No Economic Problems With Nasa

zenno

NASA will today launch its $2.5 billion nuclear-powered Mars Science Laboratory, nicknamed Curiosity.

source: http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/1126/nasa.html

It is the most ambitious and complex robotic rover built to explore the Red Planet.

The goal of the mission is to find elements that could prove whether life ever existed on Mars.

I find this mad as they are spending billions looking for whether life ever existed on Mars but life does exist here on planet earth, that money could go to helping an awful lot of people. how many times do they have to send a rover to take samples of mars when it's their country that is on the brink of economic collapse ?.

what is you're opinion on this, and do you agree with the spending of 2.5 billion to see did life ever exist on mars or do you think that money should be used to help their own people ? it's a lot of money.

My name is URL

The implications of such missions and the knowledge they bring could have a much greater impact on all our lives than if the money was spent on individuals, so I think it's worth it.

Hell, even in designing the thing; improvements are made to other technologies which will ultimately be of direct benefit to us.

Doc Ruby

Give us a good thread on the trillions spent on the military and we'll get round to NASA when the smoke has cleared.

Dotrel

Let's halt all scientific and technological progress so we can 'help people'. That $2.5b represents less than .1% of the US Federal budget for the fiscal year. What exactly would you plan to do with it?

Amirani

2.5 billion is nothing to the Federal Government.

zenno

niallsparky wrote: »

2.5 billion is nothing to the Federal Government.

I know this but spending all that cash just to see if life ever existed on mars is a waste of money imo especially now at this time. who cares if life EVER existed on mars big deal, but if the money was spent going there to bring back essential minerals then ok but this life on this planet is more essential than looking for ghosts of the past on mars.

Latchy

It's a worthy progression of humankinds efforts to reach out there because one day ,sooner or later ,by accident or design ...this planet won't be able to sustain the man made / natural problems so what Nasa are paying out for this project now is really peanuts compared to the longer vision of what future generations ' might gain '' in terms of human survival ...possibly on another planet .

SoWatchaWant

A B2 bomber costs 1 billion per unit and they are designed to annihilate civilizations. I think spending money on space exploration is a step in the right direction for the USA.

zenno

well it's the taxpayers that are paying for all this so it doesn't bother me but i just feel that that money could be used to help some people even in healthcare than this, well until all the countries get back to economic normality if that ever happens. there's always time for exploration and why do they rush so much as if the world will end in 30 years. man humans have enough time to learn and explore other planets but they should sort this planets mess out first before that sh1t.

Chuck Stone

I'm torn between wanting to know stuff and wanting money not to be wasted on prestige projects.

Is it jobs for the NASA lads at the expense of Tiny Tim?

The way things is going I dunno?

NASA is branch of the military anyway, so their innovations are given to the US military first.

Any civilian scientific advances are just the icing on the cake!

Hector Mildew

zenno wrote: »

NASA will today launch its $2.5 billion nuclear-powered Mars Science Laboratory,

what is you're opinion on this, and do you agree with the spending of 2.5 billion to see did life ever exist on mars or do you think that money should be used to help their own people ? it's a lot of money.

The products of NASA research has improved the lives of millions, if not billions, of people. Check here for some examples: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off

General General

I opened this thread looking for good news about the town of Naas.

I am very disappointed.

Latchy

Naas ?

/ Looks at map ...

Does that place still exist ?

Latchy

Latchy wrote: »

Naas ?

/ Looks at map ...

Does that place still exist ?

Perhaps that's one of NASA's next projects, to Find it!

zenno

well i'm just saying that the american taxpayer has to pay for these missions and they are the ones in dire straits taxed to pay for this. there you have a supposed civilian space program "Nasa" which is obviously run by the military and spending billions upon billions every year to see if microbes once inhabited mars or europa. I seem to be the only person here so far that thinks that these billions of taxpayers dollars should be used now to help their citizens as well as healthcare and deal with the space program once they are financially settled.

don't get me wrong i am all for space exploration but not when it takes and drains peoples income to survive.

someone was talking about war/arms, well the amount of money that is made from these is in the trillions and where does all that money go ?. black budget military programs that we know little or nothing about but this topic is about Nasa not the military arms deals.

Firefox11

zenno wrote: »

well i'm just saying that the american taxpayer has to pay for these missions and they are the ones in dire straits taxed to pay for this. there you have a supposed civilian space program "Nasa" which is obviously run by the military and spending billions upon billions every year to see if microbes once inhabited mars or europa. I seem to be the only person here so far that thinks that these billions of taxpayers dollars should be used now to help their citizens as well as healthcare and deal with the space program once they are financially settled.

don't get me wrong i am all for space exploration but not when it takes and drains peoples income to survive.

someone was talking about war/arms, well the amount of money that is made from these is in the trillions and where does all that money go ?. black budget military programs that we know little or nothing about but this topic is about Nasa not the military arms deals.

This is an age old augment. Actually here in Europe we are embarking on one of the largest scientific endeavours to further our knowledge (no different than NASA) ever at a mere 7.5 billion euros for the LHC. Do you think this should be cut? In fact lets stop funding university's and education while were at it!! It might sound like a lot of money, but in the great scheme of things it isn't.

ArmaniJeanss

zenno wrote: »

I seem to be the only person here so far that thinks that these billions of taxpayers dollars should be used now to help their citizens as well as healthcare and deal with the space program once they are financially settled.

Admirable as your point of view is, the ultimate result of following it would be that no space exploration would ever have been done as there would always have been a more worthy cause on Planet Earth. A famine, a new fatal disease without a cure, a natural disaster on a huge scale etc. There will always be a better option than an enterprise (:)) costing 10s/100s of billions of dollars.

So in many ways it was better that a budget was agreed in advance, the money was ringfenced and a 5/10/20 year plan which encompassed the lifetimes of parliaments and presidencies could be enacted.

stoneill

$2.5 Billion.
That's about as much as Americans spend on popcorn each year.

Duggy747

zenno wrote: »

I know this but spending all that cash just to see if life ever existed on mars is a waste of money imo

It's not so much looking for life but actually setting out the goal of building and refining the technology to be able to operate such a mammoth task. Alot will be learned from this.

We would be decades behind in technology and our understanding of our place in the universe had all space exploration being cancelled if the money was to be budgeted on something else.

The budget for this project is pittance compared to the Federal Government, the military, and the spending power of Americans on non-essential items................like their digital TV stations which gets beamed down from a satelite in space :pac:

DeVore

You know how we could find the money to "help people"?

If we stopped spending billions on arsenals to kill them... that should do it. Plus... we've started "helping" them already, I mean... they're not dead now!

DeV.

zenno

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

Admirable as your point of view is, the ultimate result of following it would be that no space exploration would ever have been done as there would always have been a more worthy cause on Planet Earth. A famine, a new fatal disease without a cure, a natural disaster on a huge scale etc. There will always be a better option than an enterprise (:)) costing 10s/100s of billions of dollars.

So in many ways it was better that a budget was agreed in advance, the money was ringfenced and a 5/10/20 year plan which encompassed the lifetimes of parliaments and presidencies could be enacted.

very good point you have made. but it's probably just the way i am and looking around the planet the way it is now, this money could be used to benefit people like the homeless in even 1 state in america.

just as a mate on skype just said to me there, you are a dreamer, the welfare of human beings on this planet comes second to the agenda. :rolleyes:

Adyx

Most of the people on Earth don't deserve any help, so they might as well send the money to the Martians.

zenno

Adyx wrote: »

Most of the people on Earth don't deserve any help, so they might as well send the money to the Martians.

why would you say that most of the people on earth don't deserve any help ?

have you intermingled socially with any of these people you said don't deserve any help ? of course not, so you're assumption on individuals that you don't know is wrong in the extreme.


I'll put this in a nutshell.....I would be the most motivated space buff on this planet as i love all that space stuff and always did. but when you see the state of this planet and the way other human beings are treated and not been able to get the basic things like food and clean water and people living on the streets of the city without the basics like a home then my mind has to ask why they spend so much money on space exploration and war in the selling of arms when their own species are suffering badly in their own country and the rest of the world.

If they (Heads of governments) could get the planet on a stable foundation then i would be all for spending as much as they have to explore all the planets and further. ok i see though that i'm living in a make believe world because it will never happen according to all people. but it could.

Ellis Dee

General General wrote: »

I opened this thread looking for good news about the town of Naas.

I am very disappointed.

I recently read a comment somewhere that Naas is an acronym for "not all Africans suck".:)

Hope this is some consolation to you.

Good luck to NASA, by the way. If we had all thought like those who carp about this kind of exploration/research, we'd never have made it out of caves. :rolleyes:

unfortunately

$2.5 billion? Avatar grossed more than that - have a go at everyone who went to see that cultural masterpiece.

Mikros

$2.5 billion may seem like a lot on it's own, but take a look at two items the US federal government spends already on helping people:-

Social security - $700 billion
Medicare and Medicaid - $793 billion

So your $2.5 billion will increase those budgets by around 0.3%. It will of course be spent and might make a little help somewhere, but the problems will still remain after the money is gone come next year.

The planned research on Mars (on any other research for that matter, whether it's NASA doing it or not) is an investment in the future. The potential gains to humanity are massive, even if nothing tangible might come out of it for decades. But research is incremental so we still need to do the little steps along the way.

I understand your point, it is a question of balancing the needs of the here and now with investing in the future. As you can see from the figures above, and considering the amount wasted on guns and bombs, we don't spend half enough on the future as it is.

2 stroke

They're not actually sending $2.5 billion into space. They are spending $2.5 billion in earths economy, this money will trickle from pocket to pocket, until the government gets it back again in tax, then they pour it back into the economy again.

Alibaba

We had right to put up the $2.5b , yeah Ireland.......

And we could lump Bertie Ahern, Brian Cowen and THE WHOLE BLOOMIN LOT into it and send them off to Mars and forget about them.

Now that , would be money WELL SPENT !

Batsy

It's great that such a mission is going ahead. Scientific research is very important to help us understand the Universe. And, of course, if we want to one day send Man to Mars and maybe even build colonies there then missions such as Curiosity are necessary.

criticalcritic

Good news especially after comments made by that Fine Gael rascist during week

Oafley Jones

Deleted User wrote: »

NASA is branch of the military anyway, so their innovations are given to the US military first.

Any civilian scientific advances are just the icing on the cake!

While having access to military personel and assets NASA is not a branch of the military.

Saila

NASA's a country now

Corkfeen

zenno wrote: »

very good point you have made. but it's probably just the way i am and looking around the planet the way it is now, this money could be used to benefit people like the homeless in even 1 state in america.

just as a mate on skype just said to me there, you are a dreamer, the welfare of human beings on this planet comes second to the agenda. :rolleyes:

But instead of benefiting one state, pieces of their creations will most likely end up being used across the world in places such as hospitals and our homes. So by investing now, it has the potential to be far more important in the long run unlike short term plans of throwing the 2.5 billion into a project to help people. Two and a half billion isn't alot in terms of large scale governments.

Icyseanfitz

zenno wrote: »

I know this but spending all that cash just to see if life ever existed on mars is a waste of money imo especially now at this time. who cares if life EVER existed on mars big deal, but if the money was spent going there to bring back essential minerals then ok but this life on this planet is more essential than looking for ghosts of the past on mars.

ffs how can someone say that? finding evidence of actual life anywhere other than earth would be massive, probably the greatest discovery we as a species could make, you know what happens when humans stop exploring and advancing? the dark ages thats what, and apparently those where not very nice

Randomer.

Complaining about a measly 2 billion dollar scientific project that advances human knowledge makes you look extremely ignorant.

DO YOU EVEN HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH THESE PROJECTS COST.

Irish Guitarist

NASA stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The sole reason for their existence is to explore space and other planets. You hardly expect them to suddenly decide to become a charity do you? You might as well complain that the GAA spend all their money on sport.

44leto

2.5 Billion "for all mankind"

I am usually enthusiastic about all things space, I would like more of these missions to explore the rest of the solar system. I would like it to be a human aspiration to walk and perhaps live on these and other worlds.

oppenheimer1

Better spent on science then on a bank is it not?

zenno

I understand and can relate to all the comments regarding this measly few billion, fair enough, point taken.

bnt

2 stroke wrote: »

They're not actually sending $2.5 billion into space. They are spending $2.5 billion in earths economy, this money will trickly from pocket to pocket, until the government gets it back again in tax, then they pour it back into the economy again.

I was going to say something like that: a lot - I'd say almost all - of it was spent here on Earth on employing people. Not just NASA employees, but on contractors and suppliers, on researchers, and so on. It delivers tangible and intangible benefits as it does so.

I should also mention that NASA does not get a blank cheque from the US Federal Govt: they have to fight to get their funding through Congress and justify all their expenses in the process. The most recent appropriations bill was the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2010, which authorised about $59B over 2011-2013. Based on the cost estimates linked on that page, they're going to spend about $9B less than that ($50 billion). Compared to everything else going on with the US Federal Budget, it's a freakin' steal.

Capt'n Midnight

zenno wrote: »

NASA will today launch its $2.5 billion nuclear-powered Mars Science Laboratory, nicknamed Curiosity. is on the brink of economic collapse ?.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCp5h1gK2Q

skip to 2:00 if you want to see $2.24Bn of military spending.

pilots ejected and the fault was moisture in the electronics
costed at 1/20th of the program , if you want to get pedantic the hull loss was $1.8Bn

Also you have to remember they didn't build Curiousity yesterday they started back in 2006 so a lot of the money was spent during the boom.

Also mars launch windows only occur every 26 months, so if you tried to save some money you'd have to keep lots of people on the payroll until 2015. (on an aside lots of people lost their jobs when the shuttle program ended , and 30+ years experience in repairing shuttle tiles isn't a skill in big demand at the moment)

Re: the launch window , the Russians have a probe in limbo at the moment, but they were cutting all the corners http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fobos-Grunt

The cost of the spacecraft is 1.5 billion rubles ($64.4 million).Project funding for the timeframe 2009–2012, including post-launch operations is about 2.4 billion rubles. Total cost of the mission is 5 billion rubles ($163 million). In comparison, the more ambitious NASA/ESA joint Mars sample return mission is expected to cost around $8.5 billion.

Imagine what could be achieved if we gave the Russians a western budget and removed the political interference

Ellis Dee

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

---

Imagine what could be achieved if we gave the Russians a western budget and removed the political interference

Good point. However, I think it might make even more sense to give that kind of budget to ISRO (the Indian Space Research Organisation), which seems to be getting a lot done on not much more than NASA probably spends to subsidise its staff canteens.

http://www.isro.org/pslv-c17/PSLV-C17.aspx#

Logical Fallacy

Chuck Stone wrote: »

The way things is going I dunno?

Well i ain't never crossed a man who didn't deserve it,
me be treated like a punk? You know that's unheard of.

Lone Stone

Lets just hope this one lands safely on mar's

I saw it on euro news last night looks and sounds very impressive ( and no it cant talk )

RichieC

any money the yanks spend not blowing people up is money well spent.