I recently read where one of our Mars probe spacecraft of some type was lost. In this age of a 9+ trillion national debt what are your thoughts on our space program? Is it a worthwhile investment? Why or Why not?
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Most of the acceleration in technology in the USA since the 1950 has come from developments in the space program. Beyond what you see NASA doing; the contributions to licensed devices and processes, the competition to refine electronic productivity, and opening the door to future enterprise are emmeasurable by the shear size of all we have gained ...that is now filling our pocketbooks. The fedreal governement can now move space enterprise toward private and commercial products and should invest in that movement through enabling legislation and coordination.
Using near space for earth-to-earth rapid tranport is essential for technology and national security and more shuttle development is needed to that end.
I do think the federal government should backoff from the current and past high level of spending for high-minded academic goals and foster that activity through private funding and private enterprise.
We will never be 'done' here, but we must set objectives we can afford for the near future.
Bill"for what we are together"
I believe we are loosing touch with "Why are we going to other planets?" Why are we still in outer space? What are we benifiting from being there?. I don't believe we really need to venture to other planets? Scientists say we can lern about our own past on other planets. Do we really need to go that far back in time to lern? As the Scientists put it, we will find our past on mars??? Hmmmm I don't think we will. I'm more concerned about a large meteor hitting the earth, then wanting to know about my past on another planet. After all, I wasn't born then. Sorry by my vote would be to explore our own world first. There is about 30% or more, of the earth we haven't seen yet. Why not start there. I'm not sure if we are footing the bill in space or not. I would hope we aren't.
WWW.Tee4President.US
"Lets take care of "U.S." first"
U.S. = United States
I believe that the average american thinks that space can wait, that we have more pressing things to do now. In a system of forced ranking, it would come below many many of the other priorities.
Also, I don't buy the notion that the technology from NASA is trickling down everywhere.
Like all governemnt organizations, NASA is bereft with GS-9, and GS-11's who can't even read a graph or use expontential notation.
I have personal experience with THAT too.
Would you like a list of names????
http://journals.aol.com/kweinschen/Veritas/
Don't foget the GS-13 and GS-14s who are just as bad. Actually in my 25 years experience as a Govt contractor, Goverment has a lot of real good workers (about 50% that are very very dedicated and talented, 25% that are pretty good and care and contribute, and 25% that don't gives a rats a** and are just punching the clock. It's gotten better inthe last decade but still has a ways to go. But they are not the real problem with NASA.
NASA's space probe programs are the best and provide by far the best bang for the buck (James Van Allen was right!). Unfortunately the ill conceived Space Shuttle Program has crowded out much of the rest of the Space Program. We should never have ended the Atlas/Saturn Booster Program and we would have probably been back to the Moon and with a functioning Space Station now and maybe to Mars by 2024 even.
But the Space Shuttle Program, built on outdated 60's technology, effectively put a kibosh on that. For the Space Shuttle to even start to break even it needed to launch 60 plus missions a year! It turned out to be a real black hole sucking anything that comes close to its wake including the fine unmanned space probes program. Another case of ill-conceived costing/management ends-means disconnect(lack of accountability/transparency) and special interest influence/ political pandering that fully abetted the situation if you ask me.
NASA's budget information can be found here
I do believe NASA is a worthwhile investment.
Wikipedia states approximately $618.412 billion real dollars (2007 dollars) have been spent on NASA since its inception in 1958 Thats approximately $12.62 billion per year.
Not a bad price to pay to further along technological advances, research in a variety of fields (its not all astronomy and astrophysics you know), and create thousands of jobs. I have not any factual data to back up the number of jobs but i have a gut feeling its a lot. Sending large objects into orbit isn't exactly a small feat.
But most importantly I see NASA as a device to promote and stress the importance of math and science in our classrooms. From kindergarten to graduate school I believe NASA provides a great deal of interest and creates much enthusiasm in regards to who we are and what we can do with our lives if we so choose.
And if for nothing else it makes for some entertaining no bull television.
If we don't move beyond the solar system, the human race will cease to exist. Granted, we may have a lot of time. But maybe not. It maybe be too late to reverse global warming, In which case we only have a couple hundred to a couple thousand years to leave Earth.
Think about it. really.