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NASA Considers Putting an Asteroid Into Orbit Around the Moon
wraith808:
Considering they're talking about an asteroid 7m in diameter, I think the concerns are a bit overstated. Definitely an easier way to study the asteroid... but not sure what we're supposed to be getting from the asteroid in the first place for the monies.
SeraphimLabs:
Yeah, an asteroid only 7m in diameter would do less damage than one of our own rockets falling out of orbit. After all asteroids are mostly inert metallic components, while our ships frequently contain quantities of rocket fuel, nuclear materials, and battery chemicals.
The change in tidal forces such an asteroid would produce would be nigh insignificant, and if anything goes wrong our descendants in the distant future can just launch a giant ball of garbage to deflect any errant moons or asteroids safely away from the earth.
Tinman57:
I have a much better idea, let's spend that $2.6 billion on our own economy. I'm not anti-NASA or anything, but this is somewhat extreme even for NASA, especially for that amount of money that could be better spent elsewhere....
SeraphimLabs:
I have a much better idea, let's spend that $2.6 billion on our own economy. I'm not anti-NASA or anything, but this is somewhat extreme even for NASA, especially for that amount of money that could be better spent elsewhere....
-Tinman57 (January 05, 2013, 06:23 PM)
--- End quote ---
I have a feeling that this is just a hypothetical. They are looking at okay what would it take to do this, they're not going to actually do it.
Cause it doesn't really fit the pattern for what NASA would normally be doing.
Although building the rockets required to make this happen would most certainly be an economic stimulis. This is where people get the space program wrong.
Those billions of dollars spent on each flight?
It's not wasted. That money went into the hands of the engineers and scientists that made it possible, and the factory workers making the hardware. Billions of dollars into the US economy, and indeed the global economy for each rocket built regardless of if it succeeds in its mission or not.
A fair portion of that comes back as income taxes, and it also kicks up revenue from other sources as other industries move in to profit from the technology developed by the space program. Ultimately it could be a very profitable business even if only 1 out of every 2 rockets leaves the ground without exploding, although scientific success is far better than a high failure rate.
And I'd much rather see that kind of money spent paying people to build rockets as government employees or their subcontractors rather than being given away as handouts through Social Services because there aren't enough jobs.
Building rockets is a bigtime industry with a lot of work to be done.
wraith808:
I have a much better idea, let's spend that $2.6 billion on our own economy. I'm not anti-NASA or anything, but this is somewhat extreme even for NASA, especially for that amount of money that could be better spent elsewhere....
-Tinman57 (January 05, 2013, 06:23 PM)
--- End quote ---
I have a feeling that this is just a hypothetical. They are looking at okay what would it take to do this, they're not going to actually do it.
Cause it doesn't really fit the pattern for what NASA would normally be doing.
Although building the rockets required to make this happen would most certainly be an economic stimulis. This is where people get the space program wrong.
Those billions of dollars spent on each flight?
It's not wasted. That money went into the hands of the engineers and scientists that made it possible, and the factory workers making the hardware. Billions of dollars into the US economy, and indeed the global economy for each rocket built regardless of if it succeeds in its mission or not.
A fair portion of that comes back as income taxes, and it also kicks up revenue from other sources as other industries move in to profit from the technology developed by the space program. Ultimately it could be a very profitable business even if only 1 out of every 2 rockets leaves the ground without exploding, although scientific success is far better than a high failure rate.
And I'd much rather see that kind of money spent paying people to build rockets as government employees or their subcontractors rather than being given away as handouts through Social Services because there aren't enough jobs.
Building rockets is a bigtime industry with a lot of work to be done.
-SeraphimLabs (January 05, 2013, 06:28 PM)
--- End quote ---
This. Thanks for posting it so eloquently. And there is a lot to be learned, and a lot comes to us also in the way of advances from the discoveries of the vast expanse that exists beyond our atmosphere.
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