There are studies that suggest that for every dollar spent on the moon missions, the GDP increased by at least seven dollars. Given how certain metals are getting more and more scarce along with such things as clean water and helium, it is not difficult to see that unless new sources are found, the consequences will be dire. That is not to say that Newt’s moon base is a wise choice for the immediate future. The prolonged support of such a base using current launch technology would surely be to high to be maintained. That is why the focus should be on developing technologies that make getting to orbit a lot cheaper. One idea that could accomplish that is the “space elevator” and the major obstacle to its development is the production of carbon nano-tubes. That is where our focus should be over the next twenty years.
A permanent, manned base on the moon seems totally pointless to me. In terms of general resource acquisition, you’d need some kind of relatively automated process for the collection and relative refinement of the materials in question. Even if we wanted to, and had the technology today, could we even do it? I mean, on the moon. What sort of treaties are in place? Could someone just go to the moon and start digging?
When you get to the heart of the issue, that isn’t a valid question. Depending on how one wishes to view it, NASA’s budget either has no impact on any other government program, or it has an impact on many other government programs. I could make a case either way.
On one hand, NASA’s budget (or any other government agency’s budget except for Medicare, Social Security, and a few other small things) does not take away from any other agency’s budget (whether foreign aid, defense, transportation, etc) because tax revenue is generally not dedicated to any particular purpose. One cannot trace a dollar in NASA’s budget as being the direct result of a reduction from a specific reduction in another agency’s budget. So, one can say that it is impossible to identify specifically how NASA spending takes money away from any particular effort.
On the other hand, any spending for any agency necessarily means that other agencies will not receive that funding. The Federal budget is, in some senses, a zero-sum game: the size of the discretionary budget for things that include defense, transportation, foreign aid, science, NASA, national parks, education, and many other things doesn’t actually change that much year-by-year. The budget changes tend to be those of priorities: if we want to make education a priority, the practical effect is lowering the priority on a bunch of other things that the government does. So, one can also say that NASA funding takes away funding in the aggregate for every program that is viewed as being less important, so NASA funding does indeed take away from other government programs, just not specific ones.
You can take your pick of which answer you prefer, but those are the facts. And they apply to every single government program equally, not just NASA.
What I am saying is both that NASA spending on manned space missions should be a lower priority than it is now (which, depending on how one slices the pie, seems to be roughly a quarter to a third of NASA’s total budget), and other programs should be higher priority. Proposals to send humans back to the moon or beyond would require very substantial increases to NASA’s budget, which I have argued is a very poor investment.
Any way you slice it, if you want to have NASA go to Mars or conquer other planets, it is going to cost a LOT more money than NASA currently has. That isn’t a strawman, that is the inevitable consequence of what you (and others) are proposing.
This is true in some ways, less true in others.
For example, public health is a relatively known quantity. Public health is related to development in a number of ways- you can’t work and contribute to the economy if you are to sick, and if you think X% of your kids are going to die, you are going to have more and invest less in them.
America used to have high rates of infant mortality, death in childbirth, malaria, TB and other infectious disease. Now, we don’t. Did the germs suddenly decide they didn’t like us? No, of course not. We mounted effective public health campaigns. The truth is that as soon as a country gets a bit of cash, many public health problems disappear. We know how to fix this stuff, it’s a matter of getting together cash and political will.
Public health experts use the metric of “quality life years gained per dollar.” When deciding what programs to run, they know pretty well that a millon dollar program in TB will save X years of quality life while a public health program in rotavirus prevention will save Y years of quality life. We know pretty much the exact number of people in the world, for example, who would like to use birth control but do not have access to it. The millenium development goals for health are trivial to hit, should we really put our minds to it.
Handwaving it away with “it’s a pipe dream, it can’t be done” is exactly the same smallness of vision that you accuse space program critics of having.
The issue here is not that people don’t dream or have vision for America. It’s that we have different ideas of what visions is a wonderful fulfillment of promise and which is a hopeless pipe dream. This means there is room for debate, not despair.
As I mentioned (probably off topic) in a similar thread, the very first thing we need to do is to establish a REAL space station where we can construct probes and ships using asteroidal material. A rotating Von Braun style giant wheel design that can provide low but sustainable artificial gravity at its rim. We know that humans don’t handle microgravity for long spells well at all. And this same station could provide the upper anchor point for a space elevator.
Yes, this would be an immense task. I have seen estimates tossed around here of 170 billion dollars to return to the moon. How much did we spend in Iraq in 10 years? Some estimate are as high as 1 trillion dollars. What if we had done something different with that money? If it is only money that is stopping us and we choose not to go, then maybe we don’t deserve to do so.
But, mark my words, China will go. Russia is in it for the long haul. We are being silly to pretend otherwise. Also, given historical indicators, if China does decide to ramp up and establish a true presence in space, the people of the USA will almost certainly wish to challenge them.
Many of you are not old enough to remember the specter of Sputnik. The idea that the USSR had the high ground over the entire Earth was intolerable. Now, of course, we all have satellites and they actually incorporate each others technology since espionage is a common occurrence. But, if China were to build a lunar base, then they could say “we own the moon” even disregarding the Outer Space Treaty.
Back then, China was a rather backwards country who had recently killed or displaced most of its scientific and engineering leaders to live as peasants in the fields. Now, as we all know, things are very different. Mao’s doctrines no longer define the country’s leadership. They have the resources to make this happen because as a semi-totalitarian regime, they don’t have to deal with as much push-back from the populace. Look at some of the huge public works they have being doing. It only remains a matter of time before they will send a manned mission to Luna. Whether that actually means anything to the USA anymore is a matter of public debate.
I don’t think we (the USA) are out of it yet but we could be if we don’t get off our collective butts. We systematically dismantled our entire manned program starting from the end of the Apollo program and ending with the mothballing of the shuttles. We have to hitch a ride on the Soyuz to get to the ISS. That’s just embarrassing. Hopefully Virgin Galactic will fill the gap soon.
Anyway, thanks for reading my rant.
I think if you took a poll on this message board, and perhaps in the country, the most popular response would be that the money never should have been spent, so I find the idea of how we could have spent a trillion dollars of government debt differently not a terribly persuasive one.
Certainly it’s a valid question. In my lifetime I saw “extra money” go back to tax payers and never did a thing to alleviate poverty. I have no reason to believe that eviscerating the mission and budget of NASA would go to all these programs you think are more valuable (and I agree they are valuable). You haven’t provided the evidence that a relationship specifically exists. It sounds very reasonable mind you, but there is another direction where the money can go: out. As in back to the taxpayer and our current government loves doing that.
The development of the means to viably have manned missions to Mars and Moon colonies is relatively inexpensive. I see on page 4 of the budget (PDF!) how you can get the 1/4 to 1/3 for human activities but the budget is nominally increasing while the space shuttle is nearly gone as of this year as a budget item. Constellation is effectively cancelled. Our devotion to manned space flight is on continued decline, at least via NASA. On the other hand, NASA is laying the groundwork for these “pie-in-the-sky” ideas by sending out relatively cheap probes throughout the solar system and developing commercially useful boosters and the like.
Despite these healthy and nearly uncontroversial changes (at least among those who have posted to this thread) to NASA’s priorities I am still able to open this thread with even sven comparing the research and development at NASA to little boys playing with their toys and basically calling it a vestige of the Cold War while you arguing that there are dollars still to be taken from NASA and put toward programs you feel are more useful or effective or whatever (without any such evidence that it is the case that such money will go from one program and benefit another).
What I think is that the money and research into alleviating problems such as poverty is well-funded but suffers from non-monetary impediments to worldwide social improvement. I feel no need to hurt the advancement of knowledge and technology so that we can throw yet more money toward people enveloped in warfare or ruled by paranoid dictators and religious beliefs in the hopes of alleviating their suffering. Enough is thrown their way most of the time. It’s, as stated upthread, the political will of those giving and receiving is not there.
It may sound assholish, but starvation has a natural solution. It is death. Then the resources that were scarce are more plentiful because the pie isn’t cut up so much. It is harsh, I admit, but it’s how all life goes on. The extermination of our species through stupidity or chance doesn’t admit such a natural-if-brutally-apathetic solution. Leaving the planet is something that really can be done to make a change for the future. It diversifies risk.
Right now all our eggs are in one basket. We should care for the basket; after all, our eggs are in it. But we should also find some more baskets.
Erislover, I love you, but that doesn’t make a ton of sense. One view is a nihilistic view of humanity- and the other is a nihilistic view of humanity. One way or another, we all end up dead. If thinking about humanity burning brighter a little longer before the inevitable end gives you the warm fuzzies, go for it. Something else gives me the warm fuzzies.
My position is descriptive, not normative. I’m not advocating for how things should be, or asserting that one set of priorities should overtake another. I’m merely explaining what is what’s happening, and how it’s closely related to the political and social climates we have known and are in.
We didn’t play cowboys or astronauts growing up. We played something else. Times change.
I’m in this age group you speak of, my dearest banana slug—barely, just squeaking in on the high side. I didn’t play cowboys and indians, and the brightest memory I have of space exploration was the Challenger blowing up. I just disagree with you. I think there’s a very strong youth presence that we need to get off this rock. My huge sample of my friends and some idiots on 4chan suggests there’s certainly still the abstract desire. It’s less focused, for sure, though. Much less focused.
I wasn’t trying to be nihilist, I care personally if people starve. I’m just saying, there are other long-term concerns besides climate change and farming. We don’t have to pick and choose.
There is little enthusiasm for space now because NASA hasn’t done anything exciting since 1972. If you don’t build it, they won’t come. People all over the world spend billions of dollars a year watching cars race around a track. A risky space launch to put someone on an asteroid would be the Indy 500 times a thousand. Everyone realizes how difficult and exciting that would be even though nobody really cares whether the astronaut is going to discover interesting rocks.
It’s hard to paint China as a runner-up when they have an operational human spaceflight system right now and the US doesn’t. It is cheaply bought prestige. I would also like to amend one thing I said earlier - I said a human presence in space had little scientific value, but actually there is great technical value in being able to rendezvous with objects in earth orbit, and that is exactly what the Chinese are learning how to do. Launching and docking with a space station is the first step to being able to pull up alongside a hostile spy satellite and put it out of commission.
I have no issue with the US fighting global poverty, as long as it isn’t just giving stuff to people and creating dependence, or ending up in some local politician’s pocket. But to go after space implies there is nothing less deserving of taxpayer money. Why not go after farm subsidies? Not only is it corporate welfare, it directly hurts farmers in poor countries by forcing them to compete on a tilted playing field. Interestingly, the budget for crop subsidies is just slightly greater than the budget of NASA. Can we have half and let you have the other half to dig wells and pass out vitamins in Chad?
Thanks for providing this explanation. I said earlier that I wanted to know where it came from and since you are essentially supporting your observation by repetition without any data, I know where.