i just start reading a book on Christa Mcauliffe called " i have touch the future by Rob Hohler! Even if i think she was a great person! i think her trip was a pr move to get get move money for NASA! And it blow up in there faces i think space for NOW should be only for the pro. like real scientists! i would like your feedback love dr
I replied to your post in MISC, but since you've given it its own thread here, I'll post a reply here as well: Glad to hear your interest. I guess you could say I'm a Challenger buff, but more from the mechanical/engineering/administrative angle. I don't know much about the personal lives of the crew. When I hear "Challenger" I don't think of McAullife, Scobee, Smith or Onizuka. I think of the names Feynman, Boisjoly, Thiokol, Kilminster and Rogers. In the future, might want to be more careful with phrases like "blow up in their face". Kinda hit me like an old disgusting joke people used to tell about Christa McAullife's eyes. But I'm glad new people are finding interest in Challenger. I view it as the Titanic of our time. As soon as we start to get cocky, nature puts us back in our place. --------------------- As for your question, I don't think there should be ANY manned space flight right now. All the money we are currently using to send people into to space could be put to far better scientific use. If private companies want to send millionaires on atmosphere skimming joyrides, well, I guess that's fine.
^The space program already produces wonders on a shoestring budget. You wouldn't get much of a return by shutting it down considering it's less than %1 of the national budget. Besides, science programs like the manned space program drive technological development which can lead to advances that "solve problems here on earth".
Not the space program, just the manned part. We went to the moon, fine. No problem. We wanted to know if we could do it. By "science" I meant other space sciences. How many Cassinis, New Horizons, Galileos, etc. could we have had for EACH shuttle mission? Shuttle missions come in at about $1.5 BILLION each! EACH! So, even guessing on the high side, for each two shuttle launches we could have had a Cassini? The Mars Rovers? New Horizons? Imagine we have 70 more of these types of missions! My god man! You can't tell me the shuttle program has given us anywhere CLOSE to what that would have given us. And 14 people would still be alive.
Let the free market drive the next stage of development. It is proven that non-government agencies can do many things cheaper and more efficient just because they have to or else they'll go out of business because a competitor is able to be cheaper and more efficient. I guess over the next decades we will see a huge increase in private space traffic and the price for private citizens to go up will be significantly reduced so that mere wealthy people can afford it (good paying academic jobs or business owners i think).
If there's money to be made sending private citizens on a joyride into low orbit, then it should be done.
Then maybe it's the phrasing I object to. If you can make money doing it, you SHOULD do it. I mean... uh... eek!
Yeah, see, there's money in slave labor too, so I'd say that whatever "free market" is supposed to be, it's not "if you can make a buck, do it".
Regarding the presence of Christa Mcauliffe, I am unable to follow your reasoning. To the best of my knowledge her presence had no discernible effect on the Challenger disaster. Was her presence a PR move? Yes. But it's not as if they were going to let her drive the ship. As to the idea of using Capitalistic principles as regards space related endeavors, I personally do not see where such is incompatible with ideas of science and exploration. Should NASA be building hotels in space? No, I don't think so. Should other private agencies be trying to figure out ways to get into space and build etc? Sure why not?
Do you own an Iphone? Have you seen some of the stories about the conditions at the factory in China?
Now hold on. By "it" we're talking about something very specific. There's a world of difference between "lets make money off of the absurdly wealthy by selling high altitude joy rides" and "I'll kill your annoying neighbour for five bucks".
What if we can kill an absurdly wealthy annoying neighbor by sending him on a high altitude joy ride? Best of both worlds?
Let's start by getting more private citizens in the air. Then we can worry about space. Private flying would be cheaper all around if more people did it...
^Can you imagine how deadly the skies would be if there was even %10 of the amount of traffic as on the ground?
I certainly think that private enterprise has a huge role to play in the future of space exploration. I dare say that eventually, it will be corporations and not governments that will be the ones to push the boundaries of what humanity does in its tiny solar system. What we know of the Universe outside our solar system will remain the domain of publicly funded researchers for some time, no doubt, but the entrepreneurial possibilities of near-Earth ventures will mean that visionaries with a mind for money will take to the skies in very short time (it's already happening, to a degree).