I am curious as to our member's perception of particle physics in comparison to space exploration.

 

From the NASA site http://www.nasa.gov

 

On January 14, 2004, President Bush put NASA on a new course into the cosmos. The Vision for Space Exploration announced that day focused the agency on a bold new mission: landing humans on the moon before the end of the next decade, paving the way for eventual journeys to Mars and beyond.

 

From http://www.linearcollider.org

 

The International Linear Collider is a proposed new electron-positron collider. Together with the Large Hadron Collider at CERN , it would allow physicists to explore energy regions beyond the reach of today's accelerators. At these energies, researchers anticipate significant discoveries that will lead to a radically new understanding of what the universe is made of and how it works. The nature of the ILC's electron-positron collisions would give it the capability to answer compelling questions that discoveries at the LHC will raise, from the identity of dark matter to the existence of extra dimensions.

 

If you could only fund one of these programmes, which one would it be and why?

I havn't yet read what the second option is, but thats what I would choose. The proposed mars mission would be the most collosal waste of money in human history. Stick to unmanned probes until 1) we get the technology go get to mars more easily and 2) humans actually have a reason to go to mars.

 

Well I read the second one, and it is more worthy. Although I would perfer money being put into something with more direct relevance, like more fusion research (yeah I know they're building ITER, but you can't have too much research).

 

Or explore the ocean for gods sake. Something like 90% of the ocean is totally unexplored. And we KNOW that there is life there.

International Linear Collider without a doubt. IMO manned space flight is in no way cost efficient, and I prefer particle physics

I second the second option as well. It's far more plausible that the second option will lead to new technological breakthroughs which would infinitely help with the first option. That and I'm very curious what dark matter is...

I think evolutionary biology, cosmology and particle physics are the most interesting fields of science, so I'd definitely go for the the ILC.