$500 million was an arbitrary number I pulled out of my ass. I'm sure it's light years more than that. Regardless, I still think it's wasted money, no matter where it comes from, government, the private sector, whatever. What good is education if it's not practical? IE: we're never going to get there, so who effin' cares??
can someone please explain to me the point of this science? I mean, really, why are we looking for habitable planets that we can't even get to? "hey, Bob, I found a new planet!" "really? awesome! how far is it?" "only 8 million light years away!" "so, we can never get there or contact the habitants if someone is even there?" "nope!" "cool anyway!" "Yeah, and it only cost the taxpayer $500 million dollars for us to get our jollies!"
Seriously, this is junk. As someone said above, if it would take us 3000 generations to get there, and the main purpose is a quick fix because it's "too difficult" for us to fix this planet, that makes as much sense to me as going on a trip to Africa with a stopover on Mars.
imagine if they put all that money they use for space exploration into health care or education... or both, cause they use so much of it.
Science is education. And $500M may seem like a lot, but it is a mere drop in the overall fiscal budget. This project is a extremely cheap method for mankind to probe the unknown of the universe, much cheaper then flying to the moon and as expensive as four (4) F-22 Raptors.
You may rally against the money spent on the stimulus, defense, welfare, healthcare, etc, but please leave NASA and their meager budget alone. Thank you. :wave:
Gimli 1993
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
$500 million was an arbitrary number I pulled out of my ass. I'm sure it's light years more than that. Regardless, I still think it's wasted money, no matter where it comes from, government, the private sector, whatever. What good is education if it's not practical? IE: we're never going to get there, so who effin' cares??
knowing stuff is cool.
hear my name
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
$500 million was an arbitrary number I pulled out of my ass. I'm sure it's light years more than that. Regardless, I still think it's wasted money, no matter where it comes from, government, the private sector, whatever. What good is education if it's not practical? IE: we're never going to get there, so who effin' cares??
sometimes the learning is in the journey not at the destination...and by saying this, i am not advocating spending billions of dollars on space exploration at this time...we need to get things right here before we can go back into space
$500 million was an arbitrary number I pulled out of my ass. I'm sure it's light years more than that. Regardless, I still think it's wasted money, no matter where it comes from, government, the private sector, whatever. What good is education if it's not practical? IE: we're never going to get there, so who effin' cares??
The budget for the entire Kepler telescope project is $600M (w/ a budget cap) and that total cost includes a six year operating budget for the lifespan of the project, so you were actually pretty close in your estimate. Annually, it is costing they taxpayers $100M which is a drop in the fiscal budget. The project is part of NASA's Discovery Program which funds low-cost (relative) missions to explore the solar system and the universe. Other missions launched under the Discovery Program include the Mars Pathfinder, the Deep Impact comet landing, and the Messenger probe of Mercury.
As for the debate of education vs. practicality, this project allows us the ability to actually find other planets in the universe. Little is known and this is the next step in creating a map of the cosmos. Will we ever go to one of the planet that we find? Probably not. Does it have a educational purpose and allow for our collective knowledge to expand? Yes.
In comparison, poetry does not yield practical results (i.e. we can't go and witness the actually Odyssey) but I would not suggest that we cut all funding to poetry because it doesn't result in a tangible result. Poetry allows for one's mind and imagination to run free. I get the same results from looking at the night skies through my telescope.
Out of curiosity, what are your thoughts on the Hubble telescope?
i personally don't think this planet is even close to being fucked up by us... we've at best caused it some slight scabbing... but Earth is a genuinely awesome and beautiful place.
oh scary... 40000 morbidly obese christians wearing fanny packs invading europe is probably the least scariest thing since I watched an edited version of The Care Bears movie in an extremely brightly lit cinema.
I don't know that you can actually equate the usefullness of poetry vs astronomy. Of course not everything we do or enjoy has a practical purpose, but poetry also doesn't cost that much money. I don't see any government agencies funding operations to eventually go back in time to where famous poems were first written. That's my point: what is the inherent purpose of going out into space? Mankind's ridiculous ego. Seinfeld put it best: there is no more male idea in the history of the world than "let's fly up to the moon and drive around".
Do I enjoy staring up at the stars and learning about planets in our solar system? Yeah, it's cool stuff. But to spend that kind of money on the idea of another habitable planet LIGHT YEARS away from us? Why is this exciting to people? Do we really think there are going to be other life forms that are in this same ultra-miniscule spec of time that we currently exist in? You know what the odds are of that? And not only extra-Terrestrial beings, but we can't go to these planets. We probably never will.
As for my thoughts on Hubble? Hubble's a funny word. Beyond that, you could argue that it was a huge waste of money. Sure, it has yielded lots of results, but in relation to the equal results by land telescopic means, it has been hundreds of times more expensive.
I have nothing against astronomy as a whole. It's this one topic. I can see the benefit behind telescopes and such. they can help us knowing our surroundings out there a bit better, and maybe one day save us all by finding an object that's about to smash us all to space dust in time to stop it. but to me there's just no point in funding research of planets 3000 travel generations away.
$500 million was an arbitrary number I pulled out of my ass. I'm sure it's light years more than that. Regardless, I still think it's wasted money, no matter where it comes from, government, the private sector, whatever. What good is education if it's not practical? IE: we're never going to get there, so who effin' cares??
The budget for the entire Kepler telescope project is $600M (w/ a budget cap) and that total cost includes a six year operating budget for the lifespan of the project, so you were actually pretty close in your estimate. Annually, it is costing they taxpayers $100M which is a drop in the fiscal budget. The project is part of NASA's Discovery Program which funds low-cost (relative) missions to explore the solar system and the universe. Other missions launched under the Discovery Program include the Mars Pathfinder, the Deep Impact comet landing, and the Messenger probe of Mercury.
As for the debate of education vs. practicality, this project allows us the ability to actually find other planets in the universe. Little is known and this is the next step in creating a map of the cosmos. Will we ever go to one of the planet that we find? Probably not. Does it have a educational purpose and allow for our collective knowledge to expand? Yes.
In comparison, poetry does not yield practical results (i.e. we can't go and witness the actually Odyssey) but I would not suggest that we cut all funding to poetry because it doesn't result in a tangible result. Poetry allows for one's mind and imagination to run free. I get the same results from looking at the night skies through my telescope.
Out of curiosity, what are your thoughts on the Hubble telescope?
Gimli 1993
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
With the educational value that NASA provides, I think you would be hurting education overall by picking their budget apart to put even more money into a federal education budget that most Americans think is stuck in the mud. NASA project increasing their annual budget to $21B by 2015. Education spending is projected to increase to $1,131 by 2015.
Please, go attack the defense budget first to help fund education. There is much more dinero over there :wave:
i personally don't think this planet is even close to being fucked up by us... we've at best caused it some slight scabbing... but Earth is a genuinely awesome and beautiful place.
Gimli 1993
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
I agree about the defense issue. I was never saying that we should put NASA's money into education. I said it should go to helping where we live now, as opposed to finding a new place.
What scenario makes more sense: if you lived in a house on an island, and you were stupid enought to live that house into a state of disrepair, would you have
a)tried to fix that house first, living happliy ever after, or
b) would you have put on your glasses and searched the ocean for the possibility that there is another, very similar house close by that you could swim to?
With the educational value that NASA provides, I think you would be hurting education overall by picking their budget apart to put even more money into a federal education budget that most Americans think is stuck in the mud. NASA project increasing their annual budget to $21B by 2015. Education spending is projected to increase to $1,131 by 2015.
Please, go attack the defense budget first to help fund education. There is much more dinero over there :wave:
Gimli 1993
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
I don't know that you can actually equate the usefullness of poetry vs astronomy. Of course not everything we do or enjoy has a practical purpose, but poetry also doesn't cost that much money. I don't see any government agencies funding operations to eventually go back in time to where famous poems were first written. That's my point: what is the inherent purpose of going out into space? Mankind's ridiculous ego. Seinfeld put it best: there is no more male idea in the history of the world than "let's fly up to the moon and drive around".
Out of the trillion dollar education budget, what percentage is directed towards funding the arts? If it is even 1%, then that is $10 billion. I couldn't find a source to give me an exact number but I would hope it is at least 1%.
I hope this isn't viewed as bashing the arts, which I love. Both areas could use a boost in my opinion.
And the Kepler mission has nothing to do with sending man into space (which I think is waste of funding). So much more can be discovered via low-cost programs such as telescopes and probes.
i personally don't think this planet is even close to being fucked up by us... we've at best caused it some slight scabbing... but Earth is a genuinely awesome and beautiful place.
but its a microscopic blemish... i'm not saying we're not tainting the world, or damaging it in some way... but we havent, as Cosmo said in the past tense, fucked it up.
it'd be like saying Scarlett Johannsen is a monstrous being because she has a 0.001mm pimple on her left arm.
oh scary... 40000 morbidly obese christians wearing fanny packs invading europe is probably the least scariest thing since I watched an edited version of The Care Bears movie in an extremely brightly lit cinema.
well, as far as this being a sustainable home for us as a species indefinitely, yes, we have and continue to fuck it up. will the Earth "die"? no, but we're making Her inhabitable for ourselves.
but its a microscopic blemish... i'm not saying we're not tainting the world, or damaging it in some way... but we havent, as Cosmo said in the past tense, fucked it up.
it'd be like saying Scarlett Johannsen is a monstrous being because she has a 0.001mm pimple on her left arm.
Gimli 1993
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
well, as far as this being a sustainable home for us as a species indefinitely, yes, we have and continue to fuck it up. will the Earth "die"? no, but we're making Her inhabitable for ourselves.
inhabitable?
mad max4 - beyond the hyperbole.
it will never be 'inhabitable'
oh scary... 40000 morbidly obese christians wearing fanny packs invading europe is probably the least scariest thing since I watched an edited version of The Care Bears movie in an extremely brightly lit cinema.
Comments
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
knowing stuff is cool.
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
sometimes the learning is in the journey not at the destination...and by saying this, i am not advocating spending billions of dollars on space exploration at this time...we need to get things right here before we can go back into space
As for the debate of education vs. practicality, this project allows us the ability to actually find other planets in the universe. Little is known and this is the next step in creating a map of the cosmos. Will we ever go to one of the planet that we find? Probably not. Does it have a educational purpose and allow for our collective knowledge to expand? Yes.
In comparison, poetry does not yield practical results (i.e. we can't go and witness the actually Odyssey) but I would not suggest that we cut all funding to poetry because it doesn't result in a tangible result. Poetry allows for one's mind and imagination to run free. I get the same results from looking at the night skies through my telescope.
Out of curiosity, what are your thoughts on the Hubble telescope?
i personally don't think this planet is even close to being fucked up by us... we've at best caused it some slight scabbing... but Earth is a genuinely awesome and beautiful place.
Do I enjoy staring up at the stars and learning about planets in our solar system? Yeah, it's cool stuff. But to spend that kind of money on the idea of another habitable planet LIGHT YEARS away from us? Why is this exciting to people? Do we really think there are going to be other life forms that are in this same ultra-miniscule spec of time that we currently exist in? You know what the odds are of that? And not only extra-Terrestrial beings, but we can't go to these planets. We probably never will.
As for my thoughts on Hubble? Hubble's a funny word. Beyond that, you could argue that it was a huge waste of money. Sure, it has yielded lots of results, but in relation to the equal results by land telescopic means, it has been hundreds of times more expensive.
I have nothing against astronomy as a whole. It's this one topic. I can see the benefit behind telescopes and such. they can help us knowing our surroundings out there a bit better, and maybe one day save us all by finding an object that's about to smash us all to space dust in time to stop it. but to me there's just no point in funding research of planets 3000 travel generations away.
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
Federal funding for education in 2010 is projected to receive $1,260 billion. http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/.
With the educational value that NASA provides, I think you would be hurting education overall by picking their budget apart to put even more money into a federal education budget that most Americans think is stuck in the mud. NASA project increasing their annual budget to $21B by 2015. Education spending is projected to increase to $1,131 by 2015.
Please, go attack the defense budget first to help fund education. There is much more dinero over there :wave:
while it is still a beautiful place, the junk heap we are creating is enormous and impossible to comprehend.
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
What scenario makes more sense: if you lived in a house on an island, and you were stupid enought to live that house into a state of disrepair, would you have
a)tried to fix that house first, living happliy ever after, or
b) would you have put on your glasses and searched the ocean for the possibility that there is another, very similar house close by that you could swim to?
I'm guessing A.
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
I hope this isn't viewed as bashing the arts, which I love. Both areas could use a boost in my opinion.
And the Kepler mission has nothing to do with sending man into space (which I think is waste of funding). So much more can be discovered via low-cost programs such as telescopes and probes.
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
but its a microscopic blemish... i'm not saying we're not tainting the world, or damaging it in some way... but we havent, as Cosmo said in the past tense, fucked it up.
it'd be like saying Scarlett Johannsen is a monstrous being because she has a 0.001mm pimple on her left arm.
Fargo 2003
Winnipeg 2005
Winnipeg 2011
St. Paul 2014
inhabitable?
mad max4 - beyond the hyperbole.
it will never be 'inhabitable'