If you look back in human history, you'll see problems persists and never go away, reason we are here now is because we do things in parallel, and on the way new technologies often solve problems in other areas. No one knows what the future will bring, maybe we will solve world hunger another way instead of just throwing more money at it like what you're suggesting.
Except that... hold up a second here... the problem HAS gone away in western nations. Your malthusian argument simply doesn't hold water. If you understand how we in the West have solved the problem of hunger (industrialization & the free enterprise system) you will how the third world can do the same. 'The Conquest of Poverty' by Henry Hazlitt explains this in great detail.
When was this? Last time I checked there was still poverty, hunger and crime in the western world. Sure there is a lot less of it in our part of the world compared to the third world, but it still persist.
and to all the people who say nasa is a waste of money, as have been pointed out a lot in this thread: world military budget: 2.1 Trillion dollars world space budget: 38 billion dollars
I fail to see how we can't both have advances in science and space together with helping the poor. Why is it that those who want to work for nasa and put men on mars can't do that and then you can go to Africa.
Space is no waste of monney. It pushes technology and the technology we got from our space programs is worth much and much more then the monney we have spend on them. Wont be easy to convince people of this without some evidence i understand so will do a google search lol
An absurd amount of technologies that people use everyday were developed by NASA and as a result of NASA.
Not to question the merits of powdered lubricants but scientific research would have discovered all of these things anyway. It's just a fantastic waste of scarce resources to launch men into outer space when over a billion people around the world live in dire poverty. Instead of fanciful projects like sending some probe onto another planet that money could have been used to develop capital here on Earth and making people better off.
If solving all the world's problems would be as easy as diverting 0.5% of the USA's Federal Budget, there'd be a lot less problems in the world already. However, the sad truth is that 0.5% is not even going to make a dent in whatever societal issue strikes your fancy, let alone have a lasting effect. If you're in such dire straits that your country absolutely needs to divert this small of a percentage, theres a lot of other areas you should be cutting in first.
What 0.5% can do is get the public interested in science and raise science awareness and literacy. What 0.5% can do is get young teenagers to dream, stimulating them to go into science and engineering, which will help build the economy of tomorrow. What 0.5% can do is develop new technologies that will push the boundary of human capacity, wellbeing and achievement of all of mankind.
To quote deGrasse Tyson: "How much would you pay for the universe?"
On May 05 2012 10:24 TheGeneralTheoryOf wrote: NASA has been a collosal waste of resources. A trillion + has been spent, and what exactly has resulted? A bunch of pretty pictures and tang, and maybe some new advances in weapons that can eliminate the human race. Epic fail. Shut it down.
Isn't the internet a wonderful thing, where you can just completely make up any old thing you want and type it where people can read it?
If you look back in human history, you'll see problems persists and never go away, reason we are here now is because we do things in parallel, and on the way new technologies often solve problems in other areas. No one knows what the future will bring, maybe we will solve world hunger another way instead of just throwing more money at it like what you're suggesting.
Except that... hold up a second here... the problem HAS gone away in western nations. Your malthusian argument simply doesn't hold water. If you understand how we in the West have solved the problem of hunger (industrialization & the free enterprise system) you will how the third world can do the same. 'The Conquest of Poverty' by Henry Hazlitt explains this in great detail.
The problem hasn't gone away, it's simply been delayed. For example, right now, major parts of the US are in severe drought. In the next 50 years, we could see the majority of the US living in permanent drought conditions, which brings a huge number of problems including food production.
Malthus was right but had the wrong timescale. That is all. No one sane believes that we can keep growing in a finite world.
On May 05 2012 10:56 xrapture wrote: I really hope NASA gets closed down for a few decades/centuries. The problems we face on Earth are exponentially more important than any of NASA's endeavors. What the hell did landing a man on the moon accomplish? Oh right, nothing.
Curtail human population growth, stabilize the standard of living in 3rd world countries, improve education, give all groups equal rights, reduce crime, go Green, find an alternative and clean fuel source, employ the unemployed
-- ALL of these things should be prioritized and solved before we even think about exploring outer space.
Cutting the national science budget under the guise of "its not helping us right now!" is incredibly short sighted. If the same agrument had been made throughout history about scientific funding we would not have advanced to the position we are in now. If you add up every one of the scientific agencies within the federal government, they represent ~1.5% of the total federal spending. Less than 2 cents on every tax dollar.
That's our total investment in the future, our gift to the next generation. 1.5%.
Ironically, several of the "priorities" you mentioned have directly benefited from NASA research. Solar energy advances, medical advances with contributions to the modern MRI, implantable heart pumps and artificle limbs, pollution clean up technologies, fire fighting technologies, the list goes on.
But most importantly, they lead the way into space. The effect of that can be difficult to measure at this point, since we live before the time when space represents a significant economic opportunity. But the next fifty years will see the beginnings of this, with serious plans for offworld mining (Planetary Resources) and private space station tourism (Bigelow Aerospace) already in place. Neither of which would have been viable without NASA's original research into spaceflight and monetary contributions to companies such as SpaceX.
Neil deGrasse Tyson on the effect of the manned program on the country:
On May 05 2012 17:51 Miyoshino wrote: Military budget is not a waste of money? Don't understand the argument you try to make.
Take a minute and reflect on the truths that science has bared. We are but one of many species, on just one planet that orbits around one of the 400 hundred or so billion stars, in one of the trillions of galaxies within our universe. As far a we know we are alone. We live and die here on our small little planet in fear. In fear of each other and in fear of the future. It is the folly of our leaders from every nation to deny the cold truth. The truth that we may not be a remarkable occurrence in the universe, the truth that any differences we may have with one another are about as meaningful as our very existence. We sit here on our tiny fragile planet building walls and bombs, with no escape. If our present trends continue annihilation is enviable.
We need hope for the future. We need a vision. We have to be conscious of our doings. There are many people who share your point of view. But, where will that get us in 100-200 years. A future of your fancy will lead to death and despair for every one. Disaster awaits. We would be fortunate to have 1 million people to survive the impending doom.
It is all about our priorities as a species. The fruits of science spoil as our leaders, both political and religious, neglect the nutritional and supplemental value that is offered. People will always be adherent and follow those who are more distinguished and well known. And, it is they who deem that weapons are preferable to rockets.
The lack of funding for advanced sciences sucks but at this point I can say for certainty that my fellow physicists really are not giving governments something worth spending excessive amounts of money on. Sadly science advances on insight and understanding and not funding, so even though the industry is financially going downhill I can't fault the various cutbacks. If we had legitimate sciences to advance and we starting doing this then I would get pissed. But at the moment I guess private industry needs to take over for projects that are limited to making a better tv, computer, or cheaper rocket. The "filler" science.
On May 05 2012 17:51 Miyoshino wrote: Military budget is not a waste of money? Don't understand the argument you try to make.
Take a minute and reflect on the truths that science has bared.
This all doesn't clasify your argument. But why do you make the science-argument for tourism when that tourism can be directly linked to cuts of budgets for science programs?
If you like science, you should be against the government using science-branded money on space tourism for the supermillionares.
On May 05 2012 17:51 Miyoshino wrote: Military budget is not a waste of money? Don't understand the argument you try to make.
Take a minute and reflect on the truths that science has bared.
This all doesn't clasify your argument. But why do you make the science-argument for tourism when that tourism can be directly linked to cuts of budgets for science programs?
If you like science, you should be against the government using science-branded money on space tourism for the supermillionares.
Is that all you have to say about that?
I haven't uttered a word about space tourism. You must have me confused with someone else.
On May 05 2012 10:24 TheGeneralTheoryOf wrote: NASA has been a collosal waste of resources. A trillion + has been spent, and what exactly has resulted? A bunch of pretty pictures and tang, and maybe some new advances in weapons that can eliminate the human race. Epic fail. Shut it down.
Isn't the internet a wonderful thing, where you can just completely make up any old thing you want and type it where people can read it?
'Seen in the year-by-year breakdown listed below, the total amounts (in nominal dollars) that NASA has been budgeted from 1958 to 2011 amounts to $526.18 billion dollars'
adjust for inflation and that is > 1 trillion, brah
On May 05 2012 10:24 TheGeneralTheoryOf wrote: NASA has been a collosal waste of resources. A trillion + has been spent, and what exactly has resulted? A bunch of pretty pictures and tang, and maybe some new advances in weapons that can eliminate the human race. Epic fail. Shut it down.
Isn't the internet a wonderful thing, where you can just completely make up any old thing you want and type it where people can read it?
'Seen in the year-by-year breakdown listed below, the total amounts (in nominal dollars) that NASA has been budgeted from 1958 to 2011 amounts to $526.18 billion dollars'
adjust for inflation and that is > 1 trillion, brah
If you feel that NASA is a waste of money what about the Department of Defense or the military budget? I mean if you want to talk about a waste of money.
11 years at in iraq.Afghanistan and it has already beaten NASA's " Waste" which took them 58 years to accumulate.
I don't want to make this a thread of if the money was spent well or not. I just want to point out these ridiculously high numbers i cant even comprehend.
Those "Pretty" pictures you where talking about? These are pictures bringing us closer to understand just what the universe is and how it came to be as well as were we are headed.
If you don't care or don't really want to know thats your buisness but there are a lot of people who want to understand the universe.
Honestly i was trying to understand your points but the one that made me awestruck the one that had me just sitting in my chair wondering where in the world you could come up with some sort of crazy idea.
and maybe some new advances in weapons that can eliminate the human race
Where did you even hear about this? What has NASA ever done that has been related to war or blowing up the human race. NASA is a civilian program meaning that the military has no direct influence on NASA's plans. There might be a lot of people in NASA who have a military background but they all had to retire or leave the service.
For-profit enterprises don't have nearly enough incentive to succeed in space travel. Nor do I really trust the private sector to engage in good engineering practice if it's expensive to do so. It's a shame NASA isn't all that it used to be.
On May 06 2012 07:44 Lightwip wrote: For-profit enterprises don't have nearly enough incentive to succeed in space travel. Nor do I really trust the private sector to engage in good engineering practice if it's expensive to do so. It's a shame NASA isn't all that it used to be.
Then why is SpaceX succesfull? Where are more companies like it being created. Heck were planning to go out and mine asteroids now.
the private sector is perfectly fine to handle spaceflight so long as oversight is maintained to ensure the safety of those involved.
On May 06 2012 07:44 Lightwip wrote: For-profit enterprises don't have nearly enough incentive to succeed in space travel. Nor do I really trust the private sector to engage in good engineering practice if it's expensive to do so. It's a shame NASA isn't all that it used to be.
Then why is SpaceX succesfull? Where are more companies like it being created. Heck were planning to go out and mine asteroids now.
the private sector is perfectly fine to handle spaceflight so long as oversight is maintained to ensure the safety of those involved.
Depends what you mean by successful. If you mean that they haven't had any critical failures yet, then yes, they are successful. Yet with the advancements already made in space travel, this is hardly a surprise. They haven't done anything too special. Being able to send unmanned spacecraft is no longer an especially massive feat. Also keep in mind that SpaceX is heavily funded and assisted by NASA, which just so happens to be a government enterprise. I doubt they'd get very far without it. NASA is just using SpaceX as a proxy space effort, and as soon as NASA gets more funding, private space organizations will be crowded out.
On May 06 2012 07:44 Lightwip wrote: For-profit enterprises don't have nearly enough incentive to succeed in space travel. Nor do I really trust the private sector to engage in good engineering practice if it's expensive to do so. It's a shame NASA isn't all that it used to be.
Then why is SpaceX succesfull? Where are more companies like it being created. Heck were planning to go out and mine asteroids now.
the private sector is perfectly fine to handle spaceflight so long as oversight is maintained to ensure the safety of those involved.
Depends what you mean by successful. If you mean that they haven't had any critical failures yet, then yes, they are successful. Yet with the advancements already made in space travel, this is hardly a surprise. They haven't done anything too special. Being able to send unmanned spacecraft is no longer an especially massive feat. Also keep in mind that SpaceX is heavily funded and assisted by NASA, which just so happens to be a government enterprise. I doubt they'd get very far without it. NASA is just using SpaceX as a proxy space effort, and as soon as NASA gets more funding, private space organizations will be crowded out.
Private companies need NASA in space or they have none to sell their services/asteroid mined goods to. This is a good thing.
We aren't going to see private colonies in space for a very long time. NASA or maybe China are going to have a colony long before a company does, the reason is that the risk is to big and usage to small for a company to do and until NASA have developed the technology in order to cheapen and make the colonies relatively safe.
USA cutting down on NASA's budget is sad, but I can understand some people in USA being concerned that it is their taxes going to research and not the rest of the world
DreamChaser : I agree that spending trillions on armies is a bad idea. I am in favour of eliminating all government spending. I was opposed to the war on Iraq & the war on Afghanistan when they began and I oppose them still. I'm not just against those wars, I'm against the next wars as well. I opposed the intervention in Libya. I oppose the use of predator drones that murder Pakistani children.
What has NASA ever done that has been related to war or blowing up the human race.
You don't think they're putting weapons in outer space? Governments kill people. That's sort of their schtick. Maybe they did funnel a trillion dollars just to take pretty pictures, and have some dudes shoot golf on the moon but that seems to me to be viewing this whole thing through rose coloured glasses. Satelliete's are extremely useful for surveillance in terms of conventional warfare. ICBMS, etc.
There are plenty of civilian uses for rocketry and satellites. Honestly, these start to become more significant than the fact that they can be used for war.
EPT
