Cure diseases first then Mars

Why is it that whenever money is to be devoted to space exploration, people always imagine it's coming at the expense of the poor and the sick. We've got a $10+ trillion economy.

 

Because we spent too much money on space exploration at the expense of education.

 

And if things like education and health care were getting all of the funds they really needed, comments like the one at the start of the thread wouldn't exist. As it is, health care and especially education are woefully underfunded, and the reason educators are always given is "there just aren't enough funds." When announcements like the moon base thing come out, and it becomes obvious that there are funds if the project is sexy enough, it tends to piss off the people working in the trenches of the underfunded education system.

 

Our health care system is overfunded, but poorly distributed. And, I'm sure, educators can find something else to complain about aside from man's quest to explore space. Something relevant, one would hope.

 

Millions of students, particularly those in major urban areas, are learning from 15 year old books that are ridiculously outdated and falling apart. They are studying in buildings that are sorely in need of maintenance. Some are learning from teachers who aren't qualified to teach (thanks to short-cut teaching programs now in place to solve the teacher shortage). They are eating food that the government wouldn't give to a dog. ALL of this is happening because there aren't enough funds for our education system, and every time more funds are requested, educators are told that the money just isn't there. That being the case, the fact that money IS suddenly there for some pipe dream space project is very relevent in my opinion. If we are going to go into massive debt, why not go broke for the right reasons.

 

We're not going into massive debt for space expoloration, that's for sure.

We devote about 1/700th of our economy to space expoloration.

 

I do wish we'd spend that percentage on education.

Do you know what the stats are for that?

 

Yes, we devote 1/21 of economy to education. We could find other ways to increase it to 1.03/21 other than eliminating our space program.

 

Is it really that high? Then why the hell do so many kids graduate high school when they can't even read????

 

You've answered your own complaint right there.

It's a project. Has a definite, tangible goal that everyone can understand - Man on Moon. The same can't be said with most education goals. Increase test scores, increase graduation rates. Eyes glazed over yet ? The voters' are. Education is vital to this country. The problem is funding for it will only ever increase. You can raise taxes and decide to lower them later, you can fund a project, then if you run short on the budget cut it later. You can NEVER reduce education funding.

It's probably a pipe dream that won't get funded. If Bush renegs on the promise, no big loss. Can you imagine if he promised a set dollar amount increase to education spending and then didn't come through with the cash ?

 

Because MANNED space exploration is less cost-efficient while more scientifically limited than unmanned exploration. Waste is waste.

 

We need to do both. The purpose of space exploration is more than just acquiring scientific data.

 

We shouldn't send humans to the Moon or Mars at least over the next 50 years or so. It is dangerous and costly. We have problems on Earth that we might be able to help solve if we use money on them. However, we should continue to fund the space program, and we should use robots, satelites and telescopes. They are better than humans at acquring important scientific data about the universe. For example the Hubble Space Telescope has helped us determine that the known universe is about 14 billion-years-old.

 

Yes, and obviously, being opposed to this new moon base scheme means that I want to eliminate the space program. Don't be thick. You know damn well what I was saying, and you're better than this kind of lame Bush-like come back.

 

If you don't want to eliminate the the space program then the extra funds available for education or medical research will be even less. (and what if somehoew the cure for cancer can be found on Mars?)

I'm not an expert on the space program, nor am I much of an advocate for it, but I think the time is right to change the focus from the shuttle and the space station to exploration.

I think a large percentage of the funding for the first steps towards Mars should just be a reallocation of current resources.

 

My mother is a public school teacher (LD kids, formerly DH kids), and I happen to think this "prerequisite" of going back to the moon before going to Mars is silly, but you'll never convince me that manned spaceflight - as a rule - is a waste.

Sending manned missions to the moon is, right now, a waste. Using the space shuttle to deliver payloads that could be delivered via an unmanned rocket is a waste. But we could be on Mars in 10 years, for less money than Bush wants to spend. And that is not a waste.

Doubters should read Robert Zubrin's The Case for Mars. It is possible, and IMO should be done.

 

I was being sarcastic Foos. I don't want the Space Program put out of business. It just irks me to see projects like this one proposed when it seems like such a waste of money. Funding could do so much in the public schools (something I'm sure your mother could attest to, considering how much more money is needed to help LD kids [specialists, therapists, and the pure hours needed to construct IEP's for them]).

Problem is, and this is the part that frustrates me, there never seems to be any funding available for education. It's never there. It's there for wars that benefit the right corporations. It's there for "Star Wars" missile defense programs that have been statistically proven to be useless. It's there for a lot of things that may be important, but are not as important as the education of our youth. I hate to say it, but if the schools in the most need of money weren't filled with inner-city kids, I think the funding would be there by now.

 

I don't trust Bush's motives with regard to space exploration. Before too long you'll see him saying "well, the is beyond the capibilities of the government, so we're going to open up exploration to the following corporations" who will all have connections to Dick Cheney or Ken Lay.

 

I assume you would also agree then that we should never have spent so much time and money on getting to the moon.

 

Re: Re: Cure diseases first then Mars

That was faked on a Hollywood soundstage, dude.

 

We are about 80 years behind. We need Universal health Care!

 

The first moon mission gave us Lycra, Velcro, Sattelite communications, GPS, computer advances, and several thousand high paying jobs. And that's just off the top of my head.

The moon currently holds almost unlimited amounts of Helium-3, a fuel that could cleanly and safely take care of the world's energy needs while nearly eliminating our reliance on petroleum for fuel.

Besides the Helium-3, the research required to maintain a person's physiology over three years of zero gravity can only have great spin off effects in Oncology and gerriatrics.

All of this for a relatively inexpensive price. It seams that people think we'd just be shooting the money off to the moon and leaving it there, but even if it is a dismal failure thousands of high paying, technical jobs will be created.

The amount that this project would cost would not make a large impression in test scores and education funding. It may, however, make a huge impression in the standard of living for everyone in the world.