Lake on Titan?

[MrFun]

Originally posted by bfg9000

MrFun, I was fortunate enough to have been able to attend college to broaden my horizons. Why dont we use this space program money to broaden the horizons of the indigent children of our country in the same way?

When you come up with THE formula to solve all the world's problems in one shot, let us know.

[Brundlefly]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat

We piss away more in Federal deficits in three days than the NASA budget for a year, let alone the amount allocated to deep space mission programs.

That's a seperate problem caused by Bush's foreign policy.

How broad would your horizons have been if it hadn't been for government support of various technology ventures in the past several centuries?

All I'm saying is: There better be a good business case for any given space research project for me to be supportive. Sending a spaceship to Titan to photograph the surface may give a hard-on to a group of academics sitting in a dark lab in Houston, but I fail to see any ROI for the public.

And school funding is a state issue, the Feds should have nothing to do with it.

I disagree. I dont side with Bush very often but I think his "No Child Left Behind" education initiative is good for the country. NCLB programs deserve funding in favor of the quest to photograph the surface of Titan.

[Tattila the Hun]

Bfg: "Either we develop alternate forms of energy or wars break out over control of the world's resources (like the current US intervention in Iraq, but on a larger scale). So, better to spend that space research money on development of alternate forms of energy, yes?"

Or R&D better weapons?

[Anaximander]

Why can't we do both!

[Geronimo]

Consider computer modelling of weather on earth. With a sample size of one it can be quite difficult to detect the nature of all flaws in the model. However, if we learn about conditions in wildly different environments we can test our model under conditions that do not occur on earth to see if our basic assumptions of weather that underlie the model are correct.

Empirical data cannot be manufactured. Any data we can add to what is available on Earth greatly improves our ability to understand the world around us.

[Commy]

Originally posted by Spiffor

If you want to whine about a waste of money, look at the Space shuttle (5 billions a year), or better yet, look at the pork and corporate welfare (untold amount of billions a year), or look at the war in Iraq (how many billions did it cost yet? 180 or something like that? )

Ever heard of Social Security? Most expensive project, to date, ever undertaken by the United States...

Now, I'm not at all saying it is a waste, rather, poor management on the government's part...

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by bfg9000
Sending a spaceship to Titan to photograph the surface may give a hard-on to a group of academics sitting in a dark lab in Houston, but I fail to see any ROI for the public.

Queen Isabella probably wouldn't have sent Columbus off to China is she knew the way was blocked by a couple of continents full of pagan savages. No ROI in that.

[Lancer]

"couple of continents full of pagan savages."

You mean the spiritual villagers living in harmony with nature and partaking of the pipe of peace and dancing the buffalo dance under the stars? The ancestors of a full 1/16th of the blood running through my viens?

White devil...

[Odin]

BFG, we explore space the same reason people climb Mt. Everest; BECAUSE WE CAN! Exploration is part of human nature. Even science itself casn be considered a form of exploration. So I guess you think most paleontologists, for example, should loose thier jobs then.

[child of Thor]

One day we will sail across the seas of black space and become the new gods of the sky

with alien chicks to keep us company i'd like a green one.....

[Frozzy]

Originally posted by bfg9000
News items like this bring two questions to mind immediately:

1) How does this discovery change my life for the better?

2) How much of my tax dollars were spent to make this discovery?

If man did not explore you would not live where you are now.

[Odin]

Originally posted by child of Thor
One day we will sail across the seas of black space and become the new gods of the sky

[Az]

Originally posted by child of Thor
One day we will sail across the seas of black space and become the new gods of the sky

with alien chicks to keep us company i'd like a green one.....

Dude, when we'll sail across space, you'll be able not only to make a green alien chick, but to actually become one.

[Odin]

Maybe we will engineer an intellegent species on another planet that will worship us.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Odin
Maybe we will engineer an intellegent species on another planet that will worship us.

Last time an intelligent designer did that to humans, it backfired pretty uglyly