We Stopped Dreaming

stratoaxe wrote: I wonder what the entire planets' contribution to the program is. It just seems to me that the international comunity is incredibly critical of the American frame of thought as an automatic reaction rather than giving consideration to the opposing argument. I may be a broken record here, but if you can't afford you can't afford it. What are the numbers that Canada contributes to its space program? A quick Google search shows that NASA is far and away the most well funded program on the planet. You could cut its number in half and still be almost triple the ESA budget / CSA budget combined. Canada has a much smaller income than the U.S. - therefore our program reflects that. Even with Obama's budget cuts NASA is still receiving 17 billion if my Google fu serves me correct. It cut the mars program by 30% for now, but again, if the international community is so outraged by our budget cuts, why are their own programs so poorly funded? Because the GDP and space infrastructure of the USA is so much larger and readily available. I don't pretend to know much about this stuff, but it just seems like the international attitude towards the American way of thought is incredibly biased from the start. Biased towards what?

Edited by Rofl_Mao - 20 March 2012 at 3:10pm

choopie911 wrote: oldpbnoob wrote: choopie911 wrote: This is more like you can't pay rent so you stop sending your kids to school, because of the small cost of field trips, etc. School is more important. I disagree with your analogy. More appropriately, would be you can't pay rent, so you suspend your non-degree seeking night classes that you're taking for fun. And the entire issue is that you think it is non-essential, which is foolish. Education is essential. This is education for the entire planet, not just 'mericuh.

I wonder what the entire planets' contribution to the program is.

It just seems to me that the international comunity is incredibly critical of the American frame of thought as an automatic reaction rather than giving consideration to the opposing argument.

I may be a broken record here, but if you can't afford you can't afford it. What are the numbers that Canada contributes to its space program? A quick Google search shows that NASA is far and away the most well funded program on the planet. You could cut its number in half and still be almost triple the ESA budget / CSA budget combined.

Even with Obama's budget cuts NASA is still receiving 17 billion if my Google fu serves me correct. It cut the mars program by 30% for now, but again, if the international community is so outraged by our budget cuts, why are their own programs so poorly funded?

I don't pretend to know much about this stuff, but it just seems like the international attitude towards the American way of thought is incredibly biased from the start.

Of course I agree that cutting NASA to cut the deficit would be foolish, but it's part of a bigger picture. How about this analogy-You go to the grocery store on a cut budget. Obviously you'll make concessions. So you buy generic macaroni instead of the name brand. That one concession won't help you at all on its own, but that's clearly not your only concession.

Americans are calling for across the board spending cuts. The trouble is that we're caught in a political battle over the big cuts (welfare, military, etc) so the only clear cuts we can make are causes not politically championed.

oldpbnoob wrote: choopie911 wrote: This is more like you can't pay rent so you stop sending your kids to school, because of the small cost of field trips, etc. School is more important. I disagree with your analogy. More appropriately, would be you can't pay rent, so you suspend your non-degree seeking night classes that you're taking for fun.

And the entire issue is that you think it is non-essential, which is foolish. Education is essential. This is education for the entire planet, not just 'mericuh.

choopie911 wrote: This is more like you can't pay rent so you stop sending your kids to school, because of the small cost of field trips, etc. School is more important.

I disagree with your analogy. More appropriately, would be you can't pay rent, so you suspend your non-degree seeking night classes that you're taking for fun.

choopie911 wrote: oldpbnoob wrote: choopie911 wrote: I'm more stunned at his inability to see the obvious value in greater understanding. At what cost? **I'm going to strangle this goddamn spam filter** I see it this way: Trying to reduce the budget by cutting NASA funding is like trying to fight obesity by trimming your toenails. They're such a small slice of the pie, budget cuts are just feel-good measures that damage an important program.

But common sense tells you that non-essential programs should be the first ones to be cut. vs essential ones. If I can't make rent, I don't go out and buy a set of Encyclopedia Brittanicas. Or buy a testors rocket set to see how high I can get it to fly.

oldpbnoob wrote: choopie911 wrote: I'm more stunned at his inability to see the obvious value in greater understanding. At what cost?

**I'm going to strangle this goddamn spam filter**


I see it this way: Trying to reduce the budget by cutting NASA funding is like trying to fight obesity by trimming your toenails.

They're such a small slice of the pie, budget cuts are just feel-good measures that damage an important program.

I'm more stunned at his inability to see the obvious value in greater understanding.

I mean:

oldpbnoob wrote: My original point was that I think a lot of people have lost interest and stopped supporting such adventures when it was realized that the chances of it being like StarTrek or StarWars is highly unlikely unless we can figure out how to bend space and time or develope some way of traveling at the speed of light.

And HOW do you develop that technology? That's what they're TRYING to do.

Edited by choopie911 - 19 March 2012 at 4:49pm

choopie911 wrote: OPBN seems to think we got where we are naturally, and we should just hang out where we are as long as we can. Now that is science at its best.

Never once said anything of the sort. Please don't put words into my mouth. Our science is far from the best., which I'm sure is an attempted trap at qualifying manned space exploration.

Edited by oldpbnoob - 19 March 2012 at 2:39pm

Back on topic, when we get right down to it, it is of incredible importance that we not only understand how we came to be here, but also to figure out where the universe is going. If we were to just accept everything that we "know" right now, we might as well all just slit our wrists and save the planet the trouble of our future misdeeds since according to current conventional wisdom, we're all just going to waste away due to the entropic nature of the universe. But, because of our insatiable human curiosity, we're continually studying our universe and finding new theories to what will happen. I find the "Dark Flow" theory to be especially interesting as it potentially shows that sibling universes exert a certain force over our own, and that possibly, entropy and cold death aren't the ultimate endgame for our universe. Despite your misgivings OPBN, our very nature is that of self preservation. Those who have the foresight to look into the future know that we need to start looking beyond our own world, and ultimately our own universe to find the answers to the continued survival of the human race.

Mac attack "that ball was on the line!!"