Donald Trump expected to slash Nasa's climate change budget in favour of sending humans back to the

originally posted by: kloejen
How about we send Trump to the darkside of the moon,
and the rest of the US, concentrates on paying its debts back?

Win Win ?

Wonderful suggestion ... but if you were a Sanders supporter, were you wondering like I was why he wanted to raise $18T in new revenue for new spending instead of paying back the debt first with it?

So, nah, we need to get off the planet and expand out. It may in the end be the only thing that keeps us from killing each other.

a reply to: SignalMal

Climate change is a non-issue if we reach for the stars.

Assuming we can find and relocate to another habitable planet before Earth becomes unlivable for us.

a reply to: Lucid Lunacy

Yea well honestly, do you see this place becoming inhospitable to human beings anytime soon? Even if civilization collapsed, we went to the friggin' moon half a century ago. I mean we're talking about colonizing mars what next decade or in the 2030s? If catastrophe happened in the relative future, we could tech our way to survive at least in some numbers.

I'm not the least bit concerned with climate change as I am an asteroid/comet. Reaching for the stars is a moral imperative.

a reply to: SignalMal

I certainly do not brush aside the issue of climate change like most here do.

Reaching for the stars is a moral imperative

I very much agree. I'm very passionate about space exploration.

I would love it if we put our time and resources to addressing climate change and exploring space. But I guess it can only be one or the other...

originally posted by: Lucid Lunacy
a reply to: SignalMal

I certainly do not brush aside the issue of climate change like most here do.

Speaking of the possibility of civilization collapsing due to climate change is not the same brushing aside

I just realize we're pretty far beyond most of the doom-porn surrounding all but the worst-case scenario (venus syndrome). We can engineer our own synthetic food, create artificial environments... hell, we can create synthetic organisms (primitively, currently) to tinker with all those lost species that keep piling up as the years pass on.

Look at it this way... the Malthusians have long predicted collapse since the beginning of the first Industrial Revolution. Technology always changed the terrain and brought up our carrying capacity. This continues on today, not only with food production, but with human innovation in general. We use more resources, and yet the best of us create that which makes it all worth while and then some.

It's the same applied on a grander scale. We're now using all of earth's systems to catapult us onto greater terrain. I think this is natural, and perhaps the way many species evolve elsewhere in the universe.

originally posted by: crazyewok
a reply to: Justanotherman

After the diaster of the Shuttles and budget cuts since Bush I I gave up on NASA. The private sector is where my hopes lie.

Though Trump has given me some hope.

The private sector, while admirable, is not really doing very well. The failed tests show that they lack the engineering and money (certainly not mutually exclusive), required to produce viable vehicles. Putting NASA back in the drivers seat will certainly be good for everyone. They are the best at what they do.

They are the mentors for private space venture companies, and everything they do can only help them succeed in the future.

a reply to: Christosterone

Trumps a goofy uneducated(Or so it appears) buffoon, but lets face it while climate change is real, there really is nothing humanity can do to retard the process, whether or not we are directly responsible for contributing to the phenomena or otherwise.

Eventual colonization of the Moon offers Man his best shot at being able to construct and launch a manned mission to Mars or even the other planets/moons of our star system.

Moon first, then Mars if you ask me.

Wow. Ok the ignorance here is astounding. First of all, Mars is not habitable. It won't ever be a place where a human can exist for any reasonable duration of time. Human beings are tied to gravity of the earth. It must be precise in order for normal cellular function. Mars is a robotic mining colony and nothing more. Even if...

We do not have the technology to get us to a truly habitable planet. We don't even have the technology to determine whether or not planets from other solar systems are habitable. Only in the "habitable zone". Its still a guess at this point. Maybe there isn't another planet that is habitable. The odds of finding a balanced system as complex as earths that can specifically support human life is probably about 1 to how ever many planets there are in the universe.

Besides, cutting and running on earth because we screwed it up is a band aid solution. Will humans spread across the universe, burning everything down in its path? Then after we use up all the resources in the universe we go to an alternate dimension to jack their sht? Terrible plan.

Isn't it a lot easier to not fck up this planet? Just stop treating the place like a dumpster and start listening to the planets needs instead of your own. It literally gives you everything you need already. It's on all of you to step up and save your home.

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: Christosterone

Trumps a goofy uneducated(Or so it appears) buffoon, but lets face it while climate change is real, there really is nothing humanity can do to retard the process, whether or not we are directly responsible for contributing to the phenomena or otherwise.

Eventual colonization of the Moon offers Man his best shot at being able to construct and launch a manned mission to Mars or even the other planets/moons of our star system.

Moon first, then Mars if you ask me.

There absolutely is a way to halt this. The solution is already available, the tech is there, and Mars colonization is not an option. A bubble colony a la Total Recall isn't a possibility.

originally posted by: BrokedownChevy
The odds of finding a balanced system as complex as earths that can specifically support human life is probably about 1 to how ever many planets there are in the universe.

Yea I guess like our forefathers, giving up is the best course of action. I mean, the odds are against us, so it only makes sense.

originally posted by: SignalMal
a reply to: Lucid Lunacy

Yea well honestly, do you see this place becoming inhospitable to human beings anytime soon? Even if civilization collapsed, we went to the friggin' moon half a century ago. I mean we're talking about colonizing mars what next decade or in the 2030s? If catastrophe happened in the relative future, we could tech our way to survive at least in some numbers.

I'm not the least bit concerned with climate change as I am an asteroid/comet. Reaching for the stars is a moral imperative.

Asteroid/Comet
Nuclear Fallout
Pollution

Not in any particular order.

Let's do some reality check: The so called "private" sector only exists because half of the money is financed through the government and even using government and military properties

Have u seen SpaceX building a launch pad for it's rockets? No they use the Cap or Vandenberg.

So yeah, while many here think that NASA is a "old, way behind, non functional, always screwing up" organization, think again - because the only reason why these "private" company exists, is because NASA is paying for them.

a reply to: BrokedownChevy

Why is Mars colonization not an option? If we had a permanent Moon base and construction facility we could build a Mars capable craft far more cost effectively than back on Earth or even low Earth orbit. Then you have new propulsion systems like the EM drive to consider, which if it works, and taken to its logical conclusion could make the trip to Mars inside a few weeks.

As to global warming, Man made or otherwise, the Earth moves in cycles/epochs. With the current technologies at our disposal there is nothing we can do to change those cycles short of full blown nuclear war which would possibly initiate a nuclear winter/mini ice age for a few thousand years but the result would possible be the extinction of the Human race and would only be a stop gap measure anyhow.

Humanity best hope of belaying extinction is to get off this rock and on to greener pastures, even if we have to create them .

a reply to: Bluntone22

Democrats controlled congress when he made the request, and the went forward with it.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
I didn't think the president controlled the budget.
And I dint know he told nasa how to spend theirs.

So JFK had no influence on the moon landings?

a reply to: stosh64

"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."

Great speech, wonder what Kennedy would have made of Mr Trump?

I dunno where you guys get the idea that it's impossible to colonize Mars. We send people to live in orbit, in microgravity, for a year plus and their "cellular function" isn't disrupted. The only ill effects are that their bone and muscle density decreases, which really isn't a problem until they come back to Earth. Mars has about 1/3 Earth gravity, which is vastly better than what they deal with in orbit. If we can keep people in orbit, we can keep people on Mars. The trick is getting there.

As for Mr. Kennedy, I'm not sure what he'd think of Mr. Trump, but he would probably be considered a right-wing, bigoted, warmongering gun-nut by today's Democratic party standards.

originally posted by: BrokedownChevy
Wow. Ok the ignorance here is astounding. First of all, Mars is not habitable. It won't ever be a place where a human can exist for any reasonable duration of time. Human beings are tied to gravity of the earth. It must be precise in order for normal cellular function. Mars is a robotic mining colony and nothing more. Even if...

We do not have the technology to get us to a truly habitable planet. We don't even have the technology to determine whether or not planets from other solar systems are habitable. Only in the "habitable zone". Its still a guess at this point. Maybe there isn't another planet that is habitable. The odds of finding a balanced system as complex as earths that can specifically support human life is probably about 1 to how ever many planets there are in the universe.

Besides, cutting and running on earth because we screwed it up is a band aid solution. Will humans spread across the universe, burning everything down in its path? Then after we use up all the resources in the universe we go to an alternate dimension to jack their sht? Terrible plan.

Isn't it a lot easier to not fck up this planet? Just stop treating the place like a dumpster and start listening to the planets needs instead of your own. It literally gives you everything you need already. It's on all of you to step up and save your home.

We're never gonna have the technology to go to another habitable planet if we can't even go to the moon.

It's stepping stones bro. Imagine that the ORION project hadn't been cancelled in the 1960s. We'd have unimaginable tech resulting from that which you couldn't foresee. We'd notice some weird science effect on the bending of space happening when you explode 1000 nukes together, analyze it, and develop a warp engine or some crazy #. We'd be sending men to Alpha Centauri by now.

Do you really think humanity is gonna get to the next level not doing crazy #? Crazy # is you do crazy things.

This nonsense with chemical rockets and robots that we've been doing is stuff a loser would do. We need to think bigger.

Moon today, Mars tomorrow, outer solar system after that. Bam. We're back in the game, winning.

What you're talking is a loser's mentality. We don't need a complete plan. We just need to start winning again and things will naturally fall into place. We'll be colonizing other planets in no time. You can't get to the stars from a loser's position. You gotta be a winner. Winning naturally puts you into a good position to keep winning. So, start winning again and them make plans from there.

Interesting game of misdirection. F Climate Science in the #ss so we can explore space. Seems a disjointed argument. I can't believe there are still people who deny Climate Change... Then again, I couldn't believe people voted the new Nazi party into the White House, so I guess we can only expect full retardation from this group moving forward. And By forward, I mean backward.

originally posted by: spiritualzombie
Interesting game of misdirection. F Climate Science in the #ss so we can explore space. Seems a disjointed argument. I can't believe there are still people who deny Climate Change... Then again, I couldn't believe people voted the new Nazi party into the White House, so I guess we can only expect full retardation from this group moving forward. And By forward, I mean backward.

You can't stop global warming. You can only slow it down. By slowing global warming down, you ironically retard development into the things that will eventually stop global warming.

Know what would be a good way to figure out new energy tech? Having manned spacecraft flying around the solar system and needing to go further than chemical rockets can allow.

Know what slows down research into making the technological singularity happen? Putting environmental regulations on computer chip manufacturers and increasing their costs, taking away from R&D.

I see potential solutions to global warming occurring from both of those.

Know what I don't see a solution to global warming coming from? Stopping scientists from taking us to the next level.