Mars Landing, 8-6-2012, 1:30AM EST

Yes and the space programs and related research developments have contributed enormously to education and medicine as you no doubt know. I would be long since deceased if it werent for the technology that arose from the space program and as a matter of fact just you being able to post on this forum, see these landings on your TV or any number of things you take for granted now have been made possible either directly or indirectly due to the space program.

If your interested in feeding the children, do you understand the role that satellite imagery has played in assisting agriculture world wide? We are now able to detect previously unknown water sources in arid deserts, GPS has allowed for precision planting and micro technology of all sorts has resulted in more precise, less polluting and less resource intensive farming equipment and techniques. Its one of the things we do lament here as its help lead to the loss of small family farms and livelihoods. A handful of people can now farm thousands of acres and feed tens of thousands.

As much as I like and choose to live in the old ways as much as possible its hard to imagine feeding the worlds population on the technology we had in the 1950s and even 1960s.

__________________
www.salmonslayer-simplelife.blogspot.com

How naive.

Look up "Food Power".

Sounds like 2800 dollars a head now.

Is it a fascinating spectacle, sure.

Those in favor of having hard earned dollars taken from Citizens of this great Republic to fund these programs should write a check to NASA to pay the freight proportionate to their enthusiasm.

NASA's budget for 2011 was 0.45% of the entire budget. It works out to about 9 dollars per person per YEAR.

I would be happy to write NASA a check for that amount. So much for taking those hard earned dollars from the citizens. Ive gotten far more than my 9 dollars a year worth, from the benefits NASA has given the US.

This map is from 2003. All the businesses that have benefited from NASA have paid taxes as well. Sounds like a good return for any 9 dollar investment.

__________________
Recognize the beauty in things, in creation, even when thats difficult to do.
Be loving, show compassion. Create while we're here.
Enjoy this life, be in this life but not be of it.

Correct the space program is needed, and has done wonderful things for mankind.
Man has always been a "explorer" and this is no different then what man has done over the last 250K years we have been on this earth.

According to Wikipedia NASA's FY 2011 budget was $18.4 billion.

Budget of NASA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The US Population in 2011 was 312 million.

USA Population - The Current Population of the USA

This comes out to over 58 dollars per Living US Resident, including minors, seniors, welfare recipients, the disabled and illegal aliens.

I`m all for it.

I just hope they don`t clutter up Mars with "space trash" like they have left orbiting out there already.


Space debris - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

__________________
"You can only come to the morning through the shadows."~J.R.R.Tolkien

Well, I wouldnt have said that but your on the right track so I applaud you for that statement. Lots of folks on the continent thought the earth was flat too and decried the waste of money spent on schemes to find a quick path to India and look what happened.

It may be naive to want to live in a fantasy world where time stands still and where we can forgo technology and scientific discovery but dont beat yourself up about it. Even the Amish are starting to come around and use rubber tires and gasoline engines to power things.

Interesting link though, I am well versed on food power and have served in many countries where this was a vivid memory for me including Somalia during the famine of the early 90s and in Kurdish held Iraq after Desert Storm (a little know operation called Operation Provide Comfort"...Google it). Crops rotted in the fields because war lords prohibited the harvesting and distribution and well meaning mostly Western countries provided food stuffs that stayed in warehouses in Mogadishu due to distribution problems or political expediency. During Operation provide Comfort the Iraq government was persecuting the Kurds who sought autonomy from Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran after the first Gulf War and food was again used as a weapon by all sides including the US. So what is your experience in the matter and what does that have to do with space exploration?

I am against using food as a weapon too and like you (I think) I believe that its more effective to export knowledge and assistance to grow food close to the consumer. Our space program has greatly assisted in making that possible and my personal experience has shown that just dumping food on a populace does nothing but empower those with the strength and resources to exploit those efforts for their own gain.

But maybe the space program is a bad idea and we should go back to the old ways and forgo technological developments that arise from it. Care to share your ideas?

__________________
www.salmonslayer-simplelife.blogspot.com

Humans have always had the need to explore and grow, it's in our nature. If you don't, you die. If no one had been moved to explore the world and find a better life we would still all be living in Africa somewhere or wherever civilization was said to have started. Our urge to look over the next horizon is what keeps us going and has resulted in nearly every technological advancement we've had in history. It's an extremely short sighted view to stop the growth of humanity to feed a few people. The benefits of the technologies that have been learned by NASA far outweighs the temporary feeding of a few hungry people.

We send billions of dollars of money and aid to the gaping bottomless pit that is Africa and for what? A large part of the population still lives like they did thousands of years ago. Much of the money doesn't even reach the people it's intended for. I was sent a Powerpoint file of pictures of the affluent parts of Africa and it showed something the world rarely sees. They have big cities there too, office towers, McMansions, golf courses and a lot of neighborhoods that look quite like ours. There is enough money in Africa to feed everyone there but there is so much corruption there it's scary.

We need to continue to grow and explore our world and the horizons beyond. Maybe someday we can have the ability to shoot down a meteor that is on a collision course for Earth, thereby saving the Earth so civilization can continue, but we can't do that by hiding in some paradise where everyone has a meal but is dying of some preventable physical ailment that would have been cured by an advancement discovered by the space program.

There are a lot of reasons why people are starving in this world and NASA is way down the list.

Wow!!!!

When I joined this group many years ago, I never imagined how many would be so dependent on government.

Now many are claiming that without taking our money and running it through the bureaucrats and the space program, we would never have computers, internet, eye surgery, etc, etc.

So apparently, the more money we have taken from us, the better off we will be. And people wonder why the economy isn't doing so well. Maybe if 3/4 of the workforce is in NASA, our life will be so much better! Yep, maybe we can all get a homestead on Mars.

Obviously some good things came from the space program, but at what cost? The private sector can do it much cheaper, but apparently few here believe in private enterprise.

Believe it or not, there is technology that was developed without government taking our money and wasting most of it.

And the claim that the space industry provides jobs. No kidding! You can provide alot of 'jobs' when you can force people to pay you. But if people in the free market aren't demanding the services, and we need to take peoples money by force (taxes) to create those jobs, they should not exist.

I would like to know how much you are all willing to pay out of your own pockets to have a Mars landing. I would guess that many support it as long as they can force others to cover the costs, but wouldn't cover the cost themselves.

So everyone is at the trough taking advantage of the system for their pet projects or benefits, and it will eventually collapse.

Actually DJ I agree with you to a point. NASA is reportedly poorly run and has turned increasingly to the private sector to accomplish some of its goals. This is one case where private industry would have had a hard time starting the ball rolling but where government led the way and now needs to know when to step out of the way. If you have even occasionally watched the news recently you would have seen the proliferation of private space ventures that are now starting to supply the International Space Station and send civilian paying passengers into orbit. They did the same thing with the dawning of satellite communications and now thats largely conducted by the private sector. It would be my expectation that in the future there will be resource extraction, space travel and even exploration increasingly conducted by private ventures.

But I dont think too many people think NASA is a paragon of efficiency. They are mismanaged and lost their way when they solely focused on the Space Shuttle at the exclusion of other projects.

But at the end of the day sometimes you just have to look at what has been accomplished and understand that its a significant achievement and congratulate the folks who made a project like this successful. Its quite an accomplishment no matter how you look at it.

__________________
www.salmonslayer-simplelife.blogspot.com

I spend that on ONE GAS TANK fill up for my car. I'd be happy to send that as well for a years worth of exploration.

I bet people spend far more on cigarettes and lottery tickets.

__________________
Recognize the beauty in things, in creation, even when thats difficult to do.
Be loving, show compassion. Create while we're here.
Enjoy this life, be in this life but not be of it.

Ridiculous.

The private sector IS WHAT invented those things. NASA subcontracts to places like IBM, Grumman, Rockwell, etc. They werent made at NASA.

I already said I am very happy to pay my share of the Mars Landing, so I guess you would guess wrong.

__________________
Recognize the beauty in things, in creation, even when thats difficult to do.
Be loving, show compassion. Create while we're here.
Enjoy this life, be in this life but not be of it.

Who is funding the private sector with those contracts?

Answer: you and I.

First Obama wins Nobel Prize for bombing Libya and Pakistan, now he takes credit for stealing billions of tax payer money for some stupid mars rover? HAHAHAHAHA.

I'd rather fund them than fund nuclear weapons , chemical weapons, wars for oil, wars for nothing, paying farmers to not grow things, 100 dollar hammers, etc etc etc.

__________________
Recognize the beauty in things, in creation, even when thats difficult to do.
Be loving, show compassion. Create while we're here.
Enjoy this life, be in this life but not be of it.

Please show where Obama has taken credit for the Mars Rover. That was paid for by NASA's budget, not "stealing billions"

__________________
Recognize the beauty in things, in creation, even when thats difficult to do.
Be loving, show compassion. Create while we're here.
Enjoy this life, be in this life but not be of it.

So would I.