Topic: Is NASA stunting human progress? (Read 8355 times)

trust_the_fungus · « **on:** October 30, 2006, 09:35:18 AM »

I hope this fits in with the political theme well enough. My friends and I were having a discussion yesterday about the " next step " in space exploration. Of course we all had different views on the subject. A question I brought up to my friends is if NASA is taking the so called easy way out and not taking as many risks as they used to. I fully understand the importance of safety, but risks need to be taken if anything is going to get done. At least this is my take on the situation. Please discuss.

BizB · « **Reply #1 on:** October 30, 2006, 09:47:19 AM »

I think that just climbing into one of those space shuttles is taking a huge risk. I think NASA is under funded and there is lack of public interest in the program. GWB talked about going back to the moon, but there hasn't been any hype over it. The current plan is a manned mission into space in the newly designed capsule by the year 2014 and I think they're planning on being on the moon by 2020.

Mars will come some time after that. But... what's the point? I mean, we're getting more from the rovers on Mars than we could from a couple of guys freezing their asses off while stumbling around on the red planet.

I think the world should join together in the exploration efforts beyond the planet's atmosphere.

milifist · « **Reply #2 on:** October 30, 2006, 09:55:35 AM »

It isn’t a lack of willingness that is holding us back, but a lack of technology and an abundance of natural resources. Our technology is still too limited to make space exploitation profitable. When it becomes cheaper to get resources from space than from Earth, we will see a major push into space.

NASA is largely irrelevant to human expansion into space. It is industry that will drive space exploration.

Evonus · « **Reply #3 on:** October 30, 2006, 06:34:34 PM »

Yeah, the problem is I don't see an immediate point. So we get some guys to Mars, or the moon. Big deal? We've been there before, we have rovers there, what's it really going to change or accomplish. I'd say cut the funding till they find a real use for the project.

Agent_Tachyon · « **Reply #4 on:** October 30, 2006, 08:08:37 PM »

Yeah, the private sector is where it's at, screw NASA. Aside from colonisation in the far future, I don't really see a lot of applications worth spending money on in the area of space travel. I hate to put a damper on all the awesome technology and OMG COOL nosehair clippers that they've come up with down at NASA, but I can't help but think that a lot of that money would have been better spent here on Spaceship Earth (oooh Buckyworks has arrived).

Big Orange Cat · « **Reply #5 on:** October 30, 2006, 09:14:04 PM »

"Don't get on the ship!"

Agent_Tachyon · « **Reply #6 on:** October 30, 2006, 10:48:29 PM »

Quote from: Big Orange Cat on October 30, 2006, 09:14:04 PM

"Don't get on the ship!"

IT'S A COOKBOOK!!!

I wonder if they've got Grandma's old recipe for Soylent Green in there.

BizB · « **Reply #7 on:** October 31, 2006, 07:51:22 AM »

Talix is people!

</oldschool>

sociald1077 · « **Reply #8 on:** October 31, 2006, 02:43:13 PM »

Quote from: milifist on October 30, 2006, 09:55:35 AM

It isn’t a lack of willingness that is holding us back, but a lack of technology and an abundance of natural resources. Our technology is still too limited to make space exploitation profitable. When it becomes cheaper to get resources from space than from Earth, we will see a major push into space.

NASA is largely irrelevant to human expansion into space. It is industry that will drive space exploration.

Up untill about the 20th Century, lack of technology has never been a reason for man to no explore and create wounders. It is a dedication and cause that gets huge progects done. A dedication and cause that Americans and, I think, the world is lacking. While I was taking a sci-fi class in high school I remember reading a short story about aliens coming to earth. They came in huge ships, but their ships were not big because they were full of wounderus technology, but because they were using vacume tubes to power their computers. In stead of spending decades to refine their technology, they designed a system that worked and went with it. Their people understood the risks and supported the explores.

I am unsure why people do not support the space program and space exploration more. Yes there are risks, and yes it is expensive, but the rewards interms of colonization could be imense.

Agent_Tachyon · « **Reply #9 on:** October 31, 2006, 02:50:09 PM »

I think that maybe we should get behind projects that fix the planet we\'ve already got, which we KNOW can support enormous amounts of people, rather than pack up and colonize a rock full of toxic gas so we can live in cans for the next few hundred years it would take to terraform the surface (if that is even possible).

milifist · « **Reply #10 on:** October 31, 2006, 07:23:30 PM »

Human expansion into space is only natural. It will happen. It is economics that will drive us to space. When it becomes more cost effective to mine resources in space than digging them out of the ground, we will see a real push into space. However, at this point technology isn’t up to the point where the big industrialists will seriously consider space. It was the potential for profit that drove most of the great human advancements. The same will be true with space.

Well, profit and war. In my opinion, the militaries have done far more in practical space applications than the civilian projects. However, the world has become more peaceful and people still get freaked out be the notion of militarizing space, so it looks like it will be left to profit to drive expansion into space.

Agent_Tachyon · « **Reply #11 on:** October 31, 2006, 07:59:55 PM »

The population at large becoming peaceful hasn't stopped many wars, historically. That's where drafts come in.

TeraHammer · « **Reply #12 on:** November 01, 2006, 07:37:23 AM »

Space will come. Eventually. Why send out human beings on a dangerous exploration mission to mars when we have the ICT to do it by machine? The NASA should not take unnecesary risks. It'd be cool to go to venus and ship gasses we are in need for production. But, again, machinery could be able to solve it for the great part.

And we'd better terraform earth we're its needed instead of focussing on other planets allready.

TheJudge · « **Reply #13 on:** November 01, 2006, 09:04:20 AM »

Question. Back in the days of sea exploration, explorers would claim undiscovered lands as their own, or as the land of their sponsors (e.i. their country). When man eventually lands on Mars, will the countries responsible for making this event happen claim the planet as their own?

BizB · « **Reply #14 on:** November 01, 2006, 09:34:23 AM »

Hard to know for sure http://www.tsgc.utexas.edu/space_games/9squares/moon/flag/9.jpg

Agent_Tachyon · « **Reply #15 on:** November 01, 2006, 03:26:21 PM »

Quote from: TheJudge on November 01, 2006, 09:04:20 AM

Question. Back in the days of sea exploration, explorers would claim undiscovered lands as their own, or as the land of their sponsors (e.i. their country). When man eventually lands on Mars, will the countries responsible for making this event happen claim the planet as their own?

I read somewhere that it isn\'t legal to own planets or moons.

BizB · « **Reply #16 on:** November 01, 2006, 03:32:49 PM »

Quote from: Agent_Tachyon on November 01, 2006, 03:26:21 PM

I read somewhere that it isn\'t legal to own planets or moons.

Are you sure it didn't say "morons with plants"?

trekchick · « **Reply #17 on:** November 01, 2006, 04:08:15 PM »

im sure they could call it their own if they wanted to, but truthfully, i dont think that a country would actually do that.

but, it is possible that i could be wrong, it has happened once or twice.

and as for the whole "why send people into space when we have rovers and stuff" if i was given trhe opportunity to go into space and the moon, i would not pass it up (and that might just be bc im a trekky, but who knows" and also rovers, are very expensive, and often can only be used once.

and unless some tragic accident it to happen, people can be used more than once, and are a bajillion dollars to make. and again, it gives some people an awesome job.

with the way the world is progressing, and populating, eventually, we are going to get really crowded, and we are going to wish we took space exploration as far as we could, maybe possibly to start living on another planet. and im not meaning "in the next 10years or so" but, we need to plan for a long time in advance. procrastination is never looked upon as a good thing.

Agent_Tachyon · « **Reply #18 on:** November 03, 2006, 07:43:49 PM »

I think that, while space travel WILL inevitably reach the middle class consumer it won't happen until the rich old white folks and their kids have set up their monopolies and the old franchises have moved over to the new place. Things will suck even worse than they do down here on the moon or mars if they are colonized.

TeraHammer · « **Reply #19 on:** November 06, 2006, 09:55:01 PM »

Quote from: trekchick on November 01, 2006, 04:08:15 PM

but, we need to plan for a long time in advance. procrastination is never looked upon as a good thing.

Agreed, but first is the need to get to a global "we". If we can't cooperate on our home basis, we can never cooperate in space.

rogue_77 · « **Reply #20 on:** December 30, 2006, 12:40:28 PM »

Quote from: TheJudge on November 01, 2006, 09:04:20 AM

Question. Back in the days of sea exploration, explorers would claim undiscovered lands as their own, or as the land of their sponsors (e.i. their country). When man eventually lands on Mars, will the countries responsible for making this event happen claim the planet as their own?

I'm sure you've probably heard this already but theres a guy thats selling land on the moon and hes made millions already. Theres ads in the papers I believe saying, "Buy a plot next to the Sea of Tranquility for your great great grand kids." That was a few years ago. I heard something about a year ago about people wanting to actually take claim of their claim. Thing is the guy selling contacted the right people and I think the story goes they kinda blew him off and he found a loophole in the system so technically these people have the right to own land there.

Of course IMO the land will be taken when any development is actually done because big brother says so.

To answer more directly I would say that companies won't own planets because thats just kinda nuts. Can you imagine the negative feedback here on earth if Sony or 3M claimed to own Mars? I actually imagine plots being granted through some newly founded (inter)governmental system to people(companies) that could actually reach there. Once colonization is possible there'd most likely be a plot zoned for that. It would just expand for there.

Thats kind of how I see it, not that I ever WILL see it as much as I'd love to. Guess I'll stick with my sci-fi and imagination.

Agent_Tachyon · « **Reply #21 on:** December 30, 2006, 09:55:20 PM »

Well I'm sure that good old Uncle Sam would start out with a monopoly on Mars for the first little while, let's say a few decades. This could keep going for as long as the colonists would be dependant on supplies from earth. After that I see no reason why a revolution wouldn't be forthcoming, due to the extreme distance between the two 'nations'.

TeraHammer · « **Reply #22 on:** January 13, 2007, 02:15:43 PM »

Quote from: Agent_Tachyon on December 30, 2006, 09:55:20 PM

Well I'm sure that good old Uncle Sam would start out with a monopoly on Mars for the first little while, let's say a few decades. This could keep going for as long as the colonists would be dependant on supplies from earth. After that I see no reason why a revolution wouldn't be forthcoming, due to the extreme distance between the two 'nations'.

You can compare it to colonization with sailships in the 17th and 18th century. Colonies used to be hold by the supressor fairly easily. But indeed, there comes a time sooner or later when the locals refuse the initial authority.
Though there is a difference. Communication can go much faster, at the speed of light. That will lessen the chance of revolution.

Agent_Tachyon · « **Reply #23 on:** January 13, 2007, 11:19:58 PM »

I don't see how that would make a lot of difference once the colony is self-sustaining...

'Oh boy, we've just got a message from earth saying that in six months we'd better watch our backs...'.

12AX7 · « **Reply #24 on:** January 14, 2007, 09:42:26 AM »

Hmm.
Suppose Yellowstone busts out in 18 years.
As the atmosphere is clouded for years, the global temperature drops, and the
Antarctic Polar Ice cap (which is so heavy now it warps the shape of the Earth) begins to
grow; warping the Earth a bit further, causing the tectonic plates to really show their asses.
Earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis,...
Suppose this happens over two to three actual human lifetimes.
I'm just saying...

Hehe... terraform? Explain, please. (<- this is actually rhetoric; I understand what you mean) You mean, like we
have terraformed the rainforests? And the atmosphere? We can't even manage to take care of this planet; how on Earth (AHAHA!!) -realistically- do you think we'll be able to pull off "terraforming" another world? One that is, apparently, not life-supporting to begin with? I'm not optimistic about this idea. Sounds great; but, um...
What seems to escape discussions on space colonizations is that the very idea that we've ruined the Earth to the
point of having to abandon it sort of negates the idea that we'd have the technology to colonize an unhospitable place.
I mean, if we have the technology to setup a new planet with an atmosphere and landscape suitable for us; then wouldn't we have figured out how to fix things here? Shouldn't we have figured out how to fix things here, first?

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Author Topic: Is NASA stunting human progress? (Read 8355 times)

12AX7