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Space programs and their support among the population [W:91]

Your stance on space programs

  • I'm an American and I consider NASA a priority

    Votes: 36 63.2%

  • I'm an American and I don't consider space programs a priority

    Votes: 12 21.1%

  • I'm an American and I want more international coop (NASA + ESA + other)

    Votes: 19 33.3%

  • I'm an European and I consider ESA a priority

    Votes: 2 3.5%

  • I'm an European and I want more international coop

    Votes: 2 3.5%

  • I'm an European and I don't care about space programs

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • I'm Russian and I want more for Roscosmos

    Votes: 1 1.8%

  • I'm Russian and I want more cooperation

    Votes: 1 1.8%

  • I'm Russian and I don't care about space programs

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • I'm (other) and herp derp, I leave comment

    Votes: 4 7.0%
  • Total voters
    57
  • Poll closed .
MarineTpartier said:
I consider it a priority right there with Pakistani Sesame Street and the bridge to nowhere. There are far better things that the money could be spent on. NASA is the equivalent of a family who can't pay their mortgage taking a 2 week vacation to the Bahamas.
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The bridge as I remember was authorized by the darling of the TEA's and funded by tax payer dollars.
 
UtahBill said:
If the nearest habitable planet is only 20 light years away, we have no chance of getting there....
If we could somehow attain light speed, we would probably have to destroy our own planet for enough fuel to go that fast...
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Bernards Star which has several "medium" size planets around it is 3.4 light years. But the point is the same. Not in our lifetime.
 
the first step like a baby is to learn who to crawl then walk then run. In essence, Moon, Mars, satellits of planets that are habitable, then outside the system. Crawl first then run.
 
Ben K. said:
I'm pretty sure it would be far easier to adapt to a changing Earth biosphere than to travel en masse and adapt to a foreign planets biosphere (or more likely have to create one from scratch).

There may be a time when space exploration is a pressing concern - but there are plenty of resources still to extract on Earth, plenty of ways to develop a more efficient relationship with the Earth and really big oceans where we know new species exist that we have not yet encountered.
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I mean asteroids, solar flares on a massive scale, or some as yet unknown danger from somewhere out in space.

Stuff that could eliminate the entire planet, or at best destroy a large portion of the ecosystem and screw the rest up completely.


Thus necessitating leaving.

And frankly, I'd rather already have left (to some degree) when/if something like that happens, so that tech for such exists, if only on a small scale...
 
UtahBill said:
If the nearest habitable planet is only 20 light years away, we have no chance of getting there....
If we could somehow attain light speed, we would probably have to destroy our own planet for enough fuel to go that fast...
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Yeah, just like the Nautilus was impossible - and men on the moon! LOL!

Verne's ideas were scoffed at, too, but it took less than 100 years for some of them to come true. That's the thing about science, you never know what's over the next hill. The trick is to keep moving forward.

wolfman24 said:
Bernards Star which has several "medium" size planets around it is 3.4 light years. But the point is the same. Not in our lifetime.
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Not to sound too picky but isn't it 6 ly? Alpha Centari is the closest at 4.2 ly.
 
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Ben K. said:
I have more faith in the idea of renewable energy and more and more efficient usage of fossils than at least 8 billion pilgrims feasibly setting up space colonies and actually finding their existence meaningful out there.
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Doesn't matter how efficient you use fossil fuels...we WILL eventually run out. There's a reason that they call it "non-renewable". And I'm not just talking about energy. I'm talking about materials also. To think that this planet will sustain humanity indefinately is very bad thinking. Because it won't. And I personally would find a life in space VERY fullfilling.
 
wolfman24 said:
The bridge as I remember was authorized by the darling of the TEA's and funded by tax payer dollars.
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What in the world does that have to do with the fact that the US Space Program is worthless? Or was that just your pitiful attempt at baiting me? Bait fail
 
Thought I'd comment and say that the quote in my sig is somewhat related to this thread’s topic - although it is more specifically directed at the possibility of alien life forms existing.
 
MoSurveyor said:
Yeah, just like the Nautilus was impossible - and men on the moon! LOL!

Verne's ideas were scoffed at, too, but it took less than 100 years for some of them to come true. That's the thing about science, you never know what's over the next hill. The trick is to keep moving forward.

Not to sound too picky but isn't it 6 ly? Alpha Centari is the closest at 4.2 ly.
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Real submarines predate Jules Verne's book....
 
UtahBill said:
Real submarines predate Jules Verne's book....
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In fact, he toured many before the writing - but I was talking about the power source. However, my memory failed me there. The nuclear source was from the 50's movie - the original was sodium/mercury batteries. It's been a loooong time since I read the original. :shrug:

They still thought going to the moon was impossible, though I admit, we didn't use Verne's method to get there. But today physicists are thinking about possible ways to achieve star flight and some of them are superluminal in nature, for example, the Alcubierre drive mentioned earlier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive
 
We should save money and avoid bringing more deficit problems with pork. If we can, we should use that money to pay the debt.
 
Science and space is always a priority. Furthers education and our understanding of the world/universe.
 
wolfman24 said:
Carl Sagan in his book COSMOS estimated that the odd of intelligent life out in the COSMOS based on the possiblities of planets existing that could support it were 1x10 to the 9th
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A variety of variables have been plugged into the "Drake Equations" to estimate how many sapient technological civilizations might exist at this moment in the galaxy... but most top scientists and futurists admit it is all speculation because we lack the data to do more than make wild guesses.

Also, planets with some level of life may be far more common than planets with INTELLIGENT life...
 
Rainman05 said:
This is Neil deGrasse Tyson in front of the Senate in 2012.

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Damn, I finally remembered to set aside time to watch this...I'm 7 mins in and this **** is EPIC.

It may be a cliche, but...I'd vote this guy as POTUS.
 


Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku explains the basics of String Theory in this clip from his Floating University lecture.....snip~
 


Michio Kaku: Faster than light speed is possible.
 
MarineTpartier said:
What in the world does that have to do with the fact that the US Space Program is worthless? Or was that just your pitiful attempt at baiting me? Bait fail
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It's absolutely not worthless. NASA actually has a positive revenue stream from the patents that are invented during the space process. The issue is people like you over the past 30 years have stopped giving a ****, so they don't have the kind of funding they need to do the really big stuff. Too many people see space as just empty, and are too worried about what's going on here. Even if you take out the revenue NASA takes in, it's a fraction of a percent of the US budget.

Here and here are some of the inventions, just a few out of thousands.

Some of the most notable:
- Image processing for mammograms
- Scratch-resistant Lenses
- Ear Thermometer
- Shoe Insoles
- Long-distance Telecommunications
- Adjustable Smoke Detector
- Water Filters
 
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MarineTpartier said:
What in the world does that have to do with the fact that the US Space Program is worthless? Or was that just your pitiful attempt at baiting me? Bait fail
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What an idiotic statement and coming from a supposed marine.

Even my grandmother knows of GPS and satellite imagery etc.

Einstein summed you up way back when......

"He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice......"
 
MarineTpartier said:
What in the world does that have to do with the fact that the US Space Program is worthless? Or was that just your pitiful attempt at baiting me? Bait fail
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The US Space Program is not worthless, to say that is so shortsighted, and wrong it just sends shivers down my spine. I'm sure you don't think GPS is worthless, or the other literally thousands of practical applications based off of the knowledge that we have learned through our space program.

And if we aren't exploring, pushing the boundaries of what is possible, then we will stagnate as a species.
 
I am a human being and KNOW that space exploration is important.
 
MarineTpartier said:
What in the world does that have to do with the fact that the US Space Program is worthless? Or was that just your pitiful attempt at baiting me? Bait fail
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The program is not worthless.. . it is just in a transition from government to private. Relax. :)
 
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