Water on the moon.

[Agnacious]

Originally Posted by Thomas

EXACTLY. Take care of the earth we have, don't decide you're going to play God and colonize a planet/moon/asteroid that has NO atmosphere to speak of.

Not to mention no magnetic field to protect from cosmic rays. I would have no problem putting a few labs on the moon, makes more sense to me than the space station, but anyone who thinks we are ready to go to mars reads too many comic books.

 

[StephenHero]

Originally Posted by Contingency Plan

srsly. why should NASA get federal funding??
Maintaining the world's foremost agency on the understanding of the universe is a hell of a lot more admirable than giving away taxpayer money for corporate bailouts and a rapidly expanding welfare safety net. I don't have a problem with NASA receiving quite a large chunk of funding.

 

[Thomas]

Originally Posted by StephenHero

Maintaining the world's foremost agency on the understanding of the universe is a hell of a lot more admirable than giving away taxpayer money for corporate bailouts and a rapidly expanding welfare safety net. I don't have a problem with NASA receiving quite a large chunk of funding.

What has the universe ever done for us???

At least corporations mean jobs. The uninverse...gives us nothing. We're just pouring money into big black holes, with no return or prospect of return in the future.

 

[Mr Herbert]

if NASA didnt spend money on stuff like this in the past we wouldnt have dialysis and teflon

 

[Thomas]

Originally Posted by Mr Herbert

if NASA didnt spend money on stuff like this in the past we wouldnt have dialysis and teflon

Are you so sure they wouldn't have come out of some other source? I don't think NASA has a monopoly on brainpower or inventiveness.

 

[StephenHero]

Like it or not, our society's understanding of religion, the environment, engineering, medical technology, energy creation, biosciences, architectural design, and product design all rely heavily on the inventive work of those dorks at NASA fiddling with space rocks and walking around with urine bags in their pants (without mentioning our understanding of space). Not to diminish the importance of jobs in the economy, but our money is much better spent in a high tech sector that produces innovation than by giving money for Joe Six Pack to slush tar around on the highway for 60 bucks an hour.

 

[Thomas]

Originally Posted by StephenHero

Like it or not, our society's understanding of religion, the environment, engineering, medical technology, energy creation, biosciences, architectural design, and product design all rely heavily on the inventive work of those dorks at NASA fiddling with space rocks and walking around with urine bags in their pants (without mentioning our understanding of space). Not to diminish the importance of jobs in the economy, but our money is much better spent in a high tech sector that produces innovation than by giving money for Joe Six Pack to slush tar around on the highway for 60 bucks an hour.

How does NASA influence our understanding of religion? energy creation? architectural design?

And this is money better spent? Better spent than what? NASA unveiled a $17.6 billion budget for 2008 and this money goes where? space rocks and water on the moon? If NASA could scrap the meaningless space expeditions and just become a federally-funded version of Bell Labs or Xerox PARC, then I would be all for it.

Instead it's all space launches, re-testing old technology that's been done plenty of times before and going nowhere. I mean - let's get to the bottom line here: where's the payoff in going to the moon? What are we looking for? You (and others I've debated with) all cite the tangential gains made by NASA - faster microprocessors, teflon, urine bags - which are byproducts of the central goal. Good thing they have a few fortunate by-products to point to, otherwise their agency would have no tangible results for the past 40 years.

 

[StephenHero]

You're an idiot and not worth the time if you can't figure out the correlation between religion and NASA research.

 

[Thomas]

Originally Posted by StephenHero

You're an idiot and not worth the time if you can't figure out the correlation between religion and NASA research.

Well, let's see: I've been to Johnson Space Center a few times and don't recall a room devoted to NASA's advancement of Christianity, nor do I recall there being a holy water dispenser as you walk into mission control, so I just don't see it. Maybe it's a Muslim thing. I've not read the Quran, so I'm blissfully ignorant on that front as well. Don't recall a cross or Star of David on the space suits, maybe I missed it. Or maybe they wear the Mormon undergarments under the space suits - I probably overlooked that.

I guess that's something only known to True Believers such as yourself. Good for you then.

If anyone else wants to chime in and help me See the Light, I'm all ears.

 

[StephenHero]

You think you're being clever but you're just stupid. The three major monotheistic religions that have dominated the prevailing 1000-2000 years have creationist beliefs rooted in the Old Testament or Qur'un that fundamentally contradict our understanding of the Big Bang theory. Where do we learn about the evidence of Big Bang? NASA, who funds space exploration and research into the makeup of spatial masses, stars, galaxies, and potentially multiple universes that give hints as to the way in which the universe developed. This does not apply to strict Creationists followers, but the religions have and will continue to have to modify their belief systems to correspond to the prevailing scientific understanding of the universe. In a sense, every Catholic and Shiite can already find contradiction in their religion's beliefs and must either ignore or modify their religious beliefs to meet accord, allowing drastic potential for the changing demographics of religious belief and religiosity. This can all be traced back to Houston where they simply study what's in a rock or the origin of gases in some distant galaxy to help us understand the physical reaction that started the universe. Within the last year there have been changes in the catechism of the Catholic Church based on scientific discoveries regarding evolution and the Big Bang that increasingly tolerates them and integrates them into their beliefs to reach some closer form of understanding. Without NASA and their study of the universe, a much larger percentage of the population would believe in Biblical Creationism and all the other associative archaic scientific hypotheses. You should know that.

 

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[StephenHero]

And since you asked what energy creation and architectural design have to do with NASA, I'll give you examples.

On the energy front, NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center does testing and research to create solar technology for use in spacecrafts, space stations, airplanes, etc. that gets us closer to a more universal energy supply that can replace oil in the coming century and eventually allow developing nations to develop faster by decreasing the financial burden of future prices for oil due to a quicker path to viable alternatives. There is also overlap between the studies of NASA geologists that study planets in space (researching the elemental makeup) with the work of marine and petroleum geologists that allows for a greater understanding on the extraction of oil from within the earth in difficult to reach places. The NASA research labs can accommodate some of the problems because of their creativity and research capacity. You can read about it at their website.

In terms of architectural design, NASA studies and creates high tech materials that can resist different elements over thousands of years to meet the needs to satellites, planetary probes, etc. Some of these make their way into the architectural world to allow for more efficient and economically feasible designs. For example, a few years ago there was a coating that applies to metal in order to slow the erosion caused by oxygen and heat that was designed at NASA for the shuttle launch platform and ISS. Now there are companies that use it in the metal fixings on glass skyscrapers that increases the lifespan of the pieces for hundreds of years so they don't have to be replaced. Beforehand you would expect that they had to be changed out every 50 or so years to prevent failure on the building skin, which inevitably costs tens of millions of dollars on a large tower. Now they don't have to do that for all these new glass buildings. Billions saved.

Do you start to see the big picture? A large part of NASA's brilliance is that there aren't many tangible goals. They basically have a freedom to explore and research as they wish in a way a private sector company may not have. Many of the greatest discoveries are stumbled on by accident without any intent to solve a particular issue. With no NASA, we wouldn't even be able to know what discoveries we've missed out on.

But you can go back to bitching about space rocks.

 

[Thomas]

Originally Posted by StephenHero

You think you're being clever but you're just stupid. The three major monotheistic religions that have dominated the prevailing 1000-2000 years have creationist beliefs rooted in the Old Testament or Qur'un that fundamentally contradict our understanding of the Big Bang theory. Where do we learn about the evidence of Big Bang? NASA, who funds space exploration and research into the makeup of spatial masses, stars, galaxies, and potentially multiple universes that give hints as to the way in which the universe developed. This does not apply to strict Creationists followers, but the religions have and will continue to have to modify their belief systems to correspond to the prevailing scientific understanding of the universe. In a sense, every Catholic and Shiite can already find contradiction in their religion's beliefs and must either ignore or modify their religious beliefs to meet accord, allowing drastic potential for the changing demographics of religious belief and religiosity. This can all be traced back to Houston where they simply study what's in a rock or the origin of gases in some distant galaxy to help us understand the physical reaction that started the universe. Within the last year there have been changes in the catechism of the Catholic Church based on scientific discoveries regarding evolution and the Big Bang that increasingly tolerates them and integrates them into their beliefs to reach some closer form of understanding. Without NASA and their study of the universe, a much larger percentage of the population would believe in Biblical Creationism and all the other associative archaic scientific hypotheses. You should know that.

First - the science versus religion debates have been going on long before the creation of NASA. Galileo would be one good starting point. Darwin is another milestone in this debate, when he published his theory of evolution. The Big Bang theory first saw light in the 1920's. NASA was established in 1958.

Now, NASA may be advancing the scientific debate as to some aspects of space and our past and future, but whether NASA's findings directly change religious views is highly debatable. I guess if you want to point back to Galileo's revelation that the earth revolves around the sun (leading to his forced recantation at the hands of the Church), then you have a point there, but outside of that, religion is essentially at odds with the world of science - being that one is based on faith, and the other is on facts. Those two ideas will not easily (if at all) reconcile to each other, particularly regarding the mysteries of God/Jesus, etc.

I also think you give NASA (or science in general) too much credit in the changing Catholic catechism of late. A lot of these facts have been known for a long time - these aren't recent breakthroughs, (although NASA is to be credited with them). But what has been a more recent trend is the slipping membership of Catholic Church and the advent of a new pope who is forced to reconcile the cognitive dissonance between their faith (creation) with the common knowledge and acceptance of evolution. I think Benedict is smart enough to realize that people are no longer going to compartmentalize their faith versus their knowledge, and besides - no faith ever wants to be compartmentalized. So it's a concession on his part that he no doubt would rather not make, since it indirectly (or maybe even directly) refutes the bible itself.

So I'll accept that NASA is a player in terms of refuting certain religious tenets, but that doesn't really affect my main position (poorly articulated in trying to be brief or clever) that it's not pulling its weight in terms of benefits versus what we spend on them. I still think the money is better spent elsewhere.

 

[StephenHero]

Scientific study in general has been and will continually be the largest factor in the questioning of religious tenets based on existence and nature of the universe so it's pretty safe to assume that the leader in the realm of study will be the loudest and most clear voice of influence in that process even if NASA scientists aren't calling up Benedict to share what they learned that day. This is a slow process that will take hundreds of year but eventually science will directly be responsible for shattering some notion that humans are alone at the center of the universe which was created with a magic wand and in which God has a plan for all of us.

 

[Thomas]

Originally Posted by StephenHero

And since you asked what energy creation and architectural design have to do with NASA, I'll give you examples.

(...)

Do you start to see the big picture? A large part of NASA's brilliance is that there aren't many tangible goals. They basically have a freedom to explore and research as they wish in a way a private sector company may not have. Many of the greatest discoveries are stumbled on by accident without any intent to solve a particular issue. With no NASA, we wouldn't even be able to know what discoveries we've missed out on.

But you can go back to bitching about space rocks.

Originally Posted by StephenHero

Scientific study in general has been and will continually be the largest factor in the questioning of religious tenets based on existence and nature of the universe so it's pretty safe to assume that the leader in the realm of study will be the loudest and most clear voice of influence in that process even if NASA scientists aren't calling up Benedict to share what they learned that day. This is a slow process that will take hundreds of year but eventually science will directly be responsible for shattering some notion that humans are alone at the center of the universe which was created with a magic wand and in which God has a plan for all of us.

Your arguments are very inconvenient to my current viewpoint about NASA. Would you mind being a little less-knowledgeable about your subject? My ego would certainly appreciate it.