Congress Passes Bill Pushing NASA to Send Humans to Mars by 2033

Megalith

Megalith

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Get your ass to Mars. Get your ass to Mars. Not that the agency has ever truly failed to impress, but these seem to be particularly exciting times for NASA, which is being encouraged to tap into its full potential and go further than they could before. While it still needs to be signed off by the big guy, we may actually be setting down on the red planet around 15 years from now. In other news, it has been confirmed that potatoes can grow on Mars, but Matt Damon already told me that.

The NASA Transition Authorization Act of 2017 is a bill the Senate and House collaborated on for months, and it appropriates $19.508 billion to the space agency. (NASA received $19.3 billion in 2016, or 0.5% of the total federal budget.) When the Senate brought the bill before the House of Representatives for a vote on March 7, "no members spoke against the bill" and it passed, according to Jeff Foust at Space News. The document asks NASA to create a roadmap for getting humans "near or on the surface of Mars in the 2030s." It also calls on the space agency to continue developing the Space Launch System (SLS) — a behemoth rocket — and the Orion space capsule in order to eventually go to the moon, Mars, and beyond.
 
After mars it'll be about mining asteroids, too bad I won't live long enough to see all this.
 
Meaningless words. Etching out a desire to goto Mars while not increasing the budget isn't going to make things better. While it'll be something to see NASA focus most of their time and money onto one project... I can't help but wonder why not give them more money to actually be able to do it. While they are receiving more money then they did in the past (Thanks in due part to Inflation!), they're also receiving less of the federal budget pie in a steady, downward trend (.5%)
 
I was hoping Trump would have announced something more ambitious at his not-the-state-of-the-union-speech speech. The 250th anniversary of the United States is 2026. A permanent lunar outpost or a Mars mission would re-affirm US aerospace dominance over China and Russia more visibly than increased defense spending.

We need to double the NASA budget, keep it fixed to at least 1% of the federal budget. With 1% we could finish SLS and SLS 2.0 ahead of schedule. We could have the proposed 'Skylab II' Lunar orbital station, a permanent Lunar surface habitat, multiple manned missions to study/redirect asteroids (including a proposal to put a small asteroid in orbit around the moon), and send people to Mars.
 
It's really a tough thing to mandate every US citizen pay X% to fund this. I mean each and every one of us will pay for it, whatever it is. We need health care along with a lot of other things. Nothing is free!

I love NASA and the innovation. But .5 to 1% of my income is still another chip of taxes. Everything keeps chipping away and soon we all are in poverty.

Think about how things are going.

For every $1.00 you earn.
.01 for nasa
.30-.40 for payroll taxes
.08 state taxes
Those few things alone now leave you earning around .50-.60 cents to the dollar bring home pay.

How much more do you want to tag on when you consider all of the other taxes you pay. Gas/Utilities/Property.

People just don't break down their true income well enough to see how bad things are.
 
Nukester said:
It's really a tough thing to mandate every US citizen pay X% to fund this. I mean each and every one of us will pay for it, whatever it is. We need health care along with a lot of other things. Nothing is free!

I love NASA and the innovation. But .5 to 1% of my income is still another chip of taxes. Everything keeps chipping away and soon we all are in poverty.

Think about how things are going.

For every $1.00 you earn.
.01 for nasa
.30-.40 for payroll taxes
.08 state taxes
Those few things alone now leave you earning around .50-.60 cents to the dollar bring home pay.

How much more do you want to tag on when you consider all of the other taxes you pay. Gas/Utilities/Property.

People just don't break down their true income well enough to see how bad things are.
Click to expand...

That's not how taxes work. That's not how NASA works. That's not how any of this works!
 
dj_spanmaster2 said:
That's not how taxes work. That's not how NASA works. That's not how any of this works!
Click to expand...

I'm no tax expert. I just know my disposable income has been drastically affected by taxes. It's getting worse. I'm just trying to get in peoples heads that nothing is free and we all pay for it.
 
Mars, meh. Dusty and lots of sand. Life on Mars? Who knows. Increased taxes, surely. New developments because of the effort? Likely.

Still, now that I'm very near the golden age of things, I'd rather they invest in inner spaces. You know, like those in Fantastic Voyage. Work on technologies that might shrink people like Ralph Cramden's buddy Ed Norton down to a comfortable size (somewhat smaller than gerbils), such that they could travel through the lower hatch (shipbound or not), perform inspections, take care of any polyps/anything else that might need addressing, and clean out any corn that might be in the way.

It might make for a great new comedy series. We all need to laugh more.
 
Nukester said:
I'm no tax expert. I just know my disposable income has been drastically affected by taxes. It's getting worse. I'm just trying to get in peoples heads that nothing is free and we all pay for it.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure everyone here knows, nothing's for free. Sorry to hear about your disposable income, though.
 
541560_800wc.jpg
 
iamjanco said:
Mars, meh. Dusty and lots of sand. Life on Mars? Who knows. Increased taxes, surely. New developments because of the effort? Likely.

Still, now that I'm very near the golden age of things, I'd rather they invest in inner spaces. You know, like those in Fantastic Voyage. Work on technologies that might shrink people like Ralph Cramden's buddy Ed Norton down to a comfortable size (somewhat smaller than gerbils), such that they could travel through the lower hatch (shipbound or not), perform inspections, take care of any polyps/anything else that might need addressing, and clean out any corn that might be in the way.

It might make for a great new comedy series. We all need to laugh more.
Click to expand...

you forgot chicks with three boobs ;)
 
What was Nasa's funding? .5 cents on the dollar. That's a half a penny of every dollar taken in by the government. That's ridiculous.
 
Nukester said:
I'm no tax expert. I just know my disposable income has been drastically affected by taxes. It's getting worse. I'm just trying to get in peoples heads that nothing is free and we all pay for it.
Click to expand...

Not sure you are being 100% honest here. Care to share, with data, how your disposable income has been affected?
 
Nukester said:
It's really a tough thing to mandate every US citizen pay X% to fund this. I mean each and every one of us will pay for it, whatever it is. We need health care along with a lot of other things. Nothing is free!

I love NASA and the innovation. But .5 to 1% of my income is still another chip of taxes. Everything keeps chipping away and soon we all are in poverty.

Think about how things are going.

For every $1.00 you earn.
.01 for nasa
.30-.40 for payroll taxes
.08 state taxes
Those few things alone now leave you earning around .50-.60 cents to the dollar bring home pay.

How much more do you want to tag on when you consider all of the other taxes you pay. Gas/Utilities/Property.

People just don't break down their true income well enough to see how bad things are.
Click to expand...


I can see your point. If people go ballistic over the government's individual health care mandate, why should the government be able to mandate that individuals have to pay for space exploration?

The government shouldn't even be involved with space exploration in any form. Deregulate it, and let the free market prevail.

/Being a bit sarcastic
 
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Nukester said:
It's really a tough thing to mandate every US citizen pay X% to fund this. I mean each and every one of us will pay for it, whatever it is. We need health care along with a lot of other things. Nothing is free!

I love NASA and the innovation. But .5 to 1% of my income is still another chip of taxes. Everything keeps chipping away and soon we all are in poverty.

Think about how things are going.

For every $1.00 you earn.
.01 for nasa
.30-.40 for payroll taxes
.08 state taxes
Those few things alone now leave you earning around .50-.60 cents to the dollar bring home pay.

How much more do you want to tag on when you consider all of the other taxes you pay. Gas/Utilities/Property.

People just don't break down their true income well enough to see how bad things are.
Click to expand...
While I think the way you're framing the taxes work isn't as cut as dried as you make it, I'm kind of with you on the rest. I'm all for more space exploration, but I feel like we have so many other domestic problems to solve first. Like how about lead in the water supply? Maybe we should prioritize that? Especially when it's not just Flint, it's in some thousand regions around the country
 
Nukester said:
Guess you are unemployed or don't pay taxes on your purchases, property, gas, utilities, internet, etc.
Click to expand...

Well I mean, taxes on those things actually support our infrastructure for those things and/or community, so you are definitely paying for something. Can't drive without road maintenance or tolls, can't have internet without public utilities support (yes, even for cable or satellite)...
 
RogueTadhg said:
Meaningless words. Etching out a desire to goto Mars while not increasing the budget isn't going to make things better. While it'll be something to see NASA focus most of their time and money onto one project... I can't help but wonder why not give them more money to actually be able to do it. While they are receiving more money then they did in the past (Thanks in due part to Inflation!), they're also receiving less of the federal budget pie in a steady, downward trend (.5%)
Click to expand...

Sadly true. This is just empty rhetoric without a significant funding increase.
 
theft of public funds at it's finest, and in 16yrs nasa is gonna give you a bunch of fake cgis, of course they gonna be of much better quality than the moon landing fakery
 
Happy to seem them NOT making a radical change in plans. I remember watching the one and only flight of the Bush II era Constellation system shortly after Obama took over. It had already been cancelled but IIRC, it was cheaper to launch it then go through a EPA approved disassembly process. Maybe they can actually develop a working usable system before the next administration. Harder to cancel something with operational successes and missions in the pipeline.

Still have to wonder how much improvement was left in the Saturn V when it was cancelled. They went from LEM only with 1 day of on moon supplies to LEM + rover + mulitiple days supplies in just a few missions. The exact rocket system today with modern cabling and computers might just be able to set a small hab on the lunar surface. The main rocket computer itself weighed 1 ton. No telling how many tons of copper wire that thing had.
 
Nukester said:
Guess you are unemployed or don't pay taxes on your purchases, property, gas, utilities, internet, etc.
Click to expand...

Ye gods I get sick of this comeback. I work in tech, as a consultant. My wife works in tech, as a consultant. We have a higher six figure income, after taxes. We pay a significant chunk of change in taxes, enough to pay for a couple regular person's income. Could we have more if we didn't pay taxes? Yes and no. We like our kid's school being one of the top 3 in the state. We like having nice emergency services, nice roads, and more. I've worked in lower tax countries, and I'm not talking about third world holes here, but even some that are higher second world status lack an awful lot that we in America take for granted. We like not having to live behind walls, or seeing guards carrying guns at ATMs.

Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, is free. It's awful easy to whine about taxes and say you don't need X, it's another thing altogether to actually go to a second world country and live without.

When you see the results of tax minimization in a place like Kansas where Brownback took it to the near logical conclusion, since he had near total control with a cooperating legislative branch, and the crumbling everything you wonder what country you're in there. The results are so unpleasant that the moderates staged an electoral coup and Brownback no longer has a pliant legislature. People were sick of exploding debt, underfunded (Kansas' own) constitutional mandates that even the courts said didn't pass the smell test, falling tax revenue, low growth, et al.
 
Nukester said:
It's really a tough thing to mandate every US citizen pay X% to fund this.
Click to expand...

Well, you could argue that it's a national defense issue. Space is the ultimate high ground. The US response to Chinese base building in the Pacific could well be development of US capability to manipulate asteroids. A few tiny impactors (like that one that blew up over Russia without warning a few years back) hidden out in long orbits could be used as a deterrent, giving us the capability to rain non-nuclear city-vaporizing death from above with no warning or defense.

It costs less to send rovers to Mars today than it did to send an expedition from Europe to the spice islands in the 1700's.
 
Nukester said:
I just know my disposable income has been drastically affected by taxes. It's getting worse.
Click to expand...
Taxes haven't changed drastically in a long time. The wage cuts your employer has been giving you yearly by not doing COLA's for decades to adjust for inflation on end is a far bigger factor.

Doubling or tripling NASA's budget would hardly effect any individual's pay. You probably wouldn't even notice it.
 
DeathFromBelow said:
Well, you could argue that it's a national defense issue. Space is the ultimate high ground. The US response to Chinese base building in the Pacific could well be development of US capability to manipulate asteroids. A few tiny impactors (like that one that blew up over Russia without warning a few years back) hidden out in long orbits could be used as a deterrent, giving us the capability to rain non-nuclear city-vaporizing death from above with no warning or defense.

It costs less to send rovers to Mars today than it did to send an expedition from Europe to the spice islands in the 1700's.
Click to expand...
Heinlein had a book about a moon base using just those tactics (with the help of a rail gun) when they went to war with Earth.
 
dj_spanmaster2 said:
Well I mean, taxes on those things actually support our infrastructure for those things and/or community, so you are definitely paying for something. Can't drive without road maintenance or tolls, can't have internet without public utilities support (yes, even for cable or satellite)...
Click to expand...

Come to upstate South Carolina. DOT has the taxes and funds to fix the roads from the taxes collected in the upstate counties, but it is spent in the low country, our roads our crumbling here. It's all political. You are telling me that you trust politicians. There are a lot of good ones, but the good ole' boy politics is alive and well.
 
Nukester said:
Come to upstate South Carolina. DOT has the taxes and funds to fix the roads from the taxes collected in the upstate counties, but it is spent in the low country, our roads our crumbling here. It's all political. You are telling me that you trust politicians. There are a lot of good ones, but the good ole' boy politics is alive and well.
Click to expand...

Oh, don't I know it - I've worked for the Florida Senate. I want complete transparency. Do you know who doesn't? The parties in power. It's easier to keep power if you can hide the shenanigans. They have the capability of being totally transparent but few governments have the balls of doing it correctly. Two grassroots things we can do about it:
- protest/petition to eliminate districts drawn by government bodies, and instead have them drawn by neutral parties and statistical computations. Gerrymandering === bad.
- protest/petition to get rid of First Past the Post voting systems. It's the only way to effectively allow third parties. (http://www.cgpgrey.com/politics-in-the-animal-kingdom/)
 
NASA does a lot more than send things into space. My girlfriend gets 1/2 of her salary from a NASA grant and she's a chemist. They are funding some of the most interesting research chemistry right now.
 
Nukester said:
Guess you are unemployed or don't pay taxes on your purchases, property, gas, utilities, internet, etc.
Click to expand...

I pay all those things in spades (hint, I pay more in taxes each year than the average american income). However, I have determined that the aggregate value of said fees/taxes are acceptable to maintain the level of services and facilities I expect.
 
Trepidati0n said:
I pay all those things in spades (hint, I pay more in taxes each year than the average american income). However, I have determined that the aggregate value of said fees/taxes are acceptable to maintain the level of services and facilities I expect.
Click to expand...

Can we see your tax returns? ;) j/k
 
Blame it all on Nixon.

Back in the early 70s when Apollo was ending, Nixon was presented with multiple directions/proposals on how to direct NASA. Most of them were based on getting people to Mars by the 80s, which included using the Shuttle program as a reusable method to stage in LEO before going to Mars.

However Nixon wanted to save money and killed the Mars aspect but instead told NASA to focus on the shuttle.
 
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