Why do we need to put a perfectly healthy man on an asteroid when we can't even put a critically ill man in the emergency room?

I figured this would be a good topic, because a lot of us like astronomy too.

Yes, We need to do as much space travel as possible.
As a species we need to learn how to be nomadic in order to survive the ages.
This planet will eventually be destroyed. Maybe not for billions of years, maybe sooner. The Andromanda Galaxy is on a collision course with ours, the Milky Way. So we know for sure billions of years from now we need to be able to get the fuck out of dodge if ya know what I mean.

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Lord Stanley's Cup is what its all about.
Mr. Pegula, your destiny awaits you sir.

I think your just a little ahead of yourself bro. We have until 2012 ffs. LOL

I'm all for testing, missions, whatev, but having to "put a man" somewhere for vanities sake is a bad idea right now. When we got surplus loot, fine. Just not now.

Yes, absolutely, no doubt.

While there is immense value for robotic unmanned spaceflight, there are some things that just cannot be done without humans.

Expanding our capabilities in space should be a major goal of our country and world.

I've yet to hear one legitimate argument against manned space flight. Some will argue that it uses money or resources that should be used elsewhere, but that amount is so insignificant that it would accomplish nothing. The returns that we get from manned space flight are incredible for the money we spend on it.

Now, is our country's track for manned space flight going in the right direction? That's debatable.

OK, If there is a "legitimate" need to send a man fine. Not sure why, but it's possible.

I just don't want more people fighting for appropriations they don't need. I mean I see no reason to send a man to Mars(which is a very costly project)right now. If he's gonna maybe find a source of pellets that fuels 10k homes for a year, ok, but otherwise, repeating past successes right now is wasteful. Remember, most of that moon mission was cold war dingo balls too.

You know what happens when two galaxies collide? Not much. It's not like a car wreck. Galaxies are mostly space. You aren't going to have many actual collisions of stars.

Ham

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Actually Ham, if you put aside the energy released, which in itself would tear our solar system apart, even before they collided, the gravitational forces would change to such an extent as they moved closer together that all celestial bodies in both galaxies would feel the ramifications of this. My concern is not this specific event, hell, a well placed Solar Flare and this planet is in real trouble. But it is our human nature to explore, I realize its tight money wise right now, I would still continue manned missions, not only to establish a base on the moon, but to Mars and beyond.

I always wanted the international partnership to build a vessel in space that could travel to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, lets get hands on with Titan and the others.
I would like to take this moment to volunteer for the "Sex with Victoria Secrets Models in a zero gravity environment program".
If anything, lets atleast do a "Pigs in Space" mission .

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Lord Stanley's Cup is what its all about.
Mr. Pegula, your destiny awaits you sir.

They are probably both the same program. Ms. Piggie wasn't just a play on her weight.

I don't really see the point of a base on the moon...as a point for further exploration? It's not like it takes a year to get there...

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The fact that we can send people to the moon, yet can't figure out how to put a critically ill person in the ER is what boggles me most.

I'm a major proponent of space exploration. It doesn't have to be at the cost of other things if it's managed correctly.

Screw space exploration for the moment. Seriously, we're so limited in what we can actually do in space right now, with energy limitations and not great space-traveling technology. We're in no immediate danger of the planet being destroyed by exterior forces...how about we put some cash into not destroying it ourselves?

Human evolution has been happening for something like 200,000 years, and look what we've accomplished so far. Given say, a million years of human evolution we'll have so much more to discover and develop, future technology should make space travel a much more do-able task. Until then, it just seems like a waste of money and a low priority to me.

Maybe we should learn how to stop fucking up this planet before we go find others to fuck up?

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

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mechaphil

I'm certainly not advocating stopping all current efforts, but as bad as our bottom line looks right now, maybe we should substantially cut spending in this area for now. Space flight and what we can learn from its pursuit is important, but I don't think it should be considered a priority right now.

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This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
--Emerson

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"Go out and run 'em."
- Lindy Ruff, 23 Feb. 2007

Oh yeah, I forgot to ask. Why is this in the Politics forum? This country would be a lot better off if we didn't assess every issue or event from a political perspective.

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This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
--Emerson

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"Go out and run 'em."
- Lindy Ruff, 23 Feb. 2007

Americans have an overinflated view of what our Federal government spends on NASA.
It accounts for 0.4% of the Federal budget.
For every $1 the federal government spends on NASA, it spends $98 on social programs.
A Senator can sneeze and spend more money than that.

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Hold my beer and watch this...