Dude, we’re in space whether we like it or not. Avoiding it isn’t going to prevent planetary catasprophes that we know happen. Unmanned probes aren’t going to help us survive an impact from a comet or an asteriod. We know they happen as much as we know anything about the past. Life grows and expands, it doesn’t stagnate.
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When fund NASA aren’t we just putting the money into the hands of a different bureaucrate?
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I fail to see how money spent in space is going to magically fix all our generations problems.
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How do you figure?
I’m not against the space program, I’m not even against manned flights, I just don’t think it is the solution to all our problems. I think we might be better off throwing less money into manned flights until we come up with cheaper and better ways of getting men into space.
Marc
I think space exploration is great. I might even be persuaded to part with some of my money to support it. But I do not like being taxed (i.e., forced) to support it.
This is pretty much what I would have tried to say but I’d of messed it up in my own words.
I feel that manned space flights will be practical when technology permits lower cost flights. It just costs way too much right now and, unless the gov is keeping secrets, doesn’t produce anything of substance. I think we are trying to do more than we are reasonably capable of right now. Far too much money has been pumped into shuttle flights. They need to stop launching shuttles and take some of the money they save and build the next generation of shuttles. Preferrably one that doesn’t require rockets to get into space.
First, the Vorlon Ambassador’s Aide should know all too well why we need to develop the manned space program: to meet the Vorlons and participate in the Shadow war, duh!
Although it’s nice to think that we would be developing manned space flight for altruistic reasons such as “no longer keeping all of humanity’s eggs in one basket”, it will most likely be acquisition of scarce resources that drives man off the earth. The percieved profit from such a venture must far outweigh the risk in the mind of the investor; investors are necessary for any project of this complexity. Humans will be required on the scene to troubleshoot and supervise the robots, if any are used.
It’s not whether we should go into space; can we afford not to?
Perhaps the best thing would be to just give it up, concentrate on robotic missions and payloads with direct economic impact. Manned space flight with the technology we have now is a risky proposition and we don’t need to leave the earth out of any sort of desperation. The money could be spent elsewhere, you could justify giving up any number of ways.
The problem with our current manned space efforts, as with so many things in life, is one of mediocrity. Either give up or go BIG, shit or get off the pot. Live or content ourselves with stagnation and death.
We should DARE to do outrageous things, have glorious plans and strive for the superlative. We should be on the moon, we should be going to Mars, we should have a single stage space plane, we should have nuclear rockets in orbit, we should have orbiting hotels, we should have a space elevator, we should have asteroid mining, we should have vast arrays of space telescopes searching for new worlds, we should have terraforming projects and we should have an eye towards Alpha Centauri. We can do these things, the exciting thing is we can afford to do these things without great hardship. If we wait for these things to be safe and easy to do, they will never get done. If we simply putter about in low earth orbit, content to simply be off earth nothing will get done. We have to want and work for more, but if we’re not willing to do that I would rather have NO space program. I would rather dream about what could have been than be continually reminded of what we refuse to do.
I bet you, that if we had really pushed after the Apollo Program to go to Mars, we would’ve done it in the 80’s or early 90’s. We have the technology to do it. The problem is, we’re too lazy to do it.
People are losing faith in the manned program because we go up there, and study ants. How interesting are ants? Exactly. If you want public support for the manned program, you have to inspire the public. Give them something to dream about. Like they said on TV today, “Space travel had become something of a routine.” When it becomes a routine, people take it for granted. I guarantee you that less and less people are interested in the space program today then 30 years ago when the moon landings were taking place.
You want to know why? NASA had the public captivated with such a huge accomplishment, that in our minds anything was possible, and it is. If we had aggressively pursued manned space exploration in the 70s and 80s, I have no doubt that I’d be able to travel to a Space hotel today. Did we? No.
NASA’s limited budget and inability to change before it’s necessary is causing the stagnation of our space program. The private sector needs to get involved, and give NASA a run for it’s money.
If you think that a robot can do the job of a human, you are gravely mistaken. Sure, a robot may do exactly what it wants you to do, but the robot has no sense of curiosity, or adventure. The robot may completely miss a huge discovery on another planet, just because it isn’t suddenly compelled to go over a ridge, like a human would. Plus, there’s something to be said about a human touching foot on the surface of another terrestial body besides Earth.
NASA needs to change. What that means, I’m not sure. All I know is that they need to rethink their plans for the immediate future, because as it is going right now, I’m going to have to become President before we ever see anything out of NASA. Thats a good 20 years off…
BTW. The cheapest way to get to outer space is the orbital elevator. It is highly doubtful that the tether would snap, and even then, the tether would probably have detonation charges, so that the orbiter would be able to safely lift the cable from the Earth, and remove it from harms way. It’s highly unlikely that the cable would fall and wrap itself around Earth as you so direly predict.
You can dismiss our future in space all you want, but in 1000 years, man will have exhausted the Earth. We will be forced then to leave, if we start leaving now, we may have a place to call home in 100,000 years.
Technology is almost never the result of just pure blind luck, (Except Radar…) Usually it is designed to combat some challenge, and the only way we are going to be challenged at this point in time is to travel to space. And anyone who thinks that interstellar travel is infinitely beyond us is nieve. Who can tell what we’ll be able to do 10 years from now that we can’t do today. Who can say? There are already theories as to how we can manipulate Wormholes, Blackholes etc to fit our transportation needs. Muchless, the concept of Warp (Star Trek) is fundamentally sound, granted we have the power sources.
Future = Space Exploration
Period.
I think the OP answers the question implied by the statement in the thread title, but not in the way Bildo intended.
I believe the that quest for knowledge is what truly separates man from beast. When we first left the cave, we were prone to wacking things, any thing, that we encountered. There are some today who would see us return to this as a solution for problems rather than reasoned action. But over the years, we have learned that smashing things and throwing stones is not always the best answer. We have slowly gained knowledge and, for many, this has been of great benfit.
Bildo paints a very nihilistic future, filled with “limited resources” and “American Culture”. A predetermined path that we are helpless to get off of and a future view that I, for one, do not agree with.
It is true that our current life style in the Western World is unsustainable. Fossil Fuel and water resources are finite, and diminsihing at an alarming rate. Our excesses are leading to the destruction of livable habitat and leading many to think that we should look to getting off this god forsaken rock.
But it is exactly that head-in-the-sand approach that has gotten us into this predicament in the first place. What good would a colony on the Moon or Mars or Seti-Alpha-6 do us if we can’t even solve problems as simple as figuring out who can live on a patch of land? Last time I asked anybody involved with the “petty terrestrial concerns of our tiny little marble floating in the universe” they seemed to think they were anything but petty. And Bildo suggests taking our show on the road. How would this change things?
Solar energy, by many estimates, should get us through the next 5 billion or so years. But people buy fossil fuel buring vehicles in record numbers. Conservation and recycling can greatly diminish our ecological footprint, but government gives tax credits for SUV’s! Politically, we haven’t even been able to keep a world map the same for more than a decade in the last 300. There are so many solutions to our current state right in front of us, and we are looking past them to the stars. Romantic? Yes. Responsible? No. Bildo highlights some of the more prominent maladies that humanity faces, and then implies that the best solution is to just leave them behind by blasting eveyone into space. IMHO, it would seem that earth isn’t the problem. We are.
There is no “absence of horizons” for Western Civilazation or anyone else. Only complacancy and laziness and arrogance. How can we be out of things to inspire people when there are so many things left to do? The space program provides a welcome escape for some people not wanting to confront reality, but who would escape into a TV land of the future. I am not going to the moon in my lifetime, and for 99.99% of the population, neither are you. But I am going to be affected by political sabre rattling and resource shortages if we, as a comunity, daydream about the stars rather than live in the streets.
Space exploration has a place in humanity’s endeavours as part of the pantheon of projects carried out to learn and evolve as a people. But it is not the most important long-term human endeavor. It is merely a timely topic. I would imagine that had anyone been asked what they belive the most important endeavour was only days ago, few, if any, would have replied with anything like the OP.
The innovative and adventurous will always have goals to seek, because they are not limited by the fear of failing, but rather by the vision that they have of a better world. And I am sure it isn’t Pluto they see in their minds eye.
Your misinformed. The cable isn’t steel, its made of nanotubes. Which according to estimates are 100x stronger than steel and 1/5 the weight. This is strong stuff. And if the cable did ever break there was some talk of having built in explosives to blow the cable into smaller segments that would fall harmlessly into the ocean.
How better to honor the lives of all lost in Space, but by not letting it beat us.
People don’t like mines, they think they are ugly. Well, there are gigatons of metals and other things of use in the asteroids. Why should we muck up our planet when we can mine what we need from them?
Having people in space allows us to learn. That’s the same reason I send my kids to school… so they can learn more than they know now.
The time will come when we will need mars, for room if nothing else. I’d hate to have to start the program with no resources.
You know, there’s no need to explore the ocean either. But we do.
No need to fly, never was. But we do.
It is my dream and my hope that my children, or grandchildren, will be able to look around and say “We didn’t need to go to the stars… but we did.”
Wearia: and how would these explosives be activated, and what would keep someione from activating them?
Erek
Why is a profit motive of filling in a very necessary sector of the economy, any less altruistic than perpetuating the human seed across the universe? They both have to do with human survival. Why is one more altruistic than the other?
Erek
OxyMoron and kylen have said most of what I was going to say, but let me see if I have anything useful to add.
With all due respect, Billdo, not a soul needs to call for the abandonment of manned space exploration, since nobody’s done a lick of that in thirty years and counting, since Apollo 17 left the moon in December 1972. With all respect to the skills of the shuttle astronauts and the risks involved, the space shuttle is a glorified space bus, going places we’ve been going for 42 years now.
Space travel doesn’t solve any of our problems. Someday it might allow an incredibly minute fraction of the human race to settle elsewhere. But 500 years from now, 99.9% of the human race will still live on this planet, no matter how hard we push the space program. kylen is right in saying that the Earth isn’t the problem; we are.
The real question is, is the human race going to grow up, act responsibly, and take care of this planet that few of our descendants will ever leave? Or will we continue warming the planet and bulldozing the wild places? We’re lucky in one respect: the population curve is leveling off; many demographers predict that, as wealth (relatively speaking) finds its way to more corners of the globe, birthrates will continue to drop, and the world’s population should level off at about 11 billion, late this century. Given that we can do a far better job now of feeding 6 billion people than we were able to do of feeding 2.5 billion when I was a kid, I don’t buy the notion that 11 billion is unsustainable from that perspective. And I don’t believe any of the other technological problems of maintaining a healthy planet while increasing the comfort and affluence of its prospective 11 billion residents are unmanageable. But - gasp! - it may mean we have to accept some modest limits, such as driving cars that don’t give off a lot of CO[sub]2[/sub].
The problem, of course, is one of responsibility. If we refuse to accept any limits in the name of protecting our planet, then we will surely turn it into a much more inhospitable place than it is now. But we will ultimately face similar dilemmas in any world we would colonize. I think our priority ought to be to get it right the first time - right here.
There’s no hurry on colonizing space - it will still be there 500 years from now, and our descendants will still be here. Technology may well be developed in that time that will greatly decrease many of the difficulties of the endeavor. There’s no pressing need to begin such colonization this century. And as far as the survival of the human race is concerned, there’s no pressing need to do anything about our problems on this planet, either; even if we bulldoze the forests, heat up the globe, and destroy the ozone layer, humanity will still be here in the proverbial year 2525*. But if we want this planet to continue to be a pleasant place to live, we do need to deal with our environmental problems with some dispatch.
*[sub]I love sticking bad songs in people’s brains. :D[/sub]
Billdo
Manned Space Exploration is The Most Important Long-term Human Endeavor
In the immediate wake of the destruction of the Space Shuttle Columbia, I’ve seen comments calling for the abandonment of manned space exploration. In my view, this is foolish, shortsighted thinking, because manned space exploration is the most important long-term human endeavor.
Having read the OP and only a few of the insuing posts I vote a quick yea for the continued commitment…Being primarly athestic in my beliefs, human transcendence through scientific rectification of fact is one of the few chances for a dose of spirituality I got going on( and with eloquent prophets like Sagan and Hawkins, it’s damn near all I need) And beside the plans for future commercialization, and a few applicable maufacturing experiments performed on board the shuttles, it remains one of the few purly altruistic endeavors for gravity subdued cow plops such as I, to profess my hope and pride in being American.
So far, I have yet to see anyone make a reasonable argument for manned space flights at this time.
We aren’t learning anything particularly useful. This idea that there will be some sort of doomsday scenario and we will suddenly need to leave the Earth in the near future is just bad sci-fi. The price tag of manned space flight does not justify manned space flight at this time. It should be put on the table for a few decades until we get the technology to actually do something useful with it.
We’re learning how to operate in space.
Stinkpalm said “I feel that manned space flights will be practical when technology permits lower cost flights.” But who’s developing the technology that we can take advantage of when it gets cheaper? No-one. Almost all the technology NASA uses to get people into space was invented for the purpose. Yes, it’s expensive; yes, it seems purposeless in the short term. But frankly, it’s money that’s going to have to be spent one way or another before we get to the point where it’s considered “economically reasonable”.
Could the space program be better managed? Probably. Would NASA be better if it were privatized? Maybe. Personally, I suspect that in 100 years, all space development will be carried out by the private sector; this is a classic case of the government investing in an area that’s too expensive for private industry to start, but that private industry will take over and expand a thousandfold. You know, like the Internet.
Limiting space exploration to robotic probes is a short-term solution that’s probably worth handing over to the private sector first. Eventually, though, humankind will move out into space, and sooner or later the money will have to be spent to figure out how to do that.
Since I’m not a GD regular, I don’t know the etiquette of simply agreeing with the OP.
But, on this point, I simply don’t care.
I agree with the OP.
miatachris
space cadet
The reason we all don’t go jump on the solar powered bandwagon, is solar power is EXTREMELY INEFFICIENT. I mean extremely. You whole car would have to be solar panels to even get 1/4 the power of a gallon of gas.
Space is the final frontier. Sure, we can clean up Earth, but many of these technologies will be the direct result of manned exploration of Space. For instance, there is already research into reusable environments, where the circle of life exists. More will come out of the manned space program then ever will come out of the unmanned space program…
For those who say that we shouldn’t be doing it, where would you have the money go? If it doesn’t go to NASA I would guarantee you it would end up financing the war with Iraq… What a terrible waste.
BTW, can you say for certain that life will still exist on Earth in 2525? That’s right. Now be quiet.
Our space program is very inefficient, because it’s relatively in it’s infancy. If you ask me, we’ve gone backwards since the moon landings. Sure, establishing a satellite infrastructure is important, but we must go on.
Bush put it best.
The cause in which they died will go on. Men have been led into the darkness, and will continue into the darkness.
Or something like that.
Why should we cancel the space program? Not one of you has given any plausable reason for cancelling the manned program. “Fix this generations problems.” “11 Billion people.”
I would be willing to bet that in 100 years we will be mining asteroids and have a base on the moon. It wouldn’t surprise me.
I strongly agree with the OP, but at the same time, if the Shuttle and ISS were canceled tomorrow, the loss to actual “manned space exploration” would be minimal. In fact, if the money could be freed up for a different kind of program, real manned space exploration would benefit greatly. Let me expand on this.
The Shuttle and ISS keep flying because they are politically desirable for the NASA establishment and the locales that get the funding, like Florida and California. “Space-based” research (growing plants or making materials in zero-g and other such “science”) is fed to the voters as a pretext for keeping the Shuttle and ISS alive. It’s generally accepted even among “space cadets” like me that the money spent on microgravity research and other low Earth orbit science has been a very poor investment, even by the generous standards of fundamental research. Aerospace technology has benefited somewhat because of the knowledge gained in designing, building and flying the Shuttle and ISS, but one wonders how much more might have been done had the money been spent directly on aerospace engineering instead of as a means to the questionable end of LEO-based research.
This next statement is going to bother people, and it bothers me to say it, but after thinking about the Shuttle/ISS programs continuously for the last day and a half, I must say it: The Columbia astronauts should not be claimed to have died heroic deaths. Tragic, certainly; a waste of talent, certainly, but heroic, no. Heroes are people who do what everybody knows has to be done for the good of all, but nobody wants to do because of danger or other risks. First, as I have already argued, the technological return on the Shuttle and ISS is low. If the flow of science from the Shuttle and ISS stopped completely, the loss would be trifling. Even with all the risks known, the line of people waiting to volunteer to fly on the Shuttle is very, very long. If the risks were an order of magnitude higher, there would still be no shortage of qualified volunteers. Being an astronaut is a (nearly) priceless privilege! People pay $20 million to ride the Russian rockets. When there is such a clamor to go into space, it’s hard to see how those who actually get there can be termed heroes, even when things go badly. Current astronauts are the cream of the crop in terms of talent and expertise, and they probably have heroic potential, but the government’s lack of vision meant they never had the chance.
So there’s no scientific gain from our present manned space program, and I don’t think the astronauts are heroes. Yet I fully support manned spaceflight. Why?
Think about how you feel when you see movies of astronauts walking on the Moon. The world can be a pretty depressing place, with disease, wars, hunger… But when I hear Neil Armstrong say “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” for the 1000th time, I can feel optimistic and happy about human potential. Nothing else stirs quite the same feelings for me. He walked on the Moon. On the freaking Moon!
The Apollo program is estimated to have cost between $50 and $100 billion in today’s money. Assuming 100 million taxpayers, that’s about $100 a year over the 10-year life of the program. It’s worth it, people. It was a very minor portion of the federal budget. No programs got starved in favor of the space program. And we’re spending less than half as much today. I say double, triple, quadruple NASA’s budget. Get rid of the blockheads that the chief blockhead Dan Goldin put in charge. For cripes sake, when Congress asked Goldin what he would do with a bigger budget, he said he was happy with the money he had, and when they pressed him on it, he said “biotechnology”. What a sad commentary.
Make the astronauts heroes again by giving them something historically important to do. On to Mars!