To da Moon Alice!! To da Moon!

[Philly Mike]

I would rather have guaranteed health care for my future kids than spend the money collecting space dirt.

Why do I trust what Nasa does more than more than what congress is fixing to do with healthcare?

When going to the moon all we are doing is furthering our space rock collection. As far as furthering robotics for handicapped folks we can do that just as easily with our feet planted on Earth and without spending all the extra cash/fuel to send a couple of monkies into space

Now wait a minute. We have ALOT of cool stuff as a direct result of technology directly related to the Space Program. Hell, where do I start. Laser tech. Cordless tools. CD ROM. Computers. Tang. Many times the Space program has taken old technologys and combined them in new and imaginative ways to create something crazy cool. And declassified technologys go to industries to further humanity. Plus a butt load of stuff I can't think of right now. It costs alot, but we get alot back.

So then why can't we research the same technologies and even more without wasting money actually going into space?

the reason these technologies were even thought of is because of the need that was created by the task of space travel. otherwise they would have never even be thought of. We would end up with new challenges and new technologies we never could have thought of otherwise.

I don't buy that argument at all, they might not have been thought of as quickly... Cordless tools would have been there sooner or later (I mean that was just common sense to eliminate the cord). The other three were not even NASA inventions:

Computers were first thought of by Charles Babbage in 1856, well before NASA ever existed, and in fact NASA is never mentioned in anything to do with the invention in the first place: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_invented_the_computer" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_invented_the_computer</a><!-- m -->

Same with CD-Rom, yet another invention that was not done by NASA, as matter of fact Sony and Phillips jointly created it. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_invented_the_CD" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_invented_the_CD</a><!-- m -->

Lasers were actually first theorized by Einstein himself and the first working Laser was created in 1960 (again not by NASA). <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://inventors.about.com/od/lstartinventions/a/laser.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://inventors.about.com/od/lstartinv ... /laser.htm</a><!-- m -->

okay so these technologies weren't exactly created like that. but regardless this research into these technologies can help us.

Regardless, space exploration will benefit us in the future. The potential to inhabit other planets starts at the moon anyway. This can branch out to other planets if we go on.