• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

NASA's rover Curiosity lands on Mars [W:206]

jamesrage said:
Yeah cause worrying about how much money something cost that is not really any direct benefit to anyone sure is unreasonable,especially when our country is in debt.Maybe the next big waste of money should be building a landing strip on the moon.
Click to expand...

The Sun will eventually swell and cause the Earth to evaporate. Life will not longer be possible here. Time to look for other places to live.
 
Londoner said:
No benefits? Space exploration brings no benefits? Other than satellite technology, solar power, foam mattresses, corldless drills, baby food, medical imaging devices, artificial limbs, modern insulation, artificial hearts, infrared hand-held cameras, pens that work in zero-gravity... never mind the possibility of humanity extending its horizon still further, at a time when our world is full to bursting and running out of resources... but of course, if something offers no immediate benefit, we shouldn't bother, right? With that sort of thinking we would never have developed agriculture.
Click to expand...
Same Thunderous disconnects with logic. Who ever said space exploration was without benefit?
 
Yeah cause worrying about how much money something cost that is not really any direct benefit to anyone sure is unreasonable
Click to expand...

If landing an unmanned rover on the moon is without benefit, then surely manned space exploration is too?

As for your post, I'm not sure we'll see this 'earth shaking return' until we actually try... just as we didn't see any direct return from developing space travel in the first place...
 
Last edited:
Benefits of space exploration? Maybe they'll discover a Jupiter moon that will support human life, and we can send all the Progressives there to start their own little colony. Man, if we did that, I bet unemployment would go down considerably....lol
 
zgoldsmith23 said:
The Sun will eventually swell and cause the Earth to evaporate. Life will not longer be possible here. Time to look for other places to live.
Click to expand...

When will that be?Million or perhaps Billions of years from now? Humans could be extinct by then. That doesn't justify a government spending billions of dollars to send **** to Mars ,especially when we are in debt.
 
Last edited:
Londoner said:
If james wasn't enough for you... :D
Click to expand...
1-it would help if you cited who you were commenting to and 2-James has posted twice in this thread...perhaps you can show where he said what you just attributed to him. Context helps. All lightning...no...Thunder?
 
VanceMack said:
1-it would help if you cited who you were commenting to and 2-James has posted twice in this thread...perhaps you can show where he said what you just attributed to him. Context helps. All lightning...no...Thunder?
Click to expand...

Well, I was speaking more generally than just rebutting james, but it's at the end of page two. I'm still getting to grips with the 'reply' and 'multi-quote' functions...
 
jamesrage said:
When will that be?Million or perhaps Billions of years from now? Humans could be extinct by then. That doesn't justify a government spending billions of dollars to send **** to Mars ,especially when we are in debt.
Click to expand...

Some of us value knowledge of the universe around us, too.
 
Londoner said:
Well, I was speaking more generally than just rebutting james, but it's at the end of page two. I'm still getting to grips with the 'reply' and 'multi-quote' functions...
Click to expand...
You mean his post #19?

"Yeah cause worrying about how much money something cost that is not really any direct benefit to anyone sure is unreasonable,especially when our country is in debt.Maybe the next big waste of money should be building a landing strip on the moon."

That doesnt at all say what you think it said.
 
jamesrage said:
When will that be?Million or perhaps Billions of years from now? Humans could be extinct by then. That doesn't justify a government spending billions of dollars to send **** to Mars ,especially when we are in debt.
Click to expand...

Sure am glad Queen Isabella of Spain didnt think like you do.

Columbus would have been BUMMED.
 
zgoldsmith23 said:
Some of us value knowledge of the universe around us, too.
Click to expand...

As do I. But currently I think any amount of "man flight" missions are unachievable and a waste of money. While there is a lot we can learn, there's a lot more that can still be done terrestrial side, for a lot less money. Manned flight into space is a nice goal, human exploration of space a dream that would be fantastic. But humans are not at the stage which we will need to be for that to work. Given the aggregation of work and costs, we have to be able to be at a point where we aren't wasting our money fighting each other, but rather building for the future; and that will take us some time to realize. Till that point, some basic "space exploration" in terms of various tech such as satellites, rockets, etc; but a focus on more terrestrial research and exploration.
 
What if...? said:
Sure am glad Queen Isabella of Spain didnt think like you do.

Columbus would have been BUMMED.
Click to expand...
Queen Isabella of Spain wasnt 16 trillion in debt.
 
Ikari said:
As do I. But currently I think any amount of "man flight" missions are unachievable and a waste of money. While there is a lot we can learn, there's a lot more that can still be done terrestrial side, for a lot less money. Manned flight into space is a nice goal, human exploration of space a dream that would be fantastic. But humans are not at the stage which we will need to be for that to work. Given the aggregation of work and costs, we have to be able to be at a point where we aren't wasting our money fighting each other, but rather building for the future; and that will take us some time to realize. Till that point, some basic "space exploration" in terms of various tech such as satellites, rockets, etc; but a focus on more terrestrial research and exploration.
Click to expand...

This isn't manned (which I'm sure you know).
 
zgoldsmith23 said:
This isn't manned (which I'm sure you know).
Click to expand...

What!? There weren't people on that flight! Why I can't believe they'd try to pull.....

No, I'm kidding. Yes I did know this was unmanned, thanks for pointing that out. Some were talking about the aggregation of the space program into manned attempts, and I was merely stating that we aren't really at the point where that can happen, so there's no point pumping money into going that direction.
 
Ikari said:
What!? There weren't people on that flight! Why I can't believe they'd try to pull.....

No, I'm kidding. Yes I did know this was unmanned, thanks for pointing that out. Some were talking about the aggregation of the space program into manned attempts, and I was merely stating that we aren't really at the point where that can happen, so there's no point pumping money into going that direction.
Click to expand...

We do run the risk of waiting TOO long.

If we wait until we use up all the cheap fuel, it'll be too late.

Thats not tomorrow, but should be part of our considerations.
 
What if...? said:
We do run the risk of waiting TOO long.

If we wait until we use up all the cheap fuel, it'll be too late.

Thats not tomorrow, but should be part of our considerations.
Click to expand...

Perchance it is, but manned missions into space will require a humanity wide endeavor, and we are not at the point in our history yet where we can realize that.
 
What if...? said:
Sure am glad Queen Isabella of Spain didnt think like you do.

Columbus would have been BUMMED.
Click to expand...
Queen Isabella of Spain wasn't trillions of dollars in debt and the discovery of the Americas directly financially benefited her and Spain.
 
Ikari said:
What!? There weren't people on that flight! Why I can't believe they'd try to pull.....

No, I'm kidding. Yes I did know this was unmanned, thanks for pointing that out. Some were talking about the aggregation of the space program into manned attempts, and I was merely stating that we aren't really at the point where that can happen, so there's no point pumping money into going that direction.
Click to expand...

I'd agree (at the current moment) but, we certainly need to think about it in the future. I'm all for rovers, probes, satellites, etc. being pumped out there. I'm not really sure about the whole Space Station, though. That seems like a bit of a sink of money but I'm not all familiar with its role, etc.
 
jamesrage said:
Queen Isabella of Spain wasn't trillions of dollars in debt and the discovery of the Americas directly financially benefited her and Spain.
Click to expand...

We can say that now. At best, they were hoping for a shorter route to the Far East.
 
zgoldsmith23 said:
The Sun will eventually swell and cause the Earth to evaporate. Life will not longer be possible here. Time to look for other places to live.
Click to expand...

Well this is true, but we'll need to be able to get into a new solar system to escape it, as all of the planets in this one will be uninhabitable when that happens.

I'm all for space exploration, if for no other reason than I think it's freaking cool! :)
 
The Man said:
Well this is true, but we'll need to be able to get into a new solar system to escape it, as all of the planets in this one will be uninhabitable when that happens.

I'm all for space exploration, if for no other reason than I think it's freaking cool! :)
Click to expand...

Let's worry about inter-planetary travel before we worry about inter-stellar travel.
 
zgoldsmith23 said:
Some of us value knowledge of the universe around us, too.
Click to expand...
I value having a McLaren MP4-12C, but I am not going to put myself a couple hundreds thousands of dollars in debt to get one.
 
jamesrage said:
I value having a McLaren MP4-12C, but I am not going to put myself a couple hundreds thousands of dollars in debt to get one.
Click to expand...

There's a difference in selfish indulgences and knowledge gained.
 
zgoldsmith23 said:
We can say that now. At best, they were hoping for a shorter route to the Far East.
Click to expand...

Are you saying a shorter route to the Far East is not a direct benefit to her and Spain? A couple billion dollars to send a toy to Mars has no direct benefit to us.Its just unnecessarily spending money we don't have.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom