musings of wrath

NASA has a budget of 16 BILLION dollars.

I bet I could get us to Mars in 5 years on a budget of 10 billion.

Yo, right here, I’ll go with!

indeed!

me, you and kat, populate mars with redheads!

Here, here!

It costs 1 billion sometimes just be build a super nice hotel in LA… It sounds like a lot but it gets eaten up pretty fast. It all depends on where, how, and what. It’d take at least 1 billion just to design and build a leaky space craft that could carry people to Mars. Another 1 billion to design a craft that would carry some equipment that might work on mars for constructing things… it adds up. That’s not even including salary of every employee.

But… on the other hand, it’s 16 billion every year. *baffles* I think the main problem for it is just how harsh mar’s environment supposedly is.

shooman out

NASA is still what I consider to be the best investment in any government run program…

Look at what all was developed/perfected/simplified for mass use in NASA…

I personally live the million dollar pen idea - the US spent lots of money on a pen that would write in zero-g. The russians use pencils.

burt rotan could. 25 million to go from nothing but ideas to repeatable space flight. nasa can’t even launch a shuttle for 25m and they already have it sitting in the parking lot. nasa, a shining example of government bloat.

nice blackbird.

Building a super-nice hotel is a LOT bigger project than a spaceflight ready vehicle that only needs to carry MAYBE 8 people. That’s what multiple trips are for.

My point is, I know people (including myself) that would work for a FRACTION of what some of these NASA engineers and astronauts work for. Hell, if they provided me and my wife a place to live, a monthly food/sundries allowance, and -maybe- some healthcare coverage, I’d work for just that.

Hmm.. That comes out to more than I’m making now..

I agree it’s the best investment, but it’s probably one of the most horribly mismanaged investments of tax funds.

16 Billion dollars could probably be spent more wisely. After all, what do we need to be giving out $50,000 prizes for someone making a better tether? Pay me $50k / year as a job, and I’ll figure it out myself, within that year.

On top of that, they want to give $150,000 NEXT year if someone can make an even better tether.

It almost sounds like a pyramid scheme.

heh.

charcoal for me!

exactly my point.

if burt rotan can build a re-entry vehicle for under 30 million, that can be scaled up in size to accomodate more people/equipment, why can’t 10 billion, over the next 5 years, be put towards building a REAL mission to mars that involves multiple teams and expeditions?

I think NASA could survive on 14 billion.. what about you?

I think nasa, while in the past doing great things, has outlived its usefullness and should be canceled

or at least all the cast and crew fired.

8 people plus food/supplies to last the very long round trip it takes to get there and back? Plus, what are you planning on doing there, putting up a flag and making a statement and then leaving? Or are you going to add in tonnage to actually put stuff on mars?

w3rd.

Burt Rotan is my hero.

LOL. I think his goal was to put men on mars. His gripe doesn’t seem to be that they can’t colonize Mars specifically (although that is probably something he’d want to achieve) but that they can’t even get human life to walk on Mars yet with any amount of safety. That’d have to be even demonstrated possible before they could do anything like terraform Mars. And right now, NASA can’t even seem to keep all the data gathering equipment they send to Mars safe.

shooman out

you want me dead, don’t you?

shooman is mostly correct, but my intention is a one-way trip. We know enough about the planet right now to be able to setup the beginnings of a colony.

Colonies fail sometimes, but if we don’t try, we’ll NEVER succeed.

If I get the time, I plan on visiting one of his shops while in Phoenix.

d00d get me that man’s autograph if you can i want it i want it i want it

from what I understand, he’s very approachable.

I will love you forever if you can get that man’s autograph for me

you don’t already!? O.o