What is Digg?93 Comments
- Lumbage, on 11/04/2007, -4/+59Ugh.....lay off the X.0
- zachshmack, on 11/07/2007, -1/+34I just dropped a 2.0 in my iToilet.
- anteyekon4myst, on 11/03/2007, -4/+31Wake me up when Space Exploration 4.0 begins...or better yet once we stop enumerating fad trends.
- MacEnvy, on 11/07/2007, -1/+25The budget for NASA in 2007 was $16.8 billion. The US Defense budget (not including Iraq or Afghanistan) was $132.8 billion. If you include Iraq and estimates of the military "black budget", defense expenditures were over $900 billion.
Arguments about the effectiveness of NASA as an agency aside, at 1.8% of the military budget, I think our priorities are wrong. - Scynet, on 11/04/2007, -1/+231. I agree with this one.
2. "We" aren't at war, U.S. is. Kind of. This article was about *mankind's* next challenge, not yours.
3. See #2
4. I wouldn't qualify diseases as a grand challenge. They've always been there and always will. If you cure one, another one pops up.
5. See #2 - arthurdent3, on 11/07/2007, -2/+22Its people like you that keep us stagnant. I am sure we can do all at the same time. I would prefer that private industry take over the space exploration(exploitation) personally. They would do a better job of making it cheaper to do.
Maybe Christopher Columbus should have waited for the plague to be cured, war to end, etc.. before finding the Americas. - xkrwlng, on 11/07/2007, -1/+10for the cost of the war in iraq, i read somewhere that we could have done 20 manned missions to mars
gg bush - Erythroxylum, on 11/03/2007, -0/+8Gee, that's some scary-sounding stuff you've invented there. Tell you what, you sit here and try and figure it out, we (the sane people) will thrust off into space, and if we meet and alien civilisations we'll say, 'Hey, do you want to meet a handwringing bed-wetting type who's constantly whining about something?' And when they say, 'Eh, why not,' we'll point them towards Earth.
- Erythroxylum, on 11/07/2007, -2/+9Space exploration is the pinnacle of human achievement. It's a fortunate thing that the rest of the world (minus Russia and to a much lesser extent, Canadia) is finally beginning to catch up with NASA (since they've become complacent), since it'll reshape NASA from the fat, inefficient bureaucracy it is now into more like what it was when it won the Space Race, led to the winning of the Cold War, and ultimately secured America's status as the greatest country in the history of humanity.
- inactive, on 11/03/2007, -1/+8People that label general trends and product categories with a version number are ***** idiots. Go back to Corporate Communications 1.0, idiots!
- wilhoitm, on 11/03/2007, -0/+6So when can we expect the Starship Enterprise and/or X-Wing fighters?
- UncleBadTouch, on 11/03/2007, -0/+5Humans have to go through several levels of planetary development before any real space travel can begin. Take your "3.0" and shove it.
- localzuk, on 11/04/2007, -0/+5Do we all have to click on the 'research technology' button to go through these levels of planetary developement?
- AMSRay, on 11/07/2007, -0/+5We won't have true freedom again until we have a new frontier we can move to. Why did people come to the "New World" from other countries ? To get away from corrupt governments and oppressive societies with little room for the non-priviledged to move up. Sound familiar? But we don't have any place to go that isn't already taken, and at least our culture has matured to the point where it's not acceptible to just go in and take a country we want for ouselves and move our people over there to live like the settlers who came to America . We need space to give creative people and risk takers freedom to innovate.
- MacEnvy, on 11/04/2007, -0/+5Enterprise (NX-01) is due for 2151, from what I've heard :)
X-Wings have already come and gone. A long, long time ago and in a galaxy far, far away. - MacEnvy, on 11/07/2007, -0/+4I'd even be happy with 90/10, to be honest. But less than 2% is just plain insulting to the potential progress we could be making. Instead of spending money on creative efforts and technological growth (that in the end helps *everyone*), we're spending it on destroying false "enemies" and regressing society into the cultural and societal dark ages.
It's just plain sickening. If I believed in God I'd call it a sin, but instead I guess it's just spitting in the face of humanity. - DeFex, on 11/05/2007, -1/+5the rest of the world might have a bigger challenge at hand. Reform the greedy war mongering bully nation.
- MacEnvy, on 11/07/2007, -0/+3That may be possible. The estimated TOTAL cost of the manned Mars program - including intermediate missions to the moon, robotic recons to Mars, new launcher and ship design and production - is about $120 billion. With total estimates in Iraq running as high as $1 trillion by the time we pull out, it's certainly conceivable that we could generate the entire manned Mars program and then do another 19 trips (at marginal additional cost, since most of the work is already done after the first time) before hitting $1 trillion.
- ndonohue, on 11/03/2007, -0/+3and the fact that it wont explode at all. By the time it has gone nova, however, we will either be long gone or long since colonized the cosmos. Space is not a question of if, but when.
- RogerStrong, on 11/07/2007, -0/+3The same goes for NASA. It all goes right back into the American economy. Not one penny has ever been spent in space.
And btw, don't forget the other "A" in NASA - Aeronautics. Much of NASA's budget goes to aeronautics research - new designs, making aircraft more resistant to lightning, wing iceing, etc. - KibibyteBrain, on 11/07/2007, -0/+3He didn't, but he did bring out the information to modern europe up to the present. Its similar to realizing many math discoveries made in the 18th century that we attribute to certain people were actually thought up in Ancient Greece or Rome. Technically, that means that the true discovery was made by the prior group, however, in some spirt there is no need to change the modern attribution. Even many thinkers like Einstein didn't really discover anything in their main work, but rather combined information well known and then made the combination well known as their main achievement. Most of the time bringing the cat out of the bag is worth more than being the first one to see the cat.
That said, while I can say he did a good thing in cluing Europe in on what they were missing in the west, Columbus was a really big evil *****, and if anything should be ignored at best for what he did, if not shunned. Admiring him is similar to admiring some of the Nazi doctors. Sure they came up with scientific data and discoveries invaluable to modern medicine. But their techniques were so unethical, that while you can't not give them credit for what they did, any benefit in it was well nullified in the process. - SiNN4R, on 11/05/2007, -1/+4Just so long as the foreigners realize that we own the moon. The moon is the 51st state and we will bomb anyone who touches it.
- Coltb, on 11/04/2007, -0/+2The NASA space shuttles run on the corpses of are leading medical researchers its their solution to the first problem he listed
- smcavoy, on 11/03/2007, -2/+4Pretty sure no human will have to worry bout the sun exploding... what with that being like a billion years away and all.
- RogerStrong, on 11/05/2007, -0/+2WHO is catching up?
Russia's space program hasn't advanced in 20 years. They announce new plans every month - a Soyus replacement, a new space station, a lunar base, solar power satellites - but none of these plans are funded.
China is falling behind too. They're essentially where the U.S. was in the early 1960s at the start of the Gemini program. But where the U.S. was flying a Gemini spacecraft every few weeks, China is flying a manned spacecraft every few *years*. Again, they have all sorts of wonderful plans for a lunar base, etc, with no signs of any actual development. - rheaume, on 11/03/2007, -0/+2Vote for Ron Paul! He'll kill that remaining $16.8 billion pronto!
- RogerStrong, on 11/03/2007, -0/+2Communications satellites.
Weather satellites.
Remote sensing satellites that can look for minerals and detect crop disease, etc.
GPS satellites
Spy satellites
etc, etc, etc. - any one of the above paid for all the money spent on space exploration, manned or unmanned.
There has been a lot of medical research in space, which has spun off everything from tiny heart pumps to better drugs to ageing research.
All those satellites listed above have limited life times. When the maneuvering fuel runs out we dispose of them. An expanded manned presence in orbit will allow us to service them in orbit, dropping costs. - Erythroxylum, on 11/03/2007, -0/+2Nonsense. Why drop a 5000lb bomb on an imaginary enemy, when you can vapourise his sheet-wearing, bearded, hate-filled, medieval non-self with a high energy laser? Hm?
The latter, all things considered, would work out a lot cheaper in the long run.
I mean, I know explosions are cool and make good TV and everything, but goddamn, it all costs money. - RogerStrong, on 11/03/2007, -0/+2Alas, Bush has shown no further interest, support or leadership for space exploration since the speech. NASA has to fight to keep it's budget - let alone get an increase to support the lunar program - and Bush hasn't helped.
- m0laria, on 11/03/2007, -0/+2Hot Moms Gone Wild 6.9
- MacEnvy, on 11/04/2007, -0/+2Looks as though that meme isn't going to transfer well to digg.
- crapmatic, on 11/05/2007, -1/+3Looks like you're getting dugg down by the 13-year olds here who think "pigs in space" means cops with tasers.
- bluesnowmonkey, on 11/03/2007, -0/+2What if there is an uncharted island out there somewhere in the Pacific with people living on it? If a plane spotted it, and the next day the news headline said, "New Island DISCOVERED," I wouldn't complain about semantics.
- KraftDinner101, on 11/03/2007, -0/+2Too bad the American government is spending less than 1% of it's total budget on space programs. Pretty minuscule when you think about how much money goes into the war. So I wouldn't really worry too much about the space program, you can hardly tell it's there.
- Killer57, on 11/03/2007, -0/+2"ESF Contact: Dr. Jean-Claude Worms"
There's a name apt for an evil genius. - KibibyteBrain, on 11/03/2007, -0/+2Most people in the US don't even understand the basics of the war, or openly even care much about it until it comes to around election day. In Iraq, many commoners just don't want to get shot someday, but thats about the extent of their worries. The only people who really care about this war are the governments of both countries and those nations with ties to them, the insurgent groups and their support networks, the militaries fighting it, the political machine and armchair politicians, and local leaders in the warzones. While thats a huge number, its not even close to a billion people, probably just two dozen million or so.
The whole reason this crazy war can exist is that is relatively low profile as far as open random invasions followed by civil war can go. - MacEnvy, on 11/03/2007, -1/+3If Bush was right about things more often, you'd hear more positive stories about him. Don't blame digg for the fact that the President is a ***** up 99.9% of the time.
- RogerStrong, on 11/03/2007, -0/+1WHEN they are built. They don't exist yet. Nor do the launcher and spacecraft to get to those modules exist yet. But I have have little doubt that they will.
Keep in mind also that most of the launches to the ISS have not been habitation or lab modules. They've individually launched at least eight truss segements - the backbone of the space station that holds all the solar and cooling arrays needed for the habitation and lab modules. And there's the nodes used to connect multiple modules. And the Canadarm 2, which can move end-over-end around the station and move entire modules around. (Node 2 will be moved to it's permenant location after the Shutttle leaves.) - RogerStrong, on 11/03/2007, -0/+1And the EU, with a similar sized economy, spends far less.
And the amount spent on the space program is tiny compared to what's spent on organized sports each year. I wonder why no-one insists that we shut down the NHL, NFL and major-league baseball until wars, hunger and cancer are ended. - positron, on 11/03/2007, -0/+1"And it's people like you that caused the fall of Rome."
News Flash: Nothing lasts forever. - legendxx, on 11/03/2007, -0/+1you have to realize that a good percentage of that defense budget goes to paying soldiers or US industries for equipment, weapons, research, etc etc... So really they just dump it right back into the US economy. I know that number could be a lot less but just wanted to point out that we're not giving it away.
- x2wenty4x, on 11/03/2007, -0/+1Personally I'm looking forward to 4.5
- datastorageguy, on 11/05/2007, -0/+1NASA is becoming complacent? Perhaps you have forgotten the 2 rovers currently ON ANOTHER PLANET transmitting data for future human exploration. While other countries are planning to get to the moon in the future, we have a tentatively planned date for human exploration OF ANOTHER PLANET.
- slaystench, on 11/04/2007, -0/+1GUNDAM
- smek2, on 11/04/2007, -0/+1I wonder, who is the U.S (thats more precisely) in war with? Bush can't even name "the enemy" and is regularly referring to "the enemy", this faceless, nameless enemy who might lurk in the country your government coincidentally has corporate and geo-political interest in. Any other nations administration doing this, they would be branded the new Nazis and bombed the hell out of it.
- smek2, on 11/04/2007, -0/+1Yeah. Every idiot has to slap some version number onto something lately. Isn't Web 2.0 (or whatever it is right now) stupid enough?
- yournamehere, on 11/04/2007, -0/+1Jupiter? are you an idiot
- inactive, on 11/03/2007, -0/+1I support the parent. We all like to dream, but irrational dreaming is not very helpful and in fact can be disasterous.
To reach any meaningful place in the universe means we must accelerate real mass to close the speed of light, and this according the great ones requires almost infinite energy and the ability to control it, or otherwise a very, very long travel time.That is the real challenge, and I think that has little to do with "space" funding, carbon-fiber gliders with hangar doors or space planes; these are just political pork projects.
Until we get closer to solving the former, we should emphasize the home things and not waste efforts and resources(and I was a real supporter, watching and worshiping the Apollo programs) - inactive, on 11/03/2007, -0/+1Sorry, there are NO alternatives to living on earth; this is not star trek.
Unless either we bend/change/cheat the physical laws so we can move great masses at wholesale speeds/quantities.
Or, we have centuries to develop the technologies and then have the resources to build and man space colonies. I do not think we are capable of either. And, unfortunately, for our species to survive may mean simply freezing our genome and seeding space, hoping that we will take root elsewhere well after we are extinguished.
Signed, Marvin - Toshibi, on 11/03/2007, -0/+1But we will never know if ants can sort tiny screws in space!
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