NASA Blames Congress for American Dependence on the Russian Space Program

[jefferz]

it's real my good man, but I'd say there are some huge question marks over the nature of the anthropogenic role in it. Climate history, VERY RECENT climate history, suggest it's much more prudent to have an open mind here. Humans always put themselves at the center of everything, we certainly add to the carbon footprint and we are affecting climate change, but given the history of this planet (a very clear record we have) we should probably stop with pretending we're for sure the major culprit there. This debate is pretty far from over for anyone who has actually looked at the research and how the climate has changed without human interference on a large scale.

Anyone, most republicans it so happens, that either denies the climate is changing or that we influence it in any way is admittedly uneducated on the topic or plain disingenuous. Another thread.

I'm going to argue my point and then say we should take it to another thread so there's no rebuttal. Stay classy

 

[andnowweknow]

I'm going to argue my point and then say we should take it to another thread so there's no rebuttal. Stay classy

Rebut me chump. I didn't argue anything, I stated the fact of the matter.

 

[GhostZ06]

it's real my good man, but I'd say there are some huge question marks over the nature of the anthropogenic role in it. Climate history, VERY RECENT climate history, suggest it's much more prudent to have an open mind here. Humans always put themselves at the center of everything, we certainly add to the carbon footprint and we are affecting climate change, but given the history of this planet (a very clear record we have) we should probably stop with pretending we're for sure the major culprit there. This debate is pretty far from over for anyone who has actually looked at the research and how the climate has changed without human interference on a large scale.

Anyone, most republicans it so happens, that either denies the climate is changing or that we influence it in any way is admittedly uneducated on the topic or plain disingenuous. Another thread.

but whats this gotta do with our space program ?

 

[andnowweknow]

but whats this gotta do with our space program ?

without rereading...it's along the lines of knowledge. Lots of knowledge, climatological data included, would come if our dipshit representatives in congress would actually fund NASA properly.

So back on topic, our very survival as a civilization (and perhaps a species in extreme examples) has to do with exploration of space and technologies developed for dealing with matters beyond planet earth.

There is a SEVERE phenomenon that we have been lucky enough to be free of for most of recorded history (as far as we know, and sans a few examples). This is a phenomenon that everyone ignores because they either have no direct connection to it (or family going back centuries who has) and have no real knowledge or understanding or...OR, it's just too disturbing to think about.

Near earth objects and other unclassified or unknown objects pose a very serious threat to our planet and we are currently doing next to nothing to prevent our civilization and perhaps our species from taking a nosedive. It's a totally solvable issue, it just requires resources...resources our agencies like NASA are currently being denied.

If a Tunguska level event were to happen over a major population center today, millions of people would die. And this is not a rare event. This was in 1908.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event

The recent event was a speck of dust for all intents and purposes, and it injured a thousand people exploding high in the atmosphere over a relatively sparse population...and we had ZERO idea it was there until it happened.



The kinetic energy of these events are almost unimaginable.

 

[Nihongi]

without rereading...it's along the lines of knowledge. Lots of knowledge, climatological data included, would come if our dipshit representatives in congress would actually fund NASA properly.

So back on topic, our very survival as a civilization (and perhaps a species in extreme examples) has to do with exploration of space and technologies developed for dealing with matters beyond planet earth.

There is a SEVERE phenomenon that we have been lucky enough to be free of for most of recorded history (as far as we know, and sans a few examples). This is a phenomenon that everyone ignores because they either have no direct connection to it (or family going back centuries who has) and have no real knowledge or understanding or...OR, it's just too disturbing to think about.

Near earth objects and other unclassified or unknown objects pose a very serious threat to our planet and we are currently doing next to nothing to prevent our civilization and perhaps our species from taking a nosedive. It's a totally solvable issue, it just requires resources...resources our agencies like NASA are currently being denied.

If a Tunguska level event were to happen over a major population center today, millions of people would die. And this is not a rare event. This was in 1908.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event

The recent event was a speck of dust for all intents and purposes, and it injured a thousand people exploding high in the atmosphere over a relatively sparse population...and we had ZERO idea it was there until it happened.



The kinetic energy of these events are almost unimaginable.

I was under the impression that the Tunguska Event and the meteor from two years ago only come to earth roughly every 100 years. Just think if that sucker would have actually connected with Moscow or St. Petersburg...

 

[andnowweknow]

I was under the impression that the Tunguska Event and the meteor from two years ago only come to earth roughly every 100 years. Just think if that sucker would have actually connected with Moscow or St. Petersburg...

To put it in perspective, have a look at the moon...check out the cratering. Now assume that earth is about 80 times more likely to encounter objects than the moon. The projections you hear regarding "every 100 years...every 1000 years...etc...", those aren't numbers we can really devise about planet earth because we don't know the extent to which the earth has been hit because of the active earth processes that cover cratering up.

When you combine that with the fact that we know air bursts are happening as well that leave NO overt visible trace they ever happened after less than 100 years, there is the problem. At the end of the Pleistocene period,approximately 12,800 years ago—give or take a few centuries—a cosmic impact triggered an abrupt cooling episode that earth scientists refer to as the Younger Dryas (http://www.news.ucsb.edu/2015/015778/cataclysmic-event-certain-age). This is essentially what killed off about 100 large mammals that were previously thought to have been the victims of what is called "overkill" by paleoindian hunters (and not to be a disrespectful but this is one of the absolute dumbest modern scientific theories around).

On top of the above event which happened not all that long ago (which incidentally, were it to occur again today, would unequivocally send us immediately back to the stone age) geologists and the people who study this stuff are seriously suspicious of burkle crater in the indian ocean as a possible event that would have occurred about 5k years ago (I believe) and would have sent 600 foot high tsnumami's towards everything adjacent to the indian ocean...probably the event that led to the flood myths.

And yes, Tunguska of 1908 would have essentially nuked any major city in the world had it exploded over one.

If people are looking for a threat to mobilize against, it's extraterrestrial objects striking the planet or exploding in the atmosphere. It's only a matter of time if we don't start planning to deal with it.

 

[BearGrounds]

The fact NASA has been gutted is a national travesty. It should be funded...and funded well. Our priorities are way out of wack.

Our future is in exploration and knowledge... Not weapons we'll never use and bloated self serving beurocracy.

Yea, but we're humans. So all that progressive shit is going to have to wait until after we've successfully made the entire cosmos a battlefield.

"War in Space May Be Closer Than Ever."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/war-in-space-may-be-closer-than-ever/

 

[andnowweknow]

Yea, but we're humans. So all that progressive shit is going to have to wait until after we've successfully made the entire cosmos a battlefield.

"War in Space May Be Closer Than Ever."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/war-in-space-may-be-closer-than-ever/

terrifying and irritating all at once.

 

[GhostZ06]

Humans could return to the Moon in the next decade and live there a decade after, a new study claims. The announcement was made on the 46th anniversary of the Apollo 11 crew's first steps on the lunar surface.

The study, performed by NexGen Space LLC and partly funded by NASA, concludes that the space agency could land humans on the Moon in the next five to seven years, build a permanent base 10 to 12 years after that, and do it all within the existing budget for human spaceflight. The way for NASA to do this is to adopt the same practice that it's using for resupplying the International Space Station (and will eventually use for crew transport) — public-private partnerships with companies like SpaceX, Orbital ATK, or the United Launch Alliance.

NASA can cut the cost of establishing a human presence on the Moon "by a factor of 10," according to Charles Miller, NexGen president and the study's principal investigator. Savings of that magnitude would allow NASA to expand its ambitions for lunar exploration without reaching beyond the almost $4 billion per year it receives for human spaceflight.

The NexGen study references SpaceX's ISS resupply costs as an example of where these savings will come from. SpaceX currently charges NASA about $4,750 for every kilogram sent to orbit aboard its Falcon 9 rocket, far less than the price of the Apollo-era Saturn V ($46,000 per kilogram) or even the space shuttle ($60,000 per kilogram). While the study does use SpaceX's next generation rocket, the Falcon Heavy, as an example in its plans to get to the moon, SpaceX claims the Falcon Heavy will be as cheap or cheaper per kilogram than the Falcon 9.

This Evolvable Lunar Architecture plan would also stir a new economy by mining the Moon for hydrogen in the polar water ice. The hydrogen would be processed and turned into cryogenic propellant, which would be stored in a propellant depot craft which orbits the Moon. That fuel would be sold to NASA or others looking for a way to fuel up for a trip to Mars. "You basically expand free enterprise to the Moon," Miller says.

It would cost NASA a total of $10 billion over the five-to-seven-year period, with $5 billion going to each of the two selected competitors, much like how NASA awarded dual contracts for its commercial cargo and commercial crew programs. Each company would develop its own crewed lunar lander, and have to develop or upgrade a commercial crew spacecraft. (SpaceX, for example, would have to modify the crewed version of its Dragon capsule.) "One provider’s not enough," Miller says. "You need to expect that one of them is going to go down. You need redundancy.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/20/9003419/nasa-moon-plan-permanent-base

 

[Nihongi]

To put it in perspective, have a look at the moon...check out the cratering. Now assume that earth is about 80 times more likely to encounter objects than the moon. The projections you hear regarding "every 100 years...every 1000 years...etc...", those aren't numbers we can really devise about planet earth because we don't know the extent to which the earth has been hit because of the active earth processes that cover cratering up.

When you combine that with the fact that we know air bursts are happening as well that leave NO overt visible trace they ever happened after less than 100 years, there is the problem. At the end of the Pleistocene period,approximately 12,800 years ago

 

[andnowweknow]

Shout out to our interstellar bouncers The Moon and Jupiter protecting us from the brunt of asteroidal impacts. The Burkle crater is new to me but really sheds some light on flood myths related to that era. And yeah, "overkill" really does a shoddy job of explaining a mass extinction event, like is that even plausible to think primitive hunters could've done so much damage?

Without Jupiter there would be no life on earth, at least not well evolved life.

Burkle Crater is a done deal as far as I can tell, the evidence for it as an impact event in the last 5k years seems hard to dismiss.

Overkill basically goes like this...

-humans managed (somehow) to kill roughly 6 million mammoths, keeping in mind human population is thought to be perhaps less than 6 million.

-after the humans killed all the mammoths, somehow around 100 other species of animals over 100lbs in body weight died because the food chain was broken...cause that's how it works.

It was fine to surmise overkill before, we know way to much now about how drastically the climate changed at the exact same time those animals went extinct to still be holding on to that idea.

The event that caused the last great extinction around 12k years ago would be something preventable perhaps if we were to fund Nasa and other like agencies appropriately. Given what is coming out about that particular event though, and given how spread out the damage was, its possible it was a clustered bombardment, in which case it's hard to imagine how we would deal with it regardless of preparation.