Thoughts on space exploration

For those of you that haven't noticed it yet I'm a "space freak" at least I'm very interested in space exploration and pretty much anything astronomy related.

With budget cuts going on at NASA causing a lot of projects being shelved for the immediate future I would like to hear your opinions on a few things:

Do you think space exploration is a waste of time and money?
Do you even care about space/astronomy?
Do you think/believe in extraterrestrial intelligence or the existance of life on other planets?

 

Do you think space exploration is a waste of time and money?

taxpayer money, yes..private exploration is the only way we'll actually get beyond our own planet.

 

No space exploration is worth the money, most certainly - especially in the even something bad happed with our planet. Yes I do care about it. Yes I do belive there is other life, but... I think the odds of us finding it and proving it are slim.

 

Now, an interesting fact would be that roughly 1% of the military budget of the US could fund most, if not all the current projects at NASA. Is building weapons , tanks etc a better way for spending taxpayer money?

I totally agree that private exploration will be the way forward and the key to new innovation.

 

I think space exploration is great. The problem is, why are we wasting money going into space when we are destroying the planet we live on? Doesn't it make sense to take care of business here first before journeying to the stars?

 

I've never thought about it.

 

No. That is the oldest argument agains space exploration, and flawed. Saying 'lets first fix things here' is never gonna work, the money it takes to fund exploration is miniscule anyhow agains those allready spent to fight poverty etc. What we need is more tech, not less.

The benefits we allready got from space outways by many, many times the cost. Just think of satellites, electronics, heck even Starwars.

 

760 million dollars to tell me what moon dust is made up of. And we still don't have cure for cancer.

I think NASA is missing a huge oppurtunity, advertising on the side of a spaceship. It would be priceless to see "Google" or "Coca-Cola" written on the side of the spaceship as it takes off.

The whole space exploration business needs to become totally private with maybe government competitions with nice rewards. 1 billion dollars to whomever walks on mars first.

 

Damn that is actually a really good idea

 

Actually it's space exploration that's already saved our asses a couple of times. A new satellite detected the damage done by CFC's to the ozone and that allowed governments to take preventative actions. Without that satellite we might now all have been forced to live in UV protective suits.

Also the benefits of exploring other planets etc. is that in the process we learn more about Earth in the process. Zero gravity research on molecules etc. could ultimately lead to cures for cancer and other disease by allowing processes and bonds that would not be possible on Earth.

 

We need to go where no man has gone before. Go back several hundred years if the Europeans thought exploring Earth was a waste of money, we'd all be British or French.

Yes aliens exist, just ask Hodged.