Well, for starters, their species won’t be wiped out when the next giant space rock falls out of the sky and kills all the higher life forms on the planet. I’d say that’s a benefit.
I’ve seen it alluded to before, but allow me to come out and say it. We can afford it. Most people don’t have a concept of how much money the US has at its disposal.
To all Bush haters, you should be the first to ask this be put on a fast-track. That way, you can escape the tyranny by being the first to colonize. You’re already living in outer space, why not forward your mail there?
more Tang.
This won’t be the case until the colonies/bases/whatever they are called are self-substaining. Even if we start tomorrow, that’s a long way off. The sooner the better.
Hey, count me in on this one. I’ve got the space bug big time. Anything to do with space snaps my nipples to attention and gives me wet knickers. Robot exploration, great! Manned space missions, greater! We (mankind) got to learn how to live and colonize the moon and planets. Also while I think the knowledge gained from robot missions is splendid, I believe ultimately knowledge should be used for something more directly involving man.
I was overjoyed when I heard of the Chinese space program. Hopefully it’d prod the lazy Americans’ to resurrect their space program I dreamt. Perhaps some dreams do come true.
I want Europe in on this, sprit and valet. Also as a side benefit, a great opportunity for Europe and America to make up and start sleeping together again (just don’t hog the blanket ok. – and let’s hope it’ll fare better than France and UK nearly going to war over the Concorde. Incidentally France is the backbone of Europe’s space program ESA. If you would want one European country, it’d be the one with the frogs)
From an American perspective, I think this is a unique (and fairly inexpensive) way for you to show superpower status, and earn international goodwill, respect and love (yah!). Something the latest Iraq adventure was not so successful at, to use a bit of British understatement. Thirty years past, many still associate America with walking on the moon - your finest hour. Perhaps a lunar colony will give you another thirty years of international goodwill.
Besides the direct scientific results, I believe one of the reasons big government science programs is a good idea is that they’re very good at training engineers and scientist, giving them qualifications much sought for by private companies afterwards.
Be the launching pad in bringing colonies to space, and four hundred years down the road, perhaps the US will be to the colonies as the UK is to the US today – influential way beyond its size and means.
Let’s get out there and show the universe what stuff man is made of! (water mostly)
- Rune
The romantic part of me loves the idea of space exploration, of discovering things we could never conceive of, of possibly encountering alien life, of boldly going where no…
Ahem.
But I have to wonder if it is a wise budgetary decision for species to devote massive resources to a project that may not have any clear benefit for us for decades to come, or maybe never. I know that a lot of research is done without any immediate apparent benefit, but the scale here is off the charts; we’re talking trillions and trillions of dollars in expenditures if we keep going the next step. That’s a lot of cash that could be going towards more clearly beneficial humanitarian and terrestrial scientific endeavors, which would probably be more helpful in spreading and preserving a sustainable high quality of life for the human race. Can’t we turn to grand projects here on Earth, such as exploring ways to tap the huge potential of our oceans, as someone else mentioned? Not as sexy, but so much less expensive and more likely to yield tangible benefits sooner…
Will we, in 50 years time, wish we had not wasted so many resources in a romantic stab at the stars, and instead invested it here, where it may have helped prevent some catastrophe that befell our species (which caused us to abandon the space program before any ground-breaking benefit was found)? Or will we be thanking the lucky stars that we were ballsy enough to devote so much to an iffy bet?
I wonder.
I wonder how we will feel in the future about spending public funds on Polio research, Atomic energy, aid to West Germany, airlifts to East Berlin, economic aid to Poland, the Marshall Plan, reconstruction to England, the bail-out of Japan, additional rebuilding of France after WWI, billions in AIDS assistance in Africa, massive programs to ease the Ethiopian famine, multi-milions to Iran earthquake victims…oh, wait. I forgot we have no expendable funds.
Romantic stabs at stars? That is exactly what the elite said about expeditions to the “New World”. A stepping stone is nothing to scoff at. It’s what humans have dreamed of for Millennia.
Wow, that rare thing, a pro-Bush pile-on!
Well, I agree with TartPops (even though it’s one of the worst user names I’ve ever seen :D), or, more to the point, with duffer
You guys never heard of getting your own house in order?
CORRECTION:
In last post, cross out duffer, replace with Windwalker
Now it makes sense. :smack:
Yes, a Bush basher that only bashes him on space policies.
Strange indeed.
bluecanary, thought I had a new friend. I hope you know how much pain I’m in. You big meanie!
Finally, the President starts sounding Presidential. This is what he’s supposed to do - appeal to our higher ideals, motivate us to reach beyond what we think we can do. Force us to think big, plan big, try big.
Mankind needs to go to space, eventually, because that’s what we do. We explore, expand and push outward (sure, then we despoil, rape, pillage and plunder, but that’s another story).
I’m all for it (I know Bush was just waiting for my approval). The benefits will come, probably in ways none of us can predict now.
I would feel better about the whole think if I didn’t suspect this was motivated more by election-year opportunisim and “hey-look-over-there” attention-shifting. Still, it’s a good thing. And even a blind pig finds the ocassional truffle.
My thoughts:
-Space exploration is wonderful, and I would love to see humans devote themselves ot it more seriously.
-Space exploration is tremendously expensive: the figure I heard on the radio this morning was one trillion dollars. Compare that to NASA’s current annual budget of fifteen billion. Compare that to the budget of the department of education, the costs of healthcare, etc.
-Right now, the US sees expanding deficits, a potential Iraq quagmire, and an economuy in which a lot of people are still out of work and desperately need services. The space program can wait until better times.
-Wait – is any big event happening this autumn? Anything that might possibly persuade Bush to announce a big Vision-Thing project? Lemme think.
I like the idea. I don’t trust Bush’s reasons for announcing it now, and I don’t think we can afford it now, but I like the idea.
Daniel
I think space travel is one of the most worthy things this country – any country – can do.
But, jeez: the budget’s a mess, our foreign policy is a mess, the economy is a mess (improving, but ugly). George, clean up your other messes before playing with space toys, kay?
well, if Sen Byrd cut his pork funding in half, we’d have the money to colonize Saturn and change left to build a co-op (yes, hyperbolic rhtoric, but think of the money we waste on both sideds of the aisle)
Well, the Federal Dept. of Education has a $56 Billion budget. The states’ local school systems vary, but for example PR has 3 Billion between public schools and Higher Ed. What we’re talking is ratcheting up NASA to near-DoD levels.
I’m a bit more worried about the “call off everything unrelated to this goal” bit. Jeez, already the various space programs have spent decades sacrificing straight research science to “prestige” manned missions.
Unlike you, Ilsa dear, I never pull things out of my ass, I Have cites to back them up.
The figure in question is $450 billion and I came across it while reading Bill Bryson’s new book A Short History of Nearly everything.
Judging from Bryson’s endnotes, the primary source for the monetary figure is a New Yorker article entitled "medicine on Mars, in the February 14, 200 issue on page 39.
Now, the New Yorker is renowned for their fact checking, sowhy don’t you go back to eating whatever it is that you’ve pulled out of your ass this time and leave the debunking and trashtalking to the experts.
Schmuck
Hey, I was always curious about the effect of weightlessness on tiny screws…
What a fucking retarded idea. Goddam it, can this president stop wasting my fucking money please? Between Iraq, tax cuts, missile defense, and now this nonsense I find myself closer and closer to the tax evader lunacy.
Buld a fucking lunar space station? Does this mean he’s going to cut funding to the ISS? Or stop the Mars probes? What a jackass. Just so he can seem like Jack Kennedy. We’re going to Mars in ten years. Hey wonderful. Let’s make a bunch of long range commitments that he’ll never have to take any heat for when the budget is completely fucked yet again. Weren’t Republicans supposed to be fiscally responsible? Fuck them.
Here’s a fucking plan. Instead of wasting our money on this bullshit, fund the schools so we can have the engineers and scientists ready to start doing it instead of raising a generation of undereducated retards.
Now, if he decides to cancel the tax cuts in order to fund this, I’ll be a bit more supportive. But he wont. What a fucking asshole. Laying down the groundwork for a long term fuck up of the country. Any bets on when Halliburton announces its new space program that gets a closed bid?
Here’s a look at the NASA budget (warning PDF)
Shuttle flights cost ~ $4 billion a year. $4 billion just to go to low earth orbit and come back. ISS itself costs about $1.7 Billion a year. Now, I’m not sure they could punt the ISS off to anyone but just by grounding the shuttle fleet they free up $4 Billion for this Moon/Mars plan. Even if a ride on a Russian rocket cost $20 million a person it would only come to 4 trips of 3 at $20 million each ~$240 million dropping the saving to a little more than $3.5 billion. Not bad.