The Mars Rovers?

Question

Before answering this question...go to the following link and read this story about the rovers. (Please)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20071106/sc_space/marsroversscientificstayingpower

The rovers were only expected to last 90 days and now they have been working for over 3.5 years. My question is this: How do some people have the guts to complain about wasted taxpayer dollars for the space programs when many man made things like this give us waaay more of a return on investment than expected? How do they justify the complaining? (This is an actual question.)

Answer 1

Actually, your question is more of a rhetorical question...but, I happen to TOTALLY agree with you on this point. I would like to point out an even better example as well. The HUBBLE space Telescope ! That man made tool of science has blown the world away with its return on investment 100's of times over. (In my opinion.) The science it has returned along with the discoveries, beautiful pictures, and it's "Energizer Bunny" personality keep it going and going while the world is endlessly wowed. Negative people tend to focus on the few failures of NASA rather than look at the stellar over all record. (No pun intended...lol) As far as I am concerned...ALL of my tax dollars are well spent on the Space Program. GOOD question deserving of a Star.

Added: I didn't mean to take the spotlight off the Rovers. I am both pleased and impressed with what they have gone through and the data they have returned. I have followed their progress every step of the way since they left Earth.

Answer 2

Space is out there and we are here on earth. Because most of us can not go there, some of us think it is of no use.

However many scientific advances come from places we can not visit: from the very small scale, to the very large scale and even in far away places like Mars.

Research is always easy to criticise because:
1) it does not always yield results that can be turned into immediate profit
2) the results of research is not always predictable, there may be benifits and disadvatages in unexpected areas.
3) it can cost a lot of money to do, money that may not be recoverd for some time and worse may be used by others without rewarding the reseacher (in economic ways).

Answer 3

Pretty simple actually. The news media in this country (United States) tends to only focus on the failures: Mars Surveyor crashing due to a failure to convert from imperial to metric units, Shuttle Challenger, Shuttle Columbia, etc. Those are the kinds of stories that get people to pay attention. Thus, these are the types of stories the news media picks up.

Rarely do we get to see extended news coverage of how the astronauts this week saved literally millions of dollars by fixing a damaged solar array on the space station. The story, while amazing, doesn't portray anybody in a bad light. It does the opposite, in fact. Therefore, it must not be newsworthy according to some of the news media's methodology.

Take example Britney Spears. She gets more coverage for her mistakes than do the people who were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor just yesterday.

It's unfortunate that our nation's news media tends to focus only on the bad, but perhaps it's more unfortunate that our citizens watch it more.

Answer 4

Hello Science -

I think it deserves an actual answer -

1. It takes no guts to complain. Complaining is simple, doing is hard.
2. It takes no knowledge to complain. Complaining can easily be accomplished in total ignorance of the facts.
3. Complaining may eventually get the complainer a reward, because either people will get tired of the complaints, or politicians will give the complainer a share of the government dole to influence his voting behavior.

Answer 5

It's because people are short-sighted and don't want to spend money on something that won't get a return in their lifetime. What we're doing now is building the framework for the future expansion of the human race; the ultimate payback is survival - if a cataclysm destroyed the Earth, we would continue to live on elsewhere. Unfortunately it's similar to global warming, people don't want to spend money combatting it when it's actually future generations that are going to suffer (refer back to my comment about cataclysm!)

Answer 6

Many people (I hope it isn't most) see space exploration as a waste of money because it doesn't benefit them now, or directly.