Lost in Space?

[robert angel]

Is spending more taxpayer money on space exploration a good idea at this time?

I have heard that we want to continue our space program, including continuing our 2009 agreement to fund (international effort, they say) further exploration of the planet Mars. (again) There's some talk of  revisiting the moon. We plan on landing a spacecraft on a comet in 2014, which I am sure will change everyday life for all of mankind. (yea right!) Some other countries, not just Japan and Russia, have space programs.

Some very optimistic (in my opinion)  people say that technology spinoffs coming from the space program are easily ten times the dollar value of what we've actually invested in the space program itself. Why is it then, when a  current Nintendo Gameboy child's toy has many more times the processing power than the entire Apollo moon rockets had, that even if we wanted to (for some crazy reason) put more men on the moon, it would be too difficult and expensive to do so again?

Yes satellites, which are near earth orbiting objects of telecommunications, (TV, phones, GPS, etc) military, environmental and geological importance, should most definitely continue to be developed and I think a case can be made to continue remote controlling the Hubble Space telescope, which is currently planned to remain operational through the year 2014.

But personally, I think more missions to other planets, including landing again on the moon on comets and beyond, is a waste of our economic resources, at a time we can least afford it.

I found the below article interesting and it should be noted, that the Russians' like most other nations, have always conducted their space programs spending far, far less money, although as described below, with sometimes unfortunate outcomes. Space exploration anywhere is an uncertain business.
 
MOSCOW — Russia said it lost track of a newly launched, multimillion-dollar telecommunications satellite on Thursday, marking the latest in a series of setbacks that have dogged its space industry.   
The $265 million Express AM-4 satellite, described by its makers as the most powerful satellite ever built in Europe, launched late on Wednesday aboard a Proton-M rocket from the Russian-leased launch pad in Kazakhstan.
The Russian space agency said the first stages of the launch went smoothly, but communication with the satellite was lost due to a failure of the Briz-M upper stage.
It said experts were working to re-establish contact with the craft, built by Astrium, a unit of European aerospace group EADS, to provide digital TV, Internet and telecoms services for Russia over the next 15 years.
The spacecraft was fully insured for $264.5 million with Russian Ingosstrakh insurance company.
Judging by early efforts, officials have a roughly 75 percent chance of linking back to the satellite and maneuvering it into the correct orbit, space industry expert Igor Lissov told Reuters.EADS Astrium       An artist's conception shows the Express AM-4 satellite in orbit.   Its loss would be a "nightmare" for Russia's industry, he said, delaying key commercial projects by three to four years and embarrassing Moscow at a time when it hopes to showcase its technology at this week's MAKS airshow outside the capital.
The mishap follows a series of botched launches, including three poorly insured orbiters which crashed into the Pacific Ocean earlier this year, costing $160 million and setting back Kremlin plans for a global positioning system to rival the U.S.-made GPS.
A breakdown of the Briz-KM engine burns led to the loss of a key military Earth-mapping satellite earlier this year.
The glitches cost Russia's veteran space agency chief Anatoly Perminov his job this spring. He was replaced by former deputy defense minister and space forces commander Vladimir Popovkin.

[Alabamaboy!]

I think the US and the rest of the world need to keep their feet firmly planted on the ground, figuratively and literally. The time is for us to get back to basics and fix things on this planet before worrying about space or other planets. We probably know more about the moon than the oceans on this planet. That is ridiculous. Maybe the answers for world hunger, energy, jobs, and rare earth elements are right here, but we are not finding them because we are spending 100X the money to explore space instead.

[Researcher]

   Unless there are some hot alien babes out there that would make a guy a good wife I'd say space exploration is a big waste of time and money!


        Researcher

[Tanuki]

The NASA budget is half of one percent of the federal budget.  You can go here to see some of the recent spin off technology from NASA research. 
 
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/technologies/spinoffs.html
 
Not all of NASA's budget goes to space exploration.  There is aeronautic research as well.  Making aircraft, safer, cheaper, and greener.  NASA also works with FAA on NextGen (This has been in the news when FAA didn't get there budget extended).
 
If you truly are interested in knowing the overall benefits from NASA, the information is out there and open to the public.
 
Also, NASA develops patents from it's research and licenses those patents (at no addintional cost, payed for by tax dollars) to American companies that will use them to advance the application.  That helps create/maintains jobs for AMERICANS. If we leave it to foreign countries to do this research, how much of it will come to the US?
 
 

[Alabamaboy!]

The NASA budget is half of one percent of the federal budget.  You can go here to see some of the recent spin off technology from NASA research. 
 
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/technologies/spinoffs.html
 
Not all of NASA's budget goes to space exploration.  There is aeronautic research as well.  Making aircraft, safer, cheaper, and greener.  NASA also works with FAA on NextGen (This has been in the news when FAA didn't get there budget extended).
 
If you truly are interested in knowing the overall benefits from NASA, the information is out there and open to the public.
 
Also, NASA develops patents from it's research and licenses those patents (at no addintional cost, payed for by tax dollars) to American companies that will use them to advance the application.  That helps create/maintains jobs for AMERICANS. If we leave it to foreign countries to do this research, how much of it will come to the US?

That is all fine and good, but how about doing something on planet earth. I think whatever they are spending on the space program has to be many, many, many times more expensive than doing things on this planet. Maybe if they were not jacking off in space they could have figured out a way to plug the BP spill in the Gulf. Or maybe they could have used all that cash to figure out a way to make us less dependent on foreign oil. Or maybe could have spent it to search for rare earth minerals or other methods to drill for oil in areas that were previously untapped.

Or maybeeeeeeeeee we could have used the cash to pay down the debt to avoid all this economic mess.

[Jeff S]

Personally, I'm with Tanuki. I'd prefer spending my tax dollars paying scientists to advance our boundaries of scientific exploration than paying buildings full of gumment bureaucrats to administrate the distribution of checks to people who smear feces on religious icons, produce propaganda TV shows, and subsidize the growing of unprofitable crops.


Here's a few of these down-to-earth things that help us here at home, that the government confiscates your hard earned money to support:

A recently released GOP paper on the stupid use of federal stimulus dollars has resulted in the typical dismissal from the administration and the mainstream media as “right wing partisan politics”, but there’s nothing wrong with pointing out the results of this ill-conceived hasty distribution of dollars from our children’s generation to the current one.  While we were initially promised all kinds of permanent improvements to mass transit, high speed rails, new highways and other infrastructure projects that the future generations paying for this stuff may have actually ben able to enjoy, what we were left with was primarily aid to states that mismanaged their budgets, virtually unlimited unemployment insurance and projects like this:


1. Forest Service to Replace Windows in Visitor Center Closed in 2007 (Amboy, WA) – $554,763


Despite having no plans to reopen a shuttered visitor center at Mount St. Helens in Washington state,
the U.S. Forest Service is spending more than $554,000 to replace its windows. One government official likened it to “keeping a vacant house in good repair,” while another official noted that there is hope to find some purpose for the building in the future, whether as a hotel, science camp or restaurant. Despite those efforts, there are no current plans to use the empty space.
2. “Dance Draw” – Interactive Dance Software Development (Charlotte, NC) – $762,372
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte received more than $750,000 in stimulus funds to help develop a computerized choreography program that its creators believe could lead to a YouTube-like “Dance Tube” online application.10 The grant says UNC-Charlotte will “define an evolving system that assists in the design.


3. Ants Talk. Taxpayers Listen (San Francisco, CA) – $1.9 million


The California Academy of Sciences is receiving nearly $2 million to send researchers to the Southwest Indian Ocean Islands and east Africa, to capture, photograph, and analyze thousands of exotic ants. The photographs of the ants – over 3,000 species’ worth, according to the grant proposal – will be posted on AntWeb, a website devoted to organizing and displaying pictures and information on the world’s thousands of ant species.


The project’s goals are, to the lay person, both laudable and arcane: In addition to “foster[ing]…a large pool of ant taxonomists,” it also strives to document “the vast majority of ant species known from [Africa].” 
“[Ants] give us back the most data on the environment than any other group. Their life cycle is shorter, they change very quickly,” says the project’s Principal Investigator in a promotional article on the Academy’s website. “Everyone has run into ants . . . now we need to listen to them.”


4. Town Replaces New Sidewalks With Newer Sidewalks That Lead to Ditch (Boynton, OK) – $89,298


People around Boynton, Oklahoma were left scratching their heads after the town was awarded nearly $90,000 to replace a quarter-mile stretch of sidewalk that was replaced only five years ago. One longtime resident of Boynton, Ray Allen, said the project “had been the talk of the town recently, and none of it positive,” because it is “100 percent a waste of money.” Another resident, Mike Lance, noted that “the best indication of the absurdity of the project is what the contractor did with a section of sidewalk at the north end of town – one that fronts no homes or businesses, and leads directly into a ditch.” Officials with the Oklahoma Department of Transportation defended the project as necessary to bring the sidewalk into conformity with federal guidelines.


Meanwhile, many local residents have focused on a more pressing financial problem—namely the possible shuttering of Boynton-Moton Public School, which educates 97 prekindergarten through 12th grade students. As an illustration of just how strapped for cash the school system has become, Superintendent Dr. Shelbie Williams had been struggling to scrape together just $9,300 to pay the school’s gas and electric bills. In addition to the project itself, some eyebrows have been raised over the contractor selected to do the work, Glover and Associates, a local construction firm. The company is run by Craig Glover, a former vice president for Glover Construction, which was barred from the State of Oklahoma in 2007 after the firm’s head, George Glover, Craig Glover’s father, pleaded no contest to “conspiring to use prohibited road material and intimidating a state grand jury witness.”Craig Glover resigned from his father’s company, and upon its debarment, he immediately opened Glover and Associates, which has since gone on to receive more than $4.7 million in contracts from stimulus funds.


5. Scientist Attempts to Create Joke Machine (Evanston, IL) – $712,883


Conan O’Brien vs. Jay Leno was nothing. Competition among late night television hosts is about to get very interesting. That’s because researchers at Northwestern University are using stimulus money to develop “machine-generated humor.” And nothing is funnier than a robot repeating someone else’s jokes. The lead designer plans to use artificial intelligence to create a “comedic performance agent” that “will be funny no matter what it is talking about.” Computer systems will mine jokes from the Internet and then use them to create hilarious presentations that mimic real-life comedians. The lead designer hopes to model his new creation off of News at Seven, a web-based “entertainment oriented system that combines clips from CSPAN with topics [sic] humor and comments pulled from Twitter to
create a Daily Show-like experience.”


6. Jamming for Dollars (Atlanta, GA) – $762,372


A Georgia Tech assistant professor of music will receive $762,372 to study improvised music. The project will apparently involve the professor jamming with “world-renowned musicians” to “hopefully also create satisfying works of art.” The project “seeks to understand, model, and support improvisation, or real-time collaborative creativity, in the context of jazz, Indian classical, and avantgarde art music,” according to the project description. “They will also conduct systematic evaluation of formal models in realistic performance contexts, and use brain imaging of improvising musicians to gain insight into highly creative mental activity.” How will this help pull the United States out of an historic economic slump? “We are putting money into the local economy that is supporting local jobs,” the project’s principal, Parag Chordia, an accomplished classical Indian music performer, told a reporter. “We are creating the intellectual capital to support future growth.”


7.  DTV “Experts” Plug Boxes Into a Wall (Buffalo, NY) – $350,000


The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) spent $350,000 to hire “experts” to help people hook up digital converter boxes made necessary by the federal government’s recent digital switch. Most of those jobs were short-term jobs, lasting only during the DTV transition. Most DTV converter boxes are no more difficult to hook up than connecting the “antenna-in” cable, the “TV-out” cable, and the power cord into an outlet, raising questions about the need for “experts.” The installation guide provided by the FCC is only four easy steps, including instructions to plug the power cords “into a power outlet.”


8.  Museum With 44 Annual Visitors Gets Funding for Bug Storage (Raleigh, NC) -$253,123


What is the best way to simultaneously preserve an insect collection, promote a haiku contest and produce bug baseball cards? Simple. A grant to the North Carolina State University Insect Museum. The museum boasts being an “internationally recognized resource for the study of insects and mites in North Carolina, the Southeastern United States, and, in several insect groups, the world.” The Museum, which has “virtually no public presence” (it gets about 44 visitors a year), will also use the money for outreach efforts. It also hosts the annual Hexapod Haiku Challenge every March on its blog. In 2008, the Insect Museum submitted a proposal for a National Science Foundation (NSF)
Biological Research Collections grant, which the NSF declined. Based on that same proposal, last year the NSF awarded the Insect Museum $253,123 in stimulus funds to purchase new cabinets, drawers, and units for its specimens and a new computer server and software. Using stimulus funds, the Museum has started an “Insect of the Week” series on its website and plans a physical presence at the Yates Mill Pond County Park.


9. Reducing Menopausal Hot Flashes Through Yoga (Winston-Salem, NC) – $294,958


In 1966, His Holiness Sri Swami Satchidanandaji Maharaj created the practice of Integral Yoga, a branch of yoga with a significant spiritual emphasis. Now, researchers at Wake Forest University have received nearly $300,000 to study whether Integral Yoga “can be an effective method to reduce the frequency and/or severity of hot flashes” in menopausal women. “The goal of Integral Yoga, and the birthright of every individual, is to realize the spiritual unity behind all the diversities in the entire creation and to live harmoniously as members of one universal family.” A total of 60 post-menopausal women who experience more than seven hot flashes a day are being recruited to participate.


10. Stimulus Funds Going to the Dogs (Ithaca, NY)505 – $296,385


Cornell University scientists have received $296,385 in stimulus funds to study “dog domestication.” Researchers believe that there is common understanding of where dogs descended from, but the progression from there to Lassie “is poorly understood.” They point out that much of the research “has focused on breed dogs, but the diverse populations of semiferal ‘village’ dogs are likely an important key for understanding dog domestication.” A previous Cornell study found that North Africa was probably the origin of dog domestication. In that study, the scientists examined the genetic markers of 318 African dogs and then performed the same test on mixed breed American dogs and street dogs in Puerto Rico. The new study “will likely to [sic] challenge current theories of dog origins and develop village dogs into a useful system for the study of domestication, speciation, behavior and morphology.”

[Alabamaboy!]

Personally, I'm with Tanuki. I'd prefer spending my tax dollars paying scientists to advance our boundaries of scientific exploration than paying buildings full of gumment bureaucrats to administrate the distribution of checks to people who smear feces on religious icons, produce propaganda TV shows, and subsidize the growing of unprofitable crops.


Here's a few of these down-to-earth things that help us here at home, that the government confiscates your hard earned money to support:

The NASA budget is around $19 billion I believe. That is $19 billion that we borrow from China. Does not make sense to me. We don't have the cash to do the program, so don't do it anymore. What if the European Union decided to have their own NASA program while at the same time digging themselves a huge financial hole which drags down the global economy? It is offensive and arrogant that we do such things.

If you are going to spend $19 billion on what is basically a government sponsored science fair, why not spend it on things that are happening here on the earth right now, that obviously we have no idea of how to manage or fix when things go badly. A couple examples would be: how to patch a hole in a deep water oil rig, how to develop alternate fuel vehicles or get 100 miles/gallon out of gas powered vehicles, how to avoid or manage such disasters as Chernobyl, things like that.

Jeff the things that you mentioned are outrageous, and I think in our lifetimes there will be some real improvement there. Because our generation is not as stupid and misinformed as previous generations. We are not just going to buy this nonsense. The internet has made it possible to a certain extent for most of us to see the complete scam that the government is carrying out. The Tea Party has gone from 0-60 in about 1.0 seconds because people are not going to buy the usual BS anymore. I am not saying that they are perfect, but they are at least about making real changes rather than just flapping their gums and running out the clock.

[Jeff S]

Absolutely not - I don't think we should borrow 19 billion from China for anything - not even food stamps. We can have a balanced budget with NASA - we've done it before, and as I recall no one was dying of starvation in soup lines.





Any guesses what happened 08?

[Tanuki]

The Europeans do have their own space program, ESA.
 
When you say that NASAs work doesn't do anything here on earth, you are flat out wrong.  When you walk into a hospital and you see all these fancy new devices for monitoring and diagnosing patients, that technology was able to grow and expand off of R&D work NASA did.
 
GPS everyone loves so much-NASA RD work.  Communications-NASA RD work.  Life saving devices-NASA RD work.  Guidance and control of rockets lead to improved military capability-NASA RD work.  Understanding aerodynamic and improved aircraft-NASA RD work.  Developing and contributing to inspiring students to study in STEM classes (this is now an area we are getting beat in by other countries), NASA spends part of its budget for students.
 
The government needs to spend money on technology development.  I don't think NASA gets funded enough.  We should have pushed harder on our space program to go farther out a lot sooner then we are now.  It takes a year to get to Mars.  In order to achive that trip, there is going to have to be some serious technology development to achieve that.  Then they have to get back!  Our government is going to have to develop some form of alternate energy to make that trip. Better battery development, better communications, lighter weight and stronger material, better methods for radiation protection, development of nano technology for better self healing, and the list would go one if we would push harder.
 
Which the results of all that new technology will impact us right back here on earth, as it already has.

[Alabamaboy!]

The Europeans do have their own space program, ESA.
 
When you say that NASAs work doesn't do anything here on earth, you are flat out wrong.  When you walk into a hospital and you see all these fancy new devices for monitoring and diagnosing patients, that technology was able to grow and expand off of R&D work NASA did.
 
GPS everyone loves so much-NASA RD work.  Communications-NASA RD work.  Life saving devices-NASA RD work.  Guidance and control of rockets lead to improved military capability-NASA RD work.  Understanding aerodynamic and improved aircraft-NASA RD work.  Developing and contributing to inspiring students to study in STEM classes (this is now an area we are getting beat in by other countries), NASA spends part of its budget for students.
 
The government needs to spend money on technology development.  I don't think NASA gets funded enough.  We should have pushed harder on our space program to go farther out a lot sooner then we are now.  It takes a year to get to Mars.  In order to achive that trip, there is going to have to be some serious technology development to achieve that.  Then they have to get back!  Our government is going to have to develop some form of alternate energy to make that trip. Better battery development, better communications, lighter weight and stronger material, better methods for radiation protection, development of nano technology for better self healing, and the list would go one if we would push harder.
 
Which the results of all that new technology will impact us right back here on earth, as it already has.

In regards to better medical care devices, we don't really need to do that man. We, as a nation, need to get off our asses and hit the gym or walking trails. We would save millions more lives with that simple no cost approach than anything NASA can develop with billions upon billions of tax dollars. Our health care system is not near the top compared with other countries who do not spend $19 billion a year on space exploration.

Again, I point out to the BP oil spill. Our country was completely stumped as to how to patch this leak. And that was something that was happening right here on earth.

I am not saying there are no benefits to NASA program, but I am pretty sure the cost to develop technology for the next generation of Mars explorer vehicle will cost a hell of a lot more than developing technology here on the ground or seas.

I don't think we need to fly to Mars to develop better batteries.

I would put all that cash into ocean research and development. For energy, food production, irrigation, desalination plants, more and safer off shore drilling, maybe even some way to mine rare earth minerals. The vast majority of the earth is covered by water. I am pretty sure if we developed the technology to do so, we could extract all the elements, fuel sources, food, etc. from the seas to last us the next 500 years. It has not even been thoroughly explored yet because we have not developed the technology. Because we got caught up in the Space Race and other things.

Heck even better bio fuel crops, better oil extraction methods from shale, very low tech things like that is what we need. And all of those things will lead to a lot more jobs than the Mars space exploration plan.

In reality however, we don't have the cash so we should not even be having this conversation. Only a very irresponsible individual or government would be wasting time at this time discussing ways to spend MORE money. We should be focused on cutting programs, building the highest number of jobs at the lowest possible cost per job. And that's about it.

[euforia51]

In regards to better medical care devices, we don't really need to do that man. We, as a nation, need to get off our asses and hit the gym or walking trails. We would save millions more lives with that simple no cost approach than anything NASA can develop with billions upon billions of tax dollars. Our health care system is not near the top compared with other countries who do not spend $19 billion a year on space exploration.

Again, I point out to the BP oil spill. Our country was completely stumped as to how to patch this leak. And that was something that was happening right here on earth.

I am not saying there are no benefits to NASA program, but I am pretty sure the cost to develop technology for the next generation of Mars explorer vehicle will cost a hell of a lot more than developing technology here on the ground or seas.

I don't think we need to fly to Mars to develop better batteries.

I would put all that cash into ocean research and development. For energy, food production, irrigation, desalination plants, more and safer off shore drilling, maybe even some way to mine rare earth minerals. The vast majority of the earth is covered by water. I am pretty sure if we developed the technology to do so, we could extract all the elements, fuel sources, food, etc. from the seas to last us the next 500 years. It has not even been thoroughly explored yet because we have not developed the technology. Because we got caught up in the Space Race and other things.

Heck even better bio fuel crops, better oil extraction methods from shale, very low tech things like that is what we need. And all of those things will lead to a lot more jobs than the Mars space exploration plan.

That's all fine and good, Bama. But what about the relatively tiny 6 mile wide asteroid that is on the collision course with earth's orbit at some point in the future that was never discovered, or defended against, because the space program was such a waste of money, we had to cut it?

Is it not the satellites that help keep the Internet and your smartphone up and running? That keep the improved lines of communication with foreign countries (among other things) up and running with our novias and esposas, for example? I don't know about you, but I don't believe I would have ever met Glory had it not been for a few of the discoveries made possible from our space program.
 
Our most brilliant minds are thinking way beyond what this planet has to offer. And it is from that place (as a point of reference) where the true trickle down effect really happens to the practical that we see day in and day out.
 
So go ahead and cut the space program ... but you best also be cutting off the lazy who do nothing but sit on their arses complaining and waiting for the government welfare to fix their damn lives, those who bought too much house, too much car, and too much freakin' lifestyle because they deserved it, the meaningless wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, the aid to hostile and deceitful countries like Pakistan who take our tax dollars and give it to the radical enemies of our way of life, the tax credits to the companies who are making obscene profits ... just for starters. If we can do even these handful of things with a clear conscience, then by all means and call it a waste of resources and cut if it you must.

[jm21-2]

With how the Chinese economy is booming and how much they like to show off, I would not be surprised to see a massive effort by China to get in the space game. Especially since they could benefit a lot from satellites and they can get fairly cheap high tech stuff from the Russians to catch up fast. They will also have an abundance of engineers who need jobs at the rate they're pumping them out. I suspect they will come to dominate space exploration.


I agree there are plenty of better things to cut than the space program though.


The government programs that really drive me nuts are not the ones spending money on collecting information on ants or some other obscure science topic...but when they impose some sort of tax that costs more to collect than the government gets out of it. For example, we have some toll roads here in WA now that cost about $100k/month to operate but only generate about $50k/month income for the government. They would actually save money by not tolling people. Now that makes me want to pull my hair out.

[bcc_1_2]

http://techtran.msfc.nasa.gov/at_home.html

Before you question the worth of NASA you might take a look at what your daily like would be like had it never existed.

What is sad is that it is not just "space travel" we are losing but the replacement for the hubbell telescope. By 2018 we could literally see to the beginning of time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wV4OBUKuQs

The Story of Everything (shown on TV and available online) featuring Stephen Hawking explains the Universe in mostly plain language that is easy to understand. He also explains why government must have a space program and why for humans to survive we will need to travel to another earth like planet(s). The trip would take at least a lifetime and the United States would never see the ship again. There is no profit motive to do it according to Hawking. Private industry will not do it.

[Alabamaboy!]

We don't need to see the "beginning of time". We need to solve problems here on planet Earth in 2011.

[euforia51]

The Story of Everything (shown on TV and available online) featuring Stephen Hawking explains the Universe in mostly plain language that is easy to understand.

We don't need to see the "beginning of time". We need to solve problems here on planet Earth in 2011.

Thanks for the links, bcc. I, for one, would also enjoy seeing the beginning of time as opposed to the reality, drama based, dancing with stars, prime-time TV rat poison ... that oddly enough is not doing a damn thing to solve any problems here on planet earth in 2011 that I am aware of.
 
Keep the space program and cut the crap!

[Jeff S]

Hate to say it but Dancing with the Stars, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and similar are wealth creators. They generate added value. It's like manufacturing a wrench, or growing a bushel of corn. Space exploration is a consumer of wealth. Nonetheless, I would waaaaayyyy rather have my tax dollars go to making a trip to Mars than shipping it off to foreign dictators, or to huge farming corporations to make Ethanol that costs more energy to make than it gives back, or to failing manufacturing companies so they can pay off Union bosses.

[euforia51]

Hate to say it but Dancing with the Stars, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and similar are wealth creators. They generate added value. It's like manufacturing a wrench, or growing a bushel of corn. Space exploration is a consumer of wealth. Nonetheless, I would waaaaayyyy rather have my tax dollars go to making a trip to Mars than shipping it off to foreign dictators, or to huge farming corporations to make Ethanol that costs more energy to make than it gives back, or to failing manufacturing companies so they can pay off Union bosses.

Wealth creators for who? Beauty product and apparel manufacturers, pill-pushing pharmaceutical companies? Among the other consumers of the wealth of the general population who sit around getting fat and depressed from watching this crap? Certainly, these shows do not create any wealth for the general population at large. A wrench is a tool to do something useful and a bushel of corn is form of food; both of which provide value to almost anyone who eats and has a loose bolt (pardon the pun). What added (or additional) value do these shows create?

[Jeff S]

Well, it's something created out of nothing, just like any manufactured or farm product. That you aren't interested in buying it doesn't mean it has no value. Others obviously don't share your viewpoint. Take raw material assets (film, energy, script writing talent) add labor (the writers, actors, grips) using capital equipment (trucks cameras booms, etc.) and sell it for more than it cost to make. Just like raising a steer for beef, cooking a meal for a restaurant patron, or writing a piece of software.


I have no use for it either. If you want to call people morons for consuming it, OK, I won't disagree. No one forces anyone to watch that it, they're free to switch to the Discovery Channel - but it is people creating a product that people are willing to pay for and can be sold for a profit - hence, it contributes to the GDP, it doesn't detract from it.

[euforia51]

Well, it's something created out of nothing, just like any manufactured or farm product. That you aren't interested in buying it doesn't mean it has no value. Others obviously don't share your viewpoint. Take raw material assets (film, energy, script writing talent) add labor (the writers, actors, grips) using capital equipment (trucks cameras booms, etc.) and sell it for more than it cost to make. Just like raising a steer for beef, cooking a meal for a restaurant patron, or writing a piece of software.

Sure, technically, I agree. You caught me looking at the big picture as only I see it with a typical end user not gaining very much benefit; that is comparing that to honing a skill, doing a hobby, reading a book, or even taking dance lessons or designing/making clothing for themselves.