In 1961, President John F. Kennedy set the ambitious goal of placing American astronauts on the moon before the end of that decade. Through the concerted effort of scientists, engineers and fearless explorers, NASA succeeded with the Apollo 11 mission and 5 subsequent lunar landings. The last of these occurred in 1972, but despite such auspicious beginnings, no person has set foot on the moon since.
Drastic budget cuts rendered additional landings untenable, and a disheartening loss of ambition seemed to settle over the US space program.
Now, several Congressmen are attempting to reignite the country’s exploratory aspirations — a proposed bill would have Americans back on the moon by 2022 and working on a sustained human presence.
Entitled the Reasserting American Leadership (REAL) in Space Act, the bill’s stated purpose is to “promote exploration, commerce, science and United States preeminence in space as a stepping stone for the future exploration of Mars and other destinations.”
Given the current financial situation, many are questioning the timing of such a seemingly superfluous program. Admittedly, cost estimates run well into the hundreds of billions of dollars. However, the upfront expenditures amount to a relatively small portion of the US economy and mask the important gains to be had.
The country should be willing to pay for such lofty endeavors — the US cannot afford to delay our return to the forefront of lunar exploration.
At its peak, the Apollo program directly and indirectly provided jobs for over 375,000 Americans. This was accomplished using less than 4% of the federal budget.
Given the scientific advancements and specialization that has occurred since then, a similar program today would likely employ many more workers, with job openings ranging from construction to physics. This would go a long way in making a dent in the nation’s current unemployment rate, and the open ended nature of the current proposal ensures that it will have a sustained positive impact on the economy.
In addition, a program of this size and scale will invariably produce technological innovations that have the potential to transform everyday life. Previous NASA developments have included the invention of the integrated circuit and fuel cells.
Equally significant advances can rightfully be imagined as a result of reaching the goal of procuring and maintaining lunar colonies. Here again, the benefits will be long term and far-reaching.
Economics aside, a lunar space program will assist in reforming America’s reputation as a fading intellectual powerhouse. As science and math form the cornerstone of space exploration, there will be a greater demand for workers who are proficient in both.
By prioritizing these subjects in schools, students will be more likely to succeed in learning the material and pursue related careers later in life.
Eventually, other fields outside of the space industry stand to gain from this influx of competent professionals. The intangible value of national pride should also not be understated.
A return to the moon will serve as a common cause for all Americans and will reinvigorate the pioneering spirit that helped build this nation.
Finally, and somewhat sullenly, the long term survival of the human race will depend on us eventually leaving the Earth and its finite resources and timeline.
Both the Moon and Mars are ideal testing grounds of our ability to colonize other worlds, thereby preparing us early for what will become an eventuality. It is not all that much of an exaggeration to state that the fate of mankind may in fact rest on our continued exploration of the Moon.
The REAL Space Act faces strong opposition from both fiscal conservatives and welfare-oriented liberals. The objections from either group are shortsighted and misplaced.
Far from being a drain, the proposal to return to the Moon offers enormous economic and societal gains. Congress should see to it that the nation’s interests are served by once again placing American footprints on the lunar surface.
Sadly, space exploration has been filed under 'liberal' by conservatives who would rather spend the money on war or tax cuts for their wealthy business partners. Just like they did with being enviromental, pursuing a higher education, or eating healthy.
Republicans of the past would argue with democrats when they had different opinions. If they happened to agree on a subject, things usually went ahead with no problem. Now, a republican forms their opinion after they hear a democrats. They take whatever democrats say and support the opposite, no matter how silly they sound.
We should return to space, but I do not see that happening as soon as it should
Humankind has lost sight of that which truly defines our species. No longer do we seek to better ourselves for future generations. A vague complacency has enveloped our society, much as the fog drifting in across the bay. Now, we are faced with the most difficult of decisions…the decision to act. Do we allow ourselves to remain adrift amongst the unknown and simply remain content with allowing time to pass us by? Or do we once again stand up? We stand united, as one voice, one people, and one nation…even one world. The future can be a beautiful thing, if we make it so. It is up to each and every one of us to make this choice.
Call me an optimist, call me a dreamer…and I will agree with them all. I prefer to believe in the potential of humankind to achieve greatness. Looking out amongst the stars, I see the bright light of a hopeful future. I call upon any who reads this, who believes that this is possible, make your voice heard and encourage your elected officials to once again strive for something greater and support continued space exploration and advancement.
Unsurprisingly, the Cougar and author forgets that we had a plan for space exploration. It fell victim to the ignorance and baseless animosity towards the Bush Administration.
The Constellation program had us on the moon by 2020 (two years ahead of your deadline) and on mars by 2050. It was expensive, but despite the implications of liberal fanatics, it was not a massively wasteful or overspent program – the difference between NASA's current budget and the amount needed to fund Constellation going forward was less than $5B/year.
The President convened the Augustine Commission an August (pardon the pun) panel which was entrusted with determining the future of the nation's space program. The Augustine Commission recognized that the Constellation program was more expensive that a few alternatives, but basically endorsed the concept of a new ultra-heavy lift vehicle and presented the President with several options for continuing manned space exploration.
In what came as a shock to those of us who read the commission report, the President ignored every single plan option presented by the Commission of experts, and instead went with a different plan that involved terminating manned space exploration altogether.
This is where the truth of America's space program over the last 5 years takes a spooky turn.
The President, champion of massive social programs and government intervention in industry because 'private business can't provide the same cost efficiencies the government can,' decided to *pirvatize* our space program, and castrate our plans to reach other planetary bodies to only an LEO (Low Earth Orbit) presence. And who would be the recipient of these extremely lucrative government contracts? Elon Musk's SpaceX.
If that name sounds familiar, it should. Elon Musk is the now-CEO of Tesla Motors (a position he obtained by partnering with, then turning against the founder of Tesla). Tesla Motors, you may recall, is the California-based company which produces massively expensive and impractical all-electric cars. It goes with out saying that, due to the prominence of the Environmental movement, Elon Musk is a politically important figure within the Democratic Party.
Now we have a confluence of facts: A commission of aerospace experts, ignored. A plan for human space exploration, aborted. A liberal president suddenly and shockingly believes in the power of the 'free market.' A politically active and powerful CEO suddenly lands a huge government contract. The Nation's space abilities are sacrificed, and between fanatical Democrats in congress and apathetic or incompetent Reublicans, the nation stands by as the species marches toward extinction without a human presence on another world.
If you're going to lament the problems of the space program, take your blue-blinders off, and engage with the facts. We had a plan. President Obama killed it exclusively for political reasons. The much maligned George W. Bush is the Kennedy of our generation (from a Space perspective – please don't construe me as a Bush fan, because I am anything but) – and we're all too busy taking a dump on his reputation to acknowledge that – President Obama included.
Instead, we needed to give every retired person a $200 bribe in tax year 2009. This is the 'change' we can believe in.
What's the solution?
Tax programs independently, so they have their own independent revenue streams protected from the greedy hands of congress. I want to pay an extra 10% in income taxes that is directed towards science and research – but I don't want either party to be able to get their hands on it. Allocate the money to NASA, NIH, NSF, NOAA. Let scientists decide how to spend the money.
I don't think the author once mentioned Bush or his policies. The author did say that drastic budget cuts all but killed space exploration, and I suppose he could have been more explicit in blaming the Obama administration for this. Actually, the article comes across as largely apolitical, and instead is simply promoting a return to manned lunar missions and then on to Mars. While you may not be a Bush fan, you certainly come across as an Obama basher. Who is wearing colored glasses now? And would those glasses be red?
I love that pointing out something wrong with Obama is the same as being a Republican to you. That is what it means to be closed-minded.
The mention of Bush was not to 'paint the author' it was to explain *why* the author conveniently ignored the most dramatic shift in the space program since the Apollo Program was terminated.
If by "closed-minded" you mean that I think that any politician has the potential to screw things up, then guilty as charged. But please forgive me in calling you a Republican. It is easy to label others based on their stance on a single issue, but rarely does that label fully characterize the nuances of a person's political leanings. You have every right to criticize Obama for him essentially defunding the space program. But not every writer can cover all aspects of a subject, so I don't think you can criticize the author over not mentioning this fact. Again, from the sound of it, the author just kind of had that "we can dream big, and reach our goals" mentality and wasn't so concerned about the politics of it.
I agree with you in principle; my point was simply – you don't need to 'dream' at all. You just need to – as you say, leave the politics at the doorstep. To me, leaving the facts of the Constellation program out of this discussion is the same as making a huge political statement – one of implicit support for Obama's privatization plan. By extension my point was not, perhaps, that the premises of the piece were flawed – but that the piece the DC (and author) should've written was about the unjustified termination of America's manned spaceflight program. It's not like we needed to 'dream big' – the dream existed, and so did the plan. We just needed an extra 10-20% funding in manned spaceflight, and that was too far out of the way to go for the current Administration. I'll leave looking up the scale of differences to the reader, but suffice it to say that paying for a moon base would've resulted in far more benefit to me (and IMHO, every American) than bailing out Chrysler.
(I'll also say that mentioning Kennedy is a political statement unto itself, but that is a nit).
counterpoint: spaceflight is an obsolete sign of technological progress. what benefit would having a moon base be? how much would such an undertaking cost? should we establish a base on mars, too? if so, how do we deal with rapid bone loss, which occurs in astronauts who spend extended time in low gravity?
please be specific in your reply so i can decide if you are a credulous moron or just a sci-fi nerd who cares more about making his dumb fantasies come to life than boring stuff like feeding poor people.
"counterpoint: spaceflight is an obsolete sign of technological progress."
Counterpoint to the article or to me? Either way, false. There are huge problems with visiting another planetary body (not problems as is "uh oh" but problems as in "well what do we do about that…") that will require entirely new solutions from all fields involved – engineering being the obvious one, but all of the natural sciences as well. If a manned mission to Mars is to succeed those breakthroughs will have to be forthcoming.
"what benefit would having a moon base be?"
What benefit would it *not* have? Having a moon base puts a foothold in new territory. It gives us a base from which to expand our domain. That's the crucial and 'conceptual' reasoning behind it. There are also countless scientific pursuits that would be well served by a non-terrestrial environment. If you want a 'pressing need' instead of just "DO IT FOR SCIENCE" I can tell you that the human race will become extinct if it remains on the planet earth, and there is no way to predict when that will occur (meaning every second we exist only here increases our risk for destruction).
" how much would such an undertaking cost?"
A lot. WAG? $10-$20B/year (that's on top of the current NASA budget – which is in the $18-20 range, but a lot of that money bizzarely is spent on earth science.
"should we establish a base on mars, too?"
We should establish a base on as many planets as possible. In the short run it will be expensive. In the long run, the resource gain is vital for the continuation of the species. There's already talk about so called 'rare Earth' metal supplies dwindling. These metals are crucial for the operation of a modern technologically-based society. The solar system is full of them.
"if so, how do we deal with rapid bone loss, which occurs in astronauts who spend extended time in low gravity?"
This is exactly the kind of 'technological progress' that you dismissed earlier.
"please be specific in your reply so i can decide if you are a credulous moron or just a sci-fi nerd who cares more about making his dumb fantasies come to life than boring stuff like feeding poor people."
…Fortunately for you I wrote my reply before I read this paragraph.
Why are you being rude? There's no need for it. I'm really upset that I wrote this reply, because comments like this are not worth responding to. You're clearly not interested in discussing the issue.
As for the insults themselves: "You hate poor people!" I mean, really? That's the best you can come up with? I can tell you with a high degree of certainty that no one on the planet starved to death because we went to the moon.
Mike, yours is best synopsis I've read so far of what's happening to our leadership position in space. For the sake of our country's future I sure hope we can turn this around. And although Obama's cancellation of Constellation was definitely politically motivated, he's not the first one. It all started with Nixon cancelling Apollo under similar circumstances (it was a Kennedy/Johnson program, there was increasing public apathy, etc).
One thing I wish every American president would understand: You all can't keep tearing down the old space programs to build new ones! These things take decades to develop and new technologies are built on top of old technologies.
If we had continued and built upon Apollo in the 70's, instead of building the shuttle, who knows where we would be now. Moon bases, Mars orbit, Mars landing? One other thing that drives me crazy is that people look a the Constellation hardware and go "Oh space capsules? That's so old school, why are we doing that?", as if we should be building tie-fighters or something. They don't realize that Apollo was the safest, most proven reliable way to get to space, and that's why we were going back to those basic designs.
You're absolutely correct w.r.t. politics and Nixon. I wanted to highlight the Bush plan/termination because a) the Cougar Editorial Staff has a documented Obama bias and b) the current 'trend' is a level of animosity towards President Bush that is not justified. I disliked more than my fair share of President Bush's policies, but never in my short life have I seen a President so inaccurately vilified. I take every opportunity I can to point out how colossally short-sighted it is to say he was the "worst President ever" when truly long-lasting decisions like this one were made correctly (as compared with his 'superior' successor, who is peeing into the wind on Space Exploration).
What can I say, I root for the underdog.
I was no big fan of Bush either. I had huge issues with him on many points. But the Constellation program was the correct one. For the first time in decades we had a real space program that would get us out of low earth orbit and reaching for the stars again. The Moon was where we left off and were we needed to pick up again. Where Bush faltered was that he set the new course but didn't continue beat the drum to make sure it would get sufficient funding.
As for Obama's "plan"… All I've heard is maybe an asteroid, maybe a La Grange point, maybe Mars eventually. We won't get anywhere on "maybe". And if anyone thinks we're going to just launch people direct to Mars or asteroids after only getting decades of LEO experience, they're nuts. We have to take baby steps to these places and the Moon is a great place to start, if not the only place.
Obama's killing of Constellation was simply a combination of politics and a general lack of national pride. And all under the guise of "privatization". Does it occur to anyone that all of our previous space hardware has been built by private companies? NASA didn't build that stuff. Boeing, Lockheed, etc did. There's nothing new here in that regard except for maybe a couple of new players ala SpaceX. If SpaceX can build the hardware with the best bid then more power to them! But it sure looks like Obama has sacrificed our space leadership just so they can play catch up.
The debacle that has become modern politics, in my opinion, should have nothing to do with an effort such as this. Again, we see the paradigmatic shift towards what can only be called inconsequential when looking at the long term. What will people 100 years from now say about the decisions made today?
Our efforts as a society are not focused upon advancement for the greater good. My personal opinion is not based on any political ideal, rather an optimistic dream of creating a stable and prosperous future for everyone.
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"What benefit would it *not* have? Having a moon base puts a foothold in new territory."
I CLAIM THESE SPACE ROCKS IN THE NAME OF SPACE SPAIN good lord are you listening to yourself? how would "expanding" out to a lifeless rock unfit for agriculture, finance, or any task that could not be undertaken on earth be beneficial.
"A lot. WAG? $10-$20B/year (that's on top of the current NASA budget – which is in the $18-20 range, but a lot of that money bizzarely is spent on earth science."
yeah its so bizarre how all anybody wants to do is research the only home humanity will ever have, ever. its almost as if we need to pay more attention to the damage we're doing to this planet right here instead of hoping that spaceships will rescue us and give us a new planet to ruin.
"We should establish a base on as many planets as possible. In the short run it will be expensive. In the long run, the resource gain is vital for the continuation of the species. "
wow. do you understand how far away mars is? do you get that establishing a base on mars would involve basically shifting the entire world economy from "goods and services" to "space colonization". i want you to do an exercise: find out how long it would take to reach mars without killing the astronauts, then find the energy costs involved in sending a small crew and shuttle to mars. finally, imagine how much more it will be when we're talking about sending mining machinery, prefab housing, work crews, medical supplies, food, etc etc.
i know that you like to just throw out SCIENCE when somebody tells you that your sci-fi fantasies are unworkable, but there's no magic invention that is going to make space travel less costly and impractical.
Sorry, I'm done talking to you until you withdraw/apologize for your attacks.
I see we stand no chance against someone with such a limited rationale. I believe "crispin's" argument can be summarized as follows: too expensive, not enough financial payoff. I guess we should just stop developing drugs for rare diseases, because we'll never recover the cost from those. We should also ditch working on the Large Hadron Collider, because what good is particle physics to the GDP? Archeology? Maybe if we can sell the artifacts. All hail the all mighty dollar. Sarcasm off.
i'm sorry you're upset that countless billions of dollars aren't being blown on building MOONBASE USA. i guess we'll just have to settle for the crummy old earth, maybe even take an earnest effort to curb the effects of climate change as long as we're stranded here.
the low gravity on mars can't support us. the sunlight can't support food crops. any artificial colony would be less versatile, adaptable, and survivable than earth's ecosystem. this is all we have, so we should start taking care of it instead of promoting the manifestation of our childhood fantasies as the solution to the human condition.
wow you're really in love with the idea of dying alone on mars, i guess
10-20 billion dollars is a trifle for the government. Since we know efforts to combat or accommodate climate change will never take place at the governmental level, why not send the entire apparatus on a "useless" decoy that will take 10 to 20 years and wind up seriously improving revenue (at least by taxation) instead of spending that same money doing absolutely NOTHING on Earth.
Also, expanding to a lifeless rock unfit for agriculture would do wonders for agriculture. I would totally give up years of my life for a chance to work on agricultural applications for this lifeless rock. How do you grow fresh vegetables two years from Earth? It might take 5 or 10 years, but lessons learned from this would certainly do much more to feed humans on the Earth and thereby cope with climate change than the same money spent on initiatives that don't go anywhere thanks to government bureaucracy and inefficiency.
extremely basic science dictates that sending more stuff into space takes more force exerted by propulsion. do you know how much stuff it takes to build and sustain a human colony? do you know how much it WEIGHS? if we take a very conservative estimate and say that establishing an extraterrestrial colony will cost 100 times what an exploratory mission would cost, the grand total ends up being greater than the GDP of the united states. this is a pretty clear sign that everything would have to change in order to meet this tenuous goal. we have learned much more from the hubble and probes than we have from manned missions.
5 – 10 years to grow food on a barren planet with no atmosphere or oxygen is pretty optimistic! also, with a 2.7% loss in bone density per month, you'll probably break your arms working the space plow.
don't worry buddy, the future's still going to be great without starfleet
"extremely basic science"
Seeing as how rocket science has been used as a metaphor for 'extremely difficult' for about 50 years, I think this overstates your case a little.
"do you know how much stuff it takes to build and sustain a human colony? do you know how much it WEIGHS? if we take a very conservative estimate and say that establishing an extraterrestrial colony will cost 100 times what an exploratory mission would cost, the grand total ends up being greater than the GDP of the united states."
Do you just make your numbers up? A Saturn V mission cost $1.1 billion in 2011 dollars. Figure 100 times that, to use your completely imaginary multiplier. $110 billion. Certainly a significant cost…but nowhere near "the GDP of the United States" – which stands in excess of $14T. It's less than any number of tax cut bills passed for 'stimulus' from both sides of the congressional partisan aisle. The advantage is that once we build the lab, it's there. There's no need to build more, and adding on to it becomes much less expensive. It's the gift that keeps on giving!
Cites available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V#Cost
". this is a pretty clear sign that everything would have to change in order to meet this tenuous goal."
While it is not at all clear that this is the case as I have shown, I couldn't agree more that everything will have to change. That's why it's worthwhile. If we spent all this money to go to space and colonize, and nothing changed, that would be a colossal waste of money.
"we have learned much more from the hubble and probes than we have from manned missions. "
This is ironic, because this capability (the Hubble) exists as a result of a successful manned mission to repair it. If there hadn't been a manned capabibility to repair Hubble, the data collected from Hubble wouldn't exist.
That said, you're conflating manned missions and manned exploration. While an asinine 'quantity' like "What we learned" is typical of your case against manned exploration, I don't grant that there is a significant qualitative difference. They are BOTH valuable. It's good that you grant that useful information can be gained from space exploration, because it will ultimately prove the logical fallacy of your position. But when compared with the data returned from lunar exploration and the program to develop that capability, I would say the data gathered by Hubble – while fascinating, and immensely valuable – pales in comparison. Take this example: imagine if, in the 15th century, Spain could've seen the New World by telescope. They could've observed all kinds of useful things. But until they actually visited, made direct observation of the land there, and returned, would they have found that there is vast riches there, some of which had the mystical capability to turn them into zombie pirates.
The ultimate problem with this claim is that our goal is not to 'send robots to other planets.' Our goal is to put human beings there. We've demonstrated our capability to put probes on the moon and Mars (crashed into them many times, too!). We have NOT demonstrated a capability to build a base there.
"5 – 10 years to grow food on a barren planet with no atmosphere or oxygen is pretty optimistic!"
Funny, that's what they said about landing there. Also, for the record, both Mars and the Moon have abundant sources of oxygen available.
" with a 2.7% loss in bone density per month"
Bone density is lost in microgravity. Neither the moon nor Mars is a microgravity environment.
"you'll probably break your arms working the space plow. "
And the space exploration crowd is the one making the uninformed argument?
"don't worry buddy, the future's still going to be great without starfleet"
Why you continue to use an insulting and patronizing tone in your responses is beyond me. It doesn't make your point more believable or likable, it makes you sound like an insufferable and ignorant person.
The simple fact of the matter is that you have no valid arguments against why manned space exploration is crucial for the future of the human race; because there are none. Staying on Earth is economically, socially and biologically unfeasible. Spreading out resolves all of those problems.
It's an extremely complex problem, to be sure. But in the immortal words of President Kennedy, "We chose to go to the moon and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." Staying on Earth and condemning future generations to a future of want, conflict over resources and a polluted biosphere (because the necessary pollution-free technology was never developed…because no space program!) followed by extinction is easy.
Ah, there's that snide attitude of yours I love. More information, less insult.
"you don't have to be a nasa engineer to understand force = mass X acceleration "
No, but seeing as how that is not considered the fundamental equation of 'rocket science' your comment isn't really relevant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsiolkovsky_rocket_e…
"okay cool but lets talk about a mission that didn't end in the 70's.
No, much better we make up figures instead of use actual history as an indicator of future performance.
"bush's proposal…"
NASA's budget is about $20B/year, over 20 years NASA spends $400B (that's without inflation). I don't understand the relevance of your $400B cost figure – NASA already costs that much. The VSE had a program length of 45 years when announced…there *aren't* any major government programs that cost less than $500B over that length of time.
" now, imagine the crew and equipment's…. "
Wait, so you're willing to proffer $500B as a cost figure, and then say that 100x is too much. You realize that Apollo cost $120B in today's dollars, right? So…you yourself estimate the cost at 4x-5x. And you're arguing *against* this program based on the hyper inflated cost of a much more sophisticated capability. If you're not going to do the research, why make these posts? You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.
"what do you think is on the moon/mars…"
More resources of every type? Land? A second, ecologically independent biosphere? A naturally lower-gravity environment? A hundred million things I can't think of because no human has ever been there to see?
"the human race is going to go extinct one day…"
Yeah. As a matter of fact, so will you and I. Why bother procreating at all? We're all going to die. It's the end of times! You know, the Mayans believed that the world would end in December, 2012. I saw it in a movie, so it must be true. This is so much unscientific horse manure I don't even know how to properly address it without becoming uncivil. The fact that someone attending a quality institution like the University of Houston actually holds this belief (that's belief as in the tooth fairy) is amazing. You should transfer to Rice.
"we can't build a mars base…."
Your astrophysics seems to be lacking a bit here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Mars
I don't have a 'wikipedia' for the difference between a plasma and regolith, so you'll have to take my word for it that they are substantively different – different phases of matter, actually.
Suffice it to say, both your comparison and conclusion are fundamentally flawed.
"so building a city on the moon…"
Ah, the non sequitur. Finally we're getting to logical fallacies. No, it's not as simple as landing and walking around. But that difficulty does not cause all of the oxygen on either planet to vanish on your whim.
To save myself the 'embarassment' of you pointing out I'm correct about something again, here's a link to NASA's "why the moon" resources: http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/home/why_moon.htm…
"what makes you think you can speak with authority on anything?"
For instance, my level of authority? Sorry, the irony was too rich to pass up. Well, having confidence in information is usually achieved by reading the information itself, then examining the methodology for arriving at that information (so, if I were to read figures you made up, I would want to know how you made them up – when I discovered that it was something you made up because it sounded like it damaged the case the most, I would discard your information). Strictly speaking it is not 'my' authority I speak with, but the authority of the scientists and engineers whose material I have read.
"you do realize that even if i'm wrong and a new life awaits us in the off-world colonies, you'll still be undereducated and working a menial job, right?"
I'm not able to parse this, but I'm guessing you're trying to insult me again. Classy, as always. My problem is less that you've resorted to name calling, and more that this is the best you can come up with. I assure you, I have a great many flaws – implying that I'm only suited to manual labor in the insult equivalent of calling me a 'poo-poo head.' You can't even insult me properly, why should anyone take your words at face value?
also to any moderators: if you'd like to explain why my previous post was deleted, please contact at the email address i have listed in my profile
"yeah it's way more scientific to believe that science is going to save us all and let us live in space and mankind will be around forever."
Well, so far science is batting 1000. I'll take science over…whatever it is you're selling.
"i mean out of all of the (admittedly mean) things i said, THAT offhand comment got your blood boiling?"
Arguing with you, while annoying, is not sufficient to 'boil' my blood.
" i didn't want to think that this whole stupid argument was borne from your fear of dying and being utterly forgotten but now i don't really have a choice. "
Ah, there's that fatalism again. Philosophers dispensed with that in the 19th century – you need to read up on Determinism. I fear neither dying, nor being forgotten – nor have I said anything that indicates that…nor have you made an argument that does.
"maybe it wouldn't be so obviously if you didn't use the same rhetoric that pre-millennial dispensationalists use to argue that the rapture is coming. "
A stopped clock is right twice a day, I suppose. As opposed to a clock that insists their is no social value in manned space exploration, which is wrong all the time.
"there's nothing wrong with dorky fantasies but building a moon base for literally no reason is a criminal waste of money and manpower."
Saying that doesn't make it true. I've already either stated or linked you to resources that show why manned exploration and siting is good. You have -literally- not said a single thing to show why they are not, other that simply asserting that. You're like a right-winger who insists that socialized health care is evil, but can't offer a single piece of evidence to show why.
$14.2 billion to give one-time $250 payments to Social Security recipients, people on Supplemental Security Income, and veterans receiving disability and pensions.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Recovery_an…
That is criminal waste.
" i mean, how many americans are in poverty right now? how many children? where's your sense on empathy? "
About 44 million, according to the census beauru. I'd wager dollars to donuts that's a figure you did not know when you asked that question. What I don't think you fully considered is that none of those children are under the poverty line because of manned space exploration – because all manned space exploration was terminated by the Obama Administration. The number was lower in the 1960's – when we had a manned space exploration program.
Interesting what comes to light when you look at the facts.
To be continued…
"so you did you want to prove that breathable oxygen exists in the moon/mars atmosphere?"
That's not what you said. You said there was no oxygen on the moon or Mars. That is false. There is also atmospheric oxygen on both planets, but not on the order to support human respiration. Either way, it's a technical detail that can be resolved (see: past successful landings on the moon).
"was i right about you mistaking iron oxide for oxygen? because you didn't address that."
OK, here's what you said:
"5 – 10 years to grow food on a barren planet with no atmosphere or oxygen is pretty optimistic!"
"or" is a logical disjunction – a disjunction is a logical operator which means "true" if either statement is true. Your sentence "no (negation) atmosphere (disjunction) oxygen" means "negation (true if oxygen is present; also true if atmosphere present) which means that you were stating "there is no atmosphere; there is no oxygen."
My rebuttal was based on *what you stated* – if you would like to clarify your statement, be my guest. But I can't do anything about your poor grammar.
"the "landing on the sun" part was a point about practical impossibility vs physical impossibility. "
One is physically impossible because there is no 'surface' to land on. One is both physically and practically possible. You tried to make an analogy but failed because you were comparing an explicitly *unsimilar* attribute of two things.
"you either willfully misinterpreted my point or you have asperger's. "
Again, it's not my responsibility to make your points clear for you. You tried to make an analogy, and it didn't make any sense. I pointed this out. So false dichotomy on this one. You're racking up quite the list of logical fallacies. Is this some sort of bingo game you're playing? "See how many incorrect statements I can make in one post?"
"this isn't the oxford debating society and i'm not required to be nice to you, even if you do cry about it for 3/4ths of your post."
Your lack of proper punctuation and grammar made that fairly clear. You continue to assert things and fail to provide evidence for them. I don't understand why you bother continuing to discuss with me – I've shown time and again you don't know what you are talking about; and further that the points you do make (by declaring them) are wrong. It's a waste of your time. I'm here to protect the public of the insidious lies you are telling about the value and feasibility of the space program. You're here to spread disinformation, my guess is that's motivated by an irrational obsession with the Obama Administration.
Regarding your use of insults: you're certainly entitled to be uncivil; but perhaps the reason your post was deleted was because the Daily Cougar isn't obligated to print your trash beneath its articles?