Space Opinions Survey

[True Blue Door]

The following is not a scientific survey - I'm simply curious how people feel.

1. Should the NASA budget be higher, lower, or stay the same?

2. How high do you think the NASA budget should be? Feel free to express in whatever terms you please - exact dollars, % of budget, or % of GDP.

3. Should NASA place a higher priority on manned spaceflight or unmanned robotic probes?

4. What prorportion of the budget would you assign to manned spaceflight vs. unmanned robotic probes, leaving out other priorities?

5 Should NASA play a leading role in Earth-observation, or should that be the domain of other, more specially-focused institutions?

6. Should solar observation be placed under the purview of NOAA, since solar dynamics have a direct and immediate impact on daily terrestrial life while NASA's interest is more abstract and scientific?

7. What priority should exploring each of the solar's systems worlds have in sequence?

8. Should these priorities be different for manned space exploration? How so?

9. Beyond the Moon and Mars, where should human beings visit next, and why?

10. What is an acceptable death rate for manned space exploration, from a public perspective that won't directly face the risks?

11. What is the death risk you would find acceptable if you personally were to undertake space exploration?

12. Would it be be justifiable to increase the NASA budget with a tax increase of some kind? Would you be willing to pay such a tax increase? What is the maximum rate increase you would accept?

13. At what point is space safe enough for children?

14. Where do you want to go?

15. What places do you feel have the most significant future hitstory in a spacefaring civilization?

16. What kind of governments do you think will arise in various places of the solar system?

[grahamhgreen]

1. Maybe you should pst these as polls? 1) all the money for war to go to NASA. Higher.

[True Blue Door]

3. What does "Pst" mean?

[Agschmid]

7. I'm going with "post"

[randome]

28. Like Wales, maybe grahamgreen can't afford too many vowels.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]You should never stop having childhood dreams.[/center][/font][hr]

[NuclearDem]

32. Pahahahaha

[randome]

36. I knew someone would get that.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font][hr]

[True Blue Door]

14. Gotta agree with your funding priority.

Under current cost estimates, we could have built a well-staffed base on Mars for the cost of the Iraq War - not including the cost of the laughably-called "reconstruction." In fact, probably several bases in different locations of the Red Planet.

But as usual with Republicans, "there's no money" for what they don't like, while the wallet is bottomless for whatever crazy shit they want to do.

[MohRokTah]

2. My answers

1) Higher.

2) At least as high if not at least 25% higher than the budget for the military.

3) 60-40

4) Yes, NASA should take the lead on Earth observation

5) NOAA should be a subsidiary of NASA.

6) Exploration of Mars should be a priority as Mars is the most likely place to start to learn how to Terraform.

7) Without manned spaceflight, everything else is useless.

8) Europa and Titan are excellent candidates for terraforming.

9) The same rate as for king crab fishing.

10) The same rate as for king crab fishing.

11) Absolutely. Increase taxes on everybody who makes more than $1 million per year and apply it all to NASA.

12 ) Now

13) Everywhere.

14) Those local places with earth like planets in the habitable zone.

15) Egalitarian societies with an emphasis on science and technology.

[True Blue Door]

4. WRT #15, that's what we hope, but...

What's a more realistic assessment? The New World saw a considerable spread of different governmental and social forms. Not many of them were morally laudable and inspiring.

[MohRokTah]

5. I have to agree, but there's been social evolution since then.

I would expect a form f government to evolve that has, to date, not been expressed in human experience.

[True Blue Door]

16. Absolutely, at least in some places.

We could expect, however, that the social and political fabric of space colonies would not be monolithic. I find it fun to speculate about forms it would take in what places, and within the same context. E.g., what the spread of political ideologies would look like on Mars, and what kind geographies they would respectively gravitate toward.

My speculations tend toward a few broad strokes over the long-term:

For Mars: Miners and plains people - conservative, exploitative, competitive. Hill, mountain, canyon people - liberal, environmentalist, urban, more interested in education beyond the practical (e.g., artistic), economically rich but more interested in applying than increasing it.

For the Moon: Undboutedly some day property on the Moon facing Earth would cost a lot more than property on the Far Side, for the views. And within the Earth-facing side, the most expensive views would occur along a ring that have the Earth in the most aesthetically pleasing angle of the sky, neither so high that you have to crane your neck, nor so low that it looks strange and unimportant. So I would expect the Near side to be richer and more conservative, and yet more environmentally preservationist to preserve the view of the Moon from Earth, while the Far Side could be anything - perhaps more frontierlike and developmental.

Free-space colonies that have to be completely built and regulated artificially must be strictly controlled, so there is a danger with those of becoming oligarchical or even totalitarian. After all, when a government knows - and most know - every minute detail of your life down to your breathing and defecation, and can use that information regulate everything from the mineral content of your water to the ionization of the air you breathe, the potential for abuse is massive. So if there end up being thousands of free-floating station-states out there, any number of them could be gruesomely tyrannical or just highly exploitive (like living in a bad time-share condo with hidden fees everywhere). Some, of course, if they were begun with the highest moral virtues in mind, and designed and managed pragmatically to take care of where reality meets ideals, could be functionally utopian, and full of life and intellectual brilliance.

My sense is that gas giant moon colonies will end up being so rich that they'll become very insular and accultured rather than enterprising , like the Virginia colony became - not a bad or brutal society like the Deep South, but inward-looking and not very interested in change, somewhat suspicious of the more active societies in other regions.

Asteroid Belt colonies, though, I think will become like the new Aegean. So many permutations, so much rapid feedback, economic interaction, and recombination of peoples and ideas. You'd end up with various alliances and leagues; the hyper-democratic, benevolent ones; the defensive, neutral ones; and the horrifying, predatory, despotic ones. Lots of fun to imagine.

[Warren DeMontague]

23. I disagree.

Despite the built-in systemic flaws inherent in the early US (the obvious glaring one, most of all) the US Constitution was, and remains, an incredibly potent document in the history and advancement of human self-governance.

[True Blue Door]

24. Interesting points about Europa and Titan.

I would actually make the case that Callisto is a better fit because of its low ambient radiation levels and shallow depth in Jupiter's gravity well compared to Europa, plus slightly higher surface gravity. And Titan is so wild and dynamic that settling it would be a lot more difficult than anywhere else in the solar system. It would actually be harder to live there than to settle in balloon cities in the clouds of Venus. Far more interesting, definitely, but technically more challenging.

[Tikki]

6. These answers:

Space Opinions Survey
The following is not a scientific survey - I'm simply curious how people feel.

1. Should the NASA budget be higher, lower, or stay the same? Extremely Higher.

2. How high do you think the NASA budget should be? Feel free to express in whatever terms you please - exact dollars, % of budget, or % of GDP. Billions and billions of dollars.

2. Should NASA place a higher priority on manned spaceflight or unmanned robotic probes? Manned space flights.

3. What proportion of the budget would you assign to manned spaceflight vs. unmanned robotic probes, leaving out other priorities? 70% to 30%.

4. Should NASA play a leading role in Earth-observation, or should that be the domain of other, more specially-focused institutions? NASA and others.

5. Should solar observation be placed under the purview of NOAA, since solar dynamics have a direct and immediate impact on daily terrestrial life while NASA's interest is more abstract and scientific?
With a bigger budget many can be involved.

6. What priority should exploring each of the solar's systems worlds have in sequence? Whatever science thinks is practical.

7. Should these priorities be different for manned space exploration? How so? A bit because of longevity issues.

8. Beyond the Moon and Mars, where should human beings visit next, and why? Mars, it is next on the list.

9. What is an acceptable death rate for manned space exploration, from a public perspective that won't directly face the risks?
Zero, but we can only work toward making it zero.
10. What is the death risk you would find acceptable if you personally were to undertake space exploration? It could only happen in my dreams…I hope to wake up.

11. Would it be be justifiable to increase the NASA budget with a tax increase of some kind? Would you be willing to pay such a tax increase? What is the maximum rate increase you would accept? So much is gleaned from these challenges, we get innovation to spur the economy.

12. At what point is space safe enough for children? A long time in the future, unless the future hits the wall.

13. Where do you want to go? In an urn on the shelf of the cabinet my husband made for our son.


14. What places do you feel have the most significant future hitstory in a spacefaring civilization? When we get to that point we will certainly know it when we get there.

15. What kind of governments do you think will arise in various places of the solar system? Reciprocal governments, I hope.

Tikki

[True Blue Door]

25. Secondary questions.

"[quote]6. What priority should exploring each of the solar's systems worlds have in sequence? Whatever science thinks is practical.[/quote]"

Science, bless its heart, tends to prefer the things that are most interesting to scientists, not necessarily to the rest of us. If it had to choose, it would rather have a colossal gravity wave observatory to tell us about the first 0.0000000002th of a second of the Big Bang through abstract data-gathering than get awesome pictures of other planets. Both are useful, but I want my purty pichers.

"[quote]8. Beyond the Moon and Mars, where should human beings visit next, and why? Mars, it is next on the list.[/quote]"

The question was beyond Moon and Mars, what would be next?

"[quote]Zero, but we can only work toward making it zero.[/quote]"

But I asked for an "acceptable" death rate, not an "ideal" one. Zero death rate means you don't go. And not even that, really, because there's a death rate just being on the ground doing nothing.

"[quote]12. At what point is space safe enough for children? A long time in the future, unless the future hits the wall.[/quote]"

But what conditions would you stipulate for space being safe enough for children?

"[quote]13. Where do you want to go? In an urn on the shelf of the cabinet my husband made for our son.[/quote]"

Where in the solar system?

[Uncle Joe]

8. 1. NASA's budget should be higher.

2. I believe 1-2% of the budget would be adequate for the foreseeable future, it was at .48% the last time I checked.

3. I believe in a rough equivalence regarding human space flight and robotic missions, perhaps 60-40 in favor of robotic missions for now anyway.

4. NASA should play a leading role in regards to Earth Observation specifically in regards to global warming, global perception and other environmental threats to humanity.

5. NASA should be the umbrella for all space related studies including solar as well, their primary mission should be the mastering of space flight, I have nothing against NOAA participating in this as well.

6. I believe the moon and Mars are good stepping stones, while Saturn's moon Enceladus and Jupiter's moon Europa may also be good candidates farther down the line as both are believed to contain water.

7. Robotic missions should lead the way with human missions following, this is especially true for longer duration missions.

8. The same answer I had for #6.

9. This remains to be seen, deaths are an inevitable part of exploration, the development of cutting edge technologies or the mere act of traveling whether overland, on the high seas, the skies, by plane, train and automobile.

10. From a % wise point of view I suppose 85+% chance of survival.

11. I believe monies should first and foremost be reallocated from the bloated defense budget, secondly I would raise taxes on the most affluent members of society, while closing loopholes for mega-corporations in placing their nominal headquarters overseas to avoid U.S. taxes. Finally I would allow NASA to receive some form of profit from technologies they develop in their space endeavors to help fund the agency.

12. This is a hard call, but I would suppose 20-50 years for a least some relatively close in or near Earth space flights.

13. For now the Moon would be fine but I don't see that happening for me personally, however if I could live for hundreds of years there is no limit of places that I would want to visit.

14. The Moon will be a historical place over the next 100-200 years, simply because of its location, Mars may follow suit and then places with water and other critical minerals will play important roles.

15. How humans explore and eventually colonize other planets will have great effect on those governments behavior, I'm hoping for democracy, international cooperation here on Earth will be critical especially in the early going and their governments will evolve over time. If history is to be any guide it's also imperative that great respect must attended to the people of those colonies, they shouldn't be subjected to any form of "lesser" status.

Thanks for the thread, True Blue Door.

[True Blue Door]

26. Good galls, in general.

Ideally, I would put it at 20% of GDP - but that's balls-out full mobilization numbers. Apollo was around 5% of GDP. And a sustainable budget would be about 2% of GDP. This 0.5% we have currently is lethal.

The logical pattern of exploration seems to be: Telescope, flyby, orbiter (with option on impactor), lander, rover, human. The bulk of our exploration now takes the form of orbiters. We need to move that to the right - more landers and rovers, and then more humans, wherever we are.

In my view, Saturns's Moons and Jupiter's Moons each deserve their own judggernaut-class huge space programs capable of surviving the radiation deeply, lingering around interesting areas, and then taking off again. I'd also send a Cassini-type thing to both Uranus and Neptune, see what's out there. Those moons looked very weird and tantalizing in the brief glimpses we got from Voyager.

It's magic to think about these things, to remind us that all our troubles are just small ripples in a huge pond of possibilities.

[SoLeftIAmRight]

9. Have you read Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars?

Good stuff.

I would like about one third of the military budget transfered to the space program.

Colonize the Universe.

[True Blue Door]

17. The Mars trilogy is one of the most inspiring works ever.

It should serve as a blueprint for the future. I hope Elon Musk has read it.

[Zorra]

10. Right now, I believe we should drop every program but those that totally foster the well being of

the people of the US.

Once we make our own selves and neighbors totally secure and invincible within our own US family, the rest of the world will follow, with our help. The only thing holding us back from being the model for a fantastic, amazing world is the greedy people and corporations who always want nothing but more, more, more for themselves.

Once we eliminate the 1% from power, we can then spread love, peace, democracy, environmental protection, liberty, and egalitarian prosperity across the planet.

Does anyone have a problem with that?

[Uncle Joe]

11. Do you consider space exploration and the mastering of spaceflight critical

to human survival?

[Zorra]

12. My friend, I don't see human survival as anything important in the current or future state of the

universe. Unless, of course, humans someday figure out that they shouldn't destroy their own home and make the mastering of spaceflight necessary for human survival. I'd just love it if humans could "restrain" the enormous number of greedy, wealthy sociopathic killers among them, in order that they might make space exploration a genuinely positive, constructive endeavor.

I mean, like, ya know, our prez just stood before the world and told us how we need to go to another country and kill more brown skinned kids again, to, as we both know, protect corporate interests in "teh region".

S/he's dead, Joe.

[Uncle Joe]

13. I agree with everything in your posts, Zorra

humanity must evolve, and I believe we will, but to me survival of the species is critical to that endeavor.

We're a relatively young species and I believe given the chance to survive long enough we will learn and grow to become harmonious with each other and our only home.

I consider us to be children of stardust intricately connected to the Universe.

[Zorra]

15. I hope so, but don't want to risk destroying the universe before we

evolve to the point where we can travel out there without being totally murderous blundering fools.

We have potential, but until we realize the potential i don't want to expose the beings in other dimensions or worlds to our deadly, violent,and ignorant current state of being.

Due to recent research, I am pretty sure that homo sapiens killed off/absorbed homo neanderthalensis simply because they were naive, loving, non-materialistic peaceful beings, making them an easy kill and conquest for homo sapisens.

Less than 250 years ago, imperialistic Euro~christian savage invaders were slaughtering my ancestors on two continemts so they could steal their land, resources, homes, and sometimes even enslave them.

Think about these same greedy, conscienceless, murderous imperialistic savages encountering some beautiful, loving, non-materialistic "pagan" culture in the solar system next door.

How long would it be before the imperialistic savages genocided/enslaved the indigenous population? I suspect it wouldn't take long.

[Uncle Joe]

18. I suspect it will be an extremely long time before we

find planets with any form of intelligent life and longer still to get there.

There is another possibility regarding intelligent life on other planets, it may not be benign but just as bad or worse than humanity and even more adept at space travel, would we be willing to be eliminated or enslaved by them?

To my way of thinking the more adept we are at space travel the better our chances of defending ourselves should the need arise.

We have culturally evolved to some degree it has only been 60+ years since humanity has created the first world governing body, albeit it being weak or dysfunctional in some ways, nonetheless I believe the U.N. is a good rudimentary start.

The forces of greed, power-lust, hatred, envy and ignorance are powerful indeed and it's damn sure not a straight line elimination or even reduction of those human frailties, but I believe in the long run we can and will overcome them.

Peace to you, Zorra.

[True Blue Door]

29. There is a slight discontinuity of analogy.

Human societies that encounter each other at most a few hundred or thousand years ago in technology. Any alien species we encountered would be millions or billions of years ahead - anywhere from seeing us as chimps to see us as random forrest creatures with no semblance of intelligence. So we have some paradoxes to work out before those scenarios come into effect.

[True Blue Door]

27. This is a pretty vague standard.

I'm not sure that anything in existence could make the standard you nebulously proposal.

[bananas]

19. Five years after Augustine: How does the panel feel about NASA’s Space Launch System?

http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/2014/06/five-years-after-augustine-how-does-the-panel-feel-about-nasas-space-launch-system/

Five years after Augustine: How does the panel feel about NASA’s Space Launch System?
Posted on June 17, 2014 | By Eric Berger

<snip>

Augustine lamented the fact that NASA is still being asked to take on ambitious goals: build a big expensive rocket, space capsule and send humans to Mars in the 2030s, without having nearly enough resources to accomplish this.

<snip>

The aftermath of the Augustine commission, during which Congress ordered NASA to build the SLS, was unfortunate, Chiao said.

“That was a big disappointment to most of us, probably all of us, on the committee. They did exactly what we asked them not to do, which was don’t partially fund it, and say you want to do everything.”

<snip>

Greason, in an interview, said NASA simply can’t afford to both build the SLS and use it to fly meaningful missions.

“The one thing that was clear that could not be done was to carry forward this approach with the existing budget, and that’s exactly what they’re doing,” he said.

<snip>

[KG]

20. NASA budget should be unlimited. taken out of the militarys.

focus for a generation or two on unmanned probes. technological advances are making manned missions less necessary.

[True Blue Door]

30. Love with the idea of unlimited budgets for unmanned exploration.

Spread the universe with our eyes and ears. But the unmanned exploration must be articulated as part of human expectation or that's no point.

[Warren DeMontague]

21. These are all really good questions.

1) Higher, absolutely. NASA currently gets a sliver of the discretionary budget and yet, science and exploration always pay off not just in material benefits but also in knowledge (and the two are linked). Prime areas for redirecting funding towards NASA could come from the Military/Industrial Complex and the Drug War, for starts.

2) See above: I think it's ludicrous that we spend a Trillion on the Military, we spend 60 Billion a year to try to keep people from smoking pot... NASA gets, what, 12? 16? I think that the entire DEA budget could be subsumed and given to NASA, that's a start. How much, dollar figure? Increase it by an order of 10 from where it is, just for starters.

3) Both are important. Obviously given the current status of technology, deep exploration will need to be robotic for the time being. I'd like to see a situation where one does not always need to come at the expense of the other.

4) Is pretty tied up with 3), also 2) and 1). If we're talking percentages, split it down the middle.

5) I actually think the idea of a specialty-focused science and environmental gov. org separate from NASA is not a bad idea; nevertheless, NASA is leading the way in understanding planets as whole systems, which is what the Earth is. But NASA's core mission should be exploration and knowledge of the universe off-Earth. If budget allowed, Earth sciences going to a new department is a reasonable idea.

6) Solar observation? Sure. Solar science could remain a NASA job. Perhaps a partnership.

7) If by "worlds" you mean Planets, moons, and dwarf planets, that's another good question. Mars first. Then Europa. Ceres if it looks interesting enough (we should have an idea next year) Enceladeus, Titan.. Venus has gotten short shrift but I think it could be an interesting case study. Jupiter. I'd also like to know what is out in the Kuiper belt. We're going to get a close up look at Pluto-- so how about Eris next?

8) Mars is the obvious next destination for landing humans, to my mind.

9) Ceres, again. A Venus flyby is technologically feasable near-term and could provide crucial mission experience for long-duration spaceflight outside the near-Earth environment. Science might be low but the historic factor would be high. Plus, again, everyone likes to blow off Venus because, obviously, it's so frikken hellish there, but it is close and might have some interesting data points. Beyond that the moons of the 2 big gas giants are an obvious additional destination for human spaceflight, depending on how well issues like radiation can be dealt with.

10) I think the shuttle, with its inherent design flaws, brought the risk rate too high. There will always be risks. That said, I don't know what the acceptable rate is.

11) Depends on my personal life situation. I have others who depend on me so that factors pretty highly into any decision I would make that would put me in danger at this point in my life. Plus, I'm probably getting too old.

12) Yes, although like I said, I'd like to see the military cut and the drug war ended first. Yes. Unknown, since again these things don't take place in a vacuum. The fantasy political will to raise NASA's budget significantly (namely, in a universe where I ran everything) would also include the will to re-prioritize the areas I've mentioned, as well as others.

13) Unknown, although I personally believe that humans will be living, for instance, on Mars permanently by the end of this century. Colonization implies familes and children. I think when humans decide to go to live there, they will take their kids. That's how it works.

14) If I could go anywhere? I'd like to see other solar systems. That's not likely to happen. If I could go anywhere in this solar system? I think looking at Saturn from one of its moons would be the best view imaginable. But I'm old school, I'd have to go to Mars to appease my inner 8 year old, who would never forgive me if I didn't make that my first choice.

15) Another good question. I think humans will live on the moon and Mars- I think eventually (1000 year timeframe) humans will begin to Terraform Mars and, perhaps, other worlds of the solar system, depending on our abilities. Mars seems most doable. I suspect humans will establish outposts on Ceres and also Jovian and Saturnian moons. If we're still technologically backwards enough to need to burn hydrocarbons, humans may utilize the methane lakes on Titan, etc.

16) Another excellent question. I think social predictions for the future are hardest of all (look how ludicrous past ones all turn out, like how in the 1950s by 2000 we were all going to be wearing shiny unitards and plastic skullcaps) but I do think, if history and human nature are any guide, social and governmental experimentation will continue to take place in their most innovative, or at least different, forms at the frontiers of human exploration.

[Earth_First]

22. I like space onions...

Boy, it's early!

(Backs quietly out of thread...)

[steelsmith]

31. NASA

1. Much higher

2 8% just because I have no idea.

3 equal importance

4 40/60

5 No

6 NOAA

7 Saturn's moons, Mars (manned) no other particular order

8 Yes Mars and a moonbase first, then the asteroid belt for mining ala ben Bova

9 Saturns moons

10 Like Chuck Yearger said it is all experimental till there are thousands of hourd of flight. 20% failure is not unreasonable to expect.

11 20%

12 Yes 2-3%

13 Depends on whose children.....

14 Too old for any chance

15 Moon base gateway to the stars

16 If human, capitalism, based on oxygen.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

33. 1. Higher, along with all scientific endeavours.

2. I may be out of date, but isn't it about a third of total US scientific spending? Let's triple US spending on science overall, including NASA.

3. Not sure, I don't have enough info to make an informed call on this question.

4. See #3.

5. NOAA can work with NASA here.

6. I'd leave that up to the scientists involved.

7. Perceived utility of the information we can gain from each.

8. See #6.

9. I'd go for the asteroid belt. Can we mine the asteroids for materials to set up an industrial base outside of the gravity well, as so many sci-fi writers have suggested?

10. 5%

11. 33% Although I would personally undertake a trip to Mars, even if I knew going in it would be a one-way trip, as long as I reasonably believed I would be able to help establish a permanent base there.

12. Yes, Yes, 3% increase on all marginal brackets above, say, $30000.

13. When we have established routine flights on at least a weekly basis.

14. Everywhere

15. No clue.

16. Communism, socialism, and other types of structures that recognize that in space, everyone is dependent upon the actions of everyone else.

[Sunlei]

34. A larger space station and a base on mars, but I would rather we green the deserts.

What I mean is use many billions$ to green up, use for growing crops, and renewable grasslands our deserts. And open up a half mile wide water highway from the gulf to the seas of the NW passage. The gulf would benefit from the infusion of water. Sure it would change the Mississippi into a (salt/brackish water)transportation major waterway, economic benefits would be amazing. would love to see this happen in my lifetime

In the short term, next 100 years- Would love to see fully funded Nasa funded for small bases on moon & mars, with research/ telescopes. To bring into earth orbit/cut-up and land some big chunks of asteroids. Ones with minerals/rare earths we need.

What I think may happen is some country will orbit satellites with weapons and ruin the world fast. Or some knucklehead country will toss a major nuke on another, either will set-most of humanity back thousands of years.

[NuclearDem]

35. Here we go:

1. Should the NASA budget be higher, lower, or stay the same?

Higher.

2. How high do you think the NASA budget should be? Feel free to express in whatever terms you please - exact dollars, % of budget, or % of GDP.

10% of the total budget, on the low end.

3. Should NASA place a higher priority on manned spaceflight or unmanned robotic probes?

Depends on the mission. Manned missions aimed at expanding the ISS or a potential visit to Mars, unmanned for other missions to the outer planets or Venus.

4. What prorportion of the budget would you assign to manned spaceflight vs. unmanned robotic probes, leaving out other priorities?

Put the majority of the budget towards unmanned, at least until longer-distance manned flights are feasible.

5 Should NASA play a leading role in Earth-observation, or should that be the domain of other, more specially-focused institutions?

I'm assuming this questions refers to weather monitoring, communications, GPS, etc. Yes, leave these specific institutions ultimately in charge of these programs.

6. Should solar observation be placed under the purview of NOAA, since solar dynamics have a direct and immediate impact on daily terrestrial life while NASA's interest is more abstract and scientific?

Don't really see a need to divide the two. NASA and NOAA can share responsibility and goals.

7. What priority should exploring each of the solar's systems worlds have in sequence?

Mars for its potential habitability, Europa for its water, asteroid field for its mineral resource potential, all other bodies in no particular order for their own respective scientific benefits.

8. Should these priorities be different for manned space exploration? How so?

Mars is already at the top of the list. Otherwise, manned priorities should be for the inner planets, because of distance and feasibility.

9. Beyond the Moon and Mars, where should human beings visit next, and why?

Not entirely sure. I'm not well-versed enough in the solar system to know what other bodies may be habitable or not for even short visits, or if there is, whether a visit is feasible.

10. What is an acceptable death rate for manned space exploration, from a public perspective that won't directly face the risks?

Zero. Hence why I place priority on unmanned exploration until manned travel is feasible.

11. What is the death risk you would find acceptable if you personally were to undertake space exploration?

Oddly enough, I would be willing to risk quite a bit. But that's just for myself.

12. Would it be be justifiable to increase the NASA budget with a tax increase of some kind? Would you be willing to pay such a tax increase? What is the maximum rate increase you would accept?

I would prefer a significant tax increase on the ultrawealthy, but after that increase, if it was necessary to pay for the program and I felt comfortable the revenue would be wisely used, I would be willing to pay some more.

13. At what point is space safe enough for children?

When adults have continuously lived in either orbiting platforms or permanent facilities on other bodies for a full generation.

14. Where do you want to go?

Mars.

15. What places do you feel have the most significant future hitstory in a spacefaring civilization?

There are far too many factors in that question for me to adequately address it.

16. What kind of governments do you think will arise in various places of the solar system?

See #15.

[hunter]

37. Humankind is not that special, and we are not yet space-worthy.

At the moment we are not so different from the introduced rats that have severely damaged many island ecosystems. From the environmental perspective we are in fact much worse.

That said, I would greatly increase the budget for robotic space exploration, including heavy investments in autonomous artificial intelligences capable of real-time exploration.

I'm mildly opposed to sending humans to Mars anytime soon. With current technology, and even with foreseeable technology, it would simply be a very expensive and dangerous stunt very likely to kill the explorers.

Instead we ought to send a few extremely high resolution "spy" satellites to Mars and then crowd source the data obtained; in effect generating a high resolution "street view" of Mars that can be browsed by anyone on earth. More specialized robot explorers could then be deployed to further explore the curiosities found.

When the time comes, if we become true space-faring creatures, our decedents in space will no longer be human. Places like Mars won't be terraformed, instead the people there will be adapted to living in that environment, no air-locks or EVA suits required. Likewise, deep space explorers won't be people like us either; they won't require fragile life support systems and may not be biological beings at all.

Ultimately, in this universe, I think when biological creatures such as ourselves "leave the nest" they go to places unobservable to creatures such as ourselves. I trust this universe is full of life, but it rarely expands from its solar system or even it's home planet as an intelligence observable to us.

I enjoy Star Trek and Dr. Who, but in this universe it seems warp drives and time travel are very unlikely.

[bananas]

38. Quick answers

1. Should the NASA budget be higher, lower, or stay the same?

Higher.

2. How high do you think the NASA budget should be? Feel free to express in whatever terms you please - exact dollars, % of budget, or % of GDP.

It's currently around $17B/yr, or 0.5% of the federal budget.
Augustine said $3B/yr more was needed to get out of LEO, so that's a minimum.
Doubling it to 1% of the federal budget would good.

3. Should NASA place a higher priority on manned spaceflight or unmanned robotic probes?

Too complex for a quick answer.
This question is usually about pure science deep space probes vs human exploration by a handful of astronauts.
It leaves out a lot of other stuff done by NASA.

4. What prorportion of the budget would you assign to manned spaceflight vs. unmanned robotic probes, leaving out other priorities?

We should fund manned spaceflight sufficient to have a manned spaceflight program.
The Augustine Commission laid out a minimum of what's needed.
Currently we have no manned spaceflight rockets or capsules.
The ISS was almost lost when Soyuz was grounded a few years ago.
That's how we lost Skylab - during the gap between Apollo and the Shuttle, a solar storm caused Skylab's orbit to decay faster than expected. If we had a cooperative program with Russia, they could have kept Skylab up for us.

The only reason the ISS exists is because Clinton turned it into an international project - it almost lost by one vote.
Hundreds of people have visited the ISS from many different countries, and thousands of people around the world have worked together on it.
There is growing support for an international manned lunar base - this time China is taking the lead and is wiling to front most of the money.
The Apollo race to the moon was a civil competition between the US and USSR - a technological version of the Olympics.

5 Should NASA play a leading role in Earth-observation, or should that be the domain of other, more specially-focused institutions?

Mission to Planet Earth is a good thing.

6. Should solar observation be placed under the purview of NOAA, since solar dynamics have a direct and immediate impact on daily terrestrial life while NASA's interest is more abstract and scientific?

NASA isn't just abstract and scientific, they also do research on things like aircraft safety, the "Aeronautics" part of the name.
Solar dynamics is an interdisciplinary field, it requires much more than the restricted research that would be done by NOAA.

7. What priority should exploring each of the solar's systems worlds have in sequence?

#1 is Mars colonization.

8. Should these priorities be different for manned space exploration? How so?

9. Beyond the Moon and Mars, where should human beings visit next, and why?

10. What is an acceptable death rate for manned space exploration, from a public perspective that won't directly face the risks?

The Shuttle failure rate was something like 1 out of 60, and there was a long list of people willing to take that risk, a number of people eagerly did it several times, and public support for the Shuttle was strong.

The bigger public risks are nuclear weapons and gmo's:

1% yearly failure rate of nuclear deterrence:
Hellman compares the risks of nuclear deterrence vs flying a glider: http://nuclearrisk.org/soaring_article.php
Baum: http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/baum20130110

Taleb estimates very high risks for gmo's destroying the ecosphere: http://www.democraticunderground.com/101689073


11. What is the death risk you would find acceptable if you personally were to undertake space exploration?

50-50. Nobody here gets out alive.

12. Would it be be justifiable to increase the NASA budget with a tax increase of some kind? Would you be willing to pay such a tax increase? What is the maximum rate increase you would accept?

13. At what point is space safe enough for children?

14. Where do you want to go?

15. What places do you feel have the most significant future hitstory in a spacefaring civilization?

16. What kind of governments do you think will arise in various places of the solar system?