Obama Seeks to Ax Moon Mision

[Billy T]

This year we will give enough money to the pharmaceutical industry in outright grants, tax breaks for advertising, free R&D(little secret, they don't pay much for R&D your taxes do), etc, to do 3 moon missions at least. ...

Please support this claim with some links to those "facts." (I do not believe them accurate.)

I own about 25 or 30 stocks that I classify as "early stage drug developers" but some are more like new drug delivery systems, pegalation, transdermal patches, etc. than new drugs themselves. I.e. there is no clear boundary - why I say 25 or 30 stocks.

AFAIK, only one gets a significant fraction of its R&D funds from the US government (NIH or its subdivisions) That one is Starpharma, (ADR sphry) based in Australia but has a US branch, working (and selling products already) on Non-medical applications of dendrimers (precision branched nano-particles). Their main product in late stage development is VitaGel - a vaginal cream whose nano particles attach to many STD agents to make them incapable of entering the body. Because many women in third world countries have little choice or control about unprotected sex, The WHO is also funding VitaGel development. (Woman can apply its hours prior to sex and male need not know she has.) Starpharma has basically paid nothing for the development of VitaGel, due to it great promise for stopping the advance of AIDs, herpes, and other STD with free WHO distribution of it when approved.

They have no debt as lot of their R&D expenses also comes from "big Pharma." E.g. just yesterday Lily agreed to fund and later commercializes drug products using Starpharma's dendrimers. They can act as magic bullets delivering the drug to specific tissue only. (The drug is attached to some of the dendrimer branches and others have "bonding structures" attached that fit (lock and key like) to specific receptor sites on the target cells.) Lily joins about a dozen other large companies with joint development contracts, including the world's largest maker of condoms, who wants to be the unique supplier of dendrimer coated condoms.

StarPharma is unique in its funding as they hold ALL of the IP (patents, etc) on dendrimers. I have already almost tripled my relative large investment in SPHRY, but expect it to at least triple again when VitaGel is approved. VitaGel is just the start of medical applications of dendrimers.

 

[ElectricFetus]

Omg, this is such an idiotic decision.

3 billion dollars for a new heavy lift future vehicle, we already have one in the G-d damn works you moron! we are testing the god damn thing, we have poured craploads of money into it, and you are taking it away so you can get the damn credit for the future one!

No, it would cost 3 billion more per year to get it done on the delayed schedule. It was behind schedule and over budget.

 

[Dr Mabuse]

Please support this claim with some links to those "facts." (I do not believe them accurate.)

I'm comfortable with leaving you to believe whatever you want to.

What I posted is entirely accurate.

Let's face it, no matter what information you were presented with, you were going to keep on believing what you wanted to anyway.

 

[Billy T]

I'm comfortable with leaving you to believe whatever you want to.

What I posted is entirely accurate.

Let's face it, no matter what information you were presented with, you were going to keep on believing what you wanted to anyway.

This cop out leads me to think you pulled your post 100 from your lowest orifice. For example of why it stinks:

{post 100} (little secret, they don't pay much for R&D your taxes do)...

OK, you are claiming pharma is moving much of its R&D to India and Eastern Europe to avoid taking all that free US tax money support!

 

[Dr Mabuse]

I've seen your 'reasoning' and 'intellectual' abilities on display in other threads.

I would sooner endeavor to explain Fermat to a Golden Retriever than discuss a fairly complex topic with you.

 

[Billy T]

I've seen your 'reasoning' and 'intellectual' abilities on display in other threads.

I would sooner endeavor to explain Fermat to a Golden Retriever than discuss a fairly complex topic with you.

another copout! I did not ask for discussion. I asked for some evidence or links supporting the BS you blew out of your a-- in post 100.

 

[cosmictraveler]

He increased science spending for things that will help the space program advance itself as well as science dealing with the Earth. Just because we do not go back to the moon now doesn't mean we stop advancing our space program. It only means we redirect it toward a better future when we will go to Mars with advancements we make in the coming years. There's much to learn before we send humans away from Earth for more than 2 years and that research is needed now.

 

[GeoffP]

Quite. Let's see some warp drives and that.

 

[ElectricFetus]

I still would like us to have a super heavy booster now, We could easily and cheaply convert the spaceshuttle into a 80-100 ton lifter, just chuck the shuttle and replace it with a non-reusable dumb booster assembly of engines and cargo.

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2010...rdware-overview-for-early-sd-hlv-test-flight/

 

[Billy T]

I still would like us to have a super heavy booster now...

Why?

Also why is there no desire to explore the bottom of the sea, instead of space? At least depths where there are methane hydrates (much more energy than all the petroleum that has or ever will be recovered and cleaner burning too.) Let's recover some of the magnesium nodules too. No one knows what else may be economical to recover from the sea floor.

In contrast there is nothing on the moon worth bringing back, even the cost of doing so could be reduced a 100 fold. Probably there never will be as the only possibility of interest is He3. For it to be worth returning to Earth:

(1) It must be there in concentrations that to me seem totally impossible to expect. (He diffuses like crazy and the surface gets very hot after 14 days of full sun continuously shining on it. I.e. even if some is coming from the sun, it ain't going to say on the moon long.

(2) while it may be a useful second generation fusion fuel, there is not assurance even the first generation (D T reaction, the easiest to get started) will be both feasible and economically viable against various "green alternatives" (or even "clean coal")

 

[ElectricFetus]

Why?

Also why is there no desire to explore the bottom of the sea, instead of space? At least depths where there are methane hydrates (much more energy than all the petroleum that has or ever will be recovered and cleaner burning too.) Let's recover some of the magnesium nodules too. No one knows what else may be economical to recover from the sea floor.

In contrast there is nothing on the moon worth bringing back, even the cost of doing so could be reduced a 100 fold. Probably there never will be as the only possibility of interest is He3. For it to be worth returning to Earth:

(1) It must be there in concentrations that to me seem totally impossible to expect. (He diffuses like crazy and the surface gets very hot after 14 days of full sun continuously shining on it. I.e. even if some is coming from the sun, it ain't going to say on the moon long.

(2) while it may be a useful second generation fusion fuel, there is not assurance even the first generation (D T reaction, the easiest to get started) will be both feasible and economically viable against various "green alternatives" (or even "clean coal")

Well for many reasons, take for example the Terrestrial Planet Finder telescope, its likely to exceed the weight requirements of any present heavy lift booster, but could easily be launched by a shuttle derived booster.

We have been exploring the bottom of the sea far more extensively then deep space, if your asking why don't we colonize the deep sea that would be a more appropriate question. I'm not arguing for going back to the moon or colonizing space, all I'm asking for is that we have the capability to launch super heavy cargo for at least purely scientific proposes, in the now very likely event the space shuttle technology and facilities get sold to a consortium of private companies they will at least find profit lunching purely scientific missions for nasa, perhaps also in launching tourist into orbit or the moon or beyond, or maybe launching robotic mining missions to the moon or beyond, or what ever.

As for fusion technology at the very least focus should be on radical designs like Bussard's reactor or Dense Plasma Focus which attempt aneutronic fusion of extremely plentiful proton-boron fuel, and focus on energy multiplier fusion-fission hybrid reactors using existing tokamak reactor designs to fuse deuterium and tritium to produce neutrons to fission nuclear waste (and produce tritium) and multiply the energy return so it produces net positive energy.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

. . . . why is there no desire to explore the bottom of the sea, instead of space? . . . . In contrast there is nothing on the moon worth bringing back . . . .

Mankind needs a frontier. Being part of civilization--living in harmony and cooperation with anonymous strangers like herd-social animals--violates our pack-social instinct. Most people at least once in their lives think wistfully about leaving; going off to live alone and take care of themselves, or finding a Stone Age tribe that still maintain a pack-social lifestyle.

In the past, it was possible to do this. That reality forced people to stop and make a conscious choice. Most of them decided they liked civilization, with all of its faults, better than trapping muskrats for food and hides, or living within the limitations of a premodern tribe. Only a few people actually set out for the frontier.

Today there is no frontier. Alaska is a hostile place even for a trained outdoorsman--and that was before Sarah Palin. If you walk into a Neolithic village in New Guinea or the Amazon Basin, you'll find chainsaws, iPods... and guns. So no one ever is allowed to make the choice! Some people spend their entire lives wishing they could give up on civilization and go somewhere else, and that unresolved conflict tears at their spirits--not to mention what it does to their family and the work they're supposed to be doing. In contrast, spending a few weeks contemplating the available reality of moving to the Wild West, or the Australian Outback, or living with an unconquered African tribe... this allows them to resolve the question and settle back into real life.

Gene Roddenberry wisely called space "The Final Frontier." Of course it will be a long time before we travel beyond our solar system and find any Neolithic tribes to move in with, and even longer before a solitary individual can make camp on another planet or moon and build an ecosystem in which he can survive alone with no muskrats. But the people who travel out there will be living in small groups who are intimately acquainted, care for each other, and trust each other with their lives. That is a pack, and those people will have to rekindle their pack-social instinct.

I hope enough people have the skills and training necessary for space exploration, that we can pick the ones who are psychologically suited for it.

But regardless, the mere activity of working toward the opening of a new frontier will at least give a lot of people hope. I think our species needs that hope. This is why not just America, but Homo sapiens, needs a space program.

 

[nietzschefan]

Mankind needs a frontier. Being part of civilization--living in harmony and cooperation with anonymous strangers like herd-social animals--violates our pack-social instinct. Most people at least once in their lives think wistfully about leaving; going off to live alone and take care of themselves, or finding a Stone Age tribe that still maintain a pack-social lifestyle.

In the past, it was possible to do this. That reality forced people to stop and make a conscious choice. Most of them decided they liked civilization, with all of its faults, better than trapping muskrats for food and hides, or living within the limitations of a premodern tribe. Only a few people actually set out for the frontier.

Today there is no frontier. Alaska is a hostile place even for a trained outdoorsman--and that was before Sarah Palin. If you walk into a Neolithic village in New Guinea or the Amazon Basin, you'll find chainsaws, iPods... and guns. So no one ever is allowed to make the choice! Some people spend their entire lives wishing they could give up on civilization and go somewhere else, and that unresolved conflict tears at their spirits--not to mention what it does to their family and the work they're supposed to be doing. In contrast, spending a few weeks contemplating the available reality of moving to the Wild West, or the Australian Outback, or living with an unconquered African tribe... this allows them to resolve the question and settle back into real life.

Gene Roddenberry wisely called space "The Final Frontier." Of course it will be a long time before we travel beyond our solar system and find any Neolithic tribes to move in with, and even longer before a solitary individual can make camp on another planet or moon and build an ecosystem in which he can survive alone with no muskrats. But the people who travel out there will be living in small groups who are intimately acquainted, care for each other, and trust each other with their lives. That is a pack, and those people will have to rekindle their pack-social instinct.

I hope enough people have the skills and training necessary for space exploration, that we can pick the ones who are psychologically suited for it.

But regardless, the mere activity of working toward the opening of a new frontier will at least give a lot of people hope. I think our species needs that hope. This is why not just America, but Homo sapiens, needs a space program.

Thank you for this post, I feel like one of the people described in your "pack-social" type. I strongly think that this "mentality" will manifest very negatively upon humanity, if it is not given some hope of "advancement" like space exploration.

 

[madanthonywayne]

Yes, Fraggle. That was well put.