Are the benefits of nuclear power worth the risk? We've had three major warning calls so far: Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukishima. Every machine designed by humans fails at some point. Financial interests will always try to keep something running past it's design lifetime. We still haven't solved the problem of how to deal safely with nuclear waste products or where to store them. Complex systems will always have unforseen problems and need constant maintenance that may be beyond the understanding of the people who work there. Nuclear material poses a security risk. The insurance industry won't touch it because of the huge unknown financial risk leaving the taxpayers liable for any accidents. Because of global warming there might not be enough freshwater available for cooling purposes. The costs of buidling them and deactivating them may be more than the income from the power generated over its lifetime. If everything works fine they might have the benefit of reducing carbon emissions from power plants, but does investing in them just delay investments in solar and wind and other clean energies that don't require massive financial and political backing and huge environmental studies?

Science is an investment in the future, our future. The idea that we can't afford to double funding at NASA and the NSF is ridiculous. We must insure that we maintain our competitiveness on a scientific level, because if we don't we'll eventually be left behind. Let us not forget that our modern world is built upon such scientific understandings. Our technological world for example is entirely a result of our past understanding of quantum physics. The space program has also had many benefits to our economy and culturally.

Foremost, its one thing to say you're for science and keeping America competitive, its another to put your money where your mouth is. If elected, these candidate must do more than pass the buck to the next President/Congress. We saw this with the Constellation program, Bush pushed Constellation but left the funding up to a Future Congress/President. Obama has done the same with the current plan at NASA.

We wont have another US manned spacecraft at least until 2017 says the current NASA chief, and we're not going anywhere beyond low earth orbit until 2020. Long after the issue of funding need have any consequence on Obama's political career as President.

The ultimate decisions about what have to be mass-produced based on seemly successful results of some innovative experiments or scientific discoveries, shall not be made by narrow-minded industrialists or political authorities. Werner Heisenberg has been saying that we would never know what kind of natural power we might be playing with in our laboratories, but when these ideas are getting realized and mass-produced on a large scale a big question arises: are we about creating some progress or a major disaster?
It is extremely important to be aware whether your research/experiment is getting supported by a soundly intelligent sponsor or by a narrow-minded industrialist. NOVA TOWN

It is undeniable that the US economy is transitioning away from traditional manufacturing jobs into highly-skilled, highly-educated STEM knowledge based jobs. However, graduate (PhD students), postdoctoral fellows, and research associates - the work horses of this 21st century scientific revolution; often have high student debt, sub-poverty wages when their actual working hours are accounted for, and little or no access to health insurance and retirement investments. These talented individuals often work all hours with dangerous chemicals and equipment yet are uncompensated. Given the low value places on our most creative and innovated minds when they are between 22 and 42, STEM fields are loosing their appeal. When a factory line worker at Ford, for example, is guaranteed a stable hourly wage, health insurance, retirement investment options, and union protection why would one become a scientist? What public policies and protections are you considering to properly value scientific researchers efforts and help them develop a stable financial future?

Geohazards have a high public profile and can be costly. One political party thought volcano reseach was just political pork but shortly after that Anchorage airspace was threatened by ash falls and European airspace was shutdown because of the volcano in Iceland.

We had the tsunamis in the Indian Ocean and Japan but our warning system is still inadequate (can we use cable news channels to get the warnings out?). We're overdue for The Big One in San Francisco and the Pacific Northwest. Rogue waves are hazardous to shipping. Coastal erosion and hurricanes wipe out communities that shouldn't have been built there in the first place causing an enormous cost to the economy and society. The threat of meteors and asteroids impacting Earth are real but hard to calculate. Tornados are getting more dangerous because of suburban sprawl and lack of shelters. Sealevel rising will have a tremendous cost. Floods, landslides, blizzards, ice, and forest fires disrupt everything.

I would like to see the moderator of the debate should have an upper hand and be able to control the debate. I have seen too often the moderate sits there and listens (along with the rest of the public) to all the incoherent and sometimes condescending replies without putting a stop. No matter what the question is, the candidates tend to deflect the topic and avoid giving any straight forward answers to the question. Time after time, they go back to bashing the other candidates (or sitting president) without giving any real sensible answers to the questions posed. I really want the entire structure of the debate should be changed - especially on questions involving science and technology. The public would like to know what the candidate's views and what their vision for the future of science and technology in this country.