Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Kosh on January 31, 2010, 09:18:19 pm
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So much for the moon........ (http://www.physorg.com/news183922119.html)
A White House official confirmed Thursday that when next week's budget is proposed, NASA will get an additional $5.9 billion over five years, as first reported in Florida newspapers. Some of that money would extend the life of the International Space Station to 2020. It also would be used to entice companies to build private spacecraft to ferry astronauts to the space station after the space shuttle retires, said the official who was not authorized to speak by name.
The money in the president's budget is not enough to follow through with NASA's Constellation moon landing plan initiated by President George W. Bush. An aide to an elected official who was told of Obama's plans, but who asked that his name not be used because of the sensitivity of the discussions, said Obama is effectively ending the return-to-the-moon effort, something that has already cost $9.1 billion.
While of course a significant private presence in space is a must to expand the availability of space to more people, there is still a place for manned space exploration. A human on Mars with a chemistry set can do anything any robot we've sent there can do and in a shorter period of time. We are now the second space faring nation in the world with no manned space program, right there with Britain (whose space program hasn't really done much). I wonder how long until NASA's budget gets cut to the bone, like what happened with the British space program.
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Funny how much money we could pour into the space program if we just...
Ugh, nevermind. I'm not going on another anti-war rant.
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just wait and see what happens when China sends a man to the moon, NASA will have a money ocean.
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More money's gone into the military this year than NASA's gotten in the past two decades. And considering how well they've done with the ISS and Spirit Mars rover, I don't know why the purse strings are so damned tight. NASA's engineers can do more good with less support than any other organization I can think of.
I wish they could siphon off just a fraction of the military budget and put it into NASA. A 1% cut in military spending would triple NASA's funding, and maybe actually capture the public's imagination and get kids excited about science again.
/Good enough for you Nuke?
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You know what I find funny? Its that people actually think the U.S. government has money, when in fact its been selling debt to finance deficit spending for years now. The United States federal government is broke, and all of its debt is going to catch up to it sooner or later.
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Well unless someone pulls a 180, we're likely to lose our leadership in space, but I am not so sure we'll really like it when it happens.
More money's gone into the military this year than NASA's gotten in the past two decades. And considering how well they've done with the ISS and Spirit Mars rover, I don't know why the purse strings are so damned tight. NASA's engineers can do more good with less support than any other organization I can think of.
I wish they could siphon off just a fraction of the military budget and put it into NASA. A 1% cut in military spending would triple NASA's funding, and maybe actually capture the public's imagination and get kids excited about science again.
/Good enough for you Nuke?
But but but that's unpatriotic...... :p
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/Good enough for you Nuke?
Yeah. A lot tamer than I would've done, but it works.
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You know what I find funny? Its that people actually think the U.S. government has money, when in fact its been selling debt to finance deficit spending for years now. The United States federal government is broke, and all of its debt is going to catch up to it sooner or later.
Would be nice to go back to the Clinton years, wouldn't it?
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You know what I find funny? Its that people actually think the U.S. government has money, when in fact its been selling debt to finance deficit spending for years now. The United States federal government is broke, and all of its debt is going to catch up to it sooner or later.
Would be nice to go back to the Clinton years, wouldn't it?
But...but...he was a Democrat!
And he got a bj in the Oval Office!
IT WAS TRULY A DARK TIME FOR AMERICA
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I'll pull one of Obama's favorite lines and claim Clinton inherited his surpluses from Reagan's policies. Hey, if Obama can blame Bush for what happened (even though the Dems had Congress since what, 2008, 2006?), I can give credit to Reagan for the surpluses in the Clinton era. Oh and FYI, Republicans won Congress handily in 1994. But that didn't have anything to do with it.
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Nope, there were massive deficits under Reagan.
Spin it how you like, but the change to a budget surplus came from a) taxing the rich under Bush and Clinton and b) cutting defense spending under Bush and Clinton.
Ironically, our national debt isn't up to the level it was during World War II yet. I'm not convinced we're facing any kind of imminent budget disaster.
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What kind of economy did Reagan inherit from Carter? Yeah, you better believe he was going to have deficits.
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You continue pushing the causative effect in to the past, but we've already located the cause to a change in behavior between Reagan and Bush/Clinton.
Defense spending changed. Tax policy changed.
Reagan, on the other hand, cut taxes and increased defense spending. Deficits resulted.
You, of course, are attacking the idea of going back to the 'Clinton years' because you don't want to give credit to Clinton. You apparently forgot to account for the fact that the Republicans helped push the balanced budget act that allowed the Clinton-era surplus to occur. The Clinton surplus was a bipartisan event.
Partisanship is wonderfully ironic sometimes.
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I'll pull one of Obama's favorite lines and claim Clinton inherited his surpluses from Reagan's policies. Hey, if Obama can blame Bush for what happened (even though the Dems had Congress since what, 2008, 2006?), I can give credit to Reagan for the surpluses in the Clinton era. Oh and FYI, Republicans won Congress handily in 1994. But that didn't have anything to do with it.
Nah, it really didn't.
Honestly, the 94 Revolution was one of the most disastrous political events in the last twenty years.
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Clinton was the best president I can personally remember.
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I really only have memories of the 8 bush years. And 1 obama year. So Obama's the best I can remember. :P
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Ironically, our national debt isn't up to the level it was during World War II yet. I'm not convinced we're facing any kind of imminent budget disaster.
With or without inflation checks and a massive global war raging on? :nervous:
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Taken as a percent of GDP.
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There was a Robot Chicken clip about NASA and limited budget I wanted to link, but I can' find it in YouTube. Oh we...
I agree. Clinton was a hellluva prez.
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Taken as a percent of GDP.
What was it in World War 2? I can cite one big difference: people actually saved money back then. The vast majority of our ww2 debt was financed by our own people, IIRC. Now? Everyone has massive amounts of personal, so an increasingly large amount of our debt has been financed by foreign entities. Recently they haven't been buying as much as we need, so the Federal Reserve has stepped up to buy them instead. Not a good sign.
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America hates progress so much it has to be force-fed it while chained to a cement pole.
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what does that have to do with anything in this thread?
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what does that have to do with anything in this thread?
NASA funding being cut in favor of us funding a giant stupid pointless war is not progress.
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what does that have to do with anything in this thread?
NASA funding being cut in favor of us funding a giant stupid pointless war is not progress.
ou can't say that civilization don't advance, however, for in every war they kill you in a new way.
I love random applicable COD quotes.
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According to BBC, they're now turning to commercial companies to provide human launch, and Constellation is cancelled altogether. Crap. Now let's hope the Chinese put someone on the moon quickly...
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I don't see anything wrong with commercial companies being hired to put men into space. Burt Rutan did something similar to win the Ansari X-Prize.
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I honestly have to side with my dad on this: What can space offer us at the moment? It's not like we can just go to the moon and bring it's resources back.
I think people are still caught up in the fact that we did it before, why aren't we doing it again. the answer is simple: When we did do it, it was for a stupid reason, just to prove a point. Nothing more.
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I honestly have to side with my dad on this: What can space offer us at the moment? It's not like we can just go to the moon and bring it's resources back.
I think people are still caught up in the fact that we did it before, why aren't we doing it again. the answer is simple: When we did do it, it was for a stupid reason, just to prove a point. Nothing more.
No
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Don't pull a TrashMan here, red.
Spaceflight has brought back technologies, and will continue to bring back technologies, that will benefit mankind over the long-haul. Having to live in the most austere of environments has and will continue to teach us methods of living better on Earth. Given the inevitable rise of populations, this is a paramount activity to pursue.
Furthermore, flight to the Moon has obvious advantages for future long-range spaceflight expeditions. Low gravity means we can assemble large assemblies on the Moon if infrastructure is created there, and using nuclear space propulsion will not be a concern in such an environment (although a good deal of the hype against futting something like that in orbit around Earth for assembly is crap). We need spaceflight. It's a long term, often low yield venture, but it always gives a yield - unlike a great chunk of your typical government expenditure...
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Well it looks like Richard Branson and his red shirted army will rule the stars. . . .
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what does that have to do with anything in this thread?
NASA funding being cut in favor of us funding a giant stupid pointless war is not progress.
This time NASA's funding wasn't cut, it was increased by a billion dollars a year. That being said the latest official military budget is now $628 billion. No doubt the real number is higher if we include stuff not on the official budget but military related.
I honestly have to side with my dad on this: What can space offer us at the moment? It's not like we can just go to the moon and bring it's resources back.
I think people are still caught up in the fact that we did it before, why aren't we doing it again. the answer is simple: When we did do it, it was for a stupid reason, just to prove a point. Nothing more.
Don't worry, at the rate we're stagnating and everyone else is moving, we'll discover how we will feel about losing our leadership in space in a couple of decades, but I am not so sure you are going to like it.
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I honestly have to side with my dad on this: What can space offer us at the moment? It's not like we can just go to the moon and bring it's resources back.
I think people are still caught up in the fact that we did it before, why aren't we doing it again. the answer is simple: When we did do it, it was for a stupid reason, just to prove a point. Nothing more.
Inspiring stuff to ponder (http://www.spacequotes.com/).
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I honestly have to side with my dad on this: What can space offer us at the moment? It's not like we can just go to the moon and bring it's resources back.
I think people are still caught up in the fact that we did it before, why aren't we doing it again. the answer is simple: When we did do it, it was for a stupid reason, just to prove a point. Nothing more.
No
If you had the same history as Trashman you would have been banned for that. This is a discussion group and responding to someone's post with a single no is very rude.
Titan is correct that the 1st main reason America went to the moon was simply to get there before the Russians and the 2nd was because no one had ever done it before.
However that does mean that there weren't other reasons beyond that.
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Titan is correct that the 1st main reason America went to the moon was simply to get there before the Russians and the 2nd was because no one had ever done it before.
However that does mean that there weren't other reasons beyond that.
Wait. What? :P
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Ugh, my previous post was bad. I apologize for stepping on any toes. Class was imminent so I couldn't make a long post. Probably better to say nothing. :o
Anyways, mankind does benefit from space exploration, it just takes time. No it won't start solving all your problems tomorrow, but it will pay off in the long run. We'll never benefit from space research though, if no one is interested in doing it in the first place
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If you had the same history as Trashman you would have been banned for that. This is a discussion group and responding to someone's post with a single no is very rude.
I'm deeply insulted by that statement. :hopping:
And FYI, I don't consider posting a single no as rude. I consider it a simple statement of disagreement.
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Depends on whether it's an answer to a question or something that is typically considered to require some sort of argument to support the contrary opinion...
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Are you saying it's dissallowed to say "I disagree" without going into detail as to why? :wtf:
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Depending on the context, yes. There are cases where a binary Yes/No is all that is required. There are others where a bit of elaboration is required.
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Depending on the context, yes. There are cases where a binary Yes/No is all that is required. There are others where a bit of elaboration is required if you want to be taken seriously.
Addendum.
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just wait and see what happens when China sends a man to the moon, NASA will have a money ocean be long forgotten.
Fixed.
I wish they could siphon off just a fraction of the military budget and put it into NASA. A 1% cut in military spending would triple NASA's funding, and maybe actually capture the public's imagination and get kids excited about science again.
And a 1% cut in social security, Medicare and Medicaid would increase NASA's budget over 7 times.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_United_States_federal_budget
Funny that the DoD isn't listed under 'Mandatory' spendings, it makes an impression that the government doesn't have to defend the borders nor the citizens.
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Funny that the DoD isn't listed under 'Mandatory' spendings, it makes an impression that the government doesn't have to defend the borders
Yeah like the the army has been defending our borders against the illegal mexicans that come across it. Great job. :rolleyes:
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And a 1% cut in social security, Medicare and Medicaid would increase NASA's budget over 7 times.
Yeah...cut funding for the unwillfully unemployed and the sick, or cut funding for the totally necessary and useful F-35. Such a tough call there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_United_States_federal_budget
Funny that the DoD isn't listed under 'Mandatory' spendings, it makes an impression that the government doesn't have to defend the borders nor the citizens.
:rolleyes:
I love how people can look at a Wikipedia article on the federal budget and find an attack on their way of life.
It's ****ing annoying.
I ask again, when was the last time we had actually had a direct threat to the homeland prior to September 11 that warranted a 12-figure digit Defense budget?
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I ask again, when was the last time we had actually had a direct threat to the homeland prior to September 11 that warranted a 12-figure digit Defense budget?
If you ask me, even weeks or months after 9/11, there was little immediate threat. Al-Qaeda managed to do what they did because no one took reports of possible attacks on US mainland seriously. Now they're the number one threat of the Western world, from a national defense perspective.
All the other post-9/11 attempts on the contiguous US have been foiled.
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I ask again, when was the last time we had actually had a direct threat to the homeland prior to September 11 that warranted a 12-figure digit Defense budget?
If you ask me, even weeks or months after 9/11, there was little immediate threat. Al-Qaeda managed to do what they did because no one took reports of possible attacks on US mainland seriously. Now they're the number one threat of the Western world, from a national defense perspective.
All the other post-9/11 attempts on the contiguous US have been foiled.
I think what Nuclear1's trying to say is that Al-Q requires a lot of police work, rather than ultra expensive military tech, and he has a point there.
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So very true. Terrorism needs to be handled as criminal behavior, not as warfare. Calling them soldiers in a war just glorifies them, which is what they want.
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Because they are actually trained as soldiers, and they're part of the US Military, not Manhattan police officers. Terminology is all right. What we're seeing is an extension (perhaps a redefinition) of our concept of war. It's not that you have a visible enemy driving tanks and controlling air strikes against your bases, tanks, and airports. It's not even guerrillas hiding somewhere in the forest who you recognize on sight. This time you are surrouned by a bunch of civilians who you are tasked to protect, and pinpoint and neutralize dangerous elements from this crowd.
I don't think it's a matter of equipment, either. Sure, high-tech helps a lot, but US soldiers are still trained in the conventional warfare that I described above. It doesn't help them against "invisible" enemies such as al-Q.
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Terrorists are trained in the US military? :wtf:
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Yeah, I'm not sure I understood most of that post either.
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It's a misreading from my part. I thought you referred to US soldiers and them being glorified by calling them what they are.
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So very true. Terrorism needs to be handled as criminal behavior, not as warfare. Calling them soldiers in a war just glorifies them, which is what they want.
IMHO, certain forms of terrorism need to be stamped out quickly and severely, even if it means 'military' as opposed to 'police' action. A well-organized terrorist group with some form of external or local support often sees more success than a lot of people realize. Think the Winter War, Stalingrad, Vietnam and the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Terrorism has the potential to evolve into conventional warfare, at which point it turns into anything but a criminal infestation.
But really I wouldn't say the current Afghanistan war is anything like these historical precedents, which often ran parallel to an actual conventional war or had substantial external support (Viet Cong fought alongside the conventional NVA and the Mujahideen were supported by the CIA, but I don't believe the Taliban even have the full support of the local people).
I just kinda caution against statements that equate terrorism to criminal activity in such a general sense...
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<.<
(http://www.slowpokecomics.com/strips/predatordrone.png)
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So very true. Terrorism needs to be handled as criminal behavior, not as warfare. Calling them soldiers in a war just glorifies them, which is what they want.
IMHO, certain forms of terrorism need to be stamped out quickly and severely, even if it means 'military' as opposed to 'police' action. A well-organized terrorist group with some form of external or local support often sees more success than a lot of people realize. Think the Winter War, Stalingrad, Vietnam and the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Terrorism has the potential to evolve into conventional warfare, at which point it turns into anything but a criminal infestation.
But really I wouldn't say the current Afghanistan war is anything like these historical precedents, which often ran parallel to an actual conventional war or had substantial external support (Viet Cong fought alongside the conventional NVA and the Mujahideen were supported by the CIA, but I don't believe the Taliban even have the full support of the local people).
'Police action' and 'quickly and severely' are not at all mutually opposed.
What is counterproductive is giving the terrorists the media attention and legitimacy they desire by making them one party in a two-party war. In the process (as iamzack pointed out) you also drive the local population into their arms by killing innocent civilians.
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And GB, we may not be in a conventional war with the terrorists, but it is a war nonetheless. I honestly can't think of any other term to describe what kind of threat we are facing. The terrorists are not a bunch of disparate groups independently plotting our downfall, they're loosely allied, and share similar goals and motivations, namely the destruction of the Western world and an establishment of radical Islam in its place. The war isn't between nation-states, it's a cultural war between freedom and religious tyranny.
However, I do think our best tactic is not invading countries and sending UAV strikes that kill innocents, its the use of elite, well-equipped Special Forces teams to kill them quickly, quietly, and with no collateral damage.
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It is not a war. The term you are looking for is 'terrorist threat', not war.
The propaganda you're spouting is really disgusting. Please read some CIA reports, analyses of jihadist groups, after-action reports from our soldiers in the field, and material produced by the Pentagon. Read the 9/11 Commission Report in full if you haven't already.
I am incredibly upset that American citizens are so poorly educated. This kind of reactionary fear plays precisely into the agenda of terrorist groups. It's as if people forget the derivation of the word.
Terrorist groups are loosely allied, poorly coordinated, as preoccupied with killing each other and various Middle Eastern governments as with attacking us, and (according to their own statements) fighting for what they perceive as their own freedom. The 9/11 attack, the most successful thing they've ever managed, was a series of pratfalls on both sides, not an insidious and well co-ordinated plot. It was, in short, a criminal heist, not an act of war.
(The entire plot was nearly uncovered because one of the attackers flew home to visit his girlfriend. Seriously.)
It is not a cultural war because Islamism isn't a culture. It is a radical aspect of a culture, in much the same way the Westboro Baptist Church or militia groups are a radical aspect of American culture.
Mischaracterizing the enemy will get you into further disasters. Don't do it.
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9/11 is comparable to dozens of people calling in to a police station to give tips about a mass murder about to be undertaken, and the police simply going "eh". The mass murder, no matter how devastating, is not a masterminded plot. It's a plot that could've been easily foiled if someone had been paying attention.
In fact, most terrorist plots since 9/11 against the US have been successfully stopped. About a quarter of the rest of them were missed simply because they're really weren't any warning signs, but the other three quarters had warning signs, but people deliberately/carelessly ignored them (Fort Hood and the Christmas Day bomber being the keen examples).
And you're making the terror cells around the world to be much more capable than they really are. Al-Qaeda's in shambles, and the only reason they haven't been outright eradicated is because Pakistan is so unstable there's not much fighting them outside of Afghanistan. Nobody likes Hamas. Hezbollah is at odds with most of the Muslim world (except Iran and Syria).; hell, most Arab countries were cheering on Israel when they invaded Lebanon. Abu Sayyaf does nothing more than the occasional kidnapping.
It's the copycat terrorists that slip under the radar. People who claim to be inspired by al-Qaeda and other mainstream terror organizations aren't caught onto beforehand.
Also, everything GB said.
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To spardason:
I'm sorry if I sounded really pissy, but I just don't understand how people haven't been briefed on this.
The bad guys want this to be a war. They want it to be a clash of civilizations. They want us to yell about how it's all about 'freedom' and 'liberty' and whatnot. That puts them on a level with us. It gives them attention, it gives them recruits, and it allows them to poke at our hypocrisy.
They should be ignored, marginalized, isolated, and assassinated, not glorified. So please stop glorifying them.
They aren't soldiers in a war. They aren't The Great Threat to Freedom. They're just a bunch of rotten criminals whose greatest victory was forcing us to sink to their level.
If you put yourself in the mindset of a citizen of another country, we have killed far more people than the terrorists, for the same reasons the terrorists cite. We're making ourselves look no better.
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I'm sorry if I sounded really pissy, but I just don't understand how people haven't been briefed on this.
1. There a lot of people to brief.
2. Quite a few of them don't want to be briefed.
3. When has the U.S. done anything right when it comes to education the first time?
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Al-Qaeda isn't really a real threat (on the home front) anymore. It's the people who feel they have been alienated and abused by Western society who are the threat. Once again we're fighting a thought process rather than an organization.
There's a pretty slim chance something like 9/11 could happen again, but that chance is there.
There is no chance that Al-Qaeda will take over America and establish a religious dictatorship. That just won't happen.
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There is no chance that Al-Qaeda will take over America and establish a religious dictatorship. That just won't happen.
It's enough for them to weaken the average US citizens' belief in their country by keeping the illusion (potential?) of another attack coming about. That's why it's called terrorism. It's a desire to shatter a country from the inside.
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I honestly have to side with my dad on this: What can space offer us at the moment? It's not like we can just go to the moon and bring it's resources back.
I think people are still caught up in the fact that we did it before, why aren't we doing it again. the answer is simple: When we did do it, it was for a stupid reason, just to prove a point. Nothing more.
To be perfectly honest, you sound like the kind of near-sighted person that would say that computers would never become an important part of society or that there was no use to the internet.
At the moment, there are almost no benefits to ANY new technology. I recall an article about an artificial hand that could be manipulated using only the mind. But it's in the early stages of development, and is prohibitively expensive. I'd be willing to bet a million billion dollars that most of the people funding that program have two hands and will probably never lose even one hand, so why on Earth would they want to fund that? Because there are great foreseeable benefits that cannot be gotten without overcoming the initial funding and development process. This is analogous to the space program, except the space program is incredibly much more expensive than anything else, and the biggest benefits will come to humanity centuries, if not millennia, of hard work and funding. Namely, those benefits would involve not exhausting all resources on Earth and not overpopulating Earth. But you CANNOT expect to EVER achieve those goals if you simply ignore the space program.
The greatest achievements of a healthy space program, regrettably, will not be seen in our lifetime. But they won't be seen in anyone's lifetime if we don't foot the bill.
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A FRIGGIN' MEN!
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GPS.
That is all.
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The future's never going to come unless we build it.
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If we build it... it will come?
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Maybe I midread the article but they aren't getting rid of NASA just ditching manned spaceflight for now?
As I said elsewhere, why not let private companies fly people around?
Technological advancement won't stop if NASA stops sending people into space for a bit. Spend the time working on better rockets or space elevators or .... I don't know, deep sea work. Make better telescopes and the like.
Haven't we already had private companies send people to space? Let them do it.
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Maybe I midread the article but they aren't getting rid of NASA just ditching manned spaceflight for now?
There's robotic exploration, scientific space probes, and space telescopes, but that's about it. Constellation is gone, the Shuttle is gone, and the ISS is scheduled to deorbit in 2012. Robotic probes kicking up icy dust on the moon's south pole don't really capture the imagination like manned missions do.
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ISS is scheduled to deorbit in 2012.
:blah:
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As I said elsewhere, why not let private companies fly people around?
As I said in my first post, that is exactly what we should do, but it isn't enough. A manned program is an important part of cutting edge space exploration and research.
ISS is scheduled to deorbit in 2012.
I think the ESA wants to extend it since we just got the damn thing finished.
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Reading Phil Plait's take on it (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/02/01/president-obamas-nasa-budget-unveiled/), it seems as if the ISS is going to be kept operational longer than that.
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As I said elsewhere, why not let private companies fly people around?
As I said in my first post, that is exactly what we should do, but it isn't enough. A manned program is an important part of cutting edge space exploration and research.
That is a manned space program, it's just privately funded. If private companies can run it, I say let em.
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We should kidnap Bill Gates to assist us in this endeavor...
...Unfortunately, that may make private spacecraft prone to software dysfunctionality... :drevil:
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(http://samablog.robsama.com/images/2463_startrek-bluescreen.gif)
Windows strikes again!