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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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 Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 9:26 pm Post subject: |
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| mack4289 wrote: |
I never said money used to pay for space exploration is taking food away from poor people. Regardless of how that money would be used otherwise, I think manned space travel is a waste of money. There's a possibility that, when this planet becomes unihabitable, we go somewhere else. But where else do we go? I believe, that even in the most nightmarish environmental or nuclear war scenarios, that Earth is still by far the most inhabitable planet.
Can anyone tell me any tangible benefits we've gotten from manned space travel? |
Well, first you can ask "what tangible benefits do we get from any pure science?" What benefit do we get spending money on math geeks trying to solve weird math problems? What benefit do we get from a guy trudging around a jungle studying the mating habits of a 3 toed sloth?
The answer is "we do". We just don't know where it's going to come from. A guy studying sloths might notice they're terribly resistant to fungus. Behold, we get a new kind of antibiotic. Geeks studying math stumble on new ways of reducing risk in the commodities market or designing cars with lower drag.
I mean gosh space exploration = better satellites for starters.
Again, let me suggest there is enough money for science and dealing with problems here on earth. We never seem to ask "a new aircraft carrier or food for the poor?"
Some people ask questions like
What tangible benefits do we get from hosting an Olympics?
What tangible benefits do we get from the stock market? Isn't it just guys moving around paper?
What tangible benefits do we get from a legal system that spends money when we know the guy is guilty? |
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SPINOZA
Joined: 10 Jun 2005
Location: $eoul
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| Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 9:54 pm Post subject: |
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| mack4289 wrote: |
I never said money used to pay for space exploration is taking food away from poor people. Regardless of how that money would be used otherwise, I think manned space travel is a waste of money. There's a possibility that, when this planet becomes unihabitable, we go somewhere else. But where else do we go? I believe, that even in the most nightmarish environmental or nuclear war scenarios, that Earth is still by far the most inhabitable planet.
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Mars or Titan. Mars would still be mostly too cold even if it had Earth's atmosphere, so we'd have to all fit around perhaps between Mars' equivalents of our Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.....on a planet 50% of Earth's size.
I think manned and unmanned missions to bodies in our Solar System are defensible, but I'm not convinced space travel per se is of critical importance. The fact that we measure distances in space in the time it takes light to travel in a year (light travels at 11,178,000 miles per minute) says much about the chances of real progress there. Even if we somehow mastered speeds of 1 million miles per hour, Mars would still be a 50 hour journey. |
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cbclark4
Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Location: Masan
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| Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 10:03 pm Post subject: |
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| mack4289 wrote: |
I never said money used to pay for space exploration is taking food away from poor people. Regardless of how that money would be used otherwise, I think manned space travel is a waste of money. There's a possibility that, when this planet becomes unihabitable, we go somewhere else. But where else do we go? I believe, that even in the most nightmarish environmental or nuclear war scenarios, that Earth is still by far the most inhabitable planet.
Can anyone tell me any tangible benefits we've gotten from manned space travel? |
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein |
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jdog2050
Joined: 17 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 10:05 pm Post subject: |
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| cbclark4 wrote: |
| mack4289 wrote: |
I never said money used to pay for space exploration is taking food away from poor people. Regardless of how that money would be used otherwise, I think manned space travel is a waste of money. There's a possibility that, when this planet becomes unihabitable, we go somewhere else. But where else do we go? I believe, that even in the most nightmarish environmental or nuclear war scenarios, that Earth is still by far the most inhabitable planet.
Can anyone tell me any tangible benefits we've gotten from manned space travel? |
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein |
Damn, burned by *Einstein*. Ouch. |
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Troll_Bait
Joined: 04 Jan 2006
Location: [T]eaching experience doesn't matter much. -Lee Young-chan (pictured)
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| Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 10:08 pm Post subject: |
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| whatever wrote: |
| IncognitoHFX wrote: |
| Don't knock space travel. Its one of our most important long term goals as a species. |
What? Why the hell is that? Do you really believe that...? |
Stephen Hawking thinks it's important. I wonder who's smarter, whatever or Stephen Hawking?
| SPINOZA wrote: |
| mack4289 wrote: |
I never said money used to pay for space exploration is taking food away from poor people. Regardless of how that money would be used otherwise, I think manned space travel is a waste of money. There's a possibility that, when this planet becomes unihabitable, we go somewhere else. But where else do we go? I believe, that even in the most nightmarish environmental or nuclear war scenarios, that Earth is still by far the most inhabitable planet.
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Mars or Titan. < ... > |
Or Venus. Or ... [I'll leave Mith to fill in the rest]. |
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squat toilet
Joined: 08 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 10:09 pm Post subject: |
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| SPINOZA wrote: |
Mars or Titan. Mars would still be mostly too cold even if it had Earth's atmosphere, so we'd have to all fit around perhaps between Mars' equivalents of our Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.....on a planet 50% of Earth's size. |
I heard Europa is the place to be these days |
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contrarian
Joined: 20 Jan 2007
Location: Nearly in NK
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| Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2007 10:45 pm Post subject: |
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Hah! Interstellar travel is coming soon.
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laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
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| Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 12:28 am Post subject: |
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There are some massively small minds on this board. Imagine if Christopher Columbus (I know he wasn't the first either) said the same? Or the Wright brothers, I mean what could be faster than just sailing to Asia?
Unless you people want to force a one child policy or start some infancide, we are going to need to expand. First will be the solar system but we will find a way to make travel to other places possible too. Seriously, imagine if you brought someone just from 300 years ago into todays society? Small thinking does not make the world go 'round. |
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Gatsby
Joined: 09 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 12:49 am Post subject: |
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Race?
What race?
Don't you need at least two competitors to have a race?
Vs. To boldly go where man has gone so many times before.
The space race ended in 1969. |
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IncognitoHFX
Joined: 06 May 2007
Location: Yeongtong, Suwon
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| Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 1:19 am Post subject: |
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| whatever wrote: |
| IncognitoHFX wrote: |
| Don't knock space travel. Its one of our most important long term goals as a species. |
What? Why the hell is that? Do you really believe that...? |
Yes I do. Exploring the universe will unite man and push us further towards understanding. I'd much rather the US dumped all its money into the space programme as opposed to another unwinnable war.
Understanding why we're here is one of the noblest pursuits... you know. |
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laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
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| Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 1:21 am Post subject: |
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| IncognitoHFX wrote: |
| whatever wrote: |
| IncognitoHFX wrote: |
| Don't knock space travel. Its one of our most important long term goals as a species. |
What? Why the hell is that? Do you really believe that...? |
Yes I do. Exploring the universe will unite man and push us further towards understanding. I'd much rather the US dumped all its money into the space programme as opposed to another unwinnable war.
Understanding why we're here is one of the noblest pursuits... you know. |
It's hard to say if it will unite us. I think the opposite. Not only will there be major differences in thinking between land based, space based, etc, there will start to be massive physical differences too (though genetic engineering will also cause this). Just low vs high gravity planets or floating in space ...
It's still necessary we expand past this planet. There is no other choice. |
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mack4289
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 1:58 am Post subject: |
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To clarify, I'm talking about manned space exploration. I know there's plenty of benefits from having satellites and probes and whatnot. But why do we need to send people up there? It always seemed to me like a chance to drum up some hollow patriotism.
So to be more precise: what are the benefits from manned space exploration?
To respond to some of your arguments (I never thought this thread would get such a response, but only die a quiet death like most threads I start): if I had to guess, I'd say a large movement to go live in space would divide us much more than it will unite us. There's only going to be so much space to get up to those planets. No matter how we choose who goes, it's going to be exclusionary.
However, I don't think we'll ever actually go to space to live because the motivation to go there would make it impossible. We'd only be motivated to go to space in large numbers under dire circumstances. But it's those dire circumstances that would make pulling off something like the launch of a spacecraft impossible. That's my guess, anyway.
For the people who think protesting public funding for space travel is small minded, I would say that taxpayer money should go towards those things that either bring obvious benefits to a broad part of the population or have obvious potential to bring those benefits. No one has proved that manned space travel fits either of those criteria. So what would happen if funding for manned space travel was pulled? I imagine people like yourselves would find the funding to continue it. |
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laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
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| Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 2:43 am Post subject: |
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| mack4289 wrote: |
To clarify, I'm talking about manned space exploration. I know there's plenty of benefits from having satellites and probes and whatnot. But why do we need to send people up there? It always seemed to me like a chance to drum up some hollow patriotism.
So to be more precise: what are the benefits from manned space exploration?
To respond to some of your arguments (I never thought this thread would get such a response, but only die a quiet death like most threads I start): if I had to guess, I'd say a large movement to go live in space would divide us much more than it will unite us. There's only going to be so much space to get up to those planets. No matter how we choose who goes, it's going to be exclusionary.
However, I don't think we'll ever actually go to space to live because the motivation to go there would make it impossible. We'd only be motivated to go to space in large numbers under dire circumstances. But it's those dire circumstances that would make pulling off something like the launch of a spacecraft impossible. That's my guess, anyway.
For the people who think protesting public funding for space travel is small minded, I would say that taxpayer money should go towards those things that either bring obvious benefits to a broad part of the population or have obvious potential to bring those benefits. No one has proved that manned space travel fits either of those criteria. So what would happen if funding for manned space travel was pulled? I imagine people like yourselves would find the funding to continue it . |
The purpose of space exploration is not to just see what is out there but to go there. You can't do that by not testing new things. Manned spaceflight is necessary. The Earth is too small for us, plus putting all our eggs in one basket is not such a good idea. And someone gave a great link of the science that has come from manned spaceflight. There are a lot. I am sure there were lots of people like you in Europe who wondered why people kept spending money and lives on useless ventures across the Atlantic (luckily Christopher Columbus didn't worry about it).
And what's up with attacking manned spaceflight? Can you not think of several industries that you should worry about not funding before it if you really care about it that much. Manned spaceflight has already shown profit for the general population, if you took the time to look. Seriously, pick on the fashion industry, or any current war, or who knows what else to worry about.
We need manned spaceflight. This isn't up for debate, we need to leave this world, every study by the world's greatest scholars, like Stephen Hawking has pointed to this. Even if we got breeding under control and the population to about 1 billion, all that would be needed is some sort of solar catastrophy or anything like it! |
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cbclark4
Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Location: Masan
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| Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 2:56 am Post subject: |
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| mack4289 wrote: |
To clarify, I'm talking about manned space exploration. I know there's plenty of benefits from having satellites and probes and whatnot. But why do we need to send people up there? It always seemed to me like a chance to drum up some hollow patriotism.
So to be more precise: what are the benefits from manned space exploration?
To respond to some of your arguments (I never thought this thread would get such a response, but only die a quiet death like most threads I start): if I had to guess, I'd say a large movement to go live in space would divide us much more than it will unite us. There's only going to be so much space to get up to those planets. No matter how we choose who goes, it's going to be exclusionary.
However, I don't think we'll ever actually go to space to live because the motivation to go there would make it impossible. We'd only be motivated to go to space in large numbers under dire circumstances. But it's those dire circumstances that would make pulling off something like the launch of a spacecraft impossible. That's my guess, anyway.
For the people who think protesting public funding for space travel is small minded, I would say that taxpayer money should go towards those things that either bring obvious benefits to a broad part of the population or have obvious potential to bring those benefits. No one has proved that manned space travel fits either of those criteria. So what would happen if funding for manned space travel was pulled? I imagine people like yourselves would find the funding to continue it. |
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
- Albert Einstein
Let's say that manned mission since 1969 really could have fulfilled by robots. Construction of experimental biospheres could also be fulfilled using robotics. So manned space mission may in fact be obsolete for now. I do think that eventually some use for humans will be found beyond the confines of this planet. |
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mack4289
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 3:46 am Post subject: |
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To clarify again, I'm against the public funding of manned space exploration. As far as I know, the fashion industry doesn't receive any taxpayer money. As for criticizing war, why can't I criticize war and the space program?
Just because people criticized Columbus, that means all criticism of exploration is illegitimate? |
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