This cancels America's manned exploration of space in its entirety. Once the shuttles are kaput, we're supposed to rely on....what?The shuttles can get us less than two-tenths of one percent of the way to the moon. They're not doing any space exploration, and they never have.
Ask the next dinosaur that you happen to meet.I think it's a little dangerous to have our whole civilization in one place.And why would that be?
Besides, at the appropriate scale, the moon and indeed the whole solar system is one place anyway.This seems like a rather nihilistic extreme. It seems essentially the same as arguing that seat belts are worthless, because you can die even if you're wearing one.
There are a lot of impressive ( and desperately needed) things that can be done here on earth that you can be proud of.So you know what we should defund in order to pay for both those things and the space program?
Having read the story, this makes sense. The world hasn't yet fully recovered from the GFC and using what 'little' (if you can call $6B little) available funds to extend the life of the ISS makes more sense to a layman like me than another trip to the moon (as exciting as that would have been). Seems the ISS is where the real science is being done these days.The worst thing (well among the worst things) Obama is doing is embracing this "The government needs to tighten it's belt too" messaging. Working to send a dude to the moon would employ people, it would make the recession better, not worse.
Yeah, water filters, insulation, cordless tools and pill transmitters that help monitor fetuses are complete wastes of time and money. Goddamn you NASA for the side benefits of manned space exploration!But other than it being "cool", can you name another reason why sending people to live on a dead rock is a good idea?
Look, people this is how it works: NASA sends people in space and brings them back alive. In order to do that, they develop a lot of new technologies that wind up benefiting those back on earth.
NASA isn't the problem, rather it's the various administrations playing politics with the agency's agenda instead of funding it and getting the hell outta the way.
As to fixing other problems first, NASA achieved its greatest feats in the midst of the 60s, while America was going through major shit. Canceling the manned space program wouldn't have done a damn thing to fix those problems.
Frankly, one of the tragedies of America is that it's wiling to spend half trillion dollars per year on defense, but can't spend a tenth of that on space exploration.
Yes, very witty, and yes, I'm aware. But did I really need to say something along the lines of "ask the next non-avian dinosaur that you meet" in order to make my point? Did you honestly not understand my point? Does your quacking rebuttal actually invalidate my point in any way?Ask the next dinosaur that you happen to meet.Duck says "quack."
Too bad, the moon base was the last thing NASA was doing that I was still excited about. Mars is a place we know about already. It's red. No life found yet. Not that interesting anymore, really. But permanent residence on another planet? That would be amazing! And the moon is the closest, and therefore probably cheapest, place to do that.The moon base might be exciting to you, but it's not really science. If mars is uninteresting because of the lack of life or it's uniform colour then the moon is even less interesting. From a scientific point of view however saying that either object is uninteresting fatally short sighted. All the press releases about mars have been very exciting if you have an actual interest in science, there is no doubt that there is lots of more discoveries to be made. Beyond mapping very little exploration on mars has been done. Calling mars explored at this point would be like claiming earth science is done on the basis of having randomly sampled a few locations on Belle Isle in Detroit Michigan.
Seriously, you can't go faster than light. Thus we're not going to have an interstellar civilization.A does not imply B. There are known ways to get a ship to Alpha Centauri in a century or less; there have even been NASA studies on this.
Dear geeks,
Unfortunately, due to political pressure, I am sorry to report
that I will be canceling outer space until further notice.
Sincerely,
President ObamaWhite House insiders say Obama budget axes Constellation program, plan to return astronauts to the moon - OrlandoSentinel.comWhen can we really expect it? Um, let's see... government program, subject to the whims of Congress, always fighting for funding, lousy PR... just a sec, carry the 5, subtract two or more Presidential election runs and accounting for political winds...
When the White House releases his budget proposal Monday, there will be no money for the Constellation program that was supposed to return humans to the moon by 2020. The troubled and expensive Ares I rocket that was to replace the space shuttle to ferry humans to space will be gone, along with money for its bigger brother, the Ares V cargo rocket that was to launch the fuel and supplies needed to take humans back to the moon.
There will be no lunar landers, no moon bases, no Constellation program at all.
In their place, according to White House insiders, agency officials, industry executives and congressional sources familiar with Obama's long-awaited plans for the space agency, NASA will look at developing a new "heavy-lift" rocket that one day will take humans and robots to explore beyond low Earth orbit. But that day will be years — possibly even a decade or more — away.
I asked a dinosaur about this on my way into work this morning. It reminded me that his order not only survived the KT event, but his uncles dominated multiple niches for some time afterwards. It then cocked its head, and asked me if I was going to eat that last crust of bagel.Again, none of this changes the fact that many, many species were wiped out completely.
But "ask a dinosaur" is a stupid argument. Arguing for space exploration as a contingency plan for the long-term survival of the human species is like arguing that we should backup our tax records by printing them out and putting them in a paper bag on our front curb. The environment after the KT and Permian extinction events was still far more hospitable than any extraterrestrial one in our solar system.That's no solace to the individuals and species who died, nor does it change the fact that they died.
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not really a conspiracy theorist
posted by tomierna at 7:50 PM on January 28, 2010