# 50th anniversary of humanity in space - What next? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 10, 2011, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50th-anniversary-of-humanity-in-space-what-next/577861 "2011-04-10T11:53:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50th-anniversary-of-humanity-in-space-what-next/577861/41 "2011-04-12T18:49:03Z")
hey, I drank that stuff by the gallon when I was 5 years old. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50th-anniversary-of-humanity-in-space-what-next/577861/42 "2011-04-12T19:07:11Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > Anyways: we mine all the Helium-3 out of the moon that we can get our grubby paws on . . . Why? Energy-profitable controlled nuclear fusion has been ten years away since the 1970s and might remain so forever. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50th-anniversary-of-humanity-in-space-what-next/577861/43 "2011-04-12T19:08:35Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > You mean, something famously used by (if not necessarily invented for) astronauts, which is (therefore) also marketable to the general public? > > Hmmm . . . > > Depends? 😉 > [@BMalion](#): > > hey, I drank that stuff by the gallon when I was 5 years old. . . . No. No, I won’t. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50th-anniversary-of-humanity-in-space-what-next/577861/44 "2011-04-12T19:11:48Z")
> [@pinguin](#): > > Robert Heinlein already knew in the 40s that chemical rockets lacked a future. That’s why when he wrote Rocketship Gallileo in 1947, he sent his space explorers in an atomic rocket instead of a conventional one. Yes, an atomic reactor used to convert lead ingots directly into vaporized reaction mass. Think the EPA might have a problem with that? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50th-anniversary-of-humanity-in-space-what-next/577861/45 "2011-04-12T19:29:34Z")
Quoth **psikeyhackr** : > [@](#): > > Wouldn’t some people even pay to control a robot on the Moon for a little while? I think it would be good PR for NASA. Maybe our TV science fiction has gotten too good and the kids expect too much and then are not actually interested in science. It sounds good in principle, but I suspect that the two-second latency would cause people to get bored with it quickly. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50th-anniversary-of-humanity-in-space-what-next/577861/46 "2011-04-12T20:10:05Z")
The Soviets actually had a rover on the moon that they controlled from earth. They had some issues with latency…and also with keeping the thing from falling into craters and getting stuck. Also power issues, though most of those could be solved using modern technology I guess (though if you let people drive the thing someone will deliberately drive it into a ditch just for fun…or off a cliff). -XT ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50th-anniversary-of-humanity-in-space-what-next/577861/47 "2011-04-12T20:16:38Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Quoth **psikeyhackr** :It sounds good in principle, but I suspect that the two-second latency would cause people to get bored with it quickly. Two or four seconds for a round trip to send a command and witness the result? ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50th-anniversary-of-humanity-in-space-what-next/577861/48 "2011-04-12T20:22:40Z")
People love The Sims-type games. People would pay for the chance to watch, and control (to an extent) their mining robot. All day. All night. It could be the most boring thing ever and you’d have people fighting for the chance to do it. Add some sort of point system, and you’re gold. Free child labor, all over the Earth. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50th-anniversary-of-humanity-in-space-what-next/577861/49 "2011-04-12T20:42:53Z")
What good is space travel to humanity? Space travel, among other things, gives us _purpose_. It feeds our craving to explore, to see what’s over the next hill, to expand our capability and our knowledge of the universe. Space travel gives our children something to strive for. It makes science cool. It gives children heroes who aren’t steroided athletes or drugged up rock stars. Throughout history, civilizations that thrived were the ones that looked outward beyond themselves and their own temporary comfort. The great civilizations were explorers or conquerers. We don’t want to be conquerers, so we need to be explorers. The sure sign of a dying civilization is one where every thought turns inward, where the emphasis is put on temporary comfort and entertainment at the expense of long-term vision. The minute you start expending your resources on the now instead of investing them in the future, you start the process of stagnation that ultimately leads to the destruction of your values and the slow decline of the human spirit. As a society we have become too risk averse, too focused on protecting our safety and our lifestyles. Our children are increasingly rudderless. A society that achieves great things is a society in which the people achieve great smaller things. When I was a kid, it was common to hear someone say, “Look, if we can put a man on the moon, surely we can do \”. Now, you’re more likely to hear, “Do THAT? Hell, we can’t even put a man on the moon any more.” How do you put a price on that? How do you determine the worth of becoming the kind of people who strive for greatness and take great risks to achieve great things? In the past, many cultures got their inspiration and their drive from religion. They did great things to please the Gods. They worked hard because they believed God wanted them to. They expanded their culture because God told them to go forth and multiply and spread the word. For all its faults, religion acted as a force for social cohesion and cultural preservation and achievement. In a secular world, what replaces religion? What great things should we aspire to? What forces will bind us together and cause us to look beyond our current material comfort and towards something of real lasting value for mankind? On the practical side, I would argue that the Apollo program did more for education than all the federal government education programs put together, making it a bargain just for that. Talk to a scientist or engineer who’s over 40, and ask them why they chose to pursue their field. Chances are, they were inspired by Apollo. They wanted to be astronauts or be like the astronauts. They wanted to be part of mankind’s greatest achievement, which they thought would continue indefinitely. When I was a kid, we were all space crazy. We had Major Matt Mason dolls and built Apollo rocket kits. Hard Science Fiction was booming in popularity, and science fairs and ham radio clubs were common and a big deal. We thought the future was going to be glorious and that we were going to live through untold wonders and travel where our parents had never gone. The space program helped bring that attitude to life. Now, we tell kids that science is dangerous, that our highest calling is to be caregivers for others, that we need to learn to make do with less, and that the best we can hope for is to live a comfortable life with good health care and a decent retirement plan. We tell them that space travel is silly, that we’d be better off saving the money so we can spread it around to people who aren’t as comfortable as we are. Then we scratch our heads and try to figure out why those kids aren’t busting their asses to learn science and engineering, and why our engineering schools are filled with foreign students who come here to be educated and then take their educations home where they are still appreciated. And for all that, space travel has cost us _pennies_. NASA’s budget is almost a rounding error in the overall federal budget. We spend about twice as much on _pet care_ as we spend on NASA. Obama’s stimulus plan would have funded ten Mars missions, or funded NASA for fifty years. In a government full of waste, where tens of billions of dollars can vanish into bureaucracies with no measurable benefit at all, NASA has been the one example of government spending that has actually done a lot of good and brought the public real value. Compared to the typical government agency, it’s a bargain. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50th-anniversary-of-humanity-in-space-what-next/577861/50 "2011-04-12T23:17:13Z")
Manned spaceflight is (unfortunately) a technological dead end…at least till we develop nuclear rockets. Too expensive, too dangeros, too limited. Now that we have artificial intelligence and autonomos systems, we don’t need to spend huge sums on manned systems.:eek: ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2011, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50th-anniversary-of-humanity-in-space-what-next/577861/51 "2011-04-12T23:36:25Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > When I was a kid, we were all space crazy. We had Major Matt Mason dolls and built Apollo rocket kits. Hard Science Fiction was booming in popularity, and science fairs and ham radio clubs were common and a big deal. We thought the future was going to be glorious and that we were going to live through untold wonders and travel where our parents had never gone. The space program helped bring that attitude to life. Agree with all of that. My Major Matt Mason went to explore the local slough in the lunar crawler and never came back. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50th-anniversary-of-humanity-in-space-what-next/577861/52 "2011-04-13T00:48:13Z")
lol…that really pegs our ages. I had a hand me down (well, bought at a Salvation Army store) Major Matt Mason doll and I used to build rocket ships out of card board boxes and pretend he was going to the Moon or Mars. I remember sitting at a neighbors house (the only folks in my neighborhood with a TV) when I was 9, with the entire neighborhood to watch the first moon landing. I hope that one day my kids will be able to watch the first Mars landing in the same way. -XT ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50th-anniversary-of-humanity-in-space-what-next/577861/53 "2011-04-13T01:04:39Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Yes, an atomic reactor used to convert lead ingots directly into vaporized reaction mass. > > Think the EPA might have a problem with that? Indeed. I don’t think Heinlein believed seriously such technology as described in his novel would work, but I bet he believed a nucler reactor had to be involved in space rocket propulsion. In any case, he was certain chemical rockets wouldn’t be the final solution to conquer the solar system. And he was right on that. ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50th-anniversary-of-humanity-in-space-what-next/577861/54 "2011-04-13T01:23:33Z")
First Orbit. A movie made by Youtube in honor of Yuri Gagarin. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJuIO6kp5jY](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJuIO6kp5jY) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50th-anniversary-of-humanity-in-space-what-next/577861/55 "2011-04-13T02:33:16Z")
> [@](#): > > Two or four seconds for a round trip to send a command and witness the result? A bit over two seconds for the whole round trip. And as a nitpick, _Rocket Ship Galileo_ used zinc as reaction mass, not lead. But they were considering mercury, and passed it up only because of the cost, so old Bob clearly wasn’t too concerned with the environmental impact. ---
**Author:** ![pinguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac8455/32.png) [@pinguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinguin)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50th-anniversary-of-humanity-in-space-what-next/577861/56 "2011-04-13T02:42:26Z")
The environment wasn’t important those days. Just see the rocket propossed by Verner Von Braun in the Walt Disney series “Man in Space” or “Man to the Moon” (or something like that). The rocket was toxic. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/50th-anniversary-of-humanity-in-space-what-next/577861.md?page=2)