Nasa to smash a spacecraft into the Moon

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: Jeff7
They're not just randomly crashing something into the Moon for the hell of it. It's called "scientific research."

Drekstor already posted smething decent on the subject, but allow me to augment it with pastings from other similar threads complaining of the complete uselessness of pure scientific research.

Ok, found something, finally, from this thread:
(Search sucks without the sort-by-date feature, just like it did last time that feature was absent. )

Originally posted by: BrownTown

Originally posted by: Rainsford
Am I the only one who wishes we (as a species) could spend more time on things like this and less fighting about pointless political issues? We have resources beyond imagining in any previous generation, we have reached the stage in our technological evolution where there is very little we can't do if we put our minds to it. The universe is a vast and wonderful place, and for the first time since our ancestors came out of their caves and gazed at the stars, we have the power to crack open the mysteries of the universe and peer inside. And yet for some reason we would rather focus on the minute differences between us to the point where we wage frequent and bloody wars over who prays to the right God.

On the flipside maybe we should be spending all that money to try to end wars instead of on useless science expiriments...

just playing a little Devils Advocate here, but as an engineer I don't always have the best of respect for "purse science". Sure everyone would love to have more things like this, but the question is how does finding a Higgs boson help ME...

Without pure science, we probably wouldn't have TV's, among many other things.
"I want something to display images on boxes. To do this, you're going to need to discover the electron, then figure out how it interacts with magnetic fields. I think you should also discover that moving electrons can create magnetic fields. Then it's going to hit a screen of a substance that will glow. Get a chemist and discover phosphorus. Get to work on it right away!"
(This is a paraphrasing and augmentation of what Carl Sagan said here.)
When phosphorus was discovered, was it so that they could use it in TV's? When it was found that coils of wire could produce magnetic fields, was that for use in TV's? Was the discovery of the electron motivated by a desire to watch Seinfeld?
If you've ever watched TV, you owe it to this kind of pure science.
If you want to, just skip to 2:50 in that video.

MRI's, CAT scans, X-ray's- take your pick; radiology in general. Again, electromagnets - when that property of moving electrons was discovered, do you think they had in mind, "We can use this to see inside of people!" Or the same with X-rays. Or how about study of radioactive minerals? "A rock that emits invisible light that can kill people slowly. This kind of emission might be useful to save lives some day!" Now technetium is used in medicine, to help find cancer. Radiation being used to help find cancerous tumors, imagine that. Madame Curie probably never had such things in mind while she studied invisible radiation.

Pure science is critical to the advancement of our species. Many uses for natural phenomena are discovered by accident. Want fire? Striking two rocks together probably isn't the first thing that comes to mind to do this, but it can work.

Without pure science, our technology will stagnate. We'll lose the ability to find truly new things. Some of it is just to say, "I wonder what will happen," or, "I wonder why this happens." A natural thing is observed, and someone else decides, "Hey, that's nifty. I think I can use that for something!" Often times, it's completely unrelated to the original discovery. When electromagnets were first constructed, they probably never envisioned the ability to use them to move tons of metallic waste with the flip of a small lever, or their use in transportation in the form of maglev trains.

:thumbsup:

 

[IceBergSLiM]

Originally posted by: alien42

Originally posted by: LuckyTaxi

Originally posted by: Injury

Originally posted by: Brainonska511

Originally posted by: LuckyTaxi
WHY?

Why? Are we as taxpayers paying for this?

You didn't even have to read the article.

In the headline: "Scientists believe lunar double whammy may reveal hidden ice in craters"

If we're going to send people back to the moon, it would be good to find out if there is any water on the surface. If you've got water on the moon, it could reduce costs significantly since you won't have to transport nearly as much water.

And as taxpayer, I'd rather see money dumped into the sciences. In the long run, it will be much more beneficial to us as a country (and a planet) than some BS war in Iraq or other nonsense that our government spends money on.

I'd rather see neither.

Screw space exploration. So what if we find water on the moon? What would that change?

Thank you very much. So what if the rings on Jupiter grow an extra 2 ft in diameter a year. Why?!

If we're going to colonize why not start building on something that's possible. Why the fvck send a craft to venus only to collect dust? We know it takes pretty long to get there and what human in their right mind would actually stand that? im sorry while i agree this is better than the iraq war, it's just a waste of money and time.

so short sided. i take it you have no idea how much technology that affects your daily life was developed by NASA. here is a good place to start - http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html .

So we can't have R&D labs without the lofty goal of colonzing space?