if Nasa is that brilliant why the hell waste time in space? when problems here need some fixen?
362640
What exactly is "fixen"?
660406
i have no idea, although i would strongly suggest against making it perfect as it would get incredibly boring, i might fix up us humans and the completely wrecked planet we live on however
1066791
Its just all a bit pointless.\n\nI mean, its cheaper to find the resources it has on Earth (shipping costs from the moon would be horrendous, even at bulk rate).\n\nIts a lousy holiday destination.\n\nAnd the weather is lousy - always close to absolute zero.\n\nSeriously, on Earth people colonised lands rich in life and almost always with existing human populations (which were duly displaced). Survival was trivial compared to the moon and the riches - in terms of new commodities to export - huge.\n\nWhy oh why oh why would you colonise a barren lump of ice cold lifeless rock?
892479
It is absolutely worth the cost.  \n\n1.  The advances made in science by space exploration affect our everyday lives.  Things from velcro to GPS has some aspect of space exploraiton involved.  What is developed for use in space finds its way into our lives on Earth in many wonderful ways.\n\n2.  Exploring the unknown in and of itself is worth it--we must expand our minds, our knowlege, our understanding of the universe.  \n\n3.  Only by learning and knowing the world/universe in which we live can we fully fathom our own part in it.\n\n4.  We need to dream.  We have dreamt of exploring the stars for millennia.  It is in our nature to reach out to the stars.\n\nOf course it is worth it.  And it deserves to be funded with much, much more money than it currently is.
924904
Firstly our wastes contains many substances like several kinds of elements for e magnesium, iron, cobalt, etc.. If we send them into space, we will lose the possibility to recycle the wastes and reuse the elements or compounds in them to manufacture other things. However if we want to get rid of them by space, this costs a whole lot of money since for sending 1 g of waste, about nearly hundred times the amount of energy needed to create that waste will be lost to propel the waste into space. So it would be illogical to do that since we would be wasting our precious energy sources, our money and also polluting our earth more by the burning of fuels to propel the rockets into space.
631024
Well I like it myself!!\nIf your interested in astronomy etc. I hope you like the following site.\n\nhttp://space.com
257901
not for a long time. nasa doesn't have the funds to do any hugely major projects like it used to. it costs a lot to put stuff into space, and as far as mars is concerned, they're not about to launch
110439
Many experiments that have help us advance in medicine are conducted in space. Our planet can be in danger of asteroids plunging into us, and can result in life on earth being destroyed, and by expolring space, we can find out and save us, so yes, it is worth it. And it's fun!
624641
NASA's entire budget is only 2 Billion--tiny compared to the 8 Trillion dollar national debt. The benefits have been huge--check out the attached links of search for "benefits of space program".
490251
Just what the he[[ does that have to do with astronomy and space?????????????
771198
Taking your points in order, and then answering the question:\nIf there were nothing in space, then there is no Moon, no planets, no Sun.  Absurd.\nWhile some planets, such as Jupiter, have poisonous gases, others do not.  Poisonous to us does not, of course, necessarily mean poisonous to other life forms.  Check out, for example, anaerobic bacteria, terrestrial life forms which find oxygen a deadly poisonous gas.\nIf we had all the resources we need on Earth, we would not be running low on oil, silver (no new sources found in over 80 years), and many others in short supply.  And even if we have not run out yet, necessarily we will eventually run out so long as we live on a finite planet.  Isaac Asimov calculated we would run out of most resouces by the year 2500.\nWhile the budget for NASA runs around $8-10 billion per year (depending on the year you look at), there is already an economy derived from space which exceeds that amount.  This includes spin off consumer products such as home computers and live television broadcasts from around the world as well as vastly improved weather forecasting.  Resource satellites have been used to find mineral desposits.  And private industry such as Bigelow is now moving into space, so that the government's seed money is functioning much like the seed money that was used to pay for the Lewis and Clark expedition 201 years ago.  That is, the government having proved it is possible, the citizenry moves in and exploits it, with the government raking off taxes.
1015635
Most communication is pointless chatter so in some ways you might as well ask how we made do w/out noise.  When you think of the amount of money and time and effort currently being wasted on computers and mobile phones a better question might be how on earth do we manage to get anything done now and could we get to the moon again by just yakking and emailing?
426619
The world has a "been there done that" philosophy. They think its cool that we can go into space but they're a little more preoccupied with their own lives right here on earth and the problems surrounding them. \n\nRoutine missions in space do not have that "sensationalism" that attracts the human eye. Announce that they've found aliens on Mars and they'll pay attention. Otherwise why do they care about finding a new star they'll never have access to out of the billion and one stars they can see in the sky each night, or looking at endless pictures of landscape and gas deposits. Woo sign me up X_X\n\nOn a slightly less respectable note, NASA is also the organization who wasted millions of dollars because they created architectural plans for a space project using metric measurements and then didn't stop to make sure the BUILDER used the same measurements until after it went belly up. Talk about an embarassment and losing respect. They're supposed to be the brainiacs!
4539
These answers "seem" correct. But Im not sure thats really the case. Within our solar system there is still gravity. What do you think is holding all the planets in place? Perhaps between systems that might be more true.\n\nThe problem is getting a large mass moving fast enough to really be productive. You still need loads of energy to get a real spaceship moving. We just dont have that tech yet. \n\nRight now scientists are working on a plasma engine. Check it out.
96436
It's all a waste of money, but it's a better and more inspiring waste of money than the real drains on the government's budget.  Actually, I'm already having second thoughts on that comment.  Read "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" by Richard Feynman.  Before the Challenger disaster, there were indicators everywhere that the shuttle shouldn't be launched.  Thanks in large part to the beauracracy of NASA, seven astronauts lost their lives.  It's a tough issue, but I still think NASA deserves more funding and attention.
828510
NASA is a government agency and is funded in large part by tax dollars.  As a result, NASA must maintain excellent PR among voters and elected officials for the sake of its funding.\n\nNASA does public outreach, raising awareness of science and math in school age children.  This is probably the goal that directly involves the largest portion of the lay public.\n\nAside from that, it starts getting more technical, yet more beneficial to mankind.  Unfortunately most of mankind doesn't understand the 'why' or 'how' involved.  They may never notice that airplanes are becoming quieter and cleaner, that our ability to predict climate is improving, that our science books are being rewritten on a yearly basis.  \n\nNASA has invested a great amount of resources in looking at the background microwave radiation left over from the Big Bang, and looking for gravitational waves that distort space-time and answer fundamental questions about our universe.  At the heart of these space missions is actual science.  Physicists at NASA won Nobel prizes for their work this year, and will probably do so again.\n\nTechnology developed by NASA has helped a wide range of companies, from communications to mattress manufacturing.  This innovation is part of what fuels the entrepreneurial spirit in this country.  It's the reason why America is still a bastion of opportunity.\n\nThe missions that NASA embarks upon involves collaboration with a huge array of private companies.  Giants like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Thiokol are all involved in building the rockets, satellites, and space systems that NASA uses.  These companies also benefit when NASA develops new technology, because it is usually they type of technology that they cannot afford to develop yet.\n\nUnfortunately, the Big Bang, gravity waves, and Mars' atmosphere matter little to the bible thumping redneck.  They demand results for their tax dollars.  The fact that their children can dream of one day travelling to Mars or working with new technology means nothing.  To them, NASA is just another example of wasteful government beauraucracy even though it gets less than 1% of the federal budget.\n\nThat is why outreach is necessary.
1147442
Actually for the larger industrialized nations space research and exploration is a relatively small fraction of their overall national budgets, and space research, if used wisely, can help reduce, if not cure, some problems by monitoring crops for diseases or drought, help track weather, animal and fish populations, enivironmental problems, and provide new technologies and materials that can improve healthcare and life in general, and of course there is the knowledge gained about the Universe in which we live. I do agree that there is a great deal of money wasted in the space program (I think the Space Shuttle and International Space Station are make-work money pits that should be closed off), but I think the more germain question is why so many trillions of dollars worldwide are spent on weapons, corporate greed, and subsidizing the lifestyles of the already wealthy. Cutting even just one major weapons purchase program in practically every country around the globe could give each child of those nations a free college education.\n\nI think an argument also has to be made for the simple human need to know and understand what space is and what's in it. Questions like "Where did the Moon come from and what is is made of?" would never have been answered if we hadn't gone there. Sending robotic missions to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and other planets in our solar system give us some hint of what those worlds really are like and fire our imaginations, and sending telescopes, such as the Hubble, up into space have given us a clearer, and often very beautiful picture of what the Cosmos is made up of and how it got here. Theories aren't worth much unless there is data to back them up, and these sorts of instruments help us gather data in ways that human eyes or ground-based equipment never could, and while it's true most of us go through life occupied by the more mundane pursuits of life, but all of us at some time have wondered what this Universe is all about and what our place is in it, and I think the questions being asked here bear that out. Exploring space helps answer some of those questions.\n\nIt isn't legitimate space programs (ie., non-militarized) that are starving the poor; it's the insatiable, contemptible greed of death merchants like Lockheed-Martin and greedhead corporations like Halliburton and Bechtel who want to enslave us that do...\n\nN.