President-Elect Obama and NASA

@Setanta,

His name was Cristobal Colon, his name his been Anglicised by those who wish to promote America as a white protestant country. Ferninand and Isabella weren't anti-Muslim as such, they got rid of the Jews too. They were even handed Christian bigots.
Cristobal was Genoese, in fact a lot of our notions of nationality are relatively Modern.

0 Replies

@Advocate,

Advocate wrote:

I guess every board has at least one genuine ignoramus. It is pretty clear that you are ours.

A cogent argument. You must be right.

0 Replies

@rabel22,

I think your reading comprehension is poor. I have come down on "manned" space projects, not all such projects. Also, the spinoffs have been wildly exagerated, and they have come mostly from unmanned projects.

Further, NASA has been sucking up some of the best talent in our country, talent that could be used to improve our commercial posture, etc.

2 Replies

@Advocate,

Advocate wrote:

I think your reading comprehension is poor. I have come down on "manned" space projects, not all such projects. Also, the spinoffs have been wildly exagerated, and they have come mostly from unmanned projects.

Further, NASA has been sucking up some of the best talent in our country, talent that could be used to improve our commercial posture, etc.

NASA is engaging in a very worthwhile effort to develop space travel, which will eventually lead to the colonization of space. Someday Man will inhabit multiple solar systems. We may even meet other intelligences out there. NASA should be given a larger budget.

0 Replies

I don't agree with Brandon on politics, but I buy his main argument here that manned space flight is necessary. The big coporations and the military are sucking up and wasting far more talent than the space program ever has or ever will.

0 Replies

I find the proposition that the human race will either easily or soon "colonize" space to be an absurdity. I do agree with Brandon and EB that the exploration of space is a worthwhile endeavor in and of itself. This, however, doesn't change my basic argument on this subject, which is that political leaders are unlikely to see large expenditures for such projects to be worthwhile, and that capitalists are even less likely to take that point of view, precisely because you will not be able to show a probable return on investment. This will be particularly true of private investment, given that returns on investment are only likely to come after a long period of time, and may not come in the foreseeable future. Capitalists are individuals who think only in terms of their own immediate benefit, and getting them to underwrite such expenditures is highly unlikely. Politicians are motivated by a sense of what the electorate will want, and they are unlikely to do much if they can't see a way to convince people of the appeal of such expenditures.

2 Replies

@Advocate,

Yes my reading comprehension is poor. Almost as poor as yours. I think manned is the way to go. We are not always going to be landlocked. Our recources are finite and someday soon we will have to mine space to survive as a species. If you look at the spinoffs the computer and minitureazition alone have paid for the space projects. You dont seem to be able to look ahead to the future. Try thinking about the children of the future.

0 Replies

@Setanta,

Which is why I think people like us should encourage our childish politicians to spend more money on space. They think in terms of jobs for their own district but I would much rather spend a billion dollars on space projects as a b2 bomber or a rifle and space projects will add to the economy instead of being retired to a scrap yard after 5, 10, or 20 years as these weapon systems are. Why dont we complain about the blooted military spending. We speend more on the military and get less in protection than ever before because the industrial complex controls the congress. We are all upset about the 700 billion $ bailout, hell weve been doing this every year for the last 20 years for the industrial military complex.

1 Reply

I see the reality that space exploration will not go full speed, except as a (now nonexistant) money making prospect, or a militaryone. I figure we will trudge along otherwise, until society's priorities change, say two hundred years in the future. I don't believe mass exoduses will ever be engineered, just enclaves here and there, and eventually a program to get some humans away to avoid extinction.

1 Reply

@rabel22,

Quote:

They think in terms of jobs for their own district but I would much rather spend a billion dollars on space projects as a b2 bomber or a rifle and space projects will add to the economy instead of being retired to a scrap yard after 5, 10, or 20 years as these weapon systems are.

Certainly i cannot but agree with this. However, the reality is that defense contractors already exist, they have the attention of the Congressmen and -women in whose districts their plants reside, they have the revolving door relationship with military officers, and they have lots and lots of money to spend on influence peddling, precisely because of the bloated defense budgets and the scandalous waste and graft involved.

It will take not just diverting the priorities of Federal funding, it will take an all-out, successful assault on the status quo of defense spending and contracting.

0 Replies

@edgarblythe,

I agree with your analysis, except that i think you are far too sanguine in thinking we would be there (at least in terms of colonization enterprises) within two centuries. There can be no doubt that the people of this planet would never support the long-term sacrifices which would be necessary to a mass exodus. The idea of enclaves is interesting, and raises all sorts of equally interesting questions of human physical evolution in situations of different environments, especially in situations of significantly different gravitational fields on satellites we might inhabit. For example, Mars has about one third the gravity of the Earth, slightly more. That is believed to be sufficient to prevent the radical (and dangerous over even relatively short periods of time) loss of bone mass. But i would be interested to know what kind of children a colony would produce under such circumstances. It seems to me that they would grow to maturity unable to endure the gravity of the home planet of their species.

If humans were to evolve "among the stars" into what were virtually different species, what would that portend for the future of a form of life historically known to be prone to tribalism, and murderous violence in aid of and as a result of tribalism?

1 Reply

@Setanta,

I only meant they might turn their energy that way in perhaps two hundred years. They then would have to get serious about developing technology before anything could happen.

1 Reply

@Fountofwisdom,

Fountofwisdom wrote:

One of the spin off s that is often ignored is semi conductors: and computing: computers are small because they have to fit on rocket

No, computers are small because the way to speed them up is make the chips smaller. The smallest computer chips probably wouldn't function well in space because they are so small.

1 Reply

@edgarblythe,

I agree.

0 Replies

@parados,

Not to mention the effects of cosmic radiation. I promise not to mention that.

0 Replies

None of the planets, outside of earth, and moons in our solar system would be habitable for an extensive period. Only those with an iron in the fire, or the ignorant, will tell you otherwise.

At today's speeds, it would take 30,000 years to travel to the next nearest solar system. Gee, maybe we can get it down to only 1,000 years.

1 Reply

@Advocate,

Who said anything about going to another star. How about mineing our astroids and other bodies in our solar system. If we are satified with fighting wars and spending money on the military so we can fight even more wars than we deserve to end as the animals we seem to be. We need to have a military that can defend our borders, which i am not sure we have at this time and leave the rest of the world to it self.

2 Replies

@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

I find the proposition that the human race will either easily or soon "colonize" space to be an absurdity. I do agree with Brandon and EB that the exploration of space is a worthwhile endeavor in and of itself. This, however, doesn't change my basic argument on this subject, which is that political leaders are unlikely to see large expenditures for such projects to be worthwhile, and that capitalists are even less likely to take that point of view, precisely because you will not be able to show a probable return on investment. This will be particularly true of private investment, given that returns on investment are only likely to come after a long period of time, and may not come in the foreseeable future. Capitalists are individuals who think only in terms of their own immediate benefit, and getting them to underwrite such expenditures is highly unlikely. Politicians are motivated by a sense of what the electorate will want, and they are unlikely to do much if they can't see a way to convince people of the appeal of such expenditures.

One point of clarification on my previous post. I didn't mean to imply either "easily" or "soon." We aren't even close yet.

0 Replies

@rabel22,

Wow, mining asteroids! I would love to see a cost/benefit analysis on that.

0 Replies

@rabel22,

Quote:

leave the rest of the world to it self.

So then you would support the US ending ALL foreign aid?
That would include humanitarian aid, disaster assistance, monetary aid,etc.

You would support the US blocking all foreign doctors from accessing the CDC, and you would support the US closing all overseas bases, thereby costing local economies thousands of jobs and millions of dollars?

You would support the US abandoning NATO, abandoning its treaty obligations, and turning its back on its allies?

You would support all of that?

1 Reply

President-Elect Obama and NASA

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know