NASA Ends Plan To Put Man Back On Moon 460
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from The Times Online: "NASA has begun to wind down construction of the rockets and spacecraft that were to have taken astronauts back to the Moon — effectively dismantling the US human spaceflight programme despite a congressional ban on its doing so. Legislators have accused President Obama's administration of contriving to slip the termination of the Constellation programme through the back door to avoid a battle on Capitol Hill."
Re:Look for the upside (Score:2, Insightful)
Good (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The U.S. then cedes space dominance then? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. All the money is now focused on things to serve the Earth (like a TV relays, spy pictures, or weather data) or serving wealthy earthlings who want to go into something almost zero gravity for a short stay. There's nobody interested in paying for Moon or Mars projects anymore it seems.
An easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
If Congress is really mad that the Obama administration is shutting down the moon program, then there is a simple way they can handle the situation. They can vote to fully fund NASA's programs. So far, all I hear from Congresscritters is lip service. If they really want to send humans back to the moon, then show us the money. Talk is cheap. Space hardware is not.
It's all about money. (Score:3, Insightful)
People act like any measures taken now determine the future of the American space program forever. The budget is what it is. If NASA needs to focus on less expensive methods of exploration, that doesn't mean it will be that way forever. If it's a major setback, that's unfortunate. It doesn't change the financial health of the country, however.
Been there, done that. (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with political oversight (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is, with whatever-will-replace-the-Shuttle system scrapped... we've got nothing capable of docking at IIS left. There's a few contractor projects in development so that problem will be solved shortly, but right now there's a void. If we can't maintain IIS without serious help, then just how are we going to build anything on top of that project? Some plans for a moon base would use IIS as a staging area... but if that project goes the way of SkyLab... just what is NASA exploring again?
Oh, the irony! (Score:4, Insightful)
[blockquote]An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from The Times Online:[/blockquote]
Isn't it odd that these days, more and more, Americans have to find out what their government is doing from foreign newspapers?
Re:It's all about money. (Score:4, Insightful)
If not us, who? If not now, when?
There's a "use it or lose it" concept with government money. If your project fails, it's likely to never get funded again. If the project comes in under budget, the amount it didn't need gets subtracted from next year's budget. Basically, if there's no funding for it now... it's pretty easy to assume it may never be funded again.
It was too easy (Score:4, Insightful)
Going to the moon now would have been Apollo all over again, with little to gain. The moon has been done and we should leave it to commercial and new scientific activity now.
If we, as a species, want a project of comparable difficulty (compared to Apollo from the 1960 perspective) then we should send a human crew to Titan.
But the problem is how to fund it. The cold war and the US taxpayer funded Apollo. The Soviet people helped in their own unique way, by showing how not to do it. A new space program would have to be a global exercise, with contributions from many countries. If we decide to have just one war less then finding the money should not be a problem.
For a couple of decades we have been avoiding an important question: why do we want human beings to go into space? We should think hard and come up with some answers pronto.
Probably for the best (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't think the case for visiting the moon (and Mars) is compelling enough for the current economic climate [crooksandliars.com].
Re:Look for the upside (Score:5, Insightful)
Social insurance and spaceflight are not mutually exclusive.
I imagine if you swap two wars for a space program, we could be halfway to Mars by now (at least).
Re:Good (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't think you understand. There will be no development in propulsion systems or energy or life support capable of carrying man because we have effectively seen manned flights ended. If the entire idea was simply scaled back to what you were saying, I don't think there would be much objection, but the problem is that this has essentially ended the concept so the development will not take place. Other agency might work on things they have no directive for or programs to use it with, but NASA has been very careful to get the most out of it's money in the past and will do so in the future. They won't work on things they aren't supposed to be doing.
And yes, Propulsion systems, energy system as well as life support systems get certified in different ways depending on if man is involved in the flight or not because of more stringent requirements for manned flights. This is so we can't make joke about lost crews like the one about the shuttle crew all having dandruff- their head and shoulders washed up on the beach.
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
If nothing else, the Constellation program will have served the useful purpose of distracting ATK and other folks who were milking the program away from the shuttle long enough for that obsolete program to be shut down gracefully. Management at ATK has been hinting that the company will virtually shut down without Ares or the shuttle. Memo from Free Enterprise to ATK management: if you depend on a single customer to sustain your company, you deserve to go bankrupt.
Re:Good Riddance (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless we can set up a colony there, it just isn't worth it.
The moon, you see, is a harsh mistress.
But what if they start throwing rocks?
Re:Good (Score:1, Insightful)
IIS is really the USA/Russia space station. (Take two countries and call it International?) Anybody else who wants to use it has to rent a seat on the Space Shuttle or a Russian ship to get there... and with us about to scrap the Shuttle program, what's left?
Re:Are we smarter or stupider? (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, there is no place on Earth as deadly as the surface of the Moon or Mars. There is no place on Earth that costs as much as a hundredth, maybe a thousandth of the cost of just getting to the Moon, much less Mars, much less staying for any period of time.
The same could have been said of America or Australia from the perspective of Europe, before colonisation.
Re:Are we smarter or stupider? (Score:3, Insightful)
> but at the end of the day, no matter how bad the Earth gets, it's exponentially more comfortable and practical than any other place in the Solar System.
While you are correct as far as your limited imagination goes, ponder these notions:
1. One medium size nickel-iron asteroid has more metal content than pretty much everything we will need for decades. Space has a LOT of resources and there isn't any sort of ecology to worry about despoiling. So do YOU care about the environment? Or are you a poser interested in the egoboo of recycling your plastic Walmart bags? Or perhaps a pave the Earth nutjob? (See how easy it is?)
2. The one thing space has is space. Something we have run out of here, there aren't any places to go here and start over. Yes there are barren hellholes almost as hard to colonize as space but you won't escape the long arm of civilizatrion ANYWHERE earthside. A frontier is a great social relief valve, allowing a certain personality type to be a useful asset instead of a bomb waiting to go off.
3. Sooner or later Earth is doomed. If we are still all here when that happens we go extinct.
4. Resources expended on space exploration has a hell of a lot more useful economic benefits than warehousing losers in housing projects.
Re:The U.S. then cedes space dominance then? (Score:4, Insightful)
There's nobody interested in paying for Moon or Mars projects anymore it seems.
Why be interested in that, when you can keep fighting in silly wars that no-one can win, when you can keep bailing out finance sectors and car manufacturers even though their business models clearly got them into trouble in the first place.
Sorry, my rant toggle must have been on, and I didn't notice.
Re:The U.S. then cedes space dominance then? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. All the money is now focused on things to serve the Earth (like a TV relays, spy pictures, or weather data) or serving wealthy earthlings who want to go into something almost zero gravity for a short stay. There's nobody interested in paying for Moon or Mars projects anymore it seems.
No one is interested in the Moon unless we'll build a base there. No one wants to pay for another trip back to the Moon if we're just going to plant the flag and come home again. Been there, done that.
Do something new and different, or don't go at all.
Re:Look for the upside (Score:2, Insightful)
Ah, I see you're one of those people that are self made. No one helped you, it wasn't luck, it wasn't fate, just you alone against the world with the same exact starting point as anyone else. All your blessings you gained for yourself, and none came any other way, huh.
The poor still pay taxes, dick wad. Taxes payed for the Apollo Missions. I'll bet anything the poor outnumber you sophisticated science-types about a million to one. Also, I think they'd rather have $2 worth of free antibiotic than whatever fantastic discoveries await you on the Moon at a cost of trillions (but, oh, man, tang and microwave ovens made it sooo worth it!).
Then again, you have a point... those poor engineers and scientists... what WILL become of them if we DON'T go to the Moon? They certainly can't advance science on Earth, certainly not if medicine is socialized!
Hey, IQ22, keep up the good work for humanity. We're all counting on you.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It was too easy (Score:5, Insightful)
"The moon has been done?"
Hardly. The moon is the next logical stepping stone to everywhere else we want to go in the solar system.
Maybe the US will wake up when China lands a man on the moon.
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
So...the Japanese and Europeans have NOT built modules attached to it?
Re:Look for the upside (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Look for the upside (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The U.S. then cedes space dominance then? (Score:4, Insightful)
It looks like the U.S. will never get back to the space.
I don't quite understand how "Not going to the moon" translates to "Not going to space."
Space is a lot bigger than just the moon. Also wasting money and time trying for human transport to the moon is...a waste. It would be much better used trying to, I dunno, try different things?
I just wonder why they waste so much money on projects they abort soon.
See, I don't get this. It's like saying "Well, we've tossed in billions upon billions of dollars down a hole with no end in sight already, why don't we just toss a few billion more in there?"
They're stopping the program since it's a *waste of money* that's taking away from other viable programs. I don't understand why people want the government to keep throwing money at the same outdated plan in the vain hope that, somehow, with enough money, you'll hit some magic point where the money spent actually becomes economically sound.
Man, shit. Give me 10 million dollars ever year and I'll show you a productive space program. Trust me. I'll always project completion 5 years in the future.
Re:Are we smarter or stupider? (Score:1, Insightful)
Sooner or later Earth is doomed. If we are still all here when that happens we go extinct.
Sometimes I wonder if that would be a bad thing.
Re:Are we smarter or stupider? (Score:3, Insightful)
Humans aren't fit for space
Humans aren't fit to fly from Australia to Europe in 20 hours at mach 0.8 but somehow we manage to make it routine and safe.
(the satay sticks with peanut sauce in MAS business class are absolutely FTW).
Re:Look for the upside (Score:5, Insightful)
> If the return on the investment was actually knowable...
I know the US was the undisputed tech leader during the NASA era. We aren't anymore. Correlation doesn't always mean causation but in this case it almost certainly does.
> Discovery is not going anywhere. In the meantime, the neighbors' kids are hungry and sick.
Uh huh. By that 'logic' we wouldn't spend a dime on any R&D until we had made the world a utopia where nobody was ever wanting for anything. But of course we don't have the wealth to even attempt such a thing and the sort of socialism needed to try would destroy the world's productive economies. R&D is the way out you fool. We can argue whether we should be spending our R&D on space, safe nuke plants, green bullshit or whatever but saying R&D can't happen until we have heaven on Earth is a sign of a unserious person.
> Yes, that is EVERYONE'S responsibility. If you disagree, save up your cash, and please go live on the Moon.
No it isn't everyone's responsibility. First off, care to explain why society shouldn't be telling prospective parents "If you can't feed em, don't breed em!" I don't object to private charity to help those who have the unusual/unexpected happen to them but I do object when the State trys to do it. For they always make things worse, creating an entitlement mentality such as you exhibit.
And if we could, many of us WOULD go to the moon to escape the sort of civilizational suicide folks such as yourself represent. But we can't. After all, even Columbus's three ships (fully equiped and manned) represented the sort of inventment few private sources could have managed and space, for now, is a lot bigger job. Of course the potential rewards are equally greater if we but had the imagination to seize it.
Going to the moon and then losing the will to plant a colony will almost certainly be remembered as the moment our civilization failed. It would be like Moses leading his people to the Promised Land, them looking over the mountain and saying, "Nah, too hard we are going back to Egypt."
Re:Look for the upside (Score:5, Insightful)
federal income taxes != taxes
gas, state and local sales, state income, property, &c
thanks for playing
Re:Are we smarter or stupider? (Score:1, Insightful)
> Sometimes I wonder if that would be a bad thing.
Then give yourself a Darwin Award and get the hell out of the way of those of us who actually give a damn. But of course you won't do it anymore than than asshat Peter Singer (look up his latest NYT column) will off himself. No, your type would want to be the last one out after you make sure all the useful people are killed off.
Re:Probably for the best (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think the case for visiting the moon (and Mars) is compelling enough for the current economic climate [crooksandliars.com].
There will never be a good economic climate to fund space exploration.
Re:Look for the upside (Score:4, Insightful)
Morons like you traded all that for a welfare state
Yes, because you have to be moron to prefer taking care of actual people rather than making big, symbolic, and above all, expensive gestures.
Going to the moon was never more than President Kennedy's dick waving; he wanted to show the world that his testicles were bigger than those of the Soviet leaders, so the US spent huge amounts and took appalling risks with the lives of astronauts in order to plant a flag, using what now seems to be stone-age tools. Big achievement, but not hugely useful in itself; unlike the modest Sputnik, which ushered in the era of satelite communication and all the blessings of Sky TV (oops, there we go on the sarcasm again, sorry about that).
Having a proper, well equipped and well-funded space station would be useful, and a base on the Moon might in time become useful too. I would vote for going to Mars as well, but not in the haphazard way we went to the Moon, and it should ideally involve all nations capable of contributing to the project: the US, China, Russia, India, countries in Europe, and who knows, in South America and Africa as well - it will take many years before we are ready to go to Mars, and hopefully both Africa and S.Am. will have overcome their current struggles by then.
Re:Look for the upside (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh huh. By that 'logic' we wouldn't spend a dime on any R&D until we had made the world a utopia where nobody was ever
No, just the R&D that costs trillions with no foreseeable return. There is nothing even remotely as expensive as space exploration. It's not the same as spending $500 million curing a disease. That's a bargain. There are no bargains in space... it's all retail x1000.
No it isn't everybody's responsibility.
Yeah, it is. And you agree or you would stop paying Social Security. Unless you're a hypocrite. Or a coward.
And if we could, many of us WOULD
Buuuuuut this is reality, and you can't. And even if you could, trust me, it would suck. Space really sucks. A Moon colony would only suck slightly less, because, presumably, we'd ship air and food and something to protect you from cosmic rays, solar flares, and the vacuum of space. But what's the point? Just so you don't have to live here? You'd be far happier living here on Earth in something much worse than, say, a nasty college dorm room, than with any accommodations on the Moon. At least here you can walk outside without dying instantly. On the Moon? Not so much.
No real reason for manned space programme just now (Score:2, Insightful)
Seems to me there is really no good reason for a manned spaceflight programme just now.
Research and exploration can pretty clearly be done more cost-effectively by robots. Even if a certain proportion of them get stuck in stupid ways that a human could fix in a minute, they're just so much cheaper per mission than people that you get much more science per $billion from the ones that survive.
Colonization and so on is a great goal, but I suspect the best way to pursue it just now is to simply to grow the economy on Earth and research basic materials science etc., until it becomes more affordable.
So, that leaves bad reasons -- national flag-waving (being first for the sake of being first); and media/political appeal (easier to get $10b to fly an astronaut than $1bn for 5 robot missions).
Makes me a little sad -- I share the "living in space" dream, but I truly can't see anyway it makes sense at the moment.
Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Look for the upside (Score:5, Insightful)
My point is the rather severe problems we have should be attended to before we shoot the Moon.
The problem with that otherwise insightful meme is that there is a finite sum of money available for all projects and it is suggested that at some point in our future the Earth will be so densely populated that it will take ALL the money just to keep people alive and there will be no spare cash for space exploration. It will also be political suicide to pull the plug on "worthwhile" Earth-bound projects to fund space programs because people will die. At that point we are doomed as a species because we have to get off this rock.
That point may not have arrived yet, but at this point in time we DO have sufficient spare cash to decide to build a base on the moon, and from that experience perhaps Mars next, and we can do that without robbing the money from projects that keep people alive.
It's now or never (for some values of "now").
Re:Look for the upside (Score:1, Insightful)
And the money I pay into home insurance has very little relation to how much I get back if my house catches fire. What's your point?
Re:The U.S. then cedes space dominance then? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think your rant may have been well placed. With the international treaties against nations laying claim to space objects, and agreements not to send any armed space vehicles, it doesn't allow for war there. On the other hand, if a nation were to do exactly that, they would have the upper hand.
Imagine some rogue nation develops a significant space program, *AND* arms it. There would be no way to defend against it, or for other nations to fight against it. Of course, with the way things usually go, the rogue nation would be the US, swearing to defend the neutrality of space through superior force, and in such stop evil nations from having a space program.
Since we can't militarize space, there's no incentive for military involvement in space, except for spy and communication satellites, which are run happily from the ground.
I've argued quite a bit, if nations of Earth were to stop wasting their resources on crap they are now, we could have a significant space presence, with a strong step towards deep space exploration. We will never learn how to do it unless we work at it. ... and for a car analogy. If we had looked at the M. Brezin car 1769, which could do a whopping 2mph, and said "this is too slow, it will never be worth pursuing", we would still be traveling on foot, horseback, and by horse drawn carriage. Today, we look at space travel and say "it will take too long to get anywhere", so we don't try. 6 months to Mars? Of course it is, we're still in the Bronze Age of space travel. We've discovered a little, but we have an awful long way to go.
I think you have this backward (Score:3, Insightful)
The only way to get the rich to disgorge money is to persuade them that an external enemy wants to take it from them - hence the constant use of communism as a bogeyman by the Right. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, and its presence in space, the external enemy was lost. If you want a new space program, better get the Taliban to start launching satellites.
Robots (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's all about money. (Score:5, Insightful)
Space dominance for welfare is a fair trade, but when the 'defence' budget is over 700 billion, with no actual threats to american soil. Makes you wonder if that money couldn't be directed to more useful things.
Re:Look for the upside (Score:3, Insightful)
at some point in our future the Earth will be so densely populated
I used to be concerned about this when I was in school. I actually attempted to start a movement I called "Get Off the Planet." But then, er, later, I drove across the country a few times. Right now, there is miles and miles, thousands of miles of room. And places like India, and parts of China, where the population is denser than anywhere, we do not see people eating their young. The one possible future of overpopulation is not so bleak as you describe.
When it becomes a real problem, we deal with it. Let's not put the cart before the horse, or try to cross a bridge we haven't arrived at yet. You know, the tires on your car will be bald someday. Why aren't you buying new tires now?
Re:It was too easy (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps, but none of those things are time sensitive. China, Japan, India should all be capable of sending a man to the moon in short order, and as an American, I'm happy to see them be able to do so. I don't think it detracts from what we've accomplished, nor do I feel the need to send someone up there right now just to beat them back there. Why? I see no problem with sharing and/or helping other countries be able to reach the stars. Reaching other planets like Mars, would be best served as a cooperative move from many nations, not just one.
Re:Look for the upside (Score:4, Insightful)
Gotta fight wars?
Dude, I'm unpopular with a lot of slashdotters for defending the troops. But, really, Iraq wasn't a "gotta fight" war. Afghanistan was, but we've done it all wrong. We should have just done a punitive expedition into Afghanistan, punished the Taliban for harboring Al Queda, then got the hell out. But, nooooo, we have to play some silly game of "nation building".
Aren't we the morons? Those Afghanis have been right there, in the same place, for thousands of years, defying any and all comers - most recently the Soviet. When the invaders go home, those Afghanis just go back to growing poppies, herding goats, and whatever else they do in those hills of theirs.
Gotta fight wars. Crap, I could have fought that Afghan war for less than pennies on the dollar, and avoided the Iraq war altogether.
Re:Look for the upside (Score:2, Insightful)
Well - my kids are all in their teens and twenties. If they can't feed THEMSELVES by now, they never will. Unlike city dwellers, we have acreage, we have livestock and seed available, we have water, we even have wildlife. If they can't feed themselves, then my kids will join the rest of the worthless bastards, as statistics on Darwin's charts.
Needless to say, I'm not a collectivist, of any kind. I'm not much into society working towards a common good, especially when 1/2 or more of society are worthless shits anyway. That business of society working towards a common good mostly means that hard working people are supporting lazy asses, no matter how you slice that money redistribution thing.
Re:The U.S. then cedes space dominance then? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So whats the point of NASA then (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Look for the upside (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason why we can't put men on the Moon is that we never really had that capacity. Yes, we managed to put a few people there at enormous expense, but that was simply not sustainable; technology is only now starting to near the point where maintaining a presence in the Low-Earth Orbit might be.
But, rather than look at the problem and even trying to understand the reasons, you blame it all on the poor not starving as they should, like a right-wing tool you are. Moron.
Re:The U.S. then cedes space dominance then? (Score:2, Insightful)
And then the question becomes, "Do we seriously need to keep trying for Constellation?" It doesn't seem to be working whereas new techniques may or may not be applicable here.
Imagine if all the money wasted on Constellation had been spent on, I dunno, researching better rocket tech? Making better robots? Doing actual science?
I understand the stepping stone thing, but look at it this way. Imagine there's a stepping stone in the river. The first time we made it by jumping there and BAM we made it. So now we keep thinking up bigger and better ways to jump there and started building the same shoes we had last time. Only, we've been building those shoes for so long and spent an insane amount of money on it.
What if we tried building a bridge with planks to the stone instead of spending half a century trying to build the shoes we used 50 years ago? Or, I dunno, get some modern shoes?
Making mistakes and learning is one thing. Wasting insane amounts of money on a rocket to nowhere is something else.
It's not about "OH NOES NO MOON ROCKET!" It's "OH NOES NO MOON ROCKET THAT USED UP SO MUCH MONEY THAT IT IS RIDICULOUS HOW IT STILL CAN'T FLY AND HOW OUTDATED THE TECH IS."
Re:Look for the upside (Score:3, Insightful)
And libertarians wonder why people think they're crazy.
Re:Look for the upside (Score:5, Insightful)
No, just the R&D that costs trillions with no foreseeable return.
There are plenty of returns [thespaceplace.com] for all the R&D even ignoring our eventual need to expand beyond this planet.
Re:Look for the upside (Score:4, Insightful)
There are definitely some things we learned from the space race we probably wouldn't have learned nearly as quickly other wise. But we are past that. There should be diminishing returns technically from near earth limited space exploration like any other technology. The automatic justification should be revoked and hard ROI criteria should be set for any future programs of significant costs.
Re:The problem with political oversight (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The U.S. then cedes space dominance then? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sending people into space quickly isn't necessary, merely entertaining. It is emphatically NOT exploration.
We REQUIRE robots and remote-operated systems to interact with everything out there anyway, and those are useful on Earth too. We can EXPLORE space and learn at a much better ROI by developing remote-manned systems that don't need life support and won't need to return. Space exploration not being a mission of US conquest, let some other countries spend the money to put humans up. We can do to them what they did to us and exploit their tech later. The race isn't always to the swift.
I understand the anguished horny craving of Slashdotters to go into space. Get rich, pay a contractor for the ride, and be entertained.
We're not going anywhere... (Score:5, Insightful)
... until we come up with a space propulsion system better than the rockets and ion drives that we currently have. Despite the talk, putting humans in a tin can for 3 years 30 million miles from earth is not realistic for medical or psychological reasons. Unless a system can be developed that can get people and materials around the solar system in months rather than years or decades then we can forget about colonising or exploiting it in any realistic manner.
Re:Look for the upside (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not much into society working towards a common good,
So, you're stuck in the Cro-Magnon, every-man-for-himself era, and completely believe that everyone who ends up on hard times should just be left to rot? I call that being a selfish bastard myself. It's particularly amazing, given this attitude, that your offspring lived to their teens and twenties; from your statements so far, I'd figure you for the sort to let them figure it out after they left the teat.
especially when 1/2 or more of society are worthless shits anyway.
This, I have a hard time figuring out what kind of statistic makes this anywhere near a half-reasonable argument; I can't recall a time where unemployment got anywhere near 50%, or the homeless rate for that matter; and if you go by wages alone, that's not a matter of choice for most anyone who isn't a professional athlete, who can hold out for an extra few million a year. Minimum wage is minimum wage, and if an employer sticks to that as the entry wage regardless, the people are pretty well stuck. This is why labor unions exist, a group of people in a common trade working for the common good, so that people with their skillset don't become the aforementioned worthless shits. Taking the other extreme, the number of people who make significant advances in anything useful, that's been in the range of 0.001% of people, and certainly nowhere near 50% of all those even living now.
That business of society working towards a common good mostly means that hard working people are supporting lazy asses
You mean the undertaxed executives, directors, and the like, who directed needless layoffs to justify employing people in 3rd world countries (by their arguments, to support the people in those countries and the economies there, which by your arguments, is something that is un-Darwinian), or otherwise unjustifiably firing employees just to save a few bucks? Those are hard-working people? Or do you count corporations who rape their employees as people now, since the Supreme Court gave them pretty much the same leeway as you or I would in campaign contributions? Even so, they would be in the minority, and they significantly take advantage of tax breaks issued by the government; I would posit these as in the same class as single mothers taking advantage of tax breaks, who would probably fit in your class of the aforementioned worthless shits of this country, ultimately rendering that argument invalid.
This isn't to say that there aren't those taking advantage of the system; in fact, those that are make a pretty good argument for their inclusion in the species ongoing; they've adapted and survived. But the fact that those people exist does not, by any means, indicate that programs in support of (intentionally or otherwise) disenfranchised people is inherently wrong; and the unsupported figures you present in support of that argument are bigoted and wrong.
Re:Are we smarter or stupider? (Score:3, Insightful)
The same could have been said of America or Australia from the perspective of Europe, before colonisation.
It could be said, but only incorrectly, since the Europeans were well aware that those places were inhabitable before colonising them. Also, in both cases, there was specific reasons why humans were sent (or went of their own accord). In those days, infections often meant amputation. These days, we are able to cure most infections using penicillin. Similarly, in those days, exploring or exploiting remote, inhospitable locations meant sending humans. These days, we no longer need to send humans to exploit or explore remote locations, instead we do so using robots.
Re:Are we smarter or stupider? (Score:1, Insightful)
But of course you won't do it anymore than than asshat Peter Singer (look up his latest NYT column) will off himself.
Oh, come on, have you even READ his column? Singer isn't saying that everybody should just commit suicide because humans suck.
Singer is a philosopher, and he specializes in ethics. As a philosopher, it's his job to ask questions - difficult questions, questions that haven't been asked before, questions that noone yet has an answer for. As an ethicist, he's doing that in the field of ethics.
Most people presuppose that when somebody asks "should we do X?", what that person really means is either "yes, we should do X", or "no, we should not do X". This usually isn't a bad approximation, either, but it doesn't work for philosophers. Philosophers don't ask questions to communicate opinions that they have already formed based on gut feelings; rather, they ask questions to think about things and arrive at conclusions and form opinions in the first place.
As for singer, he's asking questions like "If a child is likely to have a life full of pain and suffering is that a reason against bringing the child into existence?", "If a child is likely to have a happy, healthy life, is that a reason for bringing the child into existence?", "Is life worth living, for most people in developed nations today?", "Is a world with people in it better than a world with no sentient beings at all?" and "Would it be wrong for us all to agree not to have children, so that we would be the last generation on Earth?".
These are all good questions that are worth considering. The answers aren't obvious, and thinking about these things, no matter what your opinion ends up being, will only strengthen your understanding of the matters at hand. They aren't comfortable questions, but that doesn't mean they aren't good or necessary ones, and attacking Singer for no other reason than that he's asking them reeks of anti-intellectualism.
Finally, here [nytimes.com] is a link to the blog post in question itself - you conveniently failed to provide one. I'd invite everyone to read it for themselves, make up their own mind, and enter the discussion (not necessarily in that order), rather than revelling in their refusal to have a discussion in the first place.
Re:The U.S. then cedes space dominance then? (Score:2, Insightful)
Or with the case of Constellation, which was designed for 6 month global access missions (Apollo was only equatorial) with the purpose of exploration and the construction of long term habitats and research facilities on the moon, absolutely been there, absolutely not done that.
I agree with you 100%, I just find it strange that no one, including Obama, read the mission plan for Constellation, instead of just seeing that Ares wasn't doing well and saying the whole thing is trash. It was designed to do things that we've never done before.
The Constellation moon missions were to the Apollo moon missions as Portland is to the Lewis and Clark expeditions.
Re:Look for the upside (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Look for the upside (Score:3, Insightful)
federal income taxes != taxes gas, state and local sales, state income, property, &c thanks for playing
Good point. Rich people don't own houses or cars, they don't buy gas, and they never, ever buy anything at stores.
Re:Look for the upside (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Look for the upside (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's all about money. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, no threats so long as you ignore the three thousand lives we lost, the two towers and several buildings around them, and a chunk of the Pentagon. No actual threats indeed.
Yeah, and a multi-billion-dollar strategic fighter jet or a missile defense shield is exactly what's needed to fight that kind of threat...
Re:The U.S. then cedes space dominance then? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is fine, until someone else puts a permanent base there.
It should be us who put a permanent base there.
Constellation is not the first step in the process of doing so. It does nothing to help us towards that goal.
The R&D into automated factories and robotic assembly, in-space refuel, cheaper propulsion systems once outside earth's atmosphere, and so on are the first necessary steps.
We should not go back to the moon for a stupid boots-and-flag mission. We already did that; the flag and bootprints are still there. People should not be going to the moon until robots have already built a habitat for them there.
Re:Look for the upside (Score:3, Insightful)
But, nooooo, we have to play some silly game of "nation building".
Nation-building isn't a silly game at all, unless you like dealing with unaccountable non-state actors.