Are we wasting time and money in space research?
96109
It depends on your goal. From your extended question it sounds as if we should be terra-farming extra solar planets. i'm not sure we'll be at that point in another 1000 years, even if we put our minds to it.\n\nOne could argue quite reasonably that our CURRENT space program hasnt achieved much. the space shuttle never accomplished a fraction of what it was designed to do. The space station just kinda goes around and around. \n\nTo type out the statement  "All our efforts so far has yielded no result" on your hyper-fast micro computer connected to a planetary data network is a bit short sighted. Nearly 50 years of space exploration has produced a wealth of technological advancements. \n\nYou also have a few billion years to worry about a place to go when the sun and earth die out. Maybe less for the earth, that's probably addressed in another question.
110439
Many experiments that have help us advance in medicine are conducted in space. Our planet can be in danger of asteroids plunging into us, and can result in life on earth being destroyed, and by expolring space, we can find out and save us, so yes, it is worth it. And it's fun!
1038371
space research is just a research to locate more speific life beyond our planet. However the people do not care about whats happening in our planet. Diseases are spreading killing almost a million or more each year, and economic losses due to spending money on useless things rather then useful things like charity or helping the homeless kids in all parts of the world. Africa and India is mainly homeless children, where at least a child dies every sec due to diseases or other serious conditions. Money is the only thing that could buy these children homes and food n other basic needs of life then people should be helping not spending money on space research where they are not helping anybody with anything. First they consider saving their own planet then beyond the planet. thats all =)
627720
Boy, I wish that was practical!  If rocketing radioactive waste into the sun was cost effective, we'd have bases on Mars by now and an active space tourism business!\n Unfortunately, the radioactive elements that make up much of the dangerous waste are some of the heaviest (densest) known.  Ever picked up something made of solid steel?  The same thing made of uranium would weigh 2 1/2 times as much!\n In 2000, the cost to send 1 pound of anything to space varied from about $5000 (Chinese Long March Rocket) to $23,000 (Shuttle).  If you figure an average of $10,000 per pound, (ignoring LEO versus escape to the sun costs) then to send the 77,000 tons of waste that are programmed for underground storage at Yucca Mountain would cost one and a half TRILLION dollars!  Compare that to $58 billion to bury it.
1125180
India has a lot to do before it becomes the best, but we are not far behind either.\nUS is surely at the top.We are almost at par when it comes to Remote sensing stellites. Even the Communication satellites are quite good. We are behind in the areas of deep space exploration and launch vehicles, but considering the amount of budget spent we are pretty well off... I think we are just behind the japanese and chinese...
695559
No.  There are hundreds of thousands of scientists in the world, if not millions, and very few ever achieve recognition for their work on the public scale.  We do it because we're interested in our work and our results, and because we enjoy it.
158514
for many scientific reasons.\n\none example is if you can understand how planets, stars, and galaxies are formed, we can understand how the earth will eventually develop.  this information will be valuable for discovering resources, weather trends, and environment issues.\n\nmany more applications and benefits exist. for example, to investigate space means we have to get out there.  that means developing new ways to travel long distances.  the by products could be more effective medicine, safer commercial vehicles, robotics, stronger metals & materials, etc...
832176
No it is not\nWe can not ignore all the successfull missions that NASA has performed. What baout the advancement in medical science and other technologies due to the efforts of NASA.\nLet not a few failiures derail us from the right track.
487663
As far as I know there has been no extraterrestial life found so I doubt there are deadly microbes in space labs (if there are then they're of Earth origin).\n\nAs for what we gained from exploring space.  We are the first civilisation that actually manages to do a half-decent job predicting the weather (sure, they get it wrong sometimes but a lot less often than they used to).  We are also the first that has seen our planet from the outside, the first to photogrpah the entire globe and the first to build a GPS system.\n\nHad we not wanted to explore space we wouldn't have those.\n\nWe also have knowledge of the dangers that space presents, both to us on Earth and to any satellites we put into space.\n\nMost importently we have knowledge of other planets that no one in any civilisation that came before ours could dream of knowing.  Whilst the spin-offs from space programmes such as communications satellites, GPS, asteroid detection, environmental monitoring, etc is enough to justify space exploration I think the biggest thing we have gained is knowledge (and hopefully a little humility at the fact that the universe just doesn't care about us).
1021700
such a waste of space if we were alone.\n\n if you could just imagine yourself looking on our milky way from another outside.. \n\nhow infitestimally small we truly are... we are nothing but dust on a small rock revolving a small star..
255065
Hard to believe isn't it?  It's been all downhill since then.  Both the Russian and French space programs seem to be more active and appear to be actually making money, whereas NASA spends billions of $$ and to me at least, has little to show for it.
1150393
I think that a return to space is inevitable, and will reap enormous benefits in our understanding of ecology, medicine, electronics, propulsion and power generation, food production, and a host of other areas that we can only guess at from this side of the process. \nMars is a good goal, simply because, as JFK said, "it is hard." Landing on, and staying on, Mars, or the moon, is a tremendous undertaking, and one well worthwhile.\nThe problem, as I see it, is that while we are wasting so much of our energy combatting phantoms, we may find it difficult to coordinate the necessary effort to succeed in such an endeavor.\nSo until "terror" stops being the driving force in American politics, I think any serious striving for "progress" will be put on the back burner.\nAnd that is a terrifying though, isn't it?
468087
I think it's the human desire of finding out the mysteries of our world and beyond. Not only that, there are the advances in science that come about from space research. eg teflon, satellite communications.\n\nThere will always be a need to help some group of people, but that also doesn't mean that we should stop everything else.\n\nPutting it another way, I guess one could say "why should you spend your money at the cinema, on a book on candy or anything else not essential to surviving when there are poor people starving in the world?"
301567
No, we don't have the technology.  Sending a probe out of our SOLAR SYSTEM is still considered big news.
1029588
If we waited for every problem on earth to be solved before we explore Mars, or advance any other scientific project of importance, we'd never do anything. Ideally, the poor health system in America would be resolved AND space exploration would advance. (and pigs might fly :-)
1177130
I once heard that NASA supports a program for investigating the human brain and how to control it, as well as ESPERs. I'm not sure though.
906150
No matter how good something is, it can always be improved.  If people just settled for things, there would never be any technological advances in any field.  It's possible that NASA could come up with a more fuel efficient, faster shuttle than the current space shuttle.  Actually, I'd say that's inevitable if they keep doing research.  It's only a matter of time.