Because it is Rocket Science

["Doc" Devereux]

Matt's original question has been totally ignored for a debate of spending any money on space at all.

His question was:

"Now here is the question. Seeing as this project cost billions. Should we focus that money on sending more people to the moon, or sending out more probes like this to learn about whats out there?

Seems to be a conundrum between manned exploration and robot exploration. One slows down our ability to learn. The other is more exciting.

What should we do?"

So how about some debate on this? Opinions of manned space vs more robotic based missions?

Personally, I'm of the opinion that it makes sense to open the territory up with robots at first. That way we get an idea of the environment. Once we know what the place is like we send people, since that's the way we get samples back here for better analysis. Seemed to work pretty well for getting to the Moon, and while the distances (and thus delays) involved are greater I see no reason why it shouldn't work for exploration of Mars and beyond.

 

[Pilgrim]

Well, darn. I'm frustrated because james and I seem to be proceeding from two different positions.

I am attempting to work from a legal viewpoint, asserting that federal expendutures are not theft because I have elected representatives who have authorized those expenditures. Under US law, I think this is a pretty defensible assertion.

It appears to me that James is saying that because "I have never given anyone permission to take a portion of my income nor for me to pay any other kind of tax", that federal expenditures of his tax money are theft.

James, if I have characterized your position accurately (which is very much open to question), then I see no way that the federal government can ever spend any of your tax money on anything, because you haven't given them permission for each and every expenditure - including the ones you would support.

This does not seem to me to be a position that is defensible. In fact, it seems to me to be equivalent to arguing that all taxes are illegal because those taxed can't control the expenditures directly, only through their representatives - when we know and case law has proven this is not true.

I suppose we just need to agree to disagree. I respect your feelings and appreciate the thought and energy you have invested in this thread. It has been a pleasure exchanging thoughts on this topic with you, a Lounge member whom I value!

With that, I'll bow out on this one.

 

[J. M. Stovall]

 

[jamespowers]

Well, darn. I'm frustrated because james and I seem to be proceeding from two different positions.

I am attempting to work from a legal viewpoint, asserting that federal expendutures are not theft because I have elected representatives who have authorized those expenditures. Under US law, I think this is a pretty defensible assertion.

It appears to me that James is saying that because "I have never given anyone permission to take a portion of my income nor for me to pay any other kind of tax", that federal expenditures of his tax money are theft.

James, if I have characterized your position accurately (which is very much open to question), then I see no way that the federal government can ever spend any of your tax money on anything, because you haven't given them permission for each and every expenditure - including the ones you would support.

This does not seem to me to be a position that is defensible. In fact, it seems to me to be equivalent to arguing that all taxes are illegal because those taxed can't control the expenditures directly, only through their representatives - when we know and case law has proven this is not true.

I suppose we just need to agree to disagree. I respect your feelings and appreciate the thought and energy you have invested in this thread. It has been a pleasure exchanging thoughts on this topic with you, a Lounge member whom I value!

With that, I'll bow out on this one.

None of that is my position at all. I am just saying from the dictionary definiton that the government is stealing from you based on the definition and the threat of force involved. Legally or otherwise you are being stolen from based on the definiton of stealing and theft.
Whether you think that is proper or not was not in the scope of it. The government can spend money but those funds should be obtained from fees, excise taxes and user fees. That way you can determine if you want to pay or not without stealing under threat of force as property and income taxes are.
Your use of terms other than theft or stealing are just ways to get around admitting that you are being stolen from. Now it wouldn't be stealing if you are giving it over willingly---then that would be charity. Words mean things and we have to make sure that the terms are concise and appropriate for what we are referring to. You still have not explained why you do not think it is theft or stealing based on the dictionary defintions. Seems pretty clear cut to me. [huh]

Regards,

J

 

[jamespowers]

Now do one for Mars.

 

[J. M. Stovall]

Sure, all we need is your $47.

 

[Briscoeteque]

My point was that a private business contracted by the government---not government workers all---would have gotten it right the first time because they wouldn't want to go up there and fix it again.
There is no way to reform government agencies so they do what they were designed to do. They were never designed to work right in the first place. They were never required to account for money, materials and time. When is the last time you looked at a GAPI balance sheet for NASA or any other Federal Government agency? Never.
The ridiculous thing was that even when my father worked for the defense department, there were structural problems that made them spend money so they would get more next year! His department would literally make money every year but he was required to spend it on new tools they didn't need or equipment they had twenty of already. :eusa_doh:
After he left, it only got worse. Until you have seen the way government works, you are just ont he outside looking at the government the same way people who eat sausage look at their franks. They have no idea what went into them or how they were made.

Regards,

J

Your holding businesses up to this high standard. Businesses make mistakes all of the time and cut corners to make things more profitable. My point is that a private company would never build something like the Hubble Space Telescope because there is no 'market' for it. But because there is a lack of a market, that doesn't make it any less important.

Taxes are the price charged to live in civilization. You can decline to pay, and forfiet everything that comes with civilization, but there is no government ever that hasn't taken something from the people. No one's stopping you from going up into the mountains, and keeping everything you produce up there. NOT paying your taxes and living in a civilization is stealing, you're taking advantage of a system that you haven't paid for. Even if you don't directly take advantage of the government, you must admit that your lifestyle could never exist without it. Pay your taxes, vote and communicate with your representives, deal with it, or find a remote island to survive on. There is no threat of force, unless you're taking something (the civilized American lifestyle) without paying for it. That's stealing. By your logic, if I try to get out of a resturant by not paying, and they call the police, they're using threat of force to steal from you. You might be trying to say that the government has no real product that you need to buy, but if you think our great country can live without a government and be exactly the same only more efficent and cheaper, than I just don't know what to tell you. I'll take civilization at it's price, please.

I'll admit, government is a mess. But cutting off funding is no solution and can never be. The government isn't holding the private sector back. It's doing the private sector would never do until it becomes absolutely nessesary, and at that point we could be very unprepared without data gleaned from the government research.

Also 'A Man on Mars' is just a silly goal at this point with no real scientific value. Unmanned probes, though less exciting, are the best way to get information about the universe we live in. Then, as those are made more efficient, we can then start getting people into space who can do more than collect rocks and shoot drives.

 

[jamespowers]

Sure, all we need is your $47.

Hahahhahahahah! You're killing me. lol

Regards,

J

 

[jamespowers]

Your holding businesses up to this high standard. Businesses make mistakes all of the time and cut corners to make things more profitable. My point is that a private company would never build something like the Hubble Space Telescope because there is no 'market' for it. But because there is a lack of a market, that doesn't make it any less important.

Businesses make mistakes but they are held accountable for them. Who do we hold accountable in government for mistakes? Have we ever? There would be a market for the Hubble. Quite simply the government could have contracted it out to the lowest bidder. There's the market for about half the price and without the screw ups and long waiting period to get it fixed.

Taxes are the price charged to live in civilization. You can decline to pay, and forfiet everything that comes with civilization, but there is no government ever that hasn't taken something from the people. No one's stopping you from going up into the mountains, and keeping everything you produce up there. NOT paying your taxes and living in a civilization is stealing, you're taking advantage of a system that you haven't paid for. Even if you don't directly take advantage of the government, you must admit that your lifestyle could never exist without it. Pay your taxes, vote and communicate with your representives, deal with it, or find a remote island to survive on. There is no threat of force, unless you're taking something (the civilized American lifestyle) without paying for it. That's stealing. By your logic, if I try to get out of a resturant by not paying, and they call the police, they're using threat of force to steal from you. You might be trying to say that the government has no real product that you need to buy, but if you think our great country can live without a government and be exactly the same only more efficent and cheaper, than I just don't know what to tell you. I'll take civilization at it's price, please..

Really? No government has ever taken anything from anyone? Have you ever been to a government auction of homes, personal property and goods. Talk to Willie Nelson. You can't talk to Red Foxx but the same thing happened to him. You don't pay they steal it from you with the force of government with guns. Period. That is stealing.
The restaurant example is ludicrous. You came in the door without coercion. You sat at the table without coercion and you ordered from the menu knowing exactly what you were going to have to pay. That is called fee for service and you have to pay or you are stealing from the restaurant.
Yes you could move to the Mountains and try to live up there without taxes but you can refer to the case of emerson and see that the government will pursue you there and still try to steal from you. That argument doesn't hold water.
Government could be run much more cheaply and much more efficiently. If you don't think so you obviously haven't check it out. Paying taxes does not make you a good citizen or you wouldn't hate Bill Gates so much.

I'll admit, government is a mess. But cutting off funding is no solution and can never be. The government isn't holding the private sector back. It's doing the private sector would never do until it becomes absolutely nessesary, and at that point we could be very unprepared without data gleaned from the government research.

Finally we are getting somewhere. Yes it is a mess and why is it as such? Because no one will hold it accountable. If you hit them int he pocketbook then they will start to listen. Good luck trying to get them to listen otherwise.
Aside from the military and police and someother minor functions, the private sector could take over just about everything government does on a contract basis. Just take a look in your local yellow pages and see. If you find it there then why is government doing it?

Also 'A Man on Mars' is just a silly goal at this point with no real scientific value. Unmanned probes, though less exciting, are the best way to get information about the universe we live in. Then, as those are made more efficient, we can then start getting people into space who can do more than collect rocks and shoot drives.

Should it not be a goal at some time with stepping stones laid to a path of that being the goal? I suppose it will never happen if we continue to think small.

Regards,

J

 

[Pilgrim]

OK, I didn't wanna, but ONE last time....

Whether you think that is proper or not was not in the scope of it. The government can spend money but those funds should be obtained from fees, excise taxes and user fees. That way you can determine if you want to pay or not without stealing under threat of force as property and income taxes are. J

You can make this assertion, but it is not true. It is your opinion - but NOT a fact under law - that "...those funds should be obtained from fees, excise taxes and user fees."

You are welcome to this opinion, but it's opinion, not law. Income taxes are legal, and have been proven to be legal many times. This is not arguable. If you want your opinion of how funds should be obtained to become true, you will have to change the law in the US. It is your right as a citizen to exert every legal effort to achieve this end, but it's not the law today.

Your use of terms other than theft or stealing are just ways to get around admitting that you are being stolen from. Now it wouldn't be stealing if you are giving it over willingly---then that would be charity. Words mean things and we have to make sure that the terms are concise and appropriate for what we are referring to. You still have not explained why you do not think it is theft or stealing based on the dictionary defintions.

I admit that I continue to wonder why the meaning of rhe words "legal" and "illegal" are interpreted differently by you and by me. There is little room for disagreement on their meaning, other than willingness to disregard definition and fact.

Accorrding to the Law.Com dictionary, these are the meanings:

Legal: adj., adv. according to law, not in violation of law or anything related to the law.

Illegal: adj. in violation of statute, regulation or ordinance, which may be criminal or merely not in conformity. Thus, an armed robbery is illegal, and so is an access road which is narrower than the county allows, but the violation is not criminal.

Theft: n. the generic term for all crimes in which a person intentionally and fraudulently takes personal property of another without permission or consent and with the intent to convert it to the taker's use (including potential sale).

Under all of these definitions, taxes and their expenditure on the space program are legal. They are "not in violation of law", and they are not "in violation of statute, regulation or ordinance". In fact, they are specifically conducted according to statutes, regulations and ordinances. No person has taken your personal property without your permission or consent; you gave that consent when you elected your Congressperson and Senator. It is not required that you voice your opinion about every decision they make - they are legally empowered to vote on your behalf. I believe that you cannot argue to the contrary without arguing that our whole system of government is illegal, because that system of government is based on statutes, regulations and ordinances.

Therefore:

1) Because your and my legal representatives have voted to collect and expend taxes, their actions are legal. We do not get to vote on this individually; only those representatives do, in the process of making laws. Unless you can challenge their actions or expenditures in court and succeed in overturning them, their actions are by definition legal...because they make the laws.

2) I am not being stolen from because the taxes I pay and the system that expends them is legal as per item #1.

I cannot make it any clearer than that. Your or my opinion as to the wisdom or appropriateness of the expenditures does not affect their legality.

I wish you well, and hope that we have at least arrived at a shared meaning of the terms "legal", "illegal", and "theft".[huh]

 

[jamespowers]

OK, I didn't wanna, but ONE last time....



You can make this assertion, but it is not true. It is your opinion - but NOT a fact under law - that "...those funds should be obtained from fees, excise taxes and user fees."

You are welcome to this opinion, but it's opinion, not law. Income taxes are legal, and have been proven to be legal many times. This is not arguable. If you want your opinion of how funds should be obtained to become true, you will have to change the law in the US. It is your right as a citizen to exert every legal effort to achieve this end, but it's not the law today.



I admit that I continue to wonder why the meaning of rhe words "legal" and "illegal" are interpreted differently by you and by me. There is little room for disagreement on their meaning, other than willingness to disregard definition and fact.

Accorrding to the Law.Com dictionary, these are the meanings:

Legal: adj., adv. according to law, not in violation of law or anything related to the law.

Illegal: adj. in violation of statute, regulation or ordinance, which may be criminal or merely not in conformity. Thus, an armed robbery is illegal, and so is an access road which is narrower than the county allows, but the violation is not criminal.

Theft: n. the generic term for all crimes in which a person intentionally and fraudulently takes personal property of another without permission or consent and with the intent to convert it to the taker's use (including potential sale).

Under all of these definitions, taxes and their expenditure on the space program are legal. They are not "not in violation of law", and they are not "in violation of statute, regulation or ordinance". In fact, they are specifically conducted according to statutes, regulations and ordinances. No person has taken your personal property without your permission or consent; you gave that consent when you elected your Congressperson and Senator. It is not required that you voice your opinion about every decision they make - they are legally empowered to vote on your behalf. I believe that you cannot argue to the contrary without arguing that our whole system of government is illegal, because that system of government is based on statutes, regulations and ordinances.

Therefore:

1) Because your and my legal representatives have voted to collect and expend taxes, their actions are legal. We do not get to vote on this individually; only those representatives do, in the process of making laws. Unless you can challenge their actions or expenditures in court and succeed in overturning them, their actions are by definition legal...because they make the laws.

2) I am not being stolen from because the taxes I pay and the system that expends them is legal as per item #1.

I cannot make it any clearer than that. Your or my opinion as to the wisdom or appropriateness of the expenditures does not affect their legality.

I wish you well, and hope that we have at least arrived at a shared meaning of the terms "legal", "illegal", and "theft".[huh]

You can run through all of that and take the legal and illegal pieces but the fact is that I was not around in when income tax was instituted therefore I did not vote for them or the people who in Congress who made such laws.
If it makes you feel better I will call it legalized theft or legalized stealing so that fits with what you want to say.
The fact still remains that it is the generic term for all crimes in which a person intentionally and fraudulently takes personal property of another without permission or consent and with the intent to convert it to the taker's use (including potential sale). That about does it.
Now if the government wants to legalize it then it is legalized theft but it is still theft. Where the government spends the money is irrelevant to the argument.

Regards,

J

 

[Matt Deckard]

Okay cut the tax stuff out!

This thread is a question of whether we should explore robotically or with humans behind the wheel.

Your taxes are going into space whether you like it or not. That is the answer to that question.

Should we send people or unmanned probes... that is the question.

 

[Hemingway Jones]

Should we send people or unmanned probes... that is the question.

And an interesting question at that!

I believe that unmanned exploration should be done to pave the way for manned exploration. If man's ultimate goal is to master the conditions to explore and perhaps colonize the cosmos, then step one is to probe to assertain the conditions, then to engineer ways for men to follow.

Probe's are tools by which men acquire knowledge. We would be most excited if probes were to find water, air, atmosphere, and life. These are all signs that it may be possible for men to live independently in space one day.

So, I think it is difficult to separate robotic exploration from manned. They seem to work best in concert.

 

[Matt Deckard]

So are you ready to take over the moon?
I know I am.

And I hope we're wearing yellow read and blue long sleave tees when it's done.

 

[Hemingway Jones]

So are you ready to take over the moon?
I know I am.

And I hope we're wearing yellow read and blue long sleave tees when it's done.

Considering that man walked there 40 years ago, it seems almost odd that there isn't a lab up there, or a large telescope.

 

[J. M. Stovall]

Considering that man walked there 40 years ago, it seems almost odd that there isn't a lab up there, or a large telescope.

That we know of, hmmmmm.

 

[Pilgrim]

Thanks for getting the discussion back on track!

Y'know, in his writings late in life, R. A. Heinlein opined strongly that the moon was actually a distraction. He felt that space exploration should bypass it, because he felt that if we started exploring it, the result would be distracting us from the much greater potential discoveries on other planets farther out, and planets in other solar systems. I find that an intersting point of view.

It is interesting to reflect on the benefits of investing in moon exploration or a moon colony - versus the option of spending the energy and money on penetrating further into space. I think my vote would go on the side of unmanned probes getting further out into space, because we can see enough of the moon that much there is 'known". I'd vote in favor of exploring the less known and the unknown.

 

[Doh!]

I'm old enough to remember watching man first walk on the moon "live" on TV.

Before I die, I'd love to see the same show on Mars.

 

[Miss Neecerie]

The moon is a stepping block

to Mars...for so many reasons, the moon will be serving as a stepping stone to the future journeys to Mars, thus like someone pointed out earlier, Mars is the longer term goal.

Anyhow....because I cannot actually say much more....having worked on the projects in question.....I leave you with this....which should explain more details...


http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/exploration/mmb/index.html

 

[scotrace]

.

"I can't help thinking that somewhere out there there has to be something better than Man. Has to be." Taylor (Charlton Heston), Planet of the Apes

I'm going to venture far outside anything I fully understand and suggest that a third avenue of exploration should be added: Quantum Physics. I'm not even certain I am using the correct term...
The distances between planets and solar systems is so incomprehensible, so unrelentingly vast that it feels probable that the answer must lie outside the physical transit of a vehicle through that space. Either that or human travel much beyond our own galactical neighborhoood is, and is supposed to be, impossible. That seems logical to me, as there are solar systems with billions of years of evolution beyond our own, relatively young patch of cosmic real estate. One would think we'd have visitors by now...
So my answer is both robotic and manned exploration of our immediate sphere of possibility - The Milky Way - while also trying to grasp the largely unknown workings to the universal machinery. Maybe the answer to freeing ourselves of being trapped on Earth is to free ourselves of the conception that we have to travel in space/time to get away from it. That, ultimately, may require the aid of artificial intelligence.