(08-04-2011 06:54 AM)I45owl Wrote:  

(08-03-2011 07:26 PM)ImMoreAwesomeThanYou Wrote:  I think we missed each other’s points...Those innovations didn't all come from the pursuit of manned spaceflight. But the endeavor is a point of national pride and having manned missions to space directly or not influenced all of those products. The point is that humanity always has and always will directly benefit from the research that came as a result of space exploration. Oh and satellites can’t fix themselves…so ultimately manned spaceflight is necessary.

I think that unmanned space exploration does provide significant benefits in terms of the knowledge that we gain and it is a very worthwhile endeavor. The argument that manned spaceflight is necessary is fallacious, though. With regards to the Hubble Space Telescope, just the mission costs to launch and service it probably spent $2-3 for every $1 that it would have cost to have built an additional one and discard the first (that's even granting that the HST overran it's budget pretty significantly). In the absence of the manned program, it may well have been that we wouldn't have gotten close to the benefit out of it that we have in retrospect. But, this case is such an outlier that it doesn't come close to justifying the existence of the manned program ... it is one of a very few cases where a manned mission to repair the satellite or probe was even possible.

The basic arguments that you've made fail in terms of cost effectiveness - research benefits and deployment and repair logistics. If you were to set out to stimulate research to create products that are useful for medical imaging, small scale radio transmission, and packaging, would the logical answer to that be "let's create a multi-billiion dollar budget to send an airplane into space"? If your goal is to put research telescopes and probes into space to escape the atmosphere, does it really make sense to spend $10 for a manned cargo vehicle for every $1 it would take to build and deliver the telescope using an unmanned vehicle? It takes some tortured logic to answer yes to that latter question, but that's what researchers have traditionally done due to the politics involved.

I wasn't arguing the idea that anything NASA does is cost effective just that without NASA we wouldn't have some important technology and the pursuit of manned space flight was a big part of those advancements so to eliminate it all together is a mistake. I think we’re all better off as a result of manned spaceflight but we can all also admit that it is expensive.

(08-04-2011 07:31 AM)SumOfAllFears Wrote:  Until a gov't program becomes efficient, it cannot be cost effective. Name one gov't program that is efficient? Cost effectiveness and gov't program are contradictions in terms.

Medicare is administered for pennies on the dollar compared to private health insurance

Now back to the fact that like most of SUMO's information this was pulled from thin air. This message board is like a creative writing class for rightwing lunatics.

(08-04-2011 08:17 AM)Mr. Peanut Wrote:  

(08-04-2011 07:31 AM)SumOfAllFears Wrote:  Until a gov't program becomes efficient, it cannot be cost effective. Name one gov't program that is efficient? Cost effectiveness and gov't program are contradictions in terms.

Medicare is administered for pennies on the dollar compared to private health insurance

That is delusional at best, psychotic at worst. Medicare an efficient gov't program, that a laugh, pulled from thin air.

(08-04-2011 06:05 AM)200yrs2late Wrote:  Russian propaganda. Old adversaries are seeing the weakening of the US as an opportunity to make themselves appear stronger. 2012 can't get here fast enough.

Probably the BEST statement made in this thread. Where's the positive thinking and doing???

Thanks, 200yrs2late ! !

(08-04-2011 08:17 AM)Mr. Peanut Wrote:  Medicare is administered for pennies on the dollar compared to private health insurance

I'd love to know where you get that information... just the sheer amount of fraud that the gov't admits is there (and can't catch) makes it wholly inefficient.

(08-04-2011 07:57 AM)ImMoreAwesomeThanYou Wrote:  I wasn't arguing the idea that anything NASA does is cost effective just that without NASA we wouldn't have some important technology and the pursuit of manned space flight was a big part of those advancements so to eliminate it all together is a mistake. I think we’re all better off as a result of manned spaceflight but we can all also admit that it is expensive.

I guess DrT's line of argument about ROI is the best way to say it. I don't agree that we have technologies that are purely due to the manned program ... it's pretty likely that if they were worthy pursuits they'd have been developed otherwise.

I do support unmanned exploration as an aim unto itself. I don't buy the arguments that these are worth pursuing as a means to getting more cool stuff.

Manned exploration was once important as a matter of national pride. If there were a compelling reason to maintain a manned program, then I could support it more, but I just don't see any results of actual research or presence in space (as opposed to most of what you listed above, which are spinoffs of the logistical needs required just to get there).

(08-04-2011 11:13 AM)I45owl Wrote:  

(08-04-2011 07:57 AM)ImMoreAwesomeThanYou Wrote:  I wasn't arguing the idea that anything NASA does is cost effective just that without NASA we wouldn't have some important technology and the pursuit of manned space flight was a big part of those advancements so to eliminate it all together is a mistake. I think we’re all better off as a result of manned spaceflight but we can all also admit that it is expensive.

I guess DrT's line of argument about ROI is the best way to say it. I don't agree that we have technologies that are purely due to the manned program ... it's pretty likely that if they were worthy pursuits they'd have been developed otherwise.

I do support unmanned exploration as an aim unto itself. I don't buy the arguments that these are worth pursuing as a means to getting more cool stuff.

Manned exploration was once important as a matter of national pride. If there were a compelling reason to maintain a manned program, then I could support it more, but I just don't see any results of actual research or presence in space (as opposed to most of what you listed above, which are spinoffs of the logistical needs required just to get there).

Shut your mangina!!! how dare you say its not worth it just to get more cool stuff!!!!!!!

I'm a little concerned that we have a completed space station up there now, just in time for us to not be able to get there except by going through Russia. And I'm surprised we didn't have anything on line ready for when the shuttle program was terminated. For near Earth space travel we should do manned missions. We're not ready to go to Mars yet. And I doubt we'll be able to justify the cost of trying that. If we can come up with faster propulsion and sufficient radiation shielding, then maybe. And I'm very much into Astronomy and think a manned mission to Mars would be "neat". What other NASA programs would have to be scuttled to have the funds for it though?

If private companies can make a go of it with their own spacecraft delivering passengers paying huge amounts of money, that might be our only shot at this point.

(08-04-2011 03:30 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  I'm a little concerned that we have a completed space station up there now, just in time for us to not be able to get there except by going through Russia. And I'm surprised we didn't have anything on line ready for when the shuttle program was terminated. For near Earth space travel we should do manned missions. We're not ready to go to Mars yet. And I doubt we'll be able to justify the cost of trying that. If we can come up with faster propulsion and sufficient radiation shielding, then maybe. And I'm very much into Astronomy and think a manned mission to Mars would be "neat". What other NASA programs would have to be scuttled to have the funds for it though?

If private companies can make a go of it with their own spacecraft delivering passengers paying huge amounts of money, that might be our only shot at this point.

I worked on the Space Station project for my first five years out of college. My experience there leaves me spectacularly unsurprised that we are not prepared at this point. As a company (IBM), I think the Return on Assets for our Project was something like 29% while I worked there, and everything that we did was eventually discarded due to politically motivated re-designs. That's a pretty good profit for not doing anything of value. Every year I was there, the Space Station went through a redesign and there was a substantial movement in Congress to terminate the program (some Congressman from Ohio always had it in for the program). I decided I never wanted to work on a government project again long before I was attracted to Libertarianism.

I think manned flight is neat too. IF the economy continued like it did in the 1990s, I could live with the expense of continuing it. But, I've always been very skeptical of the mission to Mars ... we get far more bang for the buck out of the unmanned program. I held that opinion before I graduated college and it was reinforced in spades by my work experience there.

As for the wanderlust for space travel, don't worry ... there's always Hollywood.