Why is the American gov wasting money on moon and mars?

Why is the american gov and other governments around the world wasting money on moon and mars when are obvious next port of exploration is EUROPA?

This disscusion will obviously excite those who believe moon and mars are great big cover ups and they want to go back to help with disclosure or to introduce the fact they have been colinated....im not going to get into that i just feel that if they are both dead planets then lets go somewhere that might have life existing as we speak (type)

Cancel all moon and mars missions and lets build a giant space rig and go drilling at europa!!!

reply to post by ian990003100

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The simple answer: Because it would look bad if the goverment wasted all that money on prostitutes.

The official answer: The moon is close enough for permanent settlement and Mars is considerably easier to explore than Europa.

We need to start with baby steps.

possibly because there is something there, think about it why waste all that money if there is nothing to gain.

To keep the public agenda and mantain the cover-up about the real space military program, obviously not based in rocket science.

Being a little bit of a business man i would not throw money at something that is dead in the water....The whole moon mars budget would probably pay for a trip to Europa were a team could set up base....

It's the only logical mission....

I've e-mailed Nasa about this many times and the response i got was unmanned exploration will continue in the outer extremes of our solar system.

It makes no financial sense.

It maybe cheaper to send man to the moon to say hey look what we can do but it's tired now we need to move on.

A lunar base would provide the foundation needed to make a manned flight to mars easier. A mars colony would be a good foundation for exploring further out. Basically each step we make is a step toward going further.

There are mineral deposits on the moon that can not be found in great quantities on earth. What about the mining potentional of mars? Not to mention that Mars would probably be the easiest to terraform. I don't think these are a waste, but rather necessary steps.

reply to post by ian990003100

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while i dont believe the true reason may be known for quite some time, man has an inherit drive to explore and conquer the unknown. although there is still much about our home planet that we do not yet know we also have the technology to begin to explore space that is relatively close to home. so why not gain as much information as we can in as little time as possible?

You're talking about a manned mission to Europa? I don't think so. It would be a very long trip. You'd need to bring tons and tons of supplies just for the trip there, let alone for the stay time and the trip back. If any problems were to happen, no help could be sent in time. Plus a mission to Europa would have to deal with the long term effects of radiation in space. The whole point of setting up a base on the Moon is to learn more about these things and how to live in a harsh environment for long periods of time and to improve our technology and understanding of how to do it. We have to set up a base on the Moon first, before trying it anywhere else.

Also, I would imagine that a manned mission to Europa would cost a lot more than the planned missions to the Moon and Mars. It's just not feasible at this point in time.



No it's not, not for a manned mission anyway. For robotic exploration, yes.



I think you miss the whole point of sending people to the Moon. Like I said before. We need to learn how to live and survive in that harsh environment first. The Moon is close and easily accessible. It's perfect for setting up the first off world bases. It makes perfect logical and financial sense to do it. A manned mission to Europa does not.

There's the obvious reason -- and that is because Mars is "What's Next" for human exploration, and we first need to set up permanent bases on the Moon as practice for living on Mars.

There is also this:
A manned mission to Mars to look for ancient life (or even existing microbial life) is important because finding proof that life could have started independently on another planet would mean that life could be adundant throughout the universe -- and the only way to prove that Martian life is truly independent from Earth life would be for humans to actually go there and looked in many varied places and run all the tests that they can. This work is not suitable -- or even impossible -- for robotic probes. A probe -- even a Europa probe -- cannot answer that question with absolute certainty.

Even if they find that Mars is now dead, but once DID have life that is totally independant from Earth life, that would be just as monumantal as finding living oranisms on Europa -- the implications of either discovery is the same -- that life is probably abundant throught the universe.

Having said that, I would hope that we DO send a probe to Europa within the next 20 years or so -- but not at the expense of sending the next great group of Human explorers and eventually colonists to Mars.

Mars is exciting.

Life
Structures
Architecture

What more excuses do you need?

We only see the tid bits but are still amazed. Glass tunnels, faces, pyramid rocks, patterns, pipes, random figure walking down a hill.

Both the moon and mars would make a good jump point for other explorations.

In addition, the moon is rich in Helium-3.

Finally, we are eventually going to run out of space on earth so it's important to start local expeditionary colonies as soon as possible.

Some believe there was an old civilization on the moon, much older the ours. The reason why Russia, China, Japan, India, and the U.S. are interested again in the moon is to reap the benefits from this possibly advanced civilization. Look up Richard Hoagland for more info on that Conspiracy theory.

Another theory is that we are already on the moon, and we have been there for a long time, now with Japan, and the others going there we want to build a moon base to cover up the bases we have there already. Look up John Lear's moon pics for more on that.

Helium 3, the possible key to controlled fusion, may be abundant on the moon. Since I don’t think there is any on Earth, the moon would be the next possible step. With cheaper space travel and private space companies, the new moon x prize, if you get mine it and get it back to Earth cheap enough that could be billions and billions of dollars and a whole new industry.

The world is getting to crowded and since sterilization and genocide generally doesn’t go over well, it may be a good idea to work on finding a new place to live, we may nee 200-300 years in the future. That’s only a couple of our own generations. Do you care what happens to your future great grand children?

Sorry above poster, looks like we were thinking some of the same things.


[edit on 24-2-2008 by jojoKnowsBest]

Why is the American government wasting $500 billion on the war on Iraq?

Making new enemies to subsidize the military industrial complex?

The moon

as others point out, there is helium-3 there, it is also a logical 1st step
in making an operational & sustained, permanent colony off Earth.

A colony which could house a number of political elites, who would seek refuge there on the moon as the global plagues and socio-economic turmoil unwinds here on terra firma.... the future of the "continuance of government" program



Mars

explore the monuments on Mars, construct a 2st century 'garden of eden'

Why? To finally put a lid on all of those "we never went to the moon" conspirators.


One extra line to admit that this is the most unintelligent post I've made.

I believe this is an important step - a little more enthusiasm would be nice though

Another link

www.news.com.au...

oss

They have mentioned a future project where they would send some kinda drill machine to Europa. I wonder when that's really going to happen.

Militarily, the moon is the next best step to take to gain the highest ground. Especially if you can build a mass driver. Perfect for preemptive strikes if a falling rock leaves no radioactive dust and has almost the same kinetic force was a nuke.

We definitely need to colonize outside of Earth to ensure survival of man kind.
Earth could become poisonous to life tomorrow for all we know. Asteroids, super volcanoes, poll flips, sun could burp. Even more likely we kill ourselves.