JJKIZAK:

Well lets see now the space program got us thefollowing things:

1...Internet (NASA IN 1968)

2...Computer mouse 1969

3...Miniture electronics

4...Digital media

5...Computer processors

6...Networks for communication

7...High speed printers

8...Hard drives

9...Advances in metalurgy

10..Advances in medicine

11..Unix

JJK

12. Dave's job.

The computer industry is largely built on top of byproducts of our space program, mainly Apollo.

My job is in the fossil fuel drilling business.  Can't get further from space than that without going back to wood for fuel (ratz.  We already used all that).  However, without cutting edge PCs my job wouldn't exist.  

Oh, we'd have developed them by now but I am certain we'd be well behind where we are. 

Dave

While I REALLY try to limit myself in my threads, often without success, when I am this passionate about something I flat fail.  I must draw a simple scenario based on first hand knowledge from NASA and NASA related scientists I know personally and well...and you can take this information on whether you believe Dave or not because I won't even leave a clue as to who they are.  The reason is simple.  The current official climate in DC is that we are only doing as little anything in space as we can...except for the military...and anybody with a NASA or NASA related job who says what the REALLY think will find themselves looking for a job.

Compared to "generations," the time span for making our economy explode with prosperity and giving this nation world leadership, probably not forever, but for far longer than it has left at the moment, is about 20 years.

We've added X trillion (somebody fill that in if you wish) to the national debt in the past few years and I'm danged if I can see that it changed anything to the tune of what one would expect for that much indetedness.  If all it bought us was stasis for a couple of years, what's it going to take to maintain a percent or 2 GDP growth per year?  And that while the nations who are still motivated are in the double digits?  I am no math wizard, but that is not really deep math.

So, what can we do?

Let's say we require the best ROI possible for any further national indebtedness.  From some minds I trust completely, I have been reliably informed that if we  partnered with the commercial space industry and cleared the land, our "golden age" would suddenly pale.

Here's the scenario, from various sources:

Let commerce handle LEO and simply set cost per pound to orbit charges we feel achievable and reasonably achievable. 

Enlarge and make permanent the ISS.

Build a lunar landing craft with significant cargo capability.

Establish a lunar outpost.

Build a solar powered linear electric motor to make returning people or cargo to the Earth very, very cheap. 

Pause to remind all that a couple of years ago Lcross established it as fact that the moon is ROTTEN with easily retrieved water.  My sources say that reduces cost and complexity of a lunar colony by 90% immediately and ensures that can be made self sustaining in no more than 10 years.

Subsidize the development of deep space engines such as the well proven VASIMR. 

Drawing on our extraordinary record with small reactors built for our Navy, subsidize the development of small, sealed reactors to provide power for the VASIMR related engine technology. 

At that point, we have reduced the cost of achieving LEO by 90% or more over the shuttle using the commercial option and have what we need to build ships of any size we wish that will have free run of the solar system just like our nuclear naval vessels do of the sea.  Ad Astra, a commercial concern not 10 miles from here, has demonstrated 200kw engines that, if scaled to 2 megawatts or so, can achieve 30 day trips to Mars.  Coupled with a nuclear reactor they would be able to cruise the solar system pretty much at will with whatever size ships we wished to build. 

With easy, low cost access to all the resources of the solar system the profits roll in.  I mentioned earlier that reliable (and public) estimates of the worth of a single small asteriods resources would be 20 trillion.  I think we'd have our money back at this point, with profit.

BTW, the fuel for those reactors comes from the moon, so don't sweat trying to launch radioactive stuff to LEO.

We use that profit to build space elevators as required to get the cost to LEO down to every person who needs a job.

After that, all bets are off as to what homo sapiens acheives.

Everything above is supported by known, credible, and established science and I am open to anyone proving otherwise other than "well, if it's such a good idea why isn't anyone persuing it?"

I don't have an answer for that.

Or we can just keep borrowing from our children until the rest of the world cuts us off.

Dave

seti:

Actually the biggest problem I see is that this we can not plan anything further out than 4 years. You can't do much in four years. The Chinese and some Arab nations have multigenerational goals and plans for the future. 

 

 

Seti - 

In today's American Corporate Universe, 4 years is too long of a time to look forward. It's all about the QUARTER. THREE MONTHS. Short term profit and loss, baybee....that's all that counts anymore.

 

Audible Nectar:

In today's American Corporate Universe, 4 years is too long of a time to look forward. It's all about the QUARTER. THREE MONTHS. Short term profit and loss, baybee....that's all that counts anymore.

Precisely why we are in decline with no change in sight.  My parents were WWII/depression era and their focus was a better world for thier children.  Our focus is a bigger foreign made TV.

At this rate, we won't even have that.

Dave

No disrespect intended, but sometimes current American politics seems like the lab animals who keep pulling each other off the ladder, so nobody gets to the top before the others, with the result that nobody gets to the top at all.

America and Americans could do great things if they decided to pull together for the benefit of all, but that would call for a new vision and a new spirit of co-operation.

"If they decide to pull togrther for the benefit of all,,,,,,,,That sounds like collective thinking,,,  STALIN would have loved you..

No, Stalin wanted everyone to pull together for the benefit of Stalin.

A shared national vision can be achieved in the context of a democracy; it just hasn't been lately.

Stalinism developed by Stalin from Marxism - Leninism and characterized by rigid authoritarianism with widespred use of terror and often by emphaasis on collective nationalism

Islander:

No disrepect intended, but sometimes current American politics seems like the lab animals who keep pulling each other off the ladder, so nobody gets to the top before the others, with the result that nobody gets to the top at all.

America and Americans could do great things if they decided to pull together for the benefit of all, but that would call for a new vision and a new spirit of co-operation.

That would really make me mad, a few years back.Now I think it is kinda true, a house or Country or world divided cannot stand.That said...the world could do great things if not forever fighting over foolish notions.After all the world has been through you think we would learn something.There is no Country with clean hands as long as places like North Korea have prisons where children can be born and die as slaves.

Islander:

A shared national vision can be achieved in the context of a democracy; it just hasn't been lately

Perhaps we are missing something we once had?

Tyson is the real deal.  He is a media figure who's best course is to feed the government and the Lords and Ladies of the 1% what they want to hear and what they feed us.  However, the truth of the impact on this nation and humanity as a whole of our failure to tap the unlimited resources we have technologically readily available to us is so crystal clear and undebatable he's made the choice to speak the truth.  The vast majority of our best minds have learned what it means to their careers to do this and remain silent.  The probably percieved as "space cadet stuff" scenario I wrote below contains absolutely nothing not easily acheiveable with existing technology.  Yet people will read it on their iPhones, which wouldn't have been predicted by the wildest mind of 1969, and yet somehow believe it's all fantasy even thought we sent a bleeding CAR to the moon and made it look easy and fun 40 years ago.

Tyson's piece on that says the first trillionaire will get there through space is so "DUH" it's laughable to anyone who actually hears what he is trying to say.  I am big on people getting rich, and just fine with a trillionaire because there is no limits...that's why we call it "infinite"...to what we can do once we wake up. 

Maron, your initial response was less than enthused.  You made a point that you were rich and doing your part and wanted nothing to do with such ventures.  I've no quarrel with that.  However, what's your problem with yourself, your children and the rest of us getting richer?  The scenario I described is every bit as sound as science.  Anyone who disagrees is welcome to post the proof. 

Dang shame we can't get scientific evidence for the best stocks to buy...

Dave

My grand father fought in the first world war,,In the trenches and was gassed,, The burning gas scarred his back and bullits ripped out his kidny,,,He survived and raised 4 children sending them to private schools,,, He made his fortune in making special hand made shoes for deformrd feet.. No one size fits all here...Our family didnt care for the public school system and social thinking taught there.. The dumbing down of students was rampet,, You wont get rich collectively,,You have to cut your own bread,,,What I,m saying is asking us to collectivly pool our financial reseorces to go back to the moon or elseware,,,Should now be turned over to private industry,,,If they find gold or mine diamonds fine,,,But the way it is now Our gov, Will spend billions to bring back A ounce of water Pissed out by a anciant astronaut,,, If you want that gold or diamonds,, BUY your own ticket to the moon and dig your own hole..When my grand father died (We Grand Children ) Paid the hospital bills and paid for the funeral expenses,,Thats the least we could do for him,,,  And didnt ask for a national health care system to take that responsability...

Okies, Maron, while my personal opinion is that your take on this is short sighted, it's valid enough if almost as niche as my own.

The opening of the American west, which made us the richest, most powerful country the world has ever seen, was a partnership between entreprenuers and the government. 

There are endless examples, but the railroads are the biggest.  The were built by private investors with land grants from the rest of us so they could get rich and we could go west and prosper.  I suspect your grandfather's fortune might have been less if he'd not had the railroads built because of land grants from US that allowed his products to get to market at a cost his market could afford.

You see anything different in what we collectively need to do to in order to profit from the wealth that lies in the west of today?  I've no way of knowing whether your grandfather did what he did from pure profit motive or if he also had some desire to serve humankind and profit as well.  But there is no question that the actions of our government at that time benefited him in his efforts.

Private industry WILL do it...it will just take much longer time and the rest of us will have to wait much longer for the "trickle down."  

While I respect your position, the logic eludes me.

BTW, I just got back from picking up prescriptions.  Living where I do I wound up talking to a high ranking person in the space program.  Given I didn't ask his name it only took a couple of minutes for him to turn red with frustration and inability to comprehend why what he knows as the single most critical task of this nation and humanity in general is not only being ignored but actively undermined.

Maron, I don't know if you have children or care about thier future, but we are now borrowing against a future we are doing absolutely nothing to ensure.  When you or I  borrow money we do so only after ensuring we can pay it back.

If you have some ideas how we are going to do that given we've already settled the west, exploited our resources, and stopped looking for new frontiers I am all ears.

It isn't enough to object.  One should offer an alternative.  Just telling us all to go stake a claim to long gone land, plow the ground, sow seed, and bake our own bread is a fantasy.  We need a railroad to get there and get our produce to market.  Entreprenuers can build it, but they need our help to do it just like before.

Dave

OPENING THE WEST,,,How interesting,,,,You forget it was inhabitate by other people...  The MOSKOVITES did the same thing,,,And expanded east.. and took  TEN TIME ZONES,,, The RUSS,s assimalated with the people of other regions and even took on that language,,,,,You talk about new frontiers,,, Let the private sector decide that,,,We have a Fedralism that takes your tax doller and states you can have some of it back to use in your STATE IF you meet thier requirement,, Privat industry did a better job in the airline indistry,,,The trucking industry did better than the rail road industry,,,The Feds mandated a railroad passenger system that was out dated,,,The railroad owners just let it wither and die,, The Feds now run that part at a loss,,   The Children of my side of the family are doing fine,,,,But would rather die in the gutter without asking for government support,,,That would take tax dollers from others more in need then they,,,But lucky for them The children will survive passing on a system the govt cant touch,,  NO we really dont need a Govt, supported space program,,,,, IF we can make a profit from the 4 rock planets and their moons let the private sector take advantage of it,,,AT LEAST They wont be pushing the Indians on moon reservations..    AS far as my grand fathers shoe bussiness his customer hobbled directly to him and he personally measured there feet and made wood models of the feet,, so they could forever get a perfect fit,,,And he personally whent back to them to put them on their feet..

OK, Maron.  As a person of American indian ancestry, I have to agree with at least part of what you are saying.  Let's leave it at that.

Dave

Dave,,, Yes We are a nation within a nation,,,One truely defeated,, But not Truely lost...But witch one ????