CNN: Barack Obama: America will take the giant leap to Mars

[No Excuses]

Quote

 

When our Apollo astronauts looked back from space, they realized that while their mission was to explore the moon, they had "in fact discovered the Earth." If we make our leadership in space even stronger in this century than it was in the last, we won't just benefit from related advances in energy, medicine, agriculture and artificial intelligence, we'll benefit from a better understanding of our environment and ourselves.

Someday, I hope to hoist my own grandchildren onto my shoulders. We'll still look to the stars in wonder, as humans have since the beginning of time. But instead of eagerly awaiting the return of our intrepid explorers, we'll know that because of the choices we make now, they've gone to space not just to visit, but to stay -- and in doing so, to make our lives better here on Earth.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/11/opinions/america-will-take-giant-leap-to-mars-barack-obama/index.html

[TheGoodBits]

Highly recommend everyone listen to the dramatic Interstellar music while reading this article.

[tshile]

That's great but I don't see anything in the article about increasing the budget for NASA? I've been very disappointed with the overall lack of appreciation for what NASA's R&D programs do for us regular people and how our politicians have been gutting (or simply not increasing) their budget over the last 2 decades.

 

[ixcuincle]

Haven't we sent Matt Damon to Mars before though. 

[justice98]

4 minutes ago, ixcuincle said:

Haven't we sent Matt Damon to Mars before though. 

And it was a giant cluster@#$!.  We'll never learn.

[No Excuses]

7 minutes ago, tshile said:

That's great but I don't see anything in the article about increasing the budget for NASA? I've been very disappointed with the overall lack of appreciation for what NASA's R&D programs do for us regular people and how our politicians have been gutting (or simply not increasing) their budget over the last 2 decades.

 

FWIW, NASA did see a  substantial increase in funding in the last budget.

http://www.planetary.org/blogs/casey-dreier/2015/1216-nasa-gets-an-extraordinary-budget-in-2016.html

Quote

 

After months of delay, Congress unveiled its plans for funding the federal government in 2016. NASA will fare extraordinarily well. The space agency will receive $19.3 billion—nearly $1.3 billion more than it did last year. This is the same top-line level we proposed back in October. I called it the "everybody wins" scenario. And I admit, it seemed a little fantastical to me at the time. But here we are. Congress went to bat for NASA and pulled out a bigger increase than anyone expected.

So, did everybody win? Almost. Here are some highlights (a full table for comparison is provided below).

 

 

The article has a lot more details.

[Kilmer17]

Bravo Mr President!  Big dreams bring big successes.  Very happy to hear this.

[justice98]

So are we just done with the moon?  Move along, nothing to see here?  That's always been highly curious to me.  It cant be we learned all there is to know.  And I would think that'd be good prep for whatever we plan to do with Mars.

[haithman]

Please don't leave us Obama

 

[Gibbs Hog Heaven]

Shouldn't ya'll set your sights lower and actually land on the moon first? ...... 

Hail. 

[Kilmer17]

11 minutes ago, justice98 said:

So are we just done with the moon?  Move along, nothing to see here?  That's always been highly curious to me.  It cant be we learned all there is to know.  And I would think that'd be good prep for whatever we plan to do with Mars.

Yes.  There is no scientific reason to go back to the moon.  It's essentially a rock.

1 minute ago, Gibbs Hog Heaven said:

Shouldn't ya'll set your sights lower and actually land on the moon first? ...... 

Hail. 

Radiation Belt!  Fluttering Flags!  Impossible Photos!

 

Im still convinced flight 77 landed there and Barbara Olsen is running an all inclusive resort.

[Renegade7]

Wasn't until I opened the link until I realized Obama actually wrote that and not just an article, that's really cool.

Our biggest challenge is going to be getting there, we can get there, but how long the trip takes. I believe someone is going to get there in the 2030s, and seen lots of progress in propulsion technologies like plasma. With private sector getting involved, we will be space faring race very fast once we can shrink the travel time down (now that we are addressing reusable rockets to bring launch costs down).

[Kilmer17]

Here's what's happening with the EmDrive.  

https://hacked.com/new-published-results-impossible-emdrive-propulsion-expected-soon/

Sidenote- I went to high school with the leader of that lab.  

 

[pjfootballer]

I know a few politicians that I'd like to take a Giant Leap.

 

Anyway, I love seeing us spend money in space exploration instead of the military. 

[twa]

one way trip?

[TradeTheBeal!]

Nah...let's use the money to build a giant wall.

[Springfield]

M A R S!  Mars ****es!

[justice98]

46 minutes ago, Kilmer17 said:

Yes.  There is no scientific reason to go back to the moon.  It's essentially a rock.

That's a gross oversimplification.

Colonize the moon, then branch out to Mars would be the logical progression.  Going to Mars seems like putting the cart before the horse.  We basically went there a few times, took some samples and nobody's been back since.  

You would at least think some other country woulda done it.  Russia and China were talking about putting a permanent base on the moon by the 2030s.  I'll believe it when I see it.  We had plans to do it and they never come to fruition.

[boobiemiles]

We are going to need another place to exploit right? The Middle East is to alien to our sense of democracy.  You can't exploit the slaves, or Native Americans. Why not Mars.  All we need to do is find something that people see as valuable and then it will be T minus 10, 9,8......  

[Kilmer17]

6 minutes ago, justice98 said:

That's a gross oversimplification.

Colonize the moon, then branch out to Mars would be the logical progression.  Going to Mars seems like putting the cart before the horse.  We basically went there a few times, took some samples and nobody's been back since.  

You would at least think some other country woulda done it.  Russia and China were talking about putting a permanent base on the moon by the 2030s.  I'll believe it when I see it.  We had plans to do it and they never come to fruition.

It was meant to be 

 

It's unrealistic to attempt to use the Moon as a launch point to get to Mars and beyond.  There is no natural resource there, so everything would need to be brought their first.  Much easier to launch to Mars from Earth.

[justice98]

1 minute ago, Kilmer17 said:

It was meant to be 

 

It's unrealistic to attempt to use the Moon as a launch point to get to Mars and beyond.  There is no natural resource there, so everything would need to be brought their first.  Much easier to launch to Mars from Earth.

It's not unrealistic, NASA's already planning to do it and launch Mars missions from there.  I wont pretend like I knew that, but apparently that's the case.  They came up with this idea when Bush Jr's return to manned Moon missions were a thing. The plan was to be based around the poles were there's water and minerals.

[Renegade7]

I thought the moon had metal, water ice, and helium 3? Anyway, Mars has space, and as our population continues to expand, that's going to matter. We're hiding how well we're able to keep up with demand for food, water, and land, and that's in part because so much of the planet isn't able to get it reliably. There's no telling if our current system could even handle bringing everyone out of poverty.