Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Luddite? How about instead of using the term "bad" how about unnecessary? Obsolete? What has NASA accomplished in the last few decades? Anything of real significance? Private firms now send up satellites, and can also send probes, and people.
Weather data/climate data/data on the sun...all invaluable information. They also monitor space debris. They monitor the atmosphere. We require NASA.
I just would like what they do limited mostly to things that involve the Earth and the environment around it, or the Sun, or other things that impact the Earth.
NASA is less than half a percent of the budget. It's a gnat. 8.7% of the budget is spent just paying off the interest on the national debt. In five years that will be 12.9%; an increase equivalent to eight NASA budgets. But let's focus on the gnat -- the part that actually inspires people.
NASA is less than half a percent of the budget. It's a gnat. 8.7% of the budget is spent just paying off the interest on the national debt. In five years that will be 12.9%; an increase equivalent to eight NASA budgets. But let's focus on the gnat -- the part that actually inspires people.
I think it probably inspires people in the wrong direction when it makes plans to go to Mars or go back to the moon or send a space probe to explore Titan. I think that gives the impression that everything is hunky-dory on Earth, and we need to pay zero attention to environmental problems.
There's a good chance the most sensible behavior will be to not go into another solar system for many millennia, but rather just stick around here getting all our energy from swarms of solar-energy collecting satellites encircling the sun. We could power anything with that...virtual universes...whatever. That's the real benefit of going into space over the long run: access to an eternal source of infinite energy.
We could have ships with enormous light sails pushed by solar powered lasers at ultra high speeds all throughout the solar system, carrying batteries out to the Oort Cloud. We could have cities of people out in the Oort cloud on the outskirts of the solar system. We could have floating cities on Venus. We could have enormous spinning space stations with Earthlike gravity and internal gardens.
I just think, if all goes well, no one alive today, including babies, will ever get to see even a hint of the beginning of that...because none of that stuff is even useful until we've become, basically, a post-scarecity society. We've got to solve our problems on Earth and only then can we survive in space, I'm thinking. We need to construct android or advanced robotic labor and have that be the foundation of our society's wealth. We'll need a different form of government with a kind of living wage paid for by heavily taxed corporations running machines, or machines working for the government. Otherwise, humans will never be able to build enough for everybody to live off world if Earth truly does become uninhabitable in a thousand years like Stephen hawking suspects it will.
We've got a billion problems to solve and social changes to make before we even should be considering space colonization. I think it's quite a shame that people perceive space colonization as a solution to anything. It's not a solution to anything. It's the end goal that we might achieve if we solve enough of our problems here on Earth.
The useful kind of space colonization probably will come after environmental problems been solved, after we've mastered genetic engineering, probably after we've cured aging, after we've found world peace, after we've cured all disease, after we've provided clean water to everyone on Earth, and we have no more major problems besides political dissent. Then, perhaps, we'll have nothing better to do and we might go to space and only then will humanity have a chance to become a multi-planet species...because any colonization of off world environments will be more difficult than most advancements we can make on Earth.
The thing to remember is...sure, we can pay billions of dollars for someone to live in space, but we'd need an enormous number of people down on Earth supporting them. The only way things could be otherwise is through drastic changes to society and technological innovation...and those are a long way off.
Haiti is a worthwhile use of funding...that's saving people's lives.
Military technology does much the same.
Foreign aid results in global trust and cooperation. All those might be argued to be more or less worthwhile activities.
Going to Mars might happen to result in technologies that assist us in other ways, meanwhile there is under-funded research into fusion power that is totally focused on what could probably become one of the greatest inventions of all time.
Maybe I should have just complained about NASA sending future probes and humans to travel far out into the solar system to explore planets and space objects, and also complained about going back to the moon. That would embody basically all my complaints.
I know NASA does a lot of very useful things...I just want the sorts of projects they do more limited.
I know other organizations are very wasteful of funding...but NASA is responsible for a lot of people's education about global warming, and if it really is an important issue, and we're spending 200 billion dollars on exploring other celestial bodies than Earth...it kind of gives the impression that climate change really isn't that big of a deal.
Haiti a complete and utter waste. Very little of the billions spent found its way to saving anyone's life.
Some military technology is great. The F-35 isn't such an example nor is the Ford Class Carrier.
Foreign aid delivers very little bang for the buck. Any average high schooler will tell you. You can't buy friends
NASA has had blunders, they have wasted. That said the Department of Energy, State Department, the Department of Defense. The return at best is questionable given the waste.
Um, that's kind of what NASA is doing with space exploration. You know, looking for somewhere else we can survive? It's sort of important that we check out other places before we go there.
Why would NASA be interested in looking for another place to survive? Are they worried that people will not be able to live on Earth or something?
It seems like a waste of time and there are more important scientific researches to spend money on.
Do you not realize how many contributions NASA has made to modern technology? Even the camera in your smart phone is a direct result of NASA research. In medicine alone NASA has been a game changer. There are lists available on the NASA website of products we wouldn’t have without space exploration. Out of all the alphabet agencies which our government spawns, NASA is probably the biggest net contributor to our modern lifestyle.
Not to mention to keep the US safe and one step ahead of the Russian and Chinese military. I work on Defense and NASA programs, which are complimentary to each other.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
