NASAs "NEW" Spaceship

WOW. That is SO cool.

 

What a gigantic waste of taxpayer money! Other than enriching a bunch of contractors what is to be gained? Didn't we learn anything the first time around? The public lost total interest after a few trips and the launches were not even televised. We have far, and I mean FAR more important things to do with money.

Ichabod

 

you must like the little box you're in

 

Last time I checked the Earth is the only place where humans can live. We need to be finding a way to keep it livable, not blowing away valuable resources on pie in the sky. The only reason we financed a trip to the moon the first time was to do it before the Soviets. We don't have that incentive now,

Ichabod

 

So the only incentive for exploration is rivalry? Hmm, learn something new every day.

 

I wasn't talking about the earth as the "box", the earth is not a cube.. let me know when you figure it out

 

i think the idea is cool. because it would take less fuel to take off from the moon thin it would to take off from earth and so this is our next step to mars.

 

So?

I'd rather that money go towards Space, than war.

Not everyone wants to live in their own little world, and not expand mankind's knowledge.

 

aww, you ruined it man.. he was supposed to figure it out

 

Sometimes you have to spell it out for them, man. I mean, I'm sure there are still some that believe the Earth is flat. Its our job to enlighten these poor creatures.

 

mine is bigger than yours..

 

You don't have an Urban dictionary entry about yours though, do you?

 

We should have been to Mars by now. If the Apollo program had continued, we probably would have been there.

I am delighted to see NASA using all the best they learned form Apollo, combined with much more modern technology. Waste of Money ? Not to me. Exploration and utilization of space will pay back benefits that we cannot even imagine now.

 

Until we come up with some kind radiation sheilding from solar storms that works as good as lead and weighs the same as titanium I cant see us going to mars in the near future,the last time I checked,the vehicle would need a radiation room with 12 inches of lead that could fit all the crew inside otherwise they would be toast"literally",if anyone knows more of what protection they have planned I'd love to know

 

/Trojan Man flys in

what? no? awww

 

I am all for space exploration, but when you start putting humans into space all science on that mission turns to keeping the humans alive. The Apollo program was really exciting, at least Apollo 11 was, but by the time of mission 13 interest had waned to the point that there was no TV coverage when the famous "Houston we have a problem" was uttered. After a few more missions even NASA had lost interest and the last few missions were cancelled. The moon mission was nothing more than a part of the Cold War that probably did little more than bring back a few hundred pounds of moon rock, and that could have been done for a whole lot less money without the humans. We know by now that no other planet reachable in a realistic lifetime can sustain human life without massive amounts of money to keep what NASA calls "consumables" flowing. If mars were another new continent ripe for human habitation, I would say go for it. I doubt Gee Dubya knows about the conditions on Mars yet, and he was the source of the Mars or bust idea. That lead balloon was launched once before but didn't stay up long. I don't know what the economy is like where you guys live, but where I live the streets are not paved with gold. What would it cost to go to Mars anyway? I figure about a trillion bucks more or less, probably more by the time you factor in cost overruns the way NASA has been known to do. An even better question is why send humans to Mars? Well except for Gee Dubya maybe. (Hey I voted for the turkey). The only thing it would accomplish is we would learn how to get humans there and back(?) and how to sustain them while there. Most likely little about Mars itself. What do you or we know about the Moon that was learned as a result of the Apollo missions that could not be learned by a cheaper, unmanned mission? I once saw a tiny, tiny piece of Moon rock, that's it for me. And that rock could have been returned by an unmanned mission.

NASA gets a lot more bang for the buck with unmanned missions, so much so that manned missions limit the amount of knowledge about space produced by NASA. For example look at Science Daily Magazine , and look at the astronomy, space, and time articles. None of that science has anything to do with manned missions except the Hubble was launched by the Shuttle and has been serviced by the Shuttle a couple of times. We would learn more about space if we kept the humans on the ground and spent that money on true exploration. And how much science are we getting out of the International Space Station? Nothing that I have read about. An excellent example of the waste of real research money.

You young folks would be paying for this mission, as well as our already massive debt with a tax load that I'm sure would bankrupt most of you.

Ichabod

 

thats wrong nasa plans to use money they already have in there budget without having to get any new money

 

Almost every major explorative project has been becasue of rivalry (there are exceptions to everything though), Columbus only was able to explore because one country wanted to get an economic edge, the moon was landed on becasue people wanted to beat the Soviets, The South American continent was primarily explored for the resources that could be taken from exploited indigineous peoples to increase the wealth of the home-country.
This is mostly an attempt by NASA to get the public interested in it again.
Also trying to support life on mars is uselessly expensive, not only is the solar radiation there deadly (cause of no magnetic field, at least as I understand it please correct me if I'm wrong), all supplies would have to at some point come from earth, water isn't exactly abundant, even with the polar ice caps, and doing the "sci-fi" thing of harvesting comets for their ice is ridiculous, tbhough the idea of harvesting methane from mars for fuel is pretty cool. In fact, the entire spaceship is cool, ergardless of how expensive and seemingly pointless the duties it will carry out are.
Thanks for the cool link

 

lots of great points and nice link. oh, unmanned spaceflights produce quantifiable results that are gathered more quickly. Manned, sorry ladies, personed flights teach us plenty besides survival. Even if we only learned how to keep people alive (how many medical contributions can be attributed to our programs?) isn't that enough?