I love NASA with a passion but I feel that their focus is too spread out on stuff that isn't that important
I think they should stick to three main priories:
1. Getting Humans to Mars - achieving this would be one of the greatest accomplishments of Mankind
2. Study Europa - we need a probe that can get beneath the ice and search the ocean, I bet you anything there are fish, tube worms and algae down there. Discovering life beyond earth would be the greatest discovery of all time.
3. Exo Planets - NASA should be looking for relatively close planets that have potential to support liquid water / life. Forget about that Hot Jupiter crap, those planets are useless to us.
Anything other than these goals are a waste of time and resources in my opinion. Your thoughts?
NASA isn't going to do any of that. Blue Origin and Space X and other growing companies will, but slowly.
The budget for NASA is too low to do any of it. They can't even keep the ISS running properly how do you expect them to get to Mars.
Getting humans to Mars isn't a scientific concern, it is a technological
NASA is first and foremost a scientific research establishment so they will prioritise study of the deep cosmos over the technical mundanities of setting up a human base on Mars.
This should be reassuring though because it shows that Mars is already within our capabilities, we just have to make it happen through the public sector/capitalism.
>>7702921
>1. Getting Humans to Mars - achieving this would be one of the greatest accomplishments of Mankind
NASA doesn't nearly have the budget for that.
>2. Study Europa - we need a probe that can get beneath the ice and search the ocean,
Pretty sure that;s on the todo list. But it would need both lots of money and the right orbital alignment.
>3. Exo Planets - NASA should be looking for relatively close planets that have potential to support liquid water / life. Forget about that Hot Jupiter crap, those planets are useless to us.
They're finding hot Jupiters because those are the easiest things to see. It's not like they get to pick what they're going to find.
>Anything other than these goals are a waste of time and resources
Pure research has always been something that NASA has done well, and Earth observation is pretty important right now. I don't see much that NASA is doing that they could easily give up.
>1. Getting Humans to Mars - achieving this would be one of the greatest accomplishments of Mankind
no money in it. the moon is way more obvious at this point.
just to clear some shit up for you MUH MARS faggots, we will never get to mars in our lifetime. the stupid amount of money, technology, and preparation we will fucking need with absolute zero guarantee that it will even work out/people won't die is so out of reach for the next 30 years. we still have trouble leaving the fucking atmosphere in 2015. our shit just isn't powerful enough, and all of these fucking researchers are working on efficiency, when we never had enough power in the fucking first place to optimize for efficiency. so many of you dumb fuckers go "OH PFFT I'LL TOTALLY BE ON THAT CREW THAT STEPS FOOT ON MARS FOR THE FIRST MISSION TOTALLY" when in reality no you fucking would absolutely not. you will probably die a terrible death in the vacuum of space because #258,475 of 1,369,338,998 possible problems occurred, and then the public will fucking hate space and all of the entities involved, and the companies that funded the shit will hate them even more because they just wasted BILLIONS of dollars on a fucking tragedy.
until we're literally going back and forth from the moon to earth like it's a fucking walk around the block, fucking NOBODY is going to mars and fucking NOBODY is going to pay for it.
the fucking moon landings took literally 15 fucking years just to prepare, over 200 BILLION dollars and had the veterans from the fucking V2 rocket days as well as the smartest motherfuckers ever working on it all. you expect us to just fly up in our cool spaceship to mars like it's no big fucking deal with some asshole kid that just got his aerospace engineering degree working at SpaceX?
>2. Study Europa
nobody cares and it is not a priority
>3. Exo Planets
this would take like multiple generations of humans you fucking idiot. we flat out don't have the technology required to go anywhere like that
>>7702921
Whats the point of getting people to mars ?
>>7702921
>1. Getting Humans to Mars - achieving this would be one of the greatest accomplishments of Mankind
They are, but they learned the lessons from the Constellation program that it's not a good idea to make these big programs with one key goal because of political and economic changes and also poor program management. Therefore, they are first working in LEO, then "near Earth", and then deep space, as part of a three part plan (look it up for details). Each of these stages of the plan will involve smaller short-term research projects that will improve our capabilities for the end goal while simultaneously maintaining progress
>2. Study Europa - we need a probe that can get beneath the ice and search the ocean, I bet you anything there are fish, tube worms and algae down there. Discovering life beyond earth would be the greatest discovery of all time.
I'm pretty sure this is the works, not sure on the details
>3. Exo Planets - NASA should be looking for relatively close planets that have potential to support liquid water / life. Forget about that Hot Jupiter crap, those planets are useless to us.
This has already happened and is still happening. Ever heard of the Kepler spacecraft? The discoveries they have made over just the last few years are incredible
>>7702974
>Implying we won't live for another 30 years
>>7703011
30 years before we even have the tech to do it without costing like actually $1,000,000,000,000.
>>7702940
>This should be reassuring though because it shows that Mars is already within our capabilities
But is it really?
>>7702921
honestly they should act as 'Venture Capitalists' i.e.
- funding for space related companies, like a real VC, if they are a [presumably] viable business
- nonprofit funding of sciency type missions
why VC style instead of everything inhouse?
- opens up to everyone i.e. doesnt have to go through bullshit hiring/career ladder, only good idea is relevant
- encourages better solutions i.e. no engineerin-socialism
- allows them to very easily ditch dysfunctional operations
- freedom from 'job creating congress'
the CIA already has a VC arm
and DARPA is doing great things with their robotics competetion, among others
its high time NASA steps up and maximizes their organizational structure for efficiency & results
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope
>>7702921
I think NASA should concern themselves with science and technology, not crazy stunts, operating their own vehicles, and an obsessive search for life in space.
They shouldn't be looking at sending people to Mars unless it's reasonably within their budget. So they should be encouraging and helping developments like SpaceX's and Blue Origin's reusable launch vehicles, which they're already doing in appropriate proportion.
SpaceX in particular is already focused on Mars transportation capabilities. NASA should just buy their services when they fit nicely in the budget. NASA gets upwards of $15 billion/year. During a Mars launch window that only comes once every two years, they could well afford ~$200 million for a standard Red Dragon mission that puts over a ton of science instruments on the Mars surface, or two or three of them at that price, and test the capability of landing multiple payloads near each other and bringing them together.
For planetary science, they're doing a pretty decent job, with the launch options available. As cheaper, more powerful, and more frequent launches become available, they're going to need to adapt their approach. For manned spaceflight, I don't like the "send everything to one space station" approach. They should be doing things like tests of living with low artificial gravity, using simple tether apparatus. The manned program has been wasteful since Skylab fell. SLS/Orion should just be dropped.
>>7702921
>Getting Humans to Mars - achieving this would be one of the greatest accomplishments of Mankind
It would be the greatest waste of money of mankind
>>7702921
> Getting Humans to Mars
this is fucking useless
>Study Europa
who gives a shit, nothing will be there
What nasa needs to do is use nuclear pulse propulsion and bring back large asteroids to earths orbit
Then we can begin constructing an orbital infrastructure along with permanent habitation up there.
>>7703219
>LOLbertarianism
*tips fedora*
The government is your friend you fucking neckbeard.
>>7702921
Moon base should be the only focus. If we are to leave Earth, this is the first step.
>>7703658
>The government is your friend
Just making sure it's known that someone right here, right now, said this.
>>7703660
Not necessarily. Asteroids have many advantages over the moon as sources of material for use in space. It's also possible to improve launch and energy technology until launching huge quantities of stuff from Earth is feasible.
>>7703656
>nothing will be there
thank you for your prediction, Nostradamus
>>7703713
What meaningful thing will exist on europa?
Even if we find fish there
how will that CHANGE anything? How will that develop space infrastructure, or lower launch costs, or advance science/technology/etc?
>>7703713
It's true, though, that it's extremely unlikely for there to be anything there.
Life adapts, evolves, fills every niche. If it can survive at all, it should become ubiquitous and obvious from a distance.
>>7702921
what's the point of NASA, anyways? that money could be used to end world hunger, find a cure for cancer or end gender inequality, instead we waste it on phallic space toys because apparently those goals are all secondary to the dick measuring contest we got going on with china and the ruskies.
Fucking nasa diversifying like this....
>This tiny ball provides evidence that the universe will expand forever. Measuring slightly over one tenth of a millimeter, the ball moves toward a smooth plate in response to energy fluctuations in the vacuum of empty space. The attraction is known as the Casimir Effect. Today, evidence indicates that most of the energy density in the universe is in an unknown form dubbed dark energy. The form and genesis of dark energy is almost completely unknown, but postulated as related to vacuum fluctuations similar to the Casimir Effect but generated somehow by space itself. This vast and mysterious dark energy appears to gravitationally repel all matter and hence will likely cause the universe to expand forever.
Before anyone goes to Mars we need to setup a 1/3rd gravity research facility to determine fetal viability and long term effects of low gravity.
>>7702985
Humans in space at this point in technological development are basically a form of masturbating to Star Trek. It serves no purpose other than political gains for those spending money on it. All the arguments about life spreading off of Earth due to something killing us off are made by either hucksters or by the statistically uninformed. Eventually we'll become technologically advanced enough that manned space flight will be as easy as airplanes are now.
People dream of Mars for the same reason they come up with plans for seasteading, colonies at the South Pole, in cave networks or at the bottom of the sea: they're unhappy with their place in modern civilization and believe that they'd be a special snowflake in a new "Gone Galt" type civilization. Telling these people that we will have humans in space regularly in a few centuries makes they upset because they're living now and want to escape now. Their great-great-grandchildren spending the weekend hiking on Mars doesn't help those here and unhappy now.
They always argue "Well, if Columbus thought like that, we'd never have discovered the Americas" which of course is rubbish. Seafaring would have advanced without Columbus discovering the Americas. There was lots of money in trade in Eurasia and Africa. That trade was the motivation for looking west in the first place. And sooner or later the Old World would have discovered the New World. Maybe not in Columbus's lifetime but it would have happened. That wouldn't have helped Columbus and his dreams any but humanity still would have become geographically interconnected like we are today.
>>7703930
Before going to mars we need to have thousands of people living on asteroids in medium earth orbit
No point doing an expensive suicide mission to mars
Need to have a bustling industry collecting asteroids and bringing them back to earth.
>>7703773
but what about extremophiles, haven't they shown us that it is at least slightly possible for life to exist in what appear to be lifeless conditions?
>>7703658
I think youre just shitposting / venting feelings.
might be useful to other people tho
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcb9bKSZ2VU
this podcast sheds some interesting light on the statism thing
>>7703932
>either hucksters or by the statistically uninformed
see pic
the rest of your post is just you jacking it to your confused unfounded thoughtlines
>sending humans anywhere in space
nice meme, kids
I fear that we may never find other life on planets and find another suitable planet for us to explore
>>7704474
Why did you post the hipster god? This is a science board, not /biz/. Marketing tricks doesn't work here.
>>7704625
Sorry McFly, that would require going interstellar, which is impossible
We're stuck with exploring Mars
>>7702921
>This planets are useless to us
Like exoplanets aren't? Exoplanets are literally the most useless thing out there, unless we find obvious signs of intelligent life just sitting on one of them, which we really don't have the technology to detect. At least we can send probes to the planets in our own solar system.
>>7704638
because hes neither a huckster nor uninformed, statistically or otherwise
and because I could care less about edgy contrarian autists
>>7704805
Not a huckster? All you have to do is look at the Hyperloop with the knowledge from a first year engineering class to know it's a load of junk. But he sure loves those government bucks.
Also I note you didn't actually refute anything in anon's post, you're just name calling. Not very convincing way to get people here to change their minds.
>>7704821
people can read, they dont need handholding
>muh argument cycle
what is this? 7th grade?
