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Isnt Curiosity Rover now a $2.5B failure ?
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NASA also invented those wing tip things used on jet airplanes. They save the airlines billions a year on fuel costs.
Devolution
Member
So OP just posted this then ran?
No it's not Kevlar does not get you to geosynchronous orbit. You'd still need a chemical fuel rocket to escape earths gravity which means your 95 percent figure is way off on a Kevlar elevator.
H.Protagonist
[-_-]/
A space elevator is a dream with our current technology. It's unproven and there's no way would NASA try to build one with their limited budget. NASA is already spread thin with their current funding issues. What you're suggesting to scrap planetary research, probes, rovers, telescopes, etc. to build an experimental space elevator is not realistic, we don't even know if the yearly NASA budget could cover such a project.
Re-usable rockets are the future and can bring down the cost of going to space much like a space elevator would. Way more practical and SpaceX already has done extensive testing to show that it is possible.
Diprosalic
Banned
Ether_Snake
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Never said it had to be a space elevator, I said we still need rockets till then.
Brian Griffin
Member
Dude... we put a robot on another planet that we can control from Earth. That alone makes it a success.
Winterfang
Banned
This, of course there's nothing in Mars. It's a big empty rock, just getting the Rover there was an achievement. Not to mention getting pictures from there wireless, which is crazy considering that's on another planet.
mattiewheels
And then the LORD David Bowie saith to his Son, Jonny Depp: 'Go, and spread my image amongst the cosmos. For every living thing is in anguish and only the LIGHT shall give them reprieve.'
Bu-but the Van Allen Belt!
Its a huge failure. Do you know how many drones we would have bought? Like maybe 1 with service contract included. You know how many brown people my government could have blasted from the earth randomly? I mean, that's priceless right? :/
How about we leave the space program the fuck alone.
How about we leave the space program the fuck alone.
orientalNoodle
Banned
The question should be did it meet all mission objectives?
"Finding nothing" is indeed learning something. No one said that dinosaur aliens that bare the resemblance of Steve Urkel were running around on Mars. It was a fact finding mission and should be judged on how it compared to the mission goals and objectives.
Also there this this Mars Rat. Believe.
Also there this this Mars Rat. Believe.
MemoryHumanity
Member
Better than spending it on missiles.
Wow, shots fired. North Korea tried at least.
Actually drones are dirt cheap, relatively speaking. That's part of why the military loves them.
$2.5 billion would buy ~16 F35 fighter jets. Alternatively, you could get ~600 predator drones. Though, admittedly, I don't think those figures include upkeep.
One day in the far flung future, he'll end up in a museum back on Earth.
I would rather hope that he'd be in a museum on Mars.
radios shipping overview
Member
I can't find any achievements of note from OP. He's been on the board for eight months already and he hasn't produced any scientific breakthroughs or advanced society in any measurable way. What gives?
efyu_lemonardo
May I have a cookie?
LOL
Wyndstryker
Member
CrunchyFrog
Member
I get the gist of your argument here, but do you not realize the (pardon the pun) astronomical initial investment a space elevator would be? It would be, by far, the largest object ever built by mankind, such that even the maximum savings theorized here would not pay off said investment for somewhere on the order of a few HUNDRED years, have HUGE implications for national, international political and military interests, and before all of this requiring the monumental mass production of a material that must be both the strongest and yet still flexible material in the world and sufficiently strong enough past that to withstand potential attacks/faults, lest we have a 15000km+ long 10-15ft. diameter cable fall and crush everything in its path. This requires a confluence of materials and astronomical sciences, international diplomacy, and industrial mass production and construction yet unseen on this earth.
I get the desire to work towards big picture projects, but you also have to take into account that the US government has continually slashed NASA's budget. Neil Tyson put it best, "I’m tired of saying this but I have to say it again! The NASA budget is 4/10′s of one penny on a tax dollar. If I held up a tax dollar and I cut horizontally into it 4/10′s of 1% of its width, it doesn’t even get you into the ink! SO I WILL NOT ACCEPT A STATEMENT THAT SAYS “WE CAN”T AFFORD IT!" To ask that no other space faring experimentation or exploration happen until such a time is ludicrous and unfair. NASA is stuck using 1940's space designs because that's all the US government allows them to afford.
While we have examples in history of massive leaps in science, the vast majority of research is slow, stepwise, and in the greater context seemingly trivial, but all in all vital to the advancement of scientific knowledge.
EDIT: forgot a 0, honestly could probably do another one given some proposed designs
Yes, but thankfully Ether_Snake has jumped in to proliferate some interesting debate.
jadedm17
Member
This is where we're at though is I think what the OP is getting at.
Its sad - and as a Star Trek and space fan myself I wish we could invest more in space exploration, especially since the Earth (or Sun) won't be around forever- but even Stephen Hawking has admitted that its kinda selfish exploring space when we still have so many problems to fix here still. Thats a lot of money that could go to feeding, housing or ridding people of disease.
It wouldn't hit anything. Well...nothing important. we aren't gonna build the thing in the middle of New York City.
But they do need to work out that whole meta-materials thing, because we really don't want the thing to fall.
ClassyPenguin
Banned
You can do both but govt funding is still organized on archaic gold standard terms and deficit hawks.
1. It really isn't compared to spending on other areas.
2. You could bring that argument to a lot of things, especially the most frivolous, non-scientifically driven ones, so I think it is kind of moot here.
As a species we could, and should be doing all of those things, while still allowing for scientific research related to space exploration, and NASA does a few things that the budget allows. It is a shame that we can't, because people dictate money is better spent on a variety of other things. What I'm trying to say is, yes, if we got together we could probably rid the world of a lot of those problems, but that is something that you can't hold against a Mars rover project before holding it to a hundred other, much more wasteful and frivolous things.
I agree with you, OP.
Who cares about some rocks and dried ass rivers on mars? Ain't nobody care. Lets get some more rivers on earth.
Until we have the technology where we can send people there and live in space green houses and shit, what's the point?
Just live in the now. Space ain't going nowhere.
Lets build our own rivers
Who cares about some rocks and dried ass rivers on mars? Ain't nobody care. Lets get some more rivers on earth.
Until we have the technology where we can send people there and live in space green houses and shit, what's the point?
Just live in the now. Space ain't going nowhere.
Lets build our own rivers
Just to add to everything
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias
It doesn't matter if you thought it was obvious that life was on mars thousands of years before, until there's actual proof it doesn't mean anything.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindsight_bias
Wikipedia said:
It doesn't matter if you thought it was obvious that life was on mars thousands of years before, until there's actual proof it doesn't mean anything.
Fusion Pizza
Member
I think your expectations are not in line with what NASA is hoping to achieve, scientific discovery is often a meandering, wandering path with many dead ends and false starts.
The way in that they landed that beast of a machine is a marvel of engineering, we gained a new technique to land heavy equipment on a planet, that alone is worth it, more tools in the toolbox is never a bad thing.
The previous rovers went for years and years beyond their planned operational limits.
Give curiosity some time.
The way in that they landed that beast of a machine is a marvel of engineering, we gained a new technique to land heavy equipment on a planet, that alone is worth it, more tools in the toolbox is never a bad thing.
The previous rovers went for years and years beyond their planned operational limits.
Give curiosity some time.
jadedm17
Member
Yea, my thoughts. Lawrence Krauss has some fascinating things to say about this, the most interesting of which [to me] is how, if the universe is expanding, soon enough it'll be expanding faster than we'll ever be able to explore certain parts of it. The idea is essentially if we don't get the technology to visit these places soon we'll never in the course of human history see them.
Ideally we should be doing a lot of things and all at once, I agree, but I think as Americans we've backed ourselves into a corner that doesn't include $2.5 billion to spend on exploring Mars. We should look at those things too as I'm sure there's far more then $2.5 billion being wasted on less useful things.
Just my thoughts anyways.
I wish life was like Star Trek
Oh wow never heard of this, that's really cool! Has Nasa sent similar probes?
Jezbollah
Member
Dark Octave
Banned
It's not NASA's fault that nothing was discovered. If nothing is there then nothing is there. Nobody promised anything and the reason for the mission was out of "curiosity". We needed these things confirmed anyway.
In the future there will be a better even more extensive rover that will probably find nothing as well.
In the future there will be a better even more extensive rover that will probably find nothing as well.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
Sadly, people like the OP are in the majority and the reason the Space Program has been on a downturn.
Pft, screw that.
The surface of Saturn's moon, Titan.
Pft, screw that.
The surface of Saturn's moon, Titan.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
bah
Bitmap Frogs
Mr. Community
Because PR is a magical tool that solves everything, of course.
The reason for NASA to exist to the eyes of most Americans died with the USSR.
DjangoReinhardt
Thinks he should have been the one to kill Batman's parents.
I don't think it's a zero-sum game in the way you characterize it here. The annual U.S. budget and taxation policies are far from optimized, so there are plenty of places to reassess priorities.
The big problem is that we now know enough about our space neighborhood to make a pretty good guess that there aren't any discoveries that are going to meaningfully alter life for the average citizen in the foreseeable future. Accordingly, the practical benefit of throwing money at NASA for current taxpayers is the possibility that NASA's research will result in some unknown technological advance from which taxpayers may or may not derive any utility. While NASA has delivered in that regard on many occasions, it's not going to mobilize voters.
NASA is really a bet on the future and the Americans who control the purse strings (read: Baby Boomers) have routinely demonstrated that they aren't overly interested in investing in the next generation if it requires them to make a sacrifice. American taxpayers aren't altruistic enough to allocate more funding to NASA on a good-for-mankind basis, so NASA needs to make a pitch for how it's a vital component in the war on terror or make do with minimal funding until China's space program advances far enough to freak out American hillbillies.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
PR helps. If more Americans were aware of all the things that have come from NASA they'd support it more.
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