NASA admits it doesn’t have the funding to land humans on Mars • Hacker News Board

Re: NASA admits it doesn’t have the funding to land humans on Mars

#61

Post by eduren » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 3:03 PM UTC

sametmax wrote: post #30

FiatLuxDave wrote: post #11

I had a conversation a few years ago with Buzz Aldrin. He was talking about his idea for a Mars Cycler which would travel continuously between Earth and Mars. I told him that I thought it was a great idea (especially as it would be investing in 'permanent' space infrastructure instead of a single-shot mission) but that I thought it was unlikely that the government would allocate enough resources to build it. He seeme…

Right now Mars doesn't have any resource with crave enough to justify this enormous cost. If suddenly we discover that there is something we can get money from, and not just knowledge, you'll get investers.

One "resource" that might justify a human presence on Mars is its relatively weak gravity well. Combine that with fuel production, and you are looking at Mars being the gas station to the solar system.

There are certainly places in the solar system that do have valuable resources and the fuel to trawl around the asteroid belt would be a lot cheaper if it could be lifted from Mars rather than Earth.

Not saying it will happen anytime soon, but that may be what the future holds.

Re: NASA admits it doesn’t have the funding to land humans on Mars

#62

Post by Bartweiss » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 3:04 PM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #3

I have been watching this since 2000. New president comes in, scraps old programs, declares new "vision". NASA does a few incoherent things and the whole thing restarts after a few years. It's pretty sad. I wish they would commit to something and actually finish it.

> I wish they would commit to something and actually finish it.

I think this is pretty well hopeless at the moment. Major NASA projects have a timeline and cost operating on a 10+ year scale, but their budget changes annually and their priorities change with presidential election.

Really the only way I can see things improving is if a president managed to stake out a task that couldn't be taken away from them by the next one. I'm not sure how you'd achieve that, either - budget it all up front and tell them to buy gold bars with the money they'll need later?

Re: NASA admits it doesn’t have the funding to land humans on Mars

#63

Post by boona » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 3:04 PM UTC

snappyTertle wrote: post #10

spiritomb wrote: post #5

such a waste of time and (other ppl's) money.

Agreed. There's more important things to spend public money on at the moment (like servicing the $20T in debt). Let private companies, like SpaceX, voluntarily spend R&D on it.

Considering how little impact they've had recently with a $19 billion dollar annual budget, maybe what we're seeing is an administrative or leadership problem. It would suck for those involved if NASA got severe cuts, but in the long run the geniuses there would find jobs in the private sector like SpaceX and they could make a real difference.

Re: NASA admits it doesn’t have the funding to land humans on Mars

#64

Post by dnadler » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 3:05 PM UTC

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #56

carsongross wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you'd like to know why NASA is getting less and less funding and can expect this trend to continue, see this chart from Five38/NYT: https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/16fi...

Here's the article from which that graphic is sourced: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-is-driving-growth-i... I'm shocked that they are so brazen as to frame one of the categories as "entitlement spending". The neutral terms for the contents of this category are Medicare and Medicaid, pensions, retirement benefits, Social Security, welfare, and unemployment. You can also call them health insurance, retiremen…

"Entitlement spending" is a fairly common term used to describe government spending that benefits the people directly. I've seen it used in all kinds of places. I haven't heard it used in a derogatory way, though maybe I just haven't noticed.

Re: NASA admits it doesn’t have the funding to land humans on Mars

#65

Post by cbr » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 3:06 PM UTC

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #56

carsongross wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you'd like to know why NASA is getting less and less funding and can expect this trend to continue, see this chart from Five38/NYT: https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/16fi...

Here's the article from which that graphic is sourced: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-is-driving-growth-i... I'm shocked that they are so brazen as to frame one of the categories as "entitlement spending". The neutral terms for the contents of this category are Medicare and Medicaid, pensions, retirement benefits, Social Security, welfare, and unemployment. You can also call them health insurance, retiremen…

They're using "entitlement" as in "things people are entitled to".

Re: NASA admits it doesn’t have the funding to land humans on Mars

#66

Post by euyyn » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 3:06 PM UTC

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #56

carsongross wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you'd like to know why NASA is getting less and less funding and can expect this trend to continue, see this chart from Five38/NYT: https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/16fi...

Here's the article from which that graphic is sourced: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-is-driving-growth-i... I'm shocked that they are so brazen as to frame one of the categories as "entitlement spending". The neutral terms for the contents of this category are Medicare and Medicaid, pensions, retirement benefits, Social Security, welfare, and unemployment. You can also call them health insurance, retiremen…

Maybe "they" aren't brazen, and just use the word to mean "things people are actually entitled to"?

Re: NASA admits it doesn’t have the funding to land humans on Mars

#67

Post by Bartweiss » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 3:06 PM UTC

dTal wrote: post #50

Thaxll wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should cut the defence budget. 611B/year it's a joke.

The funny thing is, with the kind of space presence that kind of money buys you (we're talking Clarke-style rotating space stations here), nobody would dare fuck with you. You don't need an official space weapons program to be able to drop heavy things from orbit. Nor do you need a fancy anti-satellite ballistics system when you can have one of your many astronauts sidle over and hit it with a hammer.

I wonder if someone could sell Trump on this? After his rumblings about altering Geneva and NATO treaties, I'll bet someone could convince him to ignore the Outer Space Treaty and throw NASA a 10x budget increase.

Re: NASA admits it doesn’t have the funding to land humans on Mars

#68

Post by msinclair » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 3:07 PM UTC

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #56

carsongross wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you'd like to know why NASA is getting less and less funding and can expect this trend to continue, see this chart from Five38/NYT: https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/16fi...

Here's the article from which that graphic is sourced: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-is-driving-growth-i... I'm shocked that they are so brazen as to frame one of the categories as "entitlement spending". The neutral terms for the contents of this category are Medicare and Medicaid, pensions, retirement benefits, Social Security, welfare, and unemployment. You can also call them health insurance, retiremen…

Entitlement: the amount to which a person has a right

Not to be confused with the other definition which has negative connotations.

Re: NASA admits it doesn’t have the funding to land humans on Mars

#69

Post by mannigfaltig » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 3:08 PM UTC

FiatLuxDave wrote: post #11

I had a conversation a few years ago with Buzz Aldrin. He was talking about his idea for a Mars Cycler which would travel continuously between Earth and Mars. I told him that I thought it was a great idea (especially as it would be investing in 'permanent' space infrastructure instead of a single-shot mission) but that I thought it was unlikely that the government would allocate enough resources to build it. He seeme…

I have trouble understanding the enthusiasm about space. Space hostile and empty. Why not simply send space probes and rovers at a fraction of the cost and spend the money more wisely, for example in projects which research aging, cancer, overpopulation and disaster management in face of global warming. Why do we need to make the exception for space and get drunk with nostalgia and romantic ideas of exploration, when the rest of science is usually about sobriety and utility. Where is the sober calculation that space exploration is more effective than other ways of spending research funds?

Re: NASA admits it doesn’t have the funding to land humans on Mars

#70

Post by gnaritas » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 3:09 PM UTC

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #56

carsongross wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you'd like to know why NASA is getting less and less funding and can expect this trend to continue, see this chart from Five38/NYT: https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/16fi...

Here's the article from which that graphic is sourced: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-is-driving-growth-i... I'm shocked that they are so brazen as to frame one of the categories as "entitlement spending". The neutral terms for the contents of this category are Medicare and Medicaid, pensions, retirement benefits, Social Security, welfare, and unemployment. You can also call them health insurance, retiremen…

> I'm shocked that they are so brazen as to frame one of the categories as "entitlement spending".

What's wrong with calling them that, those are entitlements.

> Technically, retirement benefits are things to which retirees are entitled to.

Which is why they're called entitlements.

> This is the literal meaning of the word "entitle", not the pejorative that it's become.

It's only a pejorative to some and those same people think liberal is a pejorative. Nothing remotely wrong with the word entitlements, it's not pejorative to anyone who understand what the word actually means.