Okay so today's the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing (thanks youtube for changing your logo today. I guess now that you're owned by google you can steal their ideas). So I pose this question to everyone: Do you guys think that there should be government funded programs for space exploration (NASA, etc), and why? What I guess I'm getting at is... What's the ultimate purpose of space exploration and research? To find life outside of our own planet? To move off our own planet? To learn more about our universe in general?
Government funding, yes. But I don't really like the idea of having a full-blown completely government owned program like NASA. In my experience, standard employees are really really inefficient. However, low-paid field researches (university professors, etc) are extremely smart people (smarter than your average employee) and work much more efficiently. So I think governments should give funding to various educational institutions to continue space exploration/research. Of course, because of the vastness of the entire field, these institutions should collaborate and work together using the same funding which goes towards the costly resources necessary.
I don't really have strong feelings on the subject, so try not to debate me too much on it (ie, make me cry) but I think that it should be funded. I mean, there are a lot of things that need government funding...and I think scientific research in general needs as much financial support as possible...but especially programs like space programs because it keeps people thinking big. Granted, there are is a lot of scientific research going on that is very important and has a very small scope, but I think one of the things that has been lost over the past half a century is the drive for the big and seemingly unreachable. Back in the 50s and 60s, when people were interested in something and wanted it done, they funded it and they got extraordinary results. Nothing of great importance, little as important as landing on the moon, has happened in the past 20 years or so...and it's really fairly disgusting.
mmm, any conspiracy theorists wanna challenge the moon landing around? lol On topic: I am somewhat against the spending on government funded space programs as I don't really see space as being good use of tax dollars. These programs are very very expensive and whilst sure it enables us to learn more about the universe we live in, the practical application of what we could accomplish seems minimal. The only real reason we need space travel is to find more resources which to me is rather a deplorable aim. It is not that the planet we have is unable to sustain the global population its that we are not doing a very good job of looking after Earth. For all we know aliens may know we are here but simply see no merit in contacting us cause they don't think we can teach them anything worth knowing. Another way to look at it is that our space research is probably terribly inefficient cause different countries would be doing exactly the same type of research. Our governments could not really co-operate but would be very secretive with anything they learnt, for all they know the TOP SECRET space details that AMERICA has and the TOP SECRET space details that China has and the TOP SECRET space details Europe has could all be basically the same stuff, however to get human technology to that level, 3 times as much resources are used. Ultimately I don't think we need the information space exploration could provide us atm, even if we did I'm not sure how good a job government departments could do it, thats not say that businesses in a free market could do any better but I could see one global exploration unit controlled by the UN or something doing a better job then multiple nations competing
I am so expecting someone to come in here and deny the moon landing didn't happen and it was just a fabrication by the US government during the Cold War. When that happens, I'll enjoy the conflict ^_^
I think there should be gov't funded programs for space; someday, the world will get too crowded, so some people are going to have to move it on out. As well, humans like to discover and explore. The Universe is almost completely uncharted, so why not? You can't control Manifest Destiny
Nasa has been using approximately 17 billion dollars of taxpayer dollars a year. That is NOTHING. In total, the president's budget request (I'm speaking of 2010) is that of 1.421 trillion dollars. Of that 1.421 trillion (That's $1,421 billion), $901 billion is for Military/National Security purposes. $520 billion is for Non-military/National Security purposes. NASA's share will be $18.686 billion. 18.686 billion /1,421 billion = 1.3% of the budget. That means for every $10.00 dollars you pay in taxes, about ONE DIME goes to NASA. In comparison, the Department of Defense will get about $5.00 of that $10.00. "very very expensive" my ass. BTW I'm speaking only about the US, obviously.
17 billion dollars is nothing? just because it seems comparatively small doesn't make it insignificant and we really are not discussing the wisdom of a $901 military/national security budget, note I'm not saying that it is stupid for America to be spending that much, I'm questioning why the situation exists where spending so much makes sense.. But regardless of whether or not it is too expensive you still need a reason to justify the expense it simply being cheap is not justification. I personally try not to spend one extra dollar then necessary and I don't see space exploration as being a priority. Edit: I'm a New Zealander by the way therefore a hippy by nature, and to our economy at least 17 billion is a big amount but on a world scale we are pretty insignificant
Taking the NZ thing into account, think about it this way- the US is a LOT bigger in terms of population than NZ, so $17 billion in taxes to the US is proportionately equivalent to $2.3 million in taxpayer dollars to you guys. That's based on population alone, so it's grossly erroneous, but you get the idea. My point is that you can't point to cost as a decent reason against government-funded space research, at least not in the US. And because I forgot to mention this before, the entire reason space exploration/NASA/etc. was started and funded was because of the cold war. Now NASA's not even concerned with missile defense at all. However, I think the scientific advancements are important enough, for obvious reasons- survival of the human race, alternative energy sources, other life, etc. etc.
Well my point is not specifically against cost per say. I mean if a twenty trillion project led to an end to world hunger I'd say thats money well spent. However, you must be able to justify the cost of the money spent - it may be justified I'm not sure I've not done the research (you mention this as scientific advancements) I'd like to know more. My key issue I wanted to address in my first post was that government-funded space travel may not be the best alternative. I'll show this in an example US - spends 17 bill learns -idea A -Idea B -Idea C -Idea D China - spends 10 bill learns -idea A -idea B -idea C and -idea E Russia - spends 8 bill learns -Idea B -idea C -Idea D -Idea E and -Idea P Earth has a net gain of -idea a, idea b, idea c, idea d, idea e and idea P for a total of 35 bill If we were to spend money I would like it to not have ties to political allegiances so that we apply our resources in a way that makes more sense. Global Space Initiative budget - 35bill -Idea A - Z Obviously this idea suffers from being idealistic and being rather simplistic but its something to think about. I would like to clarify that Nasa does do some research I believe is useful however, sending people into space to find alternative energy sources I am skeptical of, that type of research could be done with your feet firmly planted on the ground, it is a fact that in the history of the human race we have made some mistakes with regard to the environment. Space travel seems to me to be a way to avoid owning up to those mistakes and fixing them.
Unfortunately I doubt that's possible, for the same reason American surgeons and Russian surgeons aren't going to be swapping scalpel tips.