Why the Moon?

[and-justice-for-all]

NASA is in the inspiration business. If you don’t know what I mean, take a trip to your local school and engage in a discussion with students. Ask them what inspires them. At the heart of most discussions, is space exploration.

I was no different. Growing up, I was inspired by the NASA story – a story filled with all the risks and rewards of exploration and discovery. At the heart of this story are people of integrity, perseverance, and persistence, who have made careers out of turning the impossible into reality every day. The more I learned, the more I wanted to participate myself. But it wasn’t until I was deeply involved in human exploration until I fully understood how valuable our space program truly is. Now, I can’t help but want to share the story with others.

But, the thing about space exploration is that it’s a complex story. When someone asks what NASA is doing, we often present a structured PowerPoint presentation with unreadable text and pictures of hardware crammed together on a chart as if we were paying by the electron. In our best monotone voice, we zap the excitement and romance right out of what we do. These presentations do not really represent the excitement, importance, and benefits of our nations investments in space exploration. The problem is that if we don’t get this right, and get it right in places far beyond the small community gathered at our normal space conferences, we may not get a chance to do much of anything our nation has planned for the future. The results of which would be much worse than any crisis that has ever faced our nation.

More: http://www.opennasa.com/2008/10/23/why-the-moon/

[phantom power]

1. The thing about the inspiration that came from the Moon program....

was it was partly that nobody had been there yet. So now we've been there. From here on out, we are going to have to identify new sources of inspiration. I'm not sure what that is.

[liberal N proud]

2. Did you catch the Daily Show last night

Stewart did an absolutely hilarious piece on going to the moon.

[Ilsa]

3. Personally, I think the next bit of inspiration will only come from

travelling not just farther, but much faster. I think a nuclear propulsion program is the only way to do that. I know some people who would happily volunteer to spend 3-4 years in the actual travel to Mars, but that is such a huge commitment for anyone ot make.

[elocs]

4. I am inspired when hungry children are fed, when sick people have affordable health care.

I'm inspired by a lot of things. I am not inspired by NASA (even though I sat on the gym floor in grade school to watch the first astronauts go into space). Neither do I buy the notion that technology and advances must be first filtered through space exploration. Nothing about having to go into space is even remotely any kind of crisis for this nation compared to our present and crushing crises.

[Mist]

5. I agree--let's take care of problems on Earth, before jetting off-world. nt

[enlightenment]

6. Then we will never go again. nt

[phantom power]

8. +1

[Posteritatis]

15. What's what those types want, yes. (nt)

[RaleighNCDUer]

11. Ever hear the phrase 'the poor we will always have with us'?

You want to solve the problems of earth? Tailor a bug that will kill 5 1/2 billion people.

If we don't expand into the galaxy, we will choke ourselves. We are a starving people eating up next year's seed crop.

We have no choice BUT to go into space.

[timeforpeace]

13. How will that feed them?

[TZ]

19. FYI

LOTS of medical advances have come from Space exploration. NASA has a very active role in developing advances in medicine on Earth. THey also do a lot of Climate research. So jetting off planet DOES help take care of problems on Earth. Unless you think curing disease and Global Warming aren't important.:eyes:

[qazplm]

7. and you've not explained

how the space program stops any of that from happening or how we can't feed kids and give health care but we can only do it if we dont go to space.

You are building an either/or straw-man that isn't real.

[elocs]

10. Money is money and the national treasury is not bottomless.

Is the cost for space exploration paid by picking money from the magic money tree? If we do not have money for national health care, how do we have money for space exploration. I'm sorry if this does not fit into the pseudo-patriotic "rah-rah, go-America, we're #1, we put a man on the Moon" philosophy. Priorities require choices and space exploration is not a priority. If it's so important and so potentially profitable, then let it be fed with private money and stop begging at the public trough.

[RaleighNCDUer]

12. Eliminate the military budget and we could pay for national health care,

space exploration, and life-long free education for all citizens. And have money left over.

You posit a false dichotomy. Space exploration AND COLONIZATION may not be a priority for you, but it sure as shit is for me.

We are ALL one big rock away from extinction. We must become a two-planet species.

[LunaSea]

14. Lunar soil is great for growing trees

Maybe even money trees.
Remember the World Wildlife Federation paper a while back stating that in order to maintain our planetary population at the level the western world enjoys we'll need the equivalent of two more Earths.
We aren't going to find any more Earths.
We do have several planets, hundreds of moons (including our own) and millions of planetoids that can provide resources for literally tens of thousands of years, and most importantly, new and better energy resources.

It's not about any "rah-rah, go-America, we're #1, we put a man on the Moon" philosophy",
It's about posterity.

Congress and Lincoln managed to eek out enough dollars to build a "National Railroad" when there was no certainty that there would be a nation left to complete it. Thousands were dying daily on battlefields, yet a few leaders looked a hundred years into the future and wondered how they could make it better.

Develop space with private money? I'm all for it. It would help if the State Department and NASA would stay out of the way. (see- http://www.orphansofapollo.com/)

You noticed Burt Rutans company beat the X-15s altitude record using less money than it took to make the movie "Waterworld" didn't you? Kept up with what several internet billionaires are doing with their money these days?

http://www.spacex.com/
http://www.blueorigin.com/letter.htm

There's plenty of people working hard toward the effort every day.

http://billionyearplan.blogspot.com/

Space exploration is not a priority.
Space development is a matter of survival.

If you have a better idea of how to keep your great grandkids from fighting with my great grandkids over the scraps of a dying world, then by all means, get busy.

But understand that just seeing the Earth at some distance seems to have an profound effect on human consciousness. We come back changed, and maybe for the better.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect

[TZ]

20. Bullshit.

Do you follow scientific endeavors at all? I suspect not or you would know how going into space helps us learn about Earth. Read my other post.

[qazplm]

21. what you should be sorry for

is that you are so short-sighted.

Has nothing to do with rah rah, but a recognition that few countries have the ability and resources and we ARE one of them. Why do luddites so populate the science forum??

[PVnRT]

25. Why is it you anti-NASA types never mention the Pentagon budget?

I've always found that a little strange.

[krispos42]

9. They are not mutually exclusive

We choose not to have decent health care because the wealtly refuse to let themselves be taxed for it, and they refuse to allow the inefficient but highly-profitable system die.

[eqfan592]

16. You ignore the great amount of potential that a space program has

at helping to solve problems at home. You don't have to "buy" a notion for it to be a reality. Do make "solving all the worlds problems" a stepping stone to space exploration, without allowing for the benefit we all gain FROM space exploration in solving the worlds problems is simply not a logical nor rational view point.

But of course elocs, rationality is not exactly your forte, judging from other forums you post in.

[joshcryer]

23. I am inspired when technology is created to feed the poor and hungry.

I'm inspired when kids get access to educational materials that otherwise they would not ($100 laptop). I'm inspired when humans do difficult things to progress themselves.

People aren't hungry because we don't have the food, people are hungry because the world is a shitty place. With adversity comes opportunity. Space exploration creates that opportunity because it is difficult to live in. Live in space and you benefit all of those on Earth.

[Johonny]

17. Since we are going to Pluto atm

not sure what the complaint is?

[Orsino]

18. Rather than looking for other planets to terraform at ridiculous expense...

...we ought to be terraforming ours.

I am not opposed to manned space exploration, but sadly, it appears that only a few of us will ever leave the planet. The cost of moonbases must be justified against the fear and hunger some of us are facing here at home.

[LunaSea]

22. "only a few of us will ever leave the planet"

"We have whole planets to explore, we have new worlds to build. We have a solar system to roam in. And if only a tiny fraction of the human race reaches out toward space, the work they do there will totally change the lives of all the billions of humans who remain on earth, just as the strivings of a handful of colonists in the new world totally changed the lives of everyone in Europe, Asia & Africa."



Note found in Dick Scobees briefcase the day after his spacecraft exploded.

[qazplm]

24. wow, Kreskin would be jealous

you know that in all the future of mankind, only a few of us will ever leave the planet?

The cost of moon bases you say?

Well, what if that moon base includes Helium 3 which can be used in Fusion reactors with no radioactive byproducts?

What if that moon base includes a large solar array, under near constant sunlight, which beams limitless microwave power back to the Earth?

Those two things alone would pay many times over the cost of a moon base. Cheap, nearly free and nearly limitless non-polluting energy. What could the world do with that?

Not to mention all of the other scientific and knowledge gains?