Boarding Pass by NASA - Get your name on Mars

[Cheerbleeder]

Send Your Name on NASA’s Journey to Mars, Starting with Orion’s First Flight



Link to Submit your name >

http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/octob.../#.VEiH_FaAaf1

How cool is this! Can I havz more science please....

[Deleted]

I'd just write my name on a mars bar. Way easier, AND cheaper

[Deleted]

Sometimes I hate our bullshit societal focuses.

If we'd continued heavily on the space programs we'd have made it to Mars long ago, and most certainly have begun the process of establishing footholds on extraterrestrial bodies.

[Olo]

Sometimes I hate our bullshit societal focuses.

If we'd continued heavily on the space programs we'd have made it to Mars long ago, and most certainly have begun the process of establishing footholds on extraterrestrial bodies.

The technical challenges are immense and the payoffs are non-extant. Manned space flight's only meaningful purpose (feel good factor doesn't count) is to drive technological progress back on earth. There is no reason to establish a permanent human settlement on any extraterrestrial bodies within our solar system. Any future exploitation will be done remotely.

[Deletedaccount1]

Sometimes I hate our bullshit societal focuses.

If we'd continued heavily on the space programs we'd have made it to Mars long ago, and most certainly have begun the process of establishing footholds on extraterrestrial bodies.

NASA is old news, the future of space flight is moving overseas and being privatized. I don't really see the advantage of going to Mars anyway, unless it is for research purposes.

A more important development is the new telescope being built in Hawaii which, when completed, can survey exoplanets. That is more interesting than anything on Mars.

[Deletedaccount1]

Sure there is. It's gives us experience and understanding of survival on other worlds which we'll probably need some day.
If you want a more profitable reason that will pay itself off, remember that other planets contain rare metals which are getting more and more expensive and harder to find on Earth. Some day it will be profitable to start mining on other planets, asteroids or just our own Moon.

Yeah but that is for companies to do, not NASA.

[GKLeatherCraft]

Sometimes I hate our bullshit societal focuses.

If we'd continued heavily on the space programs we'd have made it to Mars long ago, and most certainly have begun the process of establishing footholds on extraterrestrial bodies.

Well you have no idea if we would have made it to mars already, or established anything, anywhere else, it would have been a monumental waste of money, which is by the way, why space programs took a step back, it was just spending far too much money, for no reason, it has nothing to do with "Bullshit societal focuses"
Governments have much better things to be spending money on.

Go ask the billionaires of the world, You'd have more luck with them getting there

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Sure there is. It's gives us experience and understanding of survival on other worlds which we'll probably need some day.
If you want a more profitable reason that will pay itself off, remember that other planets contain rare metals which are getting more and more expensive and harder to find on Earth. Some day it will be profitable to start mining on other planets, asteroids or just our own Moon.

I would love to see your evidence of all these rare metals that are contained within other worlds please, and your numbers to show costs of actually getting to these places, establishing a mining colony, and returning the goods back, as opposed to just finding out different ways of manufacturing things here

Oh, you can't? Yeah, weird that, seems real life isn't a video game, remarkable! :P

[Deleted]

Governments have much better things to be spending money on.

Yeah, apparently the "much better things" is weapons.

[Deletedaccount1]

I would love to see your evidence of all these rare metals that are contained within other worlds please, and your numbers to show costs of actually getting to these places, establishing a mining colony, and returning the goods back, as opposed to just finding out different ways of manufacturing things here

Oh, you can't? Yeah, weird that, seems real life isn't a video game, remarkable! :P

http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Vespene_gas
http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Minerals

Do research before you post

[Chickat]

Will Nasa be shut down sometime in the next 20 or 30 years because of these private companys?

[Deletedaccount1]

Yeah, apparently the "much better things" is weapons.

That is a slippery slope. Space flight is being privatized for a reason and that reason is because governments have very little to keep doing in space, funding wars is just one of many, many reasons why NASA and similar organizations are dying off.

[Deleted]

I'd just write my name on a mars bar. Way easier, AND cheaper

And tastier.

[Deletedaccount1]

Will Nasa be shut down sometime in the next 20 or 30 years because of these private companys?

I don't think it will ever be shut down, its focus will be shifted into managing things in Earth's orbit such as space stations, telescopes, military satellites as well as managing all the GPS satelites.

[GKLeatherCraft]

http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Vespene_gas
http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Minerals

Do research before you post

What the fuck are you talking about? I say real life isn't like a video game, (Which sorry to say, it isn't) and ask for his proof and evidence behind his statement, and you link me two pages from a game wiki?.. We're talking about real life here champ

[Deletedaccount1]

What the fuck are you talking about? I say real life isn't like a video game, (Which sorry to say, it isn't) and ask for his proof and evidence behind his statement, and you link me two pages from a game wiki?.. We're talking about real life here champ

I was kidding man

[ArmoredDragoon]

Sometimes I hate our bullshit societal focuses.

If we'd continued heavily on the space programs we'd have made it to Mars long ago, and most certainly have begun the process of establishing footholds on extraterrestrial bodies.

No, doing that would have just been a monumental waste of resources, and a colossally stupid thing to do.

For example, the moon landing simply proved that it is possible to land on the moon, but it did not do so in a practical manner. The rocket science to get us there certainly exists, but that isn't even remotely enough to make it practical. Think along the lines of trying to build a smartphone using 1950's technology.

There's just so many other things that need to be developed first before we can reasonably ever set foot on Mars, and launching more people up into space while spending what today would amount in the trillions per year isn't going to make that happen any faster. If anything, it will happen slower because you're taking away resources that would otherwise be spent developing other more meaningful technologies along the way.

To put that into perspective, imagine spending enough money to consume a company like Apple and Google combined, EVERY YEAR. So instead of having the mobile revolution, we'd have another moon landing, just the same as the one we had 40 years earlier, effectively getting us nowhere.

The key to advancing is to make things cheaper while making them better. If its cheaper, that means it is done with reduced effort. In other words, working smarter rather than harder. Interplanetary space flight can only become practical when it becomes cheap enough to pull off. Throwing people into orbit with the sheer power of deep pockets doesn't help.

[GKLeatherCraft]

I was kidding man

*Facepalm* Well Erm, my bad xD

[Deletedaccount1]

The main reason why the moon has never seriously been considered as a possible place for a colony is that Regolith is too corrosive on most metals to actually support a fully functioning colony. Among many other issues of course.

[ArmoredDragoon]

Will Nasa be shut down sometime in the next 20 or 30 years because of these private companys?

I doubt it, but privatized space flight would be an improvement. I know that SpaceX, for example, has been able to dramatically reduce the costs of placing objects in orbit, but the government still pays a higher amount by sticking to the status quo.

[Deletedaccount1]

Wich part some "some day" is it you fail to read? I never said it would be any time soon.

A quich search on Google gives several results about the subject. Maybe you should start doing some research before writing such stupid comments.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining is a interesting read actually.

You are going off topic a bit in that case. The guy you were responding to originally said the cost is too immense for NASA to be investing in that right now which it is. I don't think anyone argued that mining other bodies was impossible in the future.