Posted on 07/21/2009 7:13:45 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Yeah, that's great for all the possible disasters that we can avert. But sometimes, disaster strikes like a bolt from the blue, from causes over which we have no control -- an asteroid impact, a supervolcano eruption, some shutdown of the geodynamo. Life is extinguishable. It's happened before, it will happen again.
The only way to mitigate the fate of extinction is to NOT have all of your eggs (literally) in one basket. That's the real motivation for human space flight. It's not a question of "if" -- it's simply a question of "when."
“nor do we have the drive to be explorers anymore....”
I think you nailed it with this. We no longer dream big dreams, nor do we execute grand plans. We are becoming completely averse to any sort of risk or challenge. We are becoming a nation of metro-sexuals who discuss the latest trends over latte. We are raising a nation of wussies, and it will be to our great sorrow.-—JM
The ISS should be renamed the ASS. (Astronaut storage station) I realize it has some value but I’ve long since begun to doubt that it needs to be as large and expensive as it is.
If we had stayed on track with our previous ambitions, the money wasted on the space station could have gone toward a permanent station on the moon. It wouldn’t need to be boosted into a higher orbit every few years by an expensive mission. Instead or wasting valuable space carrying garbage back to earth it could stay on the moon
Good points. The ISS will be around $100 Billion, and when it's finished, they're going to crash it cause the funds aren't there to continue operating it. In Apollo 13, while capturing the pioneering spirit of the astronauts, they never put forth a compelling reason to go, other than the intense drive by the astronauts to stand on the moon. What will we find on Mars? Most likely more rocks. Few other bodies in the solar system would even allow a person to stand on them in a space suit, and the nearest solar system would be 200 years out, and holds no more promise of life than the other planets in our solar system. While I would love to explore, when Columbus sailed for the new world, there was at least the promise of solid land and air and food when he got there.
Despite what Star Trek says, we don't see that on the horizon.
In shear numbers you are right, but the technology advancements would actually make a difference.
The United States today could not get to the moon.
Why?
Have you seen the photos of the Apollo missions controls room? Full of white guys with crew cuts.
Todays mission would mandate that a certain percentage of the engineers, etc had to be classified as minority or female.
I’d far rather give American scientists and engineers a lot of money to do something that will inspire all mankind than to give (and keep on giving) a lot more money to “the disadvantaged” to do nothing.
“The ISS should be renamed the ASS. (Astronaut storage station) I realize it has some value but I’ve long since begun to doubt that it needs to be as large and expensive as it is.”
When I saw the shuttle for the first time in the late 70’s, I thought the same about it, what a boondoggle. It has done a few interesting things, but overall I think it has set us back. Maybe it and the space station have contributed to some science to assist in further maned exploration in the future, I don’t know. But we have played on low orbit long enough and it’s time to move on. I still think we’re spent up here in the US though. Maybe China will carry the torch now.
“I don’t know about the technology, but I don’t think we have the intelligence to do it safely nor do we have the drive to be explorers anymore. We’re too busy moving resources to the lazy, and that will be our downfall.”
We are a much different people now than the Americans of the 1960s. Instant gratification is a requirement. The public won’t stand for funding a program that would take years, and in cases, decades to yeild a result.
Young people aren’t willing to invest their time and effort for a result that isn’t guaranteed. Study, work hard, join the space program and maybe get a positive result? No way!
As we export our design and manufacturing jobs, we have fewer and fewer hard science and engineering students. Why would a youth study to be an electrical engineer when most of the design jobs are in Japan, India, and China?
Sure, we could import some engineers. Do you honestly think that someone who grew up in another country would feel the same dedication that the Americans in the 1960s space program felt? Nationalism.
We’ve lost our way. We couldn’t safely send someone to the moon and bring them back. And as America is currently constituted, it won’t be possible in the near future.
Watch as China or India steps into that role. The risk taker, the innovator, the prime mover with the drive and desire to get things done. The willingness to risk lives to expand the frontiers.
Sad, but that’s the reality I see.
Only disagreement I have is that the astronauts.... the whole team of engineers,scientists, and technicians that put men on the moon are NOT heroes. They had a job to do. They always looked at it like it was a job and that it should be done well. You want heroes? The guys who were at Normandy, the POWs, anyone who fought in Viet Nam, fire fighters, policemen. Those are real heroes. The astronauts are fine folks but they are not heroes ( and for the record I loved the moon program. We haven’t really had a space program in decades-— what we have had is a cost containment program)
Somebody posted this yesterday.
Whiteys on the moon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5smPcN8AoE
if you listen closely you can hear loud and clear why we can’t do squat anymore. Its because there’s always someone else who thinks they deserve money more.
“We are also going to have to face facts. We are alone in this universe...”
By what reasoning do you come to this conclusion?
Yes. Three Gorges Dam.
or be allowed to even attempt such an endeavor today?
In the US? Are there any suitable sites left? If there are (I think the answer is "no"), though, the greenies would have a fit. And I'd be majorly annoyed too. We should be building nukes, not dams.
What is on the moon that we need to go back? Just stand there and go, “See, we did it”?
Since we are in the worst financial crisis this country has seen and it could even destroy this nation, I don’t think billions upon billions more being spent on putting another footprint on the moon is a wise idea.
If by “alone” you mean we have to take care of ourselves, fine. But if you mean it in some other way, I doubt our loneliness is a “fact”
You are wrong. You either know no history or you are very very young. NACA provided some of the ‘latest’ designs for our jets and fighters during the end of the second worl war. They offered innovation and technology throughout the Korean war ( oh yeah conflict). NACA which later became NASA had always had a strong component of military effort in the work. The ‘failures’ that you see footage of are rockets being tested for ICBM use. Yes JFK did want something for the US to ‘strive’ for -— it was feel good. The result was beyond your understanding. Do you use a microwave oven? Have you had any advanced medical imaging? Ever had a CAT scan, an MRI, anEKG? an EEG? The medical and technological advances that have become real products because we went to the moon are vast.
And ALL of that happened at the cost of less than 1 cent per every tax dollar paid.
By the time whitey got to the moon, hundreds of billions of white wealth had already been transferred to black folks.
45+ years down the line, that number has grown into the trillions.
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