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

the_recruit said:
Alright, let's take a look.

How will knowing that "Nasa is effective" benefit me or really anyone for that matter? How will "rock samples" from Mars benefit me or anybody? How will knowing whether Mars does or has ever sustained life benefit me or anybody?
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Do you think discovering huge amounts of rare metals and minerals that could be mined in the future would be of benefit? Do you think the discovery of uranium deposits might be rather beneficial? Do you think understanding the geological and potentially biological transformation of an entire planet over millenia might be of benefit in predicting how our own earth might evolve... or devolve?

Or do you simply believe science should be limited to developing vaccines, botox, and improved electronic systems for immediate gratification now?

:shrug:
 
This is just Obamas attempt to try to find more people to borrow money from.
 
DiAnna said:
Do you think discovering huge amounts of rare metals and minerals that could be mined in the future would be of benefit? Do you think the discovery of uranium deposits might be rather beneficial? Do you think understanding the geological and potentially biological transformation of an entire planet over millenia might be of benefit in predicting how our own earth might evolve... or devolve?

Or do you simply believe science should be limited to developing vaccines, botox, and improved electronic systems for immediate gratification now?

:shrug:
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I will say this. No, I don't think science should be limited to that. In fact I love science. In particular, I'm fascinated by space. Ever since I can remember. And I realize science is about discovery, it's about poking around here and there and learning things we didn't before. And most science is never even driven by the promise of concrete practical benefits. To be honest, i'm rather ambivalent towards unmanned probes, as long as they stay at a reasonable price. Further manned exploration, though, I cannot support.

I think Curiosity will probably teach us a lot about Mars. But, ultimately, I don't think we're going to learn anything that's useful to us. However fascinating, I feel there are more pressing matters here. NASA isn't the worst of the government fat that could be trimmed, but if I got to vote on what I wanted the US budget to look like, I wouldn't put many dollars here.
 
the_recruit said:
Nope. But I can see how someone might mistakenly make such a straw man.
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It isn't a strawman at all you said: "How will knowing that "Nasa is effective" benefit me or really anyone for that matter? How will "rock samples" from Mars benefit me or anybody? How will knowing whether Mars does or has ever sustained life benefit me or anybody?" and so I think it was a reasonable question to ask whether or not all programs had to show a causal benefit to yourself before passing your personal muster. Various posters have expounded significantly on the potential benefits derived from a Mars mission like this, as well as the potential benefits from expanding manned operations significantly. This has included listing past benefits both in the scientific, technological, and arguably educational realms, as well as positing future benefits along those lines. You are either discounting those, or only counting ones which will have an immediate and causal relationship to any benefit that can be delivered to you or the public.
 
the_recruit said:
I will say this. No, I don't think science should be limited to that. In fact I love science. In particular, I'm fascinated by space. Ever since I can remember. And I realize science is about discovery, it's about poking around here and there and learning things we didn't before. And most science is never even driven by the promise of concrete practical benefits. To be honest, i'm rather ambivalent towards unmanned probes, as long as they stay at a reasonable price. Further manned exploration, though, I cannot support.

I think Curiosity will probably teach us a lot about Mars. But, ultimately, I don't think we're going to learn anything that's useful to us. However fascinating, I feel there are more pressing matters here. NASA isn't the worst of the government fat that could be trimmed, but if I got to vote on what I wanted the US budget to look like, I wouldn't put many dollars here.
Click to expand...

It cost less than $380 million a year over an 8 year period to build that probe. What on earth is that money taking away from? This is also the worst kind of mentality I think we face as a civilization. Our future and our potential lies in space.
 
the_recruit said:
I will say this. No, I don't think science should be limited to that. In fact I love science. In particular, I'm fascinated by space. Ever since I can remember. And I realize science is about discovery, it's about poking around here and there and learning things we didn't before. And most science is never even driven by the promise of concrete practical benefits. To be honest, i'm rather ambivalent towards unmanned probes, as long as they stay at a reasonable price. Further manned exploration, though, I cannot support.

I think Curiosity will probably teach us a lot about Mars. But, ultimately, I don't think we're going to learn anything that's useful to us. However fascinating, I feel there are more pressing matters here. NASA isn't the worst of the government fat that could be trimmed, but if I got to vote on what I wanted the US budget to look like, I wouldn't put many dollars here.
Click to expand...

So what you're saying is... you love science, and understand that it's not always driven by immediate, concrete benefits, but then you say that we shouldn't pursue space travel because it offers us no concrete, practical benefits? :D



This is exactly the sort of thinking that got the LHC built in Europe, and the connected concentration of PHDs which spawned the World Wide Web.
 
DiAnna said:
Do you think discovering huge amounts of rare metals and minerals that could be mined in the future would be of benefit? Do you think the discovery of uranium deposits might be rather beneficial?
Click to expand...

Even if there were pure platinum and uranium ingots just lying on the surface of Mars, it would be still be way way way WAY way WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY more expensive to bring them back to Earth than to mine them here.

Missing Apollo 17 moon rock worth $10m found in Bill Clinton's files | Mail Online

The (moon) rock, believed to have a black market value of up to $10 million, had been missing since at least 1980 until an archivist found it in old gubernatorial papers.
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And that's a rock with no commercial value. It would cost at least 100X that amount to bring something back from Mars.
 
the_recruit said:
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.
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Really sad when you think about it.
 
Matt Foley said:
Even if there were pure platinum and uranium ingots just lying on the surface of Mars, it would be still be way way way WAY way WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY more expensive to bring them back to Earth than to mine them here.
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There are whole asteriods full of precious materials just orbiting around the solar system. It may be ridiculously expensive now, but if we never try we'll never get the cost down. Look at space tourism. The cost has fallen from the millions of dollars per person to $200,00, and will undoubtedly fall further. Or gene sequencing. The first complete sequencing of a human genome took years, and cost millions. Now the price is just a few thousand dollars a pop. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/08/t...opes-for-medical-advances.html?pagewanted=all
 
OnWisconsin said:
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.
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Wrong. Fiber optics is responsible for most of the communications today.

Optical fiber - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Guiding of light by refraction, the principle that makes fiber optics possible, was first demonstrated by Daniel Colladon and Jacques Babinet in Paris in the early 1840s.
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Londoner said:
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.
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Yes I'm sure the US Air Force's I.C.B.M. program benefited greatly from NASA.
 
Helix said:
well, there is a ton of beachfront property, but the climate sucks and the atmosphere is 95% CO2.
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You see, they all died of global warming. :mrgreen:
 
the_recruit said:
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.
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The lack of aliens zipping around that are within the radar sights of humans is not evidence that precludes the possibility of FTL travel, for 2 reasons.

1) Based on current physics, anything that travels faster than light does not have a real number mass, i. e. it cannot exist under the current notion of existence, and all human radars are only designed to detect objects that are confined to that definition of existence.

2) Any responsible interstellar civilization (i. e. similar to the fictional Federation on Star Trek) would ensure that warp-capable civilizations do not make contact with pre-warp civilizations.
 
Sherman123 said:
It isn't a strawman at all you said: "How will knowing that "Nasa is effective" benefit me or really anyone for that matter? How will "rock samples" from Mars benefit me or anybody? How will knowing whether Mars does or has ever sustained life benefit me or anybody?" and so I think it was a reasonable question to ask whether or not all programs had to show a causal benefit to yourself before passing your personal muster.
Click to expand...

Perhaps you should read the entire conversation to gain a sense of context instead of jumping in halfway and making assumptions?

goldsmith declared that the trip to mars was not simply an exercise in intellectual curiosity and that it had positive externalities. I challenged him for examples of externalities I could expect to enjoy from this trip. He responded with the aforementioned list. And I proceeded to ask for clarification as to how each of the items benefitted me (or anybody), because it was not, and still is not, readily apparent.

This is where you jump in with your big fat wrong assumption.

Sherman123 said:
Various posters have expounded significantly on the potential benefits derived from a Mars mission like this, as well as the potential benefits from expanding manned operations significantly. This has included listing past benefits both in the scientific, technological, and arguably educational realms, as well as positing future benefits along those lines.
Click to expand...

Yes, and as I have pointed out most of these purported benefits are insignificant or dubious at best.


Sherman123 said:
You are either discounting those, or only counting ones which will have an immediate and causal relationship to any benefit that can be delivered to you or the public.
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Yes, I consider a certain degree of causal link to public benefit as a defining criteria of positive externalities.
 
Sherman123 said:
It cost less than $380 million a year over an 8 year period to build that probe. What on earth is that money taking away from?
Click to expand...

You can't think of anything worthwhile to spend $380 million dollars on? Really?

Sherman123 said:
This is also the worst kind of mentality I think we face as a civilization. Our future and our potential lies in space.
Click to expand...

What could possibly make you think that our future lies in space? We're a fragile species, evolved to survive only in an extremely narrow band of precise conditions (temperature, gravitational forces, radiation levels, suspended in an oxygen-rich gas, with a continuous supply of edible organic matter, to name some of the obvious). 99.9% of space is nothing like this. Space is extremely hostile to humans. We exist in a tiny oasis amidst a ocean of poison.

The only hope we have is to find other golddilocks oases that just happen to have all the right conditions and quickly leap frog from bubble to bubble. Unfortunately, even if we are to ever discover such an oasis, einstein pretty much put the kabosh on that idea.

Look, I would love to zip around from galaxy to galaxy Milennium Falcon-style, partying with ewoks on Endor and playing beach volleyball with some of Jabba's bikini-clad hunnies on Tatooine. But, unforunately, it's not going to happen. There are insurmountable physical limitations in the way.
 
solletica said:
The lack of aliens zipping around that are within the radar sights of humans is not evidence that precludes the possibility of FTL travel, for 2 reasons.

1) Based on current physics, anything that travels faster than light does not have a real number mass, i. e. it cannot exist under the current notion of existence, and all human radars are only designed to detect objects that are confined to that definition of existence.

2) Any responsible interstellar civilization (i. e. similar to the fictional Federation on Star Trek) would ensure that warp-capable civilizations do not make contact with pre-warp civilizations.
Click to expand...

What you're suggesting is that there may exist inconceivable (currently inconceivable) technologies and understandings of physics that render faster-than-light travel possible. As far as I'm concerned, such wild speculation falls into the realm of science fiction, not science.
 
original.jpg
 
So, we spent 2.6 billion tax dollars to get pictures of a desert. What exactly is the point in all this? And more importantly, what's the return on this investment?
 
the_recruit said:
Perhaps you should read the entire conversation to gain a sense of context instead of jumping in halfway and making assumptions?

goldsmith declared that the trip to mars was not simply an exercise in intellectual curiosity and that it had positive externalities. I challenged him for examples of externalities I could expect to enjoy from this trip. He responded with the aforementioned list. And I proceeded to ask for clarification as to how each of the items benefitted me (or anybody), because it was not, and still is not, readily apparent.

This is where you jump in with your big fat wrong assumption.



Yes, and as I have pointed out most of these purported benefits are insignificant or dubious at best.




Yes, I consider a certain degree of causal link to public benefit as a defining criteria of positive externalities.
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The point absolutely still stands, it is a tremendous scientific venture that may yield enormous benefit to us in the future, it is impossible to know directly though there are more than decent avenues of inquiry if we want to examine what these benefits might be, and they have been listed. Furthermore in line with what others have said the entire enterprise of supporting our space program is a worthwhile endeavor for a variety of reasons. With the logic you are using we should have shutdown Tevatron years ahead of schedule, scale back from ITER, etc. The frontiers of scientific research and technological development have no immediate payback.

hat could possibly make you think that our future lies in space? We're a fragile species, evolved to survive only in an extremely narrow band of precise conditions (temperature, gravitational forces, radiation levels, suspended in an oxygen-rich gas, with a continuous supply of edible organic matter, to name some of the obvious). 99.9% of space is nothing like this. Space is extremely hostile to humans. We exist in a tiny oasis amidst a ocean of poison.

The only hope we have is to find other golddilocks oases that just happen to have all the right conditions and quickly leap frog from bubble to bubble. Unfortunately, even if we are to ever discover such an oasis, einstein pretty much put the kabosh on that idea.

Look, I would love to zip around from galaxy to galaxy Milennium Falcon-style, partying with ewoks on Endor and playing beach volleyball with some of Jabba's bikini-clad hunnies on Tatooine. But, unforunately, it's not going to happen. There are insurmountable physical limitations in the way.
Click to expand...

Our future is in space not because of a far flung hope to colonize Titan or Mars in a mass scale (though I wish Elon Musk well in trying) it is because we have fantastic amounts of resources in space and an excellent base from which to expand into colonies. The line of approach that scientists, engineers, and space advocates have been pushing for, for decades has been a staged approach starting with a lunar base and the deployment of a mass driver to facilitate the refining of the resources in the lunar regolith for the eventual launching of those materials into orbit at the Lagrangian Points where colonies held in geosynchronous orbit can be assembled and spun. It is from there that solar satellites with microwave radio transmission antennas can be deployed (an engineering concept that has been thoroughly vetted and is currently being explored by EADS and India) for the generation and disbursement of power on a mass scale. From these small beginnings albeit with great financial investment mankind can begin his ascent into the stars and the exploitation of the resources that our solar neighborhood has to offer.

There is so much we could do, so much to exploit, and so much that could help speed it along from NPP ships to legislative overhauls.

It's also our destiny.
 
Surtr said:
So, we spent 2.6 billion tax dollars to get pictures of a desert. What exactly is the point in all this? And more importantly, what's the return on this investment?
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The return on this investment aside from the voluminous scientific information we will acquire, the sociological impact on giving Americans a reason to pursue the sciences, and supporting continued public understanding for the value of what space exploration can bring (because the vast majority of Americans disagree with your disdain for the program thankfully), it is also one small step in pushing our species and civilization in our path that leads to the stars.
 
Sherman123 said:
The return on this investment aside from the voluminous scientific information we will acquire, the sociological impact on giving Americans a reason to pursue the sciences, and supporting continued public understanding for the value of what space exploration can bring (because the vast majority of Americans disagree with your disdain for the program thankfully), it is also one small step in pushing our species and civilization in our path that leads to the stars.
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So basically, hope for a future that may not exist because we keep spending on frivolous propaganda fodder like this while plummeting even further down a multi-trillion dollar deficit? Awesome. NASA is great, I love NASA and what they've done in the past, but now isn't the time to be spending over two and a half billion dollars to play with a remote control toy.
 
Surtr said:
So, we spent 2.6 billion tax dollars to get pictures of a desert. What exactly is the point in all this? And more importantly, what's the return on this investment?
Click to expand...

What was the point of the first of our ancestors to poke their heads out of the valley they evolved in? What was the point of exploring Europe and Asia? What was the point of crossing the Bering Straight to explore the Americas?

It's what we do.
 
teamosil said:
What was the point of the first of our ancestors to poke their heads out of the valley they evolved in? What was the point of exploring Europe and Asia? What was the point of crossing the Bering Straight to explore the Americas?

It's what we do.
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expansionism and financial gain. We can't move to Mars, and unless it's just brimming with oil and precious metals, we aren't going to be making any profits from it, either.
 
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