Opposition to space exploration

On the contrary, having humans in space was largely a public relations move and did not substantially contribute to the science, apart from the science of how the human body reacts to space conditions. Unmanned missions can establish wether a manned mission would be practical. Look at the success of our robotic rovers on Mars! They have been incredible. As technology improves, so will remote sensing.

 

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The 400,000 years is the predicted time for the wr104 might nail earth with a jet from the pole that is facing us.

The 5 mil years was a typo that I just noticed. It was intended to be 500 mil years. That is the time required to achieve enough heat for the oceans to boil.

A massive dead-on gamma burst could really mess us up possibly to the point of extinction. There are alot of long lasting bad effects that follow that kind of a burst.

That sounds about right

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Haha, that's a death sentence. There will always be problems in the world and it's not possible to solve them all.

I've been amazed how many times I've changed my mind on something after playing devil's advocate.

 

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I hate to agree, but I have to.

I'm the biggest proponent of space exploration. I think that the US currently spends about a quarter of what it should.

That said, with the money we do spent, it would be best spent on robotic exploration missions. Building a puny space station in orbit is nothing but a PR investment, and little else. The $20 billion or so that NASA receives would be best spent on robotic missions developed through US universities and corporations. That investment, would in turn, increase our knowledge of space and be an investment in our technological development.

~String

 

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I second this but I think we need to also continue with manned travel testing.

We don't spend enough and we need to be able to invest in both.

I think is reasonable to assume that manned travel should follow the robots.

Cheaper, safer and more time can be spent at each location gathering information.

 

This is where we need leadership.

 

I mean when one looks at the picture of what the US spends or waste money on why choose NASA? At least NASA has a long term benefit and maybe even a life saving benefit to us humans.

How about unnecessary war,drug war,paying out for bailouts,etc?I see no benefit tied to any of these.Why not use this money to feed the world?

If the US spent more money on sending more food over to starving kids,it would just get stolen even more by the bad guys.

 

That's the GRB event that I said that, along with a life-killing asteroid, did not have much of chance of occurring. WR 104 Won't Kill Us After All

Naah. We have well over a billion years before that comes to pass. Half a billion is when the majority of the plants will have died.

 

Gah. I apologize if this offends anyone...wait, screw that... but it's a monumental waste of gold. We spend billions fiddling about with little dials to observe phenomenon that we can neither reach nor alter. Until such time as propulsion changes to allow us the ability to actually get to these events, and sociality to allow us a meaningful production base to support such exploration...don't we have people to feed? There's nothing better we can do with the cash except fire plants into space to see how they'll grow?

 

OK, let's look at them.

What Spirit and Opportunity have done in 5 1/2 years on Mars, you and I could have done in a good week. Humans have a way to deal with surprises, to improvise, to change their plans on the spot. All you've got to do is look at the latest Hubble mission to see that.​

So who said this? Some jarhead astronaut?

Nope. It was Steve Squyres, the principal investigator of the Mars Exploration Rover Mission. http://www.space.com/news/090715-apollo11-40th-squyres.html

 

Yes the distance is increasing, but the Moon isn't going to get away.

Rubbish, by the time the Moon gets far enough away for any really noticeable effects we'll be long gone.

 

Ooooh that's good news (nice find).

With that I disagree with:

http://faculty.physics.tamu.edu/belyanin/stars.ppt#290,27,Slide 27

It took Earth ~4.6 billion years to result in humans. 500 mil or even 1 bil years is the cut off point for life on earth.

 

so its moraly wrong , space exploration

space exploration is a fraction of the US budget

the problem is really about sharing the wealth , by every country

 

than you will be my friend, still. But space exploration is very important to civilization, I hope you will understand that.

 

That there are starving children somewhere in the world makes space exploration morally wrong? Please.

A tiny fraction, yes. Do you care to hazard a guess?

That is a problem, alright. The problem is thinking that doing that is a solution to anything.

 

Starving children is a good enough reason but those starving children are mostly at the cause of their own governments. African governmants, for example, pocket most aid money but we still give it. Have you ever seen a thin or starving politician in Africa? If we could 'unlock' those bank accounts in Switzerland I think we would be so shocked it would cause the world to tip over!

The earth will not last for ever, nor the sun. If we as a race are to continue we HAVE to go upwards and outwards. The other excellent reason is the discoveries of new vaccines and technology that has come about as a direct result of space research and of course, the 'discovery' that the universe is made by physics, not gods. Micro technology is a result of space research, velcro, and many other inventions. Computers? Invented here in the UK in WW2, it took space exploration to accelerate the process to what we have now. My watch has a greater computer capacity that the computer used to land Apollo 11 landing craft on the moon. Without space exploration you would not be able to complain about it uselessness!

 

No, it is not.

First off, you are assuming that starving children represent a moral obligation, period. For the sake of argument, I will grant that starvation is morally repugnant. However, those of you who are arguing from a perspective of starving children have simply assumed that solving starvation is a moral responsibility.

Secondly, you are assuming that solving this moral problem is something that lies in the domain of things our governments should do. While the US Constitution does imply that addressing starvation within the bounds of the US is within the bounds of government responsibilities ("promote the general welfare"), it is absolutely silent on feeding starving children in Africa.

Thirdly, you are assuming that this moral obligation trumps all others; that nothing else counts until the problem of starvation is solved. This is an overly simplistic and even dangerous point of view. The fact is that governments have many responsibilities, all of which are competing for a piece of a limited budget. I do not want our government thrashing around, spending all of its monies on solving the problem of the day and ignoring all other issues.

Fourthly, you are assuming that spending money on space exploration (and science and technology in general by extension) does not "promote the general welfare." I argue exactly the opposite: that government spending on long-term research and development is one of the best ways to promote the general welfare in the long term. While private entities tend to do much better than the government when it comes to short-term R&D, long-term R&D requires a longer time perspective than most corporations can sustain. Long-term R&D is essential for long-term improvement. Government-funded R&D has done a whole lot to promote the general welfare of our society.

Fifthly, you are assuming that if the government stopped spending money on space exploration (and science and technology in general) that all of that extra money would go to feeding the starving children. Good luck with that!

Sixthly, you are assuming that if the government somehow did transfer all monies currently spent on space exploration to programs aimed at ending starvation that this transfer of money would somehow solve the problem. That is a tiny, tiny amount of money. Federal spending on domestic welfare programs is 50 to 100 times that spent on space exploration. Increasing domestic welfare programs by a percent or two will not solve the problem of starvation in America, let alone world-wide.


This argument appears to come solely from the left. There are many on the far right who are vehemently opposed to same-sex marriage on moral grounds. One response from those who favor legalizing same-sex marriage is that those on the far right need to stop trying to foist their twisted morals on society at large. I'll accept that as a valid argument. So what are you on the left trying to foist your twisted morals on society at large with respect to the subject of this thread?

Those of you who feel that solving starvation is a moral obligation can freely donate your own money to charities whose specific aim is feeding the starving children. If solving starvation is such an overriding moral obligation that it precludes spending government monies on scientific research, why do those of you who feel this way still have a computer and an internet connection? (That you posted here is proof that you have both.) Why haven't you sold your computer, your TV, your stereo, and every other nonessential possession you own and donated the proceeds to charities such as Feed The Children?

 

You completely read my post wrong, in fact you could not had read it more wrong. Read the entire first paragraph again. What I said was that it is a good enough reason but not true. I then go on to completely justify space exploration.

 

I agree with the notion of the frontier - or of the psychology driving it, rather - but shouldn't we try to get over the barrier instead of staring at it, then running to one of the barrier's supports and dry-humping it until we chafe? Maybe we could climb or figure out how to build a ladder, because this solid propellant crap is not going to help us at all.

And, frankly, everyone hates spam.

"Ugh! Not again!"

"What's the matter, Xardoz-9?'

"Bloody spam from Earth again. You know, their sun went supernova a billion years ago, and I'm still getting advertisements about something called Prozac. And just what the hell is 'Zuu Pr()n', anyway?"

Apologies for the crass analogy.

 

Highly doubtful. The only way we could shift say half the Earth's population to Mars would be if the Earth's population shrank to say ten. The odds that you would be one of the ten survivors of the cataclysm that led to this decline are rather small.

A spaceship that could carry 1000 people to Mars is something that is purely in the realm of science fiction. Yet if we had such a capability right now we would have to launch one about once per second just to make a tiny dent in the Earth's population. The Earth's population is currently growing by about 900 people every second.

NASA is not going to solve our overpopulation problem.

All this stuff on the ultimate fate of the Earth is an interesting subject but is completely off-topic from the gist of this thread. I guess I need to move the off-topic stuff to yet another thread (amusingly, this thread started as a completely off-topic comment to this thread.)

That is assuming that there is some other species out there in close enough proximity to retrieve these probes before all information decays to nothingness. Morever, it is assuming that even if some other species is in close proximity to us that they will find those probes. The chances of the first assumption is, IMO, dubious. The latter requires that this hypothetical species has developed an Infinite Improbability Drive.

OK. Now we're getting back to the reason for why we should explore space. This still doesn't say why we should explore space now.

You omitted the rest of my post, Fraggle. I agree that starving children is a moral issue. What I don't agree with is that starving children is a reason to forego spending money on space exploration, and presumably anything else that doesn't directly address the problem of starving children.

Oh please. It is not just the political right that wants to erect barriers to immigration. The 1965 immigration law, which remains the law of the land, was passed by a Democratic Congress and signed by a Democratic President. That law placed immigration quotas on immigrants from all nations. I see no plans by the current Democratic Congress and Democratic President to get rid of those immigration quotas.