• 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]

I just feel they shouldn't dump money into it when our nation - and the world, really - is so volatile.

People complain about the president's vacation costs - because it's excess while we're at war, etc. . . well space exploration is an excess as well given the circumstances.

The benefits generated by the quantum-leap from rudimentary rocket technology to man on the moon in around a decade spawned dozens of new technologies, and several new industries, nevermind the hi-tech jobs created by NASA and its providers. You want to be trapped on this little rock as sea levels rise, the population grows, farming yields fall and resources run out? Space has the... room... and resources to feed humanity's desires forever... Earth has enough for, perhaps, a century.

Anyway, you can feed a lot more starving babies by making cuts to the military budget, since the US spends some 30x more on that than on NASA, or by cutting agricultural subsidies, which cost far more and, for the money, sustain far fewer and less well-paid jobs...
 
Last edited:
LOL . . . my view is "hold off and direct those financial efforts where - at the moment - they'll be more beneficial"

Your response is "the world is ****ed so we better find another planet to move to"

And I'm absurd? :D
 
You're absurd if you think cutting £10 billion from NASA's budget will make any difference... I'm just saying that there are infinite opportunities for mining and collecting resources in space, I'm not saying we all have to move there.

Although it would be nice if you peered a little more into the future than the next Presidential Term... if I'd told you in the 50s that man would be landing on the Moon in twenty years you would have called me absurd...
 
Ok - ignoring my qualm with spending the money at the present time.

I do not support raping the universe of all it's goods . . . that's the stupidest reason to go exploring. If that's the ONLY reason for space exploration I'd take a firm stand 100% against it.

We have ALL we need here and if we can't pull through the natural disasters and climate changes that are just a routine for our planet and subsequently our species then perhaps we need to consider just removing ourselves altogether worldwide Jones-town style since we can't seem to get our **** together long enough to exist amicably.
 
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.

Direct benefit?

Perhaps finding microbial life on mars will finally put an end to religion and the whole "god created life" idea. Then again, I'm sure they will just spin this and say "mars was his test planet".

That would be a great benefit to MANY people.
 
Last edited:
I hate this argument. The Mars Science Laboratory was initiated in 2004 and landed on Mars several days ago. In that elapsed time for one of the most significant scientific projects we have embarked on in the United States for quite a few years it cost $2.6 billion.
That averages out to about $325 million a year. So I want to ask you if you think that the federal budget, and the future solvency of the United States rests upon a budgetary outlay of $325 million? Of course not. If we had even a mild increase in our NASA budget, created big and exciting contracts for emerging space development corporations (like a lunar base, like a Lagrangian point fueling station, like putting a mass driver on the moon...), we would accelerate the expansion of our space frontier and its eventual exploitation and settlement.

NASA is .48% of the federal budget let's shove the hysterics about the looming national debt catastrophe.

I hate this argument. Everyone has their pet spending project and everyone says it is a tiny fraction of the national budget. A few billion here a few billion there and pretty soon you are talking real money and you are pet projecting the economy over a cliff.
 
I hate this argument. Everyone has their pet spending project and everyone says it is a tiny fraction of the national budget. A few billion here a few billion there and pretty soon you are talking real money and you are pet projecting the economy over a cliff.

NASA is not a "Pet" project. It is responsible for most of the communications you take advantage of today. Not to mention inspiring thousands of kids to become something greater than a bag clerk at a grocery store.
 
Alright, let's take a look. How will knowing that "Nasa is effective" benefit me or really anyone for that matter?

By showing that NASA can be effective, they should receive more funding and can begin projects again (as they did in the not-too-distant past).

How will "rock samples" from Mars benefit me or anybody?

Potentially allowing other resources that can be used for future technology. Gives us another place to exhaust resource on. :2razz:

How will knowing whether Mars does or has ever sustained life benefit me or anybody?

Because you could potentially live there? If Mars is capable of sustaining life, it gives us another home and makes us that much closer to inter-planetary and inter-stellar travel.
 
Ok - ignoring my qualm with spending the money at the present time.

I do not support raping the universe of all it's goods . . . that's the stupidest reason to go exploring. If that's the ONLY reason for space exploration I'd take a firm stand 100% against it.

We have ALL we need here and if we can't pull through the natural disasters and climate changes that are just a routine for our planet and subsequently our species then perhaps we need to consider just removing ourselves altogether worldwide Jones-town style since we can't seem to get our **** together long enough to exist amicably.

We can't "rape the universe" of it's goods. Hell, we won't be able to travel to 90% of the universe. Jeez, take a cosmology class. :roll:
 
We can't "rape the universe" of it's goods. Hell, we won't be able to travel to 90% of the universe. Jeez, take a cosmology class. :roll:

observer92 said this.

"What if we discover a way to mine extremely valuable minerals and space and then we earn billions and billions from that."

I notice you didn't come down on her like you did aunt spiker.
 
I hate this argument. Everyone has their pet spending project and everyone says it is a tiny fraction of the national budget. A few billion here a few billion there and pretty soon you are talking real money and you are pet projecting the economy over a cliff.

This is not a 'pet' project, this is the most successful and far reaching space program in the history of mankind, and it costs us a pittance. .48% of the federal discretionary budget a year is not driving us over a financial cliff. Entitlements, Tax Reform, and the Defense Budget are the issues that need addressing. Shackling mankind to earth won't make one difference in that fight. Stop obfuscating and go address those issues. It's like when people attack 'pork barrel' projects, which mind you this is not, they waste time and public attention on issues that have zero bearing on what actually matters vis a vis our fiscal crises.
 
Ok - ignoring my qualm with spending the money at the present time.

I do not support raping the universe of all it's goods . . . that's the stupidest reason to go exploring. If that's the ONLY reason for space exploration I'd take a firm stand 100% against it.

We have ALL we need here and if we can't pull through the natural disasters and climate changes that are just a routine for our planet and subsequently our species then perhaps we need to consider just removing ourselves altogether worldwide Jones-town style since we can't seem to get our **** together long enough to exist amicably.

Just as a side note... what? Why on earth wouldn't we 'rape' the solar system of its resources. If the Lunar regolith, Mars, or an asteroid have valuable materials what the hell would we be avoiding them for? So it stays in some pristine condition? Nonsense. Mine the sky dammit. We can tremendously expand the limits of human settlement, fortify the future of our species, fantastically grow our economies and available resources, and facilitate the beginnings of the spreading out of mankind into our near solar neighborhood over the coming century.
 
observer92 said this.

"What if we discover a way to mine extremely valuable minerals and space and then we earn billions and billions from that."

I notice you didn't come down on her like you did aunt spiker.

Spiker isn't advocating the space program. Observer's quote is a quite possible scenario. I'm not seeing why you think I would contend one, and not the other...
 
I do not support raping the universe of all it's goods . . . that's the stupidest reason to go exploring. If that's the ONLY reason for space exploration I'd take a firm stand 100% against it.

Uh... I believe this point has already been rebutted.

Besides, there are other good reasons. Do you not want to explore the next 'New World'? Looking in the shorter term, a colony on the Moon would make any future missions, manned or not, much easier, as it is much cheaper to take off from the Moon. Space can offer us infinite space, resources, energy, you name it, it's there, nevermind the sheer technological leap such projects would create.
 
I know all about Alcubierre. Go ahead and list me some technologies that are possible using this ... I'll wait.

Warp drive and wormholes are both possible using Alcubierre's metrics, assuming GR is correct and complete. I doubt it is and IMHO it's just like Newton's Laws of Motion.

Newton thought his equations of motion were applicable in all cases (including those where objects travel near the speed of light) until subsequent physicists showed his equations are just a limiting case of GR.

Same thing will soon happen to GR in about 160 years--it will be reduced to a limiting case of a new more complete theory.

However, assuming GR is correct and valid in all cases, then the actual technology to create an Alcubierre metric (i. e. warped spacetime that "moves" with a ship) is conceptually not complicated--all that's really being done is that some field is created around an object to keep its mass at zero or keep it from becoming infinite at a speed of c relative to an observer outside the field, so that it never reaches an infinite energy state when accelerating to c or past it. Furthermore, time dilation can just be though of as just the ratio of relativistic mass to rest mass, so if the rest mass is constant at any speed, there's no time dilation.

Warp drives are possible. Transporters really aren't as there is no way to control the way atoms are placed. You'd leave X being as you are and show up Y as a completely different arrangement.

:lol: you're neglecting the fact that the uncertainty principle is already taking place in our bodies. You just don't notice it because biological molecules are massive (compared to subatomic particles) and so if they carry a large error in momentum (delta-p), their velocities change very little. And if the error in momentum of molecules are large, then the minimum error in their position (delta-x) is small.

Bottom line is that the molecules do not have to be exactly in the same place or orientation as when you started transport. A little error is OK :)
 
Last edited:
Uh... I believe this point has already been rebutted.

Besides, there are other good reasons. Do you not want to explore the next 'New World'? Looking in the shorter term, a colony on the Moon would make any future missions, manned or not, much easier, as it is much cheaper to take off from the Moon. Space can offer us infinite space, resources, energy, you name it, it's there, nevermind the sheer technological leap such projects would create.

100% correct about the technological leap. However, the way mankind still thinks about exploring space is problematic. Much of today's research and technology centers around the idea that in order to explore space, one has to build a vehicle to travel large distances fast, using powerful thrust. This is a lousy way to explore space, because there's no way to travel faster than light using this approach and furthermore, astronauts have to be kept fed and warm and shielded from radiation during long journies.

A better way to develop the space program is to concentrate on developing instantaneous transport-type systems (i. e. like Dr. Who's TARDIS) that do not need to travel through physical space to get to their destination.
 
Warp drive and wormholes are both possible using Alcubierre's metrics, assuming GR is correct and complete. I doubt it is and IMHO it's just like Newton's Laws of Motion.

Oh so we will try and refute GR now. Yay. Can I see your research, then, doc?

Newton thought his equations of motion were applicable in all cases (including those where objects travel near the speed of light) until subsequent physicists showed his equations are just a limiting case of GR.

Such as? Those neutrinos didn't travel faster than light in case ya missed it.

Same thing will soon happen to GR in about 160 years--it will be reduced to a limiting case of a new more complete theory.

String Theory?

GR is correct and valid in all cases, then the actual technology to create an Alcubierre metric (i. e. warped spacetime that "moves" with a ship) is conceptually not complicated--all that's really being done is that some field is created around an object to keep its mass at zero or keep it from becoming infinite at a speed of c relative to an observer outside the field, so that it never reaches an infinite energy state when accelerating to c or past it. Furthermore, time dilation can just be though of as just the ratio of relativistic mass to rest mass, so if the rest mass is constant at any speed, there's no time dilation.


Many things aren't "conceptually" hard but they are damn near impossible in our current status.

you're neglecting the fact that the uncertainty principle is already taking place in our bodies. You just don't notice it because biological molecules are massive (compared to subatomic particles) and so if they carry a large error in momentum (delta-p), their velocities change very little. And if the error in momentum of molecules are large, then the minimum error in their position (delta-x) is small.

Bottom line is that the molecules do not have to be exactly in the same place or orientation as when you started transport. A little error is OK :)

Those transports would probably move subatomic particles no? A little error might be fine but I doubt it would be a "slight" miscalculation.
 
So you oppose all programs that do not have a direct and immediate causal benefit to yourself?

Nope. But I can see how someone might mistakenly make such a straw man.
 
By showing that NASA can be effective, they should receive more funding and can begin projects again (as they did in the not-too-distant past).

What projects? Another trip to mars :roll:

And if these projects are inherently more valuable than this trip to mars, why don't we just skip this trip to mars and work on these other worthwhile projects of which you speak?

Potentially allowing other resources that can be used for future technology. Gives us another place to exhaust resource on. :2razz:

Mining resources on Mars and bringing them back to earth has absurd investment costs that prohibit it from being profitable, at least for the forseeable future. Hell, there are fossil fuel deposits on earth that are too costly to make it worthwhile to retrieve.

Because you could potentially live there? If Mars is capable of sustaining life, it gives us another home and makes us that much closer to inter-planetary and inter-stellar travel.

We already know that mars is not capable of sustaining human life. I've been over the argument as to why a "bubble colony" on mars would be pointless too many times and I'm hardly interested in recanting it yet again. Terraforming is so ridiculously out of the scope of our ability right now (if it ever even will be, which is questionable to say the least) that I think it's absurd to even seriously consider.

The fact is that the continued existence of the human species is tied to earth. And will be for a very, very, VERY long time. An amazingly cool rover on mars doesn't do anything to change this.
 
What projects? Another trip to mars :roll:

And if these projects are inherently more valuable than this trip to mars, why don't we just skip this trip to mars and work on these other worthwhile projects of which you speak?

Because further missions cost more money. The technology used will have to also be tried.

Mining resources on Mars and bringing them back to earth has absurd investment costs that prohibit it from being profitable, at least for the forseeable future. Hell, there are fossil fuel deposits on earth that are too costly to make it worthwhile to retrieve.

In the foreseeable future? Well that's not ALL science is about.

We already know that mars is not capable of sustaining human life. I've been over the argument as to why a "bubble colony" on mars would be pointless too many times and I'm hardly interested in recanting it yet again. Terraforming is so ridiculously out of the scope of our ability right now (if it ever even will be, which is questionable to say the least) that I think it's absurd to even seriously consider.

And we'll know this how? BY EXPLORING MARS! It's also not about what you think, it's about what you can produce evidence for.

The fact is that the continued existence of the human species is tied to earth. And will be for a very, very, VERY long time. An amazingly cool rover on mars doesn't do anything to change this.

It's not exclusive to Earth, hopefully. We need to find a home for the future (as I've told you before).
 
Warp drive and wormholes are both possible using Alcubierre's metrics, assuming GR is correct and complete. I doubt it is and IMHO it's just like Newton's Laws of Motion.

Newton thought his equations of motion were applicable in all cases (including those where objects travel near the speed of light) until subsequent physicists showed his equations are just a limiting case of GR.

Same thing will soon happen to GR in about 160 years--it will be reduced to a limiting case of a new more complete theory.

However, assuming GR is correct and valid in all cases, then the actual technology to create an Alcubierre metric (i. e. warped spacetime that "moves" with a ship) is conceptually not complicated--all that's really being done is that some field is created around an object to keep its mass at zero or keep it from becoming infinite at a speed of c relative to an observer outside the field, so that it never reaches an infinite energy state when accelerating to c or past it. Furthermore, time dilation can just be though of as just the ratio of relativistic mass to rest mass, so if the rest mass is constant at any speed, there's no time dilation.



:lol: you're neglecting the fact that the uncertainty principle is already taking place in our bodies. You just don't notice it because biological molecules are massive (compared to subatomic particles) and so if they carry a large error in momentum (delta-p), their velocities change very little. And if the error in momentum of molecules are large, then the minimum error in their position (delta-x) is small.

Bottom line is that the molecules do not have to be exactly in the same place or orientation as when you started transport. A little error is OK :)

Possible is a slippery word. I think it's more accurate to say that we don't know that it's impossible. Which is different than saying we know it's possible. According to our current understanding of physics, humans will most likely never develop an alcubierre drive, as the energy requirements are absurd in addition to a variety of other problems.

Admittedly, this could change as our understanding of physics does, but to the best of our current knowledge warp drives ain't going to happen. Personally, I consider the lack of evidence of aliens quickly zipping around from solar system to solar system a la Star Wars/Star Trek as evidence that that sort of travel is impossible and will always remain so. Unfortunately.
 
Because further missions cost more money. The technology used will have to also be tried.

I know it costs money, that's part of my problem. Your argument is that this trip to mars is beneficial because it will allow more trips to mars. You haven't yet said why more trip to mars will be beneficial.


In the foreseeable future? Well that's not ALL science is about.

Talking about the what's going to happen eons from now is pointless because it's wild speculation. Anything really beyond a couple hundred years, you might as well be writing a sci fi novel.


And we'll know this how? BY EXPLORING MARS! It's also not about what you think, it's about what you can produce evidence for.

as i've said, i've been over this too many times on this board. sorry, not worth my time. if you want to keep believing a human colony on mars is anything other than stupid, suit yourself.

It's not exclusive to Earth, hopefully. We need to find a home for the future (as I've told you before).

Yes, it is exclusive to earth. And it will be for a very long time (as I've told YOU before) regardless of what you think humanity "needs".
 
I know it costs money, that's part of my problem. Your argument is that this trip to mars is beneficial because it will allow more trips to mars. You haven't yet said why more trip to mars will be beneficial.

Talking about the what's going to happen eons from now is pointless because it's wild speculation. Anything really beyond a couple hundred years, you might as well be writing a sci fi novel.


as i've said, i've been over this too many times on this board. sorry, not worth my time. if you want to keep believing a human colony on mars is anything other than stupid, suit yourself.

Yes, it is exclusive to earth. And it will be for a very long time (as I've told YOU before) regardless of what you think humanity "needs".

I've gone over the first part with you before. I'm done. You don't want to share the achievement of reaching Mars, then don't. I, however, will partake in the festivities.
 
I've gone over the first part with you before. I'm done. You don't want to share the achievement of reaching Mars, then don't. I, however, will partake in the festivities.

I'm sure you will, i'm sure you will...






good christ, i'm going to hell...
 
Back
Top Bottom