Senate Space Exploration: Waste of Resources or Mankind's Last Hope?

This seems like something The Riddler is behind

 

It certainly raises some questions.

 

I'm curious as to where that came from.

 

any theories for this mysterious query

 

It's a Boomer alien species who makes up ludicrous claims like they invented the question mark...

 

That looks like a Times New Roman question mark. Probably came packaged with the Universe.

 

God we're gonna explore this distant galaxy just to find there are like 99 more Riddler Trophies to get huh.

 

India successfully landed a craft in a soft landing on the moon a few hours ago, making it the fourth nation ever to do so. Congrats India!

 

Space exploration gave the environmental movement some of its best images.

Spoiler: earthrise

 

I can't wait to get some modern, high-resolution images from the surface of the Moon.

 

Given what we’re doing to the only current home we have, humanity will likely (eventually) have to become a multi-planetary species to survive.

 

A space fairing company in China successfully landed a "hop" of their Starship competitor recently.



China also preempted SpaceX with a smaller Methalox rocket reaching space first. Starship IFT-2 was the second, weeks apart from each other.

 

Former NASA astronaut and current Columbia engineering professor, Mike Massimino, (known for his Hubble telescope repair missions) has a new book:

Moonshot: A NASA Astronaut's Guide to Achieving the Impossible

 

But it is still much easier to heal/save Earth than to terraform or even just live in underground bunkers on another planet.

 

Of course - I mean, my life’s work is on halting climate change. But it doesn’t need to be either/or. In my less optimistic moods, I believe in the future there will need to be some kind of multi-planetary resilience. Between ecological devastation, climate change, nuclear weapons proliferation, and the chance of a large asteroid hitting the Earth, some plan(et) B will eventually be prudent. Don’t put all your eggs on one fragile planet. Especially with a species that’s prone to pissing in its own bath water.

 

But this is like climbing to the top of a particularly high mountain lugging the scientific equipment needed to create your own water, in order to create a new bath that you know will get pissed in because people didn't learn the lesson in the first place.

 

True. But multiple homes means redundancy. And that mathematically lessens the possibility of total annihilation.

 

Space Exploration isn't taking anything out of saving the planet.

 

What’s NASA’s current budget? Like .05% of the federal? Probably less. I say you should bump that up.

 

Not a great week for booster stages. SpaceX lost part of a booster in the ocean and well, this...happened in China.

 

Not to mention that Earth Observation satellites, in space (and most launched and maintained by NASA), are critical for understanding what’s happening to the planet and what we can do about it.

Not to mention also helping us find more groundwater so we can eventually deplete that too…but still. They are really important scientific tools without which we’d have a much more limited understanding of Earth and its climate.

 

In the past two years, the NASA budget has been 0.5% of federal spending, not 0.05%. So your double-up request would bring it to 0.1% of federal spending, which would represent a massive $22 billion dollar reduction (dropping from its current $25 billion dollar budget to around $3 billion), including (probably) the firing of about 7/8 of the NASA staff.

I suspect this is one of the many reasons why you’re not NASA’s Congressional affairs lead.