The problem with @dburbach's study is that it doesn't account for the profound ignorance of most Americans about how much NASA spends, or how ineffectively much of it is spent. They assume that more $$ ==> better results, when there is little actual correlation.
Going to Mars, seems to have little to do with the environment or national security. As general thing, I think NASA effect upon the environment or national security is not an immediate thing.
A long term goal of NASA should getting to point of having Space Power Satellites. And that is big in terms of environment and national security. And I think there could relationship between exploring Mars and Earth getting SPS.
A more immediate thing related to SPS is beamed power.
I have been saying for years, NASA should explore the lunar polar region to determine if and where there is mineable lunar water, and then start exploring Mars {to mostly determine if and where there is mineable water on Mars.
And I didn’t support NASA lunar bases though it seemed NASA needed Mars bases. And this is largely connected to political aspects- which is roughly NASA needs to prove it can explore.
NASA has not been exploring and I think NASA has to provide evidence it do the relatively simple and cheap task of exploring lunar polar region, before it can hope to get funding for exploration of Mars {harder, more expensive, and will require a long time to do it- which pretty hard to do, if no one trust that NASA could possibly do the job}.
Anyways, I might be changing my mind. And it’s related to a question, why have not seen discussion of using solar sails on the Moon.
It doesn’t have to be solar sail, but I thinking solar sails using beamed energy. And don’t need solar sails to use beamed energy.
But anyways why not use beamed energy and solar sails on the Moon?
Now I came to this question, because I was wondering how to get another star system- because I was wondering about writing a fiction novel +50 years in the future. Anyways I thinking using Nuclear Orions and anti-matter to trigger the fusion bombs {to save on the propellant mass}. Anyways first thought should go around the Sun, and then I thought Jupiter might better {cause don’t get much from the Sun unless you go really close, but went back mostly using sun and going fairly close. And since going close to sun, what about also using solar sails. And that not suppose to work very well, but solar sail might work with beamed energy. Anyhow, I thought one could launch solar sails from Mercury. And could also launch them from Moon. And why are we doing this in near term, rather than +50 years in the future.
And I thought, weird, that no one talks about this.
Anyways, if NASA had lunar maybe it would use beam energy- whether with solar sails or not.
So, if NASA were to develop the technology to use beam energy related to having a lunar base, I might change my mind about whether NASA should build a lunar base. And Mars can wait for a bit.
I guess there were some numbers in there but what a bunch of gibberish.
“Mars is essentially in the same orbit. Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If there is oxygen, then we can breathe.”
Vice President Dan Quayle
Totally agree. Seems completely subjective to me. It’s all in how you phrase the questions. If for example, you’d put it as “Would you prefer to spend money on space exploration or a cure for cancer?” What kind of support for space exploration would you get?
This just seems to emphasize that for the public at large, space is not important. It’s nice window dressing for our elementary school kids, that’s about it these days. You know, sciencey or something…
10s to 100s of billions sunk on SLS seems to pale compared to 33 trillion on healthcare. It ain’t on the radar.
Consider all the corruption in NASA and the space industry, and its all over a relativly small amount of money. How bad is it with Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security?
At least with NASA we get occasional glimmers of hope:
profound ignorance of most Americans about how much NASA spends, or how ineffectively
I wonder what percentage of voters in the US know the planned launch rate of SLS. 5% max? 6mil voting Americans? Still seems too high.
Is it once a year, twice a year, or once every two years? I’ve seen all three said.
I think that part of the problem is that almost nobody has any stake in space policy. The many government programs there’s always a battle between advocates of X, Y, and Z and people take sides because the strongly prefer on of those over the other. More fundamentally, they can understand that the choice is between more F-35’s and no A-10’s, or a mix of both, or more air support and less infantry, etc.
If NASA had multiple crewed vehicles (instead of zero), people would look closely to decide which vehicle should get the bulk of the funding (The three-man Sagittarius, twelve-man Sextans, or 40-man Libra?). But as it is, the only option is “manned space flight, for or against?” There’s no interest because there’s no compelling choice to make, especially since private efforts are, by definition, private instead of public.
Realistically, until Elon and others came along and decided to pick the low-hanging fruit, NASA was the only game in space. So they spent 50 years telling us how great they are and how hard space is, and we gave them all they wanted. Government programs don’t go away fast, if they go away at all, so funding for an imaginary space program will continue for a while yet. Until Elon is on the surface of Mars, broadcasting on his starlink system, we will have to put tax dollars in the pockets of NASA’s contractor list. When that day comes, then we can look at NASA and laugh out loud.
Going to Mars, seems to have little to do with the environment or national security. As general thing, I think NASA effect upon the environment or national security is not an immediate thing.
A long term goal of NASA should getting to point of having Space Power Satellites. And that is big in terms of environment and national security. And I think there could relationship between exploring Mars and Earth getting SPS.
A more immediate thing related to SPS is beamed power.
I have been saying for years, NASA should explore the lunar polar region to determine if and where there is mineable lunar water, and then start exploring Mars {to mostly determine if and where there is mineable water on Mars.
And I didn’t support NASA lunar bases though it seemed NASA needed Mars bases. And this is largely connected to political aspects- which is roughly NASA needs to prove it can explore.
NASA has not been exploring and I think NASA has to provide evidence it do the relatively simple and cheap task of exploring lunar polar region, before it can hope to get funding for exploration of Mars {harder, more expensive, and will require a long time to do it- which pretty hard to do, if no one trust that NASA could possibly do the job}.
Anyways, I might be changing my mind. And it’s related to a question, why have not seen discussion of using solar sails on the Moon.
It doesn’t have to be solar sail, but I thinking solar sails using beamed energy. And don’t need solar sails to use beamed energy.
But anyways why not use beamed energy and solar sails on the Moon?
Now I came to this question, because I was wondering how to get another star system- because I was wondering about writing a fiction novel +50 years in the future. Anyways I thinking using Nuclear Orions and anti-matter to trigger the fusion bombs {to save on the propellant mass}. Anyways first thought should go around the Sun, and then I thought Jupiter might better {cause don’t get much from the Sun unless you go really close, but went back mostly using sun and going fairly close. And since going close to sun, what about also using solar sails. And that not suppose to work very well, but solar sail might work with beamed energy. Anyhow, I thought one could launch solar sails from Mercury. And could also launch them from Moon. And why are we doing this in near term, rather than +50 years in the future.
And I thought, weird, that no one talks about this.
Anyways, if NASA had lunar maybe it would use beam energy- whether with solar sails or not.
So, if NASA were to develop the technology to use beam energy related to having a lunar base, I might change my mind about whether NASA should build a lunar base. And Mars can wait for a bit.
I guess there were some numbers in there but what a bunch of gibberish.
“Mars is essentially in the same orbit. Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If there is oxygen, then we can breathe.”
Vice President Dan Quayle
Totally agree. Seems completely subjective to me. It’s all in how you phrase the questions. If for example, you’d put it as “Would you prefer to spend money on space exploration or a cure for cancer?” What kind of support for space exploration would you get?
This just seems to emphasize that for the public at large, space is not important. It’s nice window dressing for our elementary school kids, that’s about it these days. You know, sciencey or something…
10s to 100s of billions sunk on SLS seems to pale compared to 33 trillion on healthcare. It ain’t on the radar.
Consider all the corruption in NASA and the space industry, and its all over a relativly small amount of money. How bad is it with Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security?
At least with NASA we get occasional glimmers of hope:
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2019/11/18/Boeing-further-disputes-NASA-audit-criticizing-Starliner-payments/3981574106117/?ts_fn=1
profound ignorance of most Americans about how much NASA spends, or how ineffectively
I wonder what percentage of voters in the US know the planned launch rate of SLS. 5% max? 6mil voting Americans? Still seems too high.
Is it once a year, twice a year, or once every two years? I’ve seen all three said.
I think that part of the problem is that almost nobody has any stake in space policy. The many government programs there’s always a battle between advocates of X, Y, and Z and people take sides because the strongly prefer on of those over the other. More fundamentally, they can understand that the choice is between more F-35’s and no A-10’s, or a mix of both, or more air support and less infantry, etc.
If NASA had multiple crewed vehicles (instead of zero), people would look closely to decide which vehicle should get the bulk of the funding (The three-man Sagittarius, twelve-man Sextans, or 40-man Libra?). But as it is, the only option is “manned space flight, for or against?” There’s no interest because there’s no compelling choice to make, especially since private efforts are, by definition, private instead of public.
Realistically, until Elon and others came along and decided to pick the low-hanging fruit, NASA was the only game in space. So they spent 50 years telling us how great they are and how hard space is, and we gave them all they wanted. Government programs don’t go away fast, if they go away at all, so funding for an imaginary space program will continue for a while yet. Until Elon is on the surface of Mars, broadcasting on his starlink system, we will have to put tax dollars in the pockets of NASA’s contractor list. When that day comes, then we can look at NASA and laugh out loud.