One careful owner....

[Sonic]

If anyone has $28 million kicking about the space shuttles Atlantis and Endeavour have been slashed in price.

Anyone fancy clubing together and beating beardy branson at his own game?? ;)

[Mark in Oshawa]

Branson should have bought them....god knows a REAL flight into orbit would be much more fun than his suborbital momentary trips into the outer reaches of the atmosphere.

Then again, you are buying well used orbiters who were built by companies who were the lowest bidder!!!

[Sonic]

Well used, perhaps, but retiring 5 years too early. NASA doesn't have Orion ready yet and probably won't fly untill 2015.

So as well as carrying space tourists I'll rent the Shuttles back to NASA whilst Orion is still on the drawing board. Perhaps I can get Enterprise too at a knock down rate so I can force beardy brandson to rename his bird! ;)

[Langdale Forest]

IMO space travel in a MASSIVE waste of money. I do agree that what they find in space is very interesting but the USA could have spent all the money on more practical things, like trying to stop povertey and so on.

[pettersolberg29]

Mr.Forest - very true. I have no interest in space. It looks nice. Full stop. Worth billions? No. Waste of money? Yes.

Poverty, healthcare, even a new house for Mr.Obama would be a wiser use of the money!

[Langdale Forest]

Why a new house for Mr Obama? :uhoh:
His house is big enough already.

[pettersolberg29]

That's my point you see. It's irony. Even though Obama's house is big, I'd rather spend money on that than the space program. That shows how little I want to spend on the space program, and how low a priority it should be. Get it?

Irony - us Brits are meant to be good at it.

[Mark in Oshawa]

A waste of money? A nation going one trillion in debt this year isn't going to notice or not notice the mere billions that the shuttles cost over the last 2 decades.

As for solving poverty, the "War on Poverty" has been blowing through money since the 60's...and poverty is still an issue in the US. Funny tho, the money spent should have been more than enough. What the USA spends on social programs is a heck of a lot more than what they have spent on NASA believe me...

[Sonic]

Finance aside for a second, the world would be a very different place if in 1600 AD Europe decided - Hell, that new world is a bit too far away, and its really difficult to survive there. Its too expensive too, let's just quit and stay home.

Its Human nature to explore over the next horizon - it just so happens we've run out of horizons on this planet.

On the subject of costs; yes, NASA (and other space capable nations) spend, what on paper look like huge figures. But as has been already pointed out that figure is a drop in the financial ocean in reality.

Also it could be money well spent. The current maximum population of the earth (based on our finite resources of water, food, fuel etc.) if we all expect a standard of living similar to the average European or North American is around 2 Billion. So unless we find a new source of resources - let's say on a nearby moon or planet - the war on poverty will always be a nobel but futile one.

[Sonic]

Oooops. Typo. I meant 1500 AD.

[pettersolberg29]

I see what you mean about space - a lot of technology has been brought to our lives because of it but just because the US is in trillions of debt is no excuse to waste more billions!

Getting to the moon was fun, but we have to be realistic and not aim for some distant galaxy, spending futile billions on reaching nothing before hell freezes over. Our solar system is big enough to explore so let's quit before we waste any more!

[Sonic]

I see what you mean about space - a lot of technology has been brought to our lives because of it but just because the US is in trillions of debt is no excuse to waste more billions!

Getting to the moon was fun, but we have to be realistic and not aim for some distant galaxy, spending futile billions on reaching nothing before hell freezes over. Our solar system is big enough to explore so let's quit before we waste any more!

Fair enough. Until we develop something a wee bit faster to ride to the stars we'll stick to our little corner of the milky way. That leaves 7 planets, a few dozen moons and a few dwarf planets to "waste" money on! ;) :D

[Brown, Jon Brow]

Exploration is not a waste.

It is human nature and what separates us from the animals.

Who knows what there is out there for us to find. Such as Helium-3 on the Moon.

[Sonic]

Indeed jon. Personally I'm more than happy with exploration for explorations sake but if we find something useful or world changing out there, mores the better.

[pettersolberg29]

I like exploration - but viable exploration of our planet. Costly, inevitably futile missions to Pluto and beyond are very, very unlikely to yield anything useful. And in my opinion that 0.00001% chance of finding something isn't worth $100 billion or whatever!

[pettersolberg29]

I don't really know why I'm arguing about this - I've got an important last year exam in 16 mins! Hopefully the questions will be about exploring the viability of space travel. Unlikely though -

Unfortunately it is a human biology paper... ;)

[Sonic]

LOL!

Best of luck with Bio exam.

[pettersolberg29]

Well that exam sucked. Should learn not to waste time arguing about unrelated topics just before!

[Sonic]

I'm sure you've done ok. And if you don't - blame me - I can take it! :)

[pettersolberg29]

I don't mean to hijack this thread, but do you know the answer? Me and my mates all had different answers to this:

1200ml of blood goes through the kidneys per minute.
700ml of that is plasma.
125ml of the initial 1200ml goes into the nephron.

The question is: What percentage of plasma goes into the nephron?

[Daniel]

I don't mean to hijack this thread, but do you know the answer? Me and my mates all had different answers to this:

1200ml of blood goes through the kidneys per minute.
700ml of that is plasma.
125ml of the initial 1200ml goes into the nephron.

The question is: What percentage of plasma goes into the nephron?
LOL

[Langdale Forest]

There is really no need to know all that information.

[Sonic]

I get aprox 6%. But I'll check with my maths wizz of a wife as my skills are....ahem....poor.

[pettersolberg29]

Mmm, I got 0.1%. How did you work it out?

I did 700/1200=0.58.
0.58x125=72.5
72.5/700=0.1

[Langdale Forest]

My brain will start to melt if i read all that! ;)

[Sonic]

Mmm, I got 0.1%. How did you work it out?

I did 700/1200=0.58.
0.58x125=72.5
72.5/700=0.1

Ok. Let's see. (Do I get extra marks for showing my working?)

As you say 58% of blood is plasma.

125ml goes into the Nephro...watsit. So the amount of plasma going there is 58% of 125ml = 72.9ml.

So if my maths is right that's aprox 6% of the total 1200ml.

I may be readin' the question wrong mind.