Findind life on Mars and searching for life on Mars: we well know that we are unlikely to find intelligent life forms. So we're looking for bugs. Water on Mars makes for a likelyhood of bugs existing or definately having existed. If we achieve this goal, find water bugs, NASA will get a congratulatory so what. I'm utterly for sapce exploration, but I'd rather we improve our rockets, ships, and space station before we waste money and time in search of bugs and water. Searching for, and finding bugs, is of little importance to me. Lets spend that 30 billion, or whatever a space mission goes for now, on buiding a new and better battery!
Well one thing that hasn't been mentioned is the implication of life on Mars being that the existence of other life in the galaxy greatly increases. Of course, if they don't find fossils where they expect to, that would greatly decrease the likelyhood. That would lead to cutbacks in SETI projects which is another thing people complain about as a white elephant. But I pretty much agree that we should improve our existing space travel capabilities first.
Hi aphie, Instead of displaying unique abilities, our blind Pal without a cane might rather be afflicted by some kind of an obsession. Something not unlike a little Pavlov bell.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote from Gordon Gekko: all money donated to churches (wasted) should instead be donated to NASA. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I love how you have the unique ability to turn any thread into a religious debate. __________________ aphie _______________________ Reply: He is correct. I understand and share his anger with the illogic which plagues us.
Well, let's think about this for a second. Generally, religious people who attend service give some type of offering. Now if you are Jewish, you pay upfront. If you are Christian, you put the money in the offering plate. However, this money gets collected by the church. Now, amazingly, the church or synagogue, temple -- whatever you call it -- does not sit on this money. It actually spends this money on improvements, services and local charitable events. This money then trickles back into the economy. Not every church, temple, etc. is evil like in Gordon's neo-atheistic world. Many religious organizations spend money for good causes and to help out people in the community. Besides, it is their money, so why should Gordon be the dictator of how they spend it? If I want to give my money to a religious organization, that is my prerogative. If I want to take my money and give it to some homeless bum, that is my decision. I just found it interesting how this topic was about why we should care about investigating Mars, and then from that, Gordon is able to pitch atheism.
I hear what you're saying aphexcoil. Of course I disagree. GG is angry because he sees, by his opinion, a lot of waste, as do I. I personally find that community is of great import, but I'd rather the religious trickle be stopped and the money spent on specific and directly logical goals. The money to go to space explorations. The remainder on various other ideas, some of which I hope we would agree upon.
Perhaps some people derive a great amount of internal satisfaction from giving to their religious organization, which in turn makes them more upbeat about their lives, translating into increased work output per individual, a larger national GDP and more money for nuclear powered rovers on Mars in the not-so-distant future?