why no space colony - Did we go to the Moon for the wrong reasons??
- Thread starter WiredPlanet
- Start date
It cut Apollo short, strained the economy to the point that it crippled what shuttle should have been. Those same budget issues delayed shuttle long enough that we lost Skylab. It was definitely not a "simpler time".
The Chinese have been following a program of making every launch count rather than making incremental steps. It is clear that they do have a plan for a Mir-style station. My personal take is that their "station" was merely a test run for a larger version of the Russian Progress craft.
What do you think of the space elevator idea? There many options out there some close to reality, some a little scifi-ish, there is also some limited success with Ion-Drives, these Drives have very slow acceleration but have a crazy supply of fuel and an incredible top speed, Ion-Drives have also been used with some success in other areas such as boosting the orbit of the ISS
I agree Nuclear might be the way to go if humanity is to put large payloads on Mars, btw have you read Zubrin's book?
but for some people, with their perspective things might be worse today. In a way the Coldwar may have been a more simple time, it was to great powers. So many nations have nuclear arms now its not just Russians anymore, there are chemical weapons and bioweapons across various nations, propaganda style terrorism, global networks of crime, all different groups, players, agendas, you also have the costs of wars in Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq....and so many other unstable places
D-He3 reaction rates peaks at much smaller energy, this fusion fuel based on Moon rocks would be a cycle which is aneutronic meaning a cleaner release with no neutrons wasted
I suppose it may be part of the human mind, the human condition - to explore, just as old maritime ships the Portuguese, British and Spanish and ships from other cultures explored the world.
Let's say the Chinese do something crazy, land on an Asteroid, collect a sample from Mars or send a manned China space vessel in slight shot around the planet Venus and back to Earth, land a radio telescope on the far side of the Moon....whatever stunt they pull off
Should NASA/USA then enter a new space race with the Chinese?
More like too expensive when taking into account that the people weren't going nuts for it anymore.
I think it's sadder that the shuttle program bound resources so much. The shuttles never left Earth orbit so it was hardly even worth calling it space flight. But the program ended up being so much more expensive than expected so there wasn't any money left for other spaceflight programs.
The what now?
It's not so much that the times were simpler. But it was easy to "exploit" space exploration for its use in the Cold War propaganda and science war. Winning the space race just looked good and at least somehow affected the most important conflict of its time.
So apart from its obvious scientific use it had an additional use as well. One that it doesn't have anymore these days.
The what now?
I think he's indelicately referring to the fringe element that will start a protest at even the mention of the word "nuclear" regardless of the actual use and or safety issues.
I know, it's the term that threw me off.
That is correct. I didn't want to use language or anything overtly abusive.
Ah, so you just wanted to show a dismissive attitude regarding what you call "Greens and other fruity people". Way to be dismissive about a movement (Greens) that has helped bring many important topics on the agenda of public discourse.
Apparently, NASA has gone into paid contracts with the US Private sector. We are pre-paring to get there again, but this time we will have our private sector develop the rocket. At least, I think that's why we had a test landing on a return trip. They already use the rocket to re-supply, but not people yet. Supposedly we are headed to the moon, mars, and asteroids in maybe a decade? (uncertainty as to when)
Our military has a small shuttle program too. (edit: I recall reading it was a low orbit robotic shuttle)
Our military has a small shuttle program too. (edit: I recall reading it was a low orbit robotic shuttle)
No... but some sectors of the green movement overreact.
When NASA launched the Cassini probe to go to Saturn there were protests due to the probe having some kind of nuclear power source. Yes I can understand why they protested but also I felt at the time and still do that it was an overreaction.
I'd love to see the NERVA engines put to trial.
Every timetable that's come out for manned missions to Mars has been initially - and overly - optimistic .... only to be pushed back, to a later timeframe.
Sorry you think that, and sorry you do not see it as a simpler time...
I'm a huge proponent of manned space travel. I also worship Apollo as one of the greatest achievements in human history.
That being said, I also believe we got space travel a century or two too soon. If it hadn't been for the technological advances of World War Two, and the competition between the superpowers during the Cold War, I don't think we'd have gone to space for another hundred years at least. I think we would have worked to solve more of our terrestrial concerns before trying to leave the Earth.
As much as I want space stations, habitats and colonies on the moon and planets, I can understand the "normalization" that space travel has gone through since Apollo. I certainly don't think that we should stop going to space now that we have the capability, but I understand that the budgets and interest just aren't there yet when humanity has so many more concerns.
Apollo was a kind of historical fluke, but a good one, IMHO.
That being said, I also believe we got space travel a century or two too soon. If it hadn't been for the technological advances of World War Two, and the competition between the superpowers during the Cold War, I don't think we'd have gone to space for another hundred years at least. I think we would have worked to solve more of our terrestrial concerns before trying to leave the Earth.
As much as I want space stations, habitats and colonies on the moon and planets, I can understand the "normalization" that space travel has gone through since Apollo. I certainly don't think that we should stop going to space now that we have the capability, but I understand that the budgets and interest just aren't there yet when humanity has so many more concerns.
Apollo was a kind of historical fluke, but a good one, IMHO.
"Did we go to the Moon for the 'wrong' reasons?" is an interesting question. One I didn't answer, before. My response is "no," we didn't. But I'm not sure we had enough reasons, at that time, to keep returning to it, except to use up what NASA had already paid for. The mission shifted, rather abruptly, from getting there first, to "exploration." The rover was a really cool vehicle and it offered a lot of possibilities. It helped make a lot of sampling possible and there were several key discoveries made about the Moon. But ... it was kind of getting a little bit silly, just finding a fresh, unspoilt spot to plant the US flag on. Paying billions, each time, for The Chosen Few to go play in the sand just to bring a bag of rocks home, even in hindsight, doesn't make a lot of sense. For where the technology was, at the time and for what practical uses the Moon actually offered to us, then ... the simple fact of beating the USSR to it was a good enough reason, in all honesty.
This is quite important for anyone wanting to have a serious discussion about space history. There could only be an Apollo Program because political factors made the case for one pressing for a (very) short while. If politics is a bad reason for ending the Apollo Program then they were a bad reason for starting one.
Especially considering the social unrest going on at the same time -- civil rights movement, antiwar protests, and the social/domestic fallout from Vietnam itself -- that was immediately followed by the oil crisis of the 1970s. I don't think the times were even SLIGHTLY simple.
Middle of the Cold War, in the tail end of an unpopular foreign war that were were totally loosing, and in the immediate aftermath of the fall of a white supremacist social order that had reigned supreme for a third of the country for over a century...
If that's what you see as a "simpler time" I shudder to think what you'd consider "complicated."
Similar threads
