Let’s go to the moon!
Let’s ignore the people on THIS EARTH who are suffering from lack of food, housing, medical care, etc. and instead, let’s spend $93 BILLION on a rocket designed to eventually carry a spacecraft –with astronauts– to the moon.
AND BEYOND!!
As most of you know, it was on this date (August 29, 2022) that NASA launched the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket to the moon in its first steps towards human exploration of deep space. And going along for the ride was the Orion spacecraft, designed to carry up to six astronauts, which will/may eventually serve as the springboard for a trip to Mars!
While many feel this is an exciting time and look forward to what the future holds in the way of space travel, I can’t help but wonder how and why this fascination (and extravagant spending) of the otherworldly has usurped our concern and care for the planet we all live on.
For centuries, EARTH has sustained the human race and, for all intents and purposes, it is still our HOME. Yet over the past several years, its natural resources and aesthetic values are suffering because some humans seem unable to contain their relentless drive for MORE!
And now, instead of facing the error of our ways and making the necessary changes so the earth can heal, we have turned our attention –and monetary resources– to other planets in the desperate hope of finding another human-receptive paradise.
And if/when we do, I can’t help but wonder how many ages will pass before it too is spent and the search must begin again.
NOTE: I just read where the project has been delayed.
Nan's Notebook 
I’m tempted to say it would be worth it if we could put Trump on that rocket to the moon and leave him there, but even he isn’t worth depriving the suffering of the world of $93 billion worth of aid.
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As long as he rides on the OUTSIDE of the rocket, then I’m ok with it!
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I agree. Total waste of money
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In my near 6-decades of life Nan, I’ve been around, gotten to know, become good friends, some dear, others lovers and such… and I’ve noticed there are two types of humans:
1. Eternal Optimists — loathing anything realistic or negative about life and humans. They “hate all Debbie-downers” and almost ignore/deny anything challenging, mediocre, or failing; i.e. ostrich head in the sand type. And…
2. Realists — address and confront issues, problems, progress, evolution, etc, with rational composure, BUT with factual data, evidence, and wisdom-learned and earned, in conjunction with other more-neutral, very inquisitive colleague problem-solvers.
The modern human race, as horribly as we regularly FUCK THINGS UP, sometimes very very bad, we need hope in this near impossible Universe! Otherwise, we all sink into a bottomless pit of major depression and perform even worse than before! That’s certainly not any better. 😄
On the other hand, if we DON’T take care of ourselves here on this planet right now, and just as importantly the health of this Earth that totally sustains us and all life… right now… we won’t EVER make it to a point to even consider the Moon and Mars to continue our species! BWAAAAA! 😄
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Hope can be had professor at a much less expensive cost. Actually, it didn’t cost you anything. Hope’s name is Jesus.
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Uh oh!
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Yep. What’s so hilariously ironic Rawgod is that 99.9% of modern Christians don’t even truly know the real Mishnaic Hebrew Yeshua bar Yosef of the Late Second Temple Period. HAH! So that very fact always undermines anything they could ever (falsely) “preach.” 😉
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Like the English who had to Anglicize the names of all the countries in the world, Christians have to Christianize all the names in the Bible. It would not do to have a god or son of a god sporting Jewish names, would it? How then could you make Christians hate Jews?
What amazes me is that countries like Italy, England and America don’t even exist in the Bible, and yet Christians of some sort are the dominant religious sects in all 3 of those countries, and more.
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Exactly. Sacrifice truth and historical facts merely to suit and appease one’s own Hellenistic-Greek heritage and beliefs! BWAAAA! 😄 Nevermind that Yeshua (Greek Jesus for those poorly informed & educated) was unequivocally a pure, hardcore Homeland (rural) Mishnaic Jew and wanted NOTHING to do with Imperial Rome and Hellenistic culture! Yet, that’s exactly what the later Greco-Roman earliest Church Fathers turned him into—something he never was nor ever could’ve been. Hah!
Riddle me those Greek fairy-tales, myths, legends, and fabrications of a non-existent caricature of someone named “Christ.” Pffffftttt! 🙄🤦♂️
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Why or why must nearly every post I write be turned into a discussion related to religion? This post is about NASA and space travel. Pffffttt!!
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Well, I’d turn your frustration onto Barrabusses. 😉 That said, it is hard for me to just ignore grossly mistaken and distorted history of the Late Second Temple Period. Preaching false narratives as divine facts is just wrong, IMHO. So… my apologies Ma’am. ❤️
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I had to chuckle
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You made my day, thank you, Mary.
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No preaching allowed on this particular post. There are others where you may share your delusions, but this is NOT a religious post.
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Sorry nan. Couldnt help it:) mea culpa. I guess if i had to “de-religion” what i was attempting to say… i’d say that the search for Hope and Meaning and Place in the universe seems to be a very deep seated, “universal” if I may use that term, need felt by every human. Some just find it more acceptable, if not necessarily “cost effective” to search on dusty rocks millions of miles removed from where I believe the solution to be “located”, if I may use that term “non-locally”. We seem to NEED hope as the professor expounded, even if it costs us more than we have in the “piggy bank”. Even at the “expense” of much more “worth” while projects and people that we could be supporting and helping right here on our own home. Cheers.
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My comment was not in the LEAST intended for your personal world-view BM. If you knew me well, you would’ve simply ignored my comment and moved on sir. 😉
But Nan has hinted/warned you… so that’s sufficient for me. 😊
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Ahhhhhh … so you think he is just waiting for … waiting for … what? Will he just one night while we are all sleeping, swoop down and remove all the excess carbon from the atmosphere, restore the extinct species that were once part of the ecosystem, put back the trees we’ve chopped down, and maybe even get all the plastic out of the ocean? 🤣🤣 Thank you for the laughs tonight! Keep those fingers crossed!
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Pablum. Sickly sweet useless pablum. Based on the delusions of a charismatic and strange cult leader named Paul. And your hope is only for a sliver of humanity. You slobber over the punishment us nonbelievers “deserve.”
Meanwhile your coreligionists vote in the most vile politicians and support the most authoritarian and vile leaders. Just go away.
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Oh I do love this comment
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I have to agree with you Nan. I’m not sure what the program is all about , I’m sure there’s deep dark secrets we aren’t privy too. Of course it’s an interim step or way station to get to Mars But why. I suppose one day Planet Earth will be destroyed, seems we’re already on the way there and whose left will need a place to go. Kidding, Not really.
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Growing up in the 50s and 60s, the Real Golden Age of Space Travel fiction, my young mind was filled with all the possibilities space travel could bring. But moving into the 70s and beyond I realized most of the authors of space travel fiction, while speculating on what might be Out There, were really writing about the issues being to be found right here on Earth. And there were plenty of those to go around.
So where was the important place to look? Space? Or Earth? The Moon race in the late 60s gave me my answer. In space travel fiction the real cost of space travel was never calculated. Rocket ships were the same price as oceanliners and jet planes — on paĺper they were all free. However, the rockets that took men to the moon were outrageously-priced machines that only free-spending governments could afford. Meanwhile, those governments were ignoring the plights of human beings and the planet in order to just lift off from Earth. So much money has been spent on space rocketry, space stations, and space exploration that the suffering of all humans could have been assauged many times over.
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Not gonna’ get a whole lot done with single-shot, non-reusable rockets. Sure, it’s big, and it’s impressive, and there’s only three of them, no more in the pipeline. Once again those in a position to do so are calling for the inattentive to be more attentive to the bimbo not wearing any underwear.
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I’m the oddball here, as I feel differently. Money is not going to really change our pressing problems here. There will never be enough money. That can only change with an adjustment in mindset from a “it’s all about me and what I can get” to a “we must work together for the future of all humanity” and that’s not going to ever happen. It’s not our nature.
So, this is a long game with deep timeframes, as is everything in life and climate change or not, one day we will simply use up all our resources no matter how many are left alive. So justifications and motivations for colonizing Mars include the potential for humans to provide more in-depth observational research than un-crewed rovers, economic interest in its resources, and the possibility that the settlement of other planets could decrease the likelihood of human extinction. The moon is just a stepping stone and ultimately, Mars would be as well.
Now whether any of his ever happens, I have my doubts. I’m just saying I get the compulsion drive behind space exploration.
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Being as our brains aren’t (yet) programmed to mimic every other brain, we still have the option to see things according to personal perspectives. 😊
Thus, for me, I simply cannot –realistically– fathom that humans will ever make it to other planets. And not necessarily due to lack of human ingenuity, but more because we are going to destroy this earth long before we’re able to conquer all the obstacles that are part of the “space venture.”
Of course I can’t see the future any better than anyone else, but I’ve been around long enough to actually see and experience the changes that “man” has wrought to this planet. And my crystal ball tells me that EARTH is going to win in the long run.
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It is basically two things: First it’s a PR stunt. They’re trying to recreate the excitement and positive focus that was partly achieved by the Apollo project back in the 1960s. Second, it’s a money grab by the politicians who are funneling billions into the pockets of a handful of defense contractors who, in turn, funnel some of that back to the politicians by the system of legalized bribery that we laughingly call lobbying, campaign contributions and phony PACs.
The whole SLS project is unsustainable. Every single launch is going to cost between $2 BILLION to $4.5 BILLION dollars. Billion. For a single launch.
And frankly they don’t have the equipment to actually land anyone on the moon. Period. They don’t have a working lander (Human Landing System or HLS). It isn’t built or tested yet. They don’t have spacesuits certified to work under lunar conditions. The mini space station that’s supposed to orbit the moon as part of this whole plan? Yeah, they don’t have that either. The HSL is supposed to be launched by the SpaceX Super Heavy launch vehicle. Which hasn’t even been tested under actual flight conditions yet.
The plan includes robotic refueling of spacecraft while in orbit. They’ve never flown that system either and it is still being tested here on Earth and the designs seem to have serious issues. This whole project is a whole magnitude greater in complexity than Apollo was. Almost none of it has been tested, a lot of it isn’t even built yet. And they’re going to fly it by the end of 2024.
Excuse me for being skeptical.
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When I look at the amount of money being spent on the space program, I cannot help but wonder how many children could have gone to bed with full bellies tonight if this nation had a different set of priorities. How many homeless people might be living in a decent house with running water and electricity? How many lives might be saved if we provided universal healthcare like most all other Western nations do? Our priorities are so royally f*cked up … there is no discernible benefit to putting a human on the moon or even on Pluto, but there is an immediately visible benefit to feeding the hungry and healing the sick. Instead, we waste $93 billion on space exploration and then bitch about $10,000 in student loan debt relief. Sigh.
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Jilldennison, I agree completely. We could have all of those things, and still have the space program, if only human beings were really the rational creatures we claim we are. The US alone is going to spend $800+ billion dollars on “defense” alone this year. Depending on who’s numbers you believe, the US spends as much on defense as the next 10 highest spending countries combined. The F-35 fighter program alone is going to cost 1.3 trillion dollars over the expected lifetime of the program. That is not a typo. $1.3 *trillion*. For a single weapons program. A weapons system that doesn’t actually work all that well, I should add. The navy blew over $30 billion on it’s littoral ship program and has now had to admit that the whole concept is fatally flawed and the few ships that were built are going to have to be scrapped. Well the list goes on and on. We have an F-35 fighter wing stationed here in Madison for heaven’s sake. Why in the world do we need a fighter wing in Madison, Wisconsin? Do they think, oh, that Chicago is going to call in an airstrike on us?
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BINGO Grouchy!!! 🎯 (makes the sound of an arrow splitting the previous arrow…) Phhhhhhhffffffftttttt!!! 🏹
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“War is a Racket”. General Smedley Butler. We have frittered away, off shored, and ruined through short sighted poor management and financialuzation the “real” economy. Only thing left is bombs and “financial products”
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As a child of the 60’s, I do want to see us succeed in space. To what end, I don’t know. But I do want to see us on Mars. Got to do the moon to get there.
But, I certainly think there are a billion different ways the $$ could be put to better use.
I shudder to think how much more Co2 gets put in the air from one rocket launch. I’m highly concerned about the safety of crews in this endeavor. As well as concerned with dealing with the issues that plague all technology. But consider me hopeful that we can do this, if nothing else for the satisfaction that we did it, because it is there.
Much of my life has been an adventure every time I launch a boat. My human experience has been one of daily risk and adventure. It is the adventurer in me that wants to see this succeed.
I think maryplumbago said it well.
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I think we all have a bit of “dreamer” in us. And sure, it would be tremendously exciting (as it was those oh-so-many years ago) to actually conquer at least a small portion of “space.”
But to spend zillions of dollars to make it all happen when this Earth and its people are suffering?
I rest my case.
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Well you ain’t wrong! 😃
Spending that kind of $$$ on the climate issue might buy us a few more years…
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The thing that really bothers me with this whole back to the moon program isn’t really the money. When it comes right down to it the amount of money they’re spending on this is a drop in the bucket when compared to other, even more ridiculous things they’re spending our money on. And I personally would love to see us have an actual, working manned space program again.
What really troubles me is that I firmly believe that they are seriously compromising the safety of the people who are eventually going to ride on this thing. They’re pushing this way, way too fast. NASA didn’t even do a full pressure, full fuel load test of the SLS before trying to launch the bloody thing around the moon. They have problems with cracking insulation, leaking fittings and I don’t know what all else. They haven’t fully tested any of this stuff. They can only afford to do a single test launch, this one, before they plan on putting actual live people on the top of this flying bomb and shooting it off to the moon. If SpaceX had tried to pull a stunt like this the FAA would have shut them down.
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NASA is actually an undercover agency for extreme right wing American Christians who are determined to find heaven and ask Jesus to wipe out all the heathens…. Like you.
😈
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😄 Don’t we ALL just love & appreciate Arkesatan’s timely humor? 😉
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Nan, Nan, Nan. As an archery coach, I am an expert at why people miss targets. Keep NASA and all of its funding, or else what’s a heaven for? Instead, take $93 billion out of the “Defense” budget. Or maybe the fossil fuel subsidies funding, or maybe out of the pockets of billionaires. Or the near useless CIA’s Black Budget, or . . .
NASA is one of the few things we do together that is aspirational. We could feed everyone and educated everyone (for free) with just a few adjustments in the tax codes and budgetary commitments currently espoused.
Now, we have proved that neither of us is superfluous. Both of us are needed and our opinions aren’t 100% in lock step . . . 99% maybe, but not 100%.
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Speaking of BILLIONAIRES …
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-the-wealthiest-billionaire-in-each-u-s-state-in-2022/
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I don’t know whether this is really about finding more real estate for humans, but if so it is treating the symptom and not the cause. Giving the virus more fertile ground upon which to spread is not a logical way of treating the epidemic.
I’m inclined to agree with Steve. There is something beautiful and inspirational about reaching out into the universe, even if we don’t really know why.
But stealing from the ‘defence’ budget, and thus reducing human’s ability to efficiently and mindlessly slaughter each other, may make the whole problem worse.
I will honour your wishes, Nan, and not bring God into this conversation, even though the conversation is begging for comic relief.
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More bombs! More U.s. government funded research on making viruses more deadly! Forget the moon. We need more weapons!
VHEM for the win!
Voluntary Human Extinction Movement!
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Reading the comments over again…I do favor taking care of all our societal problems, but lack of the proper use of money and our very human nature towards greed will make that impossible. I do realize all of this speculation on space exploration may very well be a moot point with climate change looming. Time is definitely not on our side. And I even feel the earth in the long run would heal and recover in some way, if mankind were gone. And I do seriously doubt if colonizing other planets will ever truly happen. But I still have a bias, if you will, to make the attempt.
On the infinitesimal chance that we might succeed and preserve our very existence seems worthwhile to me. For all we know, mankind may be the only sentient being out there with the ability to even be aware that there is a universe, that stuff exists for whatever reason, that there is something rather than nothing. If we are it (and I’m not saying we are) then I believe, we are compelled to try…..just my two cents. And it’s precisely that we see things from personal and different perspectives, that make us singularly unique.
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And your final sentence sums things up perfectly. And we bloggers definitely know this!😁
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Eh, science and technology from exploration has always benefitted mankind. As Michael Faraday was reported to have said, when he discovered electromagnetism, that even though he did not yet know what use it would be, one day the government would tax it. Probably not a true quote, but the sentiment remains. From the wheel to chariots to bicycles to airplanes to rockets, they are all now used for service and taxed, and indeed make our lives much better.
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$93B sounds like a lot but there are, roughly 333 million of us so it comes out to be $279 per person. Last auto repair, a relatively minor one, was $600. For less than half of that I can play a small part in going to the moon. So, sure. I say let’s do it.
I also can point out that that is a moon shot designed by congress to maximize job creation in, literally, every state in the union. So, yes, it could be done for a fraction of that.
But even at $93B it isn’t undoable.
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