I don’t have any keen insight into what the space scientists are thinking but I think what you describe is exactly what is being done. That’s what I meant in the post you replied to.
Also, I have a similar perception of the Ansari X prize and commercial space travel I don’t see how it has failed or what even sven is referring to. The Ansari X prize was awarded 8 years ago and SpaceX is supposed to be sending a craft to the space station soon. Virgin Galactic hasn’t imploded so I remain clueless to what it’s all about.
I’m kinda clueless, now that I think about it, as to what this whole thread is about. I’m not really sure what we’re arguing for or against or why it matters.
I’m not entirely sure of the OP either. But just using the opening preamble, it seems her feathers are ruffled over some notion that the youth/young adults in this country aren’t dreamers because they aren’t as inspired as they were in the 60s and 70s by space missions or Mars probes?
That’s how I interpreted the OP, though, I’m 38, and while I came of age in the mid to late 80s, I’m not sure if this puts me inside or out of the age-group she speaks of. Despite your feelings, it’s a bit hard to refute the importance of a strong space program in this nation, now or well into the foreseeable future. And one that is demonstrably more willing to work in a global, collaborative capacity, at that. I’m not sure what this has to do with anything else?
In my opinion you don’t owe Chris Columbus anything. Also, he sure as hell wasn’t thinking about you when he was out exploring. North America would have been “discovered” and colonized soon anyway, Columbus or not. Didn’t he blunder into North America? It wasn’t even the plan, was it? He was headed for Asia and the Americas got in the way.
Assuming you’re American, what’s important to you is that there was a north America to move to, and your ancestors decided to go for it. They couldn’t have done it all on their own though. Lucky for them, lots of other humans were doing the same thing.
I don’t see why space couldn’t be even more valuable in 400 years than North America is now, or at least be quite valuable in its own right.
The OP is fighting a battle that has been over for 40 years.
Prior to about 1970, the US undertook space exploration as a high-risk, go-for-broke enterprise driven by technological goals. NASA got about 4.5% of the federal budget at its peak in 1966.
Since then, the human spaceflight program has been just another form of pork, with the vehicles and missions mostly designed by politicians so as to maximize and spread around the money to as many congressional districts as possible. Only about a quarter of NASA’s budget is for human spaceflight, and even within that, a lot of the money goes to contracting set-asides, education programs, environmental awareness, etc. And all that now comes out of 0.6% of the budget. You can see it in the results. All we’ve done is send astronauts of the correct racial and gender distribution around the earth in circles over and over.
I am not sure what the OP seeks short of a complete shutdown of all human spaceflight.
You seem to imply that we should be doing more than sending folks into orbit for weeks at a time, but my question remains: what would they do and why is it worth our time and money?
To me (who you didn’t ask) the question has a simple answer: it’s about the survival of the species. If we’re only ever concerned with what is right in front of our face, we’ll never get off this rock, and then we’ll die when the sun kills us, or a comet hits us, or we kill ourselves off, or some other statistical anomaly happens. What’s the point of that?
Which is a completely ridiculous idea. Our time is going to come, just like the dinosaurs and the dodo. Either humans will go to heaven and enjoy all those rewards in the afterlife, or we will be worm food and won’t care about anything. Seriously, what the hell good will it be if a comet pulverizes Earth but there are 100 people living on a space station somewhere?
The idea that we’re going to some day transform Mars (or wherever) into a place we can live is either (1) science fiction nonsense, (2) so far beyond our current capabilities it isn’t even worth worrying about now (like tasking da Vinci to try to build a working nuclear reactor, just a big waste of time that could be put to more useful things), or (3) rooted in a deep-seated inability to accept reality that we’re all going to die.
The difference is, to a large extent we can control whether that happens sooner or later. A distinction I think is rather pointed.
Nothing, of course. But you need to start somewhere.
(1) and (3) are bullshit, I can’t believe you can even say that with a straight face. Everything we can’t do right now today isn’t science fiction, and reaching for the future isn’t a denial of the finite span of individual life, or our life as a species. What on earth could possess you to say so is something I have a hard time imagining.
Yes, colonization of non-Earthlike place is very far outside of our technology. It always will be, if we don’t do something about it, because space represents conditions you tend to only find in space. If you’re resolved to never go there, well, then you’ll never go there.
Uh, because there’s a good chance that the ability to live on other planets may be about as good a use of time as trying to develop telekinetic powers?
I mean, the very idea of establishing a permanent presence on the Moon in the near future, like Newt Gingrich suggests, is a little whacko. Now the idea of moving large numbers of people to a colony on another planet? Face the facts, either it will simply be technologically infeasible for a long period of time (that’s option 2), or it will be never worth the time and expense (that’s option 1).
I think option 3 reflects that some may prefer this fantasy of being able to Star Trek humanity to some other galaxy rather than dealing with real issues here on Earth. I also don’t think it should be shocking to anyone that humanity isn’t the pinnacle of evolution, the end of history, or the thing with which the universe cannot do without. The future is a very long time, and the idea that humans will permanently (or near-permanently) endure is not useful.
So you are comparing an ability with which we show no biological ability for to human behavior that has repeated itself since before we evolved to the form we have now. Humans tend to reshape their environment. My evidence is all of planet Earth. We can do it here. We can do it on Mars or Europa or the Moon. There is nothing wrong with developing the skill to accomplish these goals. I mean, since we’re all going to die anyway who gives a shit if we make colonies on asteroids and barren planets and just floating around out there in space? What’s your problem with it?
Yes, the technology must be developed if human exploration of space is desired, and we have no way of predicting the value of the time and expense. I mean, since we are all going to die anyway what the hell is a few billion dollars wasted?
Why don’t you just say utopia while you’re at it. Let’s see, utopia versus exploration. Which, historically, has proven viable and useful? Columbus vs. the Soviet Union. Well that doesn’t work. Cult in Waco, TX vs. Lewis and Clark. That doesn’t work either. Utopian dreams in human history have universally failed while exploration of any kind is responsible for the most of the things that make our lives comfortable. Anyway, your nihilistic p.o.v. basically frees us to do whatever we want. Not sure why space exploration makes some people so upset.
The way I see it, we are currently having one hell of a time figuring out how to deal with the earth changing temperature by a couple-few degrees. The idea that the earth is evidence for us being able to transform a planet into having a friendly atmosphere for us is not credible in the slightest to me.
Oh, let me tell you, I can tell you the time and expense: it’s going to take longer and cost more than we expect. I notice on the Wikipedia page that the original estimate for the Apollo mission was supposed to be $7 billion, which was arbitrarily changed to $20 billion. The true cost ended up being $25 billion (or in today’s dollars, $170 billion). So, the program had a cost overrun of somewhere between 25% and 350%, depending on which number is the baseline.
The more important thing is that any manned space exploration mission is going to be quite expensive, and there are better, more useful things than can be done with that money. Let’s say it would cost $170 billion to return to the moon: not only is going to the moon pretty much useless in my estimation (nobody has yet to explain a reason other than pride or destiny for returning to the moon, BTW), that’s also money that could be used for much better things: alternative energy, medical research, nanotechnology, etc.
If you truly do not see the difference in difficulty between reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and terraforming Mars, perhaps your opinions should not be taken seriously.
The reach outward into space in an organic way that makes economical sense will take hundreds of years for our own solar system; and the jury’s still out whether or not the challenges facing interstellar travel is feasible. Let’s put the latter in thousands of years for now.
Still, as much as it sounds like science fiction now, it’s not impossible that we develop staggering technologies in artificial intelligence, materials, life extension, and even the possibility of sending probes to other planets to seed life of our own.
But keeping the focus to why we should continue to have a presence in space is two-fold:
Keep the momentum and technologies advancing.
The sooner, the better because [insert reason here].
To quote Orville Wright:
"If we worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true really is true, then there would be little hope for advance."
and more ironically,
“No flying machine will ever fly from New York to Paris … [because] no known motor can run at the requisite speed for four days without stopping.”