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The lifetime cost of this mission is $1.1B. For the price of a space shuttle program, we could get 200 of these. ISS is worth 100 of these. If we're really se
by idlewords 9y ago
The lifetime cost of this mission is $1.1B.
For the price of a space shuttle program, we could get 200 of these. ISS is worth 100 of these.
If we're really serious about space exploration, robot probes and telescopes give by far the biggest bang for the buck, and they go where no human being can ever go. That Jupiter flyby would cook you like an egg.
- adrianN 9y agoRobotic missions won't make us a multiplanetary society though (neither does the space shuttle...). I think that's important too.
- Baeocystin 9y agoI am 100% certain it will be robots that construct the first habitats for any future Mars or Moon inhabitants. As much as I want an interplanetary future for humanity, the case for concentrating on robotic exploration is just too strong to not have them be the primary focus of development for now. Not to the exclusion of humanity, mind you. But to do the work to get to the point where we can confidently send people on a mission that isn't either temporary or suicide.
- adrianN 9y agoSure, robots are important, but it's not robots circling around Jupiter that we need to build. We're already pretty good at that. There doesn't seem to be any serious money for developing robots that help with the construction of habitats for humans.
- Baeocystin 9y agoNot directly for those purposes, sure. But it isn't much of a skip to see future derivatives of mil-sponsored research like Boston Dynamic's Atlas and Big Dog being put to use as workers in hostile environments, both here on Earth and in space. The civilian space program would never have gotten as far as it has without massive transfer from the military spending on boosters, after all, so the direction of transfer has precedent.
- idlewords 9y agoA lot of us think that's a specious goal. Earth has oxygen, the food is good, there's decent nightlife. And all my stuff is here.
- adrianN 9y agoLuckily humanity has enough resources to pursue multiple goals simultaneously
- idlewords 9y agoNot this one. To create an outpost off-planet capable of sustaining human civilization at its current level in the event something happened to Earth would consume our entire economic output for many years, if it were even achievable.
- eponeponepon 9y agoAll your stuff is here, sure. What about your great-grandchildren?
- idlewords 9y ago
- maverick_iceman 9y agoNeither ISS nor space shuttles advance the cause of multiplanetary society. What good does it do to put a large satellite 250 miles up when all the interesting pieces of land are more than hundred thousand miles away?
- thearn4 9y agoThe congressional politics of the districts where the development of human space flight systems are a major employer are, unfortunately, a huge factor in NASA's budget earmarks. Also known as the "Alabama Space Mafia".
- njarboe 9y agoYanis Varoufakis, Greek Minister of Finance during the Greek debt crises, has suggested that the (somewhat hidden) redistribution of money from the wealthy parts of USA to the poorer part via federal government spending is part of what allows the poorer parts of the USA not have the same level of problems that Greece (and Spain?) has with respect to Germany in the EU. The EU budget is about 1% of European GDP while US federal budget is abut 20% of USA GDP.