Look at this
Bush wants to start a Moon base, as a pre-rec to sending humans to Mars.
Opposed- send robots, as a base is too expensive.
I like the base, but aggree on the robot is cheeper.
Discuss
I reccommend the robots.
Yeah, machines are definitely superior.
Quite correct.
I would love to see humans on the moon again. I would love to see them on Mars. I’m a dreamer in that area. There’s a part of the human heart that craves for exploration, to, well, boldly go where no man has gone before, to use a campy cliche. Keep sending rovers, fine. That’s good. Send them to Europa too. But land a man on the moon again. Land another on Mars. There’s just something different, something special, about a human bouncing on another planetary body that rovers driving around just doesn’t have.
Kennedy’s speech in 1961 about landing a man on the moon within the decade just wouldn’t have had the same effect if he had said “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a rover on the moon and letting it run of power so it can eventually be of no more use to us.”
At the very least, this should draw attention to just how underfunded NASA and the space program has become. The truth is though, there’s just no real benefit to building a moon base or going to Mars. We can’t get any rescources from either yet, as the costs would be too high to transport the equipment there and the materials back. There’s no real scientific benefit to putting people on them either, as both the moon and Mars have been extensively studied by Satillites and robots. Soil composition, atmospheric pressure and moisture, terrain, we can study those things from the comfort of our chairs here on Earth.
Until we can drastically reduce the cost per pound of putting something into space, there’s not going to be any real benefit to putting people on the Moon or Mars. And considering that most everyone here already considers the American economy in a hole, I don’t see how anyone can justify this as anything other than wasteful spending.
404
Conservative my ass.
Now, I’m all for space exploration, but I want to wait for opinions from people outside the government (scientists, not blowhard commentators) on whether there is much of a point on putting people on the moon (in other words, this has to be more purposeful than the ISS).
Whether there is or is not, at least it’ll spur some technological developement.
Originally posted by Devillion
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The link isn’t broken, you’ve just grown lazy from hyperlinks =P
Copy-Paste it, instead of clicking it, and it works fine.
Or click <A href=“http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040109/ap_on_go_pr_wh/back_to_the_moon&cid=544&ncid=716” target="_blank">here</a> instead.
I think we should be putting a lot of money into space exploration. Putting men on the moon is practical if we can somehow find some kind of way to establish a base or colony of some kind there. As far as why we should be funding space exploration more, I can think of a few reasons.
Space technology is cutting edge techonlogy and it helps develop kinds of things that can later be applied in other ways on the domestic front.
We’re gonna have to start exporting people off this planet within the next century. There’s simply not enough resources to go around, especially if everyone wants to live in high luxury.
Space exploration is spiritually good for the human race.
And finally, the sooner that reality becomes like something out of a science fiction story, the better. I think it would be damn cool to have colonies and stuff on different planets with high-powered space ships traveling to the farthest reaches of the galaxy and beyond. What else can I say?
About the resources thing…the people we ship up probably won’t find resources on the moon. Which means we’ll have to ship resources up to them, so there will still be the same number of people using the same amount of luxuries. Actually, there will be fewer resources as a result of having to transport both the people and the luxuries
It would be cool, but it shouldn’t be used an excuse to solve problems. If we don’t solve the problems here on this planet, in the eventuality that we ever attain the technology to live elsewhere in the universe, we’d just be exporting them there.
I’ll agree with you about the technology - so far that’s the only likely benefit I see (we’d develop different stuff for sending humans than we would for robots). The population thing, though, is something that should be solved here and now.
I was thinking more along the lines of a planet such as Europa or some other one that might be able to sustain life by itself. Water is the biggest thing - if we can find a planet or moon with a renewable source of water, the other resources won’t be that much of a problem.
The problem with using technology as an excuse for space exploration is that we’re not <em>getting</em> any technological progress from the space program any more. And we really haven’t since around the 1970’s. The space program is still based on technology that is over 20 years old. The space shuttles, for example, run on 386 processors.
I remember reading an article where the director of NASA talked about how NASA is using toys from the local toy store for parts because of how underfunded and behind the times our space program’s technology is. It was cheaper and more effective to pull parts from a furby and put them to use than it was to use NASA’s own technology.
Space travel isn’t the technological push in our society any more, computers are. Therefore, there’s simply no technological initiative in persuing space travel any longer. Not, at least, until we are able to lower the price per pound of putting material into space to a reasonable level.
>Space travel isn’t the technological push in our society any more, computers are. Therefore, there’s simply no technological initiative in persuing space travel any longer. Not, at least, until our technology lowers the price per pound of putting material into space to a reasonable level.
Its the incentive space technology creates that’s important. To say computers are the ‘technological push’ doesn’t mean anything, because computers aren’t a purpose. They’re a means to many different purposes. People don’t try to develop ever faster computers simply for the sake of the computers themselves. See, in order to, say, put a man on Mars, you need a lot of really sophisticated equipment. Most importantly, you need a spaceship that can go fast enough so that the guy can get there and back before he dies. If you did make such a spaceship, it would have incredible power and incredibly fast computers. Now, is there any other kind of domestic need that would push technology so far? We you develop such an incredibly powerful computer because of the needs of gamers, or the needs of graphic artists, or some other kind of domestic thing we you use computers for? Not that I can think of. Also, “Not, at least, until we are able to lower the price per pound of putting material into space to a reasonable level.”, trying to find a way to do that would itself push technology a lot faster than anything else.
Space travel isn’t the cutting edge because its goals are too low. If we set the goals higher, we’ll have to develop greater technology to meet those goals. And space exploration is the only kind of business that creates the kinds of goals that truely pushes techology beyond the limit. Well, war does too, but I’d rather it be space exploration than war.
True, increasing funds to space travel would increase technological progress, but only in the field of space travel, that’s what I’m trying to say.
When the space program was created, there was an incredible boom in technology, because space travel filled in a void that was there. Things like faster computers, pens that work under any condition, and tang all were technological benefits from the field of space travel. What makes these developments special is that they can be used effectively in fields <em>outside</em> space travel.
However, since the 1970’s, computers have replaced space travel as the “happening” technological drive. Many of our modern technological advances are indirectly driven by our rapid computer development, and many products and fields outside the computer field have experienced rapid technological progress due to the drive created by computers.
It’s not that funding space travel wouldn’t create technology, it’s just that the technology it would create would be very limited in its usefullness. Sure, we could develop a super ultra mega speed engine, but what, outside space travel could that be used for? The money that could be spent for space travel, would be much more wisely spent funding something with more practical use.
And if all funding space travel creates is technology for space travel, that’s still fine - as long as there’s a reason for space travel. And the truth quite frankly is, there’s no reason for space travel right now.
Well, I really just have blind faith that the technology that would result in putting someone on Mars would be so wide-encompassing that in some way would be able to tweak it for other uses. I just find it hard to believe that the technology resulting from such an edeavor would only benefit said endeavor.
Also, this might sound corny or hokey or whatever, but we as a species owe so much to our nature as explorers, our willingness to go into the unknown in the faith that we’ll find something elightening and beneficial. I don’t know what the benefits of space travel will be right now, but they will be something. Like I said, eventually we will start to have to start leaving this planet, and the sooner we start building up to forming a colony on a life sustainable planet or moon, the better. Think of the base on the Moon and Mars as ‘practice’. And who knows? If there was once life on Mars, as many scientists believe, than there would be fossils there(especially if the existence of life there had a very long time-span), and if there are fossils there, there is fossil fuel there. The reason that white Europe became the supreme power of humanity was because they were the ones who sent ships out into the unknown world searching for resources and trade. China was richer and more powerful at the time, but because they didn’t have the will or spirit to explore, they missed out and eventually got screwed over.
Originally posted by RoguePaladinTrian
It would be cool, but it shouldn’t be used an excuse to solve problems. If we don’t solve the problems here on this planet, in the eventuality that we ever attain the technology to live elsewhere in the universe, we’d just be exporting them there.
What would have happened if the King and Queen of Spain didn’t spend any money funding Columbus and just went and improved Mardrid? Madrid wouldn’t have been much better, and Spain would have never seen it’s golden age.
We, as humans, are by nature explorers. I don’t see a point in ignoring space to solve the problems on earth: they’er not going to be solved. Not without humans evolving into perfection (how boring). There will always be problems. Deal with it.
How about just “no”?
I say: Fix up earth first, THEN consider colonization among other planets. What’s that you say? Earth can’t be fixed now? Tough shit.
The earth has been around for many years. Human kind has progressed and developed more than 2000 years. Yet only through the last 100 years of that big number, we REALLY fucked up the planet.
The moon and Mars wouldn’t last 80 years…
News flash Kagato: As long as humans exist, the Earth will be fucked up. Yeah most of it has been since teh advent of the Industrial Revolution, but the fact remains that we’ve been fucking up this planet since humans figured out agriculture. Not to mention ourselves since an ape baby gained sentinence.
I’m not saying ignore the problems. But if we concentrate on them, we really dont’ gain anything and the problems will probably still exist in 1000 years, while we could be exploring other star systems in the same amount of time.
Not to mention the moon doesn’t exactly have an ecosystem to fuck up…
(Edited my post a bit, added a few things)
I think a good reason to send people to Moon & Mars is that when such a plan is put into action, new technologies are developed. The longer it takes to send people to Mars, the longer it will take for us to develop those tech’s that will come with it. Also, you have to think on the benefits it would give to the next generations. Just imagine how thw rold would be if the european explorers hadn’t went towards the Americas by the 15th and 16th centuries because the voyage through the oceans was too expensive.
The Universe is the future, the Earth is a slowly dying present.