Message posted by Andre' M. Dall'au on July 10, 2011 at 5:08:53 PST:
All good points. The interesting corollary is that if deep space flight is not feasible for us how could it be feasible for aliens? In other words your argument could just as well negate the ability of ANY interstellar travel. That would cause a stir. And a reduction in Hollywood productions that uses spaceflight as a theme for TV and movies to a point where it is routine as rehab for actors. Perhaps the myth of starships and aliens will never have an end like dragons, magic and zombies. While the reality of the situation has going back into space as too expensive, too dangerous and better done by unmanned craft, the human curiosity cannot be satisfied by pictures sent back from robots. The Mars rover probably gave all the info we need to know that Mars sucks, but sending a manned expedition there is still a popular goal. There is talk about sending astronauts to an asteroid. That (to me) makes even less sense because going just to one or two will not give us any more information that the one we can dig out of the ground here. What do we expect to find? A cache of bubbly water, tons of gold or "Klatuu was here" spray painted on a rock? It will be a high-tech make work project kinda like close to my house where they are spending a million dollars to tear up a little used bike path to make a little used bike path. At the end of the day unless we make new technological advances in key areas of power, propulsion, metallurgy, shielding and weight reduction we are stuck here. Unfortunately those key advances could be moved along with a national focus on space exploration similar to what JFK did in 1961. It was both a fools errand and source of national pride with its success. The technology reaped from that endeavor gave us what we have today in computers, miniaturization and communications. Without the moon landings I seriously doubt we would have computers in every home, cell phones for 14 year-old girls and the internet so geeks can lie about themselves to meet women. Maybe the usefulness of a space exploration program is much less the endpoint but what we can get during and after the process. The riches of new technology, the ability to have a plethora of high tech jobs and as a source of both hope and national pride for all Americans. Maybe we should stand together and admit that although Mars sucks, we should check it out anyway for the same reason humans have conquered Everest - because it is there.
In Reply to: Re: OT - Last Flight Out posted by Mark Lincoln on July 09, 2011 at 19:38:35 PST:
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