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[MetalSlimeHunt]

Also, none of those things are free in Scotland, they're just paid through taxes.

Russia and China are honestly pretty behind. The US, EU, and Japan have the most active programs right now, but that is unfortunately very little.

Space exploration leads to space exploitation, down the line. The potential resource gain is massive. It is a long-term investment, but the payback couldn't be represented in dollars. We already see plenty of the technological benefits. NASA has a whole magazine about the technologies they innovated in the course of their missions. Necessity is the mother of invention, and space is the most hostile environment there is.

Furthermore, conditions on Earth will never be perfected enough to say "alright, now we can go into space". That isn't how it works. Earth has limited scope. Your schools and hospitals might last for a couple centuries, but without human expansion into space the collapse of human civilization on Earth is inevitable.

[Lord Shonus]

In a very real sense, that's correct. The massive benefits of space research (including but not limited to better materials, much of our solar power tech, and the various satellite services such as weather reporting, navigation, communications, and geological surveys) are not restricted to the countries that put in the effort, so the nations that spend elsewhere are reaping the rewards of other nations' expenditures. This is as it should be, as it would have been extremely wasteful to duplicate the effort dozens of times. Two major space programs was enough to encourage competition between the two, and encourage a few others to attempt to challenge the leaders.

@darkrider. Far from it. Large as the US defense budget is, the costs of the programs Owlbread mentioned would be nearly as large. 320,000,000+ people is a lot for any program to cover. With better tax revenues, and trimming the existing budget, it's quite possible to afford such programs. But it's not nearly as non-trivial as is often assumed. 

[SalmonGod]

We need to find an alien race of psychic megasquid to fight so all of Earth can finally be united.

Might be easier just to find some terrorists to...

Nevermind.  That didn't work.

I know you were being sarcastic.  It just dawned on me... blow up a piece of New York (or rather politically abuse the fact that a piece of NY was blown up -- I'm not trying to phrase things like a conspiracy theorist here) and assign responsibility to an abstract threat that can't actually be fought against to scare people into compromises?  Too bad we didn't get constructive compromises in reality.

[Mephansteras]

More specifically scriver was referencing Watchmen (the comic, not the movie adaptation).

[Moghjubar]

Catastrophic event/scenario + actual humans expected to get together = "n countries have pulled their funding from the X-Com project, and then started a war"

[scriver]

More specifically scriver was referencing Watchmen (the comic, not the movie adaptation).

Indeed I was, in which

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Ozymandias constructs an "alien" (of the Psychic Megasquid kind) and explodes New York City to avoid the imminwnt nuclear holocaust an unite humanity against this new, otherworldly threat.

More alarming, however, is the realisation that Salmon hasn't read Watchmen! You loose all geek cred.

[SalmonGod]

I got the reference, actually. 

The realization I was describing in my previous post was how similar the end of Watchmen was to 9/11.  No, I'm not saying anything conspiracy theorist here.  I'm just saying that a piece of New York was blown up and it shocked the world... except in The Watchmen, the *spoiler* was used to suggest the existence of an abstract/omnipresent threat and an excuse to compromise on disagreements for the sake of security.  In reality, 9/11 was used to suggest the existence of an abstract/omnipresent threat and an excuse to compromise on values (freedom, privacy, and peace) for the sake of security.

Yes, I know the difference here is that the *spoiler* was a threat from beyond human politics, while terrorism is... not.  All the other parallels just hit me rather suddenly.

[scriver]

Oh. I understand, now.

You still don't get back your geek cred though. They belong to the bank now, and I- ehr, I mean, they already spent it.

'In reality, 9/11 was used to suggest the existence of an abstract/omnipresent threat and an excuse to compromise on values (freedom, privacy, and peace) for the sake of security.

Also security. Freedom, privacy, security, and peace. For the sake of security.

[RedKing]

Also, none of those things are free in Scotland, they're just paid through taxes.

Russia and China are honestly pretty behind. The US, EU, and Japan have the most active programs right now, but that is unfortunately very little.

Not so much. Japan has a variety of probes and whatnot, but no manned program at all. While Russia maintains a manned program mostly so they have Soyuz "space taxi" pilots. I'm not sure if the ESA maintains a manned program or not? I know they've sent people on the ISS but that's always been by hitching a ride on a Soyuz or the Shuttle.

Meanwhile, China has an active manned program with at least five successful missions now, including their first female taikonaut back in June. And they're working on their own (admittedly small) space station. As with most everything else re: China and advanced technology, they started by back-engineering tech from other countries, but they're making rapid progress in indigenous development.

[nenjin]

Unfortunately, this is one thing the administration thinks private industry can do better. Never mind the fact that private industry lives for profit while NASA lived for scientific exploration. But hey, nothing can possibly go wrong a space program built from the ground up by for-profit enterprises, right? RIGHT?

[10ebbor10]

snip

ESA has a manned program in the same way that the US currently has one. Co-operation with other nations. We once tried to design our own microshuttle equivalent, but came to the conclusion that the Soyoez was safer and cheaper. Hence we pulled the plug.

ESA is mostly doing science and other usefull things these days, and investing in Galileo.

Unfortunately, this is one thing the administration thinks private industry can do better. Never mind the fact that private industry lives for profit while NASA lived for scientific exploration. But hey, nothing can possibly go wrong a space program built from the ground up by for-profit enterprises, right? RIGHT?

But the emergency escape pods were too expensive, so we dropped those. Problem is that removing NASA will have quite an impact on said private industries.

[Descan]

Astronaut: "Feels like I'm wearing nothing at all!"

And then Space Stupid Sexy Flanders died of exposure to a vacuum.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Though escape pods are actually not something that would be useful on a craft. If your ship is going to be destroyed in such a way that you can't jettison or seal off a damaged and/or exploding section, you're screwed already.

[10ebbor10]

Though escape pods are actually not something that would be useful on a craft. If your ship is going to be destroyed in such a way that you can't jettison or seal off a damaged and/or exploding section, you're screwed already.

Talking about rockets. I meant those little escape rockets that are installed on pretty much every rocket.

Escape pods can be pretty usefull though, as the ISS has one availble at all times. It's just a Soyoez capsule, but it serves it's purpose.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

They've never tried using it to evacuate the ISS, though. It's an option, but also an unknown.