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[MetalSlimeHunt]

Curiosity's mission is completely on hold until Congress gets its shit together. The RTG, of course, does not care about what Congress is doing and will continue its steady decay as Curiosity is able to do nothing with the ever-diminishing power it generates.

Allow me to take this moment to tell the Tea Party that they are supreme jackasses.

[Xantalos]

Curiosity's mission is completely on hold until Congress gets its shit together. The RTG, of course, does not care about what Congress is doing and will continue its steady decay as Curiosity is able to do nothing with the ever-diminishing power it generates.

Allow me to take this moment to tell the Tea Party that they are supreme jackasses.

*clap* *clap* *clap*
Good job, Congress. You just fucked science.

[Loud Whispers]

*clap* *clap* *clap*
Good job, Congress. You just fucked science.

This really shouldn't be surprising.

[Xantalos]

*clap* *clap* *clap*
Good job, Congress. You just fucked science.

This really shouldn't be surprising.

That's the sad part; it isn't.

[misko27]

Congress!
"Because fuck you too, that's why"

[Xantalos]

See, this is what I'm talking about. You all are falling for the same fucking trap that is going to ruin one of the best things we have ever done. The second you militarize space, our age of international scientific cooperation in that field is done. It will return to the age-old question of "how can we most efficiently kill our enemies today"? No more humanistic research for the good of our future, unless it happens to coincide with military goals.

And it is our future. It is too valuable to hand over to the domain of killing each other.

Also this. I agree with this. I don't want the final frontier to be killing each other. We've already done that.

[10ebbor10]

On a side note, Curiosity is not the most troubled NASA project. In fact, it's very likely that the Nuclear RTG will be the longest surviving part of the mission. You'd have to be quite lucky to run into major energy troubles with those.

Many of the space telescopes and observation satellites run on liquid Nitrogen/Helium for cooling, which is now slowly evaporating while the telescopes idle. A few of them, like Hubble, are still making imagery, and others are joint projects with other agencies and are now run by them, but it's still bad.

[Chaoswizkid]

Nuclear bomb, WW2 stuff

This is actually a special scenario. This was not just "Can we have some money to make some bombs that we can only use once but cost a lot but basically wipe out cities?"
This was "Okay, we know that our enemy already knows about this, and we know that they are working on it. We need to complete it before them, if only to hold it over their heads and force them to surrender before they do the same to us."
"Our enemy" being Germany since Japan was out of the loop. Vast amounts of time, effort and resources were spent in the information, espionage and special operations part of the war to stop Germany from producing nuclear weapons and spreading misinformation about the best way to produce the material needed to make the bombs. The monetary cost of developing the weapons was pretty much a non-issue; if we didn't spend the money trying to make it as quickly as possible, we lost. Now, with historical information and hindsight available, this wasn't really the case as our other operations and Hitler's reluctance to rely on "Jewish Science" proved sufficient to show that we were safely in the lead. However, hindsight also shows that it was really, really close to Germany figuring it all out and beating us in the race.

The equivalent for space would be like someone pointing out, "Hey, I figured this thing out! We could make the Death Star laser with this!" and everyone going "Yeah, we just have to figure out which way is the best to make that stuff you found!" while everyone is at war. It's not a question of "Is this cost effective?", it's a matter of "If we don't finish this R&D first we lose and are potentially all killed."

[kaian-a-coel]

Can we just nuke washington now?
Even STiD's asshole federation admiralty wasnt assholish enough to order the enterprise's immediate shutdown because they failed to stop bickering over budget in due time.

[10ebbor10]

On a side note, ESA is being quite creative with their potential Mars Rover. After the robotic snake comes the rocket powered hopping bot.

Link

[Flying Dice]

See, this is why we really need to weaponize space: kinetic strikes on the Capitol building. 

And now we're all on another watchlist.

[Baffler]

And now we're all on another watchlist.

I think anyone who's been on these forums for more than a few days is on so many, one more won't make much difference.

[Sergius]

And now we're all on another watchlist.

I think anyone who's been on these forums for more than a few days is on so many, one more won't make much difference.

LOL. Like you need to actually do anything to be on the NSA espionage list.

[ChairmanPoo]

Nuclear bomb, WW2 stuff

-snip-

  Even if they had gotten it first I doubt very much a bigger, more expensive bomb would have been enough to save the nazis.

[10ebbor10]

Nuclear bomb, WW2 stuff

-snip-

  Even if they had gotten it first I doubt very much a bigger, more expensive bomb would have been enough to save the nazis.

It would've been much worse. Nazi's launch the Bomb, Nuke London. Allied forces react with WMD's of their own. Namely, Anthrax, poison gas and other bio chemical weaponry. Germans, or what's little is left, also react with remaining nuclear warheads, and bio chemical weaponry. Significant parts of Europe would be unlivable to this day.