To the Moon

What do you think about the world?
User avatar
Winnow
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 27525
Joined: July 5, 2002, 1:56 pm
Location: A Special Place in Hell

To the Moon

Post by Winnow »

One of the best speeches by a president ever:


We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win
This is what our country needs again.
User avatar
Drolgin Steingrinder
Way too much time!
Way too much time!
Posts: 3510
Joined: July 3, 2002, 5:28 pm
Gender: Male
PSN ID: Drolgin
Location: Århus, Denmark

Re: To the Moon

Post by Drolgin Steingrinder »

never going to happen. There's no way your ridiculously polarized political system will ever be in a situation where something like that could be done through public funds. It's sad.
IT'S HARD TO PUT YOUR FINGER ON IT; SOMETHING IS WRONG
I'M LIKE THE UNCLE WHO HUGGED YOU A LITTLE TOO LONG
User avatar
Aslanna
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 12372
Joined: July 3, 2002, 12:57 pm

Re: To the Moon

Post by Aslanna »

Why? Other than because it's there. But hey I'd be more than happy spending money on that if it came from the defense budget. If you can get Republicans on board for that consider me in.
Have You Hugged An Iksar Today?

--
Fairweather Pure
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 8509
Joined: July 3, 2002, 1:06 pm
XBL Gamertag: SillyEskimo

Re: To the Moon

Post by Fairweather Pure »

Send more robots. Man has no reason to set foot on the moon or mars until we have another several decades worth of hard data. Also, once we have true AI, we open up a universe of options and ideas.
User avatar
masteen
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 8197
Joined: July 3, 2002, 12:40 pm
Gender: Mangina
Location: Florida
Contact:

Re: To the Moon

Post by masteen »

The only way we're ever going to figure out how to live on the moon is to start living on the moon.

We're an expansionary species. Without new places to send our excess biomass, war and poverty are our natural conditions.
"There is at least as much need to curb the cruel greed and arrogance of part of the world of capital, to curb the cruel greed and violence of part of the world of labor, as to check a cruel and unhealthy militarism in international relationships." -Theodore Roosevelt
User avatar
Aslanna
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 12372
Joined: July 3, 2002, 12:57 pm

Re: To the Moon

Post by Aslanna »

Why do we need to live on the moon?

Besides you can figure out how to live there without actually going there.
Have You Hugged An Iksar Today?

--
User avatar
masteen
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 8197
Joined: July 3, 2002, 12:40 pm
Gender: Mangina
Location: Florida
Contact:

Re: To the Moon

Post by masteen »

Aslanna wrote:Why do we need to live on the moon?

Besides you can figure out how to live there without actually going there.
Because it's the closest place that's not Earf.

Academic exercise can never replace reality.
"There is at least as much need to curb the cruel greed and arrogance of part of the world of capital, to curb the cruel greed and violence of part of the world of labor, as to check a cruel and unhealthy militarism in international relationships." -Theodore Roosevelt
User avatar
Aslanna
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 12372
Joined: July 3, 2002, 12:57 pm

Re: To the Moon

Post by Aslanna »

To clarify... I'm not against space exploration in the slightest bit. But the money has to come from somewhere and in case people haven't noticed our country isn't exactly overflowing with cash at the moment. As I said.. .If you can get Republicans to agree to give up 5%-10% of defense spending and give it to NASA I'd have no complaints at all.
Have You Hugged An Iksar Today?

--
User avatar
Siji
Way too much time!
Way too much time!
Posts: 4040
Joined: November 11, 2002, 5:58 pm
Gender: Male
XBL Gamertag: mAcK 624
PSN ID: mAcK_624
Wii Friend Code: 7304853446448491
Location: Tampa Bay, FL
Contact:

Re: To the Moon

Post by Siji »

Greed is too rampant and inspiration too far gone for this country to do anything amazing like that without some kind of financial benefit to someone in power.

Find oil there and we'll be there in 6 months. Less if someone else is working on it too.
User avatar
Noysyrump
Way too much time!
Way too much time!
Posts: 1201
Joined: January 19, 2004, 2:42 am
Location: San Diego, CA

Re: To the Moon

Post by Noysyrump »

I like how you all just missed the OP entirely...

This was about great SPEACHES! The greatest generation is not the greatest simply because they beat sei germans, but they had a midset that is completely foriegn to todays generations. It will take another great depresion followed by another global war to bring it out again. Kids today expect everything handed to them, and people have lost forsight. It's all about the NOW.

As far as the moon, BY ALL MEANS GET US OFF THIS ROCK. Dont you people feel trapped and confined here? I know I do.
Sick Balls!
User avatar
Drolgin Steingrinder
Way too much time!
Way too much time!
Posts: 3510
Joined: July 3, 2002, 5:28 pm
Gender: Male
PSN ID: Drolgin
Location: Århus, Denmark

Re: To the Moon

Post by Drolgin Steingrinder »

Noysyrump wrote:I like how you all just missed the OP entirely...

This was about great SPEACHES! The greatest generation is not the greatest simply because they beat sei germans, but they had a midset that is completely foriegn to todays generations. It will take another great depresion followed by another global war to bring it out again. Kids today expect everything handed to them, and people have lost forsight. It's all about the NOW.

As far as the moon, BY ALL MEANS GET US OFF THIS ROCK. Dont you people feel trapped and confined here? I know I do.
what
IT'S HARD TO PUT YOUR FINGER ON IT; SOMETHING IS WRONG
I'M LIKE THE UNCLE WHO HUGGED YOU A LITTLE TOO LONG
User avatar
Sylvus
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 7033
Joined: July 10, 2002, 11:10 am
Gender: Male
XBL Gamertag: mp72
Location: A², MI
Contact:

Re: To the Moon

Post by Sylvus »

Speaches, Drolgin. It's about Speaches.
"It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant." - Barack Obama

Go Blue!
User avatar
miir
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 11501
Joined: July 3, 2002, 3:06 pm
XBL Gamertag: miir1
Location: Toronto
Contact:

Re: To the Moon

Post by miir »

mmmmm, speaches.


Edit: spealling mistake
Last edited by miir on June 6, 2011, 2:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I've got 99 problems and I'm not dealing with any of them - Lay-Z
User avatar
Aardor
Way too much time!
Way too much time!
Posts: 1443
Joined: July 23, 2002, 12:32 am
Gender: Male
XBL Gamertag: Phoenix612
Location: Allentown, PA

Re: To the Moon

Post by Aardor »

Miir ruined my speaches come from a can joke =(.
User avatar
Boogahz
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 9438
Joined: July 6, 2002, 2:00 pm
Gender: Male
XBL Gamertag: corin12
PSN ID: boog144
Location: Austin, TX
Contact:

Re: To the Moon

Post by Boogahz »

miir is a fan of the Queen's speaches
User avatar
Leonaerd
Way too much time!
Way too much time!
Posts: 3023
Joined: January 10, 2005, 10:38 am
Location: Michigan

Re: To the Moon

Post by Leonaerd »

a good aurator is berry exciting
User avatar
miir
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 11501
Joined: July 3, 2002, 3:06 pm
XBL Gamertag: miir1
Location: Toronto
Contact:

Re: To the Moon

Post by miir »

Aural sex?
I've got 99 problems and I'm not dealing with any of them - Lay-Z
User avatar
Asheran Mojomaster
Way too much time!
Way too much time!
Posts: 1457
Joined: November 22, 2002, 8:56 pm
Location: In The Cloud

Re: To the Moon

Post by Asheran Mojomaster »

If a government does not go to the moon soon, some corporation is. The resources in the soil, and ability to perform processes that are near impossible on earth is worth more than all of the oil + gold + platinum + silver + whatever else on the entire earth. Helium-3 for fusion is super crazy rare on Earth, and while its not exactly in large quantities in the lunar dust it is in a large enough quantity that it can be collected.

Also, all of the components needed to make extremely efficient solar panels that only work in a vacuum are available directly in the dust themselves. These panels are completely inefficient on Earth because of the massive amount of equipment and power require to produce the vacuum needed. The vacuum exists naturally on the moon.

The problem is making a robot that can traverse the moon's surface easily. The soil is so soft and powdery that it is very hard for anything to get efficient traction and collect the dust. Once that can be achieved, and combined with the solar panel production process, we could actually cover square miles of the moon with panels and direct the power to the earth using microwaves. I don't remember the exact amount needed but I think it was somewhere around 50 square miles of those solar panels would produce enough energy to power everything on our planet.

Then you have all of the gold, silver, platinum, etc that is in that same soil that can be separated out.

The moon is literally a giant mine for pretty much everything we could ever need (including oxygen locked in the soil, that could be combined with the non H-3 hydrogen to produce as much fresh water as we could want, and using those solar panels would be pretty efficient as it would cost basically nothing to convert).
Image
User avatar
Leonaerd
Way too much time!
Way too much time!
Posts: 3023
Joined: January 10, 2005, 10:38 am
Location: Michigan

Re: To the Moon

Post by Leonaerd »

I don't remember the exact amount needed but I think it was somewhere around 50 square miles of those solar panels would produce enough energy to power everything on our planet.
Normally I'd reply with doubt, but given the nature of today's politics and the turn-chaos-into-debt mentality of our corporate overlords, I sincerely hope this is accurate.
User avatar
Asheran Mojomaster
Way too much time!
Way too much time!
Posts: 1457
Joined: November 22, 2002, 8:56 pm
Location: In The Cloud

Re: To the Moon

Post by Asheran Mojomaster »

Leonaerd wrote:
I don't remember the exact amount needed but I think it was somewhere around 50 square miles of those solar panels would produce enough energy to power everything on our planet.
Normally I'd reply with doubt, but given the nature of today's politics and the turn-chaos-into-debt mentality of our corporate overlords, I sincerely hope this is accurate.
Heh, yeah I'm doubting my numbers exactly because its been about 8 months since I watched a show on the science channel then looked up the rest. The panels are crazy though...would be between 10-20x as efficient as the best solar panels on Earth, and can be produced today. They just cannot work outside of a vacuum.
Image
User avatar
Siji
Way too much time!
Way too much time!
Posts: 4040
Joined: November 11, 2002, 5:58 pm
Gender: Male
XBL Gamertag: mAcK 624
PSN ID: mAcK_624
Wii Friend Code: 7304853446448491
Location: Tampa Bay, FL
Contact:

Re: To the Moon

Post by Siji »

Asheran Mojomaster wrote:The problem is making a robot that can traverse the moon's surface easily. The soil is so soft and powdery that it is very hard for anything to get efficient traction and collect the dust.
Sounds like a job for some monster truck rednecks and the myth busters guys. Where's Bruce Willis when you need him?
User avatar
Boogahz
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 9438
Joined: July 6, 2002, 2:00 pm
Gender: Male
XBL Gamertag: corin12
PSN ID: boog144
Location: Austin, TX
Contact:

Re: To the Moon

Post by Boogahz »

Siji wrote:
Asheran Mojomaster wrote:The problem is making a robot that can traverse the moon's surface easily. The soil is so soft and powdery that it is very hard for anything to get efficient traction and collect the dust.
Sounds like a job for some monster truck rednecks and the myth busters guys. Where's Bruce Willis when you need him?
Dig up Soviet scientists from Lunokhod-1 project! They did a pretty good job decades ago. :P
User avatar
masteen
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 8197
Joined: July 3, 2002, 12:40 pm
Gender: Mangina
Location: Florida
Contact:

Re: To the Moon

Post by masteen »

We should convince the Mexican drug cartels that lunar dust is 99% cocaine. Guarantee you they'd get something cobbled together within the year.
"There is at least as much need to curb the cruel greed and arrogance of part of the world of capital, to curb the cruel greed and violence of part of the world of labor, as to check a cruel and unhealthy militarism in international relationships." -Theodore Roosevelt
User avatar
Funkmasterr
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 9005
Joined: July 7, 2002, 9:12 pm
Gender: Male
XBL Gamertag: Dandelo19
PSN ID: ToPsHoTTa471

Re: To the Moon

Post by Funkmasterr »

masteen wrote:We should convince the Mexican drug cartels that lunar dust is 99% cocaine. Guarantee you they'd get something cobbled together within the year.
I just pictured a shuttle tied together with string and a fender kit that isn't painted and laughed really hard, thanks for that!
User avatar
Winnow
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 27525
Joined: July 5, 2002, 1:56 pm
Location: A Special Place in Hell

Re: To the Moon

Post by Winnow »

We need to go to the moon and then go visit each of the 100 BILLION planets in our galaxy. Weeee!
An international team of astronomers have reached the most definitive conclusion, one with profound implications: our galaxy contains a minimum of 100 billion planets. Of those, most are small planets like ours. Statistically, every star would have at least one planet.

This means that the chances of life and habitable planets in our galaxy alone is overwhelmingly high. So high that it's impossible to deny that it's out there.

According to Stephen Kane—at NASA's Exoplanet Science Institute at CalTech in Pasadena and one of the authors of the study—"not only are planets common in the galaxy, but there are more small planets than large ones. This is encouraging news for investigations into habitable planets."

Kane is being too conservative when he says that this is "encouraging news". This is amazingly great news! The number of Earth-like planets is much higher than Jupiter-sized giants. The rough estimate is that there are at least 10 billion terrestrial planets across our galaxy alone.

That is a mind-blowing number.

Couple this number with the latest calculations that have extended the goldilocks zone, the area where life could happen around stars. And then add the fact that life happens spontaneously, even under the most extreme conditions, and the idea of a Milky Way thriving with life is impossible to deny.

There's no doubt that, statistically, there's life out there (and let's not even talk about the other 500 billion galaxies in the Universe).
Intelligent civilizations

Of course, how much of this life is smart enough to build computers, communication dishes or Imperial Star Destroyers is another matter altogether. As far as we know, all those habitable worlds may be full of killer snails and dozy fish

But the fact remains that, until now, we could only guess much of this stuff. Now we know. That makes a big difference.

The fact that there are at least 100 billion planets in our Milky Way alone has profound implications for our understanding of the Universe. These discoveries, made using Hubble and Kepler, are finally putting some real numbers in the Drake Equation.
CNN Video:

http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c2#/vi ... lanets.cnn
User avatar
Zaelath
Way too much time!
Way too much time!
Posts: 4621
Joined: April 11, 2003, 5:53 am
Location: Canberra

Re: To the Moon

Post by Zaelath »

Yeah, there's lots of planets out there... but "our galaxy" is ~100,000 lightyears across...
May 2003 - "Mission Accomplished"
June 2005 - "The mission isn't easy, and it will not be accomplished overnight"
-- G W Bush, freelance writer for The Daily Show.
User avatar
Winnow
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 27525
Joined: July 5, 2002, 1:56 pm
Location: A Special Place in Hell

Re: To the Moon

Post by Winnow »

Zaelath wrote:Yeah, there's lots of planets out there... but "our galaxy" is ~100,000 lightyears across...
What's that have to do with anything? There's also another (minimum) 100 billion more galaxies besides our own.

That's all we really know so far. I like boggle my scrotum sometimes and imagine that our known universe is just one of another 100 billion of those as well. No way to know unless we find a way to see deeper into the abyss. Who the fuck knows if a universe is the equivalent of a galaxy on an even larger scale.

Nothing really matters. For my part, I'd like to know as much about what's out there before I die. It keeps me sane.

Some awe inspiring links from the Mily Way thread:

Just our galaxy:

http://galaxy.phy.cmich.edu/~axel/mwpan2/krpano/

Every dot on this image is an entire galaxy:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... _edit1.jpg
Neroon
Gets Around
Gets Around
Posts: 213
Joined: July 16, 2002, 3:35 pm

Re: To the Moon

Post by Neroon »

Winnow wrote:I like boggle my scrotum sometimes and imagine that our known universe is just one of another 100 billion of those as well. No way to know unless we find a way to see deeper into the abyss. Who the fuck knows if a universe is the equivalent of a galaxy on an even larger scale.
I've assumed this to be the case for a very long time. To me it is much more likely that the big bang was just the event that formed our spinning collection of galaxies, and not the beginning of everything. Most humans just have a hard time seeing things in infinite terms due to our own finite existance.
User avatar
Winnow
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 27525
Joined: July 5, 2002, 1:56 pm
Location: A Special Place in Hell

Re: To the Moon

Post by Winnow »

Because I'm forever in awe of how much we don't know and how fucking huge the universe is:

Astronomers realize that they may have underestimated the number of galaxies in some parts of the universe by as much as 90 percent, according to Matthew Hayes of the University of Geneva's Observatory, who led the investigation using the world's most advanced optical instrument -- Europe's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, which has four 8.2-meter (26.65-feet) behemoths. They turned two of the giants towards a well-studied area of deep space called the GOODS-South field.
Full story:

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/20 ... seen-.html
Here's how astronomers breakout the visible universe within 14 billion light years:

Superclusters in the visible universe = 10 million

Galaxy groups in the visible universe = 25 billion

Large galaxies in the visible universe = 350 billion

Dwarf galaxies in the visible universe = 7 trillion

Stars in the visible universe = 30 billion trillion (3x10²²)
30,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars and counting!

And we don't have a clue if our universe is just one of that many more universes.


This is also a cool image:

Image
If you were to take all of the water on Earth — all of the fresh water, sea water, ground water, water vapor and water inside our bodies — take all of it and somehow collect it into a single, giant sphere of liquid, how big do you think it would be?

According to the U. S. Geological Survey, it would make a ball 860 miles (1,385 km) in diameter, about as wide edge-to-edge as the distance between Salt Lake City to Topeka, Kansas. That’s it. Take all the water on Earth and you’d have a blue sphere less than a third the size of the Moon.

Feeling a little thirsty?

And this takes into consideration all the Earth’s water… even the stuff humans can’t drink or directly access, like salt water, water vapor in the atmosphere and the water locked up in the ice caps. In fact, if you were to take into consideration only the fresh water on Earth (which is 2.5% of the total) you’d get a much smaller sphere… less than 100 miles (160 km) across.

Even though we think of reservoirs, lakes and rivers when we picture Earth’s fresh water supply, in reality most of it is beneath the surface — up to 2 million cubic miles (8.4 million cubic km) of Earth’s available fresh water is underground. But the vast majority of it — over 7 million cubic miles (29.2 cubic km) is in the ice sheets that cover Antarctica and Greenland.

Makes one a little less apt to take it for granted.
User avatar
Siji
Way too much time!
Way too much time!
Posts: 4040
Joined: November 11, 2002, 5:58 pm
Gender: Male
XBL Gamertag: mAcK 624
PSN ID: mAcK_624
Wii Friend Code: 7304853446448491
Location: Tampa Bay, FL
Contact:

Re: To the Moon

Post by Siji »

Winnow wrote:30,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars and counting!
There's an argument against religion here somewhere.
User avatar
masteen
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 8197
Joined: July 3, 2002, 12:40 pm
Gender: Mangina
Location: Florida
Contact:

Re: To the Moon

Post by masteen »

No, the earf is speachal.
"There is at least as much need to curb the cruel greed and arrogance of part of the world of capital, to curb the cruel greed and violence of part of the world of labor, as to check a cruel and unhealthy militarism in international relationships." -Theodore Roosevelt
User avatar
Winnow
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 27525
Joined: July 5, 2002, 1:56 pm
Location: A Special Place in Hell

Re: To the Moon

Post by Winnow »

NASA has used fresh data from a space probe to plot the distribution of all asteroids that threaten to hit the Earth. Every orange dot in the image represents a giant chunk of rock 330ft wide (100 metres) or more that is in an orbit which brings it dangerously close to our planet.
Image
They are called potentially hazardous asteroids, or PHAs – and there could be more than 6,000 of them. Worryingly, perhaps, only 20 to 30 per cent of the estimated number of these space missiles have so far been found. A 100-metre wide asteroid is considered the smallest that could cause serious damage if it hit the ground. One that is 1 km wide would cause massive destruction while a rock 10 kilometres across would leave few survivors anywhere.

The Earth’s orbit through this cosmic minefield is shown almost edge-on in green at the centre of the picture. The host of blue dots are other asteroids that come close to us, but which are less of a threat. Those are called Near Earth Objects, or NEOs.

The snapshot of the alarming swarm as it might appear on any given day was produced using observations from a satellite called WISE, short for Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer.

NASA say the probe has given them their best assessment yet of the number of threatening asteroids, where they came from and how much danger they pose to Earth.

Their results suggest that there are around 4,700 potentially hazardous objects – plus or minus 1,500 – with diameters larger than 330ft. It is the most accurate survey yet and was produced by the asteroid-hunting part of the WISE mission, called NEOWISE.

The survey discovered that twice as many asteroids as thought are orbiting on a similar plane, or level, as the Earth’s path round the Sun, rather than swooping in from above or below. Such “lower-inclination” orbits increase the number of times such asteroids come close, apparently.

Lindley Johnson, of the Near-Earth Object Observation Program at NASA HQ in Washington, said: “The NEOWISE analysis shows us we’ve made a good start at finding those objects that truly represent an impact hazard to Earth.

“But we’ve many more to find, and it will take a concerted effort during the next couple of decades to find all of them that could do serious damage or be a mission destination in the future.”

Amy Mainzer, NEOWISE’s chif scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, said: “Everything we can learn about these objects helps us understand their origins and fate.

“Our team was surprised to find the overabundance of low-inclination PHAs. Because they will tend to make more close approaches to Earth, these targets can provide the best opportunities for the next generation of human and robotic exploration.”

Jay Tate runs The Spaceguard Centre, a UK observatory at Knighton, Powys, that campaigns to raise awareness about the threat from deadly asteroids.

He told Skymania: “The NEOWISE data emphasises the requirement for search programmes to detect what used to be called sub-critical sized NEOs (smaller than the 1km threshold that would cause a global ctastrophe). There is a substantial threat from smaller objects that would ‘only’ devastate a small country, especially as these smaller objects are more numerous than larger ones and so pose a more frequent hazard.

“The technology required for such a search programme is readily available, and relatively cheap, especially given the actuarial cost of the hazard. While detection is essential we must not forget the subsequent follow up process required to determine accurate orbits. The main participants in this field are amateurs, who do a splendid and vital job. However, smaller asteroids pose significant technical problems to operators of small telescopes that struggle to see faint objects. Any search programme must also address the follow up issue.”

Space scientists believe that many of the PHAs may have been produced in a collision between two asteroids in the main asteroid belt lying between Mars and Jupiter. They were later sent driting into orbits closer to Earth where they began to pose a threat.

The NEOWISE project photographed 600 near-Earth asteroids, of which around 135 were new discoveries. Its heat-sensitive infrared telescope was able to pick up both light and dark objects, resulting in a more representative survey of the entire asteroid population.
User avatar
Aabidano
Way too much time!
Way too much time!
Posts: 4861
Joined: July 19, 2002, 2:23 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Florida

Re: To the Moon

Post by Aabidano »

Hyper-conservative co-worker was bemoaning the fact that a private company was hauling cargo to the space station due to the shuttle retirement (and eventually lining up to exploit the government teat).

Pointed out "wasn't this one of the goals of latter day conservatism?". Use private enterprise as it's 'more efficient'?

Smaller government, bigger profits!
"Life is what happens while you're making plans for later."
User avatar
Zaelath
Way too much time!
Way too much time!
Posts: 4621
Joined: April 11, 2003, 5:53 am
Location: Canberra

Re: To the Moon

Post by Zaelath »

Aabidano wrote:Hyper-conservative co-worker was bemoaning the fact that a private company was hauling cargo to the space station due to the shuttle retirement (and eventually lining up to exploit the government teat).

Pointed out "wasn't this one of the goals of latter day conservatism?". Use private enterprise as it's 'more efficient'?

Smaller government, bigger profits!
Drama is, short term it's probably undeniably 'more efficient', but then you could say the same thing about the Russian space program if efficiency is purely measure in dollars per kilogram.

However; it would help my argument immeasurably if space shuttles didn't asplode regularly.
May 2003 - "Mission Accomplished"
June 2005 - "The mission isn't easy, and it will not be accomplished overnight"
-- G W Bush, freelance writer for The Daily Show.
User avatar
Aabidano
Way too much time!
Way too much time!
Posts: 4861
Joined: July 19, 2002, 2:23 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Florida

Re: To the Moon

Post by Aabidano »

Zaelath wrote:However; it would help my argument immeasurably if space shuttles didn't asplode regularly.
And why don't we have a replacement?
"Life is what happens while you're making plans for later."
User avatar
masteen
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 8197
Joined: July 3, 2002, 12:40 pm
Gender: Mangina
Location: Florida
Contact:

Re: To the Moon

Post by masteen »

Because paying for the F-35 Shitbird is more important to all the fine gentlemen who regularly bribe our elected leaders?
"There is at least as much need to curb the cruel greed and arrogance of part of the world of capital, to curb the cruel greed and violence of part of the world of labor, as to check a cruel and unhealthy militarism in international relationships." -Theodore Roosevelt
User avatar
Winnow
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 27525
Joined: July 5, 2002, 1:56 pm
Location: A Special Place in Hell

Re: To the Moon

Post by Winnow »

Holy sweet mother of God.

http://youtu.be/08LBltePDZw?hd=1

Video of a 3D tour through 40,000 galaxies. Each one of the specs you see ~1,000,000,000 stars on average.

...mind boggling.


Voyager 1 was launched Sept 5, 1977 and is just now reaching the edge of our solar system. 25 years to just get out of our own system, much less get anywhere near the closest star to the sun. It's hard to grasp distances. Most people can't even come remotely close to estimating the distance from the Earth to the moon. They're off (too close) by a factor or ten when presented with scale models of the Earth and Moon and asked to place them the correct distance apart.

Hitting a spot within a few feet on a planet 350 Millions miles away is something that I doubt most people take the time to appreciate how difficult the challenge is. This stuff is so fucking amazing. I hope our next president doesn't keep cutting NASAs budget.
The budget coming Monday from the Obama administration will send the NASA division that launches rovers to Mars and probes to Jupiter crashing back to Earth.

Scientists briefed on the proposed budget said that the president’s plan drops funding for planetary science at NASA from $1.5 billion this year to $1.2 billion next year, with further cuts continuing through 2017.

“We’re doing all this great science and taking the public along with us,” said Jim Bell, an Arizona State University scientist and president of the Planetary Society who works on NASA’s Mars rover Opportunity. “Pulling the rug out from under it is going to be really devastating.”
What a fucking asshole.
User avatar
Aslanna
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 12372
Joined: July 3, 2002, 12:57 pm

Re: To the Moon

Post by Aslanna »

Gotta pay the bills (Thanks George Bush!) somehow. It's only 300 million less. They'll get over it.
Have You Hugged An Iksar Today?

--
User avatar
kyoukan
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 8548
Joined: July 5, 2002, 3:33 am
Location: Vancouver

Re: To the Moon

Post by kyoukan »

borrowing a trillion dollars from China to "free" Iraq while spending most of it on illegal sweetheart no-bid contracts for huge corporations all while cutting the tax on the benefits of this huge windfall doesn't even phase him. taking 300 mill out of NASA's jupiter rocket budget and he's forming his own militia to overthrow the government. sometimes I forget how ignorantly partisan the USA is. then I log on to the internet.
User avatar
Winnow
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 27525
Joined: July 5, 2002, 1:56 pm
Location: A Special Place in Hell

Re: To the Moon

Post by Winnow »

You treat each matter independently and you DON'T cut the budget on one of the few programs worth the money. You Canadians and rest of the world should be begging the U.S. to fund NASA because you have no hope of doing anything similar yet gain all the knowledge from NASA's efforts. Yeah yeah, I know parts of the rover were outsourced but the bulk and main tech to get Curiosity to Mars is American.

Mars Curiosity: 2.5 Billion

NASA Budget: 1.2 Billion and declining
User avatar
Winnow
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 27525
Joined: July 5, 2002, 1:56 pm
Location: A Special Place in Hell

Re: To the Moon

Post by Winnow »

Here's a good article addressing the history of scientific research in the United States:
After World War II, scientific research in the U.S. was well supported. In the 1960s, when I came to America, the sky was the limit, and this conducive atmosphere enabled many of us to pursue esoteric research that resulted in America winning the lion's share of Nobel Prizes. American universities were magnets to young scientists and engineers from around the globe. The truth is that neither did we then nor do we now know what the broad impact of research on society would be -- unpredictability is in the fabric of science discoveries.

In much of academia today, however, curiosity-driven research is no longer looked upon favorably. Research proposals must address "broad relevance to society" and provide "transformative solutions" even before research begins. Universities are increasingly pressured to raise funds for cost operations and overhead is on the rise. Professors are writing more proposals, reducing the time available for creative thinking, and increasing numbers of academics are involved in commercial enterprises. Faculty tenure at many universities is driven by how much money the young faculty can raise. These constraints and practices beg the question: Would a young Einstein, Feynman, or Pauling be attracted to the profession today and would they be able to pursue their inquiries into fundamental questions in today's environment?

In the U.S., industry participated uniquely in R&D, but this too has changed. One of the jewels of the research-oriented industrial entities was Bell Labs where fundamental research was so advanced that it used to be said it was "the best university in America." Bell Labs had some of the world's leading scientists and engineers and collectively they made pioneering contributions, from the discovery of the transistor to the "big bang" origin of our universe. The broad-based, curiosity-driven structure of Bell Labs is no longer in existence and other industrial labs have, for the most part, redirected their resources into research areas relevant to their market products.

From my experience in academia, I found that the majority of young people seeking research-oriented professions are driven by the excitement of their curiosity and the prospect of a decent job, but in the current market, Ph.D.-level scientists are holding temporary positions or are unemployed. The average age that a principle investigator receives his/her first NIH-R01 award has increased to 42 years and experience from multiple post-doctoral positions is often necessary for advancement in academia. These drawbacks discourage younger generations from pursuing research careers.

What is clear is that progress in research requires the nurturing of creative scientists in an environment that encourages interactions between researchers and collaborations across different fields, but such interactions cannot and should not be orchestrated by weighty management, as creative minds and bureaucracies are inharmonious. Today, officials in many developing countries are seeking mechanisms to reach the innovation level of the developed world, especially the U.S., but the core principles of innovation are often misunderstood. Regrettably, the same trend is creeping into developed countries.

One must then ask, is there a formula for "managing discovery making?" The answer is in the realization of and belief in the natural evolution of developments, from basic research to technology transfer, and then to societal benefits. For basic fundamental research to flourish, the nation must provide young people with a proper education in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Additionally, a renewed vision for investment in fundamental, curiosity-driven research is needed. It is not in the best interest of the U.S. to reduce R&D funding in the indiscriminate, across-the-board cuts of the national budget. Legislators must not impede the coming of the best minds from around the world to America, but at the same time, and perhaps more importantly, they must make the necessary changes to reignite young Americans' interest in science by exposure to it in the early years of schooling and through modern media.

In the 1950s, Nobel Laureate Robert Solow showed that new technologies create a large portion of economic growth, affecting in the U.S. nearly 75 percent of its growth output. The theory of quantum mechanics alone has had a major impact on the economy of the world market. Without it, revolutionary technologies would not have been realized. Think of the LASER and the optical communication industry, MRI and the health industry, and the TRANSISTOR and the IT market, not to mention the vast progress made in drug discovery, gene technology and miniaturization. In our daily use of the cell phone, the World Wide Web, and Google's search we should recall that basic research is the springboard of their development, and, as importantly, American influence in the world is spread largely through its "soft" power of science and technology, according to a Pew Research poll.

America was and still is able to make the necessary changes to maintain research institutions that are the envy of the world. At Caltech, I find it remarkable that an institution with less than 300 faculty members in all disciplines is able to produce, from its faculty and graduates, 35 Nobel laureates. The key to these achievements is the unique milieu for R&D envisaged by its "founding-fathers" 100 years ago.

Since the Industrial Revolution, the West has dominated world politics and economics with the power of science. Yet, it would be hubristic and naïve to think that we now know what will be relevant tomorrow. Investing in science education and curiosity-driven research is investing in the future. For many decades, America had the right formula for achieving progress through such investments. Now, it is time to revisit this vision. If not, a transition may be in the making, with the Sun of innovation rising in the East.
Our leadership lacks vision. Mars Curiosity is supposed to inspire the next generation yet if kids are smart enough to pursue science research careers, they're also smart enough to see that they have little hope of landing a job with budgets being cut. With multiple Ph.Ds becoming a requirement, average age of 42 to get your first research grant, and knowing you'll be competing with a crap load of much more qualified existing researchers that are scrambling to find work with half the positions available. We need an administration that understands the need to pump money into these areas. Without ongoing discovery, it's not going to matter a whole lot that the deficit is. We're fucked and so is most of the rest of the world.

The above article is about as non biased as you can get while addressing these points. It's a good read.
User avatar
kyoukan
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 8548
Joined: July 5, 2002, 3:33 am
Location: Vancouver

Re: To the Moon

Post by kyoukan »

people don't become scientists and space exploration engineers to become rich. someone who is passionate about space exploration isn't going to give it up and becoming a hedge fund manager instead because that's where all the money is.

you can blame the previous administration's massive overspending on pointless wars and unheard of tax cuts on the richest americans for NASA's current financial woes. governments need money to run.

I know that you're too stupid to make up an article like that, but you should link always link your source.
User avatar
Winnow
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 27525
Joined: July 5, 2002, 1:56 pm
Location: A Special Place in Hell

Re: To the Moon

Post by Winnow »

kyoukan wrote:people don't become scientists and space exploration engineers to become rich. someone who is passionate about space exploration isn't going to give it up and becoming a hedge fund manager instead because that's where all the money is.
Did I mention money? They need grants and at least some sort of job to pay bills for thier families...after all, aren't these the sort of people we want procreating?...not the slackass welfare cases that pump out kids to increase their welfare checks. They don't need to be high paying, but need grants to fund research and at least some money to survive on. If your career starts at 42, it's a big pill to swallow no matter how dedicated you are, but to add on top of it all that plenty of people more qualified than you already will be looking to fill the few available positions doesn't help.
User avatar
kyoukan
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 8548
Joined: July 5, 2002, 3:33 am
Location: Vancouver

Re: To the Moon

Post by kyoukan »

Winnow wrote:Did I mention money?
Yes
Winnow wrote:They need grants and at least some sort of job to pay bills for thier families...
Winnow wrote:Mars Curiosity is supposed to inspire the next generation yet if kids are smart enough to pursue science research careers, they're also smart enough to see that they have little hope of landing a job with budgets being cut.
Winnow wrote:ith multiple Ph.Ds becoming a requirement, average age of 42 to get your first research grant, and knowing you'll be competing with a crap load of much more qualified existing researchers that are scrambling to find work with half the positions available.
Winnow wrote:We need an administration that understands the need to pump money into these areas.
Also, the article you posted was basically 95% about money.

No one favors space exploration more than me. The faster I can get off this planet and away from you people the better. The fact of the matter is the USA is still barely recovering from the most economically disastrous presidency in history. Tax revenue is the lowest since pre-world war 1 thanks to Bush tax cuts and the money that has to be spent in order to recover from bush era unethical finance and securities legislation has priority over everything. Meanwhile the tax burden is still being shouldered by a dwindling middle class while billionaires like Mitt Romney and his backers pay anywhere from 0% to 13% income tax (less than a mcdonald's contributes). If you want to fund NASA, vote for a government that history supports space exploration.

Conservative republicans don't give a shit about exploring space because most of them are convinced God made the earth 4000 years ago and there is nothing out there in the universe because God is too busy loving them and hating fags, blacks, jews, mexicans, muslims and the orientals. They also feel that chopping tax revenue in half by allowing millionaires and billionaires to get away with paying almost nothing in tax while borrowing money to fund revenge-invasions of muslim countries is great.

People like you are what is bad for space exploration because you are stupid and cannot be trusted with your vote.
User avatar
Winnow
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 27525
Joined: July 5, 2002, 1:56 pm
Location: A Special Place in Hell

Re: To the Moon

Post by Winnow »

Yep, you're clueless. You totally lost sight of the point and think it's about potential scientists wanting money for themselves. What a dumbass. My point is that they are smart enough to realize that there will be no jobs available. It's not too hard to figure out. All the jobs are filled with five years of budget cuts on the way. There will be less jobs, for existing experienced scientists. What chance does the new generation have with this backwards trend?

I didn't state anything about blaming either political party but you appear to want to go that route.
60 Minutes highlights Obama's broken promise on space program, jobs.

Some excerpts from Obama's space speech in August 2008:

"When I was growing up, NASA inspired the world with achievements that we're still proud of...

"Today we have an administration that sets ambitious goals for NASA without giving NASA the support it needs to reach them. As a result, NASA's had to cut back on research, trim their program, which means that after the space shuttle shuts down in 2010, we're going to have to rely on Russian space craft to keep us into orbit.

"So let me be clear: we can not cede our leadership in space. That's why I'm going to close the gap, ensure that our space program doesn't suffer when the shuttle goes out of service. We may extend an additional shuttle launch. We're going to work with Bill Nelson to add at least one flight after 2010 by continuing to support NASA funding, by speeding the development of the shuttle's successor, by making sure that all those who work in the space industry in Florida do not lose their jobs when the shuttle is retired because we cant afford to lose their expertise. But more broadly, we need a real vision for the next stage of space exploration...."

---



When then-presidential candidate Barack Obama came to the heart of the nation's space program, Brevard County, he promised that he'd protect space-industry jobs in the face of NASA budget cuts under President Bush. Obama namechecked one-time astronaut and current Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson as an ally in Congress to ensure it all got done.

Take a look around today, and you'll see the results didn't match Obama's rhetoric.

"Fifty years of liftoffs are becoming eight months of layoffs. Have a look around Brevard County. It's shrinking. Lots of people are moving away, taking businesses down with them," 60 Minutes' Scott Pelley intoned last night in a segment called "Hard Landing."

"The 7,000 layoffs at the space center triggered 7,000 more in the community. Unemployment has been close to 11 percent."
Pelley goes on to note that, in 2010, Obama cancelled NASA's Constellation program and "then, Congress dealt another blow, by cutting the funding for the Obama plan in half.

Obama Campaign Promise:
Send people to the Moon by 2020...and then Mars

The Promise: In Obama’s 2008 campaign material “A Robust and Balanced Program of Space Exploration and Scientific Discovery” Obama said, “He endorses the goal of sending human missions to the Moon by 2020, as a precursor in an orderly progression to missions to more distant destinations, including Mars.”

The Reality: When Obama released his fiscal year 2011 budget, he said he was offering an alternative direction for space exploration.

"NASA's Constellation program - based largely on existing technologies - was based on a vision of returning astronauts back to the Moon by 2020,” the report says. “However, the program was over budget, behind schedule, and lacking in innovation due to a failure to invest in critical new technologies. Using a broad range of criteria an independent review panel determined that even if fully funded, NASA's program to repeat many of the achievements of the Apollo era, 50 years later, was the least attractive approach to space exploration as compared to potential alternatives. Furthermore, NASA's attempts to pursue its moon goals, while inadequate to that task, had drawn funding away from other NASA programs, including robotic space exploration, science, and Earth observations.”
While I can appreciate focusing on "robotic space exploration, science, and Earth observations.", the dude cancelled the entire manned mission program and the robotic space exploration, was still cut, with more cuts and lower budgets through 2017.

Lets see what this fucknut promises on his current campaign in order to get the gullible vote. I'm glad kyoukan can only vote for a politicians in a non factor country.

I'm not saying Romney would be better. It probably would get even worse with him in office but I'd like to see Obama have the balls to fight for something that's right instead of what might get him some votes. I don't have much confidence in that happening. Obama sounded like a complete idiot during his phone call to the MSL mission control room. You can search you tube for it if you want to judge for yourself. He could give a rat's ass about NASA.
User avatar
kyoukan
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 8548
Joined: July 5, 2002, 3:33 am
Location: Vancouver

Re: To the Moon

Post by kyoukan »

yeah, I totally missed the point. :roll:

I may have missed your point, because you haven't even made one so I have to decipher your gibberish. I haven't missed the point of the unsourced and therefore totally useless article you pasted in here in some tragic attempt and looking intelligent.
User avatar
Funkmasterr
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 9005
Joined: July 7, 2002, 9:12 pm
Gender: Male
XBL Gamertag: Dandelo19
PSN ID: ToPsHoTTa471

Re: To the Moon

Post by Funkmasterr »

I just wanted to toss my two cents in on part of the topic at hand. I've recently started school again, and I'm pursuing a degree in physics. My intention has been to do that, master in astrophysics, then see where things go from there. Well, I started reading more and more online about astrophysics research positions, and I've since given up hope. Part of this is my own fault for waiting until I was 30 to start college again, and while I'm really upset about that, it's not the entire reason.

From what I've been able to gather from reading online, talking to people in the field, talking to career folks at school, etc is this: You will need your PHD (duh, this much I knew). Once you have this, you have about 8-10 years of making about as much money as a cashier at a grocery store, and not really in a research position. THEN if you've made the right connections and everything throughout your career, you might have a good shot at a research job, but there aren't many of them.

Furthermore, I guess there haven't been many new jobs in this field in decades. They keep waiting for all of the older folks in the field to retire, but they just plain aren't. They're obviously passionate about the field, and are pushing out books and research papers well past the age of retirement for most people.

Now, don't get me wrong, my biggest interest has always been space exploration, and not because I thought it would make me wealthy, however in reference to the above on how long a position like this takes to attain, I'd be somewhere between 36-40 before I even had a chance at making enough money to actually live off, and a family would be out of the question unless I found a wife like fairweather's. And while that still gives me some working time ahead, the outlook for these jobs just keeps getting worse.

However, Winnow; there has been a shortage of these jobs, and very low odds at getting one of the few there are, for going on 30 years from what I can gather. This is nothing any recent president has caused, although they've obviously made it worse. Obviously there are research fields out there other than astrophysics related, but I figured I'd chime in since I've been very focused on that exact issue for the last year or so.
User avatar
Winnow
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 27525
Joined: July 5, 2002, 1:56 pm
Location: A Special Place in Hell

Re: To the Moon

Post by Winnow »

kyoukan wrote:yeah, I totally missed the point. :roll:

I may have missed your point, because you haven't even made one so I have to decipher your gibberish. I haven't missed the point of the unsourced and therefore totally useless article you pasted in here in some tragic attempt and looking intelligent.

Give it a rest dolt. Your comments on the neutrino thread are hilarious. You're the biggest fraud on this board.

Funk, I understand it's always been tough, but we've hit an all time low post WWII era. I just can't imagine many intelligent kids about to graduate from high school seeing much hope of pursuing a career in planetary science or related fields. It doesn't take an astrophysicist to see this, just someone with a couple points higher IQ than kyoukan who can't stop trying focus on how rich a profession will make someone. Why worry so much about how much money scientists make kyou? You have zero chance of hooking up with an intelligent person. Stick with the the AAA ballplayers and that allowance will keep rolling in.
User avatar
kyoukan
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 8548
Joined: July 5, 2002, 3:33 am
Location: Vancouver

Re: To the Moon

Post by kyoukan »

I love it when I fucking trash everything you say and you blow your stack and start ranting about allowances and baseball players. It is so goddam easy and entertaining. I wish the weather was half as predictable as you.
User avatar
Winnow
Super Poster!
Super Poster!
Posts: 27525
Joined: July 5, 2002, 1:56 pm
Location: A Special Place in Hell

Re: To the Moon

Post by Winnow »

Batter up!
Post Reply