The Great Debators © discussion

YEAH!!!!!!! ADVENTURE IS OUT THERE!!!!! And those dudes have a boat load of money, so they are safe....ITS GOOD TO DISCOVER THINGS!!!!!!

YES, The money that would have been spent for crap for the economy should help us LEARN

exactly!!!!!

SERIOUSLY.... THAT WAS A DISCUSION IN SCIENCE!!!!

Yes, because this planet will not exist forever.

I know!

ABSOLUTLY NOT!!!

Why not???

1. It costs TONS of money that could be better used for other things.
2. It is no longer practical. It is useful for science BUT THAT IS IT. I want my tax money to go towards things like police and building bridges (not that the goverment is good at that either). Remember NASA was started for our Cold War efforts agianst the USSR, but now that is over).
3. Finally, it is not that effective ATM. Anything useful (like a liveable planet) is FAR FAR FAR beyond our current technology, thousands (millions) of light years away.
The only good things our space programs have done so far is provide jobs and defeat the Russians in the Cold War.

Ohz....well...

Andrew are you referring to all those high tech space battles we fought with Russia?

This is great stuff guys!

I HAVE A DEBATE IDEA....

An argument for this would be that space exploration needs to be undertaken because the world might end and we need to know whether there are places which we can inhabit.
Also, space exploration has brought a lot of knowledge to this world and since knowledge is power, this is good.

Adam wrote: "Andrew are you referring to all those high tech space battles we fought with Russia?"
Yes. The Cold War was primarily fought by the scientists of both sides saying "Ha ha we sent a man into space so now we can spy on you!" or "Ha, ha, we landed a man on the moon!" by building up our nuclear weapons we basically dettered them from blowing us up by threatening to retaliate. Although there were a number of close shaves, we eventually won because the Soviets ruined their economy in trying to fund their military. Because the USSR spent so much money on nuclear weapons MILLIONS of pheasents died of starvation and overwork. This was only avoided in America because we had more money coming out of WWII and thus had surplus money to spend on technology develpoment. Also we had a healthy economy compared with the rest of the world.

That's an extremely over simplistic view of what actually happened.

I mean, I don't know if you're aware of this, but have you ever heard of a cell phone? That "horrible space race" resulted in that technology. Oh, the internet... remember the thing you are using right now? That also got developed in the Cold War. GPS technology has also been leveraged based on the space race. Anything that ever requires use of a satellite is technology that has resulted from space exploration. If you can't appreciate that, then try to stop using technology that was developed by Nasa and other government military programs.

Most wars are fought by scientists and mathematicians. World War II was definitely fought by them, they actually won us the war. Even Archimedes was hired to build and work on the war machines for his nation. This has been going on for thousands of years and it will never stop. I have first hand experience with these types of programs and their benefits to everyone.

Our financial situation after WWII didn't have much to do with us having "more money", it was because we were one of the only territories that wasn't completely destroyed from the war. Thus we didn't have to spend resources rebuilding anything.

The soviets didn't just have issues with funding the military. Their core political structure was awful. They would've fallen to pieces even if the Cold War never happened. The Cold War might've just accelerated the process, but it wasn't the cause.

Adam wrote: "That's an extremely over simplistic view of what actually happened.

I mean, I don't know if you're aware of this, but have you ever heard of a cell phone? That "horrible space race" resulted in t..."
Oh I agree that good things came from our space programs. But I think that seeing as the question was about "space exploration" and not "new technologies" I was saying I think we should oust our space exploration program. I NEVER said we should stop making new technologies. And if that involves sending sattelites into space I am all for it.

Ah ok, well you brought up military spending in your post, so I felt compelled to run with that perspective.

The thing is, and I've thought about it a bit more since then, Nasa didn't go out and solve a minuscule problem. They solved a MASSIVE one. A lot of new things had to be developed just to solve the one problem. If it were left up to the private sector they wouldn't have thought about this. They would've only discussed what was profitable in the hear and now. It is not common for companies to throw massive amounts of money into a project that could take 5+ years in development. Governments can pull that kind of research off and that's why I think space exploration is valuable. Not to mention current discussions are how do we mine other planets, since our resources are technically limited. I think this is an awesome problem and one that Nasa and Industry should spend some time thinking about.

Are you SERIOUS?!?! We could be up there in space doing research that will assist in medical, military, and tons of other field advances. Stupid Obama...

I've got this debate today!

Where else would we be putting the money to use, unless it's to repay china then yeah, cuz do that first and we will owe them less money that we have to get taxed on, but eventually if we save that money up well have enough and then the money can be used for something better, Space exploration!

Yes, space exploration can advance technology (which it already did) and advance our knowlege about the outer world,... In doing so, it will help us here on Earth not just in space...

There is only one thing tht the money coups be put to use for... Paying bak paying back the Chinese... But since I don't see that happening any time soon... What is better than space exploration? We don't need to pay for the soldiers in iraq and Afghanistan cuz there is no war to fight there.... We no longer need to fund them cuz I see no reason for tem to be dieing for a reason unnecassary and dumb cuz we r safe!!!