Is this a good reason to increase NASA's budget?

Question

While we calmly consider rocks in space as fun and occassional sparks of color in a night-time sky, there are some pretty big things that are cruising around up there. July 3 a big one will be passing nearby and in 2009 a rock about 300 yards/meters across will be passing by closer than those geosynchronous satellites that beam our phone calls, news, Internet, and TV to us. Congress recently mandated NASA to do some planning (Near-Earth Object (NEO) Detection, Characterization and Threat Mitigation). Should we simply be about our lives and leave space alone or spend the money and effort to protect ourselves from some unknown event like that which wiped out the dinosaurs?

[Several articles at: http://www.space.com/]

Answer 1

The Earth is a finite resource and will become uninhabitable one day. Global warming, nuclear accident, hit from a big rock from space - there are plenty of disaster scenarios.

We need to be prepared. To that end NASA needs to do so much more research, travel to other planets, set up a base on the moon and mars and, above all work towards spaceflight being like flying today. Sound far fetched? When my dad was a boy man couldn't fly and before he died men were standing on the moon.

Professor Stephen Hawking, he who wrote 'A brief History of Time', recently stated that if mankind did not seek out planetary travel pretty quickly there was a good chance a natural disaster would wipe out all human life!

Answer 2

I believe that theres a lot of problems down here that need to be taken care of before we start looking at the stars and see what might be above us. So far they havent found anything, and i dont see any good on men walking on the moon, that dont take care of wars or hungry or sick people. if something is really going to hit us , belive me it will. No money is going to stop it.

Answer 3

Why not? Spend the money. Hire American workers to do the heavy lifting. One day (hopefully not) some generation will thank us for having the foresight and brains to protect ourselves.

Answer 4

America is not on the gold standard.If the U.S. Government needs money they just print up more money.I think that Star Wars was anti meteor.

Answer 5

Why worry about everything that's going on, not enough people that could really make an impact in our society and life care. Let's enjoy responsibly while we are on this planet.

Answer 6

i do not understand of a particular "source" yet for my section with Earth an finished mess, we do not have any employer screwing with different planets. that money will be more advantageous spent convalescing the wide-spread of existence for each person.

Answer 7

yes

Answer 8

no