Staying in Afganistan might create more “jihadists” than if the USA were to just drop everything and leave right now. You’d have to effectively kill the jihadists’ children too, to prevent them from becoming jihadists themselves. But that’s a point for a different thread.
I can’t see any realistic proposal to have manned flight to the moon or Mars right now. Though the rover was interesting, and did create a reasonable amount of interest in society. But I don’t believe that the enthusiasm of the populace is a good way for the government to decide how to best spend tax dollars. Just because the people want something, doesn’t mean it’s in their best interests.
Oh, I see. So, you want to spend money on sociopolitical research to determine the fundamental reasons why people are greedy, venal, and willing to let others suffer and starve to meet their own ends on the assumption that poverty and hunger are some analog to an infectious disease or medical disorder. To me, this seems even less fruitful and more wasteful than any space exploration or other pure research endeavor in improving the lot of those at the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder, but perhaps you can persuade me otherwise. What specific areas of study and research would you suggest engaging in to improve efforts to eliminate hunger and poverty?
And you’d still be wrong. Although it is true that many of the same aerospace and defense contractors support NASA, Department of Defense, and Department of Energy in science and military applications, and thus, share a common legacy of experience, actual interchange between NASA and military research efforts is minimal and mostly limited to fundamental research in materials, aerodynamics, and modeling/simulation tools. The military has its own research & development and acquisition organizations and processes are are separate and distinct from NASA.
Even a cursory review of the history of development of aerospace and space technology indicates that NASA has received far more benefit from from military development. This is obvious in the case of the manned space program, in which the early boosters were directly adapted from IRBMs and ICBMs such as Redstone, Atlas, and Titan, and even the Saturn family used technology and development directly from the Jupiter IRBM. Even in the unmanned program, most launchers for NASA terrestrial observation and interplanetary exploration have been launched on rockets adapted from ICBMs like Thor/Delta, Atlas, Titan, and Peacekeeper, and in several cases actual probes are directly developed from surveillance technologies (Hubble from the KEYHOLE system, Clementine from a BDMO program).
I suppose by this logic, women in the space sciences and astronaut core suffer from penis envy of the paternalistic capitalist ruling class? This is an incredibly short-sighted commentary that says much more about the writer than the topic. Even a perfunctory assessment of congressional support for NASA and specific space exploration projects demonstrates that this support stems primarily from the desire to increase jobs, and particularly high paying skilled jobs and support for the aerospace industry in key districts or states. There is relatively little support for any type of scientific research in Congress independent of the jobs and industrial base that they bring.
I didn’t mean to make it sound so simplistic. I believe that feeding a man a fish is a waste of money (unless they are a single meal away from death). We should teach men to fish. We should also invest some resources into finding out where the fish are, what kind of fish are they, and what kind of lure works best. We should find a way for them to preserve and store fish, for future hard times. Etc.
Instead of a $450m probe to Mercury, I would have spent that money on education, for example. That would benefit both science AND help fight poverty. Or I would have spent it on other social programs to help alleviate hunger/poverty. If we can agree on effective programs, then great. If there is no consensus on what social programs are most effective, then we should do some research in that field, yes.
But ultimately my questions have been answered in this thread. There is no point in pitting ‘fighting poverty and hunger’ VS ‘space exploration’ - since we don’t have to. We can have both.
*Edited to add: the following is not directed to anyone in particular. It’s meant just to clarify my position, the way research works and what is good for (IMO, of course ).
It seems that the discussion concerns mostly funding for specific NASA missions. Of course, given the limited amount of money, debates about what projects to fund will always occur (and are needed).
With the risk of being slightly off topic, I’d like to address several issues raised in this thread. I’d start with the following remark:
IMO, you won't be very successful with this approach. When it comes to fundamental research, the standard categories (chemistry, biology, physics, medicine, etc) are not that meaningful. After all, these categories were defined somewhat arbitrary, back in the day when there was no visible link between them. But that's not the case anymore; today, you cannot get sustained advance in one field only. Just as an example from my limited experience, here are three types of microscopes used in biology and medicine: electron microscope, laser scanning microscope, atomic force microscope. All these involve serious fundamental research in a wide range of fields.
You also need more powerful computers (add some research money for computer engineering), better detectors (physics), ways of transmitting huge amount of data (optical fibres) and software able to analyse and interpret the data (software engineering).
Of course, you may say that you’ll invest only in technologies which would contribute directly to the field of medicine. Problem is, you never know beforehand which technologies would do this. As another example, look at the list of applications for nuclear magnetic resonance: medicine, chemistry, spectroscopy… all of which came from research on radar.
The goal of fundamental research is to find out the underlying mechanisms of nature. Of course, one can get a reasonable empiric understanding of nature, but this will not get you too far. The real progress comes when you understand how things work, and this is what fundamental research does.
Problem is, fundamental research works on a very long time scale, so its benefits are not always obvious. Solar panels are coming only now in widespread use, even though the photoelectric effect was understood 100 years ago. It took some 50 years for the first laser to be produced after the concept of stimulated emission was understood, and another 20-30 years until lasers became widespread. The space program is 60 years old and today have hundreds of civilian satelites in orbit. Essentially, it takes at least 50 years from fundamental scientific breakthrough to real life applications. That is a long time and I can see why people think that money are wasted on some scientific project.
Take this half billion $ spent on the Mercury probe. What's good for? Well, ask me again in 50 years! But honestly, I don't see how this will NOT be helpful. Learning about the solar system simply means expanding our knowledge about our immediate neighbourhood. The way Earth come into existence and its actual form is tied to the rest of the solar system. Is there any doubt that, if we find out how exactly life started on Earth, this would mean huge advancements in biology and medicine?
How about the Tunguska event, 1 century ago? Something like it would easily wipe out the biggest cities and produce casualties in the tens of millions range. Don’t we want to know what’s the probability of such events? Was it a freak occurrence or it can happen again in the next 200 years? Would it be possible to deflect it? Can we at least have an early warning?
Thing is, we have to think at a global level. There are billions of people in trouble now, and there is no short term solution. Applied research gives partial short term solutions, but we still need to think medium and long term. Medicine is the obvious priority, but we also need cheap energy and means to deliver it where is needed, crops adapted to local conditions, new clean technologies and so on.
Of course, the budget needs to be balanced and most of it should go to short term measures. But I am always puzzled when NASA gets targeted because it wastes money. It doesn’t. Its just a very long term investment. It seems to me that, trying to solve today’s problems, we’re forgetting about tomorrow’s.
It was also said in this thread (by Borzo, IIRC) that fundamental discoveries are unavoidable and, if Newton or Einstein wouldn’t have existed, someone else would have produced their discoveries. This may have been true in the past, maybe up to early XIXth century. Back then, any skilled and rich individual could have built himself a top notch laboratory and make new discoveries. But back then we’re just scratching the surface. That’s not the case anymore. Now we’ve advanced quite a lot and further progress is conditioned by sustained effort at national and international levels. If we don’t put money in research (both applied and fundamental), we’ll get stuck.
But when you put money towards applied research, in order to solve a current and pressing problem (eg AIDS), you can weigh the cost/benefit. Sure different people will weigh it differently, but the cost (in $ value) and the benfit (saved X lives) is somewhat measurable.
But when it comes to unknown discoveries… how do you do this? If the probe to Mercury would have found life, or found some rare but valuable metal, or some blueprints left behind by aliens, we’d all be yelling “JACKPOT!” How do you decide how much to invest in something when you have no idea how much you might get out of it? How do you balance pure science research and applied research?
An interesting point I’d like to add: I spent many years doing pure science research. We got millions of dollars to study certain biological processes. There were some standard experiments we did repeatedly and frequently. At the start of my work, we spent something like $10,000 per run of the experiment. After 4 years, new technologies had been developed such that repeating that experiment, using the new equipment, only cost $100. If sending the probe to Mercury isn’t likely to result in significant breakthroughs, couldn’t we just wait 10 years and instead of spending $450m, we could get away with $4.5m? While I suspect space will always be expensive, not everything is like this. Of course, people will say that research in general will drive the cost of future research down - and I can understand this… but once again: How do you decide what to research now, versus what to put off by 10 years and save money?
There’s no guarantee that costs of space-based missions would scale down to that degree, though. The Viking program in the '70s and '80s cost roughly $1 billion for two landers and two orbiters; the Mars Exploration Rover program launched almost three decades later cost $820 million for no orbiters and two landers (albeit much more sophisticated landers). With robotic spacecraft you can indeed make significant improvements in areas such as sensing and communications technology, but other areas such as launch systems and making sure the craft/rover is “space-worthy” will probably always be expensive stumbling-blocks. With each mission you’re also going to have multiple institutions who will want to take advantage of the spacecraft’s systems and capabilities, and each institution will have a team of investigators lining up to gather data for their research.
It’s worth noting that the MESSENGER mission to Mercury was launched in 2004, and had most likely been approved and in development for several years before that. If there is indeed criticism now of the costs of this program, because of the financial situation that the U.S. is in currently, then they’re a bit late to the game.
I’m getting an MA in International Development. It’s a mix of economics, political science, sociology and management. There are a lot of ways you can go with it- from looking historically at how Western countries versus currently poor countries developed, thinking theoretically about human rights issues, or getting extremely practical by learning to use the tools that people like the UN use for development. In any case, it’s all pretty rigorous, and basically you spend a lot of time looking at different aid projects and analyzing what works and what does not in a systematic, quantifiable way.
And it is very effective. In 1990, half of the world lived on less than a dollar a day- in 2009 it was 28%. Worldwide we are richer than we have ever been, and the percentage of people who are “middle income” or above is higher than it’s ever been in human history. Child mortality has plummeted. Malnourishment dropped from 30% of the planet in the 1970s to 18%. A higher percentage of people go to school- 4/5ths of the world is literate, and college enrollment rates climb each year. Women are gaining rights around the world and are increasingly gaining footholds in business and politics. HIV/AIDS rates in many places are starting to decline, and the efforts to make drugs available have made it possible for millions to live long productive lives and raise their children where just years ago they would have died quickly. Cell phones and internet are connective even the poorest places. We are on track to eliminate guinea worm, and are talking again about eliminating malaria.
Development works. We aren’t poor and hungry. Africa (or wherever) doesn’t have to be poor and hungry either.
You would just be creating a vacuum in space exploitation that would be absorbed by both the airforce and navy. The only thing that would change is that the civilian aspect of the program would disapear. Instead of hard science exploration, you would be funding the exo-atmospheric bomber.
As it is now, you are probably funding the exo-atmospheric bomber, but your also getting fuzzy feel good missions that would not make it by an airforce three star responsible for future missions.
I’m not really all that keen on corporate/private utilization of space, too many years of reading about paying for air and 21’st century company towns (sci/fi novels). The future will belong to Exxon and AT&T space divisions, but not now.
I suspect that if NASA was abolished altogether not one extra penny would be spent on foreign aid.
Just as well really as F.A. serves all too often to line the pockets of corrupt third world politicians, or at best create a dependancy culture in the country where at least some of the money actually reaches the needy.
Not that it necessarily means that the needy change the ways that that got them into that situation in the first place.
HOW many children in your family ?
Oh so its not masculine to wear condoms even if you’re completely aware that you are H.I.V. pos.
So you’ve heavily overgrazed your countryside, causing desertification, because you need that many cattle to show off your status ?
You cut down the newly planted trees donated to help retain moisture because you needed firewood and fodder for your goats ?
So you urinate and defecate in the river from where you take your drinking water ?
No amount of money has made any real progress against the plight of the third world in the past ,(and god knows there has been tens of billions of dollars freely given) and no amount of money in the future will magicaly solve the T.W.s problems.
Only a change in the thinking of the receivers of aid will ever do that, and so far after all of these years there is still no sign that its going to happen apart from empty promises, and agreeing noises from those who have received so much and who have done so little thats worthwile, with it.
Expansion into space is the future of humankind whether you like it or not .
And if we don’t we’ll die in our own muck with a whimper, if we don’t die with a bang from a meteor/comet strike which eventually will inevitably happen.
Though I have posted elsware on the same subject, I would like to inject comment.
I remain convinced that we need to create “real life” heros for our young ones. The space program was one of the things that represented that ideal. Watching M. Armstrong put his dirty footprints on the moon was an experience that has marked my whole life.
Though the political and/or financial decisions that have motivated the program can be discussed and refuted, the dynamics of such an extraordinary idea galvanised the nation, and others, to realising things that may never have existed.
That tomorrow’s great project be not be NASA is beside the point, we need those extraordinary public dreams where a student can imagine becoming that astronaut, or fireman, or computer engineer, whatever, especially if he discovers his own route on the way.
These are “real” dreamstuff, objectives that our children can yearn to attain, not ninja based games. The space program of the 60s-70s was full of it. I do not know if it is the stuff of tomorrow, but these great dreams, engaging international (intellectual) strife are for the least fantastic motors for stimulation creation, in all domains. The base line cost is ridiculous in comparison
I don’t want to live in a world where we all turn inward and gaze at our navels and our highest calling is to make each other as comfortable as possible while we wait to die.
I want to live in a world where we celebrate the best and brightest, rather then knocking them down because they have too much or are too smart or in the interests of ‘fairness’ to the less able and less motivated.
I want to live in a world where we celebrate astronauts and deep sea divers and scientists and explorers instead of worshipping Oprah and the latest NBA all-star.
I want to live in a world where my child can look up at the moon or the stars and think of the people up there, risking it all to discover things we could only dream of in previous generations.
I want to be part of a species that is continually pushing the boundaries of knowledge and exploration, constantly fighting to see what’s over the next hill, knowing that one day my ancestors will look back on Earth from distant worlds.
I want my species to survive and thrive, and ultimately that means I want them separated from the rock we live on so that a common disaster cannot wipe us all out and erase all the glorious achievements we have made in the last 10,000 years.
I find it incredibly sad that we as a society will spend tens of billions of dollars a year on movies and video games that offer us pretend adventure, while refusing to fund actual adventure.
I think the best way to improve education is to give young people a dream - a promise of adventure and the potential of taking humanity farther than it’s ever been - so long as they get good grades in math and science. I want astronauts to be their heroes - not Charles Barkley or Mark McGwire.
I’m not a fan of government spending, but NASA has returned more bang for the buck than any government agency I can think of. NASA has accomplished great feats on shoestring budgets. NASA has given us some of the great stories of triumph, courage, and dedication of our age. Apollo 13, the lunar landings, the courage of the shuttle astronauts… We should be singing songs and writing epic poems about those achievements. Instead, we shut them down, turned our backs on what we accomplished, and squandered it all away in favor of a little more comfort and a little bigger social program here or there.
In a thousand years, no one will care about our retirement plans and our GINI index and our school bureaucracies. They will care about what we accomplished in science and space exploration.
My greatest fear is that we will bankrupt ourselves trying to cushion our lives and to make ourselves as comfortable as possible, and one day in the far future people will tell stories about the age when mankind came close to conquering the stars - and turned their backs on it, never to return. And children will ask their parents, “Why would they do that? Why did they let it all fade away?” And the parents will reply, “I don’t know. I guess they traded their future for a more comfortable present.”
Nope. As of mid-March, there are still about 47,000 US troops in Iraq. That’s down from the peak of 166,000 at the height of the surge and they’re not involved in active combat operations, but that still represents a significant chunk o’funding.
I’ve never understood why people moan about public money being spent on big projects (especially one as fascinating as space exploration, but even so…).
As others have said - the money isn’t “gone”. The money is paid to thousands of NASA employees, and goes to companies that produce products and services NASA uses. Those companies pay their employees, and those employees pay taxes and buy goods and services from other companies, and so on.
It’s all encouraging economic activity. You’re not “destroying money”. To hear some people talk, you’d think all those billions were being wrapped up in bundles and blasted into outer space. They’re not, they’re here on Earth and circulating in the economy!
Colophon– I don’t think anyone here has said that money is being destroyed, so I’m not sure who you are responding to on that point. On the other hand, lots of people have said that money spent on NASA may be a luxury when the government is looking at budget cuts that would include things like furloughing people from the Pacific tsunami warning center, eliminating Head Start early childhood education for more than 200,000 kids, eliminating 20% of the budget for cancer research programs at the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health, and so on and so on.
I’m sorry, but starry-eyed wonder at launching men to the moon to collect more rocks doesn’t quite take priority over educating poor children and finding cures to common and deadly diseases. Get a grip: there has to be tradeoffs in government spending, and NASA cannot be immune to cuts.
For a guy who roundly criticized Cash for Clunkers for being a poor investment of funds because all it did was make people feeeeeeeel better about the economy, while being a very questionable investment of government funds, you’ve sure laid out an argument that’s based on nothing but tugging on heartstrings.
I figured you’d at least acknowledge the reality that non-governmental interest in space seems to be the new frontier, not only with the hope for space tourism, but also from guys like Elon Musk who, as a billionaire, at time seems determined to make himself a millionaire by developing low-cost rockets and even manned flight capsules on his own dime.
Look, we have heroes like Neil Armstrong and John Glenn. Their names are Neil Armstrong and John Glenn. The idea that we have to spend tens of billions of dollars to recreate past glories, when, in fact, those glories have been verging on the routine for decades now, is a proposal that may make you feel good, but doesn’t make a whole lot of sense otherwise. Shoot, I’d be willing to say that the smaller/faster/cheaper successes of the Mars rovers was more inspiring than any manned mission that NASA has done in a few decades.
Again, I’m not proposing that we stop investment in space or the sciences, but it has to be slowed. We need to keep investing in technology and space for a billion different reasons. But investing in missions to Mars or permanent bases on the moon when we are talking about slashing education just doesn’t make sense at all. We may find ourselves with inspired students with no opportunities for good educations – not a recipe for success.
I will also say this: as our economy recovers and the government’s books get back in shape, then let’s talk about larger investments in gee-whiz space programs.
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