raid517

Well what do you guys think? Personally I am under the impression that Bush is looking for something that will distract the public's attention from the economy and the ongoing difficulties the US is facing in Iraq in the run up to an election year. So I am really quite skeptical.

Another reasons I am skeptical is due to the cost. The US economy is already running a massive deficit, so you have to wonder if congress/the senate or whoever will grant him the funds. I remember when his daddy said pretty much exactly the same thing in his election year when the economy was under a similar degree of stress. And we all know where that led.

Moreover I am skeptical because I don't think there is any point in expending vast resources going to the moon first. As far as the moon is concerned, it is estimated that you would expend the same amount (if not more since you have to truck everything there first) of resources to leave from the moon as it would just going direct from Earth. So there is no net gain (indeed it will cause a significant delay) to go there first. Lastly I am not at all convinced at this time of the true value of a manned mission to Mars at all.

The moon missions were an interesting aside - but really they achieved very little scientifically. What basically happened then, is the US government sent a bunch of Jocks to the moon, so that once they got there they had no clue how to do anything really very useful. Out of the six Moon landing missions, as far as I recall, there was only ever one civilian Scientist/Geologist that got sent - and that was on the very last mission - and then only after the NASA science team made formal protests about the lack of scientific inquiry in the missions.

If all you are going to do this time is send just bunch of Jocks to Mars to play another trillion dollar round of Golf, then this just seems like a gross waste of money. Particularly when most serious scientists will openly tell you that rover technology is now so advanced that rovers can undoubtedly achieve much more in terms of science than men ever could.

I am not saying we should never go, but I am saying I don't think it's quite appropriate at this time. I understand the spirit of adventurism, the final frontier and all that - and am a very big Star Trek fan - but I confess I am no big fan of Mars. I think it is a dead planet, I think there is very little of interest we will find there - to be honest it reminds me of a few English seaside towns I have visited - and I think that like the moon, once we have gone, most people will quickly loose interest and it will be a very long time if ever before we go back.

I think if we do go it would have to be as a result of a global effort and only after safety concerns had been addressed. I would also like to see some real progress of propulsion technology so that the time it takes to do these missions can really be drastically cut. I would also like to see many more rover missions, so that we can determine first if there really is anything of substance, beyond a political stunt, that humans could go there and look at.

I would be interested to hear everyone's views on this.

GJ

HsuGotaQ

I too find it ludicrous that the Bush administration would even think about spending more money so unwisely. What disturbs me most is that he had 2 different big spending ideas today. The second was the following.

Linky

I really do believe that he wants us to forget Iraq (anyway CNN and Fox are starting to).

My 2 cents

bird chest

I hope it is science but I really do not think it is. I think bush is trying to do a political stunt. However if it is a political stunt I still think it is still a good thing. I feel like it would still generate money for NASA because peoples eyes would be on it hence it would get donations and possibly more money from the government. I do think humans can do more then the little rovers to. We are much more mobile. I do not know if this is true but I hear that he is also trying to set up a permenant station on the moon. That I am all in favor of!!! We could mine metals off the moon and potentially in the future we could get stuff off of mars too. That is also another planet we could inhabit. I do not really know why but I am really attached to space and going to other planets.

On top of this so many things that we use today have been invented because of the space programs. But right now I think I am more in favor of cutting the budget in all areas!! We need to get out of debt as a nation. Oh well as if anyone else cares what I think lol.

ToshiroOC

Absolutely a political ploy to capitalize on shortlived public interest in space exploration with the new rovers. They have promised very minimal budget increases for NASA (barely an improvement over NASA's previous budget increases, which kept overall NASA budgets growing BEHIND inflation rates), and insist that the funding for these new projects will come from cutting unspecified current NASA projects. I'm quite annoyed by this, since basically Bush is saying "I'm gonna put men on the moon, then mars, take the credit, and let everyone else figure out how to pay for it after its all over." Its just the same with his tax cut too, the more federal deficit he runs up as a visionless fool the more I'll be paying in taxes 20-30 years down the line If Bush was really serious about stimulating more research he'd increase funding significantly not just for NASA/JPL but also for the NIH (National Institute of Health, a big biology/genetics research funder) and other research groups and initiatives.

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Logla

Out of interest, when are the next presedential elections in the US?

HsuGotaQ

Good lord. G.W is really doing something freaking stupid. Now he wants to aid religious charities at the sum of 3.7 Billion $????

Linky


Sorry, but this is more than pathetic, ludicrous or stupid. This guy really... no REALLY should be stopped dead. Lying is one thing, but compulsively lying to the public like this... horrible. The funny thing is that he will not do the following and will just keep on with his "social justice" (a.k.a. war) with other countries.

BetrayerX

http://www.lunaranomalies.com/ http://www.enterprisemission.com/ for the mulder in each of you.

__________________
Are you wise enough to admit your own ignorance?

ToshiroOC

2004 (this year). The new president will be known at the end of the year.

That lunar anomalies site seems to be somewhat intelligent in the way they debunk the stupid arguments for the moon landings being hoaxes, though their insistance on further conspiracy theories is something I disagree with strongly. "The Enterprise Mission" is just chock full of crap (sorry). They found every rock with an edge in one of the Spirit lander pictures and called it a "metal casing" or "machinery". Not exactly the most intelligent and thorough analysis of the picture, I would think.

EDIT: From "The Enterprise Mission":

Pointy stuff indeed!

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BluntmaN

Definately political ploy it smells from miles away.

The real question at hand is the moon base. A moon base for scientific reasons is a very good idea. It will give many sciences a form of boost both in money and in research matterial. It is quite possible if we manage to send the heavy construction matterials and build a biodome to help recycle water and air, food can also be grown. I say set it up and stick a few telescopes to explore outer space. Maybe in the future we ll get some extra rich tourists up there as well(Btw how will a pool react in low gravity?).

Now as for the Mars mission I doubt the boy king knows where Mars is so he is just talking crap trying to look like most other polititians that folow the same practice. Dont take him seriously he just wants another term. Lastly since space exploration is prone to mistakes that often lead to catastrophy it is very possible some programer makes a tiny error (like changing feet to meters) and the crew will land in nevada which is the same as landing to Mars.

__________________
'Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know.'
Donald Rumsfeld (And then they say that the White House knows what it's doing)

raid517

Yeah well that's what I wondered too... I mean why not just go to Nevada anyway? You are likely to learn just as much useful information from it. From what I can see, Mars looks like an incredibly boring place.

What Mars needs is a few casinos to liven it up a bit. Now if they intended to go there and build some casinos, that might be a better reason to go.

As for the moon, if it was a serious scientific Moon base, then sure why not. Particularly if it was on the dark side (not that there really is a dark side) since then we could put some very nice radio telescopes on there that wouldn't suffer from the radio interference we have here on Earth.

Personally though I think Bush just wants to be there when the Chinese arrive in 2020. 'We can't have the Chinese taking the initiative and showing us up now can we?'

Like I said, it will probably be nothing more than a couple of military jocks standing around scratching their bollocks waiting for the Chinese to arrive to they can stick two fingers up at them.

And this is what Republicans think is progress. Lol.


GJ

zerodamage

Maybe this thread should have been named: "Bush haters Unite and Bash here"

BluntmaN

Maybe you should change your name to I love Georgie

Btw raid517 the dark side of the moon is only called that way coz we can't see it. Moon rotation is the same as earths so we allways see the same side sunlight will still hit a base no matter where it is built. However due to the ultra thin atmosphere telescopes on the moon is a great idea and I do agree with it. Moon cazinos is also a nice idea but we need to invent a new type of roulete for low gravity other wize it will take too long for the ball to land.

__________________
'Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know.'
Donald Rumsfeld (And then they say that the White House knows what it's doing)

HsuGotaQ

Nice title

raid517

No this isn't just about bashing Bush, although it is a good opportunity for that too. I am interested in people's views. If I thought this was real I would be whooping and hollering with the best of you. But sadly I don't think it is real at all.

There really is too much we have to do here before we start thinking about throwing vast sums of money going to somewhere that vaguely resembles Arizona - but which is probably much less interesting.

Now build a nuclear powered deep space probe and fire it off to explore the nearest star to us (next to the Sun) and then you would be talking. Hey it might take 40 or 50 years to get there, but it has to be better than just forever pottering about in our own back yard.

You can only do so much of that before it stops being interesting.

GJ

kinetic

The nearest star is some 4.25 light years away so we really need to spend the money on new propulsion systems if we are ever going to get there!

raid517

Yeah, but they think they could build nuclear pulse engines now (that is engines that work by exploding hydrogen bombs in quick succession behind the vehicle). The estimate is that using engines like these, it might take 40 years to reach the nearest star.

But as I said, sooner or later you have to think that something like this has to be better than just digging around in our own back yard.

Personally I think those who hope to find life in our own solar system are probably nuts. I think life is much rarer than any of these people realise. Even if we could explore perhaps as much as 1% of the stars in our own Galaxy (which is a lot) I think it would quickly become clear that life is not an inevitable physical outcome, on even those planets that seem ideally suited to support it. Life on Earth was a one off freak. As someone I admire once wrote 'It's like a tornado ripping through a junkyard and leaving behind a fully formed jumbo jet.' It really is that unlikely.

But oh well, it make for good TV I guess.

GJ

BluntmaN

Nobody knows how life was actually formed so we can't know of the possibility of it happening. Life in its biological definition is something that can reproduce itself using DNA so it is not unlikely that we find life in many places in the solar system especially since mars has an atmosphere and water. Intelligent life on the other hand is a different story it does take more than just water and organic matterials so it is highly unlikely we ll find it in our back yard.
Outer space exploration goes further than little green men and x-files its main objective is to find out how the universe was created and discovering the unified theory. In the process many other things are discovered that in the future can help us make our life more easy.

On the political side of the argument sending maned missions to Mars is really not going to help the world compared to the costs. Americans can still send ppl on Mars if they want it is your money but since there is no cold war going on I cant see how it will benefit America.

__________________
'Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know.'
Donald Rumsfeld (And then they say that the White House knows what it's doing)

ToshiroOC

Baby steps first - as a child, I didn't want to run to the neighbor's house before running around in my own back yard

Totally different scales, too. Who knows if humans can survive a trip into space without a nice protective ozone layer for radiation, or the psycological effects of being in a tiny space for a year (to get to mars) or 40 years even? If you want to travel to the stars, we should probably learn to get to Mars first

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raid517

Well if you know a little of the history of DNA, you will also appreciate how much of an incredible (almost unfathomable) chance its creation was. Bottom line is, I am willing to take bets that for as long as I am alive, which may be another 50 years, we will come no closer to finding life either in our own solar system, or in any other part of our extremely large Universe.

We have already been looking for at least the last 60 years through Radio Astronomy - and so far we haven't heard a peep.

But I would still be happier if I could see that we were striving to explore further afield than just in our own local area. I mean for cripes sake, it's 2004. We were all supposed to be flying around in Jet packs and flying off on holiday to different planets by now. I think it's sad that the future hasn't quite lived up to what we all imagined it would be.

GJ

bird chest

You made so many assumptions and then bash on republicans that is so dumb.

If we got some scientists up on the moon and then maybe mars that would be insane. So many products have come to be due to the space program. I would like to beat the chinese their also lol.

The first time they went up to the moon they had no idea what the conditions were going to be like so all this blaming NASA and stuff is dumb they wanted no one to die on the trip so they picked the most in shape people they had. In 20/20 hind sight it is easy to say yeah we should have sent up morescientific people but at the time they had no idea what was going to happen so they sent the strongest. So today, knowing what they know, I believe they will send up more scientific people.

However I was talking to a guy from JPL last night and he said it is not worth the money to put somone on the moon unless we are going to set up a base on the moon. To send a rover on mars they can do it for I think half a billion?(do not take this as the reall number I can not really remember) but to get a man there it would take about 100 billion dollars!!(the hundred billion is correct)

raid517

I haven't done much bashing of Republicans. I could have done much more. You may recall that it is something of a hobby of mine.

To be honest I was more interested in the issues that this proposal raised. After all it won't just be about republicans. There will no doubt be several Republican and Democratic governments before this thing ever happens.

As for the history of the Moon landings, well that is something you can read about, that has nothing to do with republican bashing, it is just a matter of historical record.

The point I was making was that it would be utterly pointless to do the same thing again. So OK in the old days when it was just about politics, sending a bunch of jocks to the moon to play golf was more important than doing any really serious scientific research. In those days the 100 billion dollar price tag might have seemed acceptable. But it didn't take too long before ordinary people grew tired of all the cheap (or not so cheap) stunts. Now with a trillion dollar price tag at hand, I think it is possibly insane to think about doing this if there is no prospect of getting any serious scientific work done.

With regard to the moon, I agree, it is senseless without a base. But then a base is senseless without a purpose. What is the purpose of a base? What will its function be? We are finding it hard already to justify the reason for having the ISS in orbit. The budget for this has been so severely slashed now so as to make it virtually little more than a floating tin can spinning around the Earth.

My complaint is the same as many of those who are serious about space and that is, enough already with the stunts - and lets all pull together and get some real scientific work done.

The proof of the pudding will be the choice of landing site for this moon mission - if it ever happens. If it is anywhere on the near side of the moon, we will know that this is just politics at play again.

But you are probably right. What is likely to happen is we will just have a bunch of Jocks standing around picking their noses again - and waiting for the Chinese to show up in 2020.

Oh well.

GJ

The_Neon_Cowboy

It’s out our reach at this time but it is necessary to get off this planate if we ever wish to survive it only a mater of time till we run out of resources and go the way of the dinosaur. If we don’t reach out in space and something ever happens to earth. Were stuck here!

Really we need to be not only getting of this planet but dreaming of space travel…
Just think what would happen if all of a sudden the sun were to go bye…..

People don’t realize and they take for granted how what they do now effects the future of the human race.

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Necrosis

A mission to Mars has been in the works for years folks. Sorry to burst your bubble but Nasa was already planning to go. There are quite a few technical obstacles to over come, not to mention trying to make it as cheaps as possible.

I'm going to respond to some of raid517's comments.

Moreover I am skeptical because I don't think there is any point in expending vast resources going to the moon first. As far as the moon is concerned, it is estimated that you would expend the same amount (if not more since you have to truck everything there first) of resources to leave from the moon as it would just going direct from Earth. So there is no net gain (indeed it will cause a significant delay) to go there first. Lastly I am not at all convinced at this time of the true value of a manned mission to Mars at all.

Hmm..seems you don't quite understand the two things the moon offers over an Earth based deployment.

1. Lower Gravity
2. Handy resources to make rocket fuel.

Now this wouldn't have to manned just send up modules that will make the fuel for you. Instead of having to launch from the Earth with enough fuel to reach Mars you'd only need enough to reach the moon. I don't see how you can't see the benefit in this; especially for larger rovers missions which could also make use of this fuel source.

The moon missions were an interesting aside - but really they achieved very little scientifically. What basically happened then, is the US government sent a bunch of Jocks to the moon, so that once they got there they had no clue how to do anything really very useful. Out of the six Moon landing missions, as far as I recall, there was only ever one civilian Scientist/Geologist that got sent - and that was on the very last mission - and then only after the NASA science team made formal protests about the lack of scientific inquiry in the missions.

Sadly the moon missions were 95% political 5% science. Though the pay off was the technology we benefited from but that came at a high human & monetary cost. I also must remind you which party wanted to go to the moon in the first place?

We have already been looking for at least the last 60 years through Radio Astronomy - and so far we haven't heard a peep.

In retrospect there was a peep back in the late 70's but it didn't last long enough to be confirmed. How fast does radio waves travel?
Why would an intelligent group of aliens beam radio signals at the edge of an average spiral galaxy? Only a small fraction of the charted universe has been explored via radio. I don't have a clue if there is life out there or not. Even noted Astronomers & Comoslogists would like to think there is life out there but are still uncertain. Indeed it is doubtful we will find life in our own solar system especially on a planet as remote & dry as Mars. However, if we are looking for life specifically we should be looking at Euopa. Which BTW, there is already a mission planned to go there.

I would have to say personally speaking a mission to Mars isn't all around (money, risk, technology) feasible for probably another 30 - 40 years. If we're to go any sooner it will take numerous countries coming together to get there.

raid517

Well I could agree with pretty much all of that. Providing that is we can leave politics out of it, The only thing is if this ever does get off the ground what you are going to hear a lot more of is there is no point leaving from earth to go to the moon and on to Mars. No matter what way you look at it, it you will still have to cart all of the resources you need to do it to the moon first, which is going to be far more difficult to do than if you just left from the Earth. Besides which, at least on earth you can have a whole army of technical staff and engineers to check over every aspect of the mission before you even dream of going anywhere. This just won't be possible on the moon.

As has been said all this talk about the moon is because the Chinese said they will go there in 2020. I suspect (since it really doesn't make much sense to do it that way) that all this talk about Mars is just a cover so that it can be done. It is politicians again hiding the fact that they really are only interested in playing political games.

Well anyway, I think we agree on a lot of things. I just wish the motives behind it were genuine. Whether you are from the left or the right, you have to agree that you can't spend that kind of money without getting some really useful work done.

GJ

merry

Rocket fuel? Can you elaborate on that?

Anyway, I don't see the utility of having scientists on the moon. Scientists belong in labs, and I think it's much more convenient to bring outer-space materials to labs than labs to the outer-space.

And after all, most Space related efforts wore political and military.

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bird chest

I keep hearing stuff about labs on the moon would not help... you got ot be kidding! They
could put telescopes and radio telescopes on the moon which could see so much more then we can now. Also their are mineral resources on the moon to be gotten. Their are so many things that I do not even know that could be done.

To me the thing is if it is worth the money for all the knowledge we will gain. Is it? What are other peoples opinions?

Falstaff

the race for space was stalled, but never forgotten, I know my history because I have lived it. I remember Pres Kennedy asking US. citizens to accept the fact that we were gonna beat the russians to the moon and we did, but the desire to see beyond the planetary orbits and conquer planets will make the arguments against it moot. Any money spent on space exploration will be hotly debated in the future. We have that right here in America, we can vote against most things, but this effort to colonize planets will come soon enough for my children, though I may never see it.

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merry

A lab and a telescope are two different things. A telescope isn't necessarily "manned".

There are mineral resources on the monn, on the bottom of the ocean and lots of different places. Which exact resources from the moon are you interested in, that couldn't be more easily found elsewhere?

There is a lot of knowledge to be gained from unmanned expeditions - not only about the new worlds, but about the automation involved, robots and such. By comparison, a manned lab will mostly give information about man's ability to live in space... no little thing, as long as permanent habitation of that environment (the moon, Mars etc) is in view. Otherwise, the risks involved are too high, imo.

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There is a war between the ones who say there is a war
and the ones who say there isn't.
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BluntmaN

I'd like some more info on the rocket fuel statement too.

Now about the labs it is not only telescopes that will benefit from a moon base. A lab in low gravity about 0.3g is beneficial to many sciences cause in earth gravity can distort some of the results from a lab also this is a good place to test some of the theories of the graviton and see if they agree with the mathimatical predictions. There is a miriad other things that we can achieve in low gravity conditions and also take advantage of the low and high temps the moon can freely provide.

__________________
'Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know.'
Donald Rumsfeld (And then they say that the White House knows what it's doing)

raid517

Well yes, yes like I said, we can agree on that. But the question is is that what is going to happen? Or is it likely to be just a glorified lunar igloo, with a bunch of, lets face it, not very smart guys, standing around waiting to wave rude signs at the Chinese when they arrive in 2020?

And if it is only to be the latter, does everyone (particularly the republicans here) feel that that is a good enough reason to do it?

I mean com'on, Bush is no fan of Scientific research, which has been proved time and again over his rejection of arguments over global warming, deforestation and GM food. The only reason he is likely to be interested in it is if there is likely to be some military or political pay off.

Since there is no Soviet threat to speak of any more and we don't have to worry about Global nuclear war breaking out at a moment's notice - and thus the idea of putting a military base on the moon is now an utterly absurd proposition, then clearly there is no military pay off from doing it. So maybe he thinks the political prestige would be enough?

All I know is that you should never underestimate the desire of politicians to play politics. However noble their stated goals may seem, I doubt that will ever change.

GJ