Anyone who thinks the budget for space exploration is enormous has been spending too much time watching C-Span.
NASA’s entire budget is less than 1% of the federal budget.
GWB calls for $2,229,000,000,000 in outlays for FY2004, $14,600,000,000 goes to NASA for manned and unmanned missions total. Shouldn’t we be more concerned with how the other $2,214,400,000,000 is going to be spent?
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off the top of my head, NASA doens’t just use existing tech to go to new worlds, they invent stuff, much of which has consumer applications. Plus Mars needs domes, miners, air suppliers, food suppliers, computers, drill machines, water purification systems, better propulsion systems, orbiting space platforms for refueling and retrofitting. And Mars needs women, so mail order brides business will also boom. And then Mars will need guns as they start shooting each other like we do here. money out the yin yang stands to be made.
So why are you wasting time posting on a message board if you are so concerned with the world rapidly deteriorating? your apathy is doing more harm then NASA’s employing of people and the economic stimulus that provides.
What are the chances? How were the odds determined?
As soon as someone decides to fund my efforts, I’ll start some serious thinking on ways to improve the planet.
I’ll settle for as low as 1000 dolars a month.
mmm … this got me thinking
Down here in the third world,… there’s vast amounts of underused quality brain-power (not necessarily mine).
I bet the US could hire 100 Uruguayan engineers for a period of 1 year for as low as a a couple million bucks.
On second thought, they’re probably over there already.
Nevermind
Dob:
Expeccting efficiency from a large, government organization is pretty unrealistic, but you do raise a good question.
Firstly, one needs to ask if the government should be in this business in the first place. Whenever public moneys are used, you are going to have fighting about what the best use should be. Personally, I’d prefer the government stay out of this, but I don’t think that is within the parameters of your question, so let’s put that aside for the moment.
Given a fixed budget for scientific endeavors, should we be looking for life on Mars? I’d say no. unless it was incidental to other exploration purposes. Personally, I’d love to know if there is life on Mars, but if we have to spend money going there, let’s see if there is a more practical reason.
Your further question about whether we should even be spending money on space exploration is also interesting. Space exploration has a big “gee whiz” factor and I’d guess that funding for that type of science is easier to get than other types, with the possible exception of Medical Research. So, politics plays as big a role as anything in this decision. Turn over a bunch of money to politicians and don’t be too surprised if you get a bunch of pork chops in return.
Were I making the decisions, I’d probably put more focus on genetic research, which I think has greater potential, both in terms of being more beneficial to people and being more comercially viable. I’m sure there is quite a bit of gov’t funding going in this direction already, and I’m not really sure how that compares in magnitude to NASA’s budget.
Most people speculate that the cost of transporting equipment and personal to and from mars makes it an unworkable or at least not cost effective.
However , economies always change to react to new conditions , remove the cost of lofting something into orbit earthside and you change the dynamic of the economy.
With mars , the cost of lofting something into orbit is a fraction of what an earth loft would cost , plus it has the added benifit of not needing an all chemical rocket propellant, nuclear would do very nicely.
There are alternative forms of energy available now, its just not practical to use them , as the logistics are set up for petroleum.
Pollution
, as the world expands technologically , and economically , pollution will drop exponentially, so it depends on what you are willing to pay for. You want clean air , chances are you are going to have to use nuclear plants , just to provide the standard of electrical usage that north america goes through on a daily basis.
Poverty
Poverty has existed for the last several millenium , what makes you think that we can and should do something about it ?
Famine
I was not aware that this was really a problem any more , if so point out , just who might be suffering from it ?
Disease
From a medical stand point , what is left to cure ? and is money and pioneering going into it at present. lastly , would a rocket scientist be of much use
We dont need to terraform mars , in my opinion anyway , its better off if it stays the way it is. Its probably more useful as a warehouse and industrial planet ,than in re-creating some clone version of earth.
I respect your opinion , i just do not agree with it.
Declan
wha–?! Surely this is in jest.
Actually it is not a jest
What is left to cure ,and is anyone currently working on it now as it is ? That was the point of asking , the person i was replying to was thinking that there is probably better uses for the people working on the space program.
Declan
HIV/AIDS
SARS
Cancer
Hepatitis
Those are the ones I could think of in 5 seconds.
this from the BBC World website…
Thanks for all the replys, but I still dont see why we tie up some of the best and brightest minds on the planet doing something that may or may not benefit anyone!! When so much could be done with them on other projects!!
Wow. To think of all the time I’ve wasted exploring space, when my training in astrophysics would be so much better utilized finding the cure for cancer.
and to answer Declan’s"is anyone working on it now?" question, i am working on the red one, RIGHT NOW! At this very second DNA is PCRing.
After all, once we can cure cancer and aids, there wouldn’t be other diseases that need curing, would there? Nope, nope, cancer’s the most pressing concern right now. We can focus on all that science and technological development mumbo-jumbo later.
Because nothing is guaranteed to be beneficial. No matter how much money you pour into aids, there’s no definite guarantee that a cure will be found. And if life is found on Mars, it will prove to be one of the greatest discoveries of all time. If not, a wealth of martian data will still be returned that will be of quite some use in the future. It’s win-win.
Inquisitiveidiot made a good point: There are always people who are interested in mechanical engineering and who will turn out to be rocket scientists.
Just throwing more money at the few brilliant minds, who are researching a cure for cancer isn’t going to speed up the process as there is saturation and diminishing returns. Money is better spent on those guys who have their area of expertise in space travel, otherwise their talent will go to waste.
well, aside from it seeming like a godawful small affair, pushing forward discovery leads to benefits in technology that we will all benefit from right here on earth.
If InquisitiveIdiot had read my post he would’ve seen that I was responding to someone who asked if, believe it or not, there were diseases that had not yet been cured.
He can spend his whole life utilizing his astrophysics degrree for all I care.
I deeply respect astrophycisists (sp?), exo-geologists and the like.
And I understand how absolutely thrilled they would be if they could be able to examine and classify every layer of sediment on neptune. But these investigations don’t seem to have immediate practical applications except to satisfy scientific curiosity.
I’m not sure there’s money to be made in space, save for communication sattellites and, possibly tourism for the grossly rich.
Declan -> Absolutely no offense, but, I disagree with just about everything you said. 
Agreed
I did not want that ansewer to sound flip when I wrote it , but I would hazard a guess to say that the amount of money and research being done on the above , is probably in excess of what nasa spends in a year.
Even if the above were to magically disapear tommorow , people would still find ways of trying to disuade the government from doing space exploration.
Declan
Hey, hey raises hands
I believe you, man, no need to shoot me for pointing out that Inquistiveidiots sarcastic reply contained a very good point 
Oh , no offense taken at all
Declan