Said Bill Maher in the monologue of last Friday's episode of "Real Time."
Later in the show, breaking up 2 panelists who were brawling with each other about the democracy in Hungary, Maher butted in to say, "How about that moon?"
A panelist smiled and said, "We can agree on the moon."
Maher: "Well, I don't know if we can agree on the moon. I like — who doesn't like? — the moon. To look at it. From here. A fan of the moon? I'm not a fan of going to the moon. The same question has been asked since I was a kid: Why? Why? Is it worth the money? What are we doing there? It's just another big fucking rock.... And by the way, it's not 'outer space.' It's right next door.... We live in the Milky Way galaxy. It has 100 billion stars.... There are 30 thousand million million million galaxies.... What the fuck? You really think we're going to figure this out in any time period that matters? We can't even get to the next planet — and we wouldn't want to — in our own solar system. It's just something for rich people to do that's fun. It's fun. It's fun to look at. We're not really getting anything from it."
Panelist: "I disagree, Bill."
Maher: "What are we getting?"
Panelist: "What we're getting right now is some of the only hope that we have in this country."
Maher: "Hope?!"
Panelist: "The Artemis team and NASA is giving people hope in America."
Maher: "Oh, I could sell that cheaper.... Hope! That's so vague! I asked you for a concrete thing we're getting out of it, and you said hope."
Panelist: "We're getting scientific research."
Maher: "Scientific research! What??!!!.... We've been to the moon many times. We know."
(I agree with Maher.)
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128 comments:
Either humanity is worth saving or not. If it is, humanity shouldn't put all its eggs in one basket, or on one rock.
PS. I'll be lazy and leave the "Hope and change" jokes as exercises for the reader.
Maher is a hedonist.
There is no vision of the future. No desire to explore or improve. No care about legacy or what you leave progeny.
People like Maher should not be allowed to vote or have any influence over how other people live. They are entirely selfish and self interested.
(I agree with Maher.)
Of course you do.
The “Moon race” of the 21st century isn’t just about planting flags, cheering or rocks, it’s about high ground, both physically and economically. In military terms, the Moon is the ultimate high ground relative to Earth. Controlling it, or at least ensuring no single rival power can dominate it, is a matter of long-term resource access and national security.
Under the UN Outer Space Treaty no nation can “own” the Moon, but active human bases create safety zones that other nations under the treaty are required to respect. If a country has people, not robots, on the ground, it can establish a perimeter around its operations for safety, limiting where other nations can land and operate on the Moon. The more human-occupied bases a country has on the Moon, the more ground it effectively controls, especially in high-value areas like the water-rich South Pole.
Hope? Oh boo hoo your candidate didn’t win. Long walk, short pier for you.
If he can’t roll it and smoke it, Maher finds it unworthy.
Maher: "Oh, I could sell that cheaper.... Hope! That's so vague! I asked you for a concrete thing we're getting out of it, and you said hope.
Maher's right, "Hope" is vague. You need to pair it with "Change." Now THAT's concrete and inspiring!
We must assume mankind can only accomplish what comedians understand and support, and we already lost Pee Wee.
This is why I don't go on TV and tell everyone what I think. if you do that, everyone is going to know what you think.
One of Maher's ancestors said the same thing about America, but another one didn't listen.
Ah, geez. When I think of all the advances we enjoy, the ones that serve humanity so thoroughly that we don't even think about them anymore, I reflect that many - if not, most - of them came out of the space program as a result of the research and invention needed to put a man up there.
To want to see the space program flourish, develop, and continue to fill new aspirations is to want humanity to continue its own fulfillment, its own enrichment. They didn't go up there to 'do research' turn around and come home. They went up there to test objectives and get results that drive their next objectives. That's why they call it a 'mission'. It also means, they're missionaries.
"To the moon, Alice!" - Ralph Kramden
"What are we getting?"
What are we getting from learing centers or feeding programs or hospice care or spending on the homeless to do drugs?
Maher has a California and Hollywood soul, and by all appearances thinks like a Trumpian conservative. Still, over the last couple decades he's confirmed that he'll never break away from his cynical naysayer schtick. He'll throw shade on anyone and anything -- proudly.
Artemis mainly showed that getting to the moon in 2026 is much cheaper and easier than it was in 1967 to 1972.
The NHL wants to expand to the Moon, but there's a high risk of wildfires.
https://weeklyworldnews.com/sports/6698/nhl-to-expand-to-moon/
https://weeklyworldnews.com/headlines/182728/fire-breaks-out-on-the-moon/
Maher: "Well, I don't know if we can agree on the moon. I like — who doesn't like? — the moon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9MZNEXrElw
The 9th NEW AGE Beatitude "The meek shall inherit the earth, and the rest will leave for space"
The Artemis moon shot was just like when they do a good remake of a well made movie to attract people too young to remember the first version.
Personally, I think the moon could be better. I'd like it to change colors and sometimes look like a round rainbow. It would be really cool if it was much larger and showed movies like a free drive-in theater.
I'm fine with getting rid of NASA to get us to the moon. It is among many programs from the 50s and 60s that we can end.
People like Maher(And people who agree with him) should be shipped to Afghanistan for a while.
Maybe when they come back they will appreciate the builders and people who try to make things better.
Bill Maher can be awfully glib and NASA has been leaning on the PR trying to generate the excitement around Artemis that we had for Apollo 8. Recall that we did eventually get bored of Apollo missions.
Being beyond the protection of Earth's magnetic field, is outer space, and we don't have much experience living in that environment. The ISS gets some protection from the magnetosphere, the Moon does not.
Maher's right, this isn't about scientific research, it's mundane engineering testing of equipment and procedures. NASA doesn't want to say that because it sounds boring.
We need a Moon base as a gas station to fuel up before going anywhere else in the solar system. The atmosphere and gravity of Earth make it a difficult place to launch from.
Also, as Enlighten-NewJersey said... the Moon is the high ground. Blocking the Strait of Hormuz is a pain in the ass, but wait until some dickhead country decides to chuck rocks at us from the Moon.
Elon Musk makes a better case, and would get the job done if NASA would allow it. Musk doesn't want all of humanity's eggs in one basket. Get a Moon base so we can get a Mars base, then dig in and get comfortable.
The 10th NEW AGE Beatitude "The clueless meek shall ride a bus to Hollywood Park and the rest will find much mirth in this.”
My father was a geology professor. When I was relatively young, one of our family friends asked the same question "Why are we going to the moon?" My dad answered for about an hour. Geologically speaking, there were a host of reasons to go to the moon, chief among them the knowledge we would get about the Earth and how it formed, what minerals we could find and use on the Moon, and much more that I can't remember or explain now, but there were many GOOD reasons. I had never been prouder of my father. Anyone who doesn't think we need to go to the Moon or Mars needs to think about what we'd learn there. Why does Mars not have any water now? It used to. Why is the atmosphere there so thin? It used to be thicker. Does what happened to Mars have any importance as to what may happen to the Earth? Those are questions that going to the Moon and Mars may help to answer.
Let's fix the shitshow here on Earth."
Ahh, yes, the nice vague completely meaningless (and therefore impossible to satisfy) ask that’s presented as reasonable and thoughtful.
Setting aside the many and obvious benefits of a space program, does Maher (does anybody?) honestly believe that the money spent on going to space is more wasteful than 100 other things we spend equivalent amounts of money on?
Mars can be terraformed... i.e. another Earth.. takes time but it can. And that is why we go to Mars. The moon is just a next step toward Mars.
“ Panelist: "We're getting scientific research."
Maher: "Scientific research! What??!!!.... We've been to the moon many times. We know."
(I agree with Maher.)”
My God what has happened to us. We have been on Earth for 100,000 years and are learning more about it now than ever, but the moon, fuck it, we have been there already, nothing more to learn at all. Just dumb rocks you know, no foreign films or comedy routines, no Taylor Swift shows at all.
And now we are luddites who place no value on research at all, Aristotle was good enough, let’s be careful not to learn anything new.
Whitey on the moon.
Randomizer said: "...wait until some dickhead country decides to chuck rocks at us from the Moon."
Looks like Randomizer has read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress."
Maher: "Oh, I could sell that cheaper.... Hope! That's so vague!
What if it’s the kind of hope that gets kids to go into STEM?
Don’t sell hope short. Just because Obama misused the word and cheapened the concept doesn’t mean it has no value.
What do we get from Bill Maher?
Let Musk do what he wants in outer space. Maybe a colony of his ex-wives. Maybe mankind's future. Possibly both.
Meteorites are something we do have to think about.
There is no point in "trying to fix the shit show on earth," an impossible goal, because human beings are flawed. We should try to improve ourselves and our world but never get sucked into the delusion that somehow we can make things perfect. Even if you succeed in achieving some perfection it doesn't last. Every generation comes in and does what it can to move the human race forward and make some improvements. But we never get rid of greed and corruption and evil and probably never will.
Aspirations are the magic juice which keep people inspired and creative. Elon Musk has spoken quite a bit about this as what motivates him.
The moon isn't primarily about research. I suspect that it's a military objective.
We have been not going to the moon or Mars for 99.999% of humanity's history, and that history is what led to the existing shitshow.
"who doesn't like? — the moon."
Me. Ruins observing the universe; terrible source of light pollution.
As to there's no more science to be learned because we've been there a few times; you're smarter than that.
The hype around Artemis 2 was silly.
Why did we need to leave Africa?
For the chicks, man.
NASA is worth the money we spend and not just because it inspires us or because it fosters international cooperation. NASA has yielded significant technological advancements such as satellite communications and improvements in materials science and aircraft design.
Let's spend more on NASA and less on Medicaid fraud.
"The deep subsurface accounts for roughly 10–20% of Earth's total biomass and up to 90% of all bacterial and archaeal biomass on the planet ... Depths range from hundreds of meters to several kilometers"
Why, why, why, Maher asks. Dinosaurs point and laugh.
Sella Turcica, I was hoping that was the video you were pointing to!
Shorter Bill Maher:
Genocide in gaza - Hell yeah.
War in Iran - Of course.
Going to the Moon or Mars - Nope. They're just a big rocks.
What is Bill Maher other than a bundle of Rich Hollywood Liberal predjudices and emotions? And of course self-interest. Billy Boy thinks we need to "make up for Slavery" but don't raise HIS taxes!
There's no logic. No Patriotism. No morals. Just what he and well-to-do libtards and Losertarians like or dislike.
And when's the last time Bill Maher was funny? 2004?
Randomizer said...
"...Also, as Enlighten-NewJersey said... the Moon is the high ground. Blocking the Strait of Hormuz is a pain in the ass, but wait until some dickhead country decides to chuck rocks at us from the Moon."
Some layer episodes of The Expanse had that plot line, though it was renegade Asteroid Belt dwellers cloaking rocks and slinging them earthward.
Most useless thing since the Wright Brothers flew from Kill Devil Hills to another part of Kill Devil Hills.
Maher is a drunk, who spent his career trying to destroy normal working people, republicans, and others.
Now he points out failing in leftist policies, most of which he pushed.
He relies less on reason and comedy, than an arrogant smug superiority that is common among leftists. He is often wrong, more often naive about normal people and America.
If left to Maher, we would have stayed at Plymouth, as it was clear by looking that everything was just rocks and trees, so why bother going?
He misses the most important part of being human, the desire to explore, to discover.
Personally, I think he really liked Trump, agrees with much of what Trump is doing, but knows he can't say it. He is married to the left, and can't ever admit that he was 100% wrong about most of the things he believes.
“Let’s fix the shitshow here on Earth.”
This is the fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives. Liberals think the shitshow can be fixed. Conservatives know the shitshow will always be with us.
If you accept that the shitshow will always be with us, then you build your political and economic systems around channeling and containing those impulses - through tradition, culture, and checks on power. Going to the Moon or to Mars is a way of channeling our energy and aggression into positive accomplishments.
When you reject the idea that the shitshow will always be with us, you quickly move from fixing systems to fixing people. That’s when you get schemes to reeducate the populace, regulate every aspect of life, and police thoughts and speech, all in the name of progress . . . and you leave the Moon to the Chinese.
"Fix the Shitshow on earth"
Give me a break. Maher isn't interested in "Fixing" anything. The losertarians have Maher right. He's a smug, wealthy, Hollywood liberal. He doesn't want to really change anything.
Maher has his, and fuck you. Maher just doesn't like NASA, astronauts, and space travel. That's not what Hollywood leftists do. But if we took all that money and gave it to DoD to attack Iran some more, or used it for more immigration, Maher would be in favor of it.
I'm assuming this is AA : "(I agree with Maher.)"
In which case we should be disappointed. So shortsighted.
C'mon Althouse. You don't like to travel in this country. Naturally, you don't see the point of travelling to the moon. Mars? Worse and worser.
Landing and living on the moon hasn't been done. So one can't say what the end product that will be most valued will be. But meanwhile, it's a solid but glamorous engineering project with a military application and a possible mining benefit. It's a way station to Mars. There might be a way to the stars - a "hyper-drive," a "fold" in space which needs people concentrating on that issue to find it. The people on the moon would be that kind and all concentrated together.
I have to laugh at the idea that we need more homeless shelters, more autism centers, more hospices and should spend the money on that. We could get the money for a moon station by eliminating fraud in the welfare system. The Somali pirates and Nick Shirley have shown us that. (Though we don't want to transfer the fraud to NASA.)
The same goes for foreign aid and the UN. The effective programs are probably 10% of budget and the rest is supporting various forms of aristocracy at play around the world and in NYC. We have the N'go and D'em people here but their counterparts are swlling down booze and drugs around the round earth at our expense.
The moon, instead? Definitely.
Paglia nailed it.
“Give me a break. Maher isn't interested in "Fixing" anything.”
You may be right.
Ahh, yes, the nice vague completely meaningless (and therefore impossible to satisfy) ask that’s presented as reasonable and thoughtful.
Indeed. The reason are ancestors left the old world for the new world was because they were prohibited from fixing the shit show at home. They came to the new world to create a better civilization and succeeded.
Europe is still a shit show, ever more so because they import so many “refugees” escaping their shit show countries, and none want to really fix the problems at home nor could they. We need only see the shit Trump is getting for solving decades long problems to see the resistance to fixing problems.
Simple question, what has Maher ever fixed?
This is the fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives. Liberals think the shitshow can be fixed. Conservatives know the shitshow will always be with us.
The shitshow is us.
He’s like they said history is over. So we’ve explored all of the moon? We’ve done years of research in a low gravity environment. We’ve spent years and decades perfecting vacuum living. We’ve discovered all there is to discover. Yes let’s pursue getting more sex, pleasuring ourselves instead of doing great things.
This may be one of the more cowering things I’ve heard a public figure say. Go away Bill, keep enjoying the great things others have done. Taker.
theres helium 3, the real clean energy source if you want 'mr fusion' maher is so shallow, pebbles don't bother skipping across
weve examined a tiny corner, he would rather have that gizmo they used in sleeper
in the event of a tyrannical government on earth, we might need a refuge as in 'the moon is a harsh mistress, although we are way behind for 2076,
a very huxleyan milieu, much like the great reset,
has maher really taken the measure of newsom who has turned the state into dumpster fire,
he bought the bullet train and every other stupid thing, probably cashless bail at the beginning,
I disagree with Maher and The Hostess.
However, we need to be paying for it now and not running 2.5 trillion dollar deficits.
the mission is a tiny fraction of our expenditures,
(I agree with Maher.)
500 years ago you and Maher would be arguing that it was a huge mistake to send expeditions to the New World, and doubly so to try to colonize the place. What sort of idiot would want to live in the primeval forests of those two continents named for Americus Vespucci?
The space program jumpstarted computers, cellphones, satellites and Internet. With AGI here and the unthinkable ungodly huge power requirements that entails, space is a necessary component to that demand. Frankly, I enjoy the privilege of living in the USA. Staying on top takes work and adventure.
Shitshows are infinite in number.
From a pure science and technology standard, putting humans on the Moon was a massive achievement in human history. Understanding it demands respect.
Inventing bows and arrows, the wheel, the printing press, TV, and computers were all great. But, creating a system to leave Earth's atmosphere and gravity, fully support human life, land on another rock, fly back, and land at home alive -- that's akin to a baby bird jumping out of a nest for the first time, finding a mate, and making a kill on the first attempt.
Our first trip to the Moon made numerous sci-fi concepts realistic. Our movement options have grown from walking on the Earth like lizards to flying in the sky as birds to actually leaving our home. Moon travel created an entirely new activity category.
(Also, for good or bad, the first color photo of Earth from space is largely responsible for the 1970s environmental movement and later global warming politics. Photos from space show that we are alone, vulnerable, and have a very thin atmosphere. This "sold" the concept for many people, as the picture was worth 100,000,000 words. The human ability to affect the Earth remains open to interpretation -- Paul Ehrlich was nuts.)
These videos are like listening to music.
They are mostly steel factories building things that make life possible. Huge crazy things. On of the videos was about the fab plant that makes the ship anchor chains. Huge pieces of steel being shaped.
These videos are a reminder of what the United States has lost. A combination of sloth and weakness has led us to a point where people are proud to say how lame they are.
Maher is emblematic of a worthless caste of talkers and thinkers that don't do shit anymore and really could just not exist and we would be better off.
This extends to everything in this country. We have too many people on Social Security and we are investing in fat old people instead of the future.
The United States isn't allowed to feel good about freeing the people of Iran from the Mullahs. It isn't allowed to feel good about going to the moon. It isn't allowed to feel good about lifting billions out of poverty.
There are just a lot of people that need to be shamed and demoted to green card status at most.
you mispelled evil, and his works have continued in the slow collapse of the birthrate across the third world, the literal deathwish artemis is a breath of fresh air,
“C'mon Althouse. You don't like to travel in this country. Naturally, you don't see the point of travelling to the moon. Mars? Worse and worser.”
Now I get it.
Althouse just doesn’t want to see all the stupid articles cluttering up the NYT:
1.How I Got Lost On the Moon After Trusting A One-Star Yelp Review of Tranquility Base
2.Moonwalking for Dummies: A Budget Traveler’s Guide to Holding Your Breath for Three Days Straight
3.A Backpacker’s Handbook to the Moon With Only a Tube of SPF 5000+ In Your Pocket
She may be on to something.
well the times could make the whole venture ridiculous, even after a rich vein of helium 3 is found,
1000 craters to see on the Moon before you die
Heinlein spoke of the crazy years but his imagination only went so far,
Tourists Ruined the Moon. Will Mars Be Next?
that was the notion in the 1978 version of the Martian chronicles
"This is the fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives. Liberals think the shitshow can be fixed. Conservatives know the shitshow will always be with us."
Personally, I think liberals create the shitshow. At the very least, they exacerbate it.
now the distances between the moon and mars is about 40-50 fold
sorry 160-200 fold
Tang.
I survived the rough ride to the Moon but I still wasn’t prepared for what the regulars casually call the Mars Vomit Comet
The "space exploration wastes money we should use for [shitty obsession of the week]" is predictable, boring, and played-out, and is almost always a tell that the person stating it is privately grotesquely selfish while publicly ostentatiously 'humanitarian' and 'concerned.'
I mean, what possible benefit could come from laying foundations for future generations to build upon? What have those future generations ever done for MY immediate benefit?
I was on the DoD side of space and missiles from late Apollo to early Shuttle. NASA didn’t do much in those realms without military help and military money.
Lots of great people at NASA but they have a history of being the Show Pony. In many ways NASA went off the rails when the moon went off their radar ( nothing sadder/stupider than resting on laurels and pissing away a 57-yer head start!
Gene Kranz weeps.
As for man “escaping” to the moon and Mars - if there were people now at those places, priority one would be escape to our beautiful home -Earth!
That said, we gotta go, as others have pointed out: the places will be the “high ground” and be able to dictate what happens on Earth.
NASA’s big win last week may be a bad thing as it may breathe life and mo’ money into an obscenely expensive program
"These videos are like listening to music."
They are to me. When I walk into my fabrication company, I can tell if it's making a profit or not just by the sound of it. I can tell if people are motivated and how smooth the processes are going. I can tell if bonuses are coming this quarter and if my people are happy or bored, and I can tell how their personal fortunes are looking for the near future. I'm like Zoltar. "Your future is mine for the telling and yours for the hearing."
What did cutting the space program to the bone buy us that's worth having today? It could have been moving forward all this time with bases and people on the moon if we just had someone like Musk to lead it and keep it within a sensible budget, but moving. In my opinion, the man deserves to be the richest man in history. Courage, vision, & integrity.
What did cutting the space program to the bone buy us that's worth having today?
Made a lot of Somali immigrants rich?
"Made a lot of Somali immigrants rich?"
Some Armenians have done alright, I'm told.
The Artemis 2 mission was less than a 100 billion dollars. Hasn't California spent more on that for their dumb bullet train which hasn't laid any tracks yet?
Space missions are aspirational as well as producing a lot of technologies or improving existing ones. I think it's well worth the investment.
"Personally, I think liberals create the shitshow. At the very least, they exacerbate it."
Bill is a master exacerbater.
I dont care if we go to the moon or not. I think private companies should do it. Elon seems to have the vision and the knowledge and the will. Let him handle it. Make NASA a training area for Space X. They need to start looking at the ocean, too. We have no clue what's there either, but its probably not aliens.
Individuals are welcome to their perspectives pro and con, but I think a species with any self-respect will try difficult, dangerous, and expensive ventures.
Let's don't be like the Chinese palace officials, who decided after Zheng He's great voyages that it was all just a costly bother, and helped set China on the road to decline.
bagoh20 said...
What did cutting the space program to the bone buy us that's worth having today? It could have been moving forward all this time with bases and people on the moon if we just had someone like Musk to lead it and keep it within a sensible budget, but moving. [My emphasis]
@bago, it would have turned into just another Washington bureaucracy and the money that was cut would, bluntly, just have been frittered away on useless projects designed to funnel money to the “right” (meaning left) recipients.
@Dave Begley Tang
Hot Tang. Tangit. Tastes great.
Freeze-dried ice cream. Novelty styrofoam food.
The Fisher Space Pen has pressurized ink that can write upside down, under water, and in space. I know that today we often write underwater. A huge need was filled.
I start out pretty sympathetic to the Maher / Althouse argument.
But it assumes a fact-not-in-evidence: "Let's fix the shitshow here on Earth".
Whatever the billions are that are spent chasing the moon, that same amount of billions would be pointlessly blown doing stupid, inefficient, unaffective, corruption, bribery, ego manipulating, confusion here on planet earth. Oddly creating a bigger "sh*****w".
Big deal.
narciso, in an important way, Mars is only twice as far away from earth as is low earth orbit. The "delta-V", or rocket power required to get from earth to LEO is about the same as required to get from LEO to Mars.
In the business, they say "Low orbit is halfway to anywhere."
I stand corrected, thank you
Is the antipathy of Althouse and Maher towards travel to be Moon and Mars related to the fact that both are septuagenarians (too old to fly there themselves)? Of course I’m even older (birthday #80 coming up) and I am enthusiastic. The difference may be that I have the world’s smartest grandkids, and they should have the option of living and working on the Moon if they want to. Nether Maher nor Althouse are grandparents.
"Whatever the billions are that are spent chasing the moon, that same amount of billions would be pointlessly blown doing stupid, inefficient, unaffective, corruption, bribery, ego manipulating, confusion here on planet earth."
People don't want to spend their own money on that stuff. That's what other people's money is for, and why the government is involved.
Almost 60 years later we remember the moon landing as a highlight of Western Civilization and what men can accomplish. But gosh, if only we'd spent that money on more useless Government waste, think of how much better things would be. LOL!
to paraphrase and riff off Ann Coulter - if only women and men like Bill Maher had been in charge, we'd still be back in Europe living in huts and riding horses. 'Cause why waste money on Columbus and going to the New World? We can fix the problems here in Poland!
He needs to read "operation Hail Mary." I just finished it. Haven't watched the movie, yet.
Humanity's hope is in the stars.
Maher never married and had kids. He never really grew up.
Bill Maher never reproduced. Maybe there is a God.
I dont think bill maher could ever find a woman ugly enough to have sex with him. Without money being involved.
I assume Howard Stern has kids. No doubt some woman had a beauty and the beast fantasy.
Democrats are anti science.
The people who have checked out of procreation, or whose children have checked out of procreation, have literally no skin in the game in the future. There are many such people now. Of course they proclaim a love of “humanity”. They just don’t want to get their genitals involved with the opposite sex to do the dirty work of making sure it all goes on. So long, losers! A hundred years from now no one will give a fuck what you did in your short time here.
bagoh20 said...
What did cutting the space program to the bone buy us that's worth having today? It could have been moving forward all this time with bases and people on the moon if we just had someone like Musk to lead it and keep it within a sensible budget, but moving. In my opinion, the man deserves to be the richest man in history. Courage, vision, & integrity.
We got social security and medicare instead.
If you like taking care of Earth you should like a mission to Mars. The engineering work done for life support, sanitation, and water recycling alone will be very helpful for us all and drought prone places especially.
I would much rather see my tax money got towards space missions than for more guns and mansions for Somali thieves.
It's not clear to me if Althouse is saying that she personally is not interested in going to the moon, or if she is saying that no one else should be spending time or money to go to the moon. If it's the latter, then I'd want to know why she would feel that way. Because, if the argument is that those of us NOT spending money to go to the moon aren't getting any benefits from that effort, then that's clearly wrong and shortsighted on the face. Absurdly wrong.
There is no final, court‑verified "fraud total" attributable solely to Somali individuals as of January 25, 2026, So lets get off these wild Trumpian numbers, name names and add up numbers.
I am also not interested to go to Mars. I would consider a trip to the moon. But Mars? No way.
Oso Negro: I know you are doing your part. I am too. It's not easy work, but it's pleasurable. They think we are John Henrys living in the past, but driving steel forges the future.
If there were scantily clad Moon Maidens and huge lower-gravity pot plants on the moon, Maher would have a NASA tattoo.
Does Maher really want to "fix" things here on earth? How exactly does he propose to do that? Inertia grinds down movements for change. We get stuck in gridlock and stagnation and endless internal strife.
Going to the moon gave the country a goal and helped keep it together. It gave us something to be proud of. Goals give us a reason to get up and take action. Maybe a reason to fix some things on this planet.
Maybe there's not a connection between the end of the Apollo program and the "malaise" of the Seventies, but maybe there is. We didn't "solve" the earth's problems when we abandoned Apollo, we just gave in to stasis and entropy.
Heinlein wrote an essay way back in the '80s entitled "Spinoff," about the advancements in the mundane sphere that resulted from the space program. Enigma et al., lots more than a pen that writes underwater. (Unfortunately I don't remember the essay very well... but he catalogued a lot of stuff.)
Pols and bureaucrats picking NASA priorities made as much sense as Lyndon, McNamara and their acolytes picking targets and crafting rules of engagement in Vietnam.
When the moon became, “Mission Accomplished”, manned spaceflight was over. The last Apollo ride was more of a diplomatic gesture and, maybe, a chance to finally get Deke Slayton into space. Slayton made it clear how far ahead we were in space science and abilities when he said, at least privately, that the Soviets mostly positioned their ship and the Americans did the heavy lifting for docking and mingling.
The public lost interest in space (and spending on same) with the end of manned space flight. Imagine the Indy 500 with driverless cars controlled by AI or “drone” operators, from thousands of miles away.
The Space Shuttle was lame from Day-One. Jimmy Carter, who learned to hate the military when he was at the USN Academy,
made the military a “deal they couldn’t refuse” that brought lots of money that congress wasn’t gonna give NASA. Industry didn’t care where the money came from but DoD space and missile people thought the Shuttle a distraction and privately referred to it as the Space Truck.
Thankfully, the Air Force quietly ordered more Titan heavy lift launch vehicles, “just in case”. Came in handy when the STS was grounded after the Challenger disaster.
NASA (government) has no hope of producing results as quickly and cheaply as SpaceX and others
Here Jamie:
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/ssd?id=mdp.39015083085392;page=ssd;view=plaintext;seq=47;num=41#seq47
It's from the prepared statement of Heinlein to Congress
Applications of space technology for the elderly and handicapped joint hearings before the Select Committee on Aging and the Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives, Ninety-sixth Congress, first session, July 19 and 20, 1979, . | HathiTrust Digital Library
Narr: "Let's don't be like the Chinese palace officials, who decided after Zheng He's great voyages that it was all just a costly bother, and helped set China on the road to decline."
Yes, we shouldn't be like them. But we should thank them for saving us from worldwide Chinese rule. Just like we should thank Trump. CC, JSM
I see these missions as an investment in mankind's (and our country's) future. If we can get to space in a way that is more economical, we can get access to more resources, which are critical to our most important technologies, and enable new/cutting-edge ones. I also believe there is a certain restlessness in mankind that could be served by going to the moon, Mars, and beyond, settling these places, and making a home there. That second part may be even more important than the first. I regret that I am closing in on 60 and won't likely be part of it. I think in a few decades our most creative troublemakers will be packing their bags, putting on big suits, and heading to space.
Luckily, the world isn't really run by comedians.
Our reach should always exceed our grasp. We are at out best when striving for something, not squabbling about slicing up a fixed pie.
The left is just worried that all the hard working smart people will leave and go to the moon instead of giving all their money to people who need welfare. It’s the logical extension of people leaving New York and California.
All the right minds have always thought the search for knowledge is a waste of time and treasure.
Gadfly on the Somali frauds... Has now reached the "Ok, it happened, but you can't prove how bad it js." stage.
Prigress!
"I see these missions as an investment in mankind's (and our country's) future. If we can get to space in a way that is more economical, we can get access to more resources, which are critical to our most important technologies, and enable new/cutting-edge ones."
Regarding new technology, from Michael Crichton:
"Let’s think back to people in 1900 in, say, New York. If they worried about people in 2000, what would they worry about? Probably: Where would people get enough horses? And what would they do about all the horseshit? Horse pollution was bad in 1900, think how much worse it would be a century later, with so many more people riding horses?
But of course, within a few years, nobody rode horses except for sport. And in 2000, France was getting 80% its power from an energy source that was unknown in 1900. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Japan were getting more than 30% from this source, unknown in 1900. Remember, people in 1900 didn’t know what an atom was. They didn’t know its structure. They also didn’t know what a radio was, or an airport, or a movie, or a television, or a computer, or a cell phone, or a jet, an antibiotic, a rocket, a satellite, an MRI, ICU, IUD, IBM, IRA, ERA, EEG, EPA, IRS, DOD, PCP, HTML, internet, interferon, instant replay, remote sensing, remote control, speed dialing, gene therapy, gene splicing, genes, spot welding, heat-seeking, bipolar, prozac, leotards, lap dancing, email, tape recorder, CDs, airbags, plastic explosive, plastic, robots, cars, liposuction, transduction, superconduction, dish antennas, step aerobics, smoothies, twelve-step, ultrasound, nylon, rayon, teflon, fiber optics, carpal tunnel, laser surgery, laparoscopy, corneal transplant, kidney transplant, AIDS. None of this would have meant anything to a person in the
year 1900. They wouldn’t know what you are talking about.
Now. You tell me you can predict the world of 2100. Tell me it’s even worth thinking about."
I am also not interested to go to America. I would consider a trip across the Channel to England. But America? No way.
Why does Mars not have any water now? It used to. Why is the atmosphere there so thin? It used to be thicker.
Those are good questions you're asking, and yes, the answers to those sorts of questions are important to our understanding of earth.
But the first of your quoted questions above is a misunderstanding, while to the extent that it's true (no liquid water), that depends on the second (thinness of the atmosphere).
But beyond the liquid part, we now know there's lots of (frozen) water on Mars—right on (or near) the surface. To itemize it:
1) There are the martian polar ice caps. The southern is huge too, but more diffuse and mixed in with CO2 ice and thus harder to estimate; but the northern (water) ice cap is about half the size of the (enormous) earthly Greenland ice cap.
2) Then, too, there are the ice “mound” craters of Mars' far north (around 70° N latitude)—e.g., crater Korolev—containing thousands of cubic km of water ice.
3) Finally, in the martian mid-latitudes (±30-60°) north and south, there are vast quantities of near-surface water-ice, together with (on the surface) great numbers of visible glaciers, oftentimes looking much like earthly glaciers (lightly covered with dust and debris forestalling sublimation). Musk already plans to land Starship (when Mars ready) near one of those sites.
4) Lower (than 30°) latitudes on Mars look to be essentially dry, though there does appear to be reason to think there's (non visible) water in places down on the floor of the great canyon system Valles Marineris.
5) Buried deeply, and thus hard to get to, there appears to be vast quantities of water all over Mars—but that's hard to get to. The foregoing is right at or near the surface.
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