Congress proposes increased funding for NASA, including money for Europa lander

[Flagg]

Dude, I'm not going to play the going round in circlejerk-land with a moron who cannot understand why an astronaut walking around on Luna or Mars who see's an interesting rock can go pick it up and examine it visually to decide to keep or discard it, then do advanced laboratory tests in a matter of hours is superior to a skateboard with solar panels and a few basic instruments that can only do a small fraction of what a manned mission could do over the course of weeks/months/years.

Or how human civilization can be totally wiped out by a big enough planetary impact on Earth that would not effect self-sustained human colonies on other bodies throughout the solar system.

And frankly, your initial statement that probes and telescopes in space and deep space are somehow "better" or "mutually exclusive" as opposed to human explorers/colonists shows how dumb, and limited in scope your imagination seems to be. The only fucking reason we're sending probes to Mars rather than people is because NASA doesn't have the fucking budget to send people, which they would rather do.

This also in no way negates the fact that giving NASA, an organization of "they would be laughable if they weren't so goddamned sad and stupid failures" since the last moon mission another $1.3 bullion USD, which is a pathetic amount considering how expensive even putting glorified battlebots on a planet like Mars is, as opposed to using those funds to raise the COLA this year for people who desperately need it is not just a travesty, it's a fucking embarrassment. They might as well have had specially printed bills made by the US mint to pass around to every congress critter that voted for this funding so that they can light them on fire and use them to light the Cuban cigars they all still manage to get despite the embargo.

[jwl]

How human civilization can be totally wiped out by a big enough planetary impact on Earth that would not effect self-sustained human colonies on other bodies throughout the solar system.

Okay, considering how you seem to have ignored my point, let's talk planetary impacts. Let's say the biggest near earth object, Ganymed (30km diameter), were to hit the earth, and look at how you could make communities on earth and on mars to survive this.

Light:
Crops don't do very well without light so lack of light can be a problem.
On earth directly after the impact, almost all sunlight is wiped out for several months. After ~one year, (indirect) sunlight has increased, but it is still down to ~85% of normal earth sunlight.
On Mars, sunlight at 45% of earth's is normal. During a dust storm, 80% of the available light can be cut out, and these can last for weeks.
The solution to this, on both earth and mars, is to use floodlights on your crops.

Heat:
Crops don't really like low temperatures either, and neither do human beings.
On earth directly after the impact, global temperatures will be ~13C below normal for a few weeks, and by the end of the year, they will have recovered to ~6C below normal.
On mars, global temperatures are ~40C below normal earth temperature. However, the thin atmosphere reduces the heat loss through the air around your habitat (but not through the ground).
One of the solutions to this, in both cases, is artificial heating. On earth, you can also add lots of insulation to your habitat, but this is more difficult on Mars because of the difficulty in taking heavy things to space.

Air:
Humans need oxygen and a lack of poisonous gases to breathe, crops need carbon dioxide to photosynthesise. Having ~1 bar pressure is good too.
On earth after the impact, the air is fine for breathing and photosynthesising after the impact.
On mars, the air is at a pressure of ~0.006 bar and is mostly made of carbon dioxide.
Since this does not affect the community on earth, I'll leave the possible solutions to this as an exercise for the reader.

Power:
Most of these solutions require energy to power them.
On earth directly after the impact, solar panels won't work for the first few months due to lack of light, and after that they will have reduced capacity.
On mars, solar panels have reduced capacity, and other forms of power are difficult because of weight and/or nonapplicability on mars.
The solution on earth would be anything except solar power for the first year, then solar power can be used if necessary. On mars, the solution is solar power, just with more panels.

Of course, on neither Earth nor Mars will these solutions work when scaled up to 7 billion people, but for a small community designed to survive catastrophe they should be fine.

Also, Ganymed is not going to hit earth (at least not immanently). With it being the largest NEO and everything, it's path has been predicted. And it isn't predicted to go within 1 million standard deviations of earth in the next 200 years.

Dude, I'm not going to play the going round in circlejerk-land with a moron who cannot understand why an astronaut walking around on Luna or Mars who see's an interesting rock can go pick it up and examine it visually to decide to keep or discard it, then do advanced laboratory tests in a matter of hours is superior to a skateboard with solar panels and a few basic instruments that can only do a small fraction of what a manned mission could do over the course of weeks/months/years.

And frankly, your initial statement that probes and telescopes in space and deep space are somehow "better" or "mutually exclusive" as opposed to human explorers/colonists shows how dumb, and limited in scope your imagination seems to be. The only fucking reason we're sending probes to Mars rather than people is because NASA doesn't have the fucking budget to send people, which they would rather do.

Yes, a manned mission to mars is better than an unmanned mission to mars. But with the resources you put into making a manned mission, you can send several probes to places much further than mars, and/or make space telescopes which can observe the universe.