Exploring Pluto? Do they think were STUPID????

Okay. I could be reaching, but why would we spend millions of $$$'s to explore PLUTO? Could it be a way to fund a secret mission? I'm talking about an asteroid closing in on us, or something extraterrestial related? It's gonna take 9 yrs to get there and it's cost is enormous.

If we are so interested in exploring the best way we can, why would'nt that money be spent on a trip to mars. Where we actually step foot on the martian soil and EXPLORE. I think we should know more about our universe, but this pluto mission could be handled with the Hubble Telescope or something else maybe. I just think it's uncalled for to spend so much money on this mission when we'll never step foot on pluto, or really have anything to do with it.

When I heard about this the other day, I automatically thought "NO WAY", are we sending this thing to pluto, its gotta be for something else! Am I reaching to far people? Should'nt this money be better spent on more important things in our skies? Like, asteroid deflection, a real mars mission, figuring a way to use the moon resources for energy? I know that were supposed to be going back to these places in the future, so, put this money aside for then or use it now for something beneficial to us.

I felt I needed to vent some this morning!!! Anyways, take care all, and lets have some thoughts on this.

MSTKN

Originally posted by mstkn28
If we are so interested in exploring the best way we can, why would'nt that money be spent on a trip to mars. Where we actually step foot on the martian soil and EXPLORE.

Well, we have sent plenty of probes to do exploring on Mars, as well as othr planets and moons. If you're talking about just sending men though and not using these probes, I just have one question... Would you cross the freeway without looking both ways? Because just venturing out into space without first probing what's going on wouldn't lead to a very successful mission..

I think we should know more about our universe, but this pluto mission could be handled with the Hubble Telescope or something else maybe. I just think it's uncalled for to spend so much money on this mission when we'll never step foot on pluto, or really have anything to do with it.

Hubble has taken images of Pluto...



Those smaller, blurrier images are actual raw images. So I don't think Hubble could do anything to help us explore Pluto or the Kuiper Belt.

So, going out to explore a planet we have relately no information about means that they're pulling a fast one on us? Is it THAT stupid to go to pluto, take some nice pics of europa on the way?

And why does it have to be about aliens or asteriods? It seems more stupid to think that its a big coverup to blow up an asteriod or meet an alien, then to think theyre gonna be snapping some hi-res pics of pluto. plus, if we never search, we'll never find this thing


[edit on 1-17-2006 by WolfofWar]

Pluto is interesting to us for a couple reasons.

First, it's on the very fringes of our solar system. Leaving aside the whole "planet vs. Kupier Belt Object" argument for the moment, Pluto, to most people, marks the ultimate limit of our solar system, so to send a probe there is to stretch out farther than we have in the past. This is simply feel-good PR, but when you're a publicly funded organization, the feel-good stuff is what keeps the money for more serious studies coming in.

Second, being the outermost planet, Pluto may collect things that the more protected inner planets rarely see. Sending a probe to Pluto should allow us to collect data on what's out there beyond the planets.

Third, Pluto is something of a middle ground between "planet" and any lesser bodies. By sending a probe to study it in greater detail than we can currently achieve from home, we can hope to learn something about how planetary bodies come together. Pluto should be relatively unchanged by the wear of atmosphere, water, or simple proximity to the sun, so we've got a chance to look at a very primal planet.

I'm sure if you contacted NASA, though it may take a bit of digging to get to one of the people on the project who has a moment to speak with you, you could probably get the specific, hard scientific goals that they're hoping to achieve with the probe. As a government agency, NASA's internal e-mail directory (at least, the phone directory may be as well) is accessible. The hardest part is getting a name of someone who can talk about it (that is to say, who can talk about it coherently. Have a conversation with a hardcore engineer about their specialty and see how often you need to make them backtrack and explain "simple" concepts )

another thing to note is that there is evidance that pluto might have an atmosphere and we need to send a probe there NOW in order to find out what it is before it gets too cold. Sending a probe to pluto would lead to one of the most important discovies of the decade. Just think, we could find out what Kuiper blet objects are made of, what the remenends of the solar system is made of.

It is more important to discover the unkown, then to re-explore the known.

If we are so interested in exploring the best way we can, why would'nt that money be spent on a trip to mars. Where we actually step foot on the martian soil and EXPLORE.

Yup all well and good, till you ask yourself... How they gonna get home? How are they going to lift off of the planet? The last time I looked theres no space port on Mars. Little different then the moon.

Personally, I think space exploration is waste of time and money. Look for the asteroids, sure. But beyond that, its boring and pointless. Theres nothing out there. At least, not as far as we can go. I just dont understand the point of spending that kind of money on these projects.

Well if your going to say that then....

WHY did we launch Galileo space craft to explore Jupiter? OR Cassinni to explor Saturn? Or Voyager to explore all the planets? Hell why do we even botehr to explore space? I mean you can go so far to say "WHy do astronomers even have a job?" Why did stardut go out to collect dust from commets? Why has any nasa mission happened?

If we wouldnt have sent out Galileo we would have never known Europa may have water under massive sheets of Ice that could harbor life. If we would not have sent out voyager we would not have nay information on the outer planets and we wouldnt ever have specualted until recently that the kuiper belet even existed. To the public many things can seem all pointless when the fats are daunting. If any of the missions I sated were not launched our ideas of the formation of the solar system and where can life actualy wisthstand would be drastically less. The more we know about our univers the more we can understand.

Pluto is a planetary scientists dream. It has a dynamicly unchangable atmosphere and the surface has exotic ices that may not even be from the creation of the solar system. WE have only put our foot in the water so to say with space explortation. What we will learn from this may not effect you and me directly but it will effect the whole of humanity.

Did you hear about the purpulsion system I believe it launched on a Saturn 6 rocket. That would travel like 6 miles a second. SO fast that it would take 8 hours to reach the moon. 8 hours. this is the fastest rocket ever made. It will take less than a year to reach jupiter. Just the use of this booster can have amazing effect on human space exploration.

Alot of things in life are like Ice Bergs. There is alot more below the surface you just have to look. ITs not obvious. I can almost garuentee that when you say WHY DID THEY DO THAT!?! there is a verry practicle application. You can not see with their intlect or reason. Do not be so quick to critizize and assume.

- Mizar

WHY did we launch Galileo space craft to explore Jupiter? OR Cassinni to explor Saturn? Or Voyager to explore all the planets? Hell why do we even botehr to explore space? I mean you can go so far to say "WHy do astronomers even have a job?" Why did stardut go out to collect dust from commets? Why has any nasa mission happened?

Good question. Why? Whats the point? Ok, theres some ice here, some rocks there.. so? What are we going to do? Go build on it? I doubt it. The only NASA mission I can think of, that we a good reason to go, was the moon. And that was to simply out do the Russians.

I'd like to see what the complete cost of these programs have been. Give me a price tag on what we have done. The shuttle program is just plain boring and a waste of money. Does anyone really think that we are going to zooming around in the USS Enterprise anytime soon? Seriously? C'mon now.

I can think of a ba-jillion different ways to spend the money that we've wasted on these things. Like I said before, find the asteroids. Worry about those things, but who cares what Pluto is made out of? How is that going to change life here on Earth, one bit?

If anyone wants to watch the launch live, it is being shown on NASA TV as I speak. It was just this second t minus 35 minutes.

NASA TV

Originally posted by spliff4020
I'd like to see what the complete cost of these programs have been. Give me a price tag on what we have done. The shuttle program is just plain boring and a waste of money. Does anyone really think that we are going to zooming around in the USS Enterprise anytime soon? Seriously? C'mon now.

I can think of a ba-jillion different ways to spend the money that we've wasted on these things. Like I said before, find the asteroids. Worry about those things, but who cares what Pluto is made out of? How is that going to change life here on Earth, one bit?

If not NASA, some other orginization (probably gov.) would have gotten it. We the people never see that kinda cash...Too bad the Government doesn't want to give public education the same 'here's all the money you want' treatment.

Back to the thread...

Pluto is kind of a wsate of time. why don't we start working on that system where we microwave beam our energy down to the earth from the moon?

The big reason to explore isn't the "wow" factor nor is it the pure joy of knowledge. It's to better understand ourselves and our own planet.

Sure, there's no direct practical benefit to our extraterrestrial explorations. Come to that, a lot of our our more esoteric terrestrial explorations don't have any direct practil benefit, at least not yet.

However, that esoteric knowledge will, most likely be turned into practical results in time.

When quantum theory started, it was as far from having a practical use as the Pluto probe is now. However, as time passed, as our manufactured goods have gotten smaller and smaller, the principles theorized in quantum physics have helped us to avoid flaws, and to understand why the failure happened when they do occur.

When early genetic theory was proposed, it was an abstract science, with no possible practical application at the time. We're at a point now, where direct genetic manipulation is not just an exciting possibility, it's actually become common enough that people get bored hearing about it.

Even beyond the exotic stuff that we hope will be useful in the future, each generation of NASA hardware usually yields a few very useful outcomes. I'm sure you've seen the list of the direct benefits and spinoffs from the NASA space program, but if you haven't, Google can hook you up

Now that's not to say that there haven't been mistakes and misallocation of funds, just that something isn't worthless simply because it yields no direct, immediate, practical benefit.

Originally posted by spliff4020
Why? Whats the point?

There is something out there waiting to be explored/discovered/researched. Comsology and astrophysics are science, too. It gives humans a better understanding of not only how our universe works but how things here on earth work. Some very interesting topics of research out there.

If you look at some of the research that physicist, chemist, mathematicians, mechanical engineers have been doing over the past 40 years, some of it is based on knowledge gained from the study of our universe. Even some Nobel winning work.
I don't know many of the specifics, but Richard Smalley and Rice researchers were looking to duplicate certain variants of HCN (I think HC7N maybe) when they discovered C-60. A lot of today's nano-research is based on the work of what these men were attempting to accomplish. What they were attempting to recreate with an electron microscope was based on the research of physicist who had studied clouds of carbons and compounds of carbon that had formed around a certain star (can't remember name) which gave it a hazy appearance, Rice has a very good space science college.

I'd like to see what the complete cost of these programs have been.

Tens of billions of dollars.

mstkn28
Exploring Pluto? Do they think were STUPID????

No...Just you.

You obviously dont pay any attention to Nasa or anything else space related, So I dont think you have a say in the matter.

I realize that this is a conspiracy site and all....but honestly, your thought analyze is just plain dumb.
Know your Role. That means: If you dont know anything about your topic, dont go thinking you know how it should be done.


[edit on 17-1-2006 by Murcielago]

Originally posted by mstkn28
Okay. I could be reaching, but why would we spend millions of $$$'s to explore PLUTO? Could it be a way to fund a secret mission? I'm talking about an asteroid closing in on us, or something extraterrestial related? It's gonna take 9 yrs to get there and it's cost is enormous.

If we are so interested in exploring the best way we can, why would'nt that money be spent on a trip to mars. Where we actually step foot on the martian soil and EXPLORE. I think we should know more about our universe, but this pluto mission could be handled with the Hubble Telescope or something else maybe. I just think it's uncalled for to spend so much money on this mission when we'll never step foot on pluto, or really have anything to do with it.

When I heard about this the other day, I automatically thought "NO WAY", are we sending this thing to pluto, its gotta be for something else! Am I reaching to far people? Should'nt this money be better spent on more important things in our skies? Like, asteroid deflection, a real mars mission, figuring a way to use the moon resources for energy? I know that were supposed to be going back to these places in the future, so, put this money aside for then or use it now for something beneficial to us.

I felt I needed to vent some this morning!!! Anyways, take care all, and lets have some thoughts on this.

MSTKN

This reminds me of what we call in Portugal "velhos do Restelo" in English something like "old men from Restelo". This expression comes from the Lusiadas, a book first published in 1572, written by Luis de Camões, about the sea exploration of the Portuguese in the XV and XVI centuries.

In that book, when the ships are going to the sea, leaving Lisbon from the Restelo, an old man appears and starts talking about the money, the people, etc. that they were spending in explorations that would lead to nothing.

In 1485, a guy named Christopher Columbus went to the Portuguese king and presented his idea of reaching India by navigating to West. The Portuguese had different views, they thought that the distance to India was bigger than what Columbus supposed, but they also were convinced that there was nothing between Europe and Asia, so Columbus went to the king of Spain.

Do you think it was a bad idea? A waste of money? Maybe they knew that there was a danger coming from the West and used the expedition as an excuse?

Things could be different if he had did not tried it, but I think that in the end it was worth it, but maybe you have a different idea.

Originally posted by mstkn28
Okay. I could be reaching, but why would we spend millions of $$$'s to explore PLUTO? Could it be a way to fund a secret mission? I'm talking about an asteroid closing in on us, or something extraterrestial related? It's gonna take 9 yrs to get there and it's cost is enormous.

If we are so interested in exploring the best way we can, why would'nt that money be spent on a trip to mars. Where we actually step foot on the martian soil and EXPLORE. I think we should know more about our universe, but this pluto mission could be handled with the Hubble Telescope or something else maybe. I just think it's uncalled for to spend so much money on this mission when we'll never step foot on pluto, or really have anything to do with it.

When I heard about this the other day, I automatically thought "NO WAY", are we sending this thing to pluto, its gotta be for something else! Am I reaching to far people? Should'nt this money be better spent on more important things in our skies? Like, asteroid deflection, a real mars mission, figuring a way to use the moon resources for energy? I know that were supposed to be going back to these places in the future, so, put this money aside for then or use it now for something beneficial to us.

I felt I needed to vent some this morning!!! Anyways, take care all, and lets have some thoughts on this.

MSTKN

are you out of your mind? something extraterrestrial related? wha do you think theyre gonna drill under plutos ice and find jar jar binks and all his buddies living in underwater cities? if they are looking for life its microscopic life the tiny bacteria. its minus 300 on pluto no place for jar jar to be bouncing around. but you already new that i hope.

well in a current thread it was discussed that scientist were deloping a hyperdive engine to test. if we were going to test something like that wouldn't it be a good idea if we had something by its stopping point to order it to come back or to analyze the trip.like say a probe in the vicinty of pluto

Originally posted by Arcane Demesne
If not NASA, some other orginization (probably gov.) would have gotten it. We the people never see that kinda cash...Too bad the Government doesn't want to give public education the same 'here's all the money you want' treatment.

www.nasa.gov...

Same can't be said about subsidies of your beloved military industrial complex...
DOD's budget for 2006 increased from 2005 more than what's whole NASA's budget.
Neither these include expenses of King W's crusades.
Or how about those hundreds of billions of "subsidies" going to big corporations and those already rich throughout different loopholes?


So yeah, you're right, it's all waste of time, the sooner next ten km asteroid hits the earth the better... maybe next time evolution comes up with even intelligent lifeform capable to rational thinking.

Pluto is NOT a planet, and to call it one is a big error.
It and it's satellites are space stations and WTF, 9 years and billions of dollars??
It is a lie and another way of wasting $$ that needs to be used to find substitutes for alternate energy and global warning.SC

I think its been mentioned here a little, but some say Pluto could tell us alot about the formation of Planets, these seem to be Terrestial type plants (also seems to be alot more of them than Pluto out there in the belt) That they think is how earth may have begin. To quote the lead guy (Cant rember his name) ,

Our mission to Pluto could rewrite the history books of Geology and how our solar system was formed.

Another note, they say that the probe used will be the fastest speed ever reaching the moon in 9 hours then sling shot arounf (Jupiter) to get its speed up even more to make it to Pluto.

Originally posted by Jehosephat
another thing to note is that there is evidance that pluto might have an atmosphere and we need to send a probe there NOW in order to find out what it is before it gets too cold.

ER, OK

I have to save that little gem.