re: Mars Here We Come!

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Damn, I thought for sure we would get to Mars before I turned sixty

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fwiw, we were on Mars before the last Ice Age. We're just now figuring out how to return.

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National pride and unity can do wonders for a country.

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wasn't just that, almost every advance in technology came from that program, polymers, adhesives, metallurgy, electronics, computer technology, synthetic fabrics, etc.,

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Breesus

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because its 2:30 on a Friday and I'm bored...

enlighten me killz

here is your platform

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enlighten me killz

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The apex of human technological innovation isn't right now.

Extremely advanced human civilizations have come and gone time and time again over the past million years.

We've destroyed ourselves many times over. We're on the same path we've been on before.

We are not the most advanced humans to have lived on this planet.

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The apex of human technological innovation isn't right now.

Extremely advanced human civilizations have come and gone time and time again over the past million years.

We've destroyed ourselves many times over. We're on the same path we've been on before.

We are not the most advanced humans to have lived on this planet.

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Thanks, Salmon...

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Someone who thinks we have better ways to spend 20 billion dollars that a mission to Mars that a private company is already working on, more efficiently, with a better timeline?

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Yes. NASA needs to lead the charge

I'm sort of on the fence with this one.

I do think the "but look at all the new technologies we'll get" people have to be a little small-minded. Yes I realize that some of our most advanced breakthroughs have come either at the hands of space exploration or military innovation, but I could just as easily say that's because we've spent the most amount of money researching and exploring these industries.

I don't think there's any way you could reasonably tell me that $19.5 Billion spent on something within the planet (let's use some crazy example like the hyper loop) wouldn't result in some serious breakthroughs. The only way to make that case is if your argument is that space presents uniquely difficult challenges that require the most outside the box thinking ever that basically creates some sort of breeding ground for intellectual breakthroughs. There are plenty of very difficult problems here that we could use some incredible funding and creative thinking to solve and likely generate some awesome new technologies.

Again, I'm on the fence because I think space exploration and national pride and all that is as fundamentally interesting and exciting as it comes. However, I don't fault anyone for wishing more money was spent here.