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96 Comments
- didgital, on 10/10/2007, -0/+75One very key point that is rarely mentioned in defense of space exploration: the things that people take for granted now, from medical technology (mentioned in the article) to miniaturized electronics (who doesn't have a cell phone and probably a laptop) are by-products of the space program. I've seen a lot of space exploration whiners on digg, but you won't see them giving up these things.
- RogerStrong, on 10/10/2007, -0/+53The cost of space exploration is also tiny compared that that of say, organized sports.
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We've spent $35 or $40 billion on the space program. And if nothing else had come out of it except the knowledge that we gained from space photography, it would be worth ten times what the whole program has cost. Because tonight we know how many missiles the enemy has and, it turned out, our guesses were way off. We were doing things we didn't need to do. We were building things we didn't need to build. We were harboring fears we didn't need to harbor.
- President Johnson - proto, on 10/10/2007, -1/+46One thing about the money that goes into space exploration: it's all spent here on Earth!
- exformation, on 10/10/2007, -4/+47People who don't understand the importance of exploration have no right to say that it's money poorly spent.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+31we spend more in iraq EVERY DAY than we spend on each NASA mission. way more.
- disrupter, on 10/10/2007, -1/+27Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot remain in the cradle forever."
-Tsiolkovsky, Konstantin (1857-1935) - Albionshores, on 10/10/2007, -0/+20They have the right, we just shouldn't listen to them.
- rogersmj, on 10/10/2007, -0/+14This is a point the more informed people have been trying to make for years. NASA's budget is *tiny* compared to most of the government, and the returns we get on it are huge. I'm not trying to self-promote or anything, but I did write a sizable article on this a couple years ago, with a fair amount of research involved and plenty of data to back it up: http://rogersmj.com/articles/nasa. That should give anyone who things NASA should be scrapped a moment of pause.
- OptimusShr, on 10/10/2007, -1/+15"I've seen a lot of space exploration whiners on digg, but you won't see them giving up these things."
Which is unfortunate. They are like conspiracy theorists, the believe their own whining and tripe and stick their fingers in their ears when they hear the truth going "La la I can't hear you!" - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -0/+13What's the point of trying to advance technology here on earth if you're not going to try and explore space? I mean really, earth is a dead end and if we want to expand we must quit being ignorant and start investing in to our future even if it seems "impossible" to explore...or though the goverment says....
- YouandWhoseArmy, on 10/10/2007, -0/+13I've always thought we should devote a lot more money to the space program than we already do. Like the military, funding space exploration would create new technology and many jobs. Additionally, many of the plants/factories/offices used to make weapons and other things for the mil-industrial complex could likely be converted to facilities for space exploration. A space-industrial complex would just be so much more useful for humanity and could supply the same amount of jobs the military-industrial complex does (with the proper funding of course).
- nonpareil, on 10/10/2007, -2/+11What a joke this country has become. When you spend several orders of magnitude more money on waging war than you do on health care, education, or exploring the limitless mysteries of space, you know something is FUBARed. Sad that none of us will ever live to see an "enlightened" time where just causes get their just funding.
- dWhisper, on 10/10/2007, -0/+9The right to be an ***** is inalienable. The true shame in all of this is that the people who don't understand the importance of exploration, and space exploration in particular, are the ones that make the decision. Ultimately, a great deal of our modern luxuries spring from NASA (GPS navigation in cars, television/Satellite TV, a great deal of the computer industry, food processing... the list can go on forever).
It shouldn't come as a surprise in a nation that mandates abstinence, ignorance, and all sorts of other nonsense. - mrsark, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8a = police,fire dept, military, public schools, etc etc etc etc etc thats a lot of scoundrels now isn't it.
- McTendo, on 10/10/2007, -0/+8Ron Paul = blocked
- rogersmj, on 10/10/2007, -1/+9You're an idiot. Things aren't that simple. Read the article. Then read http://rogersmj.com/articles/nasa
- blackmage439, on 10/10/2007, -1/+9Unless Dr. Akbar Makbar in Iraq can find the cure for cancer with all that damn federal funding going into that wasteland of a country (See: the fact that less than 50% of Baghdad has reliable electricity 5 ***** years later), I say "OUT OF IRAQ, BACK INTO SPACE!"
- SteelChicken, on 10/10/2007, -1/+96 comments and the servers down. NASA needs to send them some budget dollars.
- swordedge, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8NASA is one if the few agencies that generate more tax revenue then spent. After overhualing it to get rid of the people that can't conceive of going back to the moon in less than ten years, double the budget.
- x00x, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6Fools! It is the innate human characteristic in pursuit of satisfying intellectual curiosity to unravel the fundamental underpinnings for the way the world works, for the dynamics of the universe at large that has been the singular driving force for the existence of humanity and the progress we continue to accomplish and enjoy every day.
What what we see today in our continued drive to explore, to expand our horizons, to unravel the secrets yet to uncover, is our natural inclination to which we owe our very existence to. At one point, man's very existence was at stake, to acquire the skills for survival meant to
unravel the phenomena in learning how to circumvent the fundamentals of the world, in acquiring new, innovative survival techniques which is what the realm of science and scientific discovery is all about.
Do you think the cavemen stopped to think, Hey, Grok! Why are we spending time on learning on how to start that hot, burning entity (fire)
we occasionally find on the ground when we could be hunting for our next meal?
No, not all. and the same applies even more to today where our very existence is at stake with issues like global warming , overpopulation, energy depletion, are as threatening to our existence as it has ever been . Science, exploration, discovery has historically expanded humanity's always precarious existence, allowing progress to be made, civilization to evolve and to provide for an improved quality of life.
This is why exploration is so fundamental achieved at a price never too extravagant as we our talking about our very lives here.
Anyone who laments the price we pay for progress for discovery, anyone who rails against the amount of money, no matter how ludicrous
it may seem, is a damn fool. - kmpr326, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7I can't understand people not wanting to support NASA. It is one of the most profitable programs in the goverment. Everything we have stinks of NASA discovery. We are so so small in a universe of unimaginable proportions. We have finished with the spread of humans throughout the world. Is it not our manifest destiny to expand to new worlds? Does society not benefit from the knowledge of the universe? It is progress in the deepest meaning of humanity.
You have my support, NASA. Keep kicking ass. - Brian48216, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6At the very least, the very existence of NASA helped many children learn to dream bigger things. I know when I was maybe 5 or 6 and I saw the space shuttle on TV, I got excited. I'm sure a buncha people on digg can attest to that.
Hubble in and of itself has paid off. I remember a quote of one astronomer saying the cost is "..very cheap to unlock the secrets of the universe" - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -2/+7Cure cancer? Hardly. All anyone wants for that money is to put it back in their pocketbooks, so they can go buy worthless crap! That's all that matters anymore. Never mind the fact that the space program costs almost nothing to the average taxpayer. Our society is going straight down the drain... We no longer have any goals, values, or scruples. No wonder fundamentalism is catching on so much lately, so many people probably feel they have nothing to live for, no higher purpose. For most people, the entire point of their existence is buying crap. And this is coming from an agnostic/atheist (I don't believe in God, but I concede we'll never know).
Look around, people, look around! We can't keep existing like this! I'm not saying we need to find religion or anything, but we need to find meaning to life beyond dollars. We need goals, we need values. I think dedicating ourselves to space exploration is one way to achieve that. But seriously, society needs to wake up, because we're all in a lot of trouble. - Rikkochet, on 10/10/2007, -2/+7Gonna take a shot in the dark and guess you didn't read the article at all, since it talks about people like you.
You complain about the space program? Why don't you complain about the Defense department's budget? Or the sheer amount of waste in bloated government offices? How about the amoutn of money thrown around to celebrities and entertainment corporations? Those dollar values exceed orders of magnitude what we're putting into the space program. The only real difference is that the space program is actually doing something meaningful and advancing our species. - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -1/+5Shut up you! The only thing of any real importance is the almighty dollar! The only thing that matters is earning more so we can buy more useless crap! That's the true meaning of life. Screw higher goals and noble ambitions, those never got me a plasma TV. /sarcasm
God our society is disgusting these days... - mt066, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4"NASA's budget is actually very small"
I do not understand.
"When I talk on this topic, I make an analogy: when your disk drive is full, do you go through and take hours to delete thousands of small text files, or do you delete that one big 3 Gb video file you never watch? NASA is a text file on the hard drive of the government."
I understand completely. - rogersmj, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Damn period getting in my way... http://rogersmj.com/articles/nasa
- stevefl209, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4They have a right to say. They are just too "uninformed" (polite version) to have anything meaningful to listen to.
- nonpareil, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3You are misinformed and deceived, but not by me -- we *do* spend orders of magnitude more on military/defense ("waging war") than on health care, education, and space exploration. See below for the tip of the iceberg, and do your homework:
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2007/01/17/business/20070117_LEONHARDT_GRAPHIC.html
http://www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm
http://www.armscontrolcenter.org/archives/001221.html - Cellulose, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3And how does the cost of Space Exploration cost compared to the important stuff here on earth? Just think of all of the wonderful things we spend our money on here on Earth.
...how about interest payments on the national debt? ($400+ BILLION/year!)
...how about cable TV and satellite? TV Guide? ($100 billion/year)
...alcohol? ($2 billion/year for Budweiser alone!)
...drugs? cigarettes? ($20 billion/year for just Altria Group)
And, my personal favorite... coffee? $8Billion/year for just Starbucks Coffee. - Albionshores, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Trust me, more than you could afford.
- KraftDinner101, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Link to the article: http://www.parade.com/articles/editions/2007/edition_08-05-2007/Space
- BESTenemy, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3The convenience of having services like Google Maps bring more benefit to our everyday life than the entire Iraq war spending.
- jerrycan, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3I was looking for some insight in your comment, but all I could see was Uranus.
- danlas, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2We should put more money in space.
The world hates the U.S. for so many reasons right now. But when people in the middle east look up at the moon and think about how man is living there again because of what the U.S. is capable of it will be interesting to see if perceptions change. - EXreaction, on 10/10/2007, -3/+5The only thing I don't like about Nasa is the way it controls so many projects. Nasa should stick to space exploration and the other scientific projects which get funds from Nasa (which are unrelated to space exploration) should be from some organization other than Nasa (it drains the funds from Nasa so they can not spend as much on space exploration).
If I were in charge, I'd at least double how much funding Nasa gets, probably put in a lot more than that. What is more important, tanks and missiles, or knowledge? - hoovcluck, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Where do you think we got velcro?
The space program generates way more money from these inventions than it takes from the federal government.
They say the United States spent thousands of dollars to invent a pen that could write in zero g's. The Russians, on the other hand, just used pencils. - powerhouse, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Do you have a source for this? I've never heard that claim before.
- dramaDodger, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2It isn't called 'goodastronomy', man.
- dodgydingo, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3I would sink more funds into the mass driver tech tree
- Tabris, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Chances are, we won't even be around 5 billion years from now. The Earth's been around for less time than that, and anything more than simple bacteria has been around for less than 1/3 of the Earth's existence, never mind all the thousands of species that have come and gone in that time. I VERY highly doubt humanity will be around by the time the Sun becomes a red giant.
- Corvidae, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2They also deliver to places that no other delivery company will. And destroy fewer packages than UPS.
There will always be a trade off between the free market and government controlled services. The free market innovates, the government controls costs to do things cheaper, and the government doesn't fail when the stock markets crash. In a free market cops wouldn't patrol poor neighborhoods because it wouldn't be worth it. Under government control, car companies would be making cookie cutter pieces of crap. They each have their strengths and weaknesses. - AngelicRaver, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Read 'Entering Space: Creating a space faring civilization' by Robert Zubrin, a renowned aerospace engineer. Its about the cost and the technology that is/will be involved in space exploration and colonization. Great read for those interested. Its relatively cheap and we already have the technology to colonize Mars, set up space colonies, etc. . Its the future from the eyes of a brilliant engineer. I hold it in regard, the same way I hold Cosmos. We just dont have the drive to do it. No one really cares about space and we need to eventually face the fact that we are going to have to look to the stars as our decedents new home
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2Ron Paul wants to scrap NASA because he's a short-sighted, ignorant fool. Everyone has benefited from the space program and we will continue to do so in the future.
- swordedge, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1They have been saying that for at least 35 years. Even some of the pessimist say this.
- GoldenSpiral, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Space Exploration needs more funding.
The 'Space Race' paid for itself three times over from the technology that was developed as a result of the development of space exploration, not to mention the breakthroughs in science and medical technology.
Also, setting lofty space goals gives a nation something to rally behind, nothing violent or divisive like war, but a positive goal. - Wilsnipeforfood, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Your logic is ***** ridiculous
- emkajii, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1You're right, you're not following the logic at all. First of all, Stealing and Taxing are two completely different things. Taxing people to pay for an unnecessary war that only hurts America and the world is bad. Taxing people a much smaller amount that not only pays for itself in the long run, but contributes to the advancement of America and humanity is a good thing.
- Error601, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Why did I know some doofus would do the "spending xxx in Iraq" thing showing they haven't even read the budget. The real money in the federal budget goes to SS and Health and Human Service. 4 trillion since the Iraq war started.
- kmpr326, on 10/10/2007, -1/+2You know, without progress in space exploration, the human race is ***** when the sun turns into a red giant in about 5 billion years. That is a hard date for our demise. We probably can blow ourselves up before then if we try hard enough.
But, then you realize who the people that say NASA is useless. Mostly Bible thumpers. They don't trust that new fangled idea of progression.
Funny when you think about the infite amount of raw materials that can be harvested in the universe. I remember reading that Ceres, an asteroid in the asteroid belt, is worth trillions in raw metals. Harvesting stuff like that would be awesome.
I'm pretty sure we can send robots to build more robots who build more robots who build space stations who build more robots who harvest space who send it back to earth. -
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