Keep Humans Out of Space

Minutemanmedia.org ^ | 01/25/10 | William A. Collins

[KevinDavis]

Send out robots,
They work fine;
People are,
A waste of time.


President Barack Obama deserves credit for ordering a new study of NASA. The findings of his Augustine Commission review of our plans for human spaceflight are impressive as well. We needed to seriously question our financial will to send humans to Mars. Not every taxpayer is ready to sign on for that expense.

[marktwain]

“The bureaucrats did well in the 60s and early 70s. My biggest fear is that China and others will leap frog us, while Branson sends some tourists up to the space hotel.”

I understand that. We must have military capacity in space. Those who control space control the world. The future belongs to those who are able to harness the resources of the solar system, which are many multiples of those on earth.

[Brugmansian]

Sorry no more money for pretty space pictures.. Humans and robots can work together in space..

But why? What's the point? All I can see is an emotional appeal and that is wearing thin.

[votemout]

I do like the prize idea.

[Oceander]

And you ought to think about the differences in the governments before you try and make facile comparisons that I had, in fact, already discounted.

Speaking of which, this is rather unsporting - why should government be obligated to fund spaceflight, but not healthcare, using tax monies?

[LastNorwegian]

Because spaceflight is vital for your national security for starters.

[cripplecreek]

Damn, it doesn’t take much to send some folks off on liberal rants.

[Oceander]

I completely agree with you, but then it should be run by the Pentagon (which, I understand, has a very robust "national security" oriented space program), and not by some antiquated Cold-War era civilian dinosaur like NASA. Thank you so very much for proving my point.

[Oceander]

Care to be a little more precise?

[PIF]

Well there is a Constitutional mandate to defend the nation, and allowing other nations to take the moon is a death warent forthis country. Rocks from space make waste -— to whatever they hit, likewhere you live.

Ouch!

And that’s what Hussein plans to allow - in direct contravention to his primary job - defendng the US and that means going to the moon now.

Ain’t no private company going to rise to that challenge.

[cripplecreek]

You’re the genius who wants to equate paying for exploration with paying for health care.

I doubt thier’s much point in arguing with people who lash out when they’re wrong.

[LowOiL]

The space program to picture places and send probes to planets is a waste of government funding IMHO. In defense matters, I am all for the spending. To talk to ET, no way, I can think of few programs more a waste of taxpayer money.

[hellbender]

Sure, if it can be demonstrated that space exploration is related to national defense, I’m all for it. But consider this: We have slashed spending on programs which are indubitably about defense, like the F-22 and upgrading our nuclear missiles, while you want us to spend billions on manned exploration of Mars. Lifting anything out of the earth’s gravity is horrendously expensive in terms of energy and money. Meanwhile our enemies are pursuing cheap and effective weapons like jet fighters and cruise missiles.

[PIF]

Easily demonstrated. I'm on the moon. I hate you or you won't do what I want you to do. Therefore I just use some ingenuity to attach a small rock with a guidance pack addressed to you personally. Ooops.

They get bigger the more power I can generate - say I build a rail gun, then I can send you a very big rock. Or perhaps I'm really pissed. Hop on over to a passing asteroid and send you a kilometer sized care package.

If someone else holds the high ground and that high ground is some 200,000 miles away, you are going to have a very difficult up hill battle.

Those other weapons systems cheap or not you refer to just became ancient history.

[PIF]

Easily demonstrated. I’m on the moon. I hate you or you won’t do what I want you to do. Therefore I just use some ingenuity to attach a small rock with a guidance pack addressed to you personally. Ooops.

They get bigger the more power I can generate - say I build a rail gun, then I can send you a very big rock. Or perhaps I’m really pissed. Hop on over to a passing asteorid and send you a kilometer sized care package.

If someone else holds the high ground and that high ground is some 200,000 miles away, you are going to have a very difficult up hill battle.

Those other weapons systems cheap or not you refer to just became ancient history.

[hellbender]

Do you have any idea how much it would cost to establish you on the moon with your rail gun or whatever, compared to what that expenditure would yield in terms of earthly weapons? We can't even afford to eliminate some towelheaded barbarians here on earth. We sit by while the Russians design advanced aircraft in cahoots with India. We sit by while Iran develops nuclear weapons, fearful that stopping them might cut off our oil supply. Our antimissile defenses have been gutted. Our advanced aircraft have been cancelled. Yet you expect us to play around exploring Mars?? Get real.

Our junket to the moon, wonderful as it was, was a classic fascist venture designed to glorify the state. It was started by a spoiled rich playboy kid (JFK)who never did a damned piece of real work, yet pledged billions to that project, while betraying the Cuban exiles, thereby setting up the closest we have ever been to nuclear war. The priorities and the issues are the same as they were then. It astounds me that so-called conservatives think billions spent on space are somehow justified.

[Political Junkie Too]

They're not smart anymore...

-PJ

[GraceG]

We should send mining and manufacturing robots to the moon first, have them build factories that then build more factories that then build the equivalent of a “Holiday Inn” on the moon, then we can send our astronauts/settlers there on a one way trip to settle the moon and expand into the cosmos...

We need to colonize space in case some idiot socialist comes to power and runs amok of the entire world, or is too too late for that......

[GraceG]

>> Our junket to the moon, wonderful as it was, was a classic fascist venture designed to glorify the state. It was started by a spoiled rich playboy kid (JFK)who never did a damned piece of real work, yet pledged billions to that project, while betraying the Cuban exiles, thereby setting up the closest we have ever been to nuclear war. The priorities and the issues are the same as they were then. It astounds me that so-called conservatives think billions spent on space are somehow justified. <<

What we really need are solid property rights defined on other planets and private enterprise can do the rest.

[Moltke]

Written by a complete Moron...

All the ‘magic’ of our current technology is a direct offshoot of the moon program 40 years ago. Can one imagine what wonders we can produce in electronics, propulsion, medicine and any technology for the good of all mankind, if we were to mount a manned expedition to the planets, to the stars???

A manned mission to stars? You seem to not know what a star is. Moron, indeed...

[PIF]

Wonder what you’ll say to the Chinese when they are in that position? Or the Russians, or the Indians?

I think you are just another progressive troll with absolutly no sense of the future. Keep studying your navel, maybe you’ll find some more lint to pick.