I am totally into the space thing. I watch as many shows on Discovery Channel as possible. The one REAL excuse that you can use to limit space travel beyond the moon is that there is tons of space radiation that will kill a human if exposed to it during the 18 months it takes to get to Mars. As far as money as an excuse? Hello? The country with 11 trillion dollars in liquid capital (5 of it going through Wall Street) can't invest say...100 billion dollars to make space exploration possible? The same effect they had on me when they launched the space shuttle initially will happen if the focus returns. Millions upon millions of kids will be inspired to be scientists, astronauts and the like. I was thinking about voting for 'Bama. He just lost me with the stupid thought process. Either that or just deregulate and let companies like Microsoft, Google, Intel, Cisco, and the like get us there without government help. Humans without space exploration is inexcusable...especially when you say its too expensive. Hello? Iraq? And the technology can definitely be created. We can be on Mars in 8 years.
I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that space initiatives take longer than one presidency. Nobody wants to go out on a limb to push for funding for something that they won't get the credit for. Consequently Presidents never outright kill the space program, as there would be a negative stigma, but they never give it more than lip service. Either that or they come up with some proposal which doesn't require the influx of real funding until after they leave the office, and so put a hot potato in someone else’s lap, but reap good PR from a subgroup for talking about going to Mars.
Ok...now I am into this... I agree that if we don't get to the moon in 2 years, we should get rid of NASA. More than one presidency? Please. Excuses. I can make the argument why we need to get to Mars right after that. Forget the fact that its in our nature to explore. Forget the fact that it will restore immense pride in our country. Lets say its about money as it always seems to be. Why not take a freakin chance not only to land on another world, but the possibilities on what can be found is worth the price of going x 10. At the very least, you can find new minerals, energy sources, etc to maybe use further since we know resources here are not gonna last forever. At most, you can discover that there was life on other planets not name Earth and that would be the single biggest discovery in the history of existance here. I mean, do you know the money you can make with either of these two options? The excuses are many. The will to act is few to non existant. You mean to tell me that we can't develop some kind of rocket to get us there and back safely? You mean you can't send a series of rockets and modules to land on Mars so that when the humans get there, there will be food and water and lodging? This can't be done until 2020? Ok. Then lets try to explore the ocean depths. Its like another planet down there with tons of resources yet untapped. Oh wait... Its too dangerous, can't be done, loss of life...yadda, yadda, yadda.
I think other areas of science has picked up at an exponential pace mostly due to private innovation. Silicon Valley companies and Taiwanese subcontractors has done more for computers than the old IBM and Apple duopoly. Biotech, nanoengineering, materials science, etc.... have opened up fields and discoveries that weren't anticipated by sci-fi writers. Lower barriers of entry and the enormous gold rush potential of space exploration will most likely make the old predictions a reality in the next 50 years. If not, I'll give it a another 50 years...
high budget scifi and low ratings = dead meat. At least up until the late 80s to early 90s, most sci-fi shows rarely did exceptional in the Nielsen Ratings. Most American sci-fi shows never lasted more than 3 or 4 years. Remember Star Trek was only on the air for 3 years, while British sci-fi shows, like Blake's 7, Dr. Who, The Prisoner, and HGT Galaxy all usually lasted much longer than any American sci-fi show.
The Stranger: Way out west there was this fella I wanna tell ya about. Goes by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least that was the handle his loving parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. See, this Lebowski, he called himself "The Dude". Now, "Dude" - there's a name no man would self-apply where I come from. But then there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place so darned interestin'. See, they call Los Angeles the "City Of Angels"; but I didn't find it to be that, exactly. But I'll allow it as there are some nice folks there. 'Course I ain't never been to London, and I ain't never seen France. And I ain't never seen no queen in her damned undies, so the feller says. But I'll tell you what - after seeing Los Angeles, and this here story I'm about to unfold, well, I guess I seen somethin' every bit as stupefyin' as you'd seen in any of them other places. And in English, too. So I can die with a smile on my face, without feelin' like the good Lord gypped me. Now this here story I'm about to unfold took place in the early '90s - just about the time of our conflict with Sad'm and the I-raqis. I only mention it because sometimes there's a man... I won't say a hero, 'cause, what's a hero? Sometimes, there's a man. And I'm talkin' about the Dude here - the Dude from Los Angeles. Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's the Dude. The Dude, from Los Angeles. And even if he's a lazy man - and the Dude was most certainly that. Quite possibly the laziest in all of Los Angeles County, which would place him high in the runnin' for laziest worldwide. Sometimes there's a man, sometimes, there's a man. Well, I lost my train of thought here. But... aw, hell. I've done introduced it enough. zzzzz... Trim Bush!!!
Not exactly. Arthur C. Clarke predicted we would be at Saturn now, and beyond.., but he also predicted the Internet. I 2001 the book he mentioned how someone could get info from around the world such as all of the major newspapers on a "newstablet" device. Aasimov also mentions instantaneous global communication networks existing by now.
As compared to investing say a 100 billion to fix New Orleans, rebuild our infrastucture and reduce the deficit? All for it.
Yeah but his books were about rocketships - thinking up an electronic newspaper and conceiving of the internets are different things.
Think about all the technological advances there have been that dont regard space exploration. i mean you can send tons of information and video from one part of the world to another in a matter of seconds. you have cell phones, pretty much everyone has one and its making pay phones obsolete. there have been so many advances and they are so common that we dont even think about it. i mean i grew up writing papers by hand and now i type everything. hell i dont even think i can write anymore. besides we all these other issues to deal with. space exploration is really just a waste of money imho. im probly alone in that opinion
^ Sci-fi writers did predict things like cell phones and global communication. The Star Trek communicators were essentially cell phones even down to the clam shell design.
If an enormous rock was hurtling through space towards, say, where you are sitting right now, and something could be done about if we just made the effort in space technology and were out there where we could act, don't you think that would be time, effort, and money well spent? And did you know that we have discovered enormous rocks that could have done tremendous damage to large parts of the planet after they had passed as close as between the Earth and the Moon? And that it wasn't very long ago? Is that something worth being concerned about? Trim Bush!
Err... doesn't that point towards the woefully underfunded program to detect such objects? Not much you can do about an asteroid hurtling towards Earth if you don't know it's there.
Did you read the link that I gave regarding space exploration and Silicon Valley? The entire technological revolution can be directly traced to the money spent at and around Moffatt Field (in Silicon Valley) by NASA. That includes computers, cell phones, the Internet, all the things you mention in your post.
Just a minor nitpick: The Constellation Program (and manned spaceflight in general) has nothing to do with meteor prevention. I agree with your point, but if thats the main goal, it certainly can be done cheaper.
Yeah, deflecting an meteor will not require manned spaceflight -- as a side note when Apophis makes its ultra close pass in 2029 a mission is being considered to land a transponder of some sort on the surface.
