or malaria? Or how about fixing the ailing power grid in our country? Or maybe create the next line of antibiotics? Sorry but your statement is shortsighted.

One if the greatest discoveries in the history of mankind had nothing to do with space exploration.
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1) Wasted away via over prescription. Now we have superbugs all over the place that we can't kill.

2) Those other concerns don't matter if we miss an incoming comet/asteroid.
 
#98
#98
Grand Vol said:
Except continue to evolve and perfect that technology, create new technologies and take the next logical steps into the cosmos.

It's kind of like James Lovell said in his book. What would have happened if Columbus would have never came back to the New World? Or probably more aptly put, what if he had never gone past Hispaniola? We've reached the Hispaniola of the New World (the Moon), but never have taken those bold steps past it. And it's like the spirit of adventure spiced with a bit of danger has left us and we are willing to let probes and robots do the job for us.
Click to expand...

There's a NASA for the public to know & there's a NASA only for the government to know secret hidden information about. You'd think with all the space aliens we have caught over the years & have kept alive out in Area 51, we would have learned some new technology about how to time travel through space & disappear at the blink of an eye from them little critters in exchange of them having some of our women to procreate with. :question:
 
#99
#99
BigOrangeTrain said:
Antibiotics. Quite possibly the greatest discovery.
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PFFFFFFFFFFTTT!!!!! Antibiotics? Not bad, I guess, but a distant second.

The greatest discovery ever was when, at a young age, I discovered that girls like sex as much as I did.
 
#100
#100
W.TN.Orange Blood said:
There's a NASA for the public to know & there's a NASA only for the government to know secret hidden information about. You'd think with all the space aliens we have caught over the years & have kept alive out in Area 51, we would have learned some new technology about how to time travel through space & disappear at the blink of an eye from them little critters in exchange of them having some of our women to procreate with. :question:
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How serious is this post? lol
 
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