Issues with your account? Bug us in the Discord!
Voyager 2 to pass terminal schock within the next year
croxis
I am the walrus
in Zocalo v2.0
[url]http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060523_heliosphere_shape.html[/url]
Slowly we crawl out to the stars.....
Slowly we crawl out to the stars.....
Comments
[url]http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap031115.html[/url]
[url]http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060120.html[/url]
They've lasted amazingly long time, and have provided us with invaluable data into the nature of our own solar system.
Plus, the Voyager probes just looked neat.
Galaxy: I do now.
Bender: What are you? Some kind of galactic computer?
Galaxy: Possible. I am user friendly, my good chum.
Bender: Who built you?
Galaxy: I have always been.
Bender: Oh, my God. Are you God?
"God": Possible. I do feel compassion for all living things, my good chum.
Bender: But why would God think in binary? Unless ... you're not God, but the remains of a computerised space probe that collided with God.
"God": That seems probable.
basically, people are selfish. "They spend 500,000,000 to send a probe to mars but the can't do ____ for us!"
(Blank being anything from lower gas prices to health care to tax brakes)
I hear that kind of stuff all the time.
[B]As long as the fundamentalists of america hold the power, public interest in science will be low.. ;) [/B][/QUOTE]
As long as people are busy blaming the fundamentalists, nothing will ever get done.
Wasn't one of Bush's promises to expand NASA's budget? Whether or not he followed through, your stereotypical, ignorant fundie would have proudly promised to axe NASA's budget because science is so useless.
With the moon landings almost a half a century behind us and the recent shuttle disasters, politicians are likely wary of NASA. Nobody in Congress wants to be connected with the next shuttle disaster, so they'd probably be happy if NASA simply went away quietly. If they up the budget and begin a new push, right-wingers will say that the money would be better spent on the war and left-wingers would say that the money is better spent on votes poverty. I don't blame either side, I blame a system in which politicians become more concerned with their party's image and their own re-election rather than the best interests of the people.
If USA would just spend as eagerly money on science and space programs annually as it spends on its military, there would already be space colonies on the Moon and Mars and mining ships would travel between those colonies and Earth on a regular basis and people would travel for holidays in space.
Other countries could invest some more money for science as well instead of wasting so much money for nothing. So much useless stupid crap the money is spent for in this world instead of more important and more interesting matters.
Sad but true. :rolleyes:
- PJH
[B]Wasn't one of Bush's promises to expand NASA's budget? Whether or not he followed through, your stereotypical, ignorant fundie would have proudly promised to axe NASA's budget because science is so useless. [/B][/QUOTE]
Oh, I wasnt talking about Bush. Its not like he controls anything anyway.. ;)
Yeah, youre right, you shouldnt place blame, you should do something about it instead, but Im no american, theres not much I can do about your system except talk about it..
[B]Politicians should not be let to be politicians. They only think themselves and their buddies.
If USA would just spend as eagerly money on science and space programs annually as it spends on its military, there would already be space colonies on the Moon and Mars and mining ships would travel between those colonies and Earth on a regular basis and people would travel for holidays in space.
Other countries could invest some more money for science as well instead of wasting so much money for nothing. So much useless stupid crap the money is spent for in this world instead of more important and more interesting matters.
Sad but true. :rolleyes:
- PJH [/B][/QUOTE]
What I find ironic is the european FO contingent is going "yeah you stupid americans should do something about it"
Almost all of our european posters are from countries that are part of the European Space Agency. Why are you guys not increasing your funding for space? especially since your not funding the huge defense infrastructure the US is?
When considering all the members states of the ESA who togeather have an economy approaching that of the USA, the ESA is even more underfunded then NASA.
When talking about the massive defense budget, its still important to keep in mind that the US defense budget is about 500 billion, of a total us budget of 2.8 TRILLION. its about 1/5 of the total budget, which is actually lower of a percentage of the US budget then it has been historicly, and Im talking 1794 on. And in comparison the total defense budgets of the members of the ESA still manages to top 200 billion.
The problem is too many people think that "We should spend the money to solve problems down here"
I hate to disapoint all you right wing bashers, but the a substatial majority of right wing "fundies" (myself being one) do support an increased space program. Of course its mainly so we can put up OWPs to bomb the sinners, heretics and unbelievers, but hey, space reaserch IS on the agenda!
While its easy to talk about paring down the military, even if we did so, its an uphill battle to redirect that money into space exploration, the vast majority of goverment expendatures go to social programs. And the amount of money thats clammored for in existing social programs or new social programs is staggering.
So much of the opposition to space exploration is actualy firmly and toaly entrenched in the political left, while the political right is mostly for it, or ambivilent about it.
[B]What I find ironic is the european FO contingent is going "yeah you stupid americans should do something about it"[/B][/quote]
I didn't mean it that way. I just find it sad that the US is using so big amount of their budget in its military, which IMO is a huge waste of money.
This is often said by us europeans, but it naturally comes to mind everytime these matters are discussed due to the great amount of money that USA spends in military every year and in all honesty there is no real need for that great spenditure in military in your country, or in any other country either for that matter, if we are objective.
Lets just put it straight.
The military spenditure in USA annually is complitely out of proportions in relation to the real need of military power to defend the country and we all very well know why. We also know how that military power is often used. So I think it's quite justified that we europeans and people from other parts of the world as well do critizise it.
We do spend fairly lot of money in military in Europe too, but not even close that much as USA does in relation and we do have threats much closer in here than USA does, which is located far away from any threats it even theoretically could have.
[quote][B]Almost all of our european posters are from countries that are part of the European Space Agency. Why are you guys not increasing your funding for space? especially since your not funding the huge defense infrastructure the US is?[/B][/quote]
I don't know. I wish we would use more money for space exploration and in science generally as well. I'm in favor of it and have always been. I've been thinking about it many times that we should use more resources exploring space.
[quote][B]When considering all the members states of the ESA who togeather have an economy approaching that of the USA, the ESA is even more underfunded then NASA.[/B][/quote]
I don't know the budget of ESA, but I think that's true, unfortunately. Like I mentioned above, I'd like to see us using more money for space exploration.
[quote][B]When talking about the massive defense budget, its still important to keep in mind that the US defense budget is about 500 billion, of a total us budget of 2.8 TRILLION. its about 1/5 of the total budget, which is actually lower of a percentage of the US budget then it has been historicly, and Im talking 1794 on.[/B][/quote]
That 1/5 is still insanely high amount of the budget. A 5th of the total budget of that big. And to say it again, you're far away from any threats unlike us in Europe where all the threats have traditionally been close by.
In comparison, my country (Finland) used about 5.5% of total budget for defence in 2003. That is slightly under 2 billion euros. In US dollars that would be somewhat over 2 billion. In 2005 the defence budget was about 2.14 billion euros.
If that would be related to the population of USA, which is about 300 million and Finland's population is a little over 5.2 million, it would make a defence budget of only about 115-120 billion euros in comparison of the current US budget of over 500 billion dollars, which isn't much less converted in euros.
Smaller country also needs more resources for defence in relation than a much bigger country.
That gives some perspective to how much money USA spends for military.
[quote][B]And in comparison the total defense budgets of the members of the ESA still manages to top 200 billion.[/B][/quote]
I don't know the military budgets of ESA member countries, but you have to remember that we are not one single country in here. We do have a lot of different countries and every country has it's own national military systems which in relation takes much more money to keep up than that of one big country where there's only one system to operate.
My own country however uses one of the smallest amounts of money (see above) for military in Europe, even though we have a long border with Russia who we have fought against many times in history and which has always been a great military power and not exactly known for being a very good friend with its smaller neighbours in the past.
[quote][B]The problem is too many people think that "We should spend the money to solve problems down here"[/B][/quote]
That's a difficult issue I guess. We must fight to get attention and funding for space exploration, but not forget the problems on Earth either.
[quote][B]I hate to disapoint all you right wing bashers, but the a substatial majority of right wing "fundies" (myself being one) do support an increased space program. Of course its mainly so we can put up OWPs to bomb the sinners, heretics and unbelievers, but hey, space reaserch IS on the agenda![/B][/quote]
Well I won't take part in left wing/right wing political battles. I don't feel belonging to either one myself, or in any other group. I just want what is good for the people in the world and that's all.
[quote][B]While its easy to talk about paring down the military, even if we did so, its an uphill battle to redirect that money into space exploration, the vast majority of goverment expendatures go to social programs. And the amount of money thats clammored for in existing social programs or new social programs is staggering.[/B][/quote]
Well, it might be an uphill battle, but I think there would be enough to share between space exploration, social programs and many other programs as well from the US defence budget if it was lowered to a "reasonable" level, whatever that level would be, but I think there's so much room to lower it, that there would be a good share available for space exploration as well without sacrificing all the social programs etc.
- PJH
[B]
My own country however uses one of the smallest amounts of money (see above) for military in Europe, even though we have a long border with Russia who we have fought against many times in history and which has always been a great military power and not exactly known for being a very good friend with its smaller neighbours in the past.[/B][/QUOTE]
PJH, understanding the point you were making, I think one of the reasons yours, and other countries, are able to spend less on defence is due to the deterence the US provides against large scale aggression and/or expansion. Without the threat or nuclar retaliation, the long border with Russia would have become a much shorter one with Sweden and Norway or have been moved even farther to the west many years ago. While I believe (or want to believe) that political alliances have helped to stabilize that particular border, it was the initial military presence that made the stabilization possible. There are still many unstable areas left in the world.
Our interest, therefore, is to have stable markets around the world in which to trade. This is far more of a concern to us than it is to anyone else, whether it be the Russians who don't really have developed commercial interests around the world, or the Europeans, who have a variety of friendly markets all right next to each other.
As China begins to have more and more real commercial development, rather than just selling cheap parts to American markets, they are beginning to develop a credible naval force of their own.
To those people who would point out the strongarming of the rest of the world by the US, with its overwhelming military force, look at it in terms of opening and preserving markets as well as defence. Why else would we go so crazy over the Middle East and send small forces (Somalia) or none at all (Rwanda) to conflicts quite close geographically? Good, bad, you decide.
By the way, whether or not you agree with them, the policy makers and generals of the Cold War really did believe the Soviets to be as big a threat as any the free world had yet seen, and with the limited knowledge they had of the enemy at the time, they did what they felt was best for the defense of the nation. Hindsight may prove them right in some cases, wrong in others, but I don't like criticising people for making the best decisions they could with whatever information was available.
At the end of the day, for our continued economic success someone has to play policeman to the world. When the UN is ready to step up to that task, wonderful. But for now, we are the only ones who have a real reason to care.