41 Years Ago Today.

[Brovane]

41 Years ago today Apollo 17 touched down in the Taurus-Littrow Valley on the Moon. This has been the most recent journey by humans beyond Earth Orbit. Should NASA funding be at least 1% of the US Budget?
http://www.penny4nasa.org/the-mission/

 

[SMOGZINN]

Yes.

Historically NASA has been a great investment. The problem is not that people are questioning if NASA does something valuable, or if they are a good investment. The problem is that politicians are being pressured to reduce the deficit and NASA has almost no political clout. No one on Capital Hill is willing to fight for NASA because no one stands to profit from it.

 

[Sheep221]

Any way for european to support this thing?

 

[SMOGZINN]

Any way for european to support this thing?

You could always pay taxes to the US Federal Government. I could check if they have a paypal account.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I'd like to see the US taxpayers able to earmark a percentage of their taxes for specific uses. It would be nice to be able to toss NASA some money.

 

[theeedude]

I do think we should spend on some national scientific goals, but it's not clear to me that those goals need to be space related. We have real world scientific problems here on earth to spend money on. Development of new antibiotics. Improving battery technology and cost. Space exploration is very expensive. For the money you'd spend sending man to mars, you can seed fund thousands of tech companies which could really change the world.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

I'm all in favor of furthering legitimate scientific pursuits, and I think space is worthwhile to explore in a vacuum (see what I did?). But you do need to justify the cost. What do we really learn by going to the moon? It's made of basically the same stuff as the Earth which lends some pretty substantial weight to the idea that it was formed by a collision between two planet sized objects billions of years ago. Beyond that, what is there to gain? It's composed of the most abundant materials available on our own planet, so it's not like mining it for resources will yield anything, and as cool as it is to run and jump around on a different celestial body, I don't actually see it producing much more useful science, certainly not enough to justify the cost of going there. As for Mars? We've got a rover up there now. We haven't figured out a way to send much to Venus without it breaking. The Galilean moons could use some exploration, as could Saturn's moons (particularly Titan), but those projects will be prohibitively expensive for some time and it's hard to justify that cost with so many worthy causes down here on Earth (like feeding hungry people, for example). Letting people starve to death so we can determine once and for all that Europa is indeed lifeless straddles the line between "scientific discovery" and "stupid waste of money." I suppose that's a pessimistic view to take, but we're talking about budgetary concerns, and in light of that, space exploration seems like a justifiably low priority.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Letting people starve to death so we can determine once and for all that Europa is indeed lifeless straddles the line between "scientific discovery" and "stupid waste of money." I suppose that's a pessimistic view to take, but we're talking about budgetary concerns, and in light of that, space exploration seems like a justifiably low priority.

The benefits are not in exploring space, the benefits are in having a scientific goal to achieve. Making a car that is 3% more fuel efficient simple does not inspire.

This is the sort of short-sightedness that is killing research. We learned a ton of stuff from going to the moon. The interesting thing is most of what we learned from going to the moon we learned before the first Apollo mission took off.

Profit is a poor goal for research. Give people something to dream of and they will find a way to do it.

 

[Brovane]

I'm all in favor of furthering legitimate scientific pursuits, and I think space is worthwhile to explore in a vacuum (see what I did?). But you do need to justify the cost. What do we really learn by going to the moon? It's made of basically the same stuff as the Earth which lends some pretty substantial weight to the idea that it was formed by a collision between two planet sized objects billions of years ago. Beyond that, what is there to gain? It's composed of the most abundant materials available on our own planet, so it's not like mining it for resources will yield anything, and as cool as it is to run and jump around on a different celestial body, I don't actually see it producing much more useful science, certainly not enough to justify the cost of going there. As for Mars? We've got a rover up there now. We haven't figured out a way to send much to Venus without it breaking. The Galilean moons could use some exploration, as could Saturn's moons (particularly Titan), but those projects will be prohibitively expensive for some time and it's hard to justify that cost with so many worthy causes down here on Earth (like feeding hungry people, for example). Letting people starve to death so we can determine once and for all that Europa is indeed lifeless straddles the line between "scientific discovery" and "stupid waste of money." I suppose that's a pessimistic view to take, but we're talking about budgetary concerns, and in light of that, space exploration seems like a justifiably low priority.

Do people starve to death because of lack of money and food? We have enough food for everyone, really people starve to death on Earth because of un-rest in the area they happen to live in. It isn't about wither or not Europa has life or not. They starve to death because the local warlord has decided to hijack the food shipment and keep it in a warehouse so he can control the local population. Or they starve to death in North Korea because of their government. The question is more about is the pursuit of "pure science" worth the cost?

A lot of space exploration is more about "pure science". Also is the cost that high considering the small % that is actually spent on areas of "pure science" like space exploration? It isn't like on space missions money is stacked on rockets and blasted into space. All that money spent creates jobs on Earth and a lot of good paying jobs because launching rockets is difficult and requires a lot of expertise. The thing is about "pure science" research you will sometimes lead you into un-expected areas you had no idea and you will gain un-expected benefits from that development.

 

[irishScott]

I'm all in favor of furthering legitimate scientific pursuits, and I think space is worthwhile to explore in a vacuum (see what I did?). But you do need to justify the cost. What do we really learn by going to the moon? It's made of basically the same stuff as the Earth which lends some pretty substantial weight to the idea that it was formed by a collision between two planet sized objects billions of years ago. Beyond that, what is there to gain? It's composed of the most abundant materials available on our own planet, so it's not like mining it for resources will yield anything, and as cool as it is to run and jump around on a different celestial body, I don't actually see it producing much more useful science, certainly not enough to justify the cost of going there. As for Mars? We've got a rover up there now. We haven't figured out a way to send much to Venus without it breaking. The Galilean moons could use some exploration, as could Saturn's moons (particularly Titan), but those projects will be prohibitively expensive for some time and it's hard to justify that cost with so many worthy causes down here on Earth (like feeding hungry people, for example). Letting people starve to death so we can determine once and for all that Europa is indeed lifeless straddles the line between "scientific discovery" and "stupid waste of money." I suppose that's a pessimistic view to take, but we're talking about budgetary concerns, and in light of that, space exploration seems like a justifiably low priority.

"Scientific research, no matter how 'pure' and useless it may seem, has an annoying habit of paying for itself many times, in the long run, in the form of greatly increased productivity."

-Robert Heinlein



People will always suffer to some extent, and there is no possible way to save them all even with all of our resources. Obviously we shouldn't neglect our primary responsibilities, but I'd rather let a few starve in the name of looking for solutions to starvation (among other things) than simply say "the human condition isn't good enough, so we're not going anywhere until it is".

To use the going to the moon or mars examples, what if in the process of developing habitats for astronauts someone develops a highly efficient, low-power green house technology that can grow food efficiently and reliably in developing nations as well as space?

And don't say "but that's a big if". ALL science and engineering is a big if. For every project you read about that's a success or even partial success there are dozens that fail. Not due to incompetence, just shitty luck betting on a new design that didn't work.

 

[nickbits]

The only thing nasa should do is launch satellites. Everything else should be cut.

 

[irishScott]

The only thing nasa should do is launch satellites. Everything else should be cut.

Yeah man, fuck discovery! Fuck knowledge! If I can't think of a use for it right this second it's fucking useless! Just look at history, only the immediately practical inventions ever amounted to anything!

/sarcasm

Historically speaking, those who have applied your view to other areas have seen their status diminish or have died out completely. If people like you had been in charge we wouldn't even have satellites.

 

[nickbits]

The only thing nasa should do is launch satellites. Everything else should be cut.

 

[Brovane]

The only thing nasa should do is launch satellites. Everything else should be cut.

You do realize that NASA isn't really in the satellite launching business anymore right? Satellite launching is handled by commercial companies now. However the commercial companies use the technology that NASA developed to launch satellites.

 

[irishScott]

You do realize that NASA isn't really in the satellite launching business anymore right? Satellite launching is handled by commercial companies now. However the commercial companies use the technology that NASA developed to launch satellites.

Yeah pretty sure we're being trolled.

Also worth noting that it was the Soviets that instigated the satellite race. We merely scrambled to catch up and our first attempt blew up on the launch pad.

Also I found Nickbits on wikipedia, guess he was alive 60 years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite#History_of_artificial_satellites

The United States Air Force's Project RAND eventually released the above report, but did not believe that the satellite was a potential military weapon; rather, they considered it to be a tool for science, politics, and propaganda. In 1954, the Secretary of Defense stated, "I know of no American satellite program."[11]

 

[Brovane]

Yeah pretty sure we're being trolled.

Also worth noting that it was the Soviets that instigated the satellite race. We merely scrambled to catch up and our first attempt blew up on the launch pad.

Also I found Nickbits on wikipedia, guess he was alive 60 years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite#History_of_artificial_satellites

This little tidbit was interesting.

The Juno I was a four-stage American booster rocket which launched America's first satellite, Explorer 1, in 1958. A member of the Redstone rocket family, it was derived from the Jupiter-C sounding rocket. It is commonly confused with the Juno II launch vehicle, which was derived from the PGM-19 Jupiter medium-range ballistic missile.
Development[edit]

The Juno I consisted of a Jupiter-C rocket, with a fourth stage mounted on top of the "tub" of the third stage, which was fired after third stage burnout to boost the payload and fourth stage to an orbital velocity of 18,000 mph (8 km/s). This multi-stage system, designed by Wernher von Braun in 1956 for his proposed Project Orbiter, obviated the need for a guidance system in the upper stages, proving to be the simplest and most immediate method for putting a payload into orbit; but as it had no upper-stage guidance, it could not inject the payload into a precise orbit. Both the four stage Juno I and three stage Jupiter-C launch vehicles were the same height (21.2 meters), with the added fourth stage booster of the Juno I being enclosed inside the nose cone of the third stage.
The September 1956 test launch of a Jupiter-C for the Army Ballistic Missile Agency could have been the world's first satellite launch. Had the fourth stage been loaded and fueled, the nose cone would have overshot the target and entered orbit. Such a launch did not occur until early 1958 as part of Project Vanguard, after the Soviet Union's Sputnik 1 in October 1957.[1]

 

[Jaskalas]

I do think we should spend on some national scientific goals, but it's not clear to me that those goals need to be space related. We have real world scientific problems here on earth to spend money on. Development of new antibiotics. Improving battery technology and cost. Space exploration is very expensive. For the money you'd spend sending man to mars, you can seed fund thousands of tech companies which could really change the world.

Let's get fusion up and running, for example.

 

[DaveSimmons]

If you've seen Iron Sky you'll know that there's enough Helium-3 on the Moon to provide us with centuries worth of energy needs.

The problems are:
1. Space Nazis
2.

Spoiler

Sarah Palin will start World War III

But seriously, having an ambitious goal like starting a human colony on Mars could push us to develop new technology in ways that corporate R & D never would.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

To use the going to the moon or mars examples, what if in the process of developing habitats for astronauts someone develops a highly efficient, low-power green house technology that can grow food efficiently and reliably in developing nations as well as space?

And don't say "but that's a big if". ALL science and engineering is a big if. For every project you read about that's a success or even partial success there are dozens that fail. Not due to incompetence, just shitty luck betting on a new design that didn't work.

OK, but why focus on space exploration to do that? We know more about our moon than we know about the depths of our ocean; what we do know about the ocean is that it is teeming with life (some of which may be beneficial for us) and it covers an awful lot of our own planet. We could focus on exploring the depths of the ocean, establishing deep sea research facilities and underwater habitats; those could easily lead us to the same scientific breakthroughs as attempting to design habitats for extraterrestrial habitation, at a lower cost, and with the added benefit of being virtually guaranteed to find new forms of life. Something down there may hold the key to a new cancer treatment, or give us further insight on how life originated on our planet; maybe we'll find the kraken. Who knows? Space exploration may be "sexier" but is it really more beneficial than finding out more about our own planet?

 

[Brovane]

OK, but why focus on space exploration to do that? We know more about our moon than we know about the depths of our ocean; what we do know about the ocean is that it is teeming with life (some of which may be beneficial for us) and it covers an awful lot of our own planet. We could focus on exploring the depths of the ocean, establishing deep sea research facilities and underwater habitats; those could easily lead us to the same scientific breakthroughs as attempting to design habitats for extraterrestrial habitation, at a lower cost, and with the added benefit of being virtually guaranteed to find new forms of life. Something down there may hold the key to a new cancer treatment, or give us further insight on how life originated on our planet; maybe we'll find the kraken. Who knows? Space exploration may be "sexier" but is it really more beneficial than finding out more about our own planet?

What makes you think that we know more about the Moon than we know about the Ocean?

 

[AViking]

Seems to me that spending $700,000,000,000 on our military is a far better use of tax payer dollars. The military has provided far more innovation than NASA has.

Wait, I mixed that up. I meant that it makes more sense to spend $700B on NASA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies

What we should shift from though, compared to the 1960's and so on, is from political propaganda to more purposeful missions.

Mission to Europa. Better propulsion systems. Anti-gravity. More money to studying health in space. Asteroid mining. Energy transfer to ground based stations such as the microwave satellite idea.

 

[AViking]

OK, but why focus on space exploration to do that? We know more about our moon than we know about the depths of our ocean; what we do know about the ocean is that it is teeming with life (some of which may be beneficial for us) and it covers an awful lot of our own planet. We could focus on exploring the depths of the ocean, establishing deep sea research facilities and underwater habitats; those could easily lead us to the same scientific breakthroughs as attempting to design habitats for extraterrestrial habitation, at a lower cost, and with the added benefit of being virtually guaranteed to find new forms of life. Something down there may hold the key to a new cancer treatment, or give us further insight on how life originated on our planet; maybe we'll find the kraken. Who knows? Space exploration may be "sexier" but is it really more beneficial than finding out more about our own planet?

I see what you're saying but if that's your objective then there's a far more economic thing to spend money on. Saving the rain forests. I was on Borneo seeing the Orangutans and 85% of the jungle is gone. China came in and cut it all down. The locals were thrilled since the whole Forrest has been replaced by palm oil plantations and they can now make $3 per day. The cost to have saved this Forrest would have been minimal. Maybe $3M per year. Yet we just let the Chinese cut the thing down for low quality wood.

I have seen the same thing on Sumatra, Laos, and parts of Africa We don't know how to spend our money wisely.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

What makes you think that we know more about the Moon than we know about the Ocean?

We've sent more manned missions to the moon than we have to Challenger Deep. And we've discovered that the moon is a lifeless hunk of rock that is comprised of the exact same stuff we have here on Earth. We know about lunar volcanic activity, and we've speculated about its internal structure (though this is based on our assumptions about the interior of our own planet, which we have literally barely scratched the surface on; another worthy source of scientific exploration, as it would give us better understanding of tectonic movements and geothermal activity, perhaps a more efficient way of harnessing energy, but I digress). In contrast, there are vast sections of the deep sea on Earth that remain unexplored. And we know for a fact that there's life there; we just don't know exactly what, or how it may be beneficial for us. What more can we reasonably expect to learn through lunar exploration or habitation? In terms of the cost versus the benefit, is it more valuable than exploring our own oceans? Is it more valuable than digging through the crust and seeing what our planet is really made of?

The moon holds a romantic appeal because it's so near to us and we've actually been there. But is there really a vested scientific gain to be made by going up there and collecting more rocks? Moon colonization is a long way off, and may not even be possible (effects of low-gravity on humans, lack of atmosphere leaving colony vulnerable to meteors and cosmic rays, longer day/night cycle leading to temperature extremes, etc). I like the idea of space exploration, but I also realize that everything has a cost, and right now, it's hard to justify a return to the moon as being worth it.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

I see what you're saying but if that's your objective then there's a far more economic thing to spend money on. Saving the rain forests. I was on Borneo seeing the Orangutans and 85% of the jungle is gone. China came in and cut it all down. The locals were thrilled since the whole Forrest has been replaced by palm oil plantations and they can now make $3 per day. The cost to have saved this Forrest would have been minimal. Maybe $3M per year. Yet we just let the Chinese cut the thing down for low quality wood.

I have seen the same thing on Sumatra, Laos, and parts of Africa We don't know how to spend our money wisely.

Rainforest exploration is probably one of the cheapest scientific endeavors we can embark on, and wildlife discovered in the rainforest has led to some incredible breakthroughs in medicines over the past few centuries. So, yes, saving the rainforest is absolutely a worthwhile scientific endeavor, and a better use of resources than most anything related to space exploration.

 

[Brainonska511]

I do think we should spend on some national scientific goals, but it's not clear to me that those goals need to be space related. We have real world scientific problems here on earth to spend money on. Development of new antibiotics. Improving battery technology and cost. Space exploration is very expensive. For the money you'd spend sending man to mars, you can seed fund thousands of tech companies which could really change the world.

We need to spend money not just on applied research, but on basic research. Particularly prevalent in biological systems - we really would like to have a better idea of how things work before we can even think about designing some things.

Take antibiotics for example:
Sure, we can try and develop new antibiotics, but it isn't as easy as it sounds. Most antibiotics on the market are derivatives of about 5 classes of antibiotics that were discovered in nature. To counter the ever growing problem of drug resistance, we need to understand the different mechanisms by which it can arise. Perhaps then, we might find that small tweaks to existing compounds or cocktail therapy would provide a solid addition to designing new classes of antibiotics and new antibiotic derivatives.