Should governments spend money on outer space? ( Archived) (53)

It's a big waste of money. However, the upside is we wouldn't have velcro had it not been for space exploration. :)

I'd rather see the $ go for exporation of alternative fuels so we aren't blackmailed by oil producing nations.

They want to send people to the moon.....and they don't even know how to live on earth yet.

lets not forget Tang that delicious drink

Personally, I think money will be spent someplace. And someplace will be chosen by the person that has the money.

Money talks. People live and die. That will go on forever.

Man has a never-ending desire to expand his horizons, even to the point of risking life. The perception of life's value is lessened when the quantity of lives is increased. Notice that I said "perception". Life is always important when the life concerned is one's own.

So, back to the point. It may be a waste or it may be a good thing. Only time will tell. I think exploration, for whatever reason, is important. It is designed into the very fiber of us. It gives us hope for the most part and without hope we will not survive. We will not survive as a person or as a species.

If we have a purpose in life, a reason to live, life will go on. So, if that's what it takes..."Houston we have lift off".

Can't forget the ballpoint pen either.

I'd like to see us explore ANWAR.

I believe in spending money on space exploration...HOWEVER,
I don't want them to spend my taxes on sending more robots, probes, and remotes into space to explore things not germainly essential to HUMAN EXPLORATION. Spending millions, maybe billions of dollars on a probe that flies through the tail end of a comet to check it's "Argon content" is to me a waste of money.

WE have to be going - not robots.

WHY?

#1, We are running out of living space.
#2, We are running out of natural and exploitable resources.
#3, We must insure the survival of our species.
#4, We must explore, expand, and exploit, or EXPIRE!

It is more important to explore space for the future survival of humanity - than it is to satisfy frivalous and extranious acedemic curiosities or amusements.

Gov't...no

Private industry? Yes. Maybe give tax incentives to private companies...maybe Richard Branson's next "adventure"....

I think it is inevitable that we will some day inhabit new worlds, Mars being our first step towards achieving this..it will happen this century ..no doubt. Mars is perfect for terra-forming, meaning we can and will some day convert Mars into a green planet, which can be achieved by simply producing and releasing greenhouse gases into Mars atmosphere, this will inturn thicken Mars atmosphere thus capture and retain the sun's heat, the poles will melt as the temperature rises and green mosses etc will grow and terrestrial trees and grasses can be introduced to Mars landscape thus producing the oxygen we need to breath.
The only thing holding us back is our technology and/or lack of support or interest. Had the space program remained ambitious after the Apollo program we would have landed a man on Mars by now and could have started the process of terra-forming Mars. From the looks of things, looks like we won't have any man-ed missions to Mars anytime soon. Though engineers and scientists are working on this very project as we speak. Most probably ponder the question or wonder "what astronauts are doing around Earths orbit in the space station we have.. well guess what, they gearing up for the future man-ed mission to Mars.
Whether the little people like it or not we will somday achieve this. People will argue that these funds can be better spent.. spent on what? Helping other 3rd world countries out of the hell holes they refuse to crawl out of? I think it is imperative that man plant his seed elsewhere in the universe otherwise we will just be waiting around to be extinct the way of the dinosaurs.. yes this could end our world as we know, a large enough rock can and will come again, these things happen every few hundred million years or so, its just a matter of time.

We might colonize other planets, or we might not (there's a really good essay about why this will never happen), but we sure as hell won't do it to solve the prblem of overpopulation of the earth. Transporting any amount of people that would actually make some sort of a difference to the relative number of people on Earth, would require so much more energy -of any kind- that we don't have. Not even fusion can provide enough energy for that.

Sorry guys, we're stuck here.