Mars leading the way for future exploration. Good or Bad?

"Yet for all the excitement surrounding the discovery, the value of the Mars exploration program may lie as much in what it suggests about the early history of Earth and about the prospects for habitable planets around other stars as it does about Mars."

Your tax money in action.

"In 2007, NASA plans to send a lander to the north-pole region of Mars to help explore the history of water on the planet and search for potential "habitable zones" beneath the Martian surface. In 2009, the agency hopes to launch the first in a new generation of "smart" robotic science labs that could literally fly itself from one landing site to another over the course of a mission that could last for years instead of weeks or months.

The ultimate mission, however, would bring Martian rock samples back to Earth."

I think these are just a waste of money and time, which can be spend to give 3 meals a day to everyone on the planet.

At least the U.S. aren't making more nukes, rather spending that money on space.

[Edited on 3/3/2004 by surfup]

why are we spending more money on that? shouldnt we try to go to another planet like venus maybe? that would be cool to go to venus. mars is old and boring.

no dout that space exploration is important but shouldnt we care 4 our own planet first???

i mean, we cant even cure some diseases and stop war and feed every1...

just a thought...

why are we spending more money on that? shouldnt we try to go to another planet like venus maybe? that would be cool to go to venus. mars is old and boring.

Why venus?

Russian lander sustained its environment for only about 12 minutes.

Mars is believed to be the only place where water and life could be found.

I do think the upkeep of Hubble telescope would have been a worthier way to spend money... As far as I've understood astronomy, Hubble has been a useful tool to chart out the universe whereas the question "has there been water on Mars" is certainly intriguing, yet the costs and endangers of such studies have been too much to be worth investigating at the time being.

Oh well, as long as some space study was going on...

Space tech eventually ends up on the open market, so it is all very progresive and benifits all of us. Plus havent you heard about the new space race? It's India China USA and maybe Russia

People who complain about NASA spending money obviously don't read the US budget.

The budget is normaly arounf 390 billion dollars a year. 380 billion of that goes to the military. The rest is split between things like education and NASA.

If you want to talk about wasting money, consider how much money we spend on war. Mars could one day be a refuge for the human race if something happens to the earth, and more money was spend on the War in iraq, or even more alarming, on just on aircraft carriers action in the war, then NASA did in the last 10 years.

If i knew it was going to NASA, i'd happily shell out more of my paycheck.

Venus is nothing but a Green House. Not only is it to close for the sun to sustain the heat, it's nothing but pure gas surrounding the planet, and any heat that goes in hardly ever comes out. Try to imagine that Air Conditioning system.

Space needs to be explored. We can't stay on Earth forever. Plus, like it's already said, stuff that is used in space eventually makes its way down to the open market. There is quite a bit of things that have done this. I'd much rather have my Tax Money spent on Space Exploration and Colonizing then Wars. Because then you can Colonize the other planet and then whip their tail because hey, you're in space and have a much better chance at getting missed when they can't go colonize a planet. And Mars is the only Suitable Planet in our system that has a chance at sustaining life. You only have four Terrastial Planets, Mercury and Venus, don't even think about them.

One thing I think is worth remembering is that Mars is too small to retain a dense atmosphere now that it has a very weak magnetic field. It will never have an atmosphere which humans will be able to walk in and breathe without a space suit.

Mars magnetic field article

So, bearing this in mind, why would it be better on Mars than on the moon? I still like the idea of humans on the moon more. Maybe it's just because we are tied to the moon and it's always there looking down on us.

Personally, the space budget is many orders of magnitude smaller than the military budget so I will never think that it's wasted money.

I agree with Zzub. If humans had to go somewhere, Moon would be the nearest and at least somewhat acceptable environment - more so than Mars.

And while Army vs. Space exploration is a bit off topic, I do also tend to think that mankind would gain more from science, no matter how "out of space" it may be, than another war.

Originally posted by masterofpuppets
why are we spending more money on that? shouldnt we try to go to another planet like venus maybe? that would be cool to go to venus. mars is old and boring.

I got to admit a planet with an acid atmosphere isnt boring but hardly a good place to colonize

If you want to talk about wasting money, consider how much money we spend on war. Mars could one day be a refuge for the human race if something happens to the earth, and more money was spend on the War in iraq, or even more alarming, on just on aircraft carriers action in the war, then NASA did in the last 10 years.

If I am not mistaken, you say that we can spend or waste money on mars, as long as we waste or spend money on wars?

So one wrong justifies another?

I would be happy to see 100 people living happily today, than a million people live happily tomorrow. Is it okay to let the people die of starvation, while we explore Mars for "future", if anyone is left, exploration.

Yes, wars waste a lot of money, can we stop that? No, it is in the human nature. It is also in the human nature to explore, but why isn't it in the human nature to help.?