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NASA Considers Putting an Asteroid Into Orbit Around the Moon

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40hz:
When you put that on the table for comparison, space suddenly has a lot more reason to be visited. We won't need to worry about the Chinese taking over when we can divebomb them from space, and have colonies on other planets to support ourselves with if they decide to nuke the mainland.
-SeraphimLabs (January 09, 2013, 12:02 PM)
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But why would they want to - or we ever need to? Isn't space a big enough adventure and challenge that it could easily use up those extra 'defense' dollars plus all that excess testosterone and estrogen? Why bother with fighting over a hunk of miserable dirt in some back corner of the globe when the entire universe is out there waiting to be explored and colonized?

Who knows? Assuming we're not alone, there's also the chance we may finally meet somebody really interesting to talk to. ;D

wraith808:
We really do need to start looking beyond this one planet again. If for no other reason than embracing the wisdom of not keeping all your eggs in one basket. I personally think of the various manned space efforts as the ultimate embodiment of an "off premise" backup system.
 :Thmbsup:
-40hz (January 09, 2013, 01:56 PM)
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+1 :Thmbsup:

Carol Haynes:
Who knows? Assuming we're not alone, there's also the chance we may finally meet somebody really interesting to talk to.
-40hz (January 09, 2013, 02:02 PM)
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Hmmm - but would they find us interesting enough to talk too - or would we be their equivalent of primordial ooze  :-\

Renegade:
Well, bringing in budgetary considerations... not sure if this is sobering, or just throwing gas on the fire:

http://demonocracy.info/

Lots of excellent graphics there to put money in perspective. However, one needs to wrap one's mind around money in terms of pallets of $100 bills and football stadiums full of pallets of money or towers of money that dwarf skyscrapers.

$2.6 billion is about 1% of the US debt annual interest payments (which is still far more than is spent on education). Or perhaps over 50,000 US jobs (which we might imagine is about 500,000 Chinese jobs).

How much is $2.6 billion? Well, if you went on a crazy spending spree shopping every day, and managed to spend $10,000 a day, it would take you over 700 years (260,000 days) to spend. Just how many big screen TVs do you need? ;D (But think about it - if you went to the mall, could you spend $10,000 a day - without hitting the jewelry store - in normal shopping?)

Would that have any kind of impact on this:

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Well, that's just so hopeless that it wouldn't really matter much at all.

But this kind of sounds like helping a cocaine addict stop shooting by teaching them how to crack cocaine or introducing them to meth. Hey, it's cheaper.

Or perhaps it's more like trying to resolve bankruptcy problems by getting another credit card?

Here's a pretty visualisation of the US debt as a percentage of GDP:

http://visual.ly/united-states-debt-percentage-gdp-1940-2012

(It's rather large, so I'll not post the image. And I'm lazy. :P )

Some more pretty charts:

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1997_2017USb_G0f

As for simply spending as being good for jobs, well, not all spending is really equal:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=war+good+for+economy+myth


I'm all for space exploration and research, but good grief... Wouldn't it actually be nice to be able to afford it?  :o

Stoic Joker:
Who knows? Assuming we're not alone, there's also the chance we may finally meet somebody really interesting to talk to.
-40hz (January 09, 2013, 02:02 PM)
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Hmmm - but would they find us interesting enough to talk too-Carol Haynes (January 09, 2013, 03:40 PM)
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(hell) No ... But if we're lucky they might keep us as pets..

Ah... A dogs life!

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