NASA and Space Exloration

[supraman]

As a better mod, I know exactly how to do that, and I should reduce your rep -1000 for not knowing how.

I will ban you.

 

[Tater]

Sweet!!! A mod fight breaking out in a NASA thread.

 

[jakobeast]

PUNCH HIS MOUTH WITH YOUR DICK!!!

 

[R K]

Some don't realize that there are already Shuttles on display. Take this one for example that I just drove by on Monday of this week in Huntsville, AL. There is a NASA museum there.

Redstone Arsinal. Also houses Space Camp. Thats been there for ever.

 

[R K]

I will ban you.

Im not a mod and will delete you both.

 

[TSD]

Kind of like the U.N.? You see how well that has worked out...

Politicians should only be in charge of allocating a budget and that is where interference should end. If every nation in the UN set aside a space budget to a single international space program, we could pay less into that than we do to NASA, and have a single world space organization that has a budget that dwarfs any individual countries space program.



It should be run by an international committee of Scientists and Engineers NOT politicians. If you do that it wouldn't be nearly as inept as the UN.



Although, I know it would be horrible to marvel at the feats of a space program that show the advancement of the humanity as whole, instead of being able to chant USA USA.

 

[MassHavoc]

Im not a mod and will delete you both.

Not before I get my god damn hat! And I'm not even sure what we upped the bet to for the playoff standing thing, but I still say I called it closer than you did.

 

[ginnie]

No we are going back to sending Penis's into space....eventually. You know as much I want NASA to do big things and push boundaries. If they are going to keep up what they are currently doing as a tax payer I say axe them. The private sector will get us farther, faster at this rate. We've been sending probes since the 60s I think. Forget with Voyager when it was launched. Shuttles since the early 80s and robots since the 90s. What was cool for the naughts, what about this decade...we are back to sending upgraded Saturn Vs into space....so we've regressed 50 years it seems. Where is the shuttle that was going to take off from a landstrip and land back at it like we were promised. Where are we in getting to mars? I was told it would happen by 2020, clocks ticking.

Upgraded Saturn V's? Never heard of that one... details?



The shuttle is a dead end anyway if you want to send someone into deep space, unless we can come up with a really powerful propulsion system.

 

[supraman]

Upgraded Saturn V's? Never heard of that one... details?



The shuttle is a dead end anyway if you want to send someone into deep space, unless we can come up with a really powerful propulsion system.

I coined that term. I hate the new rocket we plan to use. Just seems like a step backwards to me.

 

[supraman]

PUNCH HIS MOUTH WITH YOUR DICK!!!

I did, he liked it.

 

[BigPete]

The realist in me understands that the scientific advances from the Shuttle program have been huge and important but here's the rub, they aren't sexy.

Care to qualify that statement? I recently heard there were some opinion articles that directly challenges that claim. The space station experiments and most of the shuttle work has netted little if any real advances in science, medicine, and technology. I would absolutely agree if someone says that NASA has helped advance 'earth' aviation greatly as well as helped learn how to launch a bevy of communications, GPS, and intelligence gathering satellites. But that's it. Everything else has been a huge waste of money and energy in my opinion.

I actually know people at NASA (one is an in-law) but I have never had this conversation with them. I would be interested to hear the commonplace NASA scientist defend the enormous amount of public money they have used over the past 60 years. I imagine they would take offense to the accusation of wasting that money, but I would hope they would be objective enough to realize that most of it was in fact a huge waste.

In my opinion they should be using that budget on something like alternate power/renewable engery research. We are relying way too much of fossil fuels, no matter where we get them from.

 

[winos5]

NASA Science in our eveyday lives.





Pete I'm pretty sure they'd point you here.



Edit: Thats a boat load of life altering technological advances.

 

[ginnie]

NASA Science in our eveyday lives.





Pete I'm pretty sure they'd point you here.



Edit: Thats a boat load of life altering technological advances.

Good link. I was just going to post one myself.



Its interesting that putting more money into "alternate power/renewable engery research" was mentioned...

Solar power technology was a side benefit of the space program - solar panels was used on the earliest American satellites while the Russians used batteries.

 

[MassHavoc]

I think the actual MATH (physics, equations, all that stuff) itself that has had to be devised, created, worked out. That right there has to be of great value don't you think? Creating proofs, theory's, equations and shit for stuff that is completely unknown, I mean it's got to be invaluable right?

 

[BigPete]

Good link. I was just going to post one myself.



Its interesting that putting more money into "alternate power/renewable engery research" was mentioned...

Solar power technology was a side benefit of the space program - solar panels was used on the earliest American satellites while the Russians used batteries.

That's exactly why I brought it up. There is no denying some good things have become popular by use in the space program, but velcro for instance is not a product OF the space program, it was simply POPULARIZED by use in the space program. That is the destinction here. NASA and the space program have 'invented' very little, they just put several fledgling technologies to work.

Putting people into space aboard shuttles or for prolonged periods of time to conduct experiments has netted little if any technological advancements. So in that sense it has been a waste, or at best a catalyst for the rise in popularity of some technologies.

 

[BigPete]

I think the actual MATH (physics, equations, all that stuff) itself that has had to be devised, created, worked out. That right there has to be of great value don't you think? Creating proofs, theory's, equations and shit for stuff that is completely unknown, I mean it's got to be invaluable right?

I guess you would have to ask an aeronautical engineer if they could do their job without a calculator or computer. I would bet they could. I would also bet that humans were using math to work out complex equations about trajectory and gravity's effects long before the first space capsule or space shuttle launched. Ask the Chinese (fireworks), the greeks and romans (early catapults), ask artillery men from any era.



Admittedly it made it okay for people to believe that something existed outside of our atmosphere...you know, that there is no physical heaven just passed the clouds, etc.

 

[ginnie]

I think the actual MATH (physics, equations, all that stuff) itself that has had to be devised, created, worked out. That right there has to be of great value don't you think? Creating proofs, theory's, equations and shit for stuff that is completely unknown, I mean it's got to be invaluable right?

I think the main argument here is whether or not there should be more manned flights or unmanned ones (satellites). I don't know if that would be a philosophical question or a practical one.

There surely can be no argument that space technological advances sped up commercial ones, both in the invention of devices, knowledge of space, radiation etc. and the uses of such technology in everyday life. Perhaps an easy example is GPS positioning and satellite broadcasting.

 

[BigPete]

NASA Science in our eveyday lives.





Pete I'm pretty sure they'd point you here.



Edit: Thats a boat load of life altering technological advances.

I counter with this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off

Source at the bottom is in fact a NASA government site, just in case you wondering.

http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/

 

[winos5]

I counter with this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off

Source at the bottom is in fact a NASA government site, just in case you wondering.

Glad you agree with me.

 

[MassHavoc]

I counter with this:

http://en.wikipedia....i/NASA_spin-off

Source at the bottom is in fact a NASA government site, just in case you wondering.

http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/

I'm confused? How is that a counter? Looks like more support for the everyday technology that has come from NASA?