How come there is no interest in the space program? Mars?

[Ben Kenobi]

And this sort of collider costs less to build than a single day of fighting in Iraq!

Well, stop war and we should be able to fund both Mars missions and supercolliders.

[Proteus_MST]

How many Supercolliders and Mars Explorations could have gotten funded with the 80 Billions,
Bush got approved by the Senate for the Invasion of Iraq?

[Rogan Josh]

Originally posted by Proteus_MST
How many Supercolliders and Mars Explorations could have gotten funded with the 80 Billions,
Bush got approved by the Senate for the Invasion of Iraq?

I don't know how much NASA missions cost, but the particle physics community is trying to get funding for a linear collider at the moment, which is roughly $4B. So you could get maybe 20 colliders. To put that in perspective, this one collider would keep us busy until maybe 2020.

Of course, if Congress hadn't cancelled the SSC, which was being built in Texas, we would already know about extra dimensions, supersymmetry, black hole creation etc etc. Pity, considering that they had even dug the tunnel and everything by the time they cancelled it.

[Ecthy]

I had lamb Rogan Josh in Reading a few weeks ago. It was nice.

[Rogan Josh]

Originally posted by Ecthelion
I had lamb Rogan Josh in Reading a few weeks ago. It was nice.

You don't need to say 'lamb Rogan Josh' since Rogan Josh is always lamb (I think the 'Rogan' bit means lamb actually).

PS: I have had Rogan Josh in Reading too...(but that way a few years ago)

[Ecthy]

they had Rogan Josh also with different kind of meet, including poultry and the like

back to topic now.

[Eli]

Originally posted by Rogan Josh
Why would anyone want to go and live on a cold barren rock with no atmosphere --- wait... the British would fit right it... .

Seriously though, what would be the point?

I agree that space flight is tremendously exciting, but not the sort of space flight which is within our solar system. We need to invent travel 'between the stars' before it becomes interesting, and that is a long way off. Inter-solar travel is only interesting for things like mining and very very long term teraforming.

Now, for the amount of money we would spend on a Mars landing, wouldn't we be better trying to figure out how the universe works? There are so many interesting, exciting possibilities in particle physics just round the corner!

Do you know for example, that the new collider being built at Geneva may possibly find extra space dimensions? Wouldn't that be 'WoW!' time?

And this sort of collider costs less to build than a single day of fighting in Iraq!

If we want to do anything meaningful in space we need to first study physics a bit better. Only then will we get our 'hyperdrives' that will take us to the stars.

Shut up, you're biased.

[Odin]

You know why we should colonize Mars? BECAUSE WE CAN! Our species is naturally expansionistic. I am also a major supporter of terraforming and in creating a socialist Martian society free from the Capitalists on Earth. Also We must see if there once was, or stll is, life on Mars. An imprtant thing is that a Mars colony can support itself, a moon colony cannot, it is very poor in metals and it's month-long day is cannot support agriculture. Mars can also be used to feed the miners in the asteroid belt.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Odin
Mars can also be used to feed the miners in the asteroid belt.

Earth can be used to feed miners on the asteroids closest to us. There's no need to bother with pie in the sky missions when you aren't even able to answer the most basic questions about it, which would be the primary value of a moon colony.

[poolking]

I think the stance here in the UK, is that our government will not invest in the space program because it is of no benefit at this time.

[MikeH]

I think it's because it's too bloody expensive and the returns are too long term. If a government here raised taxes to pay for space research ahead of improving health, education, transport etc. there'd be a backlash against them.