The space program

[nurse maryjane]

OK so i was watching this show I DVR'd about pandemic flu last night, smoking a bowl...then I fell asleep on something about methane gas and how there's this theory about some big methane gas deposit somewhere in the ocean that could explode at any time and kill us all with giant tsunamis generated from the waves and earthquakes and all this other scary shit...and somewhere in there I had the thought that we should get rid of the space program....all of the billions spent on the exploration of all that shit out there could be spent helping people right here on earth...so anyway, i was wondering what purpose, other than exploration of the galaxy, the space program served and how that is more important than mankind's needs here and now...sorry for the ramble, but if anybody has any thoughts or ideas, i'd like to hear them...

[slipknotpsycho]

i go the other way... i support space exploration.... i mean i don't wanna take it political really, but there are better candidates to take funding from.... space exploration is furthering mankind, or atleast hope to some day... sure we don't really do much now, but think of space exploration as a new baby... right now we're just learning to crawl... we have alot of developments to come, whether it's finding other life or finding out more about everything outside of us, we still have alot of discovering to do... we're only in the extremely early stages right now... i've heard talk of manned mars missions, if those prove successful, we'll probably start exploriing even deeper, until we can go as deep into space as sci-fi shows.... sunshine for example is a very good example of how a space ship could realisticly support it's self entirely without outside help/supplies.... (for those who haven't seen it, plants to recycle Co2, along with oxygen reserves and these same plants can provide food, can't remember how they got water, but it was self sustained as well... and solar panels helped with energy... stuff like that)

if you wanna help people, take funding from stuff that's destorying mankind rather then working to better it.... like war.... like i said i don't wanna take it political, but the ammount we've already spent on the war is ridiculous

National Priorities Project - Cost of War (http://www.nationalpriorities.org/Cost-of-War/Cost-of-War-3.html)

we could have done so much more with that money... now i'm sure some republican is gona come in and tell me about how they want to destroy us and what not... but to that all i have to say is the people we're fighting have already declared defeat and asked us to just leave them alone and they'd do the same.... not to mention the entire reason originally was because of WMD's... which aren't there.... now they tell us iran and korea...

countless dollars being wasted by the minute....

[keeko]

we all have to face that one day the earth will be destroyed. I think the space program is helpful in perhaps finding a new environment to live in; the earth may die but the human race doesnt have to.

some more similar info
http://boards.cannabis.com/science/131516-end-man.html

[nurse maryjane]

but if we know that we're destroying the planet, why nnot stop and try and reverse some of the damage we've done? and why not use the money to explore things we don't know anything about on THIS planet? Like all of the millions of creatures in the ocean....if we ever did find aliens, would they think we were dummies for not being able to communicate with 9/10 of the earth's inhabitants? I'm on the way to work, so I dont have time to click the links, but I'll look at all the info when I get home...and yea slip we are spending too much on the war, in both money and manpower....

[snowblind]

/\/\/\/\/\ you have hit the nail on the head. i believe in the exploration of space and the ocean and the fact that we could easily save this earth. its just to do that the people in power would no longer have as much money and would probably loose their power, this would mean they would have to face up to the fact that they are the same as everyone else and they they would have to get over their inadequacies.

war keeps people poor, if ther are poor people it means there can be rich people, they dont exist with out one another

[robo scat]

Why do you think Bush doesn't care about saving the environment?? We've already found a new planet for the human race to inhabit, and are currently preparing it for the day when shit hits the fan here on earth!

Just kidding. :p

[snowblind]

that would be cool, we could just send bush and your white house there, then the world would be relatively safe