Just when you thought Obama couldnt possibly put us in debt anymore...

[peilthetraveler]

He goes and does something like this....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20100416/sc_space/nasasnewasteroidmissioncouldsavetheplanet


I actually like the idea of sending manned missions to asteroids. I dont know if this is the best time for it though.

Its a little like not know how to pay next months rent, but deciding to take a trip to hawaii next week to think about how you are going to do it.

 

[nutmeg]

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[Mav88]

As grandiose as it sounds, it is still a tiny tiny fraction of what we spend on social wefare. People just can't seem to get their brains around the actual numbers.

In any event though, I never thought it was impossible for Obama to get us deeper into debt.

The visionary plan of the messiah is to take us to the promised land of 90% debt to GDP by 2020. That's if all goes according to plan, so if we are blessed with an another economic shock in the next 10 years (we have had 3 in the last 10) then by golly he'll get us there much faster.

 

[peilthetraveler]

Quote from Mav88:

As grandiose as it sounds, it is still a tiny tiny fraction of what we spend on social wefare. People just can't seem to get their brains around the actual numbers.

Yeah, but I kind of think feeding 100 million people is probably just a little more important than 3 or 4 astronauts taking a vacation on a rock 10 million miles away.

We only spend about 1% of our budget on the space program. Thats not enough to send us to an asteroid. We will have to give them more money.

The good news is that it can partially be paid for with all the minerals that are on that asteroid. I remember reading that an asteroid that is 1 mile by 1 mile by 1 mile contains approximately 1 trillion dollars worth of valuable minerals. Much of the rock would be Iron which is worth only a few hundred million or so, but there is supposedly large quantities of gold, diamonds, rubies, and other unknown materials inside asteroids.

 

[Mav88]

Yeah, but I kind of think feeding 100 million people is probably just a little more important than 3 or 4 astronauts taking a vacation on a rock 10 million miles away.

Now you are thinking like a socialist. You can take that argument and use it to stop pretty much all human activity except growing food and making shelter. Science is more important in my opinion, it is was has enabled all our material progress, not mention enabling food production so great that it really is no longer a problem.

We only spend about 1% of our budget on the space program. Thats not enough to send us to an asteroid. We will have to give them more money.

Actually it is, the problem is all the other simultaneous missions and their overhead. If you eliminated NASA, save that 1%, it would do nothing to solve the gov't problems. it's insignificant and they would spend it on something else anyway.

The good news is that it can partially be paid for with all the minerals that are on that asteroid. I remember reading that an asteroid that is 1 mile by 1 mile by 1 mile contains approximately 1 trillion dollars worth of valuable minerals. Much of the rock would be Iron which is worth only a few hundred million or so, but there is supposedly large quantities of gold, diamonds, rubies, and other unknown materials inside asteroids.

Mining will only be efficient if what you also manufacture out there. The payoff here is supposed to be the ability to deflect civilization-killing asteroids. But I also believe that giving up space exploration is a bad idea. If we become a nation of people only interested in consuming, then maybe it's better that an asteroid hits us.