Well, sorry we didn't get your moonshot to ya a week later. Geez...we'll get there... have patience. The new Ares system will be manned by 2014 with moon missions starting about 5 years later.
Why aren't we in space yet!
- Thread starter Crewman47
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Well, sorry we didn't get your moonshot to ya a week later. Geez...we'll get there... have patience. The new Ares system will be manned by 2014 with moon missions starting about 5 years later.
If it were something that human beings have to do, we'd be doing it.
We don't have to do it, so we aren't.
Actually, I'd argue that it is something the human race must do. Perhaps not now, but definitely in the future. Say what I will about Straczynski's recent work, but the line he wrote about this subject in the first season of B5 still pretty much sums up my feelings on it:
Quite true; however, unlike your earlier post indicated, it is not the act of one political party, one administration, or one person. The sad state the manned space program is currently in is not some sudden event that occurred back in January of 2001. The deterioration of the space program and America’s interest in science as a whole has slowly withered under numerous administrations regardless of animal association. What great proclamations did President Clinton make concerning the future of manned space missions? What (serious) ones did President Bush (senior) make? None that I can think of . . .
Unfortunately, space exploration, because of the enormous “up front” costs, falls into the cognizance of the bean counters and politicos. Politicians, more or less, are not concerned with making a lasting impact on the world or humanity; they are interested in the perpetuation of their careers and the security of their family’s finances. I can’t say I blame them for either since this is the primary motivators in most adults’ lives; however, I, for one, wish and want for, at the very least, the illusion of the great leaders of the past that seemed to be in “it” sincerely for the love of the country, its citizens, and the possibility of assisting all of mankind. Alas, there is not one that I can find that seriously seems to get this. When President Kennedy proclaimed that men would land on the Moon by the end of the decade, regardless of motivation, he delivered that call with conviction and bold authority and the people responded (although much of this was fueled by nationalism and the “gotcha ya, gotcha ya back” mentality of the Cold War). No one has done this since. Politics killed Apollo long before Cronkite proclaimed on the national news that there was never a “Moon Race”. Orders for the Saturn V and its components were cancelled even before Apollo’s main objectives were completed (read about the Apollo Applications Program) because of misspending and misappropriations in other areas of the government.
When one asks why we should hurl our fragile bodies into the cosmos I cannot offer a logical reason, but I can offer one that is sincere and from the heart – because we have the capacity to do so. As Carl Sagan so aptly described, humans strive to see and experience what lies beyond the next mountain range or across the next great span of water. We have a tactile drive that compels us to not only want to see things in the distance, but to be there and touch it. It is one of the elements of our nature that made us so successful (that, and, unfortunately, our penchant for violence). I sincerely believe that the longevity of our species here on Earth is directly linked to our drive to be “out there”. If we continue to be landlocked, we will slowly stagnate and eventually turn our best efforts inward towards destructive ends.
We have the capacity to do many things, good, bad, and neutral. I appreciate your passion to see men travel to other worlds, but I can't get too excited about it right now.
It took many centuries for men to get from simple wheeled vehicles to aircraft, and it'll probably be some centuries before we have routine manned space travel beyond Earth orbit.
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Well, I see it this way. We could go at any time now from an asteroid or meteor or our own stupidity. Or not.
But the sun doesn’t die for another four or five billion years or so. Forecasting the human race on this planet is iffy. We should always plan for the future, but the problem we are facing now is more or less taking care of our own back yard. I think right now the biggest problem we have is us, the human race, and our ability to procreate ourselves past our means of self sustainability on this planet. We need to solve that first. The sun and the earth are not going anywhere anytime soon. We have plenty of time for colonizing the stars.
Clean up the planet.
Spend more money on identifying those errant asteroids and meteors that would wipe us out.
Peace on earth.
Feed everyone, but cut down on the birth rate at the same time.
Take care of those sorts of things first, and then worry about colonizing the universe. We have more than enough time to do that. We need to survive as a species first before we even think about the stars.
Agreed. There is no need to rush to spread our faults around the galaxy.
First, you don't have to send people out to "see what's there". Robotic missions will work fine for that. Second, if financing your mission of unnecessary exploration takes away resources from necessary things it's doing more harm than good.
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To ask why we aren't sending people outside of the solar system now is like asking a five year old why he doesn't own a company on the Fortune 500.
The laws of physics as we currently understand them mean that a manned venture outside of the solar system will only happen when it becomes an absolute necessity. The sun going cold, or us using up all of the resources in the solar system. If some kind of cheat, like stargates or warp drive is discovered, then exploration of the cosmos might become more feasible. Such a cheat, if it's even possible, is way beyond our current science.
I'm not so concerned with interstellar exploration -- that is truly a thing for the far future. But interplanetary exploration -- and the colonization of our own solar system, its moons, its planets, and mining the resources to boost humanity's wealth -- is within our reach, and something that we can start right now. Apollo wasn't Columbus; it was more like the Norse expeditions to Newfoundland. Maybe Columbus will come sometime later this century.
I think well at least see the foundations set for the next generation, like those who lived to see the Wright brothers in their lives. They didn't see the 747s and international flights, but they saw the beginnings.
Why aren't we taking space more seriously? Because while idealism is good and all, there's no practical need to -- no political incentive. I sincerely hope that a potentially devastating asteroid or two will come our way, then there'lll be a reason.
I think well at least see the foundations set for the next generation, like those who lived to see the Wright brothers in their lives. They didn't see the 747s and international flights, but they saw the beginnings.
Why aren't we taking space more seriously? Because while idealism is good and all, there's no practical need to -- no political incentive. I sincerely hope that a potentially devastating asteroid or two will come our way, then there'lll be a reason.
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
By the time we start taking space more seriously the Earths oil will have run out and we'll all be running on Bio fuel, solar power, wind power and nuclear power, the world will no longer be living in poverty, terrorism will be old news and the world will be unified.
So lets see how long thats going to be, erm 2000 more years perhaps?
So lets see how long thats going to be, erm 2000 more years perhaps?
I didn't realized we were looking for cures on the Moon.
What I'm saying is that our level of technology does not make it practical to send men out on interplanetary missions, regardless of the excitement such missions might create for some people. We can learn quite a bit with robotic missions, while continuing to study physics and propulsion systems so that some day we might have a real excuse for sending men into the void.
Also, there are many, many things still left to be done on Earth to improve our environment and the quality of life in general. Manned space exploration is not likely to aid this cause in any way.
I can easily imagine that man may be able to safely and quickly travel about the solar system in a few hundred years, but I can also imagine that our sources of cheap energy are gone and that much of the planet is operating at 'third world' pre-industrial levels by then.
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Everything dies. I remember him posting that paragraph as long ago as...GEnie?...and it's always struck me as familiar, 1950s-style John Campbell bombast. The conclusion is assumed in the premise.
"All of this" is either "for nothing" or means as much as it means to us today, depending on how nihilistic one chooses to be, but our unhappiness at the prospect of death - in whatever form - is no more or less a compelling reason for massive engineering projects in space directed at staving off events as we imagine they will be in the far future than it is for building pyramids to hold the mummified remains of our rulers.
I think we do have the technology for manned missions to the moon and Mars, and other bodies in our solar system. What we don't have is the money or support to put it all together in a safe and working package.
Of course we have our own problems here on Earth, that will always be the case.
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