Guarenteed to qualify for being physicist in NASA (salary at least $90000)

[maverick_starstrider]

Your statements about NASA not doing physics research are just plain WRONG. I am a physicist working under contract for NASA in Nuclear Physics. The actual civil servants in our group are physicists, mathematicians and a nuclear engineer. Yes, a lot of my work is driven by engineering (and that of my co-workers), but there are still fundamental physics needed for the engineering to be completed. Does NASA care about Grand Unification or String Theory... well, not likely. But there is research to be done.

Wrong again. Check out Project Prometheus: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/hall/present/prometheus.htm

Ok. I concede the point. NASA probably always has some project or another going that needs nuclear physicists. However, I think you could see that my point was that NASA is not the place where nuclear physicists usually go and that there is a big problem with the intended sequence of Navy/Bachelours -> PhD in Nuclear Physics -> Highly Paid NASA Job and that the OP would probably be in a for a big dissappointment. I was simply trying to dispel the OP's notion that NASA is some super research power house where all the best scientists in the world go. The truth is very far from that. It has a role (which is continuously diminishing) but it's not particularly in line with his ambitions.

 

[Stratosphere]

Because you don't need to put PEOPLE on a lander to do scientific analysis. You can get all the data you want for a fraction of the cost and without the risk to human life with an unmanned mission. Hell, even John Glenn thinks those missions are silly. If these 2020 missions people are talking about are the constellation program (I can't seem to see a 2020 firm launch date anywhere) well then it may have funds syphoned from it to extend the lifetime of the ISS and Obama has already ordered a review of it. It may not even survive a single presidency.

As for the ISS, remember when it was suppose to be finished by 2005? Now they're saying 2011 (that's a big jump) and its current decommission date is 2015 (thought they may extend it by syphoning money from the constellation program, among others). Plus how are they achieving this 2011 completion date? By scrapping additions, they're dropping a lot of intended features and add-ons so they can send less flights. Honestly, I think we'd be lucky if they manage to complete a skeleton version of the original plan before it needs to be decommissioned. As for the good research on the ISS, well you're certainly welcome to your own opinion, but I'm not alone at thinking most of the "science" coming from ISS (i.e. growing tomatoes in microgravity and then distributing them to school children) is little more than grandstanding to keep public interest. I haven't seen any research coming from the ISS that couldn't have been performed on an unmanned mission (although I admit I don't follow it too closely) and, to the best of my knowledge, the only work being done on ISS is of the effect of space on human physiology (and, evidently, tomato physiology). So basically we spent/will spend an estimated $100 billion to find out how people are effected by long term exposure to space, the only possible use of such information is in regards to new manned missions. Manned missions are a waste of time, the ISS exists to support manned missions, the shuttle program exists to support the ISS... People complain about the cost of something like LHC, well we could have built like 20 LHC's for the cost of the ISS.

Well explain how we might eventually leave Earth if we can't prove we can go to the moon again? We can't just all of a sudden decide to go to Mars without returning to the moon.

You could also say that the U.S might not even survive this one presidency. Obumer (and no that's not a typo) is a horrible president, he's already put us in a massive debt. He only won because of all the minority's.

 

[maverick_starstrider]

Well explain how we might eventually leave Earth if we can't prove we can go to the moon again? We can't just all of a sudden decide to go to Mars without returning to the moon.

You could also say that the U.S might not even survive this one presidency. Obumer (and no that's not a typo) is a horrible president, he's already put us in a massive debt. He only won because of all the minority's.

This is definitely not the place for such a discussion but, yes. The manned Mars missions are equally silly IMHO. I think we should stop manned exploration entirely, at least until we've develop a paradigm shift in engine technology (which we can do on the ground). Sending manned missions to a lump of rock is a publicity stunt not science, you could get the exact same data for a fraction of the cost and infinitely less risk of human death by sending a probe. So what, we spend the entire GDP of a small country to put 4 people on Mars (assuming they survive the trip) and they land and they're like YAY HUMANITY! and then what? They turn the rover on and wait.

 

[n!kofeyn]

Then, I will also get a bachelor's degree in the Navy while aboard a ship, and after all that six years, I can stay in Navy, and go for the PhD for physics, so that I can get paid in Navy still.

This is just heresy I guess, but a friend of mine who was in the Navy mentioned that there aren't that many classes offered on a ship. I would think it would take a long time to complete a bachelor's degree aboard a ship. I'm not knocking this or anything, but I think you really need to look into, that is if you haven't already, whether it is even possible to complete a degree aboard a ship like that. Just make sure you know exactly what you're getting into with the military because of the time commitments you have to make.