NationStates Jolt Archive

First I want to say that I don't decry the great jump that space progrram made to the science, and the inventions that made their way from NASA to the public. I don't reduce the importance in finding other life on far planets or travels in space. I know that some bilions years in the future the humanity will had to leave the earth to new home planet. I know that the humanity always look at the sky and dream to fly or touch the stars.
However, it seems to be not enough.
what kind of help we get from hundreds bilions light years far galaxies, when there is diseases without healing?
how much we need to learn about the space, when the earth is full in problems without solution?
why invest hundreds bilions of dollars on useless reserches, when we had poverty, wars and illiteracy in most of the world?
shouldn't make a better world, is more important than rocks on mars?

what kind of help we get from hundreds bilions light years far galaxies, when there is diseases without healing?
how much we need to learn about the space, when the earth is full in problems without solution?why invest hundreds bilions of dollars on useless reserches, when we had poverty, wars and illiteracy in most of the world?
shouldn't make a better world, is more important than rocks on mars?

The space programs give people something to dream about. They touch imagination, inspire people to take an interest in science and help in teaching we are -both literally and metaphorically - not the center of the universe.

All of these things are priceless in my opinion. Being human after all should be more than be born, eat, sleep, die.

The places busy killing and oppressing each other can keep doing that - no need for those who don't sit and slaughter each other to wait for them to catch up.

Yes, definately need them. So that there would be less funds available to bomb other countries.

We're going to have to leave much sooner than in a few billion years. Try one million. By that time, if we can't reach other stars, and we haven't destroyed ourselves, Earth will have no natural resources, a polluted atmosphere and about 500 billion people living on its surface, hence not enough food.

" space progrrams. do we really need them? "

Good god, man ! don't you know ? How else can we launch a pre-emptive strike against the martians ? Badly built British probes can only distract and delay them for so long !

Remember, " the chances of anything coming from Mars, are a million to one they - "

Remember, " the chances of anything coming from Mars, are a million to one they - "

Said. But still, they come. And still, they come.


With a deafening roar and whoosh of spray, she swung about and drove at full speed towards the waiting Martians. "Moving swiftly through the waters, cannons blazing as she came.."

I have one every year, when I throw out stuff to make space.

Yes, definately need them. So that there would be less funds available to bomb other countries.and less funds to cure diseases, solve the problems of the third world, and recover the environment that the humanity ruined.
wars and space progrrams are both useless. the money is there in great amounts. why don't try and make something better than that?

and less funds to cure diseases, solve the problems of the third world, and recover the environment that the humanity ruined.
wars and space progrrams are both useless. the money is there in great amounts. why don't try and make something better than that?

I suggest that you take a math class before you spout this sort of drivel.

Increasing population is a compound interest expansion.

Given a population of humans on a single planet, ask yourself how long it would take before we fill the planet from end to end, with humans stacked like cordwood on every square meter of its land surface. We'll leave out the resource problems such as water, food, and arable land, as your "funds to solve problems" will have worked miracles.

It won't take long, I assure you.

So the only solution is to put humans on other worlds. And if we don't work on getting there, there is eventually an end to humanity.

I'm very interested in space exploration. However, if I had a million dollars to give away, I'd spend it on improving the health of people in the poorest regions on Earth, not on space probes. But I do get terribly excited about space exploration and want to see more of it.

Having said that, the current manned (and sometimes womaned) space program is a collosal waste of money. We are not learning anything worth the cost. Indeed, it seems merely to be an extremely expensive way to kill astronaughts. I'm sure with all the talent they have at NASA they can think of a cheaper way to kill astronaughts than to shoot them into space.

There is no real scientific benefit to the manned program currently. However, if NASA spent the money on unmanned probes, robots, and space based telescopes, then we would learn vast amounts about our solar system and the universe.

People will still want to travel in space for the shear excitment and wonder of it, but that can be handled by private enterprise. If you're going to spend tax money on space it should only be for research or meteroite protection.

I challange people to think of anything that robots can't do more effectivley and cheaply than people in space. (Yes, I know, have sex. That's not what I mean.)

I challange people to think of anything that robots can't do more effectivley and cheaply than people in space. (Yes, I know, have sex. That's not what I mean.)

Uh, land? Plenty of probes just stop sending signals back, burn up on re-entry, or just plain crash.

Given a population of humans on a single planet, ask yourself how long it would take before we fill the planet from end to end, with humans stacked like cordwood on every square meter of its land surface.

Umm... The human population is expected to peak at roughly nine billion and then decrease. The U.S. is the only first world country with positive natural population growth that I can think of.

Yes, definately need them. So that there would be less funds available to bomb other countries.
I like this one

Uh, land? Plenty of probes just stop sending signals back, burn up on re-entry, or just plain crash.

Astronaughts do diddily squat when landing. In the shuttle they have to manually press a button or two, but some engineers wanted to eliminate this because it was a saftey hazard. I guess they wanted the astronaughts to feel useful.

And if a robotic probe burns up or crashes, nobody dies. (Perhaps it will squash a Martian?)

Umm... The human population is expected to peak at roughly nine billion and then decrease. The U.S. is the only first world country with positive natural population growth that I can think of.

The decrease is only temporary, I assure you, unless you believe that more diseases like AIDS and worldwide warfare are good things.

I suggest that you take a math class before you spout this sort of drivel.


I took some math class and they are simply not good enough on their own.

Remember that in all cultures through history has the population explosion halted when people got sorted there problems out. If we are to eradicate poverty we would probably never get into "stacking problems".

However if you calculate that one person needs 1m2 to be stacked and that we are 6 000 000 000 people on earth.
You will find that we need no more than a space of 75000x75000 meters.
So we would easily fit on say half of Ireland. The sheep could keep the rest.

Space is cool but it is amazing how little attention the environmental problems due to pointless overconsumption gets.

The decrease is only temporary, I assure you, unless you believe that more diseases like AIDS and worldwide warfare are good things.

Cancelling out AIDS and worldwide warfare and the population still ends up decreasing, following current trends. Now we can't say that current trends will continue. In the future people might clone themselves for fun, but I don't see any reasons at the moment why current trends won't continue. Why do you think populations will increase? The average woman in Japan now has less than 1.3 children. If Japanese culture continues to spread... I mean, if demographic trends continue, we are very unlikely to see more than 10 billion people on earth.

Everyone in the developing world wants to live at the same level of consumption currently enjoyed by the Western world.

You aren't going to find the resources for that here.

Space exploration should not be seen as an either-or compared to solving the problems of illiteracy, disease and poverty. No matter what medical advances occur in the future people will still get sick. It is a disgrace that people on this planet cannot read but that is not the fault of the space programme, nor is it truly a problem of resources. The victorians had a higher literacy rate than we do in Britain today. World poverty is more the fault of over-population and currupt, oppressive regimes than how many space probes are launched.

As an intelligent species we must explore and learn. Space exploration gives us not just the opportunity to find a way of extending our existence beyond the natural life span of this planet. It also makes us richer as a species, in terms of what we have achieved. It gives us heroes, inspiration and adventure. These are all things that cannot be measured in financial terms.

Probably the greatest moment in mankind's history so far was the first manned moon landing. This was a triumph for our entire species over all the dangers and risks, all the reasons why we should not have got there.

Stopping space exploration would stunt us as a species and would not necessarily enable us to solve any of the problems that exist on our own planet.

Thank you for reading

The manned space program however had led to some highly useful devlopments. Also, if they ever finish BUILDING the damn thing, the ISS is supposed to start working on the devlopment of 'space' meds. From what I have read, this has many devlopers on Earth excited, something to do with the microgravity eviroment makes it easier to breed and devlop new medications.

And since that is research and replication, we need human hands and eyes for that.

We're going to have to leave much sooner than in a few billion years. Try one million. By that time, if we can't reach other stars, and we haven't destroyed ourselves, Earth will have no natural resources, a polluted atmosphere and about 500 billion people living on its surface, hence not enough food.well, you're optimistic. I think that nuclear war or great natural disaster will come much sooner and kill most of the humanity.
anyway, the sciencists didn't discover yet planet which humanity could leave on, and light speed space ship could reach in less than life period. they can't discover closer things, because they discover all the close things, and now they only discover more far things. the technology can't supply answers to problems, like space radiation and spaceship weight. those problems will not solve in the next few hundrads, even if any penny in the world will be invest in the space progrrams.
while the goverments fund the space progrrams, the world is full in many other problems that some funding can easilly solve.

you know what? lets consider that all the problems solved and the humanity send one hundreds people in space ship to very far planet in mission to settle it. one hundreds people will live happily in this very far planets, while dozens of bilions people stucks on the earth with plagues , poverty, femine and wars, because the goverments fund the space ship progrrams, depite the progrrams to better world.
in this circumances the world probally will not send next ship to those planet, and the original spaceship will not come back to earth and take second delegation because lack of manpower, life length and resucres.
even if they did come in little group to take more people to the planet, the world will not find enough resucres to provide another journey (unless he will harm more in the life quality of the dozens of bilions earth citizens).
in the most optimic thought, I see 250 humans live on this very far planet. 250 humans whose useless jurney costs thousands of bilions dollars, and harm the life of every human on the earth.
even if you don't consider all the little things that can abolish this optimistic vision too, did that cost seems reasonable to you?

the ISS is supposed to start working on the devlopment of 'space' meds. From what I have read, this has many devlopers on Earth excited, something to do with the microgravity eviroment makes it easier to breed and devlop new medications.
Medicine these days involves creating molecules. These molecules are very small. So small in fact that the force of gravity is almost infinitely less than forces resulting from brownian motion. That is the impact of other atoms and molecules. The force of gravity upon a molecule is stupendously less than the force of these impacts. Zero G is thus irrelevant to modern medicine development.

I believe that eventually the private sector will be more involved in the space program (the US wants to make it that way over time).

Once that happens, the forward looking humans will leave the people who want to live in the past behind them. There will be a permanent division of humanity - those who will decry technology and hate the people who went into space, and those who went into space and placed their faith in mankind's ability to manipulate the Universe.

There will be a permanent division of humanity - those who will decry technology and hate the people who went into space, and those who went into space and placed their faith in mankind's ability to manipulate the Universe.
You have forgotten about people who think technology is cool and stay on earth and use technology to build paradise. And what about space Amish who wish to leave all the technology on Earth and live a simple agarian existance on another planet? I think you've fallen into the trap of either or thinking.

I suggest that you take a math class before you spout this sort of drivel.

Increasing population is a compound interest expansion.

Given a population of humans on a single planet, ask yourself how long it would take before we fill the planet from end to end, with humans stacked like cordwood on every square meter of its land surface. We'll leave out the resource problems such as water, food, and arable land, as your "funds to solve problems" will have worked miracles.

It won't take long, I assure you.

So the only solution is to put humans on other worlds. And if we don't work on getting there, there is eventually an end to humanity.
so you think, that take care only to the modern world, and fund space progrrams, and new useless technologies as celephone or 100000 giga bite PC, is more important than minimum life quality for the third world?
your math look problematic to me, if you consider that the modern world birth present is much lesser than the third world one, and it happened everywhere when the populace start to be educated.
anyway, I don't think it is right to ignore the problems of the third world.

Medicine these days involves creating molecules. These molecules are very small. So small in fact that the force of gravity is almost infinitely less than forces resulting from brownian motion. That is the impact of other atoms and molecules. The force of gravity upon a molecule is stupendously less than the force of these impacts. Zero G is thus irrelevant to modern medicine development.


When you're messing around with molecules I think you'll find gravity is VERY important.

You have forgotten about people who think technology is cool and stay on earth and use technology to build paradise. And what about space Amish who wish to leave all the technology on Earth and live a simple agarian existance on another planet? I think you've fallen into the trap of either or thinking.

There would be limits to technology on Earth. And you forget why people would want to stay in the first place.

It would be a haven for neo-Luddites who hate technology. And they would have such animosity for those that exploited technology in order to leave that they would translate that animus into reality.

First I want to say that I don't decry the great jump that space progrram made to the science, and the inventions that made their way from NASA to the public. I don't reduce the importance in finding other life on far planets or travels in space. I know that some bilions years in the future the humanity will had to leave the earth to new home planet. I know that the humanity always look at the sky and dream to fly or touch the stars.
However, it seems to be not enough.

Actually, we have the space program to credit for being able to save lives: all modern communications (cell phones, pagers, non-delay TV), weather forcasting, and GPS (global positioning systems) are spin offs from the space program. We'd be a poorer planet without them. Imagine if the Indian Ocean Tsunami struck in 1948. How well would we be able to function and save people?


What kind of help we get from hundreds bilions light years far galaxies, when there is diseases without healing?

There have been diseases for 10,000 years now. There will ALWAYS be disease as long as there are humans. Not going into space won't accellerate our work on virii.
Also, since about 1980, almost all US/Soviet/ESA space exploration has been near-earth.

how much we need to learn about the space, when the earth is full in problems without solution?

Good point: many of the problems ARE without solution!

I'm glad that Ferdinand & Isabella of Spain didn't think about it when they gave money to Columbus... :)

why invest hundreds bilions of dollars on useless reserches, when we had poverty, wars and illiteracy in most of the world?
shouldn't make a better world, is more important than rocks on mars?

Nope. All of those problems, like diseases, have been around for thousands of years. The US has never spent more than 4% of it's GNP on the space program (and that was the heyday of the Apollo Program), normally it is between .5%-1%.

In point of fact, space research and exploration is one of the smallest pieces of federal spending.
2005 Federal Budgets:
NASA has a $16.2 Billion dollar budget.
The Dept of Housing and Urban Development has a $31.3 billion dollar budget
The Dept of Education has a $57.3 billion dollar budget
The Dept of Health & Human services has a $66.8 billion budget

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2005/budget.html

...and, for the things I posted above (communications, weather forcasting, etc), the world IS better with space exploration.

When you're messing around with molecules I think you'll find gravity is VERY important.
If I drop a tennis ball, can I predict where it will go? Yes! Gravity will make it go down.

If I drop a molecule, can I tell where it will go? No. It might go up towards the ceiling, it might go out the window, it might end up floating near the floor, I can't tell. Gravity is irrellevant for this calculation. Gravity is the weakest force there is. Molecules of air don't pool around your feet. They zoom around at the speed of sound, bouncing into each other other and heading in all directions. There hasn't been an instrument made that can detect the differnce in air pressure between the floor and the ceiling in this room. That's how little an effect gravity has when you're dealing with little stuff.

When you're messing around with molecules I think you'll find gravity is VERY important.

Although I completely agree with Phylum on the other issues I have also read that they want to make low gravity experiments on ISS. However if this is on molecular scale I will leave unsaid. True the Brownian motion beats gravity but they might get close if you are working at cryo temperatures. However at these temperatures the chemical reactions might be a bit booring.

There is a saying that when the smart man points to the stars the stupid looks at the finger. However on Bushes new space drive I would say:
When the stupid man points to Mars the stupid men who elected him looks to space and stand with their feet in the shit.

Space exploration is fine but not if it distracts attention from more urgent questions.

all modern communications (cell phones, pagers, non-delay TV), weather forcasting, and GPS (global positioning systems) are spin offs from the space program.

First there was telegraph, then there was telephone, then transatlantic cables, then radio, then TV! Do you really think all this development would have come to a stop without the space program?

No that space programs aren't cool or anything.

First there was telegraph, then there was telephone, then transatlantic cables, then radio, then TV! Do you really think all this development would have come to a stop without the space program?

No that space programs aren't cool or anything.

You can't have satellites without going into space.

So, eliminate most of your weather forecasting. Eliminate most of your intercontinental communications. Eliminate GPS (which is very handy for civilian purposes).

Eliminate satellite evaluation of the environment.

First there was telegraph, then there was telephone, then transatlantic cables, then radio, then TV! Do you really think all this development would have come to a stop without the space program?

No that space programs aren't cool or anything.

Right... and do you have any idea how much content today is done over satellite? Satellites MAKE modern communications possible. Without them, you'd have cell phones, no cable/satellite TV, still have phones with TIME DELAY when dialing long distances (I remember talking to my relatives in the 70s...)

I betcha anything we're communicating over fiber optic. Anyway, satilites are very useful. But the point I wanted to make is that some of the claims for applied tech from space programs were sounding a bit exagerated. I think space exploration is cool, but I don't want people to get their hopes up about cures for cancer and so on if they aren't likely to be found. Let's talk about R&D. Anytime the government gives money for scientific research there are often spinoff in applied technology. There have definately been spinoff from space programs. Are space programs an efficent was of getting applied tech? Can we can more/better applied tech from investing in other areas?

hey we need to go to space until we do fill up with people
also we may run out of resources and die on earth: other planets have untap'd resources!
also if we send a major population onto another planet, when the US launches its h-bombs and causes a nuclear winter we will still be snug in outerspace! :mad: :gundge:

You can't have satellites without going into space.

So, eliminate most of your weather forecasting. Eliminate most of your intercontinental communications. Eliminate GPS (which is very handy for civilian purposes).

Eliminate satellite evaluation of the environment.


Add non-fossil fueling, add cure for malaria, add fiber to the home, add eradicated AIDS, add 99% literacy on world-scale.... you can't say these things.

BTW: Markreich get me some figures on that most communications go by satellite. I am pretty sure it's by fiber these days or at least would be if the space-programs were not so heavily subsidiced.

and here is what you could get with the 16.2 bilion dollar Nasa budget.

19 billion a year to end world hunger.
40 billion a year to cutt global poverty in half.
http://borgenproject.org/Radio_Resources.html

on second thought many third world countries and their people are sick and die-ing not because there are not medicines to cure them (which there are) and not because they cant get any food (which many places have a surplus of {such as Canada})
but because the politics :sniper: dont enable them to gain these valuable things.

and here is what you could get with the 16.2 bilion dollar Nasa budget.

19 billion a year to end world hunger.
40 billion a year to cutt global poverty in half.

Let's do this, give them and education, and then, with all the brainy educated people we'll have, let's invent some real space rockets and really explore space!

If you spent the money on solar power stations in geosynchronous orbit, you could have continuous power beamed to any place on earth, anywhere you set up a rectenna farm to receive the energy.

No pollution, no global warming exhaust, no radioactive material. Technologically feasible NOW instead of waiting for the promise of fusion power (which since I've been a child in the 1960s was always "40 years away").

These satellites would be far, far more efficient than solar power on the ground, and could provide enough power directly to vehicles to make them run - without batteries or an on-board fuel source.

Let's do whatever works! In space, on the ground, whatever! Work out cost of ground solar power, or other energy sorces, land, maintenance, materials, etc. Do the same for space based stuff and then do whichever is cheaper. There is no need for either/or.

I betcha anything we're communicating over fiber optic.

Er, probably not. ALL cell phone and most long distance voice communications are satellite based. Fibre is expensive to splice, expensive to run, and expensive to maintain -- AND you need a point of presence.
It's much better than coax or any wire-based (ie: Cat 5) for low-loss, true. It has it's place in the grid, but it is NOT a substitute for satellites.

Internet traffic is mostly line based, yes. But that's because most sites are on the same landmass/area.

Anyway, satilites are very useful. But the point I wanted to make is that some of the claims for applied tech from space programs were sounding a bit exagerated. I think space exploration is cool, but I don't want people to get their hopes up about cures for cancer and so on if they aren't likely to be found.

All that's valid.

Let's talk about R&D. Anytime the government gives money for scientific research there are often spinoff in applied technology. There have definately been spinoff from space programs. Are space programs an efficent was of getting applied tech? Can we can more/better applied tech from investing in other areas?

I wouldn't say they're any more or less efficient, but they're unique.
Also, as I posted, the US already invests heavily in many other areas. Going after the Space Program for cost savings is like shutting the flue on your fireplace when not using it in the winter, but leaving all of the windows open.

If you spent the money on solar power stations in geosynchronous orbit, you could have continuous power beamed to any place on earth, anywhere you set up a rectenna farm to receive the energy.

No pollution, no global warming exhaust, no radioactive material. Technologically feasible NOW instead of waiting for the promise of fusion power (which since I've been a child in the 1960s was always "40 years away").

These satellites would be far, far more efficient than solar power on the ground, and could provide enough power directly to vehicles to make them run - without batteries or an on-board fuel source.

And these satellites can also be made to target places other than the rectenna farms.
;)

And these satellites can also be made to target places other than the rectenna farms.
;)

Everything in the world is dual use.

The number one torture device is the cigarette.

Well I don't know where you are, but internet mostly goes through fiber.

ALL cell phone and most long distance voice communications are satellite based.

My phone just goes to the mobile phone tower. Then fiber or microwave relay. That's how they everywhere unless you got an acutal satilite phone. Irridium tried to build a mobile phone satilite system but couldn't compete with ground based systems. They lost a collosal amount of money.

Going after the Space Program for cost savings is like shutting the flue on your fireplace when not using it in the winter, but leaving all of the windows open.

Lord no, I want then to spend more on space exploration. Right now most of their money isn't going into space exploration, it's being wasted on the space shuttle and the space station. I want more missions to mars! Robot missions!

ALL cell phone and most long distance voice communications are satellite based.

Fibre is expensive to splice, expensive to run, and expensive to maintain --


cell phones are not by satellite they send through earthbound antennas. The satelite phones are the ones they use on television when they call back from the trenches and you have to wait a few seconds before the reporter hears the question.

The bandwidth of a satelite is limited and works best for sending few emissions, like television where thousands of antennas get the same signal. However the satelite dishes are on the way out aren't they? being replaced by much better solutions.

And these satellites can also be made to target places other than the rectenna farms.
It's only microwaves. Nothing to worry about. Mind you, if you could focus the microwave transmissions of many power satilites on one spot...

The space shuttle costs about five hundred million per launch. At the moment it's cheaper to keep your solar panels on the ground, even if you only get a fifth of the insolation.

It's only microwaves. Nothing to worry about. Mind you, if you could focus the microwave transmissions of many power satilites on one spot...

The space shuttle costs about five hundred million per launch. At the moment it's cheaper to keep your solar panels on the ground, even if you only get a fifth of the insolation.

The space shuttle is 1970s technology. Basic rockets are still essentially 1960s technology.

If you built a mass driver roughly 10 km in length, you could send unmanned payloads for an order of magnitude less cost into space.

Add non-fossil fueling, add cure for malaria, add fiber to the home, add eradicated AIDS, add 99% literacy on world-scale.... you can't say these things.

16.2 billion won't do much to aid non-fossil fuel research... The Department of Energy has a 2005 budget of $24.3 billion.

Er... malaria? We've had a cure for that since the 1600s! Quinine. And these days, we also have quinacrine, chloroquine, and primaquine.

Fibre to the home? Good lord, why is that more important than the space program? You wouldn't HAVE the backbone of TV content (live sporting events, news coverage...) without satellietes!

Eradication of AIDS is a great idea. It's not the US's place to solely fund it.

World literacy? Screw that. The world does NOT deserve my tax money to learn to read. They have their own governments for that.

BTW: Markreich get me some figures on that most communications go by satellite. I am pretty sure it's by fiber these days or at least would be if the space-programs were not so heavily subsidiced.

That's very lazy of you. If you want to dispute me, you should find proof to the contrary.

However, just so you won't get huffy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_satellite ...has plenty of basic info and links.

and here is what you could get with the 16.2 bilion dollar Nasa budget.

19 billion a year to end world hunger.
40 billion a year to cutt global poverty in half.
http://borgenproject.org/Radio_Resources.html

So, in other words, nothing. Why does the US need to cut global poverty or end world hunger? That's a UN mission! I don't mind the US paying INTO that, but pay FOR that? No.

cell phones are not by satellite they send through earthbound antennas. The satelite phones are the ones they use on television when they call back from the trenches and you have to wait a few seconds before the reporter hears the question.

The bandwidth of a satelite is limited and works best for sending few emissions, like television where thousands of antennas get the same signal. However the satelite dishes are on the way out aren't they? being replaced by much better solutions.

The cell phone goes to the antenna. Guess how the antennas find you? GPS, in most cases.

malaria? We've had a cure for that since the 1600s! Quinine. And these days, we also have quinacrine, chloroquine, and primaquine.

Aspirin can help prevent strokes, but after you do have a stroke your doctor won't try to treat it with aspirin. Malaria was not wiped out in the 1600s. There are many types of malaria. My father has suffered from malaria. It is not nice. And yes, he was taking prophalyactic drugs when he contracted it.

TV generally comes from a microwave relay. Do have a satilite dish and pay TV? No? Then it's microwave from a tower somewhere I'd imagine.

Aspirin can help prevent strokes, but after you do have a stroke your doctor won't try to treat it with aspirin. Malaria was not wiped out in the 1600s. There are many types of malaria. My father has suffered from malaria. It is not nice. And yes, he was taking prophalyactic drugs when he contracted it.

While I feel badly for your father, I have a relative with psoriasis. Should we scrap the space program to fix that, too? Heck, even if we suspended NASA for 10 years, we might NEVER cure either! :(

Seriously: I've yet to read anyone put together an arguement as to why we should stop going into space, just a lot of other uses for the money spent on space. That isn't debating if we need a space program... its debating if we want to pay the price of one.

TV generally comes from a microwave relay. Do have a satilite dish and pay TV? No? Then it's microwave from a tower somewhere I'd imagine.

I'm talking about how the networks provide content, not so much how a TV gets it.

http://history.acusd.edu/gen/recording/television3.html

Other interesting tidbits:
http://www.wegener.com/pressrel1996/100996.html

http://www.broadcastbuyer.tv/publish/article_2863.shtml

While I feel badly for your father, I have a relative with psoriasis. Should we scrap the space program to fix that, too?

You made an error. We don't have a cure for malaria. We have some treatments of varying effectiveness, no real cures. The space program has nothing to do with that error.

Do we need a space program? If you want humanity to survive into the distant future, then we will need one. Do we need a space program right now. No. Do I want space exploration? Yes I do, but I realise there are competeing demands for resources.

I'm in favour of space exploration, but you are a bit over the top. Chill dude, I don't think you're helping your cause. Your over the top arguements canput people off it. Try qualifying your statements a little, you'll come over a lot smoother.

First I want to say that I don't decry the great jump that space progrram made to the science, and the inventions that made their way from NASA to the public. I don't reduce the importance in finding other life on far planets or travels in space. I know that some bilions years in the future the humanity will had to leave the earth to new home planet. I know that the humanity always look at the sky and dream to fly or touch the stars.
However, it seems to be not enough.
what kind of help we get from hundreds bilions light years far galaxies, when there is diseases without healing?
how much we need to learn about the space, when the earth is full in problems without solution?
why invest hundreds bilions of dollars on useless reserches, when we had poverty, wars and illiteracy in most of the world?
shouldn't make a better world, is more important than rocks on mars?

Not quite, for one, earth problems are a result of lack of resources. Even with the entire scope of earth resources, those problems can't be solved.

That is not to decry they shouldn't be. But that we must seek answers from everywhere to our problems. Which includes space research, and the near (hopefully) concept of colonization.

The fact that you are all typing on a personal computer smaller than a school gym is a direct result of the space program. If you have ever had a CAT scan or ultrasound, you have benifited from the space program. Pick up a copy of Robert Heinlein's Expanded Universe. The article Spinoff goes into this further.

Space travel opens the doorway to infinite real estate, limitless natural resources, free cheap power until all the suns burn down or explode, and the greatest scientific, technical, engineering, and hopefully, cultural rennaisance(sp) in human history.

And how much will this cost you?
In Spinoff, Heinlein calculates that the space race cost 5¢ per person per day over ten years.
Going to the moon cost each American less that $190.

We've blown more money in the US on welfare programs that intentionally turned millions of families into perpetual indigents in public housing for all eternity.

Welfare policies in the US have done more to encourage permanent intentional unemployment, indigence, and destroyed more families than any other government policy.

And you think spending money on space is a bad thing?

There isn't anything good that came out of the Great Society programs of the 1960s that were perpetuated to this day. Not one.

Unless you say that convincing several generations of people that they don't need to work, and are owed a permanent stipend from the government, is a good idea.

16.2 billion won't do much to aid non-fossil fuel research... The Department of Energy has a 2005 budget of $24.3 billion.

that's a 33% increase for something most people use many factors more daily


Er... malaria? We've had a cure for that since the 1600s! Quinine. And these days, we also have quinacrine, chloroquine, and primaquine.

Just because we have a medicin does not meen that we have solved the issue. We also got band aid if you would loose your leg but I wouldn't recommend it. Quinine is not seen as a true medecin except in fiction stories. Most malaria is resistant.

Fibre to the home? Good lord, why is that more important than the space program? You wouldn't HAVE the backbone of TV content (live sporting events, news coverage...) without satellietes!

I totally agree, communications aren't the most importnat thing but if we would have spent billions of dollars a year on fiber to the home in stead of satelites you could get as much TV/phonecall/whatever as you would like.


Eradication of AIDS is a great idea. It's not the US's place to solely fund it.

Don't you think US would benefit more from eradicating AIDS than what humanity got from spaceresearch?

World literacy? Screw that. The world does NOT deserve my tax money to learn to read. They have their own governments for that.

It's priorities. We haven't got the same but I urge you to think again. Wouldn't humanity earn more from learning everybody to read than from sending people to Mars?


That's very lazy of you. If you want to dispute me, you should find proof to the contrary.
YES :)

Why do cell phones use GPS??? I doubt it. why not use the same principle as internet adress coding? The phone towers do not have directed transmission to you anyway.


So, in other words, nothing. Why does the US need to cut global poverty or end world hunger? That's a UN mission! I don't mind the US paying INTO that, but pay FOR that? No.

Well maybe if US payed of there debts to UN instead of ....

thanx

thats it

If you're going to do line-by line, please use "{QUOTE=Markreich] [/QUOTE]
" tags, where {=[. That is how you can break up the text.

The space program is extraordinarily neccesary for our survival and prosperity. However, it cnnot be considered that it is taking money away from poverty/disease programs. Our WAR budget is taking that money up. It occupies about 60% of our budget.

Also, it is a major cause of society's problems, most notably death and poverty.

We should have a good army, but were not in the middle of the cold war or anything, we dont need 2,000 nukes to neutralize a guerilla force or a terrorist organization. That technology was designed for use against the Soviet Union. However, it would kill us all if utilized (against china or sumthin like that), and would in turn create more need of a space program! :headbang:

We're going to have to leave much sooner than in a few billion years. Try one million. By that time, if we can't reach other stars, and we haven't destroyed ourselves, Earth will have no natural resources, a polluted atmosphere and about 500 billion people living on its surface, hence not enough food.Space exploration and colonization will never be an answer to overpopulation and resource exhaustion; you can't ship people offworld fast enough to make a dent in population growth rates, nor is it likely that new resources can pour in from space fast enough to address the problem of providing sufficient resources for Earth's teeming masses.

The only solution to Earth's population and resource problem is for Earth's nations to live within the limits imposed by Earth's environment and geology.

why invest hundreds bilions of dollars on useless reserches, when we had poverty, wars and illiteracy in most of the world?We don't spend "hundreds of billions of dollars on useless reserches (sic)". We don't even spend "dozens of billions". ;)

The US has never spent more than 4% of it's GNP on the space program (and that was the heyday of the Apollo Program), normally it is between .5%-1%.

In point of fact, space research and exploration is one of the smallest pieces of federal spending.
2005 Federal Budgets:
NASA has a $16.2 Billion dollar budget.
The Dept of Housing and Urban Development has a $31.3 billion dollar budget
The Dept of Education has a $57.3 billion dollar budget
The Dept of Health & Human services has a $66.8 billion budget

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2005/budget.html

...and, for the things I posted above (communications, weather forcasting, etc), the world IS better with space exploration.$16 billion a year - that's it.

and here is what you could get with the 16.2 bilion dollar Nasa budget.

19 billion a year to end world hunger.
40 billion a year to cutt global poverty in half.
http://borgenproject.org/Radio_Resources.htmlExcuse me, but how could you "get" $19 billion a year out of a $16 billion dollar budget, let alone $40?!?

Moreover, the web page you cite (the Borgen Project) reveals a far more important truth:

If you want to deal with problems of poverty, hunger, disease, the environment, etc., then you should attack military spending worldwide. The U.S. spends a staggering amount on defense - and relative to their respective GDP's, so does everybody else. In recent years arms races have gobbled up huge amounts of wealth in South and East Asia, just to name two regions. Excessive military spending is not just an American "thing".

Space exploration should not be seen as an either-or compared to solving the problems of illiteracy, disease and poverty. No matter what medical advances occur in the future people will still get sick. It is a disgrace that people on this planet cannot read but that is not the fault of the space programme, nor is it truly a problem of resources. The victorians had a higher literacy rate than we do in Britain today. World poverty is more the fault of over-population and currupt, oppressive regimes than how many space probes are launched.

As an intelligent species we must explore and learn. Space exploration gives us not just the opportunity to find a way of extending our existence beyond the natural life span of this planet. It also makes us richer as a species, in terms of what we have achieved. It gives us heroes, inspiration and adventure. These are all things that cannot be measured in financial terms.

Probably the greatest moment in mankind's history so far was the first manned moon landing. This was a triumph for our entire species over all the dangers and risks, all the reasons why we should not have got there.

Stopping space exploration would stunt us as a species and would not necessarily enable us to solve any of the problems that exist on our own planet.

Thank you for readingThis is far and away the best response to date. The value of space exploration is in the exploration, the creation of new frontiers.

But, if no one minds, I'll get even more philosophical.

There is a very high likelihood that Earth is the only world in the entire galaxy with beings that have the capacity to travel among the stars; it may even be the only world with terrestrial (as opposed to aquatic) life that has evolved beyond the microbial level. The reasons for this can be found in the Giant Impact Theory (http://www.answers.com/topic/giant-impact-theory), which not only explains the curious geology of Earth's Moon, but also the existence of large oceans and the movement of Earth's continental plates, both of which are crucial to the existence of complex life here on Earth. This leads to the Rare Earth Hypothesis (http://www.forum2.org/tal/books/rare.html), which asserts life's aforementioned scarcity (see also this debate on the subject (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/rare_earth_1_020715.html).)

In Jurassic Park (http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/jurassicpark/context.html), Michael Crichton's mathematician Dr. Ian Malcolm talks about life "crashing through barriers". Already, on Earth, it has done this twice, as aquatic life crawled up onto the land and terrestrial life took to the air. The next barrier, the "next logical step" in the evolution of life is for it to crawl up out of this ocean of air and fly among the stars.

If it doesn't, then when this Earth dies (which it will eventually do), life may well die with it. Maybe I'm being chauvinistic, but I think that would be a tragedy.

There isn't anything good that came out of the Great Society programs of the 1960s that were perpetuated to this day. Not one.Conservative kneejerk exaggeration.

Medicare A and B, for persons with permanent and total disability.

Of course, that got scr_w_d up in the 80's by Reagan & Co., who passed a law saying that you had to have Medicare as your primary insurance if you were eligible for it. That was a gift - corporate welfare, if you will - to the insurance industry, since all those people out there who had private health insurance as part of their private disability benefits got stripped of their private coverage in 90% of all cases where it could be useful (I speak from experience - my wife is disabled).

Private insurance is always better than Medicare - and should be. But for people unfortunate enough to get disabled without the benefit of comprehensive disability coverage - the ability to have some kind of medical coverage is a godsend. In fact, for some it is literally the difference between life and death.

Or do you think that Medicare coverage for disabled persons keeps them from throwing away their crutches and wheelchairs and going back to work to earn a living, the good old fashioned way? Trust me, my wife - and most other disabled persons - would gladly trade their disability for work if they had the ability to do so.

Slackers? Hardly.

Conservative kneejerk exaggeration.


I can take you to any of the subsidized housing areas in Reston, Virginia, and introduce you to anyone there - and they will ALL tell you that they are third generation unemployed - and that they are ENTITLED to free housing and a stipend for the rest of their healthy body lives - and that any attempt to take away this money and housing is a racist act.

None of them have been employed in their lives - nor have they ever sought a job in their lives.

Their children are of a like mind. They feel entitled to this - and have no concept of working.

It's not a conservative kneejerk reaction when I see so much of it first hand.

I've heard the notion should we solve our problems here before we go into space. It's not realistic that we are going to do that.
The more precious resources we continue to waste on silly things like gov funding for testing purfume new textiles pork bellies cures for the hangover etc...etc the less chances we are going to have to explore space.
No matter how hard we try we will take human problems out into space. Lets face it were far from perfect creatures. Perhaps some of our answers were meant to be out there so we would go find them.
Isolationism is not the right answer.

interesting discussion

to me there are only 2 deciding points in favor of keeping the space program

1) the money we spend on space isnt enough to solve all the problems of the world

2) if we stopped spending this money on space we wouldnt put the money we saved toward solving the problems of the world.

different budget items.

interesting discussion

to me there are only 2 deciding points in favor of keeping the space program

1) the money we spend on space isnt enough to solve all the problems of the world

2) if we stopped spending this money on space we wouldnt put the money we saved toward solving the problems of the world.

different budget items.
So true!

"Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics - and you'll get ten different answers. But there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on: whether it happens in a hundred years, or a thousand years, or a million years, eventually our sun will grow cold, and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us, it'll take Marilyn Monroe, and Lao-tsu, Einstein, Maruputo, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes - all of this. All of this was for nothing, unless we go to the stars."-commander jeffery sinclair earth alliance station babylon 5

You can't have satellites without going into space.

So, eliminate most of your weather forecasting. Eliminate most of your intercontinental communications. Eliminate GPS (which is very handy for civilian purposes).

Eliminate satellite evaluation of the environment.
there is big difference between the satellites system, and the space exploreration. today, the satellites are mostly un-connected to NASA and the scientists.
however, I don't said that anything about the space is useless. I just said that there is no point in the hundreds of bilions dollars funding that NASA get, when this money could fund more important areas.

there is big difference between the satellites system, and the space exploreration. today, the satellites are mostly un-connected to NASA and the scientists.
however, I don't said that anything about the space is useless. I just said that there is no point in the hundreds of bilions dollars funding that NASA get, when this money could fund more important areas.

As people have repeatedly said in this thread, NASA doesn't get "hundreds of bilions dollars funding" [sic]. I believe the figure is around $16billion per annum?

First I want to say that I don't decry the great jump that space progrram made to the science, and the inventions that made their way from NASA to the public. I don't reduce the importance in finding other life on far planets or travels in space. I know that some bilions years in the future the humanity will had to leave the earth to new home planet. I know that the humanity always look at the sky and dream to fly or touch the stars.
However, it seems to be not enough.
what kind of help we get from hundreds bilions light years far galaxies, when there is diseases without healing?
how much we need to learn about the space, when the earth is full in problems without solution?
why invest hundreds bilions of dollars on useless reserches, when we had poverty, wars and illiteracy in most of the world?
shouldn't make a better world, is more important than rocks on mars?

Yes, why destroy one planet when you can ruin two!

that's a 33% increase for something most people use many factors more daily

The fact that it hasn't been done in all the years since WW2 (including the 70s) tells me that it's an economic matter (read: oil firms) rather than a technical one. It'd be throwing money at a problem that no one wants to solve... a waste.

Just because we have a medicin does not meen that we have solved the issue. We also got band aid if you would loose your leg but I wouldn't recommend it. Quinine is not seen as a true medecin except in fiction stories. Most malaria is resistant.

We haven't solved the common cold either. So what? There may very possibly be no true solution other than wiping out mosquitos or draining wetlands. Which is an ecological disaster.

I totally agree, communications aren't the most importnat thing but if we would have spent billions of dollars a year on fiber to the home in stead of satelites you could get as much TV/phonecall/whatever as you would like.

Right now, most fibre isn't even used. There is a HUGE surplus of bandwidth out there. It's not viable as an economy of scale.
Also, you *still* need satellites for uplinks. Would you want to be reporting from Baghdad and have to rely on physical infrastructure?? :(

Don't you think US would benefit more from eradicating AIDS than what humanity got from spaceresearch?

Absolutely not. There will be a disease after AIDS. Do we stop space again (which is a PIDDLY % of the GDP) to fix that? How about low income housing in Detriot?

Shoot, POLIO is making a comeback in Africa these days. Why should the US waste money to fix other parts of the world?

Further, the space program DOES produce technology and jobs.

It's priorities. We haven't got the same but I urge you to think again. Wouldn't humanity earn more from learning everybody to read than from sending people to Mars?

Jobs. It all comes down to jobs. And having a REAL space program could well be the great Civil Works project of the next hundred years. If people have jobs, crime goes down, families stay together and poverty is eradicated. And, since space is so vast, it's better than war for an economy: it doesn't have an end.

Nope. For the reasons above. And, as the world keeps saying, they want the US to stay out of their business. Fine.


Why do cell phones use GPS??? I doubt it. why not use the same principle as internet adress coding? The phone towers do not have directed transmission to you anyway.


Um... GPS is a location protocol. TCPIP is an addressing protocol. Two very different things.

Well maybe if US payed of there debts to UN instead of ....


There are a myraid of reasons why the US doesn't pay what the UN asks, not the least of which are that there is no oversight, and they they're basically squatting in NYC anyway.

shouldn't make a better world, is more important than rocks on mars?
These are not mutually exclusive things, you know.