Space exploration

[SingingAnalyst]

"If, as a result [of deflecting or otherwise rendering harmless a comet, meteor, or asteroid headed for Earth] one city is left undestroyed...

...then wouldn't all the money we have ever spent on space exploration be worth it for that one reason alone?"

-Isaac Asimov (1920-1992)

[TheSaint250]

I would say more.  Sooner or later, we're going to run out of space on the planet, or climate change will ruin it, or whatever.  Increased funding in space travel will allow NASA to locate habitable planets for humans.

[MasterJedi]

More, much more. Can probably get it with large cuts to military spending. Need to do an audit of the Pentagon and that whole complex and find out where the money actually goes, can probably save many, many billions.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Space exploration is cool but impractical. Given how small NASA's budget is though, there can only be positive returns on throwing a little money there (as Jedi suggested, take it from the army).

[Antonio the Sixth]

Considering how many major problems this country has, spending any significant amounts of money on this strikes me as kind of messed up, honestly.

Then again, cities are ruining themselves and defunding schools to build f**king stadiums, so it's by no means the worst offender.

[dead0man]

The govt should focus on the science, let private parties do the exploration (and exploitation) of space.

[Del Tachi]

More, much more. Can probably get it with large cuts to military spending. Need to do an audit of the Pentagon and that whole complex and find out where the money actually goes, can probably save many, many billions.

There's a lot of overlap between NASA and DoD spending.  For example, NASA has been taking a leading role in the development of many of the military's unmanned aerial and missile systems for years now.

Onto the broader topic, NASA's budget should definitely be increased but "space exploration" should not be a priority.  Putting a man on Mars by 2030 or whatever shouldn't be that big of a goal, but using aeronautical systems to study the earth's climate from space or researching new jet propulsion systems, for example, should be.

[Santander]

I would say more.  Sooner or later, we're going to run out of space on the planet, or climate change will ruin it, or whatever.  Increased funding in space travel will allow NASA to locate habitable planets for humans.

If we manage to render an entire planet uninhabitable through our own activity, we don't deserve to find other habitable planets, as wild a dream as that may be. Best to go down with the ship and answer to our creator for what we have done.

[7,052,770]

Much, much more. Building a working space elevator, for example, would pay huge dividends on the upfront money

[The Govanah Jake]

This deserves much more and in the long term could massively help the US economy.

[Kingpoleon]

More, but we can't just throw money at NASA. We need to reform NASA to be accomated to take on a larger budget.

[Santander]

Anyway, the correct answer is, leave it to the free market.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Much, much more. Building a working space elevator, for example, would pay huge dividends on the upfront money

How on earth can you claim this with any confidence?

     Stuff like this is part of the problem with leaving science funding in the hands of politicians. Large sums of cash are wasted tilting at windmills because these people have no concept of what is actually feasible.

[Frodo]

The govt should focus on the science, let private parties do the exploration (and exploitation) of space.

Following the example of the Virginia Company?  

 

[dead0man]

sure, why not?

[7,052,770]

Much, much more. Building a working space elevator, for example, would pay huge dividends on the upfront money

How on earth can you claim this with any confidence?

Because launching with fuel rockets is extremely expensive, and virtually all scientific papers I've seen say this.

Stuff like this is part of the problem with leaving science funding in the hands of politicians. Large sums of cash are wasted tilting at windmills because these people have no concept of what is actually feasible.

Not sure what to make of this. The "science" side says build the elevator, but the politicians will never allow it with federal money because of the scary price tag. The first space elevator ever built will almost certainly be done by China or a private company.

[Virginiá]

Has materials science and other technology even caught up to where we need it to build a space elevator? That has got to be a few decades away, at least.

[hueylong]

As resources become increasingly scarce and we grow more advanced technologically things like asteroid mining will have to be seriously looked at as options.

I have always found it a little strange (but not too much) that politicians, especially presidential candidates, have been so consistently unwilling to go out there and make any kind of proposal for raising NASA's budget. The moon landing was one of the most unifying and extraordinary moments in our history. That feeling of achievement and wonderment can be recaptured with the realization of similar scientific goals. Yet with the exception of some impassioned individuals out there advocating for things like more public awareness and increased funding, who's actually pushing to make any of that happen? I mean, what will be our 'We choose to go to the moon'? Have the more technology-oriented policy aspirations of the not-too-distant past (space exploration, better weaponry and military technology, etc.) been supplanted by e.g. social issues like healthcare and immigration? Do politicians not care about space exploration simply because the American public largely doesn't care? Or is it more that this issue has become so inextricably linked with other, more hot-button topics like climate change and environmental policy, that it's unlikely we make much progress in the area at all?

[politicallefty]

If I had my way, NASA would not exist as the organization as it is today. I would shift about $200 billion a year from the defense budget to NASA. For the most part, I don't think many contractors would notice. Instead of spending mass sums fighting wars here, money would be going towards the establishment of a permanent settlement on Mars by the end of the 2020s. If we have to militarize space to become an interplanetary species, then so be it.

As for unmanned missions, we should be exploring some of the more exotic areas of our own solar system with haste. We should immediately launch a vessel to Europa to explore the possible sub-surface ocean. That's to mention other places we should be actively exploring, such as Titan.

Even with all of what I said, I still think we need to work on strong public-private partnerships that encourage innovation and exploration. I don't think the private space industry is sustainable at this point. I think we need to have strong cooperation between the government and private companies.

[hueylong]

Even with all of what I said, I still think we need to work on strong public-private partnerships that encourage innovation and exploration. I don't think the private space industry is sustainable at this point. I think we need to have strong cooperation between the government and private companies.

Absolutely. To a degree we're already seeing that with SpaceX.

[Storebought]

"I used to be for it before I was against it." That is, I was for manned space exploration before I became educated on just how vast and hostile to life the vacuum of outer space is.

Exploration of the physics of the universe through higher precision telescopes/spectrometers and unmanned drones, however, is entirely worthwhile.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

"If, as a result [of deflecting or otherwise rendering harmless a comet, meteor, or asteroid headed for Earth] one city is left undestroyed...

...then wouldn't all the money we have ever spent on space exploration be worth it for that one reason alone?"

-Isaac Asimov (1920-1992)

Not if that same money could have been used to save several cities worth of people from the ravages of hunger or disease..  There's always the conundrum of opportunity cost.  With current technology, there's not any benefit to be gained from manned space exploration, except political.  I fully expect China will be the next country to send a man to the moon, but the gains will all be political, not scientific.

That said, I wouldn't mind sending some settlers to colonize Mars, but the preliminary exploration, and even a good deal of the Mars base construction should be accomplished by robot.

[Person Man]

Why not have some gimmick to raise another 20-30 billion dollars a year for NASA through a modest tax increase on very high earners? That would get the budget to where it was during Apollo. With that kind of money, it would be possible to safely and quickly all the current goals NASA has from creating a deep space manned vehicle, to creating a deep space space station in 10 years, to landing on Mars in 20 years, sending more drones to the Jupiter and Saturn systems, funding deep space telescopes and Physics and actually finding viable planets, to Earth Science.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Considering how many major problems this country has, spending any significant amounts of money on this strikes me as kind of messed up, honestly.

Then again, cities are ruining themselves and defunding schools to build f**king stadiums, so it's by no means the worst offender.

Oh, there are plenty of other things that need addressing, but that's not a reason to not spend more here.

[hueylong]

Let's face it, fiscal responsibility is a dead concept. That should be very apparent by now. The Pentagon has never been audited, and there is hard evidence of massive waste and irresponsibility, but that doesn't stop scores of Republicans from saying we need to increase the military budget by billions (and probably cut social programs, too).