Nasa's Glorious Failure

[HotFizzixist]

Re: Nasa's Glorious Failure

I just find it funny that it's mostly the climate gizmos and scientific research stuff that fails..... all the military stuff seems to work pretty good

The underlying assumption in that assertion is that military failures are publicized at the same rate as are NASA's failures.

[Siggie]

Re: Nasa's Glorious Failure

I know NASA is tied to the military but of all the government projects it is one of the very few that serves other very interesting and importent objectives. Everytime those satelites send us pics of the planets in our solar system we learn a great deal of new things about them. It is very interesting to find out that a tiny planet like mercury has a molten core or that the planets far from the sun have atmospheric events similar to ours with snow and rain but based on methane instead of water. There is so much out there waiting to be discovered and unfortunately NASA is the only organization with funding to make such discoveries.

I don't think Kanada thinks that this kind of information/knowledge is valuable. I think I recall him saying as much about other sorts of scientific discoveries as well.

The underlying assumption in that assertion is that military failures are publicized at the same rate as are NASA's failures.

An excellent point. You will find that people (perhaps more so those who lack much science/critical thinking training?) tend not examine things like whether their belief/hypothesis is falsifiable and if it is, whether there's any evidence against.

[KanadaHye]

Re: Nasa's Glorious Failure

I don't think Kanada thinks that this kind of information/knowledge is valuable. I think I recall him saying as much about other sorts of scientific discoveries as well.

I just don't think public money should be spent on it. Space exploration should be privately funded... last I checked, we pay for cell phones and satellite TV to cover the costs of the technology that was founded with public money. Hey, let's just keep dishing out money while others make billions upon billions swindling the public.

[Siggie]

Re: Nasa's Glorious Failure

I just don't think public money should be spent on it. Space exploration should be privately funded... last I checked, we pay for cell phones and satellite TV to cover the costs of the technology that was founded with public money. Hey, let's just keep dishing out money while others make billions upon billions swindling the public.

Wasn't GPS developed by the DOD?
And to be clear, you'd eliminate all government funding of research (e.g. NIH, NSF, etc.)?

[HotFizzixist]

Re: Nasa's Glorious Failure

I just don't think public money should be spent on it. Space exploration should be privately funded... last I checked, we pay for cell phones and satellite TV to cover the costs of the technology that was founded with public money. Hey, let's just keep dishing out money while others make billions upon billions swindling the public.

The problem with relying on private funding for science research is that corporations are likely to pursue only research that will immediately, or at least in the near future, produce a profitable product. With government funding, on the other hand, expansion of knowledge (not the making of profit) is the motivation, and one can pursue research which is not necessarily "useful" in the day-to-day sense. Often, such research yields very useful technologies in due course - magnetic resonance imaging and advances in superconductors thanks to research in particle physics, for example.

[KanadaHye]

Re: Nasa's Glorious Failure

Wasn't GPS developed by the DOD?
And to be clear, you'd eliminate all government funding of research (e.g. NIH, NSF, etc.)?

I'd eliminate government period. Yes, GPS was created by the department of defense... i.e. military. It was created with the intent of tracking and controlling people/objects from space i.e. put instruments in your government car so you can be taxed by mileage.

[Siggie]

Re: Nasa's Glorious Failure

I'd eliminate government period. Yes, GPS was created by the department of defense... i.e. military. It was created with the intent of tracking and controlling people/objects from space i.e. put instruments in your government car so you can be taxed by mileage.

I don't know that it was about taxation, but my it's not relevant to my point and that is that this was technology that was useful to the government and so they developed it for their purposes (requires satellites). Private industry saw a market/need for it among the public and used it.
You think that private industry on its own would do as much? I think the amount of research being done would decline greatly if there was no government funding because public research institutions/universities are government and grant funded and private universities rely heavily on grants too. This would slow things down and the US would quickly fall behind other countries in terms of technology and scientific output. We're already not doing great in this regard with the state of science/mathematics education in the US; cutting funding in this way would be crippling.

And what would happen if say Apophis passes through the keyhole and is going to collide with Earth? Would we even have advance notice and would we have determined this "keyhole" without NASA or government research funding? Assuming we knew it was headed for us, what would we do without a space program or government? You know... besides waiting to die.

No response for HotFizzixist?

[KanadaHye]

Re: Nasa's Glorious Failure

And what would happen if say Apophis passes through the keyhole and is going to collide with Earth? Would we even have advance notice and would we have determined this "keyhole" without NASA or government research funding? Assuming we knew it was headed for us, what would we do without a space program or government? You know... besides waiting to die.

Seriously? Yes, Aliens wanted to attack America. Muslims wanted to attack America. Comets wanted to attack America. Communists wanted to attack America. The Japanese wanted to attack America. The Russians wanted to attack America. In every Hollywood movie made, some American city gets destroyed. If a meteor was to fall on Earth, it would most likely gravitate towards America. What would America do if their government wasn't soooo proactive and militarily occupied 80% of the Earth's land mass. It's a good thing for the space program.... I feel safe now that satellites can track my every move. Phew!!

[Siggie]

Re: Nasa's Glorious Failure

Seriously? Yes, Aliens wanted to attack America. Muslims wanted to attack America. Comets wanted to attack America. Communists wanted to attack America. The Japanese wanted to attack America. The Russians wanted to attack America. In every Hollywood movie made, some American city gets destroyed. If a meteor was to fall on Earth, it would most likely gravitate towards America. What would America do if their government wasn't soooo proactive and militarily occupied 80% of the Earth's land mass. It's a good thing for the space program.... I feel safe now that satellites can track my every move. Phew!!

I never said such an event would only affect the US, but you're right... we'll sit back, governmentless and unorganized, and wait for Canada to take care of the problem. Are you that naive to think that asteroids will never be a threat in the future?

And way to ignore everything else in my post.

[KanadaHye]

Re: Nasa's Glorious Failure

I never said such an event would only affect the US, but you're right... we'll sit back, governmentless and unorganized, and wait for Canada to take care of the problem. Are you that naive to think that asteroids will never be a threat in the future?

What would cause an Asteroid to stop and get pulled into the Earth's atmosphere? Perhaps it's hungry and sees the golden arches from space?