Reactions to NASA moon mission aspirations

[Sticks]

These are taken from the BBC

Moon plan "comes up short"

Public reaction

A lot of "This money should be spent on better things", "This is immoral" , "we need to look after the environment", and the proverbial starving children in Africa make a cameo appearence. (I seem to be bored with that totem as well I may use crumbling schools and hospitals for a change )

Someone bleeted about why go to the Moon first with a

Been there! Done That! I think Mars should be next to visit on the list.

so I have added my threepeny worth (do not know if it will be published there), which was

There are reasons you have to go to the moon first before Mars.

1) Test the landing technology on our nearest neighbour

2) The moon is not such a big gravity well. A craft going to Mars would be quite large, so it would be cheaper to launch from a smaller gravity well.

3) Logistically it might be easier to construct the craft on the moon, rather than LEO, due to resources available on the Moon, and their would not be the stability issues you have with the ISS

However, I am doubtful this will ever get off the drawing board, given the clamour to cut NASA funding and give it to which worthy Totem of the month is in vouge (Granny's hip operation, crumbling schools or the starving children of Africa)

[parallaxicality]

Hm. Well, I'm not a fan of manned space exploration as a rule, since the only real reason for us to go is so that can say we've gone, in which case, let the private sector deal with it. The number of exiting and interesting missions, such as the JIMO and the Europa diver, that have been put into jeopardy because of the cost overruns from the ISS and the planned return to the moon makes me furious.

What really gets me about this though, is that it ultimately has nothing to do with science, exploration or manifest destiny; it's all just about politics. It feels like yet another of many attempts to get one over on China; since the Chinese sent a man into space, now the US has to prove they're best. It's strange, looking at the simulations; you'd think that NASA would have spent the preceding thirty years developing new technology, but the rocket and the lander are pretty much identical to the last ones. Way to go, human race.

[DOOMMaster]

However, I am doubtful this will ever get off the drawing board, given the clamour to cut NASA funding and give it to which worthy Totem of the month is in vouge (Granny's hip operation, crumbling schools or the starving children of Africa

Just curious, but where do you get this garbage? You aren't a United States citizen (unless your location listed as the UK is not true, but I believe you've confirmed it as correct before) so you probably have very little idea as to what the US public wants.

There is no "clamour" to cut NASA funding at all. Is there a "clamour" about how poorly the federal government handling the Katrina disaster? Yes. Is there "clamour" about how our money is being spent on Iraq while our own people suffer in the devestated Gulf Coast? Oh yes. You may be "clamouring" for NASA funding to be cut, but last I looked, you aren't a citizen of the United States. YOUR OPINION is not relavent to how MY country and government spends MY (and my fellow taxpayers) money. Please stop pretending that it is and definitely stop stating your opinion as fact and falsely presenting your opinion as the prevailing one of the public opinion of the United States.

*edited to fix spelling (falsey isn't a word).

[Glom]

Yes, but we're in Europe so we believe we have the right to tell people what to do.

[Gillianren]

well, look. I'm an American taxpayer--or I would be, if I made any money*--and I really want manned spaceflight. I disagree that it's just to say we've been; I think humans can accomplish more in space, and I believe those accomplishments are important.

further, I know an awful lot of other American taxpayers, most of which would rather have a space program than (fill in name of government program here). yes, we'd rather have relief efforts to disaster-stricken areas, New Orleans just being a prominent recent example and far from the only one ever. however, just to throw out an example, I'd rather have a manned space program than a war--and the manned space program only takes a fraction of the war's budget. it also provides a lot of jobs, which in turn provides more money for the economy--which provides more taxes to pay for relief efforts and wars.

*well, technically, I do pay taxes--I pay sales tax to Thurston County. however, I doubt any of that goes to NASA.

[Doodler]

I'd rather see American money put American astronauts on the moon than see American money feed African kids.

But that's just me. If their countries can't feed them, its not my problem. I don't pay my taxes to promote the interests of any other nation but my own. So if that makes me a cold hearted SOB, I can live with that, after all, I make enough money to feed myself and my family.

[publiusr]

I agree.

Some days I wish I was a tyrant.

"Lord Publius--we have some more spaceflight protestors!"

Put them to death like all the rest--no--wait! We need some forced labor in Alaska for my Bering Strait Bridge...the moon hoax believers have all died from exposure...

[Doodler]

I agree.

Some days I wish I was a tyrant.

"Lord Publius--we have some more spaceflight protestors!"

Put them to death like all the rest--no--wait! We need some forced labor in Alaska for my Bering Strait Bridge...the moon hoax believers have all died from exposure...

Sounds good, just don't shoot the EELV guys, I want my one man suborbital hotrod.

[publiusr]

Special dispensation granted. And how are the collective farms going comrade?

[montebianco]

it also provides a lot of jobs, which in turn provides more money for the economy--which provides more taxes to pay for relief efforts and wars.

I hear this claim all the time. The money to pay for government spending programs comes from taxpayers; an increase in spending by the government reduces private consumption and/or investment, which are also job creating. Is there any reason to expect that government spending will create more jobs than the private spending/investment it displaces?

[montebianco]

I agree.

Some days I wish I was a tyrant.

"Lord Publius--we have some more spaceflight protestors!"

Put them to death like all the rest--no--wait! We need some forced labor in Alaska for my Bering Strait Bridge...the moon hoax believers have all died from exposure...

You'll have to find some way to keep people from fleeing your country to live the good life in North Korea.

[Sticks]

There is no "clamour" to cut NASA funding at all. Is there a "clamour" about how poorly the federal government handling the Katrina disaster? Yes. Is there "clamour" about how our money is being spent on Iraq while our own people suffer in the devestated Gulf Coast? Oh yes. You may be "clamouring" for NASA funding to be cut, but last I looked, you aren't a citizen of the United States. YOUR OPINION is not relavent to how MY country and government spends MY (and my fellow taxpayers) money. Please stop pretending that it is and definitely stop stating your opinion as fact and falsely presenting your opinion as the prevailing one of the public opinion of the United States.

But some of the contributors on this page were from the US and were calling for the money to be spent on the return to the moon on other things. I do not know where this comes from, but there is a rule of thumb over here, that for every opinion publicly expressed in print or on some other form of the media, there are about 50,000 other people with the same views, who have chosen to remain silent.

(I did ask the person that I got this rule off of where he got it, but he could not remember )

I actually defended why we have to go to the moon first before Mars, but from what I read on that page from the US contributors, it did not look good.

[novaderrik]

not EVERY person in the US wants to go to the moon or mars- but neither do all the people not want to do it.
i'd say most people could care less, and most would actually think it was pretty cool and enjoy the use of any spinoff technologies that might come from it.
i have a hard time trusting any polls. the results depend very much on how the questions are asked.
if the question was worded like this:
"would you rather spend $100 billion to put 4 people on the moon, or spend the same amount to fix New Orleans?"
of course you know how the answer is going to be. fix New Oreleans.
but what is not pointed out is that the money to go to the moon iincludes developing a whole new way of getting people into space, and actually going there without any increase in spending. and doing it over a decade or more.
if someone could find a truly neutral way to do polls, and get the entire populace of a country to take part, then i might start to believe them.

[Doodler]

"would you rather spend $100 billion to put 4 people on the moon, or spend the same amount to fix New Orleans?"
of course you know how the answer is going to be. fix New Oreleans.

Like heck it is.

[Gillianren]

I hear this claim all the time. The money to pay for government spending programs comes from taxpayers; an increase in spending by the government reduces private consumption and/or investment, which are also job creating. Is there any reason to expect that government spending will create more jobs than the private spending/investment it displaces?

well, the people who have government jobs spend their paychecks, right? besides, it's not like there's a lot of private-sector jobs for, say, road building--or shuttle-building. there may be private-sector jobs for spacecraft at some point, but until there are, those are people who become employed who weren't previously.

[Seeker of Knowledge]

"would you rather spend $100 billion to put 4 people on the moon, or spend the same amount to fix New Orleans?"
of course you know how the answer is going to be. fix New Oreleans.

This is part of the problem. If I was to say that $300 billion (taxpayer money) is going to help the people affected by the hurricane, a lot of people would say
"Oh, that's wonderful they're helping those poor people"
Oh, and by the way, NASA just launched a $30 million space probe to study dust in space.
"WHAT?!? How can they waste our money for some stupid dust"

Manned missions to the moon will lead to a permanant base on the moon, which is certainly not useless.

[parallaxicality]

Forgive me, but what use would it be? As far as I can tell there are no experiments you could perform on a moonbase that you couldn't do better on a space station, since all of them seem to involve microgravity, and the Moon has far more gravity than orbit.

[montebianco]

well, the people who have government jobs spend their paychecks, right?

Do people who have private sector jobs not also spend their paychecks? Why does government spending somehow create more jobs than the same amount of private spending?

besides, it's not like there's a lot of private-sector jobs for, say, road building--or shuttle-building. there may be private-sector jobs for spacecraft at some point, but until there are, those are people who become employed who weren't previously.

Well, if they won't consider any other type of job, then yes, they would. What happens to the people who had jobs making the products previously purchased by the taxpayers, who now must reduce their spending in order to fund the proposed space exploration program? If we assume the same total labor market inflexibility you assume above, then these are people who become unemployed who weren't previously. Of course, in reality, workers adapt to changing labor markets, and the result of a space exploration program is mostly movement of jobs between sectors. If you think the benefits from government spending on space exploration are greater than the benefits of the same amount of private spending on whatever the public wants to spend its money on, then feel free to make the case for that position. But the job creation argument is fallacious.

So, once more, is there any reason to assume the government spending would create more jobs than the private spending it displaces? How many jobs will be created by the proposed spending plan of $104 billion? And how many jobs will be destroyed by an additional tax burden of $104 billion? Let's count all the effects of the proposed policy, not just those which are convenient.

[paulie jay]

I think that going to the moon again, just so that we can say we've been again, is reason enough.

Why? Becasue I really want us to go. It excites me and I missed the previous moon landings. Utterly selfish reasons to be sure, but that's all I can base my opinion on as it's not MY tax dollars involved. (Actually, that probably wouldn't change my opinion anyway.)

[montebianco]

Utterly selfish reasons to be sure, but that's all I can base my opinion on as it's not MY tax dollars involved. (Actually, that probably wouldn't change my opinion anyway.)

I'm sure the US government would be willing to accept a contribution...

[CJSF]

The spacecraft and systems ARE built by the private sector, aren't they? A private aerospace company built and upgrades the Shuttle, right? And Apollo was built by private companies, as far as I know.

CJSF

[montebianco]

The spacecraft and systems ARE built by the private sector, aren't they? A private aerospace company built and upgrades the Shuttle, right? And Apollo was built by private companies, as far as I know.

CJSF

I'm not sure if this is addressed to me or to Gillianren. If it's addressed to me, my point is that a space exploration program does not result in net creation of jobs; there will be more jobs devoted to building rockets and the like, to be sure, but there will be fewer jobs devoted to making whatever the taxpayers were buying before. If it's addressed to Gillianren, carry on

[Doodler]

Forgive me, but what use would it be? As far as I can tell there are no experiments you could perform on a moonbase that you couldn't do better on a space station, since all of them seem to involve microgravity, and the Moon has far more gravity than orbit.

As far as I'm concerned, anything to do with manned spaceflight in the immediate future is a prelude to colonization at some point in the intermediate to distant future.

The sooner we get manned spaceflight out of the "major event" category and into the "just another day at the office" category, the sooner we can be living on other planets or in orbit around them.

[algorithms]

I'm all for this. If we ever expect to reach the stars we've got to learn how to live in space and on other planetary bodies. The moon is the perfect location to get started. We're fortunate it is close enough to allow us to safely and affordably develop our technology, knowledge and skills for long distance space travel.

With regards to the economic return from government investment in space exploration - the federal government buys its products competitively from the private sector which pays the salaries of literally thousands of people who, in turn, purchase consumer goods from the private sector. As an added bonus, this investment stimulates the development and transfer of technology which would otherwise not exist or take a lot longer to emerge.

As for feeding starving children in Africa...I'm all for that too.

[parallaxicality]

As far as I'm concerned, anything to do with manned spaceflight in the immediate future is a prelude to colonization at some point in the intermediate to distant future.

The sooner we get manned spaceflight out of the "major event" category and into the "just another day at the office" category, the sooner we can be living on other planets or in orbit around them.

But why? How would these communities subsist? How would they pay for themsleves? What purpose would they serve, other than the fact that they are there and we are in them?

[Argos]

Just curious, but where do you get this garbage? You aren't a United States citizen (unless your location listed as the UK is not true, but I believe you've confirmed it as correct before) so you probably have very little idea as to what the US public wants.

Not that I necessarily agree with the OP, but people can be quite well informed these days, regardless of their physical location.

[Doodler]

But why? How would these communities subsist? How would they pay for themsleves? What purpose would they serve, other than the fact that they are there and we are in them?

Well, from what I understand, some of the proposed experiments for the outpost we want to put there is to determine whether we can subsist there. They could pay for themselves however they find the capability to do so.

Your question as to purpose contains a great answer right within itself.

We're there, not just stuck here on Earth, where I have to listen to bleeding hearts tell me to send my money to Africa, where countries that deserve to be left to collapse into exploitable anarchy for the civilized world will take it and buy weapons with which to kill each other, because people are hungry.

I'm not one of the complacent ones, I'm tired of looking around at the US becoming the New Old World. I want a new frontier to conquer, I want to see humanity get the heck out of the cradle and move on. I don't want to see the first wave of human colonization of space be some stupid desperate gamble because of some impending global disaster. And I sure as heck don't want to see humanity still stuck with all its eggs in one basket when we have the ability to scatter successfully.

[montebianco]

With regards to the economic return from government investment in space exploration - the federal government buys its products competitively from the private sector which pays the salaries of literally thousands of people who, in turn, purchase consumer goods from the private sector.

And before, the money was being spent by the taxpayers. If you count the jobs created by the government spending but not the jobs destroyed by the taxation imposed to support that spending, well, not much else to say, is there?

I think this is the third or fourth time I have made this point, and so far all responses have ignored this point and simply repeated the original claim. Would anyone who disagrees actually like to address my point? Kindly show an economic analysis, showing how expenditure of $104 billion affects employment, private consumption, government expenditure, investment, etc., but be sure to include all the effects of the spending, including the taxation needed to support it. Not just the effects which are convenient for one side of the argument. It's quite easy to rationalise anything if you count only the advantages and ignore the disadvantages.

As an added bonus, this investment stimulates the development and transfer of technology which would otherwise not exist or take a lot longer to emerge.

Certainly, and if you feel the benefits of government-sponsored space exploration exceed the benefits realized by taxpayers spending the money instead on whatever it is that they want to spend it on, then you'll be in favor of government-sponsored space exploration. That's a matter of judgment, but certainly there is a case to be made, in contrast to the bogus job creation argument.

As for feeding starving children in Africa...I'm all for that too.

And what will you give up to do it? Is this a job-creation program also?

[publiusr]

I hear this claim all the time. The money to pay for government spending programs comes from taxpayers; an increase in spending by the government reduces private consumption and/or investment, which are also job creating. Is there any reason to expect that government spending will create more jobs than the private spending/investment it displaces?

It doesn't displace anything. According to Jay Barbree of NBC news every dollar on Apollo turned into seven.

I'd say that is a pretty good return.

It is these privatize space frauds that are creating a brain drain on NASA. All Rutan did was build a lousy ME-163 Komet dropped out from under a spindly learjet contraption--giving false hope and an excuse to gut NASA. And where did Rutan get his GPS system?--or the interstate highways he drives on? It wasn't Harry Brown I assure you.

Frankly--anybody opposed to govt. space spending should have their televisions taken away from them so as to not watch satellite signals that also go to their cable providers--that broadcast pictures from weather satellites, etc.

And you cannot say "Well, we can keep the weather satellites but we don't need--"

Let me stop that nonsense right there.

The folks in the space program often joined because they wanted in space themselves--and worked on these other programs on the side--without the space race and the R-7--you would not have LVs big enough even for automated probes--weather and comsats did not develop in a vacuum, even if that is the environment they are stationed in..

50 yrs ago people said "Well--we need a weather service but we don't need to be spending any money on rockets..."

If we had listen to those retards, we wouldn't have weather-sats to begin with.

You don't know what you are going to need tomorrow.

[DOOMMaster]

It doesn't displace anything. According to Jay Barbree of NBC news every dollar on Apollo turned into seven.

I'd say that is a pretty good return.

It is these privatize space frauds that are creating a brain drain on NASA. All Rutan did was build a lousy ME-163 Komet dropped out from under a spindly learjet contraption--giving false hope and an excuse to gut NASA. And where did Rutan get his GPS system?--or the interstate highways he drives on? It wasn't Harry Brown I assure you.

Frankly--anybody opposed to govt. space spending should have their televisions taken away from them so as to not watch satellite signals that also go to their cable providers--that broadcast pictures from weather satellites, etc.

And you cannot say "Well, we can keep the weather satellites but we don't need--"

Let me stop that nonsense right there.

The folks in the space program often joined because they wanted in space themselves--and worked on these other programs on the side--without the space race and the R-7--you would not have LVs big enough even for automated probes--weather and comsats did not develop in a vacuum, even if that is the environment they are stationed in..

50 yrs ago people said "Well--we need a weather service but we don't need to be spending any money on rockets..."

If we had listen to those retards, we wouldn't have weather-sats to begin with.

You don't know what you are going to need tomorrow.

I couldn't have said it much better myself. Excellent post!

Personally, I would love to see much more money spent on the space program, for both manned and unmanned projects. The government wastes huge amounts of money on pork projects every year and that money could easily be spent on the space program. We need more Voyagers, Cassini-Huygens, Hubbles, and Apollos. One of the reasons the US has lost so much of it's engineering and technical fields is due to the fact that we don't have a huge space program like we did during the Apollo years. Think of all the jobs lost after the shutdown of Apollo and the cutting of the space programs funding. If we want to take back the lead in technology, we need to invest in programs that are going to help develop that technology such as the space program. Apollo is a perfect example of this.