The value of manned space flight?

[briggart]

This feels relevant.

 

[Dire Bare]

Yes, climate change is an issue. But it's an issue we can solve more easily than we can colonise space or other worlds. Ultimately, the easiest planet to terraform is our own.

Yes . . . which is my point. Sorry if I'm not being clear.

"Terraforming" Earth won't be easy . . . but compared to colonizing other places in the solar system, it'll be a cake-walk.

 

[Kaodi]

From a certain point of view the only actual cost of space exploration is the consumption of materials and the pollution produced as a byproduct of launches. The money spent goes into the pockets of people who live and work on Earth. Only the materials that get used up or launched into orbit are actually "gone" . And space exploration is less frivolous than most consumption.

 

[Ryujin]

T- roughly 45 minutes at the time of this post.

 

[Tigris]

From a certain point of view the only actual cost of space exploration is the consumption of materials and the pollution produced as a byproduct of launches. The money spent goes into the pockets of people who live and work on Earth. Only the materials that get used up or launched into orbit are actually "gone" . And space exploration is less frivolous than most consumption.

What other consumption is just gone? Here we launch materials away from earth, we cant get them all back.

If we eat something expensive on earth etc. the molecules are still here. And its not like the energy consumption of rockets is particularily low.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Plus, as previously noted, NASA is a net positive, economically. It pays for itself a couple times over, creates jobs, and all that. Cutting it without a specific, really good plan would make economic problems worse, not better.

Yes, but it feels good to cut programs!

 

[Morrus]

Yes, but it feels good to cut programs!

It also feels good to go to the moon!

 

[Ryujin]

It's probably obvious but the Orion CEV dwarfs the old Apollo capsules. An early prototype of Orion was on display, at the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, in front of a suspended and laid down Saturn 5 + capsule, when I was there in 2008. I wish that I had good pics of the Orion.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

All I have to say is: If we can figure out how to live on Mars, we sure as heck can figure out how to make Earth stay livable. And we better do that quick, because we won't like it on Mars.