Thread: Fuck yeah, we're gonna bomb the moon

Don't forget to watch it live at http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html at 4:31:19 PDT (according to spaceweather.com).

Take that, you stupid space rock! Teach you to yank our oceans around like you're all big and bad.

Originally Posted by cygnus

haha you're making such a big deal about the elite part, Taosaur who ends up living there isn't really the crux of the matter.

Sorry about that marginally coherent post last night--the keyboard had been drinking

I was mainly responding to the "we should be using this money to fight poverty!" angle--I don't think there are any class issues involved in shooting the moon.

one way or another...our earth will be engulfed by the sun one day if we live that long. therefore, it is prudent to already have well established technology for when that day comes

Originally Posted by tkdyo

one way or another...our earth will be engulfed by the sun one day if we live that long. therefore, it is prudent to already have well established technology for when that day comes

I agree, this technology is crucial for long term survival we need to start small.

Originally Posted by Taosaur

You had a point? That refuted mine?

Hmm? I just never heard the word academicians and thought it was funny looking..

Originally Posted by C-Fonz

Hmm? I just never heard the word academicians and thought it was funny looking..

I was responding to your second statement, but also kind of confusing you with cygnus, so I suppose I also owe you an apology for being somewhat incoherent--sorry.

Your welcome, however, for the vocab expansion

Originally Posted by cygnus

money.

Originally Posted by C-Fonz

How many countries GDP does NASA's budget triumph?

NASA's budget is a mere 16 billion dollars. That's less than 0.5% of the US annual budget.

The US defense budget for 2009 is $1.14 trillion. I'm not shitting you. That's 54% of the pie, and 47% of the total defense spending in the WORLD.

NASA a waste of money? Get off my planet, cheers.

This thread should be dead. That whole spectacle sucked HARD. I stayed up all night for nothing.

Originally Posted by Alextanium

NASA's budget is a mere 16 billion dollars. That's less than 0.5% of the US annual budget.

The US defense budget for 2009 is $1.14 trillion. I'm not shitting you. That's 54% of the pie, and 47% of the total defense spending in the WORLD.

NASA a waste of money? Get off my planet, cheers.

yes. the defense budget is completely bonkers.

but that doesn't mean that the NASA budget is insignificant. i'm not suggesting we go into a scientific dark age or something, it's just that there are a lot of ways that money is directed poorly. as was stated earlier, space isn't going anywhere.

Originally Posted by Snowy Egypt

That whole spectacle sucked HARD.

Unfortunately.

A very anticlimactic evening, that was. Waking up at 4:30am for next to nothing.

I'm sure that seeing it through a telescope would have been a lot better.

I find that this idea is a waste of time and money.

America could find much better use for our money. We would not be able to survive on the moon, even if we did find water.

There really is nothing foreseen thus far that could prevent us from colonizing the moon in all actuality.

NASA has announced plans to establish a permanent colony on the moon between 2020 and 2024. It should be possible to do, although we'll see if they can do it by then, and we'll see how permanent the first attempt is.

Originally Posted by Pingas

We would not be able to survive on the moon, even if we did find water.

Actually, we would.

Originally Posted by cygnus

as was stated earlier, space isn't going anywhere.

our understanding of it is.

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008...09_budget.html

Though in the great scheme of things it is minuscule, money wasted is still money wasted.

I guess 17.6 Billion isn't that much. But I still have a problem. Why is there $5.78 billion going towards a space station that has less than 200 people living on it. A pound of rice costs roughly a dollar, think of how many people could be fed on that. I also love how it says $4.44 billion for "science". And $173 Million is for entrepreneurs to start up their own? Shit they should give independent space pioneers the whole lot, I'm confident they will make more progress anyway.

I don't think that it's quite right to say that all NASA does is space stuff anyways. Figuring out stuff about physics can be applicable anywhere and often has been. Technology should be developed to help the poor. Space research is a good place to break ground on a lot of things.

I think you should be criticizing the defense community for diverting lots of money away from solving the problems that it's supposed to be solving. The scientists are the good guys.

Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

. The scientists are the good guys.

Not when they are making bombs. The only good scientists are the ones who try and make humanity better. It can be by anything, even making life more easier to live. It can also be by trying to find out mysteries like how we came to be as in the how the universe began, or making a better version of a toaster for us (although maybe not scientists, but science). But more to trying to find ways for the poor to have better lives by finding cures, or whatever. Our lives are fine, it should be other places that need it that should be helped the most. Although as they say, worry about your own city first, because you are here, not there.

Originally Posted by LucidFlanders

Not when they are making bombs.

Who's contracting them?

The department of defense.

Originally Posted by LucidFlanders

Not when they are making bombs.

A knife can be used to cut rope or kill a man. A car can be used for transportation or as a deadly weapon. Nuclear fission can be used to generate incredible amounts of 'clean' energy, or the largest bombs we've ever built.

Technology isn't good or evil. Only the direction of its application is. The inventor isn't to blame for the use of their inventions.

So glad I didn't stay up till 4am to "watch" the non-explosion.


As my friend said, "It's like throwing a pencil at an elephant."

Originally Posted by Alextanium

A knife can be used to cut rope or kill a man. A car can be used for transportation or as a deadly weapon. Nuclear fission can be used to generate incredible amounts of 'clean' energy, or the largest bombs we've ever built.

Technology isn't good or evil. Only the direction of its application is. The inventor isn't to blame for the use of their inventions.

Since you can name 1 good thing about those things, please name 1 good thing a bomb can do. I also did not say it's evil, i said the scientists are evil. When you are technology you only have 1 purpose. A bomb can't be evil because it's purpose is to blow up. The evil ones are the creators of the bomb, which will be those scientists that make them, and there is obviously more then 1 type of scientist. They make the bomb, and knowing the purpose of it, so they are to be blamed aswell.


A person who makes the knife knows there are many uses a knife can be used, they are made for spreading stuff, but people use them as killing.
A person who makes a car makes it for people to drive around, what they do with it is not the car makers fault, they are using it the wrong way that they are made for.
A person who makes a bomb makes it to blow up, and there is only 1 thing they are used for...and that is killing. So those scientists are evil. You don't make a bomb to drive around on, or to spread things around, you make it to blow up.

Explosives can be used for quarry digging, cliff cutting, asteroid deflection, just to name a few.

What do you think a space shuttle dual-booster cannister is? It's a controlled explosion.

Originally Posted by Alextanium

Explosives can be used for quarry digging, cliff cutting, asteroid deflection, just to name a few.

What do you think a space shuttle dual-booster cannister is? It's a controlled explosion.

Nuclear warheads, Abomb, etc are not used for those kinds of things.

Originally Posted by LucidFlanders

Nuclear warheads, Abomb, etc are not used for those kinds of things.

The same technology in nuclear weaponry is either applied or will soon be applied for generating electricity.