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

Hello.

I am a pretty big supporter of space exploration myself.

When I was young, my grandfather told me that during the 1960's, the mayor of town he lived in was the only one who had a television that could get foreign programs somehow. This was during the communist era see. Anyway, when the Apollo space mission flew, a lot of people from the town gathered in the room to watch the broadcast on the TV. He said that there were like 60 people crammed in the living room and the hall, all standing close to one another, in immense heat because of all the people and it was summertime, and about 100 more outside the house, listening through the window. Everybody was quiet, listening and following it all carefully.

And the best part was that after the broadcast, when he went home, he felt like he was himself on the Moon. Going sooo slow and with big steps with a lot of distance between them, like he couldn't walk right.

Now, you imagine that I can't relay the whole thing to you with the same amount of excitement for obvious reasons but I'm quite certain that if you're old enough or if you're younger, and talk to older folks who have been there as it were, you might hear the same excitement from them on this topic. Or you might not, I dunno.

Anyway. I want that. Not the whole 60 people in a room thing, but I want that feeling of thrill and excitement, that something monumental is about to happen. I mean, nobody really cares that much about unmanned space missions. There is no thrill there. There is ofc, the scientific aspect and engagement of it, but that's for specialists mostly. To get other people involved with this and supportive of this on a massive scale, you need to have men up there, on the surface of a planet. To put a footprint, not a tire track, on the surface of something else. Somewhere where most of us will never set foot on during our lifetime. Something that will make the rest of us buy fancy space outfists and I don't know, read more SF and want to have spacesuit costume parties and whatever. I don't know. But I want that.

But enough about me and this.

This poll is made to assess, at least in this microcosm of DP, what is the general support for space programs.

There are 4 big space agencies in the world atm.

NASA - everybody heard of it.
ESA - European space agency. If you're an European, you know of it.
Rocosmos - Russian space agency
And the chinese one.

Now sadly, there are just 10 poll spaces... so take yer pick.

Also, for those who are confused. ESA is not an EU project. There are countries outside of the EU (switzerland and Norway) who are part of the space program for quite some time now and contribute to the budget. But it is true that the EU also provides now, the largest share of the budget to ESA, but it has no authority over it. And hopefully, never will. And European here means that you are part of an European country, regardless of whether it is in the EU or not, or whether it is a part of ESA or not.

If you vote for I'm X and I consider Y a priority, it means you would like to see more funding put in place for it by the authorities and also, get more out of it. But you don't automatically want more cooperation, but rather, see it as a stand-alone enterprise.

If you vote for coop, it just means that, you are happy with how things are now for the space agencies but would like to see more cooperation between them. Pool resources as it were and share the results.

If you don't care then you have no soul.

I consider ESA a priority. I would like to see more funding put in place and I would like to see more cooperation, especially between ESA, NASA and Rocosmos. There is already a historic, longstanding support and cooperation between ESA and NASA, but I would like to see it expanded even further. Besides, I would also like to see more funding put in place for NASA... whose budget has shrinked over the years, especially since 2009. i just didn't tick the #1 option because I'm not an american.

I would consider it a priority, but a priority behind domestic energy innovation and sustainable health care. I have often wondered how nasa would do if we tossed them the energy problem.

I am supporter of NASA as Well.....both NASA and the Air Force should be taking the Lead. Gingrich wasn't so out of pocket when he was talking about colonizing the moon. We need to be outfront and building some sort of outpost there. We know there is water on the moon. We should be the first to build and get people there. Whether that involves putting structures on the Surface or even going under the surface.

I don't like just leaving private industry doing whatever they want up there. Now only on the eventuality of building on a another planet. But we should build a couple more Space Stations and labs out there. Personally I think we should have had four for each direction there is. North South East and West.....around the Planet.

Already one is putting a Motel in Orbit. Plus the Russians have been working on the X47 Plane which is suppose to be able to break into Orbit and be able to drop in from Orbit. Fly around the Planet etc etc.

A Space Hotel Orbiting a Planet Near You.....

Russia, the current leader in space travel after the U.S. retired their shuttle missions, says that a private company Orbital Technologies will complete a luxury hotel that will orbit 217 miles above the Earth in weightless space by 2016.

The Commercial Space Station, otherwise known as CSS, will be able to accommodate only 7 guests at a time at a cost of around $163,000 for a five day stay. Which isn't really that bad as you can spend almost as much here on Earth at the Royal Penthouse Suite at the Hotel President Wilson in Geneva, Switzerland at around $50,000 a night or the Ty Warner Penthouse at the Four Seasons in NY for about $35,000 a night. But that does not include your ride to your intergalactic paradise which will be provided at the small round trip cost of $800,000 by, most likely, RKK Energia.

The 1st space hotel will have four rooms and will be comfortable but slightly cramped. The air and water will be recycled, so get used to drinking used urine, and guests will have to get used to using "space toilets" which use no water but air to suck down the waste. Showers are going to be sealed so water doesn't escape as there will be no gravity so it would bead and float off. Dinner will be gourmetish consisting of good food but will be prepared back on Earth ahead of time and reheated in microwave type devices. The only really bad part of the dining experience or late night Earth watching will be the no alcohol rule.....snip~



A Space Hotel Orbiting A Planet Near You. A New Adventure in Luxury Travel|Alien-UFO-Research|

I'm a huge supporter of space funding, both for scientific, commercial, and colonization avenues. A differentiation I don't think is made enough today. But things I'd like to see if I had a dream list?

1. A doubling or tripling of NASA's budget, with a large amount of that money earmarked for major hard projects like the construction of a lunar base, the assembly and transportation of a mass driver, and the creation of orbital fuel depots in an open commercial contract system. This will accelerate us on concrete steps to an expanded presence in space as well as fostering greater commercial inroads and competition which will in turn hopefully reduce costs.

2. The abolition of FAA regulations and restrictions on test aircraft and a severe curbing of restrictions on space launch site construction and launch authorization from the EPA.

3. MASSIVE overhaul of ITAR if not its outright abolition.

4. Dream wish would be to allow real experimentation and testing of NPP technology but we'll see.

Hope they can let ya have some Music in that Hotel. Bad enough ya can't have sex, drink any booze, nor smoke any weed in Space. But hey if ya got 800k to waste. I guess ya can go and sleep up there and not do a whole lot.....huh?

I think our space colonization should be the #1 priority for our species.

I think that , in the beginning, NASA was a great organization and great idea. In between, it has become a bloated pork barrel project that might be better served by private enterprise. I don't like monopolization potentials for communication and navigation satellites, but that has already occurred. The World and its' citizens have a greater problem that requires the same or greater level of dedication, money and physical effort and that is the imminent threat of Global Warming. The Energy problem and we have an Energy problem when enough solar power lands on Texas to power the World and we don't harness it. Can we claim ignorance? What's our collective excuse? Let's just wait until it is too late and the people who own bubbles can live a little longer.

DaveFagan said:

I think that , in the beginning, NASA was a great organization and great idea. In between, it has become a bloated pork barrel project that might be better served by private enterprise. I don't like monopolization potentials for communication and navigation satellites, but that has already occurred. The World and its' citizens have a greater problem that requires the same or greater level of dedication, money and physical effort and that is the imminent threat of Global Warming. The Energy problem and we have an Energy problem when enough solar power lands on Texas to power the World and we don't harness it. Can we claim ignorance? What's our collective excuse? Let's just wait until it is too late and the people who own bubbles can live a little longer.

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Yes and no.

Most exploration enterprises, especially during the last century, have been government funded. The government needs to first scout around the area, see whats what, mark the good and the bad, and then leave the private industry to come in and maximize efficiency for profit. But you will rarely see private entrepreneurs take chances, especially on a lot of money, on wildshots. Things that they won't know how it will end up.

Rainman05 said:

Yes and no.

Most exploration enterprises, especially during the last century, have been government funded. The government needs to first scout around the area, see whats what, mark the good and the bad, and then leave the private industry to come in and maximize efficiency for profit. But you will rarely see private entrepreneurs take chances, especially on a lot of money, on wildshots. Things that they won't know how it will end up.

Click to expand...

A group of billionaires and former NASA scientists is now unveiling the first asteroid mining company in history. They claim they will "add trillions of dollars to the global GDP" and "help ensure humanity's prosperity" by mining asteroids for rare metals like gold and platinum.

Their objective is to "harness resources from passing-by asteroids". And they claim they are going to launch their first space prospecting ships within 24 months!

He is talking about what is going to make space resource mining possible:

1. Advanced robotics that will allow for small spacecraft that can do a lot of things on their own.
2. New launch platforms, like SpaceX's Heavy Falcon rockets.
3. Investors with no fear of risk, like Google's Page and Brin. He actually means space nerds with gazillions of dollars.

The company doesn't care about the asteroid belt. They just care about near-Earth asteroids. There are 9,000 known Near Earth Asteroids. He argues that there are 1,500 that are energetically as easy to reach as the Moon.

One of the main resources they are going to mine is water. This will be used for fuel—oxygen and hydrogen—for space missions to Mars and other points of the solar system. Obviously, they are thinking long term here. He argues that, by mining this fuel on near-Earth asteroids, the cost of space travel will be peanuts.

The second resource is precious metals. He says they want to make precious elements abundant. Just like aluminum was a rare metal at the beginning and now it's one of the core building metals in the world, they want to do the same with platinum, gold and other rare elements. This will allow for technology never seen before.

They are also going to launch prospectors to space, specialized telescopes that will explore near-Earth asteroids. They will use these prospectors to study and understand the Asteroids. See how big they are, their spin rate, their speed... and then analyze their components, launching swarms of mining explorers.

Once they realize what are the asteroids they want to use, they will launch the extractors. He hasn't mentioned when are these are going to launch. Probably this is still quite far away.

What's the math of these missions, the cost of launching and bringing it back?
He will not go into the math, but he's arguing that a small asteroid—if you find the right kind—will pay for itself and give billions of dollars in benefits.

He mentioned that a 50-meter-in-diameter asteroid with just 20% water represents the entire fuel spent on the shuttle program.

Where are you building and from where are you launching?
They are building the Arkyd probes in Bellevue, Seattle. They will be launching them alongside other satellites.....snip~

How the Space Miners Will Bring Trillions of Dollars to Earth

http://politirant.com/Smileys/oldrant/satellite.png

The space program is necessary not just for science and eventual colonization, but advancement in technology especially computer and medical technology. If it weren't for the space program we would sitll have transister radios and TV's, and LP's for entertainment.

MMC said:

A group of billionaires and former NASA scientists is now unveiling the first asteroid mining company in history. They claim they will "add trillions of dollars to the global GDP" and "help ensure humanity's prosperity" by mining asteroids for rare metals like gold and platinum.

Their objective is to "harness resources from passing-by asteroids". And they claim they are going to launch their first space prospecting ships within 24 months!

He is talking about what is going to make space resource mining possible:

1. Advanced robotics that will allow for small spacecraft that can do a lot of things on their own.
2. New launch platforms, like SpaceX's Heavy Falcon rockets.
3. Investors with no fear of risk, like Google's Page and Brin. He actually means space nerds with gazillions of dollars.

The company doesn't care about the asteroid belt. They just care about near-Earth asteroids. There are 9,000 known Near Earth Asteroids. He argues that there are 1,500 that are energetically as easy to reach as the Moon.

One of the main resources they are going to mine is water. This will be used for fuel—oxygen and hydrogen—for space missions to Mars and other points of the solar system. Obviously, they are thinking long term here. He argues that, by mining this fuel on near-Earth asteroids, the cost of space travel will be peanuts.

The second resource is precious metals. He says they want to make precious elements abundant. Just like aluminum was a rare metal at the beginning and now it's one of the core building metals in the world, they want to do the same with platinum, gold and other rare elements. This will allow for technology never seen before.

They are also going to launch prospectors to space, specialized telescopes that will explore near-Earth asteroids. They will use these prospectors to study and understand the Asteroids. See how big they are, their spin rate, their speed... and then analyze their components, launching swarms of mining explorers.

Once they realize what are the asteroids they want to use, they will launch the extractors. He hasn't mentioned when are these are going to launch. Probably this is still quite far away.

What's the math of these missions, the cost of launching and bringing it back?
He will not go into the math, but he's arguing that a small asteroid—if you find the right kind—will pay for itself and give billions of dollars in benefits.

He mentioned that a 50-meter-in-diameter asteroid with just 20% water represents the entire fuel spent on the shuttle program.

Where are you building and from where are you launching?
They are building the Arkyd probes in Bellevue, Seattle. They will be launching them alongside other satellites.....snip~

How the Space Miners Will Bring Trillions of Dollars to Earth

http://politirant.com/Smileys/oldrant/satellite.png

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That is all fine and well, but what I meant by "the government has to go in first' is that it already has. By going on the moon. If the government, and hence, the taxpayers, hadn't funded the first missions, see where they went wrong, and then succeed, this wouldn't be a discussion. None of it. Now that people know the dangers of radiation, asteroids, meteors, gravity pullings, etc. The road is well paved (or seems to be) and now intelligent and rich people are finding ways to go about making money from it and as you pointed out... with this, we will also get the advantage of finding out about how to drill on asteroids. it will be awesome, and the people who will be making this possible will be making a killing off it when it all goes well.

We now know whats out there (space), and its more space.
What we should be developing is our oceans.

Man, those were some dreamy times, those space endeavours.

Space bores me. There's a whole lot of world to see here, more than any will see in their lifetime. I don't really see the point in manipulating environments not meant for humans instead of improving the environment we have that is specifically suited for us and is far more beautiful and diverse than any other landscape out there.

I'm an American and I don't consider space programs a priority.To me space programs are luxuries we can't afford right now and I am not sure it is right to demand that tax payers fork out money for a space program even if we did have the cash to spare.

Ben K. said:

Space bores me. There's a whole lot of world to see here, more than any will see in their lifetime. I don't really see the point in manipulating environments not meant for humans instead of improving the environment we have that is specifically suited for us and is far more beautiful and diverse than any other landscape out there.

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Everything in existence lies beyond the confines of low earth orbit. In our tiny solar system alone one could spend an evening on Io as you watched the fantastic aurora borealis effect unlike anything possible to imagine on earth as you witnessed the interplay between the electric storms which wrack Io and the close proximity to the magnetosphere of Jupiter the result is a fantastic light show that is unrivaled in our stellar system. You could travel to Mars and stand atop Olympus Mons knowing that you stand atop the tallest geological formation for billions of miles. Or you could journey to Europa and drill down and see what mysteries and beauty the ancient frozen waters hide beneath.

There are a trillion times a trillion things to see, so much in our solar system. Everything that is, was, and ever will be exists beyond the narrow perimeter of our atmosphere.

It doesn't excite you? It doesn't fill you with wonder or interest? Then you haven't thought about it that much.

The exploration and utilization of space is vital for humanity, I support all reasonable efforts to achieve it.

Sherman123 said:

Everything in existence lies beyond the confines of low earth orbit. In our tiny solar system alone one could spend an evening on Io as you watched the fantastic aurora borealis effect unlike anything possible to imagine on earth as you witnessed the interplay between the electric storms which wrack Io and the close proximity to the magnetosphere of Jupiter the result is a fantastic light show that is unrivaled in our stellar system. You could travel to Mars and stand atop Olympus Mons knowing that you stand atop the tallest geological formation for billions of miles. Or you could journey to Europa and drill down and see what mysteries and beauty the ancient frozen waters hide beneath.

There are a trillion times a trillion things to see, so much in our solar system. Everything that is, was, and ever will be exists beyond the narrow perimeter of our atmosphere.

It doesn't excite you? It doesn't fill you with wonder or interest? Then you haven't thought about it that much.

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And I could climb Everest, explore the deepest oceans of Earth, adventure through North American woodlands, traipse through the Amazonian jungle, experience night time in the Sahara and a **** load else that Earth provides (IE: diversity, not for all we know are dead rocks). I will unlikely be able to do this all in one lifetime. The treasure trove is right here.

I have thought about it, and any images I see of other planets does not excite my imagination. Life is fundamental to the diversity of beauty.

Ben K. said:

And I could climb Everest, explore the deepest oceans of Earth, adventure through North American woodlands, traipse through the Amazonian jungle, experience night time in the Sahara and a **** load else that Earth provides (IE: diversity, not for all we know are dead rocks). I will unlikely be able to do this all in one lifetime. The treasure trove is right here.

I have thought about it, and any images I see of other planets does not excite my imagination. Life is fundamental to the diversity of beauty.

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Hundreds of exoplanets have been discovered already. Some of them are candidates for being life-bearing worlds.

Before you say we'll never get there, I'll say a recent study showed that the Alcubierre Drive could be far more feasible than originally believed... we don't know what another century may bring.

earthworm said:

We now know whats out there (space), and its more space.
What we should be developing is our oceans.

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People don't develop oceans. Space travel has a lot of benefits, the single most important being the technology that's developed to perform the missions. Such technology is used by millions every day and has not only saved lives, but made out lives better.

Goshin said:

Hundreds of exoplanets have been discovered already. Some of them are candidates for being life-bearing worlds.

Before you say we'll never get there, I'll say a recent study showed that the Alcubierre Drive could be far more feasible than originally believed... we don't know what another century may bring.

Click to expand...

I have no doubt we could get there, but there's a difference between them being candidates for life-bearing (that conditions make it possible) and actually having good chances of bearing life.