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How Important is Space Exploration as a National Interest?

How Important is Space Exploration as a National Interest?

  • Very, we should be sending men back to the moon, to Mars, and beyond

    Votes: 39 67.2%
  • Somewhat, but we should stick to sending probes

    Votes: 4 6.9%
  • Not very important now, maybe in the future

    Votes: 9 15.5%
  • Not at all, it's a distraction and a waste of money

    Votes: 9 15.5%
  • Space is boring.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    58
Assuming we'll even exist 2 billion years from now.

I'm pretty sure humanity is resillient enough to survive anything that can head our way.

Scientists have predicted that the first real human interstellar travel can happen in roughly 1000years. This calculation was done considering the GDP growth, adjusted for future growth, and of course the scientific advancements, also adjusted. Though it's an educated guess, I have to say that my hopes and belief is that we'd have a starting interstellar travel (so from our solar system to another, which is 5light years away) a lot sooner. Think about it. 200 years ago, nobody believed humans could fly. 100 years ago, people never thought we'd fly accross the ocean. Now, flight is the safest means of travel.

So yeah. Who can tell what 100 years from now we'll have. We may have the beginnings of Star Trek (without the vulcans, pesky aliens) or the telltale signs of idiocracy.
 
You are aware of the Intergalactic Borders Space Patrol ? Illegal aliens usually find themselves in a black hole.

Aware of it! Ever since we dumped you guys on earth we became it! We would have left you there for good! But we were just checking your ability to sniff out primitive forms of energy (i.e., fossil fuels) hence we had to establish some hidden lift off platforms.

It was working well in disguise shaped like a Mosques until that pesty Bolden became too suspicious! He informed your Presidents, and you have been trying to become friends with Muslim countries ever since!

For us it's Manifest Destiny. We are just trying to return from where our ancestors came from thousands of years ago.

Thousands of years ago the Perseus Confederacy picked the planet Earth to be used as a space penal colony. After checking out South America and what is today the Middle East, it was discovered that these areas were already occupied by Earthlings who still had a foot in the stone age. So the Perseus Confederacy chose what is today Northern Europe to be used as a penal colony.

After thousands of year the descendent's of the original convicts decided why should we be punished living on this basket case of a planet for the crimes our ancestors committed thousands of years ago ?

So it's been our "Manifest Destiny" to return too our real home where our ancestors came from, the Perseus Arm of the Milkyway Galaxy.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/Galactic_Quadrant_Star_Trek.png

As for your Manifest Destiny: Dream on! You are not there yet to cross the borders! You need to seek out alternative energies. Seek the energy within you! The prayer energy shall not know no bounds as far as cosmos is concerned.

But we have you on a ghetto instead ;) . We shall not give our secrets unless we squeeze in some good valuables from you first.
 
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it's a lot more important than many other things we spend money on, and i would increase science funding significantly. of course, i'm a scientist, so i suppose that i might be a bit biased. :lol:

And after all that training to be unbiased, objective, and logical! :roll::neutral::naughty
 
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2013/09/06/science/ap-us-sci-nasa-moonshot.html?hp

We just shot a cool new probe to the moon, but how important is space exploration to the future of America? Is there none? Do we need to get back up there?

The bottom line? We need a new Frontier!

Space offers all the same advantages that the Old West used to offer in the growth if the USA.

1. There are all the resources to be garnered.

2. There is the value in simple exploration and perhaps discovering new things or even alien intelligence.

3. It would encourage the development of new technologies and commensurate employment opportunities.

4. It would offer a route to alleviate growing population pressures.

5. It would serve as a "safety valve" by allowing people who are simply tired of dealing with issues on earth an opportunity to go try something new elsewhere.

6. Finally, it would provide an escape route in the event Earth faces a major extinction event.

There are more advantages than disadvantages, thus providing a net gain to our nation (and the world).
 
it's a lot more important than many other things we spend money on, and i would increase science funding significantly. of course, i'm a scientist, so i suppose that i might be a bit biased. :lol:

Really so planetary exploration is more important than religion or getting rid of religious pettiness?
 
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There are more advantages than disadvantages, thus providing a net gain to our nation (and the world).
None of that is even remotely doable, none zip zero zilch nada
Last thing we need is another government rathole to pour money down
Fine private enterprise wants to try and make money lofting satellites into orbit
and running resupply missions to the ISS that is all well and good.

We haven't gotten anywhere near the level of technological advancement
required to even begin to start trying to accomplish the things you've listed.

If you wanna spend money here is where you could put it.
If you wanna favorably alter the course of human history.

Let's develop commercial power generation from fusion.

Imagine a world with virtually free and unlimited energy!
 
that's all well and good but you are going to need something a scratch better than this

25quo86.jpg
 
I like the idea of sending probes only unless it's determined beforehand that we'll access resources on the trip that will finance it.
 
Let's develop commercial power generation from fusion.

Imagine a world with virtually free and unlimited energy!

Why do you think that this is the case? Fusion power wouldn't be free or unlimited. Much like a fission reactor, most of the costs involved in running a fusion reactor would not be tied to the materials that actually fuel the reactor, they would be capital costs for actually building the power plant, and staffing costs to run it. It would also not be unlimited (or at least not for a very long time). ITER and the NIF, which are the two most promising fusion power projects ongoing at the moment, both use a deuterium-tritium reaction. And both those materials are considerably rarer than normal hydrogen.

Fusion power generation would do a lot for the world, but it's not a miracle cure.
 
Very Important.
When a society or culture stops being interested and curious it is in decline.
Since 1969 what moments and accomplishments will be remembered for the next 100 years - besides war?
 
hah yeah yer right Brooks and the space race was fueled by the cold war Sad isn't it?
 
"Much like a fission reactor"

it is the opposite, and there's no radioactive waste to deal with and it can't 'melt-down'
so the construction costs would be far lower and the stupid govt. regulation that has throttled the nuke power industry
wouldn't be necessary and on and on and on...

um ok first the oceans are filled with deuterium and do you know where tritium comes from? hint it is man made
and the ITER and the NIF are dead ends, just experiments, they will never work in the long run.
besides the deuterium–tritium (DT) fuel cycle is non-optimal anyway

Because Aneutronic fusion would be far better!!!

I could try to get you to see that the clean unlimited virtually FREE boundless energy that we can command
through fusion would go ten times further in promoting mankind's existence than sending a probe too (anywhere)

butt if we are ever to get off this rock we will need to have command of greater energy sources that sticking dinosaurs
in chemical rockets, we will need a whole new set of physics that goes beyond Einstein and what better way to get there
than in the pursuit of fusion power?

Lawson criterion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
None of that is even remotely doable, none zip zero zilch nada
Last thing we need is another government rathole to pour money down
Fine private enterprise wants to try and make money lofting satellites into orbit
and running resupply missions to the ISS that is all well and good.

We haven't gotten anywhere near the level of technological advancement
required to even begin to start trying to accomplish the things you've listed.

If you wanna spend money here is where you could put it.
If you wanna favorably alter the course of human history.

Let's develop commercial power generation from fusion.

Imagine a world with virtually free and unlimited energy!

Wrong.

We have the technology to colonize and develop our own solar system NOW!

Moreover, emphasis on exploitation and colonization of our own solar syatem would open all sorts of business and employment opportunities. For example; all the industry necessary for construction of space vehicles, colonization living modules, lunar/planetary contruction vehicles, and equipment and all the attendant technology would open up a slew of white and blue collar jobs HERE in the USA.

This effort would also open up doors to scientific inquiry leading to further advances in technology (like your fusion power idea) and fulfill most of my suggested goals.
 
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I have a few friends who work at CAL-TECH and JPL and they aren't happy campers with Obama in the White House and his total neglect of what they were trying to accomplish.

In fact last week I was visiting one of them. I mentioned how I have to work with the Burial of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service with the project I'm involved with right now and they tell me with Obama it's as if nobody is in charge. We see the same thing with the IRS and DHS. My friend gets up looking pissed and say's exactly, nobody is in charge any longer.

This guy who Obama put in charge of NASA is second rate just like everyone else in the Obama administration. NASA is now in the business of social engineering. Got to reach out to the Muslims is the top priority of NASA.

Well what I had got from it.....was that NASA would build a Base on the Moon by 2024. That it would be fully functional with the Start of building in 2020. That they would be working with the Private sector to do this.

Nasa to build permanent moon base

nasamoon512ready.jpg


Nasa has announced plans to build a permanent base on the moon by 2024 - raising the prospect of a manned space flight to Mars.

The ambitious proposals signal the next phase of space exploration after the agency's space shuttles are retired in 2010 and marks a radical departure from previous short trips to the moon.

The international base will be permanently staffed by 2024, four years after astronauts land on the moon to begin assembly.

Once complete, astronauts from the US and other nations will spend up to six months on the base at any one time.

Nasa said the two key reasons for establishing a base were to prepare for a manned mission to Mars - and ultimately the expansion of human civilisation to other planets. The project is likely to cost hundreds of billions of dollars and involve Nasa partners in Europe, Russia and Japan, although China's participation is unlikely.

"This is not a flag-and-footprints. This is the idea of starting an outward movement that includes long stays on the moon," said John Logsdon, the director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University.

The first step in establishing the base will be a new generation of lunar spaceships, which will undergo tests from 2009.

Manned flights will begin in 2014 and astronauts will land on the moon - for the first time since the Apollo mission of 1972 - in 2020.....snip~

Nasa to build permanent moon base | Science | theguardian.com
 
So the ISS has revealed a lot of interesting things, the foremost of this is how bad humans do in space. If you spend over 6months in space your body is prone to all manner of disasters, including going blind because of the way fluids in your eyes behave. And there is no way to fix this without artificial gravity. Sure, there are proposals for AG but no working model.

A manned mission to Mars will take at least 2 years. That's 4x more than the recommended stay in space. Unless we find a way to counter this (hint hint ,artificial gravity) there is no such thing as interplanetary travel, let alone interstellar travel.

thankfully, we don't have to send people yet. We can send probes and robots. Robots don't need to have AI, just very good software and the ability to be manually controlled. Like curiosity is, but you know, specialized for certain tasks.

Actually with current technology we could send people to mars in about 4-6 months.

And artificial gravity is easy to re-produce with plain centrifugal force. The problem lies in that it requires extra energy and proper building of a craft to do so. The craft that could accomplish this would probably have to be built in space though due to aerodynamics vs getting a vehicle into space.

We have the technology to accomplish both of those things...it just currently requires more money than our current greedy politicians want to spend.
 
Isn't the private sector always better than the government?

Not always. The private sector often will not do something unless there is gaurunteed profit to be made. Since they often only think in the short term...well...you get the picture.
 
Not always. The private sector often will not do something unless there is gaurunteed profit to be made. Since they often only think in the short term...well...you get the picture.
There's no reason to make shoes for children too poor to buy them. Well actually there is a good reason, but that's not Capitalism.
 
Well what I had got from it.....was that NASA would build a Base on the Moon by 2024. That it would be fully functional with the Start of building in 2020. That they would be working with the Private sector to do this.

Nasa to build permanent moon base


Nasa to build permanent moon base | Science | theguardian.com


Ugh, depressing. That was written in 2006. Have we tested the next generation of ships? Are we doing manned flights next year?
 
We won the space race and the cold war
and we own the moon What else is there to do?

What the human race does best, exploit resources.

A single asteroid can carry more (sometimes quite rare) metals than terrestrial industry is capable of producing in decades using more conventional techniques. The same is true of space borne energy sources like hydrogen, helium 3, and deuterium.

If we ever manage to advance the necessary technology to the level where we can economically harvest these elements on a regular basis, it could very well result in a society wide "leap forward" that would make the Industrial Revolution seem miniscule by way of comparison.
 
Ugh, depressing. That was written in 2006. Have we tested the next generation of ships? Are we doing manned flights next year?

That's what Air Space Command is about and I think Naval does some of the Engineering. Course knowing private industries launches for rockets of any type. Satellites or others.

The Space Force Mission is to defend the United States through the control and exploitation of space. Air Force Space Command makes space reliable to the warfighter (i.e. forces personnel) by continuously improving the command's ability to provide and support combat forces — assuring their access to space. In addition, the command's ICBM forces deter any adversary contemplating the use of weapons of mass destruction. AFSPC has four primary mission areas:
•Space forces support involves launching satellites and other high-value payloads into space using a variety of expendable launch vehicles and operating those satellites once in the medium of space.
•Space control ensures friendly use of space through the conduct of counterspace operations encompassing surveillance, negation, and protection.
•Force enhancement provides weather, communications, intelligence, missile warning, and navigation. Force enhancement is support to the warfighter.
•Force application involves maintaining and operating a rapid response, land-based ICBM force as the Air Force's only on-alert strategic deterrent.

Book_001.jpg


Space capabilities

Spacelift operations at the East and West Coast launch bases provide services, facilities and range safety control for the conduct of United States Department of Defense (DOD), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and commercial launches. Through the command and control (largely the domain of the 50th Space Wing) of all DOD satellites, satellite operators provide force-multiplying effects — continuous global coverage, low vulnerability and autonomous operations. Satellites provide essential in-theater secure communications, weather and navigational data for ground, air and fleet operations, and threat warning. Ground-based radar and Defense Support Program satellites monitor ballistic missile launches around the world to guard against a surprise attack on North America. Space surveillance radars provide vital information on the location of satellites and space debris for the nation and the world. With a readiness rate above 99 percent, America's ICBM team plays a critical role in maintaining world peace and ensuring the nation's safety and security.

AFG-080606-004.jpg


Naval Space Command (NAVSPACECOM)

DoD Space Architect and MILSATCOM

Space Command
 
We won the space race and the cold war
and we own the moon What else is there to do?

All the stuff we dig up the earth for, most of it at least is there in space, in large quantity. And has been mentioned, it's the only way the species is going to survive long term.
 
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