New Mars Forums

A lot of arguing has been going on in other threads about how the US military budget limits what other national programs, like space exploration, can do. I want to hear justifications for spending as much as we do.

"Democrats want to pour money into social programs? Is that so terrible? I mean, we only spend 1/6 of the budget, our tax dollars, on domestic programs maybe it could use a little more. "

1/6th??? BWAHAAHAAA
http://www.singmind.com/singleminded/da … getout.gif

Are you living in 1923?"

2005's budget allocates some ~380 billion out of 2.4 Trillion
Did I stutter?

Cobra- I think we agree more than we disagree. Throwing more money at programs that aren't working or are just plain out-dated does nothing to help. We can begin fixing our education system by making sure that everyone can get a college level education for free. Our public education system needs to be expanded to include an optional four additional years at college levels. Education is too valuable an asset to restict to those with wealthy or influential parents.

Truman was a weak-willed man and a poor Democrat. He let the powers that be convince him to drop two A bombs on Japanesse cities. I make no excuses for him.
Johnson should have never been president and his administration seems to show what would have happened had Bush Sr been assasinated and left Quayle to be president. I make no excuses for him either.
However, Wilson was one of our great presidents and was right to wait years for US entry into WWI and right to do it. WWI was a justifiable war. Long time allies were being invaded by a hostile force.
Same with FDR. WWII was the last justifiable war in my humble opinion. Since then we have waged wars where we have had no buisness going.
What about Bosnia and Iraq? What about people slaughtering their own kind and committing genocide? Okay, I won't lie and say I could sleep well at night know we have the power to help those that can't help themselves and are not doing it. BUT, war is not the answer. If a leader of a country is killing their own people, they should be killed themselves. We train the baddest mutha funkers in the world. Had we not opted for an all out campaign against Iraq we could have flown in our Navy Seals into Bagdad and slaughtered Saddam and his regime without angering the population. Then we could have started relief efforts immediately and any resistance fighters would have found themselves under attack by the Iraqi people instead of being habored by them.

In matters of civil war like Vietnam, it is always best to leave their fate to themselves. People must be allowed to determine their own fate. We should ONLY intervene when people have no means to win against an oppressive ruler.

When I run for president in 2020 I want you as my VP Cobra to get the conservative vote 

I don't want to debate partisan politics here but I must say a few more things in responce to Cobra (love ya buddy really).

Historically, Republicans have proven themselves to be horrible economists. Let's take a quick look at the last century's Rep/Dem leadership.

The Great Depression began late in Hoover's administration, he was a Republican.

Reagan accumulated over 3 trillion dollars over our current National Debt (sum of deficits) in his eight years. Carter left office with the National Debt at 800+ billion.

George Herbert Walker Bush Sr. had his own personal recession that cannot be blamed on Democrats because his administration followed Reagan's.

George W. Bush Jr. had his own recession. This one is largely blamed on Clinton. However, I remember the news well because I was still in a state of shock that he was even in office. Economists all over the country were shaking their heads saying 'what recession?'. I believe that the constant claims of an inherited recession actually caused consumer confidence to drop and created it.

I don't believe that anyone will argue that this country's two greatest achievements were landing on the Moon and helping win WW2 afterrecovering from the Great Depression. Who do we have to thank for that? FDR and JFK, two Democrats.

Unless you count Vietnam a great achievement, thank you Mr. Nixon, or Watergate, again thank you sir, it is easy to see who is best for the country.

Democrats want to pour money into social programs? Is that so terrible? I mean, we only spend 1/6 of the budget, our tax dollars, on domestic programs maybe it could use a little more. I don't see my standard of living improving due to Iraq unless paying over $2 a gallon for gas is an improvement.

Ah come on Cobra. I know you are pro-military (so am I if it is intelligently used) but how can you compare the Cuban Missle Crisis to Iraq? Cuba had missled aimed at US soil (60 miles or so off Floridas coast). Iraq is thousands of miles away with missles that can't fly but 100 miles. Iraq was also disarming at the time of our 'pre-emptive' strike, Cuba was not. Cuba had the best technology that the USSR could offer at the time and was a real threat. It is important to note that Kennedy did not strike first like Bush did.

Kennedy is not the great president that people think he is, I agree. However, he did issue a clear ultimatum that didn't change like Bush's.

'Saddam must disarm all weapons that violate UN resolutions'
Done
'Saddam must destroy all WMDs'
Whoa, hold on a sec, we don't have any.....
BOOM!!!

I totally agree that Democrats are losing out by taking a stand against PlanBush. I find it disapointing and disgusting that so many Democrats are against this plan simply because it came from Bush.

However, PlanBush ultimately moves us no closer to being a spacefaring race. This will only come about when the private sector is making profit and competing with one another. I believe that time has finally come now that SpaceShip One is set to claim the X prize and begin the 'bandwagon' effect that all new enterprises start. See my new topic for the link.

Ain't it a great country we live in when Republican administrations rack up huge deficits, give away tax breaks to get elected, then point their fingers at Democrats and call them 'tax-lovers' for balancing the budget?

Why do Republicans constantly cut education funding? Simple, it makes more Republicans. The average American is too stupid to read between the lines and see a bold-faced lie for what it is. Six out of ten Americans believe that Iraq had something to do with 9/11.

I too wanted the murderers brought to justice. I didn't sign on for imposing capitilism on a country that we defeated 12 years earlier. Let alone paying for rebuilding what our military destroyed in its sledgehammer precision attacks.

You don't kill a fly by smashing it with a 747, you use a fly-swatter. Our military created its own need to occupy Iraq by killing civilians, pissing on their religious artifacts, and abusing suspected 'terrorists' in typical military 'guilty till proven innocent' style.

You don't see terrorists attacking Canada do you? Why? Because they are smart enough to stay out of everyone's buisness.

Here's some simple facts that I'm sure will tick a lot of people off:

Bush's IQ is 86 (borderline retarded).
Bush did not get the majority of the vote. In other words, he wasn't elected and occupies the White House by the grace of our least democratic institution, the Supreme Court.

If you truly value your freedoms and love this country, then do not vote for this puppet president. His support comes from people who make their money from war and oil, both of which this country could do without.

First of all, we haven't been on the Moon since 1972, that's 32 years ago. How much is that experience worth to us now? Meaning, how many Apollo technicians, astronauts and engineers does NASA still employ? When, we speak of our beyond-LEO experience we are really talking about blueprints and glory days.

Second, it is still significant that China spent so little re-designing Soyuz to be an even better rocket while costs remained reasonable. So many of NASA's 'great ideas' become pork and scientists pork-tenders. I believe we are seeing a much more efficent space program in action. Progress will be driven by nearly a single will and not by a loose collection of senators taking turns supporting each others pet projects.

I can't state for a fact, but it seems that their public is much more supportive of their space program than ours. This means if China's government wants to flex their 'space muscle' and increase spending on space related infastructure, their population will love it. Many Chinese see Americans as overtly arrogant fat slobs. They would love to see China take the lead in any area, and let's face it, it's not going to be in military strength.

GCNR, of coarse we will need to be talking to the ESA and/or RSA beforehand. When I mentioned a three year time frame I was talking about public not private relations. Should have clarified this, sorry.

I understand your lack of faith in international cooperation, but let's be patient, it's still in its infancy. The greatest thing 'coming out of' the ISS and Spirit/Opp - Mars Express uplinks is the testing of international cooperation. While the ESA lacks heavy lift capacity and manned flight experience, they are quite capable of building habitats for Mars. So they build em, we lift em cooperation could work quite well towards reducing our overall mission costs. It would allow NASA to focus better on the goals that Bush has set before them.

Also, my little proposal was assuming that we use an enhanced version of Mars Direct to put enough usable materials and equipment on the surface of Mars. This way our explorers can make science a primary mission instead of survival. If they find they have free time on their hands then they can dedicate it to creating a larger underground shelter.

With or without colonization, it still makes sense to use local resources as much as possible. For one thing, it makes the case for a permanent colony that much easier. Secondly, each pound of food or fuel that is produced on Mars means less material is needed from Earth, which means more equipment for our explorers.

Exactly my points Robs. We begin with Mars as a exploration effort. History has shown how limited human attention span is (less than 3 years for the moon, less than 1 year with Iraq) so this must always be kept in mind when we go. A vigorous exploration prgram could maintain public interest in Mars for 3 years I believe, it it more interresting than the Moon. During those three years we visit ice caps, canyons and river beds searching for life, resources, and gathering information (what exactly is the air pressure at Mars' lowest point?).

Interest in Mars is going to fade with the general public while inversly it increases with industry, scientists and enthusiasts. I believe it paramount that we switch gears after three years and begin colonization modestly by inviting the iternational community to participate in the formation of our first permanent base. In the intervening three years our explorers have tested and hopefully perfected local resource utilization.

Switching gears at that moment should temporarily increase interest in Mars for about a year. This should be just long enough for our allies to get funding passed through their legislative bodies.

After that we can begin entertaining all kinds of possibilities. We will have gone too far to turn back and public support will mean very little to the continued existance of a Mars base. As the ISS has shown, it is nearly impossible to withdraw funding from even a very bad idea when you have gone so far.

This is the approach that must be taken for a successful permanent colony.

Sound like someone has given up.

Ah Trevor, thanks for the links. I was wondering myself if it wouldn't be possible to generate a magnetic field above the 'cars' to push these dangerous charged particles out of the way.

And Bill, please don't be mad, I know you are pointing out that a space elevator isn't practical (profitable) for aspiring buisnesspeople, but Trev raises a good point. We must look at how much cheaper a space elevator would be compared to conventional rockets. More importantly, today's rockets are fantastic when they don't use up their fuel escaping Earth's gravity well.

Also, assuming that the demand is there to use our SE like O'Hare, feeding and taking care of our travelers can offset the cost of the SE. Make the tickets cheap, but charge them $10 for a pack of peanuts 

Welcome to the forum Mars Maniac.

I haven't actually seen any images of a blue sunset on Mars, but I've heard thats what it would look like. It is apparently very hard to get true-color images from Mars.

Spirit clearing a runway eh? Maybe with future rovers. I don't think that Spirit is up to the task. Also, I believe that the sands of Mars are rather soft and wouldn't support a shuttle landing. Needless to say, the atmosphere of Mars is much thinner meaning that the shuttle would have problems using is for air-resistance and would probably come in too fast.

Anticarrot, I wasn't really talking about technology either if you look closely. We all argree that people will go to Mars and one day it will be settled, the question is when. Will we see it in our lifetimes?

By its very nature, a manned mission to Mars won't be like Apollo. The Apollo program was very repetitious offering little new except the occasional golf swing. That is what bored the american public after the newness wore off. Apollo astronauts didn't build anything. They traveled but every destination looked the same. As Oppertunity and Spirit have begun to show us, Mars is a very varied world.

I believe that colonization is a must for holding the public's attention, and more importantly, Congress'. I know that colonization isn't on anyone's books that have a chance to go. All I can say about that is, I hope NASA gets ten year budgets instead of one in this new restructuring. Stable funding is the biggest problem for NASA.