Why are we returning to the moon?

[Deep13]

Poll question: Why are we returning to the moon?

NASA recently announced plans to return to the moon by 2018. The cost is projected to be over $100 billion or about half the cost of Apollo, adjusted for inflation. What are some of the reasons NASA is proposing for this project?

[DS1]

1. It's a 100 Billion dollar program to teach people how to spell 'lose'

correctly.

[Deep13]

2. How do you spell "distraction?"

How about "boondoggle?"

[kick-ass-bob]

16. I hope it works.

:D

[caty]

3. One of the

astronauts left his favorite pair of jeans there. Wants em back!:shrug:

[Deep13]

7. Need to re-erect Apollo 11 flag after take-off knocked the crap out of it.

[AnarchoFreeThinker]

4. moon has oil

[underpants]

5. Staging ground for W's plan to go to the Sun

He has is it all planned out....we go at night.

[Deep13]

9. Solar mission will use special coolant made of Barbara B.'s blood.

[Left_Winger]

6. To distract the people from all the president's failures

The money allocated could do much more good if used in health care, housing, road and highway maintenance, education...

Unfortunately the RW'ers want a "flag-waving" distraction instead of dealing with the truth and actually help people. Compassionate conservatives, my ass.

[Deep13]

8. Bush always wanted to speak at Rice U.

[Cannikin]

10. We might find weapons of mass destruction hidden there.

[Meatwad]

11. Bush wants to see if the moon has a big crack in it?

I know, I know. This is lame. :crazy:

[Deep13]

12. He always was an asshole.

x(

[tigereye]

17. oh

:rofl:

[hunter]

13. Same reason old guys play basketball...

...to prove to themselves they've still "got it."

It's not a bad thing if you don't mind the young guys thinking you look a little silly with your man-boobs bobbing about.

[edbermac]

14. Nice idea, but the wrong time...

I'm all for space exploration, but not now...

[Deep13]

15. If we don't go, the terr'rists have already won.

:shrug:

[tigereye]

18. huh

I wondered why my kid brought this up as we were coming home from school yesterday. They must have talked about it in science class.

[LaraMN]

19. God "told" Bush there will be a cheese shortage.

n/m

[hyphenate]

20. Because they can get away with privatizing it

There are quite literally HUNDREDS of companies eager to go back into space to a place we know we can actually land. And there are so many companies with big ideas about communications, drive propulsions, advertising on the SIDE of the shuttles and rockets, funeral companies who want to send ashes in canisters into outer space, fuel companies, vehicles to get around in, machinery, etc. that stand to gain a lot more than a bundle if they're in on the scheme from the beginning.

The private scientific commmunity, for example, is chomping at the bit looking for a foothold on the moon again. And those it was only fiction, don't forget that in the TV series, Space 1999, they used the moon to dump hazardous waste on--yet another possibility.

The companies in our country want to find a new frontier, and since the last go-around was owned completely by the government, they want to unbury the moon program and make it their own. Pretty soon, we'll be seeing "For Sale" signs plunked down in the moon soil, just waiting for developers to come along and build something.

And BTW, while this is partly joking around, it's also partly very serious at this time. If a Dem were in the white house, this would still only be a joke.

[Deep13]

21. a kick for evening readers

:kick:

[Deep13]

26. one last time

:kick:

[Initech]

22. Other: Bush's approval rating down to 40%

He needs something to get people's minds off the war, damn it!

[Deep13]

23. Does he think rockets can lift it?

[no name no slogan]

24. Same reason dogs lick themselves

because they CAN.

[Craig3410]

25. I'll let Jon Stewart explain...

President Bush announced that we were landing on the moon in 2018 today... which means he's given up on Earth.

[MadHound]

27. Actually I think that going to the moon is a great idea

And we should go further, colonize Mars, moons of Jupiter, etc. etc.

Here's why.

First off, mankind as a whole tends to do shitty when there isn't a challenge. New land to conquer, new place to explore. The America's were pretty well done with at the beginning of the twentieth century, and society has been going down ever since.

Second, a frontier offers the poor and disadvantaged a place where they can start fresh and remake themselves into better people. That was, for the longest time, one of the great benefits about coming to America, and it succeeded beyond people's wildest dreams.

Third, this planet is desperately overpopulated. Either we're going to use this planet up and experience a massive die-off(which is where we're headed now), or we can find another planet to start populating.

Fourth, space exploration provided a huge technological boost to America. Computers, food, clothing, plumbing, electronics, all of these areas and more would be nowhere near as advanced as they are now if we hadn't been to space.

Granted, it is a huge expense, but this is the same complaint used during the first time we went. And yet that foray into space paid the US back many times over with all of the technological advances it created and spawned. Quite frankly, we all wouldn't be sitting here right now typing away on our shiny computers if it hadn't been for the space program.

So let's go to the moon, and beyond. We have been out of space for entirely too long, and it is high time we got back there.

[Deep13]

29. I think you are overselling it.

I think passing out contraceptives is a lot easier than building moon rockets. While I am all for exploring, colonizing supposes we can move a lot of people there and that we would want to. Regardless of technology, this is all about expending energy for propulsion. Gravity will always be the same and it will always be more expensive to live on the moon than on the place that 4.5 billion years of evolution adapted us to. Even if we can guarantee the nessecities, I am not sure humans can live away from Earth for any length of time. First, a solar flare would kill anyone living on the moon or Mars. It is only dumb luck that it didn't happen in Apollo. (ISS and other orbiting vehicles are inside of the Earth's magnetic sphere and are protected.) Jupiter emits tremendous radiation. If there was a person on that Galileo satelite, he would have been roasted in his own juices. Plus, how will people live without the regular rhythms of the sun and night, the magnetic influence of the Earth or just being outdoors? There are too many unknowns right know to talk about colonies.

I'm all for exploring, but right now we do a lot with robots for the price of very little with people. And the moon? Been there, seen it, done that. This new project does not promise to do much more than Apollo. I think most of this technology would have been developed anyway, especially if some of the govt. money was being spent on something besides Apollo.

[Tari]

28. Someone failed to do a head count & left their kid there. eom

[Taverner]

30. We forgot our car keys up there

[Deep13]

31. Huge demand for Lunar rock kitchen counter tops.

[bertha katzenengel]

32. What. A. Crock. Of. Shit.

I don't think NASA should be dismantled or destroyed. But I do think it should be cut WAY, WAY BACK.

This country has too god damned many domestic problems to be wasting this kind of time, effort, money on space exploration.

[Deep13]

37. I don't think exploration is a waste of money, but this is.

These space probes are pretty cheap. The one planned for Pluto has a narrowing window of opportunity. It also costs less than one shuttle launch. If we wait much longer, we cannot go at all. That's how Voyager was. We went when we did because the planets were in rare position to explore most of them using gravitational assist. We will not have another chance again for 200 years. Mars only has a launch window every two years.

Without getting into a dissertation, we learn things about ourselves by studying the universe because we are part of it.

Space station? Is that really exploration when it is not going anywhere and has been scaled back to such a degree that the astronauts are just spending their time keeping it running? What a waste of money. Never been a fan of STS either (space shuttle). It was supposed to be safe, cheap and be able to do everything. I suppose it has been pretty safe, but none of the other goals are met. It is hugely expensive and pretty limited in what it can do.

[Gothic Sponge]

33. To dig up the monolith

[Dukkha]

34. because Alice Kramden keeps mouthing off!

BANG! ZOOM! TO THE MOON!

[SOteric]

35. There might be oil up there, and a population we can save from

tyrannical moon rocks. Not to mention a rebuilding contract for Haliburton.

[CanuckAmok]

36. To visit this guy:

http://www.dangertheater.com/la.html

[tallahasseedem]

38. Because we haven't been there yet.

:hide:

[Doctor_J]

39. In 2008, when WE're back in charge,

all the Didiots will want to move there.

[NewJeffCT]

40. The real reason is so we stay ahead of the Chinese

The Chinese have the goal of getting there, so now Bush has to have the goal of getting back there first...