Bye Bye Cassini

[SuburbanFarmer]

We need to trim some of the fat off that NASA budget and get back to the basics. The only thing space really did for us is allow us to get rid of some extra dogs and chimps.

Obvious troll is obvious.

[heydaralon]

Venusian sky cities.

Why though? Venus is far away, has an atmosphere that is full of sulfuric acid and poisonous gas, and is extremely hot. There is no easy way to grow grain on Venus. Meanwhile, Earth has an atmosphere that humans can breathe, is habitable for human life in every region, and has an abundance of food and fresh water. We also have the advantage of living here already so no travel is necessary. I've seen pictures of proposed air balloon looking colonies on Venus. They look cool as shit. Maybe that would even work. Is that really the most effective way for us to spend our limit resources right now though?

[Penner]

[heydaralon]

We need to trim some of the fat off that NASA budget and get back to the basics. The only thing space really did for us is allow us to get rid of some extra dogs and chimps.

Obvious troll is obvious.

Obvious joke is obvious.

[StCapps]

Obvious troll is obvious.

Bring back the space shuttle?
Good one Penner.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Venusian sky cities.

Why though? Venus is far away, has an atmosphere that is full of sulfuric acid and poisonous gas, and is extremely hot. There is no easy way to grow grain on Venus. Meanwhile, Earth has an atmosphere that humans can breathe, is habitable for human life in every region, and has an abundance of food and fresh water. We also have the advantage of living here already so no travel is necessary. I've seen pictures of proposed air balloon looking colonies on Venus. They look cool as shit. Maybe that would even work. Is that really the most effective way for us to spend our limit resources right now though?

Because it's an entire planet full of untapped resources.

Remember, everything that humans have ever done is based on the resources of a single planet.

[heydaralon]

Those Cassini photos look like a cool photoshop filter I have used. Instead of spending all that NASA money on telescopic probes, we should invest it in Adobe creative suite so they can make all kinds of new imaging effects.

[Ph64]

They could have expanded the drone program with the money wasted on that spaceship. Or bought every cop in America an armored personnel carrier.

Definitely short sighted... if we'd only put a few hellfire missiles on it we could have taken out all those ISIS militants on Saturn. Instead we've left ourselves wide open for the Russians to build their own Titan->Earth pipeline.

[heydaralon]

Venusian sky cities.

Why though? Venus is far away, has an atmosphere that is full of sulfuric acid and poisonous gas, and is extremely hot. There is no easy way to grow grain on Venus. Meanwhile, Earth has an atmosphere that humans can breathe, is habitable for human life in every region, and has an abundance of food and fresh water. We also have the advantage of living here already so no travel is necessary. I've seen pictures of proposed air balloon looking colonies on Venus. They look cool as shit. Maybe that would even work. Is that really the most effective way for us to spend our limit resources right now though?

Because it's an entire planet full of untapped resources.

Remember, everything that humans have ever done is based on the resources of a single planet.

I'm not against space stuff. I love planetariums and looking through telescopes. I'm glad that we put resources into learning about the Universe. I'm just not sold on the cost benefit ratio of trying to colonize another planet. I think putting even a dozen people on a colony would be much harder than you realize.

[Okeefenokee]

Venusian sky cities.

Why though? Venus is far away, has an atmosphere that is full of sulfuric acid and poisonous gas, and is extremely hot. There is no easy way to grow grain on Venus. Meanwhile, Earth has an atmosphere that humans can breathe, is habitable for human life in every region, and has an abundance of food and fresh water. We also have the advantage of living here already so no travel is necessary. I've seen pictures of proposed air balloon looking colonies on Venus. They look cool as shit. Maybe that would even work. Is that really the most effective way for us to spend our limit resources right now though?

If you were born one hundred years from now into a highly automated world where the very few people who were needed to work were only devoted to keeping the system running to support the large majority of humanity that does no work, which would you prefer?

1. Operating the replicator to support people who do nothing for you in return

2. Sitting on your ass while someone else supports you for free

3. Building a new civilization away from earth with a group of people who also are not content with option 1 or 2.

I don't think much of the limited resources angle. The planet ain't tapped, and the solar system hasn't even been scratched.