funding for manned Mission to Mars [financial/political ONLY]
- Thread starter jefferiestubes8
- Start date
I like my house the way it looks now, thanks.
If we wait for the world to be perfect, we'll never do anything. Space exploration is a noble and inspiring endeavor that will improve the Human condition (and provide technological spin-offs as well). Stagnation will only make matters worse.
One of the boards members (forget which) had an interesting idea for a moon colony which a variation could apply here. The government tells the national corporations that which ever one establishes, maintain and gradually expands a mars colony will not have to pay any government business/corporate taxes of any kind for a half century.
Likely have a mars colony in fifteen years.
Likely have a mars colony in fifteen years.
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A fraction of the money spent on a single shuttle launch could save the lives of dozens of children from death by starvation. But I bet if you explained the choice to them, they'd say that they're "nothing", and favor the shuttle launch.
Saving the Amazon and all its biodiversity, diminishing human suffering, fostering the spread of liberty... what stagnant and pointless tasks we face here below the ionosphere!
We made it to the moon, and that was awesome, because nothing like it had ever been accomplished. But while the moon may be only a moon and Mars a planet, they're both chunks of rock with not much else, and the latter would be incredibly expensive, difficult and dangerous to reach.
No, we're better off sticking at home for the foreseeable future, imho. You want to face a challenge that requires huge resources, political clout, ingenuity, and promises a chance to inspire and lift up the human race? How about figuring out the peaceful bringing of democracy to the Middle East, Africa and China?
I've got time to kill.
A fraction of the money spent on DVDs, potato chips and electric lights could save the lives of children and so on. Perhaps we should all eat porridge and sit quietly in the dark until the world is perfect.A fraction of the money spent on a single shuttle launch could save the lives of dozens of children from death by starvation. But I bet if you explained the choice to them, they'd say that they're "nothing", and favor the shuttle launch.
Of course, that assumes that any money not spent on launch will be spent on the cause you just mention.
If the children's parents work for either NASA or the aerospace industry that supports it, that child would be much less likely to be going hungry. Manned missions can also inspire children, motivate them to stay in school, seek higher education, pursue careers in engineering and sciences.
The Egyptians have already been there, haven't they? That is, if you believe the 'face' theory and that Dr Who episode.
I hope they bring me one of those rusty red bricks back. there can't be all that many of them.
No, I think they should go. I think we should have already have relatives there.
I hope they bring me one of those rusty red bricks back. there can't be all that many of them.
No, I think they should go. I think we should have already have relatives there.
NASA is planning no such thing.
No s***. I was merely pointing out the vacuousness and odiousness of the idea that solving problems here on Earth means "never doing anything."
You might be a bit less flippant if it were your family starving to death, and flies swarming your eyeballs.
There are many economies we first-worlders can and should make in terms of eradicating global poverty and misery. But setting aside plans for a manned Mars mission is an excellent place to start.
Nowhere Man
Commodore
I thin k going to Mars would be fine for exploration, but if they do find resources there of any kind, I don't think any one country should be able to claim it. I think going to Mars should be an international effort or we will just end up warring over the resources there. A project like that could be a test or a new way forward where we are forced to work together because our very survival depends on it. In order to go to Mars though, there has to be a Moon base, which again would require cooperation from other countries. No one country owns the Moon. Waiting for political climates to calm or getting things on the right track is not the answer either. Sometimes you just have to forge a path through the muck and mess regardless of what stands in your way. If we wait for the fracking stars to align, we'll be waiting forever. This just may be what humanity needs in order to move forward, from my stand point it looks like currently we are in gridlock anyway, so why not try something new and exiting. I wouldn't count humanity out just yet.
I'm not flippant at all. I've given thousands of dollars a year to charities, been a member of a half-dozen or so helping organizations, and worked in inner-city health care and non-profit health insurance for several decades-- probably longer than you've been alive. Fixing all the problems in the world is great, but that doesn't mean that life stops in the meantime; the Arts & Sciences are what makes people Human, and these things must be embraced and promoted as well.
J
Jetfire
Guest
As I understand it, none of the nations that sign and ratified the 1967 Outer Space Treaty could do that. The treaty unfortunately includes the language "common heritage of mankind" which mean that any resources you find has to be share with "all mankind." Making it a bit difficult to generate a profit for your shareholders.
Then I admire your charity, but it doesn't mean that a reasonable interpretation of your remarks couldn't detect more than a trace of flippancy.
I never said it did, but I'll play regardless. Congress funds NASA, and it also allocates foreign aid. I therefore don't think it at all unreasonable to point out that that money could go to saving starving children instead of buying Boeing execs new hot tubs in their fourth homes.
And I don't buy the argument that not going to Mars in the next century or so diminishes our humanity - it's a big red rock, not much more interesting than the Moon. The persistent lingering of wars and famine, on the other hand, unquestionably does.
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