US public opposed to spending money on human Mars missions

Martin_Tristar · 2006-10-07 02:21:26

Lets get back to feudal European, the clan or baron get to Mars or any planetary body becomes sole authority on the planet and its riches and resources, and they become the government until they decide to convert to a coucil based elected government. They can levy taxes , charges and fees, also determine space boundaries, because the rest of the world doesn't want the resources, technologies, from space.

That will give the entrenprenuers a reason to go becaome the first duke or first lord of that planet including Mars. That will also make the government to get there act together to start human settlements and colonizations to compete with private sector.

Palomar · 2006-10-07 09:29:36

Governments are typically concerned with many different factors, private corporations are concerned with only one, their profits. Now who do you think is more likely to cut costs, buerocrats who want to preserve their jobs, and congressmen who want to help them to do it, or the CEO of a private corporation who wants to keep his job and satisfy the shareholders who hired him in the first place, but giving them the returns and profitability that they ask for? The prize money makes them jump through hoops to get that prise money, they have to get humans to Mars, get them to do useful scientific work and bring them safely back to Earth to win the prize, and private corporations will try to do those things as efficiently as possible, they are always looking for ways to make things cheaper, government agencies are not.

Regarding the last statement I bolded...are you so certain? See, I don't buy this naive schtick that the privateers are big-hearted humanitarians who really care about as many humans as possible being able to attain private spaceflight.

Tom Kalbfus · 2006-10-07 10:04:27

Governments are typically concerned with many different factors, private corporations are concerned with only one, their profits. Now who do you think is more likely to cut costs, buerocrats who want to preserve their jobs, and congressmen who want to help them to do it, or the CEO of a private corporation who wants to keep his job and satisfy the shareholders who hired him in the first place, but giving them the returns and profitability that they ask for? The prize money makes them jump through hoops to get that prise money, they have to get humans to Mars, get them to do useful scientific work and bring them safely back to Earth to win the prize, and private corporations will try to do those things as efficiently as possible, they are always looking for ways to make things cheaper, government agencies are not.
Regarding the last statement I bolded...are you so certain? See, I don't buy this naive schtick that the privateers are big-hearted humanitarians who really care about as many humans as possible being able to attain private spaceflight.

You know about the theory of Evolution of course, you know survival of the fittest?
Evolution has created all sorts of complex creatures including us. No human-built machine is as intelligent or as capable as us in common sense and reasoning skills. Everything we've built deliberately has fallen short of us, or is used as a tool that increases our strength, reach, or capabilities, but we have yet to produce something that has replaced us.

I believe Capitalism is the analog to Evolution, we just need to create the proper environment for spaceships, that can get us to Mars, to evolve.

The old method, that got us to the Moon, is analogious to creationism where some creator builds a creature.

I think Government should play the role of the enabler, it should create the conditions that allow for interplanetary transportation system to develop. I think random market forces under the right market conditions and a compedative environment will produce much more efficient space craft than the Government can ever hope to build with "master designer" fiat. The most efficient compeditor will rise to the top, provide the cheapest and most efficient vehicle and enable the largest number of people to travel to Mars and other places. You know all the objections.

Travel to Mars will cost billions of dollars. Yes of course Government will have to supply those billions, and I think the prize system is the most efficient way for it to supply those billions. Private compedators will compete and market forces will select the winner rather than the Government decision before anything is actually built. It might be more expensive to supply three prizes, then again with traditional cost overruns, "$1,000 toilet seats and $500 hammer" perhaps not. In my system there will be 3 prizes, starting at $60 billion, $40 billion, and $20 billion and incrementing $5 billion per year. When one prize is taken another is added, Starting at $5 billion and incrementing at $5 billion per year. As the compeditors become more efficient and drive down their costs, they will launch their missions more frequently taking the prizes before they have grown so much and before their compeditors can get them. Eventually they'll be launching every 2 years and taking $5 billion and $10 billion prizes, and we'll reduce those prizes, and eventually those compeditors will find other reasons for going to Mars and into space, as they will have brought their costs down enough so that other opportunities without government subsidy become available.

The Whole Shuttle Program has left me disillusioned about the ability of government to get us into space the traditional way. If government always does things the traditional way, space travel will always cost billions of dollars, and it will be the playground of the elites, brilliant scientists, and people so talented as to justify the expenditure of billions of dollars to send them into space when the government feels like it. I'm not going to live forever, and I'd like to see some real tangible progress on the Space front, not just some pictures return from probes, but some common people, people I actually know traveling in space. I'd like to see my son traveling in space, he is 2 years old now. When I was born, people were walking on the Moon, and through out My life I have seen no progress in manned space travel, it has continued to cost billions, and astronauts are rarer than movie stars and professional athletes although most are not as famous. The typical astronaut goes into space once or twice in his lifetime, there are no people whose profession is to go into space. I'd like to see that change, I'd like to see space travel become as common as air travel, and for it to happen in my lifetime, it would have to happen in the next 40 years. I have little patience for the "same old same old". Can you understand that. And when some people talk about sending men to Mars by the 22nd century, well, I think they are setting their sites too low. I think the way the government has gone into space has failed, it has not produced evolving designs, and evolving designs, that constantly improve themselves, is what I want.

dicktice · 2006-10-07 20:04:24

Haven't you noticed? Everytime we're ready to take the next step towards space travel, some president manages at the same time to start an unnecessary war, diverting the public's attention, resources, and aerospace workers from all-out effort ... with the war budgeting making a mockery out of any amount of careful money management on the part of NASA....

Tom Kalbfus · 2006-10-07 21:24:52

Haven't you noticed that the decline in the Apollo Program coincided with the end, not the beginning, of the Vietnam War? One would think that with our getting out of the Vietnam War, we'd have that much more resources to spend on space ecploration, sending more Apollo missions to the Moon and a crewed mission to Mars as well. Didn't turn out that way did it. Seems instead that the height of the Apollo program coincided with the Height of the Vietnam War. I don't think either one took a big enough bite out of the economy to force a trade off between the two, and we don't see one. Tell you what, I like all the liberals up to Lyndon B. Johnson and before as Presidents, afterwards they started to reflect the post Vietnam, antiwar, "America is not so great" attitude.

I think one of the preconditions to spending the billions to send our people to Mars is thinking we are a great Nation, because that just makes us try all the harder to prove it by sending our people to Mars. Nationalism was the main motivator in the Apollo years, and with the decline of Nationalism following our inglorious retreat, support for Apollo dried up as well. I think Americans are patriotic once again, the Democrats are from the post patriotic anti-war generation and they can find no good reason to waste the billions of dollars to send people to Mars when they think America is a not so great nation, they distrust government, and so forth, but it does not make them covet power in the Federal government any less.

Austin Stanley · 2006-10-07 23:31:33

Common kiddies, Say it with me:
Space Commonwealth
Citizenship Compulsory
Oneway trip to Mars Colony
The Private sector is quite capable of financing the move to space on the profits in the banking system alone. If the Banks of America alone were allowed to go to the Moon, they could construct an underground city for ten thousand people in less than thirty years. It would require one way human colonization.
banks spend all profit for next thirty years on colonization and sell city for twice the 30 year profits.
Had this conversation a few years back.
Tax any company that does not invest all profits in lunar colonization at 98% and declare the Moon a tax free haven for all IT and Subsurface Construction/mining companies that colonize fifty percent of their employees and computer capacity off earth.

Come on, tax every company that does not invest all of it's profits in lunar colonization at 98%? You actually think this is a rational proposal? What about companies reinvesting a portion of their income in their own facilities to meet the rising demand of our rising population? Or money to be invested in new enterprises? Should we just put all that on hold for 30 years untill this nutty moon colony is built?

And also, doubling you're money in 30 years is a TERRIBLE return on you're investment. Worse then savings bonds or a simple FDIC savings account, which is just about the safest investment possible.

Martin_Tristar · 2006-10-07 23:54:33

Well, If you want to live in the past , then think of this ---- Henry Ford created the first mass produced car, it wasn't the most efficient vehicle or the best, but it was cheap and did its job and they mass produced them , then better cars came later, When the computer age started the machines where crap boxes that broke down alot and had not programs or customers until they got better.

We are at the beginning of the space race and it should look crappy , in-efficient but should do its job and we should mass produce the vessels for exploring and expansion into space, the better vessels will come , the better drives will come and we will expand the human race into space.

The world we have today is built for the thousands of years of human culture, struggle and scarifice in social, moral, political and military change we need to move forward not stop or the universe will move pass and leave us behind. If that means the development of space barons or the creation of a space confederation or even space governors from each nation on earth we need to move forward not slowly spin around on our axis.

Tom Kalbfus · 2006-10-08 08:49:00

Common kiddies, Say it with me:
Space Commonwealth
Citizenship Compulsory
Oneway trip to Mars Colony
The Private sector is quite capable of financing the move to space on the profits in the banking system alone. If the Banks of America alone were allowed to go to the Moon, they could construct an underground city for ten thousand people in less than thirty years. It would require one way human colonization.
banks spend all profit for next thirty years on colonization and sell city for twice the 30 year profits.
Had this conversation a few years back.
Tax any company that does not invest all profits in lunar colonization at 98% and declare the Moon a tax free haven for all IT and Subsurface Construction/mining companies that colonize fifty percent of their employees and computer capacity off earth.
Come on, tax every company that does not invest all of it's profits in lunar colonization at 98%? You actually think this is a rational proposal? What about companies reinvesting a portion of their income in their own facilities to meet the rising demand of our rising population? Or money to be invested in new enterprises? Should we just put all that on hold for 30 years untill this nutty moon colony is built?
And also, doubling you're money in 30 years is a TERRIBLE return on you're investment. Worse then savings bonds or a simple FDIC savings account, which is just about the safest investment possible.

Increasing taxes would harm the economy, not a good thing to do if you want to promote travel to Mars. The government needs to supply positive incentives, not to do foolish or irrational things. If you need to turn society upsidedown, then going to Mars is not going to happen, at least by us. The key is as always in being a powerful successful nationthat wants to show the world how great it is by sending people to Mars. We then do it is such a way as to make followup missions and colonization more likely. We have to harness the market place, introduce compedative pressures into the system, have a prize system and award prizes to companies that get to Mars the soonest, and have secondary prizes to reduce downside risk of not getting their first or for follow up missions. As the technology is developed, there will be a point where the government doesn't need to award prizes anymore. The economy will have moved into space and that is my objective, get space travel out of the realm of politics and onto a more economic basis.

cIclops · 2006-10-10 05:36:56

First the bad news, then some good news, now it's more bad news.

From Workshop Report: Building and Maintaining the Constituency for Long-Term Space Exploration

# In general, space exploration is not relevant to the 18-24 age group
* Most important issues are jobs, relationships, money, war
* 27% expressed doubts that NASA ever went to the Moon
* 39% think nothing useful has come out of NASA
* 72% think NASA money would be better spent elsewhere

SpaceNut · 2006-10-10 06:20:25

First a poll by George Mason University with a selective process for who would answer to it is not a poll but an experiment.

55% of respondents were aware of the Vision to some extent.

So you mean that no one listened to the President anouncement to go forth with this plan after the Albrigde panel recomendations almost 2 years ago. Must be Alzheimer's or just maybe there age of those polled.

Well if you did not know about the vision then the next question of the poll is void.

Support for return to the Moon is slim in this age group 29% interested, 49% neutral, 23% disinterested

Opposition of youth to human missions to Mars is strong (3:1). Reasons include:"Don't know why we're going there when we're so messed up here" "Don't see the point", "Costs too much",

Then again the importance of a space mission has less to do with getting good grades, paying the credit cards for books and keeping wheels to get around in...

There is greater interest in rovers and robotic missions than in human missions
85% are excited/interested in Mars rovers, 52% support more rover/robotic missions, Particular interest in interactive/virtual presence/telepresence

Then again if there were no images from the past 2 years this aspect would also have been void of this age group.

In general, space exploration is not relevant to the 18-24 age group
Most important issues are jobs, relationships, money, war. 27% expressed doubts that NASA ever went to the Moon, 39% think nothing useful has come out of NASA, 72% think NASA money would be better spent elsewhere

Those that think that the money for space could be better spent on jobs ect.. are to worried about where they will get there funds to pay there bills and do not realise that getting one of those space jobs would ease all there worries...

Tom Kalbfus · 2006-10-10 09:20:23

First the bad news, then some good news, now it's more bad news.
From Workshop Report: Building and Maintaining the Constituency for Long-Term Space Exploration
# In general, space exploration is not relevant to the 18-24 age group
* Most important issues are jobs, relationships, money, war
* 27% expressed doubts that NASA ever went to the Moon
* 39% think nothing useful has come out of NASA
* 72% think NASA money would be better spent elsewhere

Ah, the young and naive. I used to be young myself once, I thought problems like Somalia could be solved once, but now I see that it was just a waste of money. Money that can be spent more productively on space exploration and colonization. Not to worry, the 18-24 years olds will get older and disillusioned just like the rest of us. I don't really see why this age group matters all that much, they are not the only ones that vote, nor are they the most prolific voters. We've been there done that before with the cancelation of the Manned Space Program, and we didn't solve any of the Worlds problems with any money saved. The world of the late 1970s had plenty of problems, people didn't stop starving, the only difference was that we didn't have people walking on the Moon to cheer us up. The 18-24 year olds haven't been there or done that, they don't personally remember those times when we did spend our money on things other than the space program, I don't see how doing it one more time would make any difference either.

Why spend money on Cancer research, when we could divert the money to more worthy causes like feeding the poor and hungry? we certainly can save more lives by providing the hungry with enough food to stay alive than we can with cancer research, so far we've spent billions of Cancer, and what have we got to show for it? Like cancer research, the space program is an investment in the future, the goal is to show future results. Current results in both cancer and the space program have been underwhelming, we still haven't found a cure for cancer, and we still haven't built space colonies. That indicates that we should spend the money on Cancer and on our space program differently rather than not spending it on cancer and on the space program. The Shuttle was a tremendous waste of money, for years we did little except operate the machine, when we should have spent the money instead on building better vehicles, its no wonder that some naive young adults think the space program is a waste of money, fortunately for us, their vote is not the most important, and these people will get onlder and no longer be 18-24 years old and will not necessarily hold these same views as they get older either.

Tom Kalbfus · 2006-10-10 09:31:02

Opposition of youth to human missions to Mars is strong (3:1). Reasons include:"Don't know why we're going there when we're so messed up here" "Don't see the point", "Costs too much",

I call those "Utopia firsters", they believe Utopia can be achieved and should be achieved first before we do any space exploration, that is a pretty naive view. Ideal societies cannot be achieved, maybe these young people have been miseducated to believe in such idealistic drivel. We must deal with the World we've got. Specifically, spending money to achieve "perfect societies" has historically been a tremendous waste of resources. It didn't work with Communism, and further efforts in this direction will only waste more money, these young people apparently don't know that as they haven't lived that long, they are only just out of high school and many are just learning stuff in college, what do you really expect them to know about how the World really works?

GCNRevenger · 2006-10-10 13:21:55

Why spend money on Cancer research, when we could divert the money to more worthy causes like feeding the poor and hungry? we certainly can save more lives by providing the hungry with enough food to stay alive than we can with cancer research, so far we've spent billions of Cancer, and what have we got to show for it? ... Current results in both cancer and the space program have been underwhelming, we still haven't found a cure for cancer

About cancer treatment, I don't think that you kno what you are talking about. Cancer treatment has come a looong way in the past decade or two, there has been real progress, it has just been made slowly and not really spectacularly.

You make a "finding a cure for cancer" like some sort of search for a magic bullet pill that will fix everything; that just shows you don't know what cancer really is, and what a challenge cancer is to fight. Cancer is not some outside infection, it is your own body losing control of cell growth. Because of how hard it is to kill part of the body without harming another, there probably isn't ever going to be a single cure-all magic treatment.

But a vast amount of progress has been made, and much more lies just at the horizon; the survival rate for Lukeimia patients has increased several fold over the years, and chemotherapy drugs now permit anti-cancer effects in dosages that would kill a man with older drugs.

In the near future, chemo drugs will aquire a whole new level of specificity with the advent of nanotechnology, delivering the drugs only where they need to go. Another promising technique is to deliver nanoparticles to tumors and irradiate the patient with microwaves, heating only the particles and killing the tumor. One more cool trick is a chemo drug that is only active when illuminuated, thus you pump the patient full of it and shine a light on the tumor. That one I think is in clinical trials in humans if memory serves.

And lastly, chemists have come up with a way to catalouge all the proteins on the exterior of a cell rapidly, which could very well lead to a vaccine for some cancers with common protein shells.

SpaceNut · 2006-10-10 18:37:36

Off topic
But HPV causes cervical cancer and that has now a vaccine to block or stop it it is in its early stages of use for those in the age bracket of 13 to 30 since it is less effective once you have been infected by HPV.

GCNRevenger · 2006-10-10 20:09:12

That is kind of an oddball one where an external pathogen causes genetic disruption. It is by no means the rule, for intents and purposes all cancers don't arise from a germ.

Tom Kalbfus · 2006-10-11 01:33:51

Why spend money on Cancer research, when we could divert the money to more worthy causes like feeding the poor and hungry? we certainly can save more lives by providing the hungry with enough food to stay alive than we can with cancer research, so far we've spent billions of Cancer, and what have we got to show for it? ... Current results in both cancer and the space program have been underwhelming, we still haven't found a cure for cancer
About cancer treatment, I don't think that you kno what you are talking about. Cancer treatment has come a looong way in the past decade or two, there has been real progress, it has just been made slowly and not really spectacularly.
You make a "finding a cure for cancer" like some sort of search for a magic bullet pill that will fix everything; that just shows you don't know what cancer really is, and what a challenge cancer is to fight. Cancer is not some outside infection, it is your own body losing control of cell growth. Because of how hard it is to kill part of the body without harming another, there probably isn't ever going to be a single cure-all magic treatment.
But a vast amount of progress has been made, and much more lies just at the horizon; the survival rate for Lukeimia patients has increased several fold over the years, and chemotherapy drugs now permit anti-cancer effects in dosages that would kill a man with older drugs.
In the near future, chemo drugs will aquire a whole new level of specificity with the advent of nanotechnology, delivering the drugs only where they need to go. Another promising technique is to deliver nanoparticles to tumors and irradiate the patient with microwaves, heating only the particles and killing the tumor. One more cool trick is a chemo drug that is only active when illuminuated, thus you pump the patient full of it and shine a light on the tumor. That one I think is in clinical trials in humans if memory serves.
And lastly, chemists have come up with a way to catalouge all the proteins on the exterior of a cell rapidly, which could very well lead to a vaccine for some cancers with common protein shells.

In a similar vein what Utopians want is a magic bullet that will cure all of Societies ills, and the argument that we shouldn't go to Mars because we have so many problems yet to solve on Earth is a Utopian argument, it assumes achieving a perfect harmonious society is a realistic goal and that all of societies resources should be put toward that end sparing none of it for anything else. My Argument about cancer is a strawman argument, in other words we spend billions and billions of dollars to do reseach on ways to fight cancer, but if you were to take that research money and spend it to buy food for the starving, then you could save alot of people who would otherwise have starved to death. True immediately you benefit more people if you spend it on food for the hungry right now than if you spend it to do research to cure cancer later.

There is the corn you eat and their is the corn you plant for seed. The people who are against space exploration because the world has so many problems, are like people who want to eat the seed corn, they find it such a waste to plant this corn in the ground when it can feed so many people, and so it is with space exploration.

I actually agree with you that cancer research has its benefits, but I was taking a similar attitude towards cancer reseach as the anti-space crowd has against space travel.

They point to how expensive space travel is, and I point to how expensive Cancer research is.

They site the lack of progress in space travel, and I site the lack of progress in Cancer research - my mother died of lung cancer for example, all the billions spent on research did her no good.

They site other things the money for the space program can go for; so I repeat this exercise for the billions spent on cancer research - most people in the Third World do not die from lung cancer but for easily preventable diseases, If we were to spend the money that goes for Cancer research instead on sanitation, and drug programs for the needy instead of developing new cancer drugs, we could no doubt save alot of additional people today, but to turn that around and use it as an arguement that we should not spend money on cancer research, is a bad thing. This is all just to prove that point.

Grypd · 2006-10-11 18:00:41

Im not American but it would not surprise me if the reason the American people do not support NASA and space exploration is down to they believe it spends a lot of money for nothing more than prestige and they only see the ISS and the shuttle as white elephants. Cash goes in and nothing comes out and they are not connected to what happens. And with a lot of people looking to keep themselves clothed and fed and bills increasing they really believe the US goverment should not be wasting money like this.

So to get them back into supporting space exploration it needs for it to appear to be actually achieving something and the belief that it will lead to a better life for there children and there country.

SpaceNut · 2006-10-13 20:04:46

Students have a blast creating concrete slabs for rocket launch pads

Engineering student Kevin Angeles had a blast in Dallas — a rocket blast, that is. And the concrete slab he helped create performed just fine, thank you.
Four thousand pounds of thrust. Five thousand degrees Fahrenheit. That's what the launch and landing pads for the X Prize Cup's Lunar Lander Challenge have to be able to withstand.

Pads are part of the lunar challenge of the xcup but I do not think to many of the older generations were on hand to build them. So I think there is interest in that young adult age group after all.

SpaceNut · 2006-10-17 09:32:10

According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2005 (Public Law 109-155) (see text below) NASA was supposed to have submitted a plan for a "National Awareness Plan" to the House and Senate in Spring 2006.
Building Public Awareness of The Vision For Space Exploration

This document submitted sometime is the report NASA sent to Congress in response to the NASA Authorization Act of 2005.

Had to laugh when reading though it saw the section of Strategic Alliance and Education listing Nintendo of America (Pokemon) Trading Card Game being used to enhance, enrich the teaching, learning through the leveraging of student interest in the popularity of its game.

SpaceNut · 2006-10-17 18:17:30

Nasa may not be to far aoff
Group: Video games can reshape education; Games teach team building, multitasking and problem-solving under duress

Scientists call it the next great discovery, a way to captivate students so much they will spend hours learning on their own. It's the new vision of video games.
The theory is that games teach skills that employers want: analytical thinking, team building, multitasking and problem-solving under duress. Unlike humans, the games never lose patience. And they are second nature to many kids.
The idea might stun those who consider games to be the symbol of teenage sloth. Yet this is not about virtual football or skateboarding. Games would have to be created and evaluated with the goal of raising achievement, said federation president Henry Kelly.

Tom Kalbfus · 2006-10-18 12:10:49

Im not American but it would not surprise me if the reason the American people do not support NASA and space exploration is down to they believe it spends a lot of money for nothing more than prestige and they only see the ISS and the shuttle as white elephants. Cash goes in and nothing comes out and they are not connected to what happens. And with a lot of people looking to keep themselves clothed and fed and bills increasing they really believe the US goverment should not be wasting money like this.
So to get them back into supporting space exploration it needs for it to appear to be actually achieving something and the belief that it will lead to a better life for there children and there country.

ISS and the Shuttle are not a Mars mission. We do not achieve prestige by launching the Shuttle one more time, and Presitge is not nothing, it is definitely something and a morale booster besides. A successful space mission is an example that we can accomplish something, and it boosts our morale and makes us try harder in other areas. One party in this country is all about quiting, giving up, and not even trying as that is a wasted effort. As the liberals always say, there is something called soft power. Well, a successful manned mission to Mars add prestige and prestige is a form of soft power. People always used to say, "If we can land men on the Moon, why couldn't we ..." Well we wouldn't be able to say that if we didn't land men on the Moon.

Yang Liwei Rocket · 2007-05-25 14:37:08

Questions raised about destruction of NASA recording

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentin … 278596.htm

SpaceNut · 2015-07-16 21:00:05

I am still trying to figure out why Americans’ complicated relationship with space travel as it seems pretty simple to me..... These past few days, it has felt as if the whole world — or at least my nerdy corner of it — has been obsessed with Pluto.

But the truth is, space exploration has never really been all that popular with Americans. Even during its heyday when men were walking on the moon, it was controversial.
Polling we found doesn't go all the way back to the Apollo missions of the 1960s and mid-’70s, but Americans are about as interested in space exploration today as they were in 1979, when the National Science Foundation began asking. According to the General Social Survey, in 2014, 22 percent of the public said they were very interested in issues of space exploration, 45 percent were moderately interested and 33 percent not at all. Those numbers are about the same from 1979, give or take a few percentage points.*
Americans' interest in space only briefly cracked more than 50 percent when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took one giant leap for mankind on the moon, said Casey Dreier, the director of advocacy for the Planetary Society.

Yes I was part of the 50% that watched every moon landing back then.... as it was a time of turmoil but we did it still the same....

1973, during the final years of the Apollo program, 59 percent of Americans thought the nation was spending too much on its space program, according to a General Social Survey poll.

Not sure how to reflect on inflationary dollars as that does not show how much a dollar got you back then for a valid comarison.....

louis · 2015-07-17 06:37:01

The problem with all space ventures to date has been the failure to establish permanent colonies. In fact, if you look at the ISS as a kind of "special" permanent colony, the ISS I think gets a lot of public support (as well as doing a lot of good science).

If there were a permanent colony on Mars, attitudes to funding would change - not that you would actually need NASA funding beyond the initial development phase in my view.

SpaceNut · 2015-07-17 16:14:07

The ISS is good enough to be a started colony but so far only the supper rich or astronauts have been the only one's allowed to get there so its not much along the path for being a colony....

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#26 2006-10-07 02:21:26

Re: US public opposed to spending money on human Mars missions

#27 2006-10-07 09:29:36

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#44 2006-10-17 09:32:10

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Re: US public opposed to spending money on human Mars missions

#46 2006-10-18 12:10:49

Re: US public opposed to spending money on human Mars missions

#47 2007-05-25 14:37:08

Re: US public opposed to spending money on human Mars missions

#48 2015-07-16 21:00:05

Re: US public opposed to spending money on human Mars missions

#49 2015-07-17 06:37:01

Re: US public opposed to spending money on human Mars missions

#50 2015-07-17 16:14:07

Re: US public opposed to spending money on human Mars missions

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