Exploration Of Outer Space - Worth The Money?

[Gvac]

The Federal budget currently allots approximately $17 billion a year to NASA for funding of the space program.&nbsp; What's your opinion?<br />

[PapaBear]

I'd vote &quot;keep it here&quot;, if I actually thought the money would be put toward anything meaningful. I'm more likely to vote, &quot;put 17 billion in one dollar bills in a pile, an burn them... see what happens&quot;.

[A.J.]

<p>We had better start exploring and colonizing space or else you're going to see Soylent Green appearing on the supermarket shelves.</p>

[TheMojoPin]

The proof is in the spending...when the government has given NASA a huge budget (FAR bigger than what they have now), they accomplish great things.&nbsp; It's not like there can't be another &quot;space race&quot; if people need to have that kind of stupid competitive context.&nbsp; NASA's money right now really just allows them to stay the course and not try anything drastically different.&nbsp; At this pace they'll be overtaken by private &quot;space industry&quot; within 10-20 years.

[reeshy]

YES...of course...let's do that!!!<br />

[Furtherman]

<p>Russia and China are currently in preperations for a join Moon &amp; Mars missions.</p><p>Maybe after we're sleeping under a red moon some folks will realize we'd better get on with it, because there will be a serious population overkill&nbsp;/ water shortage in the not too distant future.</p>

[A.J.]

<strong>Furtherman</strong> wrote:<br /><p>Russia and China are currently in preperations for a join Moon &amp; Mars missions.</p><p>We can't let Mars become the &quot;Red Planet&quot;!!!</p><p>Oh wait...</p>

[Mike Teacher]

<p>Depends on how we spend the money, IMO.</p><p>The ISS is obsolete, a NASA admin with balls would just pull the project and take the loss.</p><p>Ditto with what's left of the Shuttle Fleet; we're using 1970's technology on those; theyre done.</p><p>=</p><p>The biggest problem w/ both of those is reflected in the thread title. Sending a bunch of people in a shuttle a couple of hundred miles up is not Space Exploration, Space Exploration is going to other worlds. </p><p>A return to the moon as vital as the next step was just brought up on CNN [Link below]. A permanent moonbase, not half-assed like the Shuttle/ISS, labs, telescopes, materials manufacturing, basically learning how to use the raw materials of the moon to live off them. </p><p>A continuing reconnasiance of the solar system w/ robotic craft. I'd do a sample return mission to Mars; land a robot, scoop up a bunch of Mars, bring it back. </p><p>More research on objects that might collide w/ Earth.</p><p>More SETI research: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence</p><p><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/09/19/return.to.the.moon.ap/index.html" target="_blank">CNN Link to Moon Return</a></p><p>SETI @ Home : Use your computer to search for Alien signals in space</p><p><a href="http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/" target="_blank">SETI Link</a></p>

[Doogie]

<p>Well the fact of the matter is that NASA opened its plan book for after Apollo and moths flew out. Yes they had the shuttle, but the shuttle was really an experiment to prove you could reuse craft. The original NASA draft for the shuttles was that there was supposed to be a fleet of at least 20. The most we ever got to was 6 (Enterprise, Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavor.)</p><p>The ISS is a huge political issue more than it is the exploration of space. Between senators in the 1980's having a say in it just to keep constituents employeed in their states, and the international politics following the collapse of the cold war. Everyone forgets that the station was originally a Reagan baby project. But, I must refute what you say on it Mike, there is merit to the station. It sound cheesy, but the station can be a way station for trips to the moon. And it does give man a permanent prescece in space. The main problem with the station is that they are unable to keep it manned to the specs that it was designed for due to the US being unable to create an escape vehicle for it. The X-38 was cancelled after finally getting two flights by the Bush administration in April 2002. Killed ironically by budget pressures for the station. You can find the story on what that was about here: <a href="http://www.fas.org/spp/guide/usa/launch/x-38.htm">http://www.fas.org/spp/guide/usa/launch/x-38.htm</a></p><p>Is it worth it to spend the money. Yes. It employees people, it brings about new innovations and designs. When you look at Project Apollo, it lead to more advances that was worth the cost of the project (27 Billion dollars by 1972.) Yet by the end of Apollo, the missions were going off near flawlessly, discounting of course Apollo 13. The permanent prescence of man on the moon is the next step. There are minerals and materials that can be harvested from the moon and the project will be more of a boon to the economy that we cant even imagine now. </p><p>EDIT: I must also include this quote from former NASA Head Administrator James Webb when confronted by Kennedy's advisors following Yuri Gagarins flight on April 12, 1961. &quot;Man can only bar witness to an event when experienced through the eyes of another man that has already experienced that event.&quot;</p>

<span class=post_edited>This message was edited by Doogie76 on 9-21-06 @ 1:29 PM</span>

[Furtherman]

<p><img height="350" src="http://img.metro.co.uk/i/pix/2006/09/saturn_noarrow_450x350.jpg" width="450" border="0" /></p><p>Here is a picture of Saturn's rings.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><img height="350" src="http://img.metro.co.uk/i/pix/2006/09/saturn_450x350.jpg" width="450" border="0" /></p><p>That little speck?&nbsp; That piece of dust?&nbsp; That faint dot?&nbsp; That's Earth.&nbsp; 930 million miles away.</p><p>&nbsp;</p>

[Mike Teacher]

<p>That little speck?&nbsp; That piece of dust?&nbsp; That faint dot?&nbsp; That's Earth.&nbsp; 930 million miles away.</p><p>=</p><p>Put's in all in perspective, yes? It should, I guess.</p><p>Carl Sagan wrote a book 'Pale Blue Dot' the title coming from a picture of the earth from Voyager in 1990. He wrote:</p><p>We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam. </p><p>The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. </p><p>Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known. </p>

[phixion]

<p>is it worth it? well that depends on how much you value knowledge. i personally think knowledge is invaluable, but i think im the monority here</p>

[ShelleBink]

<p>&nbsp;</p><strong>phixion</strong> wrote:<br /><p>is it worth it? well that depends on how much you value knowledge. i personally think knowledge is invaluable, but i think im the monority here</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Yeah, but considering the morons I go to college with, if you don't know shit about whats going on here, you probably don't give a fuck about whats going on out there.&nbsp;</p>

[phixion]

shelle in my military history class a kid asked how women knew they were pregnant in ancient times? he then added 'no i mean before the bump forms, obviously'&nbsp; so see thats why i think im in the minority

[furie]

New rocket thruster can travel to the moon on 1/10th of a litre of fuel

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2122034/EPFL-rocket-thruster-travel-moon-1-10th-litre-fuel.html#ixzz1qolQL71N
(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2122034/EPFL-rocket-thruster-travel-moon-1-10th-litre-fuel.html)

[StanUpshaw]

Dat headline.

They don't call it the Daily Fail for nothing.

[Crispy123]

New rocket thruster can travel to the moon on 1/10th of a litre of fuel

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2122034/EPFL-rocket-thruster-travel-moon-1-10th-litre-fuel.html#ixzz1qolQL71N
(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2122034/EPFL-rocket-thruster-travel-moon-1-10th-litre-fuel.html)

we are worried about global warming but we want to throw space junk into our atmosphere to get burned up. does that sound right?

[underdog]

we are worried about global warming but we want to throw space junk into our atmosphere to get burned up. does that sound right?

What?

[hanso]

This must be a Fred Flintstone model.

[StanUpshaw]

What?

Crispy's not too keen on the whole "science" thing.

[IamFogHat]

He thinks cameras steal his soul.

[StanUpshaw]

He thinks cameras steal his soul.

Oh don't they, foggy?

http://i.imgur.com/whlu0.jpg

Don't they?

[Crispy123]

What?

did you read the article?

It is due to be used on CleanSpace One, a satellite under development at EPFL that is intended to clean up space debris.
The satellite will 'grab' lumps of orbiting debris and throw them back into Earth's atmosphere, where they will burn up on re-entry.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2122034/EPFL-rocket-thruster-travel-moon-1-10th-litre-fuel.html#ixzz1qpB9aDoL


He thinks cameras steal his soul.

you have to have a picture AND something that belonged to the person. EVERYONE knows that, duh.

[Syd]

we are worried about global warming but we want to throw space junk into our atmosphere to get burned up. does that sound right?

Right now low earth orbit is cluttered with shittons of debris, limiting what we can put into orbit, including, but not limited to, solar arrays to beam energy back down to Earth. So yeah, important to clean it up now. Also the problem with that engine is it doesn't provide all that much thrust -- ion engines are awesome, but not for true exploration (at this point, at least)

and in general, not worth it -- NASA isn't independent enough to have meaningful impact on space exploration. Whatever majority comes in decides what they're doing, ignorant of scientific intent or plan.

Exploiting outer space for financial gain is impossible due to the extreme cost of launching things into orbit. Until a permanent manned presence happens or some miracle breakthrough happens to allow an elevator, no point in bothering with anything other than robots.

[furie]

did you read the article?






you have to have a picture AND something that belonged to the person. EVERYONE knows that, duh.

right, but satellites entering the atmosphere do not contribute to global warming.

[Crispy123]

right, but satellites entering the atmosphere do not contribute to global warming.

that is debatable:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/57568481/26/Space-Debris-DA—Impact—Ozone-Layer-1-2In addition, scientist Andrei Konradi has suggested thatthe introduction of debris into the near-earth environment has altered "high-energy proton fluxes in theVan Allen radiation belt." Using data about the debris environment in near-earth orbit, Konradi's study found that projected impacts between protons and debris particles would shorten the lifetimes of such protons, which could affect the radiation environment in near-earth orbit.

Konradi's conclusion was based on data obtained ten years ago, not reflecting the significant increase in commercial uses of space that has prompted concern about the orbital debris issue. Thus, the risk would likely be even more serious if current data were considered. Finally, at least one author has suggested that extensive use of the earth's atmosphere to burn up space objects, either intentionally or incidentally, could damage the upper atmosphere

http://www.fas.org/spp/military/docops/army/ref_text/chap5im.htmExperience has shown that spacecraft (manned or unmanned) in low circular orbits (120*340 mi) receive an insignificant amount of radiation from the Van Allen zones. A satellite in a geosynchronous orbit, however, would be close enough to the center of the outer zone (22,500 mi) to accumulate a hazardous dose. For manned space systems, the spacecraft must be shielded and an orbit that minimizes radiation exposure must be selected.

http://www.space.com/6720-space-littering-impact-earths-atmosphere.html One study team that looked into the impact of de-orbiting space debris on stratospheric ozone issued their findings back in 1994. The work was done by an aerospace industry firm for the Environmental Management Division of the Space and Missile Systems Center. They reported that objects re-entering the atmosphere can affect ozone in several ways, but not on a significant level globally.

Indeed, as an object plows through the Earth?s stratosphere, a shock wave is created that produces nitric oxide, a known cause of ozone depletion. Spacecraft and rocket motors are composed of metal alloys and composite materials that melt away during re-entry. The researchers found that these materials, as they undergo intense heating, also form chemicals that react directly or indirectly to consume ozone.

Overall, the study found that the physical and chemical phenomena associated with deorbiting debris do not have ?a significant impact? on global stratospheric ozone.

[Judge Smails]

50 Years of Space Exploration

http://i.imgur.com/dOBXv.jpg

[underdog]

50 Years of Space Exploration

http://i.imgur.com/dOBXv.jpg

I just lost 2 hours of my life to wikipedia due to that picture.

I regret nothing.

[Furtherman]

The Russians totally own Venus.

[A.J.]

The Russians totally own Venus.

But we own their Venus probes.

http://www.plaidstallions.com/kenner/7804t.jpg

[sailor]

Wow, how old are you to pull out that probe...reference?

[A.J.]

That and the Sasquatch are some of my fondest childhood memories.

[cougarjake13]

yello

[PapaBear]

50 Years of Space Exploration


I was trying to figure out how you got only 50 years. Finally did. It's been 50 years since The UK has been involved with space flight. It's really cool pic, though.

[hanso]

yello

The Sun!!


The Universe is a good show