2012 space balance. News, discoveries and achievements. One shiny year!

Hi!

First of all let me say this is my first post here on ATS and english is my second "rusty" language, so I'm sorry for any mistakes. And if someone already did a similar topic I could not find, forgive me.

I've been doing some bookmark cleaning in my browser last week when I realized something: I've never saw so much weird sci-fi stuff happening so fast in the space exploration area. So I decided to put together some news dating from late 2011 to 2012 so far. I'm sure I'm missing a lot of interesting stuff and, please, feel free to add anything you like to the topic.


Gliese-581g Life Pulse
Gliese-581g

Curiosity

Earthlike planets

kepler22b

Water on mars

GOP Moonbase plans

Race to the moon 2

And the most amazing 3 for me:

Asteroid Mining

MarsOne project
MarsOne

Warp Drive


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There you go. I'm not saying everything in here is going to become reality anytime soon or I'm not even discussing the veracity or plausibility of any particular news. My point is this; A LOT of stuff happened this last 12 months regarding space and space technology. All that just add to that weird feeling; "something big is about to happen". But that just one feeling, the fact is this is one hell of a year for space exploration.

Hope you like it,

reply to post by theiceone


All that has been achieved for space though nothing much has been achieved to reduce poverty and take care of the homeless in the developed world. It's a shame that we invest so much in reaching outside our planet when the situation on it is #ed up as it is! Better to invest that money in improving what's walking around on the planet than to try and find another place to "possibly" migrate to after we # up this joint...

reply to post by UFCG2012AFHS


Agreed. There's a lot to do and more urgent. But money is not the issue. There's a lot to solve almost every problem related with poverty and people can still live a very comfortable life. I just don't think science found and money used to fulfill our quest for knowledge (I know, sounds dramatic but it's true) is the real problem here.

There's a LOT of other "investments", so to speak, that luxuries that is much more futile and actually helps to destroy this planet. I agree with you, I just don't think this is the place to take the money out.

Originally posted by UFCG2012AFHS
reply to post by theiceone

 

All that has been achieved for space though nothing much has been achieved to reduce poverty and take care of the homeless in the developed world. It's a shame that we invest so much in reaching outside our planet when the situation on it is #ed up as it is! Better to invest that money in improving what's walking around on the planet than to try and find another place to "possibly" migrate to after we # up this joint...

Its a non argument really.

If science was some rapacious monster consuming all our budgets you might have a point. It isn't, its just noise. Science and exploration is such a low percentage of what we spend our economic output on that its makes no real difference either way.

If we put science and exploration on hold till we resolve our socio economic injustices we'll still be here debating it all when an asteroid swings by and renders us extinct.

reply to post by justwokeup


Which, if an asteroid were to be a threat to our survival on Earth in your or my lifetime, would still make no difference as we have no mechanism of defense against it. Space related innovations and discoveries are majorly pointed towards finding life somewhere else or finding another habitable planet. My point is, we might as well take care of the weakest of society before talking about finding other habitable planets... Obviously science spending does not compare to military and it is an obvious fact that military has to significantly decrease if not stop altogether to get the world moving forward.

Originally posted by UFCG2012AFHS
reply to post by justwokeup

 

Which, if an asteroid were to be a threat to our survival on Earth in your or my lifetime, would still make no difference as we have no mechanism of defense against it.

Thats my point. We don't because we don't have control of the solar system. Despite the fact we have the ability to get it. It should be a much higher priority than it is.

I understand where you come from. However, the reason children starve to death every day is not because we spend money on space.

Its human greed and corruption. Thats not a problem science can solve. (Well, genetic engineering maybe if we go down the self modification route and reprogram ourselves). Thats not something i'd recommend.

Attacking space science just stops space science. It doesn't help anything else.

I think that whatever arguments may exist against Space Exploration, money isn't a valid part of it.

White House 2013 Budget Request - NASA

It's already been reduced to just over 17 billion. Much of the programs with big goals have been delayed or put aside entirely and NASA still has core missions like probes and satellites that have to be maintained out of that too. India and Iran will have their own ships on the moon before we do again. They both have Space programs trying to become something serious with the money to do it.

17 Billion a year for the whole Nasa budget is a deal even if we just get the Planetary defense benefits of things like the GOES Satellites on solar storm warnings. If everything else just inspires a few kids to be among those who DO dream big and get big things done again, it's worth it. Honestly, 17 billion is a disgrace for being so pathetically low. Much more is being lost to nonsense no one can often show a thing for afterward, literally.

(QE-3 is printing 40 Billion a month indefinitely right now, by comparison)

reply to post by theiceone


A George Castanza would say, "It's not a lie if you believe it". And the American public sure believes it. The real question is not how the American public will react to the truth of the Apollo landings' false nature, but how much of anything would we and will we believe about the country moving back and forward? From Lance Armstrong back to Betsy Ross it's going to all ring more hollow than hollow.