Do you think we should increase funding for NASA?

[Mysteroo]

im confused as to what this means

If we're going to be unwise and waste money we don't have, I guess we might as well waste it on something good like NASA

[Ad Bot]

[Blockzillahead]

You keep thinking that our current technology is what we'll be using.
NASA does more than space.

There's no technology that will be able to make a human survive traveling at the speed of light. Even saving the spacecraft from hitting dust particles or other random crap floating in space.


We just aren't smart enough to comprehend how these things fully work. It's not happening anytime soon within our current human evolution level. We need to go higher, and until we reach that let's hope the Sun doesn't explode in our faces.

Actually you know, I take the funding part back completely, increase it's funding so we can speed this process up.

We have around 5 billion years people, chop chop let's do some Science before we burn and explode to death.

[ultimamax]

If we're going to be unwise and waste money we don't have, I guess we might as well waste it on something good like NASA

i agree. but we have money. being in debt doesnt mean we don't have money.

[Nonnel]

i agree. but we have money. being in debt doesnt mean we don't have money.

yay inflation

[Mysteroo]

i agree. but we have money. being in debt doesnt mean we don't have money.

We're 16 trillion dollars in debt, there's no way we're ever going to pay that kind of money off. Sometime I think China and other countries we trade with are eventually going to realize that and stop trading with us. And once that happens we're not going to be in a good position. And if we don't have any money to trade with, we might as well be broke

[ultimamax]

We're 16 trillion dollars in debt, there's no way we're ever going to pay that kind of money off. Sometime I think China and other countries we trade with are eventually going to realize that and stop trading with us. And once that happens we're not going to be in a good position. And if we don't have any money to trade with, we might as well be broke

i get that, but that doesn't mean we take our entire budget and pay them with that. we can still invest in nasa.

[Irishbandit]

There's no technology that will be able to make a human survive traveling at the speed of light. Even saving the spacecraft from hitting dust particles or other random crap floating in space.


We just aren't smart enough to comprehend how these things fully work. It's not happening anytime soon within our current human evolution level. We need to go higher, and until we reach that let's hope the Sun doesn't explode in our faces.

Actually you know, I take the funding part back completely, increase it's funding so we can speed this process up.

We have around 5 billion years people, chop chop let's do some Science before we burn and explode to death.

How are you so certain of this? We have so much to learn about the universe as of yet, how can you be so sure that there is nothing that allows that? You are also disregarding the wealth of planets in our own solar system.

[QuantumEagle]

Yes, I think we should. Why? It'll solve most of the US' problems.

Think about what it was like to live in the 60s-70s during the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions. The USA was crazy innovating, frontiers of science and exploration were being broken every week.

- There were no jobs going overseas. No high tech company was outsourcing work to sweatshops in India or China. Why? Because the nation was innovating so goddamn fast no one else had the capacity to actually figure out what the hell they were doing. Even if they did outsource there was no problem because they'd know there would be something new that the US and only the US could create.

- The education program was booming. You didn't need a special program to tell kids being a scientist or engineer or mathematician was cool. It was printed every day in the newspapers and aired on television that the generation of children and teens who grew up in that era aspired to become scientists and engineers.

- Fields of science. A lot of people point to increasing funding for the NSF because, well, science. However, NASA should be put under consideration as well. NASA, while mainly focused on space, is the frontier of all fields of science and technology. Physics for understanding the core fundamentals of how the universe works, chemists who design a material that can protect a crew from radiation when traveling for several months at a time, engineers solve how to send and set up a base of operations on another planet, biologists to conceptualize what extraterrestrial life might look like and how we'd identify it, geologists to profile planets and look for resources like water, the list goes on and on.

- A cultural benefit. When the photograph "Earthrise Over the Moon" was published, it became the icon for the entire planet and human race. Nonononono, not an icon for a planet with boundaries, war, territories, countries, but for a planet as one. In the next few years as the Apollo project continued, things like the Comprehensive Clean Air Act, Earth Day, the EPA, Doctors Without Borders, Clean Water Act, ban on DDTs, Endangered Species Act, catalytic converters, unleaded gas were introduced, passed and founded. You try to put a price tag on converting our minds to think of Earth as a planet we all share.

And just as a reference from a post I made on my Tumblr


also good videos where a good number of my ideas came from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbIZU8cQWXc - Talks about the origins of the space race and NASA's influence on the future of the United States, as well as questioning those who claim that the USA cannot afford such a funding increase
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFO2usVjfQc - Focuses mainly on the cultural impact of space exploration

[QuantumEagle]

We're 16 trillion dollars in debt, there's no way we're ever going to pay that kind of money off. Sometime I think China and other countries we trade with are eventually going to realize that and stop trading with us. And once that happens we're not going to be in a good position. And if we don't have any money to trade with, we might as well be broke

With the way the USA handles money that's completely irrelevant seeing how apparently the US has a far worse rich/poor gap then what one would expect but is still able to pay nearly a trillion dollars to bail out some banks

Yes meeting new life species is not a smart move.

We can barely get a man to a planet closet to us, let alone to a new solar system for the time being, and probably for ever, we are not capable of doing these things people dream of, increasing funding is a waste of time.

Besides, look at the Voyager 1 and 2 probes, it's been 30+ years and it barely left our solar system, going at speeds that will most likely harm a human being if they are on the spacecraft.

Human deep space exploration is probably around 500-1000 years ahead of us right now (damn). But if we don't increase support then no research is done and still in 500-1000 years we can barely get a man to a planet closest to us let alone to a new solar system for the time being.

[Blockzillahead]

How are you so certain of this? We have so much to learn about the universe as of yet, how can you be so sure that there is nothing that allows that? You are also disregarding the wealth of planets in our own solar system.

Because laws exist for a reason. You can't just break them with a snap of a finger.

[QuantumEagle]

Because laws exist for a reason. You can't just break them with a snap of a finger.

Yes, laws exist. Don't forget that it is only US who create the laws. Well, we don't create the actual mechanics of physics, but we try our best to define it. So far we think that we can't go faster than the speed of light. That might change soon. We might uncover new laws that permit such a feat.

We don't know, what we don't know.

[Blockzillahead]

Yes, laws exist. Don't forget that it is only US who create the laws. Well, we don't create the actual mechanics of physics, but we try our best to define it. So far we think that we can't go faster than the speed of light. That might change soon. We might uncover new laws that permit such a feat.

We don't know, what we don't know.

Soon? Especially not any time soon.

We think we can't go faster than speed of light because a certain law, that we still haven't managed to break, is there to tell us we can't do it, and if we do, it will end up killing the object going at that speed.
If we develop light speed technology in a long time, how long will it take to find a way not to die on those trips? What I'm saying is, it's impossible for us to understand at this moment in time. It's like asking why the universe was created.

[Blockzillahead]

It's like asking why the universe was created.

Also please don't be stupid and start an argument over this.

[Momentum]

40 years ago when we first landed on the moon, everyone thought of it as the beginning of a new era, an era where exploration and innovation would rule, not war and suffering. 40 years later, the united states proceeds to fight more wars and use most of thier money for military funding and not space exploration, people will say that the world is getting better every day, but all ive seen from the point when mankind was putting people on the moon and now, is a giant crock full of stuff.

the united states gives money away every day off to stuffty countries, like isreal because 60 years ago there was a holocaust, money which could have been spent going towards funding space exploration.

we will probably never go to another planet ever again. all of the money that is being spent to strengthen the military of the united states wont ever go to anything else, the world will become less innovative, less eager to explore, and we will slowly go back to the stone age.

[Fredulus]

We're 16 trillion dollars in debt, there's no way we're ever going to pay that kind of money off. Sometime I think China and other countries we trade with are eventually going to realize that and stop trading with us. And once that happens we're not going to be in a good position. And if we don't have any money to trade with, we might as well be broke

you don't understand global economics at all, you little stuff