Science buff- Like Barack Obama? Better not like manned spaceflight then

[Vesayen]

http://www.space.com/news/071231-candidate-positions.html

"Barack Obama's early education and K-12 plan package costs about $18 billion per year. He will maintain fiscal responsibility and prevent any increase in the deficit by offsetting cuts and revenue sources in other parts of the government. The early education plan will be paid for by delaying the NASA Constellation Program for five years"

[Impaler[WrG]]

Well considering that maned space flight post Apollo has been a useless and wastefully boondoggle I approve of that.

[Ramo]

Manned space flight has ****all to do with science.

[David Floyd]

Barack Obama's plan:

Increase funding for education, paid for by decreasing funding for the product of that education.

From the same website, here is what Fred Thompson had to say:

Complete the modernization of the U.S. Air Force to ensure continued tactical air dominance over all potential adversaries and the ability to project power globally.
Ensure tactical and strategic air/space superiority over every battlefield and the U.S. ...
Develop robust Missile Defenses to protect the homeland, deployed forces, and allies against ballistic missiles of all ranges in all phases of flight.
Field a layered, multi-tiered missile defense architecture that includes land-, sea-, and space-based components.
Support the development and testing of advanced missile defense technologies to address the complexity of foreign ballistic missile inventories.
Promote international collaboration in all missile defense efforts, to include cooperation in joint development and production with friends and allies."

That doesn't really address space policy, but ultimately missile defense and tactical and strategic air power is going to rely heavily on what we have in space, IMO.

Not that I believe anything Hillary Clinton says, but a part of her space plan is something very supportable:

Pursuing an ambitious 21st century Space Exploration Program, by implementing a balanced strategy of robust human spaceflight, expanded robotic spaceflight, and enhanced space science activities.

Impaler,

Well considering that maned space flight post Apollo has been a useless and wastefully boondoggle I approve of that.

Yes, it has been a boondoggle. But that's not an argument for ending manned space flight - it's an argument for making it productive, and, long-term, even profitable, both scientifically and financially.

[David Floyd]

Ramo,

Manned space flight has ****all to do with science.

Huh? Besides exploration, which I think is very important long term, manned missions provide the opportunity to work in a non-Earth environment, and those same manned missions pave the way for permanent manned space stations (such as the ISS) and eventually bases/colonies. Yeah, that's thinking long term, but unless we're just going to write space off entirely then we have to send people to space.

[Ramo]

Exploration can be done unmanned, at a tiny fraction of the cost. I'm not sure what you think goes on in the ISS, but not a whole lot of interesting science. Maybe sometime in the future fusion might become so efficient a source of power that it's economically justifiable to ship helium three from the moon, and it might be reasonable to invest in a moon base, but we're not anywhere close to there yet.

Manned space flight is pretty much the definition of wasteful government spending. The only thing that might be worse are farm subsidies.

Dave, it doesn't sound like you consider yourself a libertarian anymore...

[Jon Miller]

Space exploration money is money to the science complex, which I support.

Physics got really nailed recently, btw. The funny thing is that it was in the initial budget, but when Bush said he didn't like it and people sat down to 'fix' it, a lot of the science funding got removed.

JM

[Ramo]

Manned flight isn't LISA or Hubble...

[Impaler[WrG]]

With another 20-30 years of basic research into materials, engines and launch systems we might get to the point ware manned space flight would be worth doing at which point I'd support it. When we can build a vehicle that fulfills the promise that the space shuttle and Venture-Star failed to (aka a cheap, safe, re-usable workhorse vehicle to get to Orbit) then it will be time to re-start manned space flight.

But when you look at ware manned space flight money is spent its mostly going into the repeated construction (literally by hand and custom made every time, no efficiency of scale at all!) or what amounts to a huge bomb that we stick some people on the end of then light and hope they don't suffer the full 2% probability of death so they can play with their food in Low Earth Orbit and come back in a week.

At least the Russians have an assembly line system and have honed their system to be both safer and about a thousand times cheaper, it was they who pioneered the Space Station and actually learned what needed to be learned about the body in those conditions for extended periods. Its painfully obvious that the ISS and Shuttle are dinosaurs, the Bush moon-base is a better in the sense of being a more rewarding goal but its putting the horse before the cart if we don't have the Taxi vehicle to base it on and the current plan is just a desperate scramble to put off-the shelf components together in old ways. With a few decades of basics research we could do far better.

[Geronimo]

On the other hand we went to the Moon 40 years ago. It would seem that we've already had a few decades of basic research to apply.

The shuttle was a huge detour to exploration.

[Whoha]

lets hear it for further gutting aerospace. way to kick them when they're down.

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by Ramo
Manned flight isn't LISA or Hubble...

No, manned space flight IS Hubble.

From the corrective optics installed early on, through the gyroscope replacements and other repairs and upgrades, to the upcoming service mission that may yet NOT happen, Hubble has been exceedingly dependent on manned spaceflight.

[David Floyd]

Exploration can be done unmanned, at a tiny fraction of the cost. I'm not sure what you think goes on in the ISS, but not a whole lot of interesting science.

I'm more interested in laying the groundwork for future scientific/exploration work done in space. I understand there may not be a TON of scientific value now (although my understanding is that there is some), but I think that our future as a species is heavily dependent upon our ability to explore and exploit space.

Maybe sometime in the future fusion might become so efficient a source of power that it's economically justifiable to ship helium three from the moon, and it might be reasonable to invest in a moon base, but we're not anywhere close to there yet.

Yes, but we won't get any closer unless we try. We could have made the same argument back in the 1950s, and as a result, we could be without all kinds of technological advances today.

Manned space flight is pretty much the definition of wasteful government spending. The only thing that might be worse are farm subsidies.

I'm certainly in favor of private space flight, and there have been some pretty good advances along those lines in the past few years. My major IMMEDIATE concern is that another nation may pull ahead of the US in space - if the PRC in 20 years were to have a significant lead on the US in space, that could potentially be a disaster. My long term concern, other than ensuring the primacy of the US, is that I truly believe we are reaching a point where expanding into space is the next step for us, and that if we don't do it, we are only handicapping our potential growth.

Dave, it doesn't sound like you consider yourself a libertarian anymore...

I try to temper it with realism. I understand that high minded Libertarian principles don't mean **** if we allow a nation like China, or a force like radical Islam, to dominate the future, technologically/militarily/economically/politically.

[David Floyd]

Also, my other huge point about putting on emphasis on space is this:

If you accept evolution as fact - and how can you not? - how can you not also accept the fact that intelligent life has arisen elsewhere, in the past 15+ billion years, and, while not common, probably exists in more than one place in our galaxy? Any other belief strikes me as either blindness, stupidity, or hubris. If that's the case, shouldn't we be doing everything in our power to advance to a point where we are capable of meeting and dealing with such potential life? I don't think I'm spouting sci-fi fantasy - I'm not talking about Vulcans landing on Earth tomorrow, I'm talking about the next few centuries.

[Blake]

Manned space flight is the ultimate height-peeing contest.

Originally posted by David Floyd
Also, my other huge point about putting on emphasis on space is this:

If you accept evolution as fact - and how can you not? - how can you not also accept the fact that intelligent life has arisen elsewhere, in the past 15+ billion years, and, while not common, probably exists in more than one place in our galaxy? Any other belief strikes me as either blindness, stupidity, or hubris.

Simple fact is, that there is either no-one in the neighborhood, or our neighbors are pre-radio (and nothing to worry about because we'll have hundreds of years of warning as they start teching up) or post-radio. Here I'm using "radio" to refer to all signs of a civilization detectable by our instruments...

Now as for those post-radio civilizations. They are either transcendents who live very in harmony with the environment (hence no space pollution), or they are very paranoid about covering their energy signatures while still having an ultra-tech society - having the capacity to actually do that!

What I see, is the possibility of nice-guy aliens who aren't going to bother us or will come along and uplift us, and paranoid isolationist aliens who just keep to themselves.

The final possibility is aliens which reject space-pollution and do so very proactively. They either come along and uplift civilizations which are polluting space, or they completely exterminate such civilizations. The fact is, we aren't going to have any say in the matter - if this is a civilization which can zip around wiping out entire planets (before they can pollute for long) then their technology is beyond our imagination. That would be a kind of great-filter, the thing which nips civilizations in the bud... or at least stops them radioating.

A moon base, ain't going to matter. A mars base, ain't going to matter. We'd need a civilization spanning hundreds of star systems to have any kind of resilience against hostile aliens and if they aren't hostile we have nothing to worry about.

Space investment should go into a strong foundation, that is where the best returns are found, not in absurdly expensive prestige projects.