The title says it all. I am very, very dissapointed in NASA. In terms of human spaceflight, we have not made any new advancements since around 1980! I think NASA needs to STOP funding all these robotic exploration projects, then pour everything into the SLS and Project Constellation (Whatevers left of it, like Orion). WHile I do praise these robotic explorers for their scientific value, I must argue that our main purpose is to tranform humans from simple cave dwellers to a space-faring spieces. And while I do know that the ISS provides tons of research on human spaceflight.....we need to move out of LEO.
Since around 1969, we have been stuck in LEO. To me, the least we could have done is to ATLEAST kept going to the moon. And then, we make project Constellation to take us to the moon and Mars. I get very excited. And then it gets cut, to fund private spaceflight. Thats rather...dissapointing. I personally belive that we should have been more developed before private spaceflight even took place, and I do not really like the idea of a billoinaire controlling my dreams, considering Occupy Wall St.....(Goverment is much more preferred, thank you.). The last straw was their plan to send another rover in 2020. Darn it NASA, MArs already has enough attention! I want that rover on Europa and drill into its sea!
You do realize this has nothing to do with NASA being incompetent, and everything to do with the US Government completely killing every single bit of funding NASA seems to get, right?
You do realize this has nothing to do with NASA being incompetent, and everything to do with the US Government completely killing every single bit of funding NASA seems to get, right?
Lol, reminds me of when Romney was going to cut public broadcasting funds to pay debt owed to China, even though less than .00012% of federal government budget is spent on it.
Meanwhile, 20% is being spent on defense.
Lol, reminds me of when Romney was going to cut public broadcasting funds to pay debt owed to China, even though less than .00012% of federal government budget is spent on it.
Meanwhile, 20% is being spent on defense.
Actually, he was going to cut everything unnecessary. He just happened to mention PBS as one example, and he is kind of bad at making examples the liberal media won't go crazy about.
Actually, he was going to cut everything unnecessary. He just happened to mention PBS as one example, and he is kind of bad at making examples the liberal media won't go crazy about.
I was going to stay out of this thread because it has more to do with the political section then the tech when we get talking about budgets.
Yes clearly the media is to blame not the fact the candidate was bad at hiding his bourgeoisie interests because his conflicted with their owners interests.
I always found it interesting the stations that tend to call other media liberal media support a Liberal party. Fox supports Neo-Liberalism vs Social-Liberalism of the stations they like to call the "Liberal media".
Moon missions are important for several reasons. Asteroid mining when talked about usually involves either pulling the asteroid back to earth or back to the moon so the valuables can be extracted and sent back to earth. It is also incredibly good test ground for mars colonization some of the same difficulties will be met on the moon and it a safer place to test things vs testing them on Mars with no hope of rescue. Plus being on the moon is just cool not everything needs to be done in the pursuit of profit some things are done just for the challenge of say having an established base on the moon or even mars.
As stated before this is no fault of NASA in any way its the fault of Congress after Congress cutting things. I often hear the argument well private companies will take over. To this I say bull crap SpaceX relies on massive NASA assistance in many areas if NASA was cut and never around SpaceX would never have been created.
“I would like to start off by saying what a tremendous honor it has been to work with NASA. And to acknowledge the fact that we could not have started SpaceX, nor could we have reached this point without the help of NASA,” Elon Musk CEO of SpaceX
You do realize that traveling to Mars takes several months. Even traveling to the moon takes a couple weeks. We don't go very far, simply because we can't. If we want to get anywhere, we need a new propulsion system.
I also don't think you realize that going to space is incredibly expensive.
You do realize that traveling to Mars takes several months. Even traveling to the moon takes a couple weeks. We don't go very far, simply because we can't. If we want to get anywhere, we need a new propulsion system.
I also don't think you realize that going to space is incredibly expensive.
It does not take weeks to reach the moon. From launch it took Apollo 11 about 3 days and 4 hours to reach lunar orbit.
And the issue about getting to Mars isn't just that you end up taking on the order of 8 months just to get there, it's the fact that that 8 month trip only happens once about every two years. Those periods in between there is no good way to get to Mars.
And that's what makes Mars so much more different than the moon. We don't have to wait for the moon to line up in the right spot to go there. We can just go. And in case of emergency, there are actually reasonable failure modes (see Apollo 13). With Mars, the trip is effectively one way. If you send someone there, they're probably never coming back.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
The title says it all. I am very, very dissapointed in NASA. In terms of human spaceflight, we have not made any new advancements since around 1980! I think NASA needs to STOP funding all these robotic exploration projects, then pour everything into the SLS and Project Constellation (Whatevers left of it, like Orion). WHile I do praise these robotic explorers for their scientific value, I must argue that our main purpose is to tranform humans from simple cave dwellers to a space-faring spieces. And while I do know that the ISS provides tons of research on human spaceflight.....we need to move out of LEO.
Since around 1969, we have been stuck in LEO. To me, the least we could have done is to ATLEAST kept going to the moon. And then, we make project Constellation to take us to the moon and Mars. I get very excited. And then it gets cut, to fund private spaceflight. Thats rather...dissapointing. I personally belive that we should have been more developed before private spaceflight even took place, and I do not really like the idea of a billoinaire controlling my dreams, considering Occupy Wall St.....(Goverment is much more preferred, thank you.). The last straw was their plan to send another rover in 2020. Darn it NASA, MArs already has enough attention! I want that rover on Europa and drill into its sea!
We've been to the moon several times, why do you think we should keep on revisiting it? Why don't we spend some time studying the results from those trips? Why do we need to send humans to the moon when we could send robots instead? Why is becoming a space-faring species so important right now, with an economy that's at best recovering, and at worst in the toilet?
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.” — Albert Einstein
"Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig." — Robert Heinlein
because robots are a lot easier to maintain then humans in space. Especially in environments which are extremely hostile to humans. even surviving on mars is an extremely complex problem to solve. Considering there is barely anything on mars which makes it a pleasant place for humans. No food, No oxygen and not to mention dust storms..
Robots are also a great way to prove theories about planets and know the dangerous they hazard before sending in humans.
It's not NASA's fault. They have to do the best they can with what Congress gives them. Unfortunately, Congress hasn't given them much in recent decades. Considering NASA's budget, they have done some incredible things. Curiousity is pretty good, and more effective at studying Mars than a manned mission would be. (It's less dangerous, as well.) That said, a manned mission would be awesome, just because it says that humanity is moving forward in technology. Sending a person to Mars and back would be an unprecedented achievement, and it's one that I hope to witness
You do realize that traveling to Mars takes several months. Even traveling to the moon takes a couple weeks. We don't go very far, simply because we can't. If we want to get anywhere, we need a new propulsion system.
I also don't think you realize that going to space is incredibly expensive.
That's no excuse.
"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."
-John F. Kennedy
NASA, when it is making giant leaps for mankind, can be expensive. Fighting wars all over the Middle East and having an enormous standing navy is even more expensive, but money never stopped 'Mericuh there. Even Apollo-era NASA was a relatively small piece of the budget. If I recall correctly, NASA never went far above 2% of the budget.
The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
Join Date:
9/30/2010
Posts:
660
Member Details
At the largest scope, few things are more important than space exploration. To imply that it is unimportant, even frivolous, and that human effort should be diverted to other (ultimately petty) tasks, is short sighted to say the very least.
First we should send some more probes and 'practice' stuff to Mars. Then we'll see if we can get humans on their. Mind you, a Dutch company is going to send humans to Mars. They'll be featured in a reality TV-show.
We honestly don't need any more probes to mars, we've sent plenty already.
My response is purely political in nature. I agree that space exploration is important. I think we do need to get going there. But we can't right now because we have more important things to deal with.
America should not help right now because of the debt crisis. That needs to be fixed so America can survive long enough to explore space. Europe's going to the toilet (most of it, at least), so the ESA is out of the question. China is far behind America. Russia isn't all that great either.
Basically, I feel that there is so many more important things to do than explore space at the current time.
Times are also different now. There isn't the public interest nor pressure (nor fear) there was when we were racing the Soviets.
I personally feel that the wars we're fighting are necessary, but that's me. The Navy is also a necessity if we want to continue living the way we do in the future. Washington's political scene is so screwed up and corrupt and self serving that I'm surprised anything gets done anymore.
The title says it all. I am very, very dissapointed in NASA. In terms of human spaceflight, we have not made any new advancements since around 1980! I think NASA needs to STOP funding all these robotic exploration projects, then pour everything into the SLS and Project Constellation (Whatevers left of it, like Orion). WHile I do praise these robotic explorers for their scientific value, I must argue that our main purpose is to tranform humans from simple cave dwellers to a space-faring spieces. And while I do know that the ISS provides tons of research on human spaceflight.....we need to move out of LEO.
Since around 1969, we have been stuck in LEO. To me, the least we could have done is to ATLEAST kept going to the moon. And then, we make project Constellation to take us to the moon and Mars. I get very excited. And then it gets cut, to fund private spaceflight. Thats rather...dissapointing. I personally belive that we should have been more developed before private spaceflight even took place, and I do not really like the idea of a billoinaire controlling my dreams, considering Occupy Wall St.....(Goverment is much more preferred, thank you.). The last straw was their plan to send another rover in 2020. Darn it NASA, MArs already has enough attention! I want that rover on Europa and drill into its sea!
I personally think the mission to the moon was not to explore, but to prove ourselves to rival countries such as Russia. That's just life.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Hi! I like shorts! They're comfy and easy to wear!
I don't see reason for them to really ever send humans in space, (except for orbital repair.) because it's pointless and costly.
Where I see it going, is one country is going to get smarter, send automatic drones to go mine on other planets, collect various rare metals and other things, then bring a substantial amount back to earth, which lands in their country, giving them money, and consistent and free, if their robot is smart enough to find its fuel itself (by extracting gasses from gaseous planets, like hydrogen.), making that country very wealthy, eventually every country will have thousands of probes constantly auto mining. This continues until a scientist has made a proper matrix machine, as in, a highly realistic and easily changeable world within a computer, this will be loved by the rich, then it will get cheaper and cheaper, and everyone would own one, then the governments all lose reason to fight, as they all have a new high input of materials and fuels, so they'll have their engineers working on full automacy for the robots, having them measure power flow. When power is low, they build more powerplants. When material input is low, they construct more probes. All of this happening without a single person going farther than the moon.
I personally think the mission to the moon was not to explore, but to prove ourselves to rival countries such as Russia. That's just life.
It was not to prove theirselves, it was for profit. People hated the USSR at the time due to propaganda, so if they went on a competition with Russia, tax-evaders could change their minds to help protect their country. In the USSR, their motive to beat the US was that if they succeeded, their people would feel proud for their country, and work harder.
I disagree. First off, the debt is way overblown. Only about a third of that is owed to foreign countries, and I believe the government has quite a bit in credit holdings. Second, NASA's budget peaked at 3.3% of the federal government during Apollo. A good amount, yes, but we could easily free up a good chunk of the budget by cutting defense spending. Thirdly, the economy is still not great; government spending (and deficits) are advised in such a time. We get a nice long-term return on space exploration in the form of technological advancement. Government research is the basis for so much modern technology, and some of these technologies were the ones that brought prosperity (the Internet, namely).
Since around 1969, we have been stuck in LEO. To me, the least we could have done is to ATLEAST kept going to the moon. And then, we make project Constellation to take us to the moon and Mars. I get very excited. And then it gets cut, to fund private spaceflight. Thats rather...dissapointing. I personally belive that we should have been more developed before private spaceflight even took place, and I do not really like the idea of a billoinaire controlling my dreams, considering Occupy Wall St.....(Goverment is much more preferred, thank you.). The last straw was their plan to send another rover in 2020. Darn it NASA, MArs already has enough attention! I want that rover on Europa and drill into its sea!
Lol, reminds me of when Romney was going to cut public broadcasting funds to pay debt owed to China, even though less than .00012% of federal government budget is spent on it.
Meanwhile, 20% is being spent on defense.
Actually, he was going to cut everything unnecessary. He just happened to mention PBS as one example, and he is kind of bad at making examples the liberal media won't go crazy about.
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
Curse PremiumI was going to stay out of this thread because it has more to do with the political section then the tech when we get talking about budgets.
Yes clearly the media is to blame not the fact the candidate was bad at hiding his bourgeoisie interests because his conflicted with their owners interests.
I always found it interesting the stations that tend to call other media liberal media support a Liberal party. Fox supports Neo-Liberalism vs Social-Liberalism of the stations they like to call the "Liberal media".
Moon missions are important for several reasons. Asteroid mining when talked about usually involves either pulling the asteroid back to earth or back to the moon so the valuables can be extracted and sent back to earth. It is also incredibly good test ground for mars colonization some of the same difficulties will be met on the moon and it a safer place to test things vs testing them on Mars with no hope of rescue. Plus being on the moon is just cool not everything needs to be done in the pursuit of profit some things are done just for the challenge of say having an established base on the moon or even mars.
As stated before this is no fault of NASA in any way its the fault of Congress after Congress cutting things. I often hear the argument well private companies will take over. To this I say bull crap SpaceX relies on massive NASA assistance in many areas if NASA was cut and never around SpaceX would never have been created.
“I would like to start off by saying what a tremendous honor it has been to work with NASA. And to acknowledge the fact that we could not have started SpaceX, nor could we have reached this point without the help of NASA,” Elon Musk CEO of SpaceX
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
Retired StaffI also don't think you realize that going to space is incredibly expensive.
"Programmers never repeat themselves. They loop."
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
Retired StaffIt does not take weeks to reach the moon. From launch it took Apollo 11 about 3 days and 4 hours to reach lunar orbit.
And the issue about getting to Mars isn't just that you end up taking on the order of 8 months just to get there, it's the fact that that 8 month trip only happens once about every two years. Those periods in between there is no good way to get to Mars.
And that's what makes Mars so much more different than the moon. We don't have to wait for the moon to line up in the right spot to go there. We can just go. And in case of emergency, there are actually reasonable failure modes (see Apollo 13). With Mars, the trip is effectively one way. If you send someone there, they're probably never coming back.
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
Retired StaffWe've been to the moon several times, why do you think we should keep on revisiting it? Why don't we spend some time studying the results from those trips? Why do we need to send humans to the moon when we could send robots instead? Why is becoming a space-faring species so important right now, with an economy that's at best recovering, and at worst in the toilet?
"Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig." — Robert Heinlein
Truefact.
That's no excuse.
"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."
-John F. Kennedy
NASA, when it is making giant leaps for mankind, can be expensive. Fighting wars all over the Middle East and having an enormous standing navy is even more expensive, but money never stopped 'Mericuh there. Even Apollo-era NASA was a relatively small piece of the budget. If I recall correctly, NASA never went far above 2% of the budget.
Don't count on it. Their timeline is absurdly optimistic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Mars#Overview
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
Retired StaffMy response is purely political in nature. I agree that space exploration is important. I think we do need to get going there. But we can't right now because we have more important things to deal with.
America should not help right now because of the debt crisis. That needs to be fixed so America can survive long enough to explore space. Europe's going to the toilet (most of it, at least), so the ESA is out of the question. China is far behind America. Russia isn't all that great either.
Basically, I feel that there is so many more important things to do than explore space at the current time.
Times are also different now. There isn't the public interest nor pressure (nor fear) there was when we were racing the Soviets.
I personally feel that the wars we're fighting are necessary, but that's me. The Navy is also a necessity if we want to continue living the way we do in the future. Washington's political scene is so screwed up and corrupt and self serving that I'm surprised anything gets done anymore.
"Programmers never repeat themselves. They loop."
I personally think the mission to the moon was not to explore, but to prove ourselves to rival countries such as Russia. That's just life.
Hi! I like shorts! They're comfy and easy to wear!
Where I see it going, is one country is going to get smarter, send automatic drones to go mine on other planets, collect various rare metals and other things, then bring a substantial amount back to earth, which lands in their country, giving them money, and consistent and free, if their robot is smart enough to find its fuel itself (by extracting gasses from gaseous planets, like hydrogen.), making that country very wealthy, eventually every country will have thousands of probes constantly auto mining. This continues until a scientist has made a proper matrix machine, as in, a highly realistic and easily changeable world within a computer, this will be loved by the rich, then it will get cheaper and cheaper, and everyone would own one, then the governments all lose reason to fight, as they all have a new high input of materials and fuels, so they'll have their engineers working on full automacy for the robots, having them measure power flow. When power is low, they build more powerplants. When material input is low, they construct more probes. All of this happening without a single person going farther than the moon.
It was not to prove theirselves, it was for profit. People hated the USSR at the time due to propaganda, so if they went on a competition with Russia, tax-evaders could change their minds to help protect their country. In the USSR, their motive to beat the US was that if they succeeded, their people would feel proud for their country, and work harder.
I disagree. First off, the debt is way overblown. Only about a third of that is owed to foreign countries, and I believe the government has quite a bit in credit holdings. Second, NASA's budget peaked at 3.3% of the federal government during Apollo. A good amount, yes, but we could easily free up a good chunk of the budget by cutting defense spending. Thirdly, the economy is still not great; government spending (and deficits) are advised in such a time. We get a nice long-term return on space exploration in the form of technological advancement. Government research is the basis for so much modern technology, and some of these technologies were the ones that brought prosperity (the Internet, namely).