NASA gets funding for Mars mission

[Hydra009]

Members of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee passed a bipartisan bill authorizing $19.5 billion to continue work on a Mars mission and efforts to send astronauts on private rockets to the International Space Station from U.S. soil â€" regardless of shifting political winds.

Under the Senate bill, NASA would have an official goal of sending a crewed mission to Mars within the next 25 years, the first time a trip to the Red Planet would be mandated by law.

"Fifty-five years after President Kennedy challenged the nation to put a man on the moon, the Senate is challenging NASA to put humans on Mars,” said Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, senior Democrat on the Commerce panel. “The priorities that we’ve laid out for NASA in this bill mark the beginning of a new era of American spaceflight.”

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/09/21/senate-panel-authorizes-money-mars-mission-shuttle-replacement/90793160/

Here's a more detailed article for people who want more info.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax3ZjCN6mPo

[SGOS]

This is going to make going to the moon seem like a walk to the mailbox.

[Atheon]

I remember when they were saying, in the early 1990s, that we would be sending humans to Mars by 2020.

I hope to live to see a manned Mars mission... hope hope... but I guess I will be an old man. Better stay fit and healthy, I guess.

[SGOS]

I remember when they were saying, in the early 1990s, that we would be sending humans to Mars by 2020.

I hope to live to see a manned Mars mission... hope hope... but I guess I will be an old man. Better stay fit and healthy, I guess.

It would be something to live to see, assuming I would still have enough cognitive function left to realize what was happening.

[Baruch]

Manned missions are passe ... robots are safe, and can do anything a human can do.  Elon Musk doesn't want the government getting to Mars first (but already has) ... he wants to claim it as private property, like Columbus (which got Columbus in trouble with the crown).  There are no economic reasons for deep space exploration.  We can't even clean up all the junk in Earth orbit (see Gravity).

[Nonsensei]

Manned missions are passe ... robots are safe, and can do anything a human can do.  Elon Musk doesn't want the government getting to Mars first (but already has) ... he wants to claim it as private property, like Columbus (which got Columbus in trouble with the crown).  There are no economic reasons for deep space exploration.  We can't even clean up all the junk in Earth orbit (see Gravity).

What the hell was that? A litmus test for detecting conservative dipshits?

[Baruch]

Reality at NASA since the 1980s.  Or are you commenting on the Elon Musk megalomania angle?

Mars is no Tampa FL ... the Martians don't even have an Epcot!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Do you have a link where he states he wants to make the whole fucking planet private property?

[Baruch]

Do you have a link where he states he wants to make the whole fucking planet private property?

You can do your own googling ... he isn't a NASA employee .. so of course it is for real estate development.  But only for billionaires stupid enough to be taken in by him.

[SGOS]

You can do your own googling ... he isn't a NASA employee .. so of course it is for real estate development.  But only for billionaires stupid enough to be taken in by him.

It would be cool to own a whole planet, even a small one.

[Hydra009]

While tracking the Mars story, I came across this article ostensibly complaining about the NASA expense (which isn't all that much in the context of the rest of the national budget) but actually trying to shift focus to the author's pet issue: climate change.  Obviously, there's nothing wrong with being concerned with climate change.  I'm concerned about that, too.  Climate change is the #1 global threat and if we don't get a handle on it, it could very well have severe consequences for mankind.

What pisses me off about this is 1) the clickbaity nature of the title 2) presenting a false dichotomy - the familiar argument that we can't spare the expense for space exploration because we have pressing problems here.  It's like arguing against funding hospitals because schools also need money.  This isn't an either-or situation, we can do both.

Also, when are we going to wrap up our problems at home to finally give space exploration our full support?  Next year?  Next decade?  Never?  People get sticker shock for NASA projects and assume this money is squandered - there's a mental image of NASA dumping money in a hole somewhere - but these dollars go right back into the economy and we get spinoff technologies to say nothing of the priceless benefit of knowing more about the universe.  There's simply no rational case to be made against space exploration.

Yes, climate change is a grave problem and it's horrible that the political will isn't really there to do much about it, particularly in the US.  How we deal with climate change may very well determine the future of humanity, but so too does space exploration.  If humanity doesn't get out in space and Earth suffers some catastrophe, it's game over.  That sort of thing might not happen today or tomorrow or even until far in the future, but sooner or later, it's going to happen.  (I invite anyone who's doubtful about that to check out the Popigai crater in Russia or the Meteor Crater in the US)  We need to spread out a little bit and not have all our eggs in one basket.  Ultimately, we will either wander the stars or we will be buried beneath them.  Yes, climate change is the more immediate problem (it's not the first immediate problem and it won't be the last) but we must address both immediate and long-term problems in order to secure a good future for mankind.

[PopeyesPappy]

While tracking the Mars story, I came across this

[SGOS]

What pisses me off about this is 1) the clickbaity nature of the title 2) presenting a false dichotomy - the familiar argument that we can't spare the expense for space exploration because we have pressing problems here.  It's like arguing against funding hospitals because schools also need money.  This isn't an either-or situation, we can do both.

While the argument against NASA is framed as a dichotomy, I doubt that it will ever even become a choice between one or the other.  Lets say we nix all further space exploration right now to save the planet from global warming.  To think all that money saved is going to be appropriated to forestall climate change would be naïve.  Congress controls the purse strings, and they would do the same thing with the NASA funds not spent that they do with your social security taxes.  They would spend it on other things.  They would use it to give tax breaks to the fossil fuel industry or jump start government run casinos to be owned by banks.  None of that money not spent on space, will fund a nickel's worth of climate protection, and it will be long gone when people start dropping dead and are no longer there to shop for corporate merchandize.  Then the economy starts to collapse, and of course that will be a new crisis that preempts the crisis of climate change, which will require more tax breaks to keep big business alive and the CEOs happy.

I even wonder if that guy cares about climate change at all or is just using climate change as a tempting argument to funnel NASA funding away from space and into the mining industry.  Whenever there is a big pot of money lying on a table at the IRS, somebody has got their eye on it and scheming his next move to get his hands on it and lobbying congress to flow the money in his direction.  Oh that money is for climate change?  It really needs to go to the oil industry, because we are running out of oil and need to develop the tar sands, in which I've invested a bunch of money for my investors, because we need to develop new petroleum resources..bla, bla..

[Gawdzilla Sama]

You can do your own googling ... he isn't a NASA employee .. so of course it is for real estate development.  But only for billionaires stupid enough to be taken in by him.

No link then. Didn't think so.

[SGOS]

Hey Look!  There's one of Solomon Zorn's land speeder models on the shelf behind her.