Trump is set to rejuvenate US space program

[UM-Bot]

The President-elect is hoping to send humans back to the Moon - and beyond - within the next few decades.

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/300952/trump-is-set-to-rejuvenate-us-space-program

 

[danielost]

it is about time we had a president who cared about science for other than war purposes. 

[sees]

He says a lot of things doesn't he?   Rhetoric is easy.....

[toast]

1 hour ago, danielost said:

it is about time we had a president who cared about science for other than war purposes. 

Thats nonsense. Maybe you should inform yourself about NASA Authorization Act of 2010 and the NASA space program budget increase from 2010 on.

[paperdyer]

The only thing I worry about, being close to retirement, is where is the money going to come from.  We had a war boosting the economy when we went to the Moon.  We don't need one to get the revenue to go to Mars or the ever increasingly interesting Pluto.

[geraldnewfie]

so money for nasa, building a huge wall, security at his penthouse when he aint staying at white house, where is all this money coming from?

[danielost]

1 hour ago, toast said:

Thats nonsense. Maybe you should inform yourself about NASA Authorization Act of 2010 and the NASA space program budget increase from 2010 on.

you mean after the 2008 nasa budget cut.

[highdesert50]

Mr Trump has continually refuted global warming, which would consequently mean refuting NASA's own GISTEMP surface temperature analysis predicting temperature increases. Why then believe in NASA's science for this grand mission?

[GlitterRose]

I wonder if that's what they'll use our retirements and social security for. So that they can ditch the planet (and us) after everything is all used up. 

[Michelle]

1 hour ago, ChaosRose said:

I wonder if that's what they'll use our retirements and social security for. So that they can ditch the planet (and us) after everything is all used up. 

Obama has already used all of that up.

[Frank Merton]

7 hours ago, geraldnewfie said:

so money for nasa, building a huge wall, security at his penthouse when he aint staying at white house, where is all this money coming from?

Obama brought the deficit way down, so now the US has a lot of borrowing power (sorry to contradict the economic foolishness hereabouts).  I think good infrastructure spending (on projects that actually make the economy more efficient and not political waste) is a good idea, although it may generate inflation, since the US is now at full employment, any further stimulus will go into higher prices rather than more jobs.

I really don't see how the NASA should need more money except its boondoggles of risking valuable people's lives in space extravaganzas.  The research being accomplished under the restricted budgets of late has been of much higher quality.  Man can have his day in space, but it should be delayed until technology reaches the point where it is cheaper and less dangerous -- maybe a century or so from now.

[Frank Merton]

5 hours ago, highdesert50 said:

Mr Trump has continually refuted global warming, which would consequently mean refuting NASA's own GISTEMP surface temperature analysis predicting temperature increases. Why then believe in NASA's science for this grand mission?

I suspect Mr. Trump has not the information nor the intelligence to understand the arguments surrounding global warming, and just went with his constituency on this.  Whatever he does will not much matter anyway, unless he lets the oil and coal companies get away with their efforts to put restraints on the growth of alternative energy sources.  This is because global warming looks to have all sorts of private technological fixes in the works.  Government mainly needs to stay out of the way.

[Derek Willis]

5 hours ago, Frank Merton said:

Man can have his day in space, but it should be delayed until technology reaches the point where it is cheaper and less dangerous -- maybe a century or so from now.

Should NASA have delayed sending men to the Moon until the technology reached the point where it was cheaper and less dangerous? Much of the technology of the world we live in now was inspired by the challenges of the "space race" of the 1960s.

[Frank Merton]

37 minutes ago, Derek Willis said:

Should NASA have delayed sending men to the Moon until the technology reached the point where it was cheaper and less dangerous? Much of the technology of the world we live in now was inspired by the challenges of the "space race" of the 1960s.

Good question, and to be consistent I would have to say it should have.  However, I'm kinda glad it went as it did.  At least the Russians had the good sense to accept defeat and not waste more money and risk more lives, and soon the Americans stopped too.

I am very much for spending whatever needs to be spent on realistic scientific research, such as big machines and telescopes and space missions.  I just think, except for low-earth missions, human beings are too expensive, unnecessary, and too questionable morally if all we get from it is politics.

[Derek Willis]

27 minutes ago, Frank Merton said:

Good question, and to be consistent I would have to say it should have.  However, I'm kinda glad it went as it did.  At least the Russians had the good sense to accept defeat and not waste more money and risk more lives, and soon the Americans stopped too.

I am very much for spending whatever needs to be spent on realistic scientific research, such as big machines and telescopes and space missions.  I just think, except for low-earth missions, human beings are too expensive, unnecessary, and too questionable morally if all we get from it is politics.

The Soviets were great rocket engineers (I prefer the term "Soviet" because many of the great rocket engineers including Korolev and Glushko were from Ukraine and not Russia) but were hampered by their political system. It is reckoned the Soviets spent about two-thirds as much as the US on their manned-moon program but had nothing to show for it. They then developed the Buran space shuttle which made a single (and totally successful) flight in 1988 but was then scrapped. But the Soviet rocket engineers will be forever remembered for having ushered in the "Space Age" with Sputnik 1 and Yuri Gagarin's flight.

I do agree with you to a degree. Could a basic human mission to Mars carry out significantly more science than the roving robots we are currently sending there? I don't think so. The curiosity mission has cost about $2.5 billion. Even the most basic human mission would cost at least $100 billion. But I hope NASA will send people to Mars within the next couple decades (not least because having been alive when men walked on the Moon I want to see men and women walk on Mars!). One of the unexpected outcomes of sending men to the Moon was that people started looking at the Earth, and began seeing how fragile it is. Perhaps sending people to Mars will have a similar outcome. I can't remember Carl Sagan's words, but perhaps seeing the Earth as a blue dot in the Martian night sky will act as a metaphor to remind us that we all share a tiny rock floating in space.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

3 hours ago, Frank Merton said:

  At least the Russians had the good sense to accept defeat and not waste more money and risk more lives, and soon the Americans stopped too.

Not quite true. The Russians continued with their manned lunar programme until 1976, four years after Apollo ended.

[kartikg]

10 hours ago, Frank Merton said:

Obama brought the deficit way down, so no, w the US has a lot of borrowing power (sorry to contradict the economic foolishness hereabouts).  I think good infrastructure spending (on projects that actually make the economy more efficient and not political waste) is a good idea, although it may generate inflation, since the US is now at full employment, any further stimulus will go into higher prices rather than more jobs.

I really don't see how the NASA should need more money except its boondoggles of risking valuable people's lives in space extravaganzas.  The research being accomplished under the restricted budgets of late has been of much higher quality.  Man can have his day in space, but it should be delayed until technology reaches the point where it is cheaper and less dangerous -- maybe a century or so from now.

to make the technology cheaper and less dangerous more funding is required. 

[SHaYap]

Ain't nothing but staking the Lunar claims for a Trump Tower on the Moon ..

~

[White Unicorn]

13 hours ago, ChaosRose said:

I wonder if that's what they'll use our retirements and social security for. So that they can ditch the planet (and us) after everything is all used up. 

Maybe he has plans for a Trump hotel on the moon. 

[SHaYap]

I seriously doubt it will be open for the paying public or average Joes and Janes ... most likely only for fellow Trumpsters and buddies with playmates ...

[Frank Merton]

11 hours ago, Waspie_Dwarf said:

Not quite true. The Russians continued with their manned lunar programme until 1976, four years after Apollo ended.

If you say so.