“You think kids actually know the astronauts of today? Their names or what they do? All of NASA’s headlines and front page news (again, just about the manned programs) are about cost overruns and problems.”

Wrong. Just because you are ignorant of something doesn’t make it true. Every day, you see stories about astronauts visiting and speaking with students. Every story has those kids impressed by the visits. Maybe they are not in the big papers, but on a local level it means something. Thousands are visited or interact with students every year. You think that has no impact? Yes, kids know what astronauts do. Check out the Explorer Schools program.

@The Other David M.

“Do you really believe that we are getting more science out of shuttle/ISS than we are the entire freaking NSF? ”

Only you are making this an either/or. That somehow the science from one source is better than science from another source is a small and self-defeating viewpoint. It limits what you can discover and the applications that be created.

Here’s an example. Manned spaceflight inspires people to go into space. Because of that, suborbital space tourism is now being developed. Because of that, NASA is now helping to open up a whole new field of research because of the opportunities becoming available by placing scientific payloads on Virgin Galactic planes. And b

Again, you arbitrarily have decided that engineering has no value. Look at how you’re calculating your numbers. You only count the astronauts, but what about the engineers who build and test the rockets? They aren’t doing science? The tests that go into that have applications as well. And NASA exploration money goes to outside science labs and companies as well as in house, just like the NSF does.

So tell me, how much is a supplement found in 90% of baby formula in the US today worth (life’sDHA and life’sARA)? What about a shoe that will help elderly people not fall that is being tested (iShoe)? Or shuttle-derived aerodynamics research that helps with today’s trucks (airtabs)? Only you are saying this has little value, even though its in use every day life.

I’m not putting NSF beneath NASA. Both have their place and uses. It’s just being biased against manned spaceflight makes you ignore how you are using its tech every day.

“For roughly 1000 man-days a year, we are spending $5.8B, so $5.8M per astronaut per day. That can run a medium-to-large group at a research university for three years. What’s going to give you more science, one day worth of astronaut, or those three years?”

That’s a pretty sobering statistic.

Isn’t insanity doing the same thing over and over and hoping for a different result? Manned missions in the past 20 or 30 years have given us marginal science at best and not a single large scientific discovery (unlike the unmanned ones). Why do we continue to waste huge resources on something that doesn’t give us anything except (supposedly) “inspiration” to children?

PS – You think kids actually know the astronauts of today? Their names or what they do? All of NASA’s headlines and front page news (again, just about the manned programs) are about cost overruns and problems. They surely aren’t screaming out the wonderful discoveries and achievements that are being made (the one exception of course will be Hubble – but that is the last time a bird like that will be serviced in this way).

Depends on how many schoolkids see the astronaut do his or her thing.

Look past the end of your goddamned nose, will you?

My point is that money spent on manned spaceflight is large compared to what the government spends on other science. I’d love to take some of that AIG money too, but at least those jerks aren’t trying to pretend they are doing science.

Do you really believe that we are getting more science out of shuttle/ISS than we are the entire freaking NSF? Can you ballpark me a number? “I believe that shuttle/ISS are giving us 100% compared to the NSF.” Or is it “I believe that shuttle/ISS are giving us 10% compared to the NSF.”? I’d say its even less than that…

Look, if you want to say “I think we should spend money on manned spaceflight because it’s great entertainment” or “because it’s uplifting” or “because it shows the USA is better than China or Russia” then argue along those lines. But trying to claim that manned spaceflight is a good investment of science money is nuts.

For roughly 1000 man-days a year, we are spending $5.8B, so $5.8M per astronaut per day. That can run a medium-to-large group at a research university for three years. What’s going to give you more science, one day worth of astronaut, or those three years?

I’m sorry, but your logic here is just plain baffling.

So a study result derived from ISS tech, that also has been used to detect lung cancer in another study, is only a “possible” benefit. Yet telescopes that haven’t even launched or produced any results, and won’t for awhile, are a great return on investments?

You have made an arbitrary decision about what is valuable and what is a good return. In the past year alone, there have been several manned spaceflight applications that could affect millions of people in the near future, a lot sooner than any information about what the Universe was like before humans ever existed will.

In the past year alone, we have research that can be used to treat lung cancer, brain cancer, arthritis, salmonella, and sleep studies, let alone with crop production (AgCam), and a test the panspermia theory (Expose). This is also ignoring that ISS is doing work to help develop unmanned research technology as well. Look at the SPHERES project, which is testing how autonomous small satellites can work in a distributive system.

You can’t limit research and scientific value to only certain fields, these studies and experiments are going to open doors to a lot of areas, like Herschel, Planck, and any other unmanned program will. You don’t know what the results or applications can be, which makes investment into the manned space program just as important and valuable as unmanned. Otherwise, your argument is just as valid as those who say studying Mars or the Big Bang or building a particle accelerator is a waste of money when it could be applied to poverty and disease here on Earth.

“It will look at far-infrared light, from 55 to 180 microns” [Herschel]

According to the mission site:
http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Herschel/SEMBM00YUFF_0.html

the complement of instruments will cover 55-672 microns – that’s well into the ‘submillimeter’ wave region (which people either call Far IR or Radio, depending on who you ask and what their job is). The name ‘submillimeter’ is dubious anyway since 0.532 microns (green) is obviously submillimeter, and so is X-ray …

I do intend to go see a shuttle launch sometime before they end.

I’m glad that all of that money spent on the ISS/Shuttle have paid off to *possibly* help in the war on cancer.

After all…
ISS/Shuttle budget 2009 $5.78B
NIH Cancer budget 2008 $5.57B

So we’re spending roughly the same amount on keeping the ISS maintained as we are on funding the NIH’s war on Cancer. Again, what’s the return on investment here? Have we gotten more science out of the ISS, or out of the NIH’s cancer funding? (And let’s not forget to add another $3.5B to NASA’s manned spaceflight budget in the form of funding for Ares.)