Ustwo

NASA might not be perfect, but it still has a warm spot in my heart when it comes to a government agency. Bush promised this last year, and he has dilivered. Now the question is how to spin this as a bad thing

Now I can already read some minds here, as the only real negative spin will be money of course, but we need to look forward, and as a % this is but a small amount of the budget, if you want to cut, I'd recomend our many welfare programs

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filtherton

Let's not pretend here ustwo, you posted this in the politics forum with a confrontational tone because you wanted an argument. If one starts, you can't blame anyone but yourself, because you essentially created a post ripe for combustion. Remember, if you want to claim the moral high ground, you first have to climb the hill.
I won't take your bait. All irrelevant things remaining irrelevant, i'm all for space exploration and i would even support a tax increase to help fund it.

splck

I think I see troll bait, but I'm not sure.

If the plan goes ahead, I could honestly say I thought bush did something right, but time will tell.

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nice line eh?

shakran

I'm all for space exploration, and before the current situation I'd have been all for this (and more - why stop at Mars?) but we're in debt way past our eyeballs, we've just raised the debt ceiling, the economy is crap, and he wants to play with rockets? He has no concept of the fact that things cost money.

lunchbox

What's the point? they're just going to blow their budget on investigations of why they blew up the other half of their budget...

NASA has more failed missions than completed ones, I think space exploration should be way down on our list of things to do.

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mo42

I personally am very very pleased to see that NASA is getting some funding. This money will go directly into research, construction, and hiring additional scientists. Many of the technologies we take for granted today are the result of our space program, and I can only imagine the advances necessary for getting to Mars. Improved radiation shielding, probably ergonomics and power supplies... Plus, it can help to eventually solve overpopulation and supply the Earth with more raw materials.

Now if only we'd build a space elevator, we'd be set.

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fuzyfuzer

i'm all for space and would love to be a part of it, but i just can't say that i see much of a use for a moon base other than to launch ships to other parts of the solar system. i wish i could go but i think it would be better to start building an orbiting infrastructure before we build on the moon it seems like we are skiping a step. i guess this is all pretty far down the road. mars and more importantly the resource rich asteroid field beyond mars but i just can't see that as economical for the here and now. hey who knows maybe if we build this setup now we will have a major advantage in the futeur, as you can see i am a little conflicted on this issue.

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Mojo_PeiPei

Nasa is welfare for smart people... seriously.

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JohnnyRoyale

It's a sacrifical lamb...Bush resurrected it & put it on the budget so it can get comfortably cut, and congress can say they "cut the budget"...

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shakran

Says who?

......

Mephisto2

I used to be entirely supportive of Space Exploration (capital S, capital E). But the older I get, the more cynical I become.

We're never going to get realistic inter-stellar travel in any case. The timelines are simply unrealistic. This solar system, and therefore humanity, are doomed to a firey death in about five or six billion years. That's if humanity lasts that long anyway, which I personally doubt.

It's kinda soul destroying to think this way, but unfortunately realistic in my opinion.

I think this has a great potential as a thread idea, if we abandon the cheap political slant and maybe move to a different forum. Would love to discuss this more.


Mr Mephisto

Kadath

Mephisto - that sort of thinking would have kept us from inventing pretty much anything, ever. I know that Einstein pretty much slammed the door on getting anywhere beyond our solar system, but we never imagined we'd make it into space five hundred years ago. You have to keep trying.

"‘Cause it’s next. For we came out of the cave, and we looked over the hill, and we saw fire. And we crossed the ocean, and we pioneered the West, and we took to the sky. The history of man is hung on the timeline of exploration, and this is what’s next." -- The West Wing

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djtestudo

You don't think that we could get far enough off this rock in five BILLION years to survive?

Man, and I think I'm too apathetic when I don't want to get out of bed because I'll end up back there that night anyway.

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Manx

If a Democrat proposed this, I wonder how many Republican's would be screaming bloody murder at the wasteful use of tax payers money?

The future of mankind is corporate space exploration. Nasa is for the dinosaurs and, as someone already mentioned, excess fat that can be trimmed to support a claim of budget cuts.

Mephisto2

I knew that comment would stir up some feelings! :-)

Interstellar travel is an entirely different kettle of fish to reaching the moon.

It's simply impossible to travel faster than the speed of light assuming we agree that the laws of physics as currently defined are correct. Please do not talk to me about quantum teleportation or refutations of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosenberg (EPR) paradox. The laws of physics are different at the quantum level, but we exist at the macroscopic level. Any arguments to the contrary are just like me saying I could disappear in a poof of quantum smoke. Theoretically possible, but not really.

So...

We are left with the limitations presented by the speed of light. That precludes the concept of interstellar travel. To argue otherwise shows either a lack of understanding of the distances involved, or an alarming (self-delusional?) sense of optimism.

Sure, let's invest in space exploration within the solar system. Why not? But I don't think we're gonna get out of this small, inconsequential little star system in a backward corner of the Milky Way. Why not just accept it?



BTW, I also refute the idea that we won't get off this planet in 5 billion years. I don't think the human species will last beyond a couple of million at the outside.


Mr Mephisto

Mephisto2

I actually agree with you 100%. But let's stay away from politics on this thread.


Mr Mephisto

ObieX

This is one of the only things I think Bush has done right. Any type of actual funding for NASA has been long over due, and giving them a clear goal and vision is just what they needed.

We haven't skipped the orbital step, We currently have a permanent space presense on the International Space Station and have had other stations before that. Granted I think we're still constructing the station (the russians are slacking on parts), but humans have been in space without interruption for 4 strait years now on the ISS. Not the same human(s) but humans in general, and humans of many different nations.

A moon "base" is currently being discussed in India by a large number of countries (there's another thread on the TFP someplace about this) that will start out as a type of robotic villiage. An army of orbital probes, surface probes, and various other robotic devices exploring for things like ice sources and resources, and exploring the moons history and make-up etc. This will pave the way for an eventual permanent presense there by humans, and the moon will also be used as a launching pad for other missions, like ones to mars and beyond. (Thus the goal's name of "Moon, Mars and Beyond".)

The ONLY problem i have with Bush's space policy is that it has been said that he wishes to change the rules we agreed to some time ago that said we would not put weapons in space, or any type of nuclear devices. It has been said that he wants to miliarize space. Of course things like nuclear reactors would possibly be needed later on to power any large craft or base, but not yet. Until that time comes we shouldn't screw with that stuff in space. It isn't needed yet on any scale and could cause complications that are not needed.

As for commercial/corporate space travel, yes they're good. More companies should step up and take some initiative in the area. But NASA is also vitally impotant to any future in space and without it we wouldn't have gotten anywhere near as far as we have now space wise, and tech wise here on earth. The things they have created and the things that are currently in development are astounding, and i encourage people to look into some of the stuff they've contributed to and have invented/are inventing and developing.

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meepa

I can't believe you're pre-emptively complaining about spin when you title the thread "Bush invests in the future of mankind" which couldn't possibly be a cheesier line that smacks of one-sidedness. Yes, most people think space exploration is a great idea... but must you try to turn EVERYTHING into some sort of anti-leftist piece?

Superbelt

I'm all gung ho for increasing our exploration of our terresterial neighbors. I just wish we had a president who understood that things like this cost money and it should be budgeted appropriately. Not become another lien against this nations solvency.

martinguerre

honestly, i think it's a good idea.

yes, there are pressing needs. but there were back in the day, and we've reaped a lot from that investment. i wish it wasn't on top of other financial obligations (the cost of Iraq, etc..), but it's a worthy cause.

and if it makes ustwo happy to see flaming, i still think bush is a twit.

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fckm

This is one of the worst things that Bush could do. Here's why.
Bush's "let's go to mars" plan costs 11 billion dollars. It's sure to grow.
Bush has increased NASA's budget by 1 billion dollars.
How is NASA going to pay the extra 10 billion, you ask?
Well, apparently it has to canabalize itself. In case you didn't know, NASA does more than just run the space shuttles. It gives funding to many astrophysics and areonautics research, as well as conducting lots of research internally. What do you think is going to happen to all that research, when 10 billion dollars has to be cut from the research funding to shift over to Mars funding?

That's just the problem. NASA already does research. They do a ton of it. Just because it's not flashy, and it doesn't make the six o'clock news doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and isn't important. Because of this whole stupid Mars thing, NASA has to put on hold plans to replace many of our aging space based telescopes (Chandra, for example).
I realize that for many people this will be exciting. But what many people don't realize, is that no one has Increased NASA's budget by any SIGNIFICANT amount. The funding restructuring that has to be done is going to kill off some damn good science.

The Only problem I have with Bush's space policy, is that he talks big, but in the end, it's all just fucking hot air.

Oh, by the way, did anyone notice the NSF budget allotment? Guess what, they decreased it. Brilliant job, congress. Seems like all the talk about technological progress was just that, talk.

EDIT: forgot to add. If they really wanted to go to Mars, all they have to do is triple NASA's budget, and they'll be there in five years. This isn't about science folks. It's not about exploration. It's all a fucking dog-and-pony show. No one in congress understands what science is. They spend hundreds of billions on the fucking millitary, and expect NASA to go to Mars with a fucking 1 billion dollar budget increase. God Damn, what a bunch of fucking no good assholes.

Sorry. Had to rant a bit.

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Ustwo

Ah I knew someone would find something to complain about. I do find it funny how people poo-poo NASA when its one of the few government agencies which has had a good deal of success and been a good investment. If only they were so critical about welfare programs and the like and the lack of success they have had.

2.7 Billion, NOT 10, and now that, that bit of unpleasantness is out of the way…

Mr. Mephisto, while I agree that by Newtonian physics, we aren’t going anywhere fast, that assumes the only way to travel is by said laws.

Now perhaps that’s all there is and we are stuck here, but perhaps not as well, our understanding is still at its infancy. It would be foolish to give up before we even know all the rules.

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shakran

Stephen Hawking disagrees with you. I think I'm gonna trust him over you in this instance

Kadath

Agreed. To simply parrot a single piece of scientific theory as a reason we should give up on an entire realm of scientific discovery shows either a lack of sophistication or a deliberate disinterest in learning anything new. The reason I can say this is I used to hold this exact same view until about three years ago, when I started reading Hawking and realized that Einstein was not the be-all and end-all of advanced physics.

Also, I find myself shocked to agree with Ustwo, but I can console myself with the fact that I think NASA should be funded by heavily taxing the wealthy.

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Furry

True. Good science costs money. Look what happened to Beagle II when corners were cut on the airbags...

Cutting costs endangers lives. Good science can avoid that, but the funding has to come from somewhere. How about less corporate tax loopholes for a start?

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fckm

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/01/14/bush.space/
from Jan 2004
Sorry, that's the info I was going on

So now I'm confused. The budget request for 16 billion is in addition to NASA's current budget? Is all of that going to Mars? or is it still only 1 billion marked for Mars?

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And if you say to me tomorrow, oh what fun it all would be.
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Superbelt

Yeah, and that's the disgusting part. We had a thread on this months ago. We brought up things like the Hubble (Who had servicing mission 4 cancelled because of it). The mission would have added a Wide Field Camera that is 3 times more powerful than the infared that it alread had and a Cosmic Origins Spectrograph for high resolution sudying of distant interstellar gasses. Plus other essential things like new gyroscopes, batteries and boosting the scope into farther orbit to prevent decay.

Rekna

Wouldn't spending all the money we don't have so that the future generations will be bankrupt be the opposite of investing in their future? Parden me if i'm wrong but I thought if I went and took out a bunch of loans that wouldn't be called investing. I thought investing was putting money aside for the future. Am I wrong here?

The_wall

I am for doing research and space exploration, however I don't think humans should leave this earth, this is our home and we don't need to bring our endless amounts of problems into outer space. Thats just my opinion though and i know you guys don't agree with it.

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kutulu

Humans will have to leave the Earth eventually if they wish to survive. It's best to start work on that as soon as possible. However, a trip to Mars is somewhat pointless.

Instead of spending $12B on a trip that will amount to a few days on Mars we should be spending it on making self-sustaining life possible in space. We need to facilitate gravity to avoid detrimental effects of space life first. Next we need a way to cultivate food in space. After that we need to work on fast propulsion, getting us as close to light speed as possible. As we approach that barrier, we can work on going past that barrier because that is what will make interstellar travel possible.

None of that is accomplished by going to Mars for a field trip.

shakran

On that I'm with Ustwo. We HAVE to go to Mars - it's the test bed for all the technologies we'll use to have a permanent residence in space. We have to figure out how to get them there (months) keep them there (more months) and get them back (months) without starving them or causing them to degenerate into decalcified, muscleless masses. Baby steps. You have to start small (space station, moon, mars) before you can get big.


Where Ustwo and I disagree is the timing. Now is NOT the time to be spending billions of dollars on something that won't benefit us immediately. We have to wait until we're financially sound (read: the trickledown dinks are out of office and someone that has a sense of economics has had a chance to turn things around) until we start worrying about deep space exploration. Once that happens, I'm all for as much space exploration as we can possibly afford.

Yakk

It is possible you will never see the benefits of Space Exploration personally. Even likely.

I don't see why not. The distances are large, but if you aren't in a rush, you can manage them.

Lets say you can launch colony probes at 1% of the speed of light. And lets say it takes 100,000 years to bootstrap a solar system from empty to being able to generate a colony probe. And lets say it takes 1,000 years to produce a single colony probe. And, finally, lets say that after 10,000 years of making colony probes (each system makes 10), the systems stops, on average. And finally, half of the colony probes fail.

Every 110,000 years the number of colony probes increases by a factor of 5.

Then, going from a single system to colonizing, say, 1 billion stars, would take about 1.5 million years. It might take longer than this -- the actual limitation on the speed of colonization eventually becomes the speed of expansion of disk of colonized planets, which can't expand faster than 1% of light speed.

1.5 million years is otherwise known as a blink of an eye.

And I think we can do better than 1% of lightspeed. I think that successful intelligent beings is phenomina that will spread at near relativistic speeds. By this logic, there isn't much point in SETI because the time between the arrival of the EM signals of intelligence, and intelligence itself, is obscenely short on a universal time scale.

Peronally, I'm less worried about humanity, than I am about intelligence.

As demonstrated above, it doesn't take all that long for an intelligent "species" to colonize a galaxy. If 'humanity as we know it' isn't recognizeable by the time we (intelligence) spread over the galaxy, I'm not all that worried.

You only need to travel fast if you are in a hurry.

There are a few things that can make you not in a hurry.

The first is, increased life span. This can be by some kind of cold sleep or by the simple matter of making more durable humans or by extending your definition of human beyond the biological.

The second is, not sending yourself. Send instructions to make humans, not humans, to other stars.

Lastly, you could send a generation ship.

Or, not being in a rush.

Even just playing around in our solar system is pretty damn profitable.

There is a dissassambled small planet we can use for resources (right next door!), and a hell of alot of space where we can 'pollute' to our hearts content without worrying about ruining people's quality of life. When robotics and/or nanotechnology starts getting good, the raw materials up there will be extremely useful.

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Last edited by JHVH : 10-29-4004 BC at 09:00 PM. Reason: Time for a rest.

Mephisto2

Please explain. I'm unaware of any proof that FTL travel can occur, except on a quantum level.

I'm interested.


Mr Mephisto

Mephisto2

That's nice.

I'm "parroting", but eveyone else here is progressive in their embrace of the new fronntier, eh?

Labeling someone a "parrot" because they refer to the proven laws of physics, and not current unproven theoretical hypotheses is a bit shortsighted.

If you disagree with me, and have factual reasons rather than an emotional attachment to the "idea" of interstellar travel, then please provide them; or simply be polite in said disagreement.

I never said he was. Indeed, I simply made passing reference to the EPR Paradox, which I stated was refuted.

Funny.

Especially rich Doctors, eh?

Just kidding Ustwo!


Mr Mephisto

shakran

In "A Brief History of Time" Hawking discusses that while it is impossible to travel in normal space faster than light, it may be possible to use wormholes, or to warp the fabric of space and time to achieve the same result.


i.e. if I go 10 miles in 10 minutes, you can say I was going 60mph, no matter how I got there. If I drove, then my real velocity was 60mph.

If I somehow managed to fold the road so that the start and the finish line were only 1 foot apart for the time I was travelling, at which point the road unfolds to its previous state, then I could get there in the same amount of time by going 6mph. But the time/distance equation still works out to 60mph from my perspective.

And yes, I know this sounds astonishingly close to the way Star Trek says its ships fly. But then the book that explains how they fly (Star Trek TNG Technical Manual) was published AFTER Hawking's books, so where do you suppose they got it?

Interesting footnote. Hawking appeared on an episode of Star Trek several years ago. As he was getting a tour of the set, they went by the engineering set. He looked at the warp engine and said "I'm working on that."

jonjon42

Personally I believe that looking to Mars on the exploration side is a bit...ahead of ourselves. We must first find a way to cheaply send craft into orbit. If they were serious about this, the first major project would be a space elevator (no joke) recent advances carbon-nanotube-composite ribbons it is very possible to build in the next 10-15 years. This would allow cheap voyage into orbit without all messing with rockets (whenever you strap yourself to a rocket, trouble can follow)

This would help immensly with several things. Trips for satalite repair will be cheaper and safer. Satalites can be put into orbit cheaply, and safer human transport vehicles can be made..(less fuel needed)

That would be a stepping stone for more and better exploration and as a nice side affect, cheaper.

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shakran

what we need to do (I think I said this in another thread) is to encourage the commercialization of space. Throughout history, stuff has gotten cheaper and safer when private enterprise has been able to take over. It'll be the same with space. Get space tourism up and running and consumers will demand cheaper prices to go there. That will require cheaper and faster methods to get there. That will lead to more reliable space travel for everyone.

Mephisto2

First let me thank Yakk for the first reasonable, thoughtful and constructive response to my dissenting opinion.

Rather that label me a parrot or simply say "Hawking disagrees with you", without truly understanding the underlying physics (I doubt any of us here do), you've actually discussed the only PROVEN method we can consider for interstellar travel; sub-lightspeed craft.

I refer those to who maintain that FTL transportation is possible to the following web-site: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physic...Light/FTL.html

The theoretical existence of FTL particles called tachyons is addressed by this short article in the journal Scientific American: http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_quest...B7809EC588F2D7

It should also be noted that all the current theories that propose FTL travel do not, in fact, result in FTL events; Special Relavitity is preserved and causality maintained. In other words, everyone here "parroting" the possibility of FTL travel or the refutation of Special Relativity are not really accurate.

The two most common theories revolve around the use of "wormholes" and the use of "gravity engines".

Wormholes are theoretical rips in space caused by massive gravitational fields. Craft could conceivably travel through these holes,, and pop out at the other side, but they don't travel faster than light. They just disappear and reappear somewhere else. Conceivably the distance traveled through the wormhole would be "shorter" than the distance between those two points in normal space. By the way, something often overlooked by many people is the equal likelihood that the distance be longer! You disappear and then dont' reappear. At least for quite some time.
Anyway, I degress...

Another theory is the use of something I can only describe as a "gravity engine". This compresses space in front of the craft whilst "expanding" it behind. Once again, the appearance is of FTL (from faraway observers) but the actual laws of physics are maintained. The craft still travels at speed below the speed of light, but because space is compressed in front of it, and expanded behind it (in a localized manner), it appears to faraway observers that the craft is moving at FTL speeds.

Actually, the whole issue of what faraway observers would actually observe complicates things even further, simply because information (ie, observation) cannot travel faster than light itself... but this gets complicated so let's ignore that for the moment.

Details on these theories can be found in a paper published by Ian Crawford, an astronomer at University College London. REF: "Some thoughts on the implications of faster-than-light interstellar space travel,'', Q. J. R. Astr. Soc., 36, 205-218, (1995).

"Gravity engines" (the popular term is "warp drive" but I don't use that for obvious reasons) was first discussed by the Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre, of the University of Wales, in 1994.

Therefore, I continue to maintain that FTL travel is impossible, and most physicists agree. Pedantics maybe, but better than the generalizations posted on this thread heretofore.

So, to repeat, I never stated that it was impossible for theoretical FTL "events" to occur. They may be possible. Having said that, FTL events could and would contravene causality (as mentioned in several articles) with the resulting wierdness; wierdness that we don't see at the moment.

Undoubtedly. As it is in most things. But what's that got to do with it?


That depends. I agree that it's rash to say that it's impossible. I simply feel it is unlikely. Postulations on theoretical events are very different from actual implementation of said theories. As I mentioned somewhere before, it's theoretically possible for me to disappear in a poof of quantum wierdness or to leap through a solid wall via quantum tunnelling... but it's not really going to happen.



Indeed. And this was the hypothesis formulated by Hart, M.("An Explanation for the Absence of Extraterrestrials on Earth," Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society," Vol. 16, 1975, pp. 128-35), Jones, E. M.("Colonization of the Galaxy," Icarus, Vol. 28, 1976, pp. 421-22) and Papagiannis, M. D.("Could we be The Only Advanced Technological Civilization in Our galaxy?," in: Origin of Life, Japan Scientific Societies Press, 1978.)

Furthermore Gerard O'Neill postulated huge space colonies in his groundbreaking paper "The Colonization of Space" (O'Neill, G. K., "The Colonization of Space," Physics Today, Vol. 27, September, 1974, pp. 32-40.); later built upon in his book The High Frontier (http://www.ssi.org/body_high-frontier.html). See also O'Neill, G. K.: Space Colonies and Energy Supply to the Earth, Science, vol. 10, 5 Dec. 1975, pp. 943-947.

Much of what you propose is detailed in the NASA Ames Space Settlement Design Contest (1975) "Space Settlements: A Design Study" (published on the web at http://www.belmont.k12.ca.us/ralston...Contents1.html
Additional information can be found at NASA's Space Settlements site (http://www.nas.nasa.gov/About/Educat...aceSettlement/)

And well and good.

But what about the Fermi Paradox? See http://www.space.com/searchforlife/s...ox_011024.html and the first half of the page http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~js/cosmo/lectures/lec28.html and especially http://www.faughnan.com/setifail.html

Fermi's conversational paradox was "If they exist, why aren't they here?" when referring to extraterestial intelligence (and therefore by implication, interstellar travel). The famous Drake Equation is an expanded mathematical model based upon the same fundamental questions. See http://www.setileague.org/general/drake.htm, http://www.pbs.org/lifebeyondearth/listening/drake.html, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation and http://www.activemind.com/Mysterious..._equation.html.

Based upon the age of the galaxy, and assuming extraterestrial life exists, then ET life should already be here. The fact that it is not can only be for one of the following reasons

1) Humanity is the only intelligent life in the Universe
2) Interstellar travel, though theoretically possible, is realistically impossible
3) They're here already but "hiding"

Whilst this is not a debate on ET life, option 2 above seems to refute your suggestion that interstellar travel is possible. Either that, or humanity is alone.

So, in other words, we're the only life in the Universe, or interstellar travel is a lot more difficult (ie impossible) than many people believe.

Or you don't have the technology or resources to maintain life in interstellar space. No water, no hydrogen, very little light for energy...

All great in science fiction novels, but quite unlikely.

Agreed, and this is what I support. But researching interstellar travel? I just don't believe it's likely. Certainly FTL is impossible. The only likely possibility is slower than light travel, and I think the chances of that are also very low.


Mr Mephisto

Mephisto2

I was writing my lengthy response when you posted this.

See it above.

Wormholes or gravity drives do NOT "work" by faster than light travel. They "work" by bending/ripping space.

Quite different.

And they're only theories. Do you really want your tax dollars spent on some NASA scientists researching warp drives? Come on!

Mr Mephisto

pan6467

I stated before the election that if I were a 1 issue voter the fact Bush was going to bring alive NASA and S.E. he would have gotten my vote. It is nice to see he didn't lie about this.

Let us not forget it was JFK that truly got NASA started. Carter who helped, Reagan did a little (using NASA to develop "Star Wars") and then it was cut and left to die.

To be honest there is a lot to gain with a true NASA that develops and creates new tech. If Nasa spends R and D money on US companies, we could see a nice bump to the economy.

However, if we do not improve our schools we may not have the educated people from the US running NASA.

I have no problem with this as long as the true purpose is SE and not military.

And if cuts are truly needed let's cut the military payouts to Halliburton who overcharges for gas, takes money and then doesn't supply trrops with the items we paid for. That's the true crime, a NASA SE budget used for true SE and that's it, is a good thing, best thing Bush has done yet, maybe the only thing he'll ever do that has the potential to better us.

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