Cost Of Nasa

[Khandro]

We now know (to great jubilation), that Pluto has a 'deep crater' and that these images received could be reproduced by micro/macro photographs of the Earth's surface.
Given the problems we face here, are the billions upon billions of taxpayer's money spent on achieving this warranted and if so why?
What benefits has humanity achieved from the space programme and are scientists being allowed to run amok?

[steg]

At some point in the future, probably not in my lifetime or my grandkids, but some time one of them big big lumps of rock or comets etc that's hurtling round in space is going to hit us it's happened quite a few times in the past, if we as a species are still around we will need advanced warnings of this and if we are to survive we may need somewhere else to go, somehow of getting there and a way of surviving the journey. Can you put a price on the survival of our species?

[Zacs-Master]

We didn't even go to the Moon you know!

[Khandro]

Vulcan; What are the "Spinoff reports", is it a US government agency?
steg; With the Earth's population heading for 11bn by 2050, due you believe that we will build enough space ships to take large numbers to starve on a barren planet to avoid an asteroid collision? As to // Can you put a price on the survival of our species?// yes I can; the price of our species surviving with our present methods is the destruction of the very environment we require for sustaining our own existence.

[EDDIE51]

The idea is that we will be able to intercept an asteroid that is heading for Earth and either divert it or blow it to pieces that are too small to do serious damage, not to evacuate Earth! That is one reason we have intercepted a comet.

[vulcan42]

https://spinoff.nasa.gov/spinhist.html

[steg]

Khandro
I don't think they are looking for a barren planet and I don't think the aim would to evacuate every one, maybe a few hundred or a few thousand but by then space travel may be as easy as getting a bus

[naomi24]

... or, if Khandro has anything to do with it, a horse and cart.

[Khandro]

Vulcan; Not a very convincing link really, under its FAQ's it seem to list things it DIDN'T invent; cordless drills, bar codes etc etc.
https://spinoff.nasa.gov/spinfaq.htm#spinfaq10

[Khandro]

steg; Like; "Move along please, there's room on top, hold on tight"

[jim360]

I think it's safe to say that everyone in this thread is grateful that the people in charge of Science funding decisions are (usually) not people like Khandro.

[vulcan42]

Coming back with things NASA didn't invent doesn't actually detract from what they have achieved, I'm surprised you think it does.

[Khandro]

Vulcan; Well if they can't say, and you can't say, who the * can, is it classified information?
Jim; I'm not against scientific research per se - far from it, and I don't mind people doing difficult things for the sake of doing so, but if it is at a cost of huge sums of public money, are mainly politically motivated, and contribute almost nothing to the welfare of humanity, then I'm afraid they don't get my vote.

[ToraToraTora]

you have a phone? you have sat nav? you have TV? you answer your own question. People like you would have us living in caves.
Looks up some science, better still do some.

[Milvus]

As Thomas Chalkley first said in his imaginatively titled publication "The Works of Thomas Chalkley": "There are none so blind as those who will not see. The most deluded people are those who choose to ignore what they already know."

[vulcan42]

khandro, did you read my link @ 11:31?

[Peter Pedant]

good point khandro - a much better use of billions of dollars would be to lend them to those poor Greeks.. .

[askyourgran]

There are those among us who are curious and very much interested in what is around us. Exploration is the aim of mankind to increase our knowledge and maybe a means of future survival. I am amazed to see close up photos of the planets that we glimpse now and again, I admire those scientists who work on the ISS. Satellites have proved to be very useful to us all. I think we need to keep the space programmes going.

Zacs, Peter and Gordon went to the moon..about 1970 ish.

[Hypognosis]

I think this thread is just retaliation, aimed at someone who asked Khandro what has Art ever done to help solve world poverty?

Someone paid $68million on a single work of art, at auction, just recently. All that money sloshing around in someone's investment portfolios and all that human sufferig in the world. It's just shameful.

Meanwhile, satellite data is helping with land use management, telling farmers *exactly* where to spread fertiliser and where it is not needed, improving crop yields, preventing fertilizer over use and eutrophication of rivers and the oceans etc. The 11bn in 2050 might at least be well fed.

As long as global warming (satellite data again) doesn't do them in first.

[Hypognosis]

We also know that Venus is a roasting, acid soaked hell-hole, Mars' atmosphere is like ours at 30,000+ feet and cold enough for solid CO2. There is no bailout opportunity for the elites, when they have finished fu**ing up this planet, so they had better start changing their ways and looking after it.

That's as useful a thing it could have given us as I can think of.

[Khandro]

Hypo;//Meanwhile, satellite data is helping with land use management, telling farmers *exactly* where to spread fertiliser and where it is not needed, improving crop yields, preventing fertilizer over use and eutrophication of rivers and the oceans etc. The 11bn in 2050 might at least be well fed.//

Completely agree, but what has that got to do with photographing Pluto?
I also agree with your last post which is exactly my stance, and what I have been saying throughout.