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Subject: NASA a Waste of Space

Written By: Shacks Train on 05/15/08 at 3:34 am

So lets go to Mars!  25 - 300 billion to send a human there (& back hopefully)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3381531.stm
The real problem for this will be drinking water so they'll have to recycle their own urine(price of an education there!).....Space travel for all its time has yet to produce even 1 benefit to mankind (sat TV doesn't count)
But in the end it boils down to this!

Subject: Re: NASA a Waste of Space

Written By: Philip Eno on 05/15/08 at 4:06 am

...I saw Capricorn One last Saturday and I was wondering can a trip to Mars done today.

Subject: Re: NASA a Waste of Space

Written By: Shacks Train on 05/15/08 at 9:14 am

"Astronauts On The Moon!"hahahahahahaha!

Subject: Re: NASA a Waste of Space

Written By: Philip Eno on 05/15/08 at 9:15 am

Not another scandal again?

Subject: Re: NASA a Waste of Space

Written By: Green Lantern on 05/15/08 at 11:34 am

I guess when it comes to space ... and waste's thereof ......... NASA might know a thing or two about it ?



Damn... who wants to deal with 'waste's of space' ? ! ?    >:(




Maybe I can be ...........








































































A 'NASA ' ....... 'Space Cadet' ?      ???    :P













:D



;D

Subject: Re: NASA a Waste of Space

Written By: Foo Bar on 05/15/08 at 10:38 pm


Space travel for all its time has yet to produce even 1 benefit to mankind (sat TV doesn't count)


OK, but aside from more efficient aircraft engines, GPS navigation, satellite telephony, Google Earth's terrain maps, the scientific data that demonstrated what was going on with the ozone layer, the data underlying our growing knowledge about global climate change, cheap and reliable forecasting and modeling of weather conditions (and the increases in crop yields and savings in water consumption by farmers who are able to know how much they'll need to irrigate in any given season) accurate tracking of hurricanes while they're still forming over the ocean (and the lives saved by our ability to warn civilian populations with days/weeks of warning, not hours of warning), and the theoretical capability to save our species from the sort of catastrophe that killed the dinosaurs, what have the Romans done for us?  :)


...I saw Capricorn One last Saturday and I was wondering can a trip to Mars done today.


Yep.  Stephen Zubrin's Mars Direct option has been feasible since the 90s.  His non-fiction work A Case For Mars explains it in detail, and is accessible to the layman.

Subject: Re: NASA a Waste of Space

Written By: Shacks Train on 05/16/08 at 6:50 am

Perhaps I should have titled this post "I Started A Joke"......But some of you didn't laugh!
The weather will come satelites or not.Yes GPS for air plane navigation makes it easier for them now , but they still found their way even with out it.....It's funny how the "gases"that we use that are harm full to the Ozone have only been in use since the 50s & will take about 200 years to regroup up where the real harm can come.In the mean time NASA is studying the Ozone layer & Harming it every time it punches a rocket through it!The earth can repair it self & undo everything we can do to it.So about the only thing that can happen is we make our own lives miserable! Space Travel never impressed me!
Visions of Homer Simpson yelling at Bart to change the channel "Oh no not another boring space launch"
The concept of space travel started with science fiction & I think will remain just that..FICTION
For what NASA can dream up to take on such a journey is "primative as can be"
For me I think that kind of coin could be better spent....America's homeless...Education....Poverty....
A BLOODY HEALTH CARE SYSTEM!!!!!!!
If you want to go to Mars Go! Knock your self out!
http://www.zshare.net/audio/1211029548c0faa6/

In The End It Boils Down To This!



Subject: Re: NASA a Waste of Space

Written By: wildcard on 05/16/08 at 6:14 pm

^  I got it. Like you said If anythings harming the ozone it's the rockets getting shot up in it.  Never was interested in space travel.  No one can live up there and I'm not looking for ET.  There's too much here on Earth to do and discover. 

Subject: Re: NASA a Waste of Space

Written By: loki 13 on 05/17/08 at 8:14 am

Right, it is a waste. Why do we need to know the moon, vital to life on Earth, is leaving Earth's orbit at a rate of
38 mm a year and will eventually spiral into space leaving the Earth a barren wasteland. We know this because lasers
are sent to the moon and reflected back by mirrors not placed there by astronauts.

It is those dang Rockets sent up that are punching holes in are precious ozone, not the millions of pounds of
space debris that pelts the Earth every day, nor is it those UFO's that constantly visit the Earth.

Why stop at Space, exploration serves absolutely no purpose at all and we have no need for science. It hasn't
benefited anyone so let's say it's all a waste and give that money to the poor.

Subject: Re: NASA a Waste of Space

Written By: Shacks Train on 05/17/08 at 1:53 pm

If any of you watched that show "Life after Humans" the footprints on the moon would be the only trace that people inhabited the earth.Everything else would disappear!
Watch THIS!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4939078184096254535
Entire documentary :o :o :o :o :P

Subject: Re: NASA a Waste of Space

Written By: Foo Bar on 05/19/08 at 9:24 pm


The weather will come satelites or not.Yes GPS for air plane navigation makes it easier for them now , but they still found their way even with out it.....It's funny how the "gases"that we use that are harm full to the Ozone have only been in use since the 50s & will take about 200 years to regroup up where the real harm can come.In the mean time NASA is studying the Ozone layer & Harming it every time it punches a rocket through it!


Risk is always relative.  If increased crop yields (due to GPS-assisted automated irrigation and planting equipment) can prevent 1000 starvation deaths per year, maybe the 10 skin cancer deaths per year (due to ozone layer degradation from the launches of the GPS constellations) are worth it. 

Likewise, if we hadn't had the earth-monitoring satellites in orbit (and the NASA high-altitude flights in the Antarctic), we might never have conclusively established that freon and other CFC-based refrigerants and propellants were directly responsible for the ozone degradation in the first place. 

Without NASA research, neither "side" (DuPont and its lobbyists vs. the people trying to answer the question of whether the observed ozone hole was a natural phenomenon or something caused by the presence of man-made contaminants) would have had enough data to deliver a knockout punch to the other, and the Montreal Protocols on CFCs would have been as ignored as the Kyoto Protocols on greenhouse gases.  We'd still be using freon, and not just in our mostly-sealed air conditioners and refrigerators, but we'd probably still be dumping it straight into the atmosphere via our aerosol cans for hairspray and paint.  Anyone not wearing 80+ sunblock in North America (to say nothing of every farmer in the edges of the temperate zones) would be having a Really Bad Day.

I'm plenty willing to criticize NASA where it deserves it -- the ISS and Shuttle are a classic boondoggle; the ISS doesn't do any real science, and the Shuttle exists solely to service the ISS.  Unmanned boosters are by far the better way to launch cargo to earth orbit, and that includes ISS components.  Man-rated space vehichles are still bloody expensive, and while I personally like the idea of a manned Mars mission, and while it's possible to do it with today's technology, you could do a hell of a lot more science (for a tenth of the price) over the next 20 years by shelving the project and launching a small fleet of probes to every planet in the solar system.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this -- even if you regard it as little more than welfare for engineers, NASA ends up producing a net economic benefit.  I like bombs, but I'd rather pay an engineer $100K/year to build robots and space probes than pay him $100K/year to build bombs.  And if someone's capable of doing engineering but about to go on the dole, then even as a taxpayer I'd rather pay him $100K/year to do engineering than pay him $20K/year to do nothing.  He might do something cool with his education at NASA.  If he sits on his butt all day drinkin' beer and eatin' cheetos (I have a pretty good private sector job and my keyboard's still orange, and I can only imagine how lazy I'd be if I didn't have to work for a living :), he invents nothing, and even though he costs the taxpayers less than he would at NASA, he's guaranteed to provide a zero return on that investment.  A mind is a terrible thing to waste.


In The End It Boils Down To This!


In the end, it boils down to the fact that the dinosaurs are extinct because they didn't have a space programme.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that too.

Subject: Re: NASA a Waste of Space

Written By: Shacks Train on 05/20/08 at 2:53 am

"dinosaurs are extinct because they didn't have a space programme."

According to Robot Chicken They did! ;D

Subject: Re: NASA a Waste of Space

Written By: Mushroom on 07/19/08 at 1:49 pm


If any of you watched that show "Life after Humans" the footprints on the moon would be the only trace that people inhabited the earth.Everything else would disappear!
Watch THIS!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4939078184096254535
Entire documentary :o :o :o :o :P


I love that show.  I even own a copy on DVD.

However, there are a great many things that have come about either directly or indirectly from the Space Program.  Everything from the modern plastics being used in surgery to the computers we use today.  Most of them came from either Military and-or Space programs.  Even things such as modern composite materials and alloys started as space programs.

I have been a space nut, all the way back to the 1960's when the Apollo Program was in full swing.  I remember playing with my Major Matt Mason dolls and watching the Apollo mission.

I also believe that it is in our nature to explore and expand.  Life on Earth is incredibly fragile, and even though I doubt it will evr happen, there is the instinctual need to expand.  Mars is a dead planet, and we will never be able to terraform it to support human life.  But that will not stop us from attempting it, if simply to answer the question "Why?".

As for us leaving no traces, you are right there.  Mass extinctions are the norm on this planet.  Every geological age is seperated by them, and this will continue into the future.  Someday even mankind will be extinct, either through an asteroid strike, plague, environmental change (I am talking about REAL change, such as"Snowball Earth"), massive solar flares ripping away our upper atmosphere, or the future events such as Sol entering it's Red Giant phase in around 5 billion years.

Of course, by then Earth will already be a dead rock.  The Earth's core is being fed currently by radiation, but that is expected to grind to a hault in around 200-300 million years.  At that time the magnetic poles and Van Allan belts will dissapear, resulting in both deadly levels of solar radiation striking the surface, and the stripping away of the atmosphere.  This is why Mars is a dead planet.  No molten core, no protective magnetic field to protect it.

Of course, I would love to see if a Space Elevator could actually function.  We are rapidly closing in to where such a device could be created.  And I have seen other research studies into the possability of linking such elevators all the way to the Lagrangian points L1 and L2 in the future.  In doing this, most of the energy expended in getting mass into orbit would be recovered by the kinetic energy captured on the return trips.

And such creations would have the ability for even more far-reaching projects.  Massive solar collectors that could capture energy and instead of "beaming" it back to Earth through microwaves sending it through cables inside of the Space Elevator.  Not to mention the ability to place orbiting observation platforms in space to help detect and possibly deflect NEOs and other things that can result in ELEs.

But no matter what, we are all dead in 200 million years or so. 

Subject: Re: NASA a Waste of Space

Written By: Shacks Train on 08/11/08 at 11:30 pm

Seems odd to me that mankind is so willing to waste countless billions on space travel but can't address the real issues here on earth.....If the military & NASA were dissolved , then perhaps the USA could have a health care system second to none ....No Homeless problems & eliminate crime....You want results from street crime.Well for now if anyone caught with an illegal gun or countless drug crimes.YOU JUST VOLENTEERED
for the front line point duty!!!
Sad truth about space is "we are alone!"
So those "anal probes"are just a hillbilly fantasy!
"Luther we're going to Uranus"
I always thought a handshake was cheaper than a JDAM
One day perhaps the world will come to grips with anothers differances & just accept it for what it is...Just like TV.You don't like it.Change the station!

Subject: Re: NASA a Waste of Space

Written By: Tia on 08/14/08 at 12:12 pm


...I saw Capricorn One last Saturday and I was wondering can a trip to Mars done today.
capricorn one rules!

i think the trip to mars is more a president bush thing than a nasa thing. nasa would rather spend its money on telescopes and probes.

wow. that sounded kinda dirty.

Subject: Re: NASA a Waste of Space

Written By: Shacks Train on 09/15/08 at 12:00 am

Postcard From Mars

Subject: Re: NASA a Waste of Space

Written By: Philip Eno on 09/15/08 at 5:42 am


Postcard From Mars
The place has no atmosphere ?

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