To fly or not to fly? That is the question. To suffer the slings and arrows of outragious eco-policy, or to turn tail and flee to the moon, and in fleeing give trillions to corporate buddies.

Or does anyone believe we have a real reason for going to the moon and Mars at this time? I mean, sure I dig the idea, but lets clean up the house before we leave for vacation, okay?

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"Jelly-belly gigglin, dancin and a-wigglin, honey that's the way I am!" Janice the Muppet

Lots of 35 year old voting-age guys are actually still boys who want to fly to the moon and dream of space-age adventure. That equals a lot of votes for Bush from people who might have been on the fence before this, or even opposed to Bush.

The Texas cowboy has successfully become a Space cowboy. I say we put all this shit on hold until we have actual reform in the country, get our deficit under control and totally revamp NASA's old ass shuttles that keep on blowing up with our astronauts inside.

That's not to say I don't think it would be cool to see Astronauts on Mars in my lifetime. I just don't think its necessary right now.

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Destroying my reputation one post at a time.

Yeah, im one of them... sorta. i think we should get a decent space program up, just so i can get off this wretched planet- but your right, he needs to take care of the home front before strapping a rocket on and taking for the moon.

Even though i want a space program, i dont think this is the time.

I personally think this should have been done ages ago. Our space program keeps getting put onto the back burner, and if we start going to the moon, and worrying about problems a little further away, maybe our problems here at home will begin to work out. It's sad to think this will likely be a 100% American venture. Not that I have a problem with the US being a nation of taking charge, but I do think that it would be a wonderful way to bring nations together. The road to Star Trek as I like to call it. Whatever the case, it'd be nice to do more than have robots take pictures.

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Do you want ants? Because that's how you get ants.

How does spending hundreds of billions of dollars on a space program fix our economic problems at home?

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Destroying my reputation one post at a time.

So we have somewhere to go once we destroy ourselves with all the nukes?

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Mediocrity at its most average.

How does spending hundreds of billions of dollars on a space program fix our economic problems at home?

You have to invest money to make money. There is a wealth of raw materials in space. On asteroids, mars, all around. We have to spend the money to get there though. From a financial point of view, space holds more riches than oil fields in Iraq ever will.

There's gold in them thar space rocks. But we'll never find it if we don't look for it.

I wish it weren't so, but our financial problems may never truly go away. We've spent and leant too much. A revamped space program could have the same effect as WWII, economically.

Maybe if this world could put aside it's differences and work together for a common good, we could all be seeing stars from another planet some day. It's just a dream, but I think it's a far better dream than the short term.

Just my $0.02

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Do you want ants? Because that's how you get ants.

Well, I think we're all agreed putting a base on the moon is a stupid idea, one of a regime desparate to get the "whoop" factor back before (I hope) it gets booted out in favour of President Whoever.

I think a much less spectacular but much more profitable and worthwile alternative venture would be exploration of the ocean floor. There's shitloads of minerals and cool stuff down there, and would be much more beneficial in the long term at the minute than the moon.

On an aside, what's the reason the US won't sign the Kyoto accord again?

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Please replace the handset, and try again.

So DragonXero, you think the energy, time and money required to get mining teams to the moon and Mars will be paid back in full once we supposedly strike paydirt? That's a gamble that will cost, as I said before, hundreds of billions of dollars if you're wrong. And even if you're right, there still may not be enough resources to warrant such a mission. Hypothetically, if we spend six hundred billion dollars on a big, longterm mining expedition to the moon and find only four hundred billion dollars worth of useful minerals, that's still a big loss and a waste of money. And, once we get these valuable minerals, how do we get them back to Earth?

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Destroying my reputation one post at a time.

No idea, that's not my job. I'm no suggesting how we do it, or that we do it, just that I'd like it done.

It's not we're in debt *real* money anyway. It's just a bunch of checks for gold that doesn't exist. We're all running on a credit system with no real basis. I don't see why we even bother tradig the numbers back and forth anymore.

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Do you want ants? Because that's how you get ants.

Hmmm... so what if moon mining shifted the mass of the moon to a point that it effected the tides?

We'll flood that plain when we come to it.

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"Jelly-belly gigglin, dancin and a-wigglin, honey that's the way I am!" Janice the Muppet

What we would reasonably mine from the moon would be neglibible mass. In the amount of time it would take to depreciate the moon's mass to a noticable point, the moon would be already much farther than it is now (since it is slowly leaving orbit) and might in fact help the earth keep it in orbit longer because the moon is less massive (and leading to more regular tidal forces than we would experience if the moon was left to fly out of control).

Also if this mined material is being returned to the earth, you would have to ask the same question about our own gravitational force due to mass. I still think the amount of mass we would bring back would have little measurable effect, but if it did, again it would slightly increase our graviational pull on the moon.

You might as well worry that too many daytime rocket launches are pushing the earth farther and farther out from the sun, or that nuclear reactions are slowly converting all the mass on earth into energy.

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008

What we would reasonably mine from the moon would be neglibible mass. In the amount of time it would take to depreciate the moon's mass to a noticable point, the moon would be already much farther than it is now (since it is slowly leaving orbit) and might in fact help the earth keep it in orbit longer because the moon is less massive (and leading to more regular tidal forces than we would experience if the moon was left to fly out of control).

Also if this mined material is being returned to the earth, you would have to ask the same question about our own gravitational force due to mass. I still think the amount of mass we would bring back would have little measurable effect, but if it did, again it would slightly increase our graviational pull on the moon.

You might as well worry that too many daytime rocket launches are pushing the earth farther and farther out from the sun, or that nuclear reactions are slowly converting all the mass on earth into energy.

Holy shit--I agree with every single word MaKK just said. The end is nigh!

Somebody hold me!

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"And Wirthling isn't worth the paper he isn't printed on."

All I know is that its 2004 and I was supposed to be flying a hover car and have a teleportation pod in my home.

F'n slackers at NASA.

{On a more serious note, living in "Space City" I am a little leery about the announcement. It seems like we've taken major steps backwards from the 60's in relation to how the government oversees the program.

I grew up on stories of NASA in its heyday. My dad was an Engineer there and part of the team to get Armstrong on the Moon. Even now, he's skeptical because of how the whole program has been run into the dirt with bureacracy and cheap fixes.}

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Women are fisher's of men because we all know.... The small ones you throw back. The medium ones you eat. The large ones you mount.

quote:

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Holy shit--I agree with every single word MaKK just said. The end is nigh!

Somebody hold me!

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You people are willing to let an entire planet made of iron oxide go completely to waste? You'll be sorry when the rust shortages hit here on Earth.

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I was gonna send a robot back in time, but I got high.

Couldn't you say the same about mining Earth?

Maybe you've been reading too much Akira. :)

That would only apply if we mined the material, then shot it into space (or converted it to energy). If it stays on earth it is still apart of the earth's mass. The earth's surface is imperfect, so gravity is slighty different in different places, so you might displace mass, but our overall gravitation pull would remain the same as far as the moon is concerned.

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008

I bought a lamp and some lutefisk there once.

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"Jelly-belly gigglin, dancin and a-wigglin, honey that's the way I am!" Janice the Muppet

Oh Spankling, you're silly. Now come back to bed.

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Do you want ants? Because that's how you get ants.

No, billions of dollars for the space program is the same as billions of dollars for an unecessary war. It is money well-spent elsewhere. Here's an idea nobody ever thought of, probably with a better result:

Instead of spending 87 billion dollars to get our boys killed, test out new war toys, and play cowboys and Arabians, why didn't we just GIVE Saddam Hussein two billion dollars with a contract stipulation, signed by France, Germany, and other countries, to stop doing whatever it is that little Bushie don't want him to do? Why? Because it's the principal of the thing. That would just be wrong, right?

Even the hardest-core liberal may balk a bit at giving Saddam Hussein two billion dollars through an agreement or treaty to stop killing his own people, being naughty, overcharging us for oil, etc. The thing is, we've already thrown money at Saddam back in the dizzay to do what we want him to do. Why not do that again? Why didn't they try that?

As for the space program, I, too, agree with everything mAAk said about it. 100-frikkin-%. Somebody ought to call the Power Company and ask if Hell has paid their heating bill.

As for what DragonXero said, I don't understand that rationale. You're saying if we spend a shitload of money to do some crazy shit in space, everybody in the good ol' U.S. will resolve their differences, right? I think that's backwards cause-and-effect. We need to come together as a people BEFORE we explore outer space together. By people, I mean the world. Who the fuck wants to live in a galaxy where the Russians have one quadrant, while the U.S., Britain, and maybe China are bogarding two quadrants themselves?

Besides that, how many times have you decided, instead of spending the money to fix that leaky roof, you would go on vacation for a year, buy yourself new clothes, new car, etc.? Do you really think that when you come back home that leaky roof is going to all of a sudden not be leaky anymore?

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The giant three-phallused phallus of Uzbekistan will one day squirt the cosmic jizz of revenge all over Canada.

When your vacation is to a place where you might be able to get roof repair supplies that you can't find in your neighborhood, or where you might be able to move to from your leaky house, that vacation could very well be a darn good investment.

Thank you for justifying the space program so well with your analogy.

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ken.kaufman@gmail.com

Maybe because he already had well over 30 billion dollars himself, you goddamned fool?

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Vote Jeb Bush 2008