Interesting news:President Bush will announce plans next week to send Americans to Mars and back to the moon and to establish a long-term human presence on the moon, senior administration officials said Thursday night.http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040109/D7VV0JG00.html

Hey Bush. US is on the verge of bankruptcy. How about spending money on the US economy and creating more job here on Earth.

I'm all for exploring the moon and Mars, but why would you want to send Americans to Mars and establish long-term human presence on the moon, especially when the world economy isn't doing so well.

Isn't this thread the same as this thread >>

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=213605

The reasosn behind this at the current time is mainly political just like the original moon landing but a means to an end as they say and this is a long term plan, not next week by the way.

The US economy if you are looking at growth isn't too bad off actually, 8% rate isn't too shabby; then again your national defecit is pretty shocking and the dollar is falling through the floor and isn't stopping in a hurry but that is what is powering the growth.

You have a lot of expensiveoperations underway as a nation but homeland security does cost a lot, fighting terrorism will cost you more than pocket change.

I am all for space exploration and so are most western gov's but it is expensive and with Columbia last year it only backs up the point that Bush is only laying the groundwork for it, it takes years to plan and construct a manned mission; because of the term limits in the US the chances of Bush seeing any of his vision are very slim.

Well, the link you posted was based on speculation, this one is fairly concrete and the scheduled announcement was confirmed by the White House press secretary. But the idea is the same, yes. :) And the article does mention that the missions won't take place for another decade or more.

Originally posted by hycloud
Hey Bush. US is on the verge of bankruptcy. How about spending money on the US economy and creating more job here on Earth.

I'm all for exploring the moon and Mars, but why would you want to send Americans to Mars and establish long-term human presence on the moon, especially when the world economy isn't doing so well.

lol... agreed

I don't know what I'll do, besides scream like a silly school girl, if Bush gets re-elected.

It's about time! I've said since day 1 that the ISS was nothing but a huge waste of money.. Epsecially when we've got all that real estate wasted on the moon.

And the moon does not have orbital decay.. It's been there for thousands of years and will be there thousnads of years longer than the ISS will survive..

Other major Bush plans for the new millennium:

1. Unlimited bandwidth
2. No Cogent
3. $10 vBulletin licenses

Bush's plan:

- Establish constant man presence on the moon
- Wait for another nation to do the same
- Kick them out of the moon "cause we own it"

:)

This is a smart move by Mr. Who talks like a stoned high drop out (Bush). He can promise all he wants but he knows that this will not happen during his administration. So, he can make the world's biggest promises such as this and he won't be reponsible for them, but it sure sounds good in the media.

Originally posted by hycloud
Hey Bush. US is on the verge of bankruptcy. How about spending money on the US economy and creating more job here on Earth.

I'm all for exploring the moon and Mars, but why would you want to send Americans to Mars and establish long-term human presence on the moon, especially when the world economy isn't doing so well.

uh... the US is 240 trillion dollars in debt (or something along those lines). Bankruptcy just isn't going to happen.

By the way, have you looked at the stock market lately?

Right, I forgot that our great nation is already bankrupt except that no one can bail us out of this massive debt except ourselves.

Yes, stocks are doing much better. Go large companies! Keep off-shoring American jobs to other countries so your profits will increase. That way your stocks will increase too. Whoopie! Screw the American populace. Stock prices and large company profits rule and nothing else matters!

I think its finally time - I mean come on, we have the means - lets get the hell up there and start colonizing...

When do we get to kick Nujak┼≥¢ from K┬Xû's a$$ with a nuke and take over it's planet?

Let's get on with it already, I dont know why we're holding back.

Haha...

Sure, after colonizing it, let's spend another $87 billion on building schools and hospitals on Mars. :D

Hehehe,how long will it take them to get to mars???? 5 years?????? And what do you do in those 5 years?????? I cant even imagine it (Or maybe i dont want to)

The Dude :)

LoL, the moon is not 5 years away in space travel terms... its a mere few days.

No,i meant mars!!!

The Dude :D

Even mars isn't that far away :)

It took the lander we sent what, about 6-8 months to get there so in the grand scheme of things thats not too bad.

I plan on buying myself a ticket to Mars as soon as they are offering non stop flights.

:)

On the time it takes to get to Mars you have to take its orbit into account; this year Mars was the closest it has been for years so the probes oly took 6-7 months to arrive at the Red Planet, however i still would put the worse case scenario at 18-20 months depending upon cargo at our current technology.

That said there is a new "ion drive" being tested on the ESA Smart-1 moon probe so our engine and power plant technology could advance quite rapidly over the next decade.

On what they would do over the time period, for one monitor craftsystems, hydroponics, analyse what's out their window, read, talk to the other crew. Oh if i knew what fields of expertise that they'd take on the first mission i would go to Uni and study it.

Even if it took 5 years, i would go :wavey: HEY NASA or ESA if you're looking for volunteers.

WOW,its not as long as i thought!!!!!

Still,what would you do for those 20 months???

The Dude :)

My god we got a lunatic in office. I can't wait to cast my vote for a democrat. We are all for landing on the moon, but not with the cost of the tax payer. I want to see more money put into our econmic system and less trading with foreign countries. We've thrived in imperialism and we must do so again.

okay , what kinda ship that will hold enough 6-8 month supplies for 100 ppl ?!!

Most likley it would be a crew of 8-10 people at most, probabbly only about 6 for such a long flight, there's also the possibility of pre-launching re-supply pods and placing them along the path to mars to be "picked up" soto speak during the trip. Infact thats about the only real way to do it without having something the size of a air craft carrier in space :).

Originally posted by hycloud
Hey Bush. US is on the verge of bankruptcy. How about spending money on the US economy and creating more job here on Earth.

I'm all for exploring the moon and Mars, but why would you want to send Americans to Mars and establish long-term human presence on the moon, especially when the world economy isn't doing so well.

Blame it on these large corporations that outsource their tech support to India

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=SVBIZINK3.story&STORY=/www/story/01-06-2004/0002084099&EDATE=TUE+Jan+06+2004,+11:50+AM


Approximately 1,300 employees will be directly impacted.

Originally posted by inogenius
uh... the US is 240 trillion dollars in debt (or something along those lines). Bankruptcy just isn't going to happen.

By the way, have you looked at the stock market lately? Hehe, actually, there's a debt cap, currently set at $7.4 trillion, the current PD is around $7 trillion. Far too much IMO, but if it was $240 trillion, we'd be totally fscked.

http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opds122003.htm
http://www.cato.org/current/federalspending/index.html

The national debt could be eliminated rather easily if taxes were raised just a few percentage points, but nobody wants to raise taxes since it won't help them get (re)elected.

Also, I invite anybody interested on the subject to read "The Economic Viability of Mars Colonization" http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Tech/Space/mars.html

It's a fascinating read and thoroughly explores and explains ways that Mars colonization can be... well, viable.

Personally, I'd rather see a cessation of wasteful spending, the tax issue simply doesn't work with the current trend to spend to appease and get votes. The more they take, the more they'll spend. Bush is on course to be the biggest spender since FDR. There's no good alternative when every party does it.

I used to laugh at Clinton's state of the union addresses, it was like a free for all, thankfully he'd never follow through with most of it. Then I see Bush giving away everything. Sigh.

There's a lot of ways to save money, but I'll save it for an appropriate thread.

Originally posted by MDJ2000
Hehe, actually, there's a debt cap, currently set at $7.4 trillion, the current PD is around $7 trillion. Far too much IMO, but if it was $240 trillion, we'd be totally fscked.

http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opds122003.htm
http://www.cato.org/current/federalspending/index.html

Get Bill Gates to pay it.

That'd cover about .5%

President Bush will announce plans next week to send Americans to Mars and back to the moon and to establish a long-term human presence on the moon, senior administration officials said Thursday night.

Is that like relocate America to the moon .. gee I would donate a few dollars if that was the case. :D

Doc

this one goes out for bush and his mars mission
http://www.business.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=28432004

Bush is accused of being a protectionist, so you're blaming him for the result of decades old free trade policies?

This annoys me. Hate Bush, hate Dean, just say it, posting some sob story about lost jobs has nothing to do with anything.

Educate yourself.

:crap: so after trying to achieve a PhD in mobile telecommunications , i need to be re-educated, thanks for the advice.

But you need to see beyond your emotion my friend, why don't you think the other way around, just imagine delaying the Mars mission for just 4 years? What’s going to happen? Really what’s going to happen?
or is it just a personal achievements that bush had to make?

My comment wasn't even about delaying the Mars mission, I was simply pointing out that Bush had nothing to do with Levi's laying off people. It's old trade policies and the strong dollar policy that have hurt U.S. manufacturing so badly in the last 50 years, not some figurehead. I'd be afraid if a U.S. president did have that much impact.

My anger was because I see this all the time, from all political angles. People try to attribute everything that ever happened under an administration as though they had control over everything. The "Bush recession" started a year before the guy ever took office. It wasn't Clinton's fault, it was simply time, too much paper wealth and "irrational exburance" as Greenspan put it. Jesus himself couldn't have kept the economy going at that rate. :)

Originally posted by MDJ2000
My anger was because I see this all the time, from all political angles. People try to attribute everything that ever happened under an administration as though they had control over everything. The "Bush recession" started a year before the guy ever took office. It wasn't Clinton's fault, it was simply time, too much paper wealth and "irrational exburance" as Greenspan put it. Jesus himself couldn't have kept the economy going at that rate. :) Thank you. So many people either miss the point or simply ignore the facts when it comes to this. Even a simple look at the stock market over the past 4-5 years will show what you said to be the case, that the economy was in a downslide well before President Bush was in office.

i have to agree with both of you, but my point is money-billion acutally- is being spent in the wrong direction. thats just my 2 c. :)

I don't think most people are blaming Bush for the recession. I think they are blaming Bush for not doing much about it and making the situation worst.

Originally posted by hycloud
I don't think most people are blaming Bush for the recession. I think they are blaming Bush for not doing much about it and making the situation worst.
Making the recession worse? He's done everything in his power to make the economy recover and it's working! The economy has grown as of late, and will continue to grow by the looks of it.

inogenius,

Um... yeah. Sure it is. Economy is going great.
Let's just ignore the millions of Americans who are unemployed. Let's just ignore the highest bankruptcy filing last year (and this year might top last year). Let's just ignore all the jobs going overseas. Let's just ignore the growing population of homeless Americans.

Bush has done everything in his power to increase big corporation profits while the middle class and people in poverty are sufferring.

Let's have a tax cut that mostly benefit the rich and has done nothing so far but increase our national deficit. Screw welfare, medicare, and social security.

Let's invade Iraq and spend $87 billion dollars to colonize it. Screw America, they don't need better schools and hospitals.

Let's start spending millions and billions of dollars on a space program to colonize the moon and Mars. America has lots of money and there are no better use for the money anyway.

Let's allow illegal immigrants to take jobs away from US citizens. Americans don't want those jobs anyway. They rather be homeless.


Guess what? Even if the economy is recovering, stocks are going up, and big companies are making huge profits, it doesn't mean sh*t. You know why? This will be a jobless recovery meaning new jobs will not be created in the US because all these new jobs will be created in other countries as more and more companies are offshoring. The gap between the rich and the poor will increase even greater. What good is an economic recover when there are no jobs for American?

Wake up people! Can't you see what Bush is doing? Help big business. Screw the middle and lower class.

The key word here is "jobs, jobs, jobs". And Bush is NOT giving us "jobs, jobs, jobs". All he is doing is allowing big companies to earn more profits which does not create more jobs because there jobs are being offshore. DOH!

I think this is really getting out of hand.

Look the main problem for the US economy in the ong term is the rate of the Dollar if it doesn't begin to climb by June or July.

However the market crash didn't help jobs and Bush can't be held responsible for Enron and World Com can he? Those two incidents took away a lot of jobs.

Considering there is an ever growing rate of self employment in the G8 member nations the rise in jobs won't necessarily be as rapid as you think; the whole planet has taken a hit in the pocket in recent years and it isn't all Bush's fault.

Anyway, why are you talking US economics in a thread about Space? This looks like an indirect attempt to start a thread that was intended to lead to Bush bashing.

Was it? >> thread starter

That really annoys me when people do that, why not just set out what it is going to be about in the Subject? Why not call it "US Economy, discuss.." or something like that?

I always try and stress what a thread i start will be about as much as possible in the subject and they might be long but at least people know.

That isn't what i see here.

Maybe time to close it or let it go, it doesn't appear to be on topic or serving a constructive debate.

I do not like the idea of having our hands in something so vital to our survival. What if so how this affects the Earth? It could kill us all if we populate the moon. It could cause tsumanis and various natural diasters.

Hmm... you mean the moon affecting the tide and if the additional shift in weight would affect the tide and cause tsunamis? Hmm.. I didn't think of that. Guess the moon is important. :D

It's great to see the nasa program taking on projects like this again. It seems as it's bee on hold for too long.

Originally posted by Critic
Anyway, why are you talking US economics in a thread about Space? This looks like an indirect attempt to start a thread that was intended to lead to Bush bashing.

Was it? >> thread starter

That really annoys me when people do that, why not just set out what it is going to be about in the Subject? Why not call it "US Economy, discuss.." or something like that? Critic, that is not what I intended by starting this thread. It was simply meant as a general news post. I did follow up to one off-topic post on this page, but I hardly pointed the thread in that direction and I usually avoid economic/political discussions here in general so I don't know how you can even imply that.

Anyway, hopefully this thread will either get back on topic or be forgotten until the actual announcement is made next week.

Originally posted by Eric Radtke
Critic, that is not what I intended by starting this thread. It was simply meant as a general news post. I did follow up to one off-topic post on this page, but I hardly pointed the thread in that direction and I usually avoid economic/political discussions here in general so I don't know how you can even imply that.

Anyway, hopefully this thread will either get back on topic or be forgotten until the actual announcement is made next week.

Okay, maybe i went a bit too far with accusing you personally to the extent that i did and since i have no proof that what i said was your intention i concede on that.

But i am not one to mince my words however.

It seems clear that this thread has been hijacked by some, including; "Kerry Jones" and "hycloud" for the purpose of slagging off Bush and seem to have little intention to discuss the opening statement.

I have no problem with Politics in the Lounge but in a thread intended for it. There are a lot of Democrats here who have a lot to say, i suggest that they start a thread called "Democrats Rantafon" or "What Bush does wrong in our view" every week and get it off their chest. I am one of those swing voters so i might agree...

But not in here.


I fully agree with your last paragraph but whether it will happen or not is something else.

I was attempting to keep the thread under control; that is all.

The topic of this thread is directly related to what is going on around the world today. It links to Bush, economy, and politics. I can argue that the author of this thread could've named the thread to something like "Should we go to Mars." Once you invovle Bush it becomes a political thread.

Originally posted by Critic
Okay, maybe i went a bit too far with accusing you personally to the extent that i did and since i have no proof that what i said was your intention i concede on that.

But i am not one to mince my words however.

It seems clear that this thread has been hijacked by some, including; "Kerry Jones" and "hycloud" for the purpose of slagging off Bush and seem to have little intention to discuss the opening statement.

I have no problem with Politics in the Lounge but in a thread intended for it. There are a lot of Democrats here who have a lot to say, i suggest that they start a thread called "Democrats Rantafon" or "What Bush does wrong in our view" every week and get it off their chest. I am one of those swing voters so i might agree...

But not in here.


I fully agree with your last paragraph but whether it will happen or not is something else.

I was attempting to keep the thread under control; that is all.

Me no HiJack, Me HyCloud. I'm not a Democrat. I'm not even registered to vote, but I will vote in this election.

Hmm.. considering the thread was about Bush and him wanting to spend millions, billions, and trillions of American tax dollars on colonizing the moon and Mars, we are not really off topic discussing about Bush and American tax dollars.
You really think Bush gives a sh*t about space exploration?

Originally posted by Critic
Okay, maybe i went a bit too far with accusing you personally to the extent that i did and since i have no proof that what i said was your intention i concede on that.

But i am not one to mince my words however.

It seems clear that this thread has been hijacked by some, including; "Kerry Jones" and "hycloud" for the purpose of slagging off Bush and seem to have little intention to discuss the opening statement.Yeah, I understand what you mean. I just wanted to clarify that I wasn't a part of the sub-discussion until page 3, since you had singled me out.

I just thought it was an interesting story and it had pretty much fallen off the news radar since the rumors first came out more than a month ago so I felt like posting it. *shrug* No particular angle... not "US Economy, discuss.." or even "Should we go to Mars."

Originally posted by Critic
There are a lot of Democrats here who have a lot to say, i suggest that they start a thread called "Democrats Rantafon" or "What Bush does wrong in our view" every week and get it off their chest.lol

I really just think BUSH is trying to get people to not think about this war and the fact that a helicopter was shot down yesterday :angry:

The Dude :)

You really think Bush gives a sh*t about space exploration?

I don't know what his personal views on space exploration are but i do know that he or any US president won't let the Chinese of all nations go and do it first if he/she can help it and that is a cert.

Bush has done everything in his power to increase big corporation profits while the middle class and people in poverty are sufferring.

Let's have a tax cut that mostly benefit the rich and has done nothing so far but increase our national deficit. Screw welfare, medicare, and social security.

Let's invade Iraq and spend $87 billion dollars to colonize it. Screw America, they don't need better schools and hospitals.

Let's start spending millions and billions of dollars on a space program to colonize the moon and Mars. America has lots of money and there are no better use for the money anyway.

Let's allow illegal immigrants to take jobs away from US citizens. Americans don't want those jobs anyway. They rather be homeless.


Guess what? Even if the economy is recovering, stocks are going up, and big companies are making huge profits, it doesn't mean sh*t. You know why? This will be a jobless recovery meaning new jobs will not be created in the US because all these new jobs will be created in other countries as more and more companies are offshoring. The gap between the rich and the poor will increase even greater. What good is an economic recover when there are no jobs for American?

Wake up people! Can't you see what Bush is doing? Help big business. Screw the middle and lower class.


hycloud, now i admit that funding is something to consider about a mission on this scale but these comments and others by other users appear to go deeper and are not just pointing out a downside for this project

It just seemed to me that there was a deeper prejudice or hatred even of a person or his actions. I can tell you for one that Kerry Jones is a Democrat and a strong one at that and i still don't think has forgotten the whold hanging chad thing in Florida.

I said how i saw it and if you don't mind me saying so, before i said what i did, the third page was turning into an argument about the state of the US economy so some good might have come out of it.


If i've jumped to the wrong conclusions utterly, put me straight and tell me, i'll accept it, humility and being able to accept such is something every person should be able to do in my opinion.

Eric Radtke, i agree that this is a good topic to discuss, that is why we've both brought it up at different times.

*I'm still in mourning for poor old Beagle 2* Anyway let's get back to space.

I've made my position clear that i would spend years going to Mars and coming back not knowing what we would find but aware of the dangers.

However, would you??

Ok on the money issue, i bet selling the moon would be a nice profit lol. I don't know that sounds like a good idea because the US would own most of the livable land in the solar system. So that would easily get us out of debt. I just hope they aren't like some of the european countries in the 1500s and lose it because they don't know how to manage it.

Ok, some National newspapers in the UK have commented on the issue, this is what they've said:

I am paraphrasing here.

The Independent >> It is clear that there is nothing on Mars, he should stay at home and boldly go back to the UN.

Critic: A bit of an agenda there then.

Daily Telegraph >> It is the duty of the United States as the sole super power to explore space and the Red Planet.

Critic: So another view there.

I'll point out that The Independent is a V Left Wing orientated newspaper.

I will also point out that the Daily Telegraph is a Centre Right to Right wing newspaper.

Personally i think that the Independent has got it all wrong and their view is very immature in my opinion.

Originally posted by Critic
Ok, some National newspapers in the UK have commented on the issue, this is what they've said:

I am paraphrasing here.

The Independent >> It is clear that there is nothing on Mars, he should stay at home and boldly go back to the UN.

Critic: A bit of an agenda there then.

Daily Telegraph >> It is the duty of the United States as the sole super power to explore space and the Red Planet.

Critic: So another view there.

I'll point out that The Independent is a V Left Wing orientated newspaper.

I will also point out that the Daily Telegraph is a Centre Right to Right wing newspaper.

Personally i think that the Independent has got it all wrong and their view is very immature in my opinion.

Frankly, I find the view of the daily very immature. I can't stand one thing, and that is thinking that you or your country is the best. It's nobody's duty to go anywhere, hell, I don't care who goes first. The US should focus on their own problems before making more.

I have to agree with the Independent. Solve problems here first, then get shot into space.

You should be made aware of The Independent's position.

The reason i believe it is an immature approach is that they have a clear anti Bush bias which has been shown ovedr the past 12 months or so. They are not concerned with space, they used the article to have a dig at the US on the war with Iraq and the UN.

That is why i believe it is immature.

What the Daily Telegraph are trying to say in my opinion and i haven't seen the article in full i'll pint out, is that if a nation is as far advanced and possesses the wealth that the US does has a duty or obligation to use it to further the human race as others can't.

I don't believe the burden should be that of the US alone but right now, today, you are the best placed to do so. I would support the actions of NASA and they also have certain political obligations as well which the Independent wouldn't agree with so no need to go into that.

hycloud, now i admit that funding is something to consider about a mission on this scale but these comments and others by other users appear to go deeper and are not just pointing out a downside for this project

It just seemed to me that there was a deeper prejudice or hatred even of a person or his actions. I can tell you for one that Kerry Jones is a Democrat and a strong one at that and i still don't think has forgotten the whold hanging chad thing in Florida

You are right about me being a strong democrat. I have not forgotten the event that took place in Florida. The United States would of been in better shape had Al Gore took office. Bush does not care about us. He is a republican and only cares to feed his fat oily pocket. I want to own a business, but I still want to pay my fair share of the taxes. I mean look at Cilton. He raised minium wage during his term and numerous things. I care for my people and i'm tired of seeing them rot in the streets. I see many homeless people and i'm on the verge along with my family becoming homeless because of people like bush who spend money like they own the ****ing country.

Edit: I'm sorry i'm angry, but i'm going to be voting this year and i'm going to vote for a democrat. I also did not mean to hijack this thread.

Well being a Democrat Kerry Jones, will you be dong a thread on that slightly odd political system that could be important for the Democrats known as the Iowa caucusesason for this thread

Going back to the original reason for this thread and Bush ans space flight, well he made the actual announcment today at NASA headquaters.

A quick few points from the speech:

Shuttle Programme to end by 2010.
Manned space flight to the Moon and plans for a permenant base by 2015.
Manned mission to Mars by not long after 2030.

I am a bit disappointed by the timeline for a manned mission to Mars and soon ater 2030 could mean a fair few years. I suppose that the Moon mission is a result of the Chinese dipping their toes in the "space" water and eyeing it up for a base and that in turn will delay things. I think it is a bit risky to stop the shuttle programme by 2010 unless there is a replacement not too far off; you wouldn't want the ISS and such to be dependent on a foreign power. Ok i just heard that therei something called a crew exploration vehicle being prepared to replace it so scrap that but i willdo some research as i hope he isn't referring to the 4 seater shuttle i heard about.