NASA Plans To Give The Moon A Moon?

the amount of scientific illiteracy in this thread is MADDENING for a tech forum

do none of you under stand how basic research works? i bet almost every one of you use GPS
or knows some one that has had an MRI or other medical imaging done? how about lasers?
all of that can go back to early work in relativity and quantum physics

Hubble does more then take pretty images which btw the ones you see are released for PR you almost ever see the raw images used for hard science since they dont look like much

here go watch this video be for you open your mouth about NASA's and other research budgets again
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ulkX-DA9BM
 
Be nice if we could pay off our Chinese overlords soon, By about 2040, due to interest on the debt, Mandatory spending (Interest, Pensions, etc,) will exceed the entire revenue of the United states Government. Assuming zero change in the GDP up or down, by 2080, the combined mandatory spending will reach 60% of the GDP.

Good chance the US and world economies will have crashed and burned long before that point, so who knows what things will look like then. Barbarians did Rome in, looks like the Bankers have our number.
 
InternationalHat said:
Being a macroeconomic adviser for fiscal spending is apparently the worst job in the world ...
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Quick question...who owns the super awesome fed?

Also, how do you know who is right and who is wrong? Serious question. Let me guess, everyone is dumb but you...lol.
 
colinstu said:
THANK YOU.

*applause.gif*

I can understand the government wanting to fill certain rolls. This space exploration stuff on the other hand sure doesn't need to be one of them. Any cool tech found by it could be done by any non-government-owned company or organization, WHILE they're making money & staying afloat. Things like education allow for assets that are a lot more complex to value (a smarter bunch of people -> jobs. Well, that's the hope...)

Cold War called. Wants its space race crap back.

Play the "it's a drop of pee in the ocean" card all you want, it adds up over the years. Many other parts of government would see similar trimmings (I'm looking at you, Defense budget. hooooolllly CRAP! among other places)

I hate to get political on things, but it sickens me to see MY (and fellow people who think similarly) money go towards more space junk, expensive space junk at that.

</rant>

How's the hubble space telescope doing? Oooooh pretty pictures that people use as desktop backgrounds that I could've whipped up in photoshop after a bad dream. :rolleyes:

Knowing more about ourselves and the world is good... up to the point where it's costing us millions and billions.
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Its comments like this make me wonder if humanity is going to survive as a race. :(

People expect us to get into a real space age eventually, but have no intention on setting the foundation for that to actually happen. You claim the money will add up over time, but what is a bigger threat? Is it humanity being ill-equipped to handle a natural disaster or your green running out?

Earlier it was said by someone else spending like this slits the throats of our children. I find it the exact opposite when you consider the obvious stagnation that will happen from not having real technological progression. Perhaps not your children, but your grand children for sure.

Your mocking of Hubble is hilarious as well considering the amount of data we find from all this. For instance did you know a new black hole is born every single day? Its in our best interest to learn more about things such as this. I mean if you wish to ignore something that shows how insignificant we are, then by all means keep on blissfully trucking. I would consider it a utter waste and all in vain for us to go extinct.

Think of it this way, even with money issues, humanity would still go on. Possibly even solving the issue with new industries and innovation which is what made the US strong in the first place. We were the first, so we were the best. Stop that now and you allow everyone else to copy and catch up. Your money or our future?

We should help each other out though. We can still cost cut in plenty of places. For the military spending in general the Air Force gets the most by a large amount. Projects like the F35 arnt going anywhere and should be cut. Give our allies the F22 they would be happy. Dont take it out of the already low 4/10ths of a penny of our tax dollar.
 
jpm100 said:
Today's NASA is not that NASA. And even that NASA actually subcontracted those many great things out to private companies.

Its not that they are completely useless, but their effectiveness is about the same as the equivalent amount of federal money given to universities for research. Because that's basically what NASA has become, a postdoctoral research center.
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I know quite a bit about what those subcontracts brought to engineering on many levels. I can safely say that NASA still brings a lot to the table.
 
nasa-vs-military-budget-pie-chart.jpg



Yes, NASA is going to bring us down. :rolleyes: I somehow think we have slightly bigger problems than NASA....lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i2QDpGRQKc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_F3pw5F_Pc
 
darkstarcow said:
What exactly is the point of giving the moon, a moon?
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The main reason for studying and moving asteroids is so that we have the knowledge and experience for when an asteroid is headed directly at Earth. We know of large asteroid impacts in Earth's past and they can be catastrophic, knocking up enough dust to block the sun for years thus destroying crops, and a lot of life along with it. Granted this is a small asteroid, but they need to start somewhere. Our moon just happens to be a convenient place to park the asteroid. You wouldn't want to try parking it around Earth and then accidentally hit Earth.
 
motomonkey said:
Be nice if we could pay off our Chinese overlords soon, By about 2040, due to interest on the debt, Mandatory spending (Interest, Pensions, etc,) will exceed the entire revenue of the United states Government. Assuming zero change in the GDP up or down, by 2080, the combined mandatory spending will reach 60% of the GDP.

Good chance the US and world economies will have crashed and burned long before that point, so who knows what things will look like then. Barbarians did Rome in, looks like the Bankers have our number.
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China only owns 7.2% of the US debt. That misinformation needs to die.

About a 1/3 of the debt is held by foreign countries. About a 1/3 is held by individuals/companies and the rest is tied up in entitlements:
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/12/11/who-owns-our-national-debt.aspx

Anyway, with the "conservative" media brainwashing everyone that its opposite day with their "fiscal cliff," "tea party" conservatives like Jim DeMint taking quarter million dollar bribes not to vote and resigning and, the only one who ever proposed any significant cuts - Ron Paul, retiring, I think this country is screwed.

With the US debt-to-GDP ratio at 106% and the White House projecting the interest on the debt to be about a trillion dollars/year by 2021, we will be well beyond the 129% ratio that Greece set when they went bankrupt. This country will never give up its entitlements so we will go bankrupt. We will end up having to revalue the dollar, cutting any dollars the few of you have stashed in the banks to probably something like a quarter vs other economies, based on what most recently happened to our nearest neighbor - Mexico.

So start buying solid goods/commodities and start hoarding guns. This country is @#$%ed!
 
The level of debt we have is not necessarily a bad thing... Ok, poor choice of words. It's bad, but not necessarily tragic. We've had this much (by percentage of GDP) before. The problem is if the budget doesn't get balanced and it keeps growing. Hell we came out of WW2 into the fifties where our economy boomed with this much debt.

Don't get me wrong, it's asinine, irresponsible and damned near criminal that we've gotten to this point with no plan to balance the budget any time soon. But we can recover if the people elect officials that make it a priority.

Cutting research isn't the way to do it.

Hell, IMO the first step in guaranteeing that the US has an economy in the future would be a doubling of the spending on science, research and education.

Oh and China isn't the problem the isolationists think it is. Their economy is more dependent on us than ours is on them. It is not in their interest at all for our economy to tank and for us to stop buying from their manufacturing sector. As long as they have the liquid assets, and we keep selling treasury bonds, they'll keep buying. And really, they're what, 8% of our outstanding debt? Are we just as scared of our other economic partners Japan and The UK?

Furthermore, I can see why this could be a worthwhile endeavor. What if Apophis hits the keyhole? What if we detect something else coming at us? It would be good fit us to have proven we have some level of possible way out then just sticking our heads between our knees and kissing our asses goodbye...

So to recap, the world isn't ending, there are still some good things the government can spend money on, and science is cool.
 
MasonD said:
Matter of fact, I'll just say it, you sound ignorant as hell assuming people online can't figure out debt is a bad thing. Please! That shit is sad!

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2187rank.html
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The numbers in the link look impressive, but they are inflated due to exchange rates applied to trade deficits. It's a little too complicated to get into here, but a negative trade deficit is actually a good thing. People can look up the works of Frédéric Bastiat and Milton Friedman to learn why.

And yes, excessive debt is a bad thing. The problem is that most people arguing about it often don't understand the breakdown of our budget, the size of the deficit, or who owns most of our debt (no, it's not China). I'm not assuming you don't know these things, but it's safe to assume the vast majority of the public do not understand these basics.

For people who are interested in learning more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt

Small things do add up over time. But big things add up quicker. What good is it to argue over 2 billion out of 18 billion of NASA's budget when we're wasting hundreds of billions in defense and other programs? I believe the rational approach is to worry about the large items in our budget first.
 
And people wonder why I'm against these stupid NASA missions. Like the crap to Mars. It's a gigantic waste of money and brings nothing to the table. Wow, Mars has rocks. Whoopty doo.

Defense budget is actually used for other things. Like you know...making oil cheap.
 
krotch said:
And people wonder why I'm against these stupid NASA missions. Like the crap to Mars. It's a gigantic waste of money and brings nothing to the table. Wow, Mars has rocks. Whoopty doo.

Defense budget is actually used for other things. Like you know...making oil cheap.
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explain to me WHY we even need that oil when we could drill our own? have more natural gas then any one but maybe Russia

oh and we could be build LFTR based power plants
but you know lets keep fighting over a resource thats going to run out in the next 100 years
when if we spent 1% of that of building LFTRs we could have even cheaper power and fuel
ONE TON of Thorium could power the US for a year and we have over 5000 tons stockpiled from WWII
its it not rare in the slightest one mine could produce 100tons a year

as to why send things to Mars because at some point we need to get off this rock or the whole of humanity is doomed
we need know whats there so we can know how what we need to take with us and what to build to use whats there

again please stop breathing you are stealing the air the rest of us need
 
The moon already has a moon, it's called the Earth. The moon is 5 times more massive than the Earth. Which is why there's tides on earth but nothing on the moon, as the Earth is too shitty and little.
 
Elios said:
explain to me WHY we even need that oil when we could drill our own? have more natural gas then any one but maybe Russia
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Because our oil wouldn't last very long. Not even a decade and we'd be out.

[/quote]as to why send things to Mars because at some point we need to get off this rock or the whole of humanity is doomed
we need know whats there so we can know how what we need to take with us and what to build to use whats there

again please stop breathing you are stealing the air the rest of us need[/QUOTE]

We can't even get hundreds of people into space, there isn't a point to go to Mars yet. They should be figuring out how to do that. Once we can actually get a system of being able to easily get man to space, then we can figure out how to make a ship to travel in space. Then we can worry about how to terraform planets.

Right now, all we've got is,"Hey...Mars has dirt" for that $2.6 bil. I could have told you that.
 
DeathPrincess said:
The moon already has a moon, it's called the Earth. The moon is 5 times more massive than the Earth. Which is why there's tides on earth but nothing on the moon, as the Earth is too shitty and little.
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Huh? The moon is 1.2% the mass of the Earth. The moon is 2% the volume of the Earth. The moon is 7.4% the surface area of the Earth. The moon is 27% the diameter of the Earth.
 
reFre5h said:
You are one of those crazies. I read about them on the internet once.

Instead of crying about Science, how about you complain about something that has no returns like the "War on Drugs" or the TSA.
Write your Congressmen and Senators and tell them they don't need to keep giving themselves pay raises for the next term, or that they should actually read some of the legislation they pass that adds ridiculous amounts of debt for inefficient and poor results.

But OHH Boogyman NASA raising your debt!
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Grow a fucking brain.
 
Priort to WW2 we were in the Great Depression. Veterans protested on the Capital lawn, General Patton lead a charge against them.

It was only WW2 which pulled us out of the depression.

Post war, the rest of the world's manufacturing base was flattened.
The countries were bankrupted by war.
Third world countries such as China were not the manufacturing base they are today.
Allied intelligence teams had the victors share of all technological, medical, and scientific data found anywhere on the planet.

Prior to WW2 we had a single workforce, predominately Caucasian males.
During WW2 those men went to war and a new female and minority workforce emerged to replace them.
Our factories operated at full capacity, around the clock.

After the war, Congress didn't want a repeat of the pre war depression. To avoid this they passed two bills.

1)The G.I. Bill
2)The Marshall Plan

The GI bill underwrote interest free loans for any honorably discharged veterans that wanted to own a home. It offered the guarantee of a college education or trade school to any honorably discharged veteran.

The Marshall Plan (European Recovery Act) offered interest free loans to ANY ally country which wished to rebuild their nation's infrastructure.


America experienced an economic boom unseen in human history, with two fully employed workforces where there was once only one. Our factories flourished, income taxes flowed like wine. It made us the richest nation on the planet, bar none.

We sat back as our cash rich government spent money like a drunken whore with good intentions, attempting to fulfill everyman's individual needs and desires from the cradle to the grave.

We squandered that lead, both as a nation, and as individuals. The government still hasn't admitted to itself and it's constituents that there are no jobs, no tax proceeds, and the US government is the nation's largest employer. We are alive because it's currently in our creditors best interest.


Understanding US - China Relations,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-mUVkmlBSA
 
One more point, I am not a NASA hater no matter how much I'm speaking against this project.

People need to realize that NASA only received the funding it got because of the Cold War and the perceived threat of war. The need for launch vehicles, new weapons such as lasers, and to contest the Soviet presence in space.

That's why it's languished of late, our government is not some holistic entity.
 
krotch said:
Huh? The moon is 1.2% the mass of the Earth. The moon is 2% the volume of the Earth. The moon is 7.4% the surface area of the Earth. The moon is 27% the diameter of the Earth.
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You keep believing that on your tiny rock. Why else do you think earth doesn't have a bunch of craters! Exactly, the only logical answer is because it's a tiny little submoon so the rocks all get pulled towards the larger body, not the tiny crappy wet one with green mold all over.
 
MasonD said:
nasa-vs-military-budget-pie-chart.jpg



Yes, NASA is going to bring us down. :rolleyes: I somehow think we have slightly bigger problems than NASA....lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i2QDpGRQKc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_F3pw5F_Pc
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Good post, and I agree, it's pretty sad how bad our NASA budget is right now and people want to cut it even further! We should get Neil deGrasse Tyson as Administrator of Nasa and then have him hire Robert Zubrin as Chief Engineer. We'd have a man on Mars in 10 years easy as well as alot more interesting missions being conducted. Rubert Zubrin is crazy, he's like mad scientist crazy and him and Tyson share a passion that if you put them together they'd be unstoppable. I think these are the people that are necessary to truly push humanity further into space.
 
Elios said:
here go watch this video be for you open your mouth about NASA's and other research budgets again
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So now we're supposed to "watch our mouths" about government spending? Good little sheep. Always defend the government, because they're the losing ones in this game of "How Much Debt Can We Rack Up Before Leaving Office?" :rolleyes:
 
PornoSatan said:
Good post, and I agree, it's pretty sad how bad our NASA budget is right now and people want to cut it even further! We should get Neil deGrasse Tyson as Administrator of Nasa and then have him hire Robert Zubrin as Chief Engineer. We'd have a man on Mars in 10 years easy as well as alot more interesting missions being conducted. Rubert Zubrin is crazy, he's like mad scientist crazy and him and Tyson share a passion that if you put them together they'd be unstoppable. I think these are the people that are necessary to truly push humanity further into space.
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Nobody wants to cut anything, though. We just went through that entire fiscal cliff deal and came out with a plan that makes ZERO cuts in spending, on the premise that in a couple of a months, then Congress and the President will surely make cuts...like they were supposed to do over a fucking year ago and never did.

You can't cut anything, big or small. The real problem accounts we face, our unfunded liabilities like SS and Medicare, are untouchable because no politicians have the balls to face up to the fact that they're unsustainable. On the other hand, if you even talk about small cuts to programs like NASA or PBS, then you have another outcry from whoever likes those programs. Nobody wants to give up anything, but the only way we're getting out of this is if we cut everything. One way or another, we're going to have to develop a general attitude of cutting spending, just as any household does when they realize that their debt is outstripping their ability to pay. The more programs you declare off-limits, the more you simply procrastinate. We need to become a leaner, meaner country with our finances if we don't want to slip down the hole into the fiscal insolvency sewer.

However, it's clear that some people are utterly unable to handle that.
 
darkstarcow said:
I take it you haven't seen the financial shape most of Europe is in?

What exactly is the point of giving the moon, a moon?
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I know europe is in bad shape.

But this is america you are the big baddest country on the block and I believe hold the title of #1 superpower.

When you are at the top the only place to go is down not up.
 
[POLITICAL RANT]
Where were all these whiny fiscal conservatives back when Bush announced his $250 billion Moon program?

When Obama scaled it back to $89 billion (saving the most important part, the heavy lift vehicle) all the whiny conservatives came out saying Obama killed the space program. You'd almost think some people just like to complain when the government isn't run by their guy. :rolleyes:
[/POLITICAL RANT]

Anyway, this sounds like a great project. The cost is in line with the old Skylab Space Station and the Hubble telescope, it helps move us closer to a Mars mission/permanent lunar outpost, and it can be justified to taxpayers as an economic and national/global defense project. NASA's new rocket will be ready for Moon missions around 2017, but NASA currently doesn't have clear short-term objectives beyond lunar orbit/asteroid missions. I really hope the president announces this along with the proposed far side fuel depot.
 
DeathFromBelow said:
Where were all these whiny fiscal conservatives back when Bush announced his $250 billion Moon program?
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Right where they are now, angry about it. Whiny liberals were too busy calling him the greatest war criminal of all time and preparing for World War 3 with Iran. :rolleyes:
 
Azhar said:
NASA's federal budget is a drop in the bucket. They receive funding from private investors too.
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A drop in a bucket that has a hole in it, and very little water remaining. Kinda more like an hour glass, isn't it?
 
Stiletto said:
So now we're supposed to "watch our mouths" about government spending? Good little sheep. Always defend the government, because they're the losing ones in this game of "How Much Debt Can We Rack Up Before Leaving Office?" :rolleyes:
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you didnt even look at what it was did you
its an interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson about science illiteracy
in case you dont know who he is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson
 
Lith1um said:
A drop in a bucket that has a hole in it, and very little water remaining. Kinda more like an hour glass, isn't it?
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Yeah ok, I would rather NASA run our space program than some angry armchair internet raver.

What are you doing here anyways since you seem to hate technology so much?

Why the hell does this forum have so many fucking Luddites?
 
Elios said:
you didnt even look at what it was did you
its an interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson about science illiteracy
in case you dont know who he is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_deGrasse_Tyson
Click to expand...

What the hell does "science illiteracy"? The inability to read only books about science? And what does that have to do with "shutting your mouth" about how our government spends its money? You seem to just be another reactionary person that defends any money the government spends as long as it's for your pet project. I'm a fan of space exploration, too...but right now there are plenty of private groups making leaps and bounds that will soon make NASA an anachronistic institution.
 
Azhar said:
What are you doing here anyways since you seem to hate technology so much?

Why the hell does this forum have so many fucking Luddites?
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So now if you criticize government spending you're a luddite and you hate technology. What a rational outlook. :rolleyes:
 
Azhar said:
Yeah ok, I would rather NASA run our space program than some angry armchair internet raver.

What are you doing here anyways since you seem to hate technology so much?

Why the hell does this forum have so many fucking Luddites?
Click to expand...

"Mom, I want a IPad mini!"

"We can't afford it, honey."

"Maybe if you didn't hate technology so much, we could!"

"I'm sorry, but we simply don't have the money. Times are hard."

"Mom, why are you such a Luddite?"

"Actually, the bigger question is why I smoked weed while I was pregnant."
 
Stiletto said:
I'm a fan of space exploration, too...but right now there are plenty of private groups making leaps and bounds that will soon make NASA an anachronistic institution.
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It will actually take a couple decades, but it will happen.
 
Stiletto said:
What the hell does "science illiteracy"? The inability to read only books about science? And what does that have to do with "shutting your mouth" about how our government spends its money? You seem to just be another reactionary person that defends any money the government spends as long as it's for your pet project. I'm a fan of space exploration, too...but right now there are plenty of private groups making leaps and bounds that will soon make NASA an anachronistic institution.
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Well books about science and technology are the only ones that matter ;) ... If we would change the rules on space so it can be owned I think we would encourage more private exploration (first come first served should apply) ... if we allowed the militarization of space that would help also since that would start a new space race ... also if we returned to a nuclear deterrent for our defense instead of conventional forces we could greatly reduce our defense budget (but defense is one of the valid government expenses)
 
kbrickley said:
Well books about science and technology are the only ones that matter ;) ... If we would change the rules on space so it can be owned I think we would encourage more private exploration (first come first served should apply) ... if we allowed the militarization of space that would help also since that would start a new space race ... also if we returned to a nuclear deterrent for our defense instead of conventional forces we could greatly reduce our defense budget (but defense is one of the valid government expenses)
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Well then, start the Cold War back up and NASA will be soaring. :p
 
Stiletto said:
Well then, start the Cold War back up and NASA will be soaring. :p
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We should be in one already with that large country to the West of us ... if we were smart ... China is the biggest military and industrial rival the USA faces right now ... we should be in a cold war with them before we are forced into a hot one with them ;)
 
kbrickley said:
We should be in one already with that large country to the West of us ... if we were smart ... China is the biggest military and industrial rival the USA faces right now ... we should be in a cold war with them before we are forced into a hot one with them ;)
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That's going to come one way or another. Whether it's Taiwan or islands in the East China Sea, they can't contain their imperialist urges much longer. Then we'll either have to intervene or announce to the world that we've been bested.
 
Stiletto said:
"Mom, I want a IPad mini!"







"Actually, the bigger question is why I smoked weed while I was pregnant."
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that not even close its more like

"Mom, I want to go to collage"

"We can't afford it, honey."

"I'm sorry, but we simply don't have the money. Times are hard."

"Mom, why are you such a Luddite?"
 
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