toldailytopic: Is space exploration worth the expense for our country?

[Nathon Detroit]

The TheologyOnline.com TOPIC OF THE DAY for July 8th, 2011 09:52 AM

toldailytopic: Is space exploration worth the expense for our country?

Take the topic above and run with it! Slice it, dice it, give us your general thoughts about it. Everyday there will be a new TOL Topic of the Day.
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[some other dude]

No, the money would be better spent on failed social programs.









[/end sarcasm]

 

[Persephone66]

Yes.

At the least so we can find new resources to plunder and new planets to colonize, especially if we totally mess up the one we are on.

 

[some other dude]

Yes.

At the least so we can find new resources to plunder and new planets to colonize, especially is we totally mess up the one we are on.

If we find people on other planets who look different than we do, will it be OK to enslave them?

 

[Persephone66]

If we find people on other planets who look different than we do, will it be OK to enslave them?

Either that or force them to convert to your beliefs and kill them if they don't.

 

[some other dude]

Hey, it worked in the past, right?

 

[Persephone66]

Hey, it worked in the past, right?

It's what your god wants you to do, right?

 

[frostmanj]

I have to reluctantly say,"No". At least not currently. When we are already in the middle of a budget crisis, I can't justify in my mind the outlay of money for only a marginal gain of prestige and scientific knowledge.

 

[some other dude]

It's what your god wants you to do, right?

Your God too.

You'll see.

 

[Tambora]

toldailytopic: Is space exploration worth the expense for our country?

Yes, to a degree.

Satellites in space have certainly helped our defense.

 

[alwight]

The TheologyOnline.com TOPIC OF THE DAY for July 8th, 2011 09:52 AM

toldailytopic: Is space exploration worth the expense for our country?

As a non-American I'd say no it isn't and probably only ever was seen as perhaps worthwhile during the Cold War. But many worthwhile things do emerge as spin-offs of wars or indeed the Space Race, conflict or competition of any kind. In these days of spiralling debt then it may only be private enterprise that provides the competition needed.

There also has to be a better way of getting into space without using a huge expensive firework to do it, surely?:think:

 

[Buzzword]

In answer, a nice quote from one of my favorite series ever.

"Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics and you'll get ten different answers, but there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe and Lao-Tzu, Einstein, Morobuto, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes .. and all of this .. all of this was for nothing unless we go to the stars."

Now, am I hoping our sun goes nova in the next few years?
No.

But eventually, our species will either have to learn to play nice, and thus be able to leave its cradle, or will be annihilated, either by ourselves or by the cosmic forces which don't give two gastrointestinal gaseous expulsions about us.

 

[The Berean]

As a non-American I'd say no it isn't and probably only ever was seen as perhaps worthwhile during the Cold War. But many worthwhile things do emerge as spin-offs of wars or indeed the Space Race, conflict or competition of any kind. In these days of spiralling debt then it may only be private enterprise that provides the competition needed.

There also has to be a better way of getting into space without using a huge expensive firework to do it, surely.:think:

The Space Elevator may be one possible alternative. It is being worked on right now.

 

[some other dude]

In answer, a nice quote from one of my favorite series ever.



Now, am I hoping our sun goes nova in the next few years?
No.

But eventually, our species will either have to learn to play nice, and thus be able to leave its cradle, or will be annihilated, either by ourselves or by the cosmic forces which don't give two gastrointestinal gaseous expulsions about us.

Current thinking is that the sun will not destroy life on earth for another five billion years. If evolutionary theory is right, we will be so far evolved past our current state as to be unrecognizable. I believe the current thinking is that proto-man has been using tools for only the past million years or so and that modern homo sapiens arose about 200,000 years ago.

So from evolved chimps wielding rocks to modern man splitting the atom in a million years, and considering that the development of technology is an exponential curve, the state of technology in 5000X the number of years since we've been banging rocks together....


I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

 

[Quincy]

In answer, a nice quote from one of my favorite series ever.



Now, am I hoping our sun goes nova in the next few years?
No.

But eventually, our species will either have to learn to play nice, and thus be able to leave its cradle, or will be annihilated, either by ourselves or by the cosmic forces which don't give two gastrointestinal gaseous expulsions about us.

I love science fiction.

I think it's worth the moola.

 

[rexlunae]

I have to reluctantly say,"No". At least not currently. When we are already in the middle of a budget crisis, I can't justify in my mind the outlay of money for only a marginal gain of prestige and scientific knowledge.

Problem is, you can't have a short-term approach on a space program. Starting one up is costly, and takes a really long time. If we shut ours down now, not only to we displace lots of people from jobs which required a lot of specialization to qualify for in the first place (which we're already doing more than enough of), but we lose the capabilities that those programs offered for a very long time.

 

[frostmanj]

Problem is, you can't have a short-term approach on a space program. Starting one up is costly, and takes a really long time. If we shut ours down now, not only to we displace lots of people from jobs which required a lot of specialization to qualify for in the first place (which we're already doing more than enough of), but we lose the capabilities that those programs offered for a very long time.

I understand your point, but still think that the space program may be more than we can afford right now. The U.S. Government is going to have to make some real hard decisions about what is "nice to have" vs. "what we must have". I am in the military, but will concede that even that will need to have cuts made. If cutting our national defense is on the table, I can't see how cutting the space program shouldn't be.

 

[rexlunae]

I understand your point, but still think that the space program may be more than we can afford right now. The U.S. Government is going to have to make some real hard decisions about what is "nice to have" vs. "what we must have". I am in the military, but will concede that even that will need to have cuts made. If cutting our national defense is on the table, I can't see how cutting the space program shouldn't be.

I honestly think the space program is an important component of national defense. And I think if we abandon it, we will be severely harming our technical and strategic preeminence, as well as crucial scientific research. I think cutting it is a false economy.

 

[The Berean]

"Space exploration" is on the way to becoming a commerical enterprise. No one has heard of SpaceX, Virgin Galatic, XCOR, Bigelow Aerospace, Armadillo Aerospace, Masten Space Systems, or the Google Lunar X Prize? A tremendous amount of work is being done in the private sector to privatize space exploation.

SpaceX Dragon Space Capsule

Spaceship Two Suborbital Tourist vehicle

Armadillo Aerospace

Bigelow Aerospace Unfurlable Space Structure

Dream Chaser Spacecraft

 

[rexlunae]

"Space exploration" is on the way to becoming a commerical enterprise. No one has heard of SpaceX, Virgin Galatic, XCOR, Bigelow Aerospace, Armadillo Aerospace, Masten Space Systems, or the Google Lunar X Prize? A tremendous amount of work is being done in the private sector to privatize space exploation.

The natural progression will probably lead to industry taking over aspects of space exploration that the government once controlled exclusively. This is mostly a product of space becoming more accessible, which likely wouldn't have happened without governments taking the first (very costly) steps. There's no way to know for sure, of course, but public investment in space started decades ahead of the private sector.