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Post by khyron1144 on Feb 17, 2004 14:08:11 GMT -5
Do you know how much not doing it would cost?
I think the continued life and vitality of the human species depends on always pushing back the boundaries and finding out what's just over that rise. The problem is on Earth we already know what's over that rise.
If I weren't too lazy to do research, I'd point out how some of the technology developed for the space race of the 60s affects your everyday life. A similar situation will arise here too. If getting to the Moon in the first place enriched our everyday lives, then imagine what trying to set up camp there might end up doing.
I think that if the human race isn't going to self-destruct from infighting, we have to get off this crowded little orb and go out there. This is the first little baby step towards it.
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Post by Merkuri on Feb 17, 2004 14:19:36 GMT -5
Oh, believe me, I think going to Mars is a great thing to do. I think the space program has been worth every penny we've put into it (or just about every penny) and that we should push as far into space as we can.
Just not now! We need to figure out how to pay for these things before we go jumping blindly into them. And we need to think about the consequences, too. The international space station has turned into just a permanent space shuttle of sorts, a Money Pit for all the governments involved. One of the main points for building the thing in the first place is that it would be a great leaping-off point to the moon or farther, but it was placed in the wrong orbit for lift-offs so we could accomidate Russia and it was deemed too dangerous anyway to keep that much fuel on board to launch anything from it. Issues like that we need to think about, first, before we start building a moon base. Will it be worth it? Will it be useful? Do we really need it?
And do you really think it was a coincidence that Bush announced it in an election year? We need to do something about our record deficit before we think about sending people to Mars.
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Post by khyron1144 on Feb 17, 2004 14:44:27 GMT -5
I think the future of the species is worth a few trillion dollars. If humanity doesn't take some steps towards geting off the planet soon, we're doomed. Whether it's tomorrow or a hundred years form now or a thousand years from now staying Earthbound will be our death sentence.
I don't like Bush and I'll be voting against him in the presidential election (I don't care who I vote for, but I'm voting against Bush), but even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
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Post by Merkuri on Feb 17, 2004 15:03:42 GMT -5
I think the future of the species is worth a few trillion dollars. Yes, but where are you taking this few trillion from? What are you going to sacrifice? Our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan? The state of our highways and roads? Our public schools? Public healthcare? Law enforcement? We need to cross the bridge we're standing on before we can cross the one ten miles down the road. Let's think about this one first, shall we?
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Post by Hussar on Feb 19, 2004 1:20:19 GMT -5
The thing is Merkuri, those obstacles will ALWAYS be there. There will always be this or that problem that needs to be solved, so we shouldn't spend the money. It doesn't really matter. The money can be found. There are a thousand different sources for funding of this program. Many of these sources can be tapped without having a major impact on the source itself.
Besides, spending himself in to the ground hasn't exactly been a problem for old Bush has it? Hmm, take the first balanced budget and then budget surplus in decades and drive it into the largest deficit all within three years. What's a few trillion more?
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Post by Merkuri on Feb 19, 2004 11:30:02 GMT -5
Besides, spending himself in to the ground hasn't exactly been a problem for old Bush has it? Hmm, take the first balanced budget and then budget surplus in decades and drive it into the largest deficit all within three years. What's a few trillion more? That's my point. We need to make sure this record deficit isn't going to effect the economy (if we can determine something like that before it actually happens), and if it will we need to take care of that before we gear up to send folks into space. God, I'd love for this to happen. I want to see people on the moon again and Mars eventually, but that really won't do us any good if our economy is shot to hell. Who cares if we're sending folks to Mars when nobody can find a job and it costs four dollars for a stick of gum? I think Bush is just trying to get votes and is pretending the deficit doesn't exist.
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Post by Galadon on Feb 19, 2004 13:33:58 GMT -5
There never was a balanced budget, but people don't want to here that. And I'll save it for another timeSo lets look at the alternative. don't go to space. In some countries people breed like rabbits, with no control, can you say overpopulation. Naturally we are going to have to feed and house everyone. Provide free health care, Hmm now how do doctors get paid in a free health care system.Free education, clothes, food, and other things. Can you say welfare. While the whole time they complain about the FREE service they get. Hey we can include the Homeless in this to. Now lets blame the politicans that we don't have any jobs. politicans do not create jobs. Lets not punish corporation for sending jobs to other countries, manly for one reason [glow=red,2,300]GREED[/glow]. I would tax the pants off of any american company who went over to another country. Now if we go out in to space, gasp, will it cost something, of course. If we put a base on the moon will only astronaunts, and professors live there. How many now how to work a space mop, it beneath them. Will a base on the moon create more jobs. [glow=red,2,300]Yes but only if demorats do it[/glow] There I said it for you. We sit here in a overpopulated world, in the near future, filled with to many lazy people who thinks the world owes them a living. Or we go out in to space, the likely hood of creating more jobs for the average person is the thing that scares people. WORK That's a four letter word. runs from the room screaming. Do I sound alittle harsh, well I failed PC school. Well what about training? Well People will have to learn new things.
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Post by Merkuri on Feb 19, 2004 14:06:27 GMT -5
There never was a balanced budget, but people don't want to here that. And I'll save it for another time No, and I actually was going to correct Hussar on that point. It was predicted that we would have a balanced budget at the end of Clinton's run, but it didn't pan out that way. We did have a record low deficit, though, and it might have well been balanced, compared to the record high deficit we have now. As I said before, I am all for going into space, but it is going do take decades, or more likely centuries, to send "ordinary" folks into space to colonize. And even then it will still probably cost millions or more to ship people off to Mars. And then to keep them living there will cost even more money. There is no air on mars, no liquid water (to our knowledge) and not much of a protective atmosphere. Colonists would need to live in man-made bubbles and they would need to be sent supplies every once and a while since Mars has no economy or biology to provide materials and food. You seem to think that we should ship all the homeless off to Mars where they can work and stop overpopulating the country/world because keeping them on welfare is too expensive. Which sounds more expensive to you, to provide free food, clothing, and shelter to people on earth, or provide free food, clothing, and shelter to people on Mars? I'm not going to address the rest of your rant (I call it a "rant" because it sounds like, if you were speaking, you said it all in one breath without taking time to explain any one point but instead sprinted through each argument and into the next) because it's going off the topic of space travel.
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Post by Galadon on Feb 19, 2004 14:25:58 GMT -5
Rant Yes, but just from what I heard from Demorats.
The moon is the first step, and for putting average people in space. There are a few rich people who went in space, mainly because they can afford it. They were just passengers.
What would a base be like on the moon. The best thing to look at on earth is a shopping mall. Tramps in space, no keep them on earth. Majority of tramps are drunks and drug addicts. And yes I say this from personnel experince, not being a drunk or drug addict. but from traveling where ever the mood strikes me.
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Post by Merkuri on Feb 19, 2004 14:50:25 GMT -5
It is very expensive to put people into space, whether it is to the moon or Mars, and if they're rich or not. You have the same problems of shipping food and supplies up to the moon as you did on Mars, it would cost less, but it would still be very expensive. Plus, the moon has even less atmosphere and less gravity than Mars. A base would need to employ even more expensive and difficult-to-build radiation shielding, and probably more exercise equipment to stop bone and muscle loss. And, assuming whoever built the base employs unskilled labor, like janitors (which they probably will not, since it would be too expensive and dangerous), those people will still not be able to spend any money they earn. Even with a base there, the moon is separate from the US (and even the Earth's) economy. They can't go to the store and buy more clothing or video games, they can't even order them online (I doubt UPS will offer planet-to-moon shipping any time soon), so any money they earn will stagnate on the moon. It won't circulate in the US's economy, nor will it enable the janitor to improve his station by buying a new house or car or even a new suit.
A base on the moon won't create jobs the way you are thinking. It may employ more engineers and astronauts, but not very many blue-collar workers. It won't help the economy nearly as much as you seem to think it will. In all likelyhood, a base on the moon will end up just like the International Space Station did: a piece of very very expensive equipment floating in space, slowly falling apart, with a crew too small to maintain it because it's too expensive to keep a full crew there. It's going to be centuries (maybe longer) before we can have an economy on the moon or Mars that interacts with the US or Earth economy. In the meantime, we still have a record deficit, and if this completely destroys the economy (as some people predict will happen if we keep it up) then we will never complete our Mars base project because there really will be no money.
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Post by Hussar on Feb 20, 2004 8:00:03 GMT -5
Heh, thank you for correcting my idle and worthless self.
The other point is, we would never, at least not for a very long time, be able to ship people out fast enough to make the remotest dent in overpopulation problems. Even if we could build a Mars Colony, it would have to be so regulated, almost down to the last calorie, because it would have to be completely sealed. Really, at least in the forseeable future, there is no difference between a Mars Colony and a space station. Even if we could make it self sufficient, we could not increase its size fast enough to matter down here.
Oh, and one other point, Canada does quite well with free health care and welfare thank you very much. Just because you think that people should profit from other people's misery, doesn't make you right.
That all being said, I support an expanded space mission whole heartedly. If nothing else, you should never underestimate the morale value of such an undertaking. It can be a unifying thing, just as the Moon race was, that could allow us to acheive great things.
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