NASA is lost in Space

Originally posted by MarioOnTheFly
reply to post by SpearMint

 

In your mind maybe. I am of opinion that sometimes in life we do things without thinking of the financial benefit. For instance, majority of people buy their houses with an installment plan. They don't have that money upfront. They will pay for it throughout their lives. Having children is also something that costs a lot of money...but we are not thinking most of the time about that. It's a simple matter of survival. We have to do it...no matter the cost. Cost is secondary.

Exploring the Moon, is in my mind, a necessity for our civilization. It is the cheapest first step on a staircase to heaven.

But you would rather splash billions on, let's say weapons for the military, because...it can be sold and money earned. Fine...that's you.

It is the reason the world is where we are today...on the brink of a global fallout. Because money is first...and every other interest that is born out of money...comes before all other human interests.

Apparently you don't live this money governed planet I call Earth. Go tell NASA to just do it because we can, they'll tell you the same thing.

Originally posted by SpearMint

Originally posted by FFS4000
reply to post by SpearMint

 

Why not, why should we not go back ? and so what if it's expensive, there are plenty of expensive things on Earth and most of those are a waste of money, i'd rather money was spent on space exploration than useless breeders. I'm with the OP, i think there is more going on than we are told

Because there's not much we can get out of it. Tell me why we should.

When I say it's expensive, I mean EXPENSIVE, the last estimate I heard was over 104 billion USD. Not to mention risky with our primitive rocket technology.

edit on 5-12-2012 by SpearMint because: (no reason given)

"Not to mention risky with our primitive rocket technology."

Risky...due to primitive rocket technology...



It's a wonder how they even landed men on the moon back then considering our current technology is so "primitive."

It would be easy as to land men on the moon today...that is, if men ever reached the moon in the first place.

reply to post by MarioOnTheFly

Thank God Columbus never thought about things like "getting something out of it" before setting of in to the unknown, otherwise...who knows if you would even be alive today.

In point of fact, money was the only thing Columbus was interested in. He thought he had figured out a way to cut Venice, the Turks and the Persians out of the lucrative East Asia trade! Why do you think the Crown was willing to give him money for his expedition. Columbus brought back gold and silver, eventually making Spain the richest empire of Europe. The astronauts brought back scientifically interesting but economically useless rocks.

Originally posted by daaskapital

Originally posted by SpearMint

Originally posted by FFS4000
reply to post by SpearMint

 

Why not, why should we not go back ? and so what if it's expensive, there are plenty of expensive things on Earth and most of those are a waste of money, i'd rather money was spent on space exploration than useless breeders. I'm with the OP, i think there is more going on than we are told

Because there's not much we can get out of it. Tell me why we should.

When I say it's expensive, I mean EXPENSIVE, the last estimate I heard was over 104 billion USD. Not to mention risky with our primitive rocket technology.

edit on 5-12-2012 by SpearMint because: (no reason given)

"Not to mention risky with our primitive rocket technology."

Risky...due to primitive rocket technology...

It's a wonder how they even landed men on the moon back then considering our current technology is so "primitive."

It would be easy as to land men on the moon today...that is, if men ever reached the moon in the first place.

You don't think our current method of space travel is primitive? It's insanely expensive in terms of money and fuel, very dangerous, slow and hasn't changed. It is primitive.

NASA is trying to boost their funding. They have a lot of hungry minds to feed. It doesn't matter what the project is as long as they get money to pay their agencies salaries and benefits. Their belief, as is many peoples, is that space exploration is necessary. Food, heat, shelter and a sanitary environment are what we need.

I have nothing against science, they just need to get their priorities in order and quit chasing the almighty buck. I bet not many of them even possesses a deer license to get that buck.

reply to post by MarioOnTheFly

Exploring the Moon, is in my mind, a necessity for our civilization. It is the cheapest first step on a staircase to heaven.

No it's not. What percent of the US population will ever get to go? Would you pay for an expressway that only people with over $100 billion in the bank can use?

Sailing ships were the norm back in the day. It was not a big deal to fund a trip in an unexplored direction. The ships were alreaady paid for and crews were disposible. There is no chance of an off planet civization in the next 100+ years.

reply to post by DJW001


I was waiting for someone to pick on that one.

Taking into an account what you said, still Columbus had no previous knowledge as to what, if any benefits, they will have from this historic journey.

So the point being the same again...they didn't knew about gold of the Americas, before they were introduced to the natives. It was an unexpected benefit, same we might encounter if we explore some other "world". Who can say for certain that there aren't valuable mineral deposits on the moon?

Imagine a scenario...a hypo one....good ol' US establishes a moon base, and after 20 years of research they discover huge deposits of oil, gold, whatever...take your pick. And it's theirs...don't you think that in 10 years time the US could put their resources to that goal and build an infrastructure for mining and delivering that "ore". What would be the results? well...in 30 years perhaps complete independence on foreign oil, huge deposits of gold...or other valuable minerals.

It's about human spirit, the endless drive for progress and evolution. Money must not be a deterrent.

reply to post by samkent


I'm not talking about the commercialization of space travel...that's the same ol' human thinking...only do things if we can get some money of it. I'm not opposed to making money...I'm opposed to having that as your primary goal for exploration.

edit: When money is directing goals, than often science and knowledge suffers...and don't get me started on the subject of secrecy. If there were no money interests in space travel....the whole thing would be much more open to public, much more collaboration from all over the world. Many nations could unite in our common goal of exploring space, and the cost of exploration would be much lower. But, since it's about the money...everybody is having secrets, nobody wants to share information or tech because information is money...knowledge is power. We come back to the money in the end.

reply to post by MarioOnTheFly

Taking into an account what you said, still Columbus had no previous knowledge as to what, if any benefits, they will have from this historic journey.

He fully expected to find silk, spices and gems when he arrived in Asia. Turns out he was wrong about the size of the globe and found something even better for his purposes.

So the point being the same again...they didn't knew about gold of the Americas, before they were introduced to the natives. It was an unexpected benefit, same we might encounter if we explore some other "world". Who can say for certain that there aren't valuable mineral deposits on the moon?

There are indeed precious resources on the Moon; it is just too expensive to gather them and send them to Earth. Inevitably, it will become cost effective and the Moon Rush will be on in earnest.

reply to post by MarioOnTheFly

the whole thing would be much more open to public, much more collaboration from all over the world. Many nations could unite in our common goal of exploring space,

Are you saying that Nigeria give a rats tail about space??
Most countries have too many issues to care what's goin on up there.

Actually we have too many issues also but we just hide our heads in the sand and pretend we needs to spend more money on it.

reply to post by MarioOnTheFly

Imagine a scenario...a hypo one....good ol' US establishes a moon base, and after 20 years of research they discover huge deposits of oil, gold, whatever...take your pick.

Ok I have.
Scenario: We know there are gold bars stacked in piles waiting for us to collect with no strings attached by ET.

How much would it cost us to rerun Apollo and pile the bars in place of the rocks and return to Earth?
Do the math.
It would cost far more than the gold is worth.

Apollo 841 lbs.
gold $1700/oz
Returned value $22.8 million

Originally posted by MysterX
One reason to go back is to place permanent networks of deep space optical and radio telescopes on the far side...cuts out all light and radio spectrum interference there, and they don't need to carry propellent.

Another is to carry out longer term micro-gravity experimentation..from crystalography, electronics, and biological experiments, all benefit from the isolation (esp. biological research) and low gravity.

A small(ish) manned base is useful as either a launch pacility for system probes or for manned missions to either asteroids or Solar planets..a launch from the moon (after processing lunar soils for fuel) would be significantly beneficial in terms of fuel capacities and ease of launch. More onboard fuel means longer mission durations.

Then there's Lunar Helium 3 to mine, which may become the fuel that replaces oil in the short to mid time frame.

The obvious elephant in the room is Lunar based weapons and spy aparatus...

Lots of reasons to go back to the moon.

Yes there are lots of reasons.

But the Helium 3 mining would be a bit premature since we have no way to use it yet.

The microgravity research is better done aboard the ISS since it has a microgravity environment. The moon doesn't, it's about 1/6 the gravity of Earth.

Neil Tyson makes the financial argument in the video in this thread, and even uses the Columbus analogy:

Changing our perspective on space - The frontier of thought - Space as culture NOT special interest

That video is very relevant to this thread, and the OP has even posted a transcript for those who can't watch it.

NASA cost the USA 0.5% of its GPD last year, despite NASA being the cause for countless inventions and technology for the world and boosting USA science and research exports and such for 50 years, apparently 0.5% was too much to ask for this year..... The military is something like 15% by the way.

yeah doesn't seen right does it.

Originally posted by ownbestenemy

Originally posted by FFS4000
reply to post by SpearMint

 

Why not, why should we not go back ? and so what if it's expensive, there are plenty of expensive things on Earth and most of those are a waste of money, i'd rather money was spent on space exploration than useless breeders. I'm with the OP, i think there is more going on than we are told

And we go back and do what? Not saying it is completely unworthy, but just to go back because we can is silly and a waste of resources. We go back to the moon, we land, we see what we've seen before and come back home? Seems like a reasonable utilization of resources......

How many people are on EARTH? and for how long? Yet theres billions upon billions of things to be discover. I think both the moon and earth are equally important for mankind to advance.

The point in the op that NASA is timid and passionless could not be further from the mark. The trouble is that NASA doesn't really get to decide what it does. Its not given a big pile of cash and told to 'go do whatever cool stuff you feel like'.

They are directed round in circles by the people we elect. Usually lawyers. Thats the problem.

As to why we should be exploring space?

For the last 30 years the USA has been trading off the engineering expertise of all the kids who were inspired to take up a slide rule by Apollo. All those people are getting old. US aerospace is literally dying of old age. 50% of the US engineering workforce is between 45 and 65 years old.

Engineering is hard. If the real money is made in law and finance why would anybody smart choose aerospace engineering? They have to be inspired. Human space exploration is adventure, its inspiring. But only when we are exploring. Tootling around in LEO doesn't cut it.

Sure, there are real world problems to be solved but no 7 year old puts the poster of a Wind Farm or an efficient lightbulb on his wall. Its worthy yes, but its boring as hell.

Commit to manned Mars mission in 15 years and you'll inspire a generation of engineers. That will pay you back for about 30 years. China and India are very glad you are too shortsighted to see that.

money,money,money! Let me just speculate a moment. It cost how many billions to go to the moon? What if in a flight of fancy everyone involved with the moon mission gave for free their time and materials (we all know that people have rent to pay and food to be provided) so then how much would it cost to go to the moon? Answer, nothing!!!! It's only mans greed that makes it so expensive to travel into space. Everything, and I mean everything comes out of the earth. You can't make something out of nothing. Everything has to have a basis, metals, chemicals and gasses have to start with some basic from the environment. All this is free for the taking. The earth charges nothing. Now comes the kickback, what man charges to get the materials and work those materials is the initial cost of space travel. The rest is wages and what anyone can screw out of the system. Let me say that in the 50 or 60 years since the Wright brothers flew we had supersonic jets. Yet 50 or 60 years since Werner von Braun flew rockets for Germany we are still using virtually the same method and propelants that were used in the 1940s. Go figure.

Originally posted by lostbook
According to this article, NASA needs to focus on its destination before it makes its trip(s) into Space. Their new goal is: "Pioneering: Sustaining U.S. Leadership in Space." DUH! NASA's problem is that they are passive and not passionate about Space exploration. We got a man on the Moon in 12 years and now after 40 years, even with better Technology, we haven't been back to the Moon-publicly. I think we have been back secretly and there is much more going on in Space than we know. Check out the article/


www.space.com...

Were not an exploring race anymore...we are a warring and oppressive race. Our interests aren't in exploration and discovery they are in warring for control over resources that allow people to stay alive...This is why, consequently we will never leave this planet...we'll be stuck here for eternity warring to extinction over the last bean. In hindsight we'll look back in humiliation as our ignorance and arrogance got the best of us.

The earth is like a room at the Marriott and humanity is the drugged out coked up rock band trashing the joint. We are simply just not ready to handle anything other than a TV remote and its a sad state of affairs but I'm not particularly upset were are incapable of trashing every room in the Marriott...at least our immaturity as a race is confined.

I'm pretty sure the movie Avatar pegged exactly how humanity would behave outside the confines of its cage...

I find it funny how you say its expensive to go to the moon.... Yet they send things to mars, mercury, and other planets, which costs a hell of a lot of money. NASA spends money like water, and they have never seemed to have any trouble doing so. They are talking about sending a man to mars soon.

I think its very convenient that they haven't sent a man back to the moon. I think its a great way of not telling the public anything at all about it. I think the moon has many secrets they don't want us to know. Just the metals on the moon alone would make the trip worth it. Lots of rare earth stuff there. Plus all the discoveries yet to be made.

But no, no one even mentions the moon, decades go by and its like the 1969 moon landing never occurs. The silence is deafening.

mars is a better goal, but what's the point if you can send a rover and not risk anybody's life and still bring back samples and take pictures.

the u.s. can manage to scrounge up $700 billion instantly to bailout a bunch of thieves so they can pay themselves, but it cries poor for everything else.

clean up your congress, because they're like pigs rolling around in their own personal treasury, fighting each other trying to grab as much of it as possible for themselves.

reply to post by ownbestenemy


Because its our logical evolutional step? Knowing the unknown?