News WSJ: Europe Ends Independent Pursuit of Manned Space Travel

[Orbinaut Pete]

Yes, but why did the ECLSS fail in space and not on Earth? Don't you think that is a good question to ask? Answering that question would both add a better knowledge of ECLSS systems and at least partially remove the need for expensive in-space testing.

Yes, like I said, that is an important question, that will be answered thanks to ISS.

No, but it also doesn't necessarily need to be demonstrated in a $100 billion facility.

Seems as there aren't any cheaper orbital facilities currently in existence, yes it does.

Yes, but my point is that if it is the better option, it should exist.

You don't throw your arms up in the air and say "so what, just let it be, let it be, who cares".

But an unmanned orbital platform doesn't exist. That's why ISS is used for these experiments.

Do you propose de-orbiting the ISS and spending another x billion dollars to build a platform that is less capable than ISS? That would be silly.

Don't you need your own robotic test equipment to make it operational anyway? Wouldn't it be advantageous to test it, if you want to end up using it?

Yes, you need your own robotic equipment to operationally refuel satellites, but it would be silly to invest a lot of the money in building an operational system before you tested it, because if it was wrong, you'd have wasted your money.

And how much did the ISS equipment cost? How many tests like that is it going to do during its lifetime?

There are many other uses for Dextre than RRM. In fact, as I type this it is being used to demonstrate how to do tasks that previously would've required a spacewalk.

Or is this just some sort of hold-down post to the SSRMS or a grapple point?

The "legs" will allow Robonaut to grab hold of ISS handrails, thus move around.

We can't learn how to work with robots on Earth? Haven't we learned how to work with robots on Earth? Or do things really change that much in space, that we need a $100 billion facility to figure this out?

No, we don't need a $100 billion facility just for that. But seems as we do need it to test other things, why not test it there?

And deny the fact that it's a suboptimal, gigantic, costly facility that offers very marginal return for the public at large?

Yes, I deny that completely.

There are so many things you could compare the ISS with, that it would probably look pathetic against in terms of cost and research being done. Is there any other $100 billion research facility in the entire world? In the entire history of scientific research facilities?

No, but that's because there aren't any other space stations currently in existence. You can't compare ISS to a lab on Earth because spaceflight is a heck of a lot more complicated (and thus expensive).

 

[T.Neo]

Yes, like I said, that is an important question, that will be answered thanks to ISS.

Why are you so sure of that? Has NASA stated that fact?

Seems as there aren't any cheaper orbital facilities currently in existence, yes it does.

People in Zimbabwe don't have to starve, but since they seem to be starving, yes they do have to starve.

:dry:

But an unmanned orbital platform doesn't exist. That's why ISS is used for these experiments.

Do you propose de-orbiting the ISS and spending another x billion dollars to build a platform that is less capable than ISS? That would be silly.

Yes, but that unmanned platform should exist... maybe.

No, I'm not suggesting deorbiting the ISS. I'm suggesting realising the ISS for what it is and realising what its failings are.

Yes, you need your own robotic equipment to operationally refuel satellites, but it would be silly to invest a lot of the money in building an operational system before you tested it, because if it was wrong, you'd have wasted your money.

...that doesn't make sense.

Going by that logic, why bother testing any equipment in the first place? You might lose money, after all.

There are many other uses for Dextre than RRM. In fact, as I type this it is being used to demonstrate how to do tasks that previously would've required a spacewalk.

And this helps 99% of humanity in what way, exactly?

The "legs" will allow Robonaut to grab hold of ISS handrails, thus move around.

Wouldn't that make them more like hands than legs?

Kinda like the opposable toes that we sadly lost in the process of evolution. :lol:

No, we don't need a $100 billion facility just for that. But seems as we do need it to test other things, why not test it there?

We do? Like the taste of Malaysian food in space? :dry:

Why not test things in space in a better manner? Oops, I guess we can't do that now.

Don't you think it would be better? Better for spaceflight science?

Or maybe not, because it isn't an "exciting manned space station"?

Yes, I deny that completely.

Sad for you. Everyone's entitled to their own belief, I guess. :shrug:

No, but that's because there aren't any other space stations currently in existence. You can't compare ISS to a lab on Earth because spaceflight is a heck of a lot more complicated (and thus expensive).

And thus:

It isn't worth it.

Well, you can try to argue that it is worth it somehow, but the fact is, it's less worth it than other things are, and/or it is at least not as worth as much as it could be.

It isn't about space stations, it's about laboratories and how they perform. The ISS is a space station, but its reason for existing is that it is a laboratory.

And both in terms of magnitude of useful scientific returns and cost/return, it performs massively poorly compared to a magnitude of facilities on Earth.

The only reason the ISS even exists is because of a holdover of an outmoded science fiction philosophy. But nevertheless, people still think it's a good idea, because it is "cool" or "exciting".

Maybe that is just a tough example of the difficulty of spaceflight, then.

 

[N_Molson]

No.

(You seem more interested by winning the argument than the by topic itself, IMHO).

 

[T.Neo]

No? What is that supposed to mean? No to what, exactly?

Could you please clarify?

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

As I've said before, you can't compare ISS to a lab on Earth, because ISS is designed for a completely different purpose - to do things that can't be done in a lab on Earth - and yes, that does make it more expensive.

Sad for you. Everyone's entitled to their own belief, I guess. :shrug:

Precisely. Which is why I'll end this argument now, since I grow bored of explaining facts to you. If you don't think manned spaceflight or ISS is worth it, fine. I disagree completely. We'll leave it at that.

 

[T.Neo]

I appreciate that you took up your time to explain various things to me, but I don't appreciate it that you fail to see where I am arguing from, due to your very closely held views that are common in the space enthusiast community; I have them as well.

People accept that the Shuttle was a failure, why can't we seem to accept that the problems of the ISS as well?

I am still waiting for a reason why we need the ISS- why we needed to spend that $100 billion. Yes, people in the future, future developments decades from now, fair enough. But it has also been decades since the start of manned spaceflight- and I would really like to know, what part of manned spaceflight- what discovery in a manned spacecraft, has revolutionised our world? What discovery made by a human in space, was something that we need now?

I am not talking about spinoffs, I am talking about the actual program. We got a bit of science on the Moon, but now all of our discoveries are made by unmanned spacecraft... and the spacecraft that do make our world run today, only interact with people who are firmly Earth-bound.

Or do we just want manned spaceflight because we think it's 'cool' or 'exciting'? That it maybe fits into some philosophical ideas that some of us have for the future of humanity? Is that really a reason to spend billions of dollars?

(You seem more interested by winning the argument than the by topic itself, IMHO).

I don't think anyone is arguing that this thread has gone absolutely off topic...

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

I appreciate that you took up your time to explain various things to me, but I don't appreciate it that you fail to see where I am arguing from, due to your very closely held views that are common in the space enthusiast community; I have them as well.

I do see your argument - I just disagree with it.

People accept that the Shuttle was a failure, why can't we seem to accept that the problems of the ISS as well?

I don't accept that Shuttle was a failure. Financially it was a disappointment, but the engineering knowledge it gave us was immense.

I am still waiting for a reason why we need the ISS- why we needed to spend that $100 billion. Yes, people in the future, future developments decades from now, fair enough. But it has also been decades since the start of manned spaceflight- and I would really like to know, what part of manned spaceflight- what discovery in a manned spacecraft, has revolutionised our world? What discovery made by a human in space, was something that we need now?

I am not talking about spinoffs, I am talking about the actual program. We got a bit of science on the Moon, but now all of our discoveries are made by unmanned spacecraft... and the spacecraft that do make our world run today, only interact with people who are firmly Earth-bound.

Do we *need* manned spaceflight? I mean, aside from the fact that the Sun will eventually doom us all? Why do we *need* the Olympic games? Why do we *need* wars? Why do we *need* Coca-Cola? Why do we *need* dreams? Humans are not robots - some things are worth doing just because we want them, and they give us benefits.

Or do we just want manned spaceflight because we think it's 'cool' or 'exciting'? That it maybe fits into some philosophical ideas that some of us have for the future of humanity? Is that really a reason to spend billions of dollars?

It's a much better reason than wars and bank bailouts.

 

[T.Neo]

I do see your argument - I just disagree with it.

Fair enough.

I don't accept that Shuttle was a failure. Financially it was a disappointment, but the engineering knowledge it gave us was immense.

Financially it was a pretty big failure, it yo go by it not meeting its originally stated abilities...

Perhaps, but to what gain? Who is building space shuttles anymore? Who needs such a vehicle?

Do we *need* manned spaceflight? I mean, aside from the fact that the Sun will eventually doom us all? Why do we *need* the Olympic games? Why do we *need* wars? Why do we *need* Coca-Cola? Why do we *need* dreams? Humans are not robots - some things are worth doing just because we want them, and they give us benefits.

Yes, but none of those things incur the same sort of cost that spaceflight does.

Are the benefits worth it? And do enough people want manned spaceflight enough to justify money being spent on it?

Admittedly, this whole argument would fall away totally if the costs of spaceflight were not so high- maybe not low enough to enable the sort of "space fantasy" a lot of people imagine... but certainly low enough to end any question of "is it worth it" for exploration and experimentation.

The lower bound for Earth's remaining habitability is 500 million years. To put this in perspective, this is 2500 times longer than Homo Sapiens has existed. We are in no rush in the need to move off of Earth. And even if we need to move off of Earth far sooner, 500 000 years is over 60 times longer than human civilisation has existed. We could move at an absolute snail's pace and establish ourselves off of Earth in a geological eye-blink, if we wanted to.

It's a much better reason than wars and bank bailouts.

I would say that sadly war is sometimes good reason to spend large amounts of money. And even worse, that it is sometimes not a good reason to spend money at all... :dry:

 

[Star Voyager]

Are the benefits worth it?

Refer to this video 2:30 to 3:15:

 

[T.Neo]

Oh yes, how appropriate.

 

[Eagle1Division]

I really don't have the time for this... :shifty:

Let's see;

They had free air.

They had (more or less) free water.

They had (more or less) free land to grow crops.

They had (more or less) abundant wildlife which they could use for food if need be.

They had (more or less) abundant fuel.

Hostile, yes. Unlivable? No. Many people did not survive, but it was still possible and advantageous to survive there for those who did.

And let's get to the biggest deciding factor:

The technology they needed to survive was the same or similar to the technology that they would have used back home during their daily lives.

True, but the infrastructure wasn't established, and it was an alien environment. What you're implying is that survival in the New World was as easy as survival in Europe. This simply isn't true, and could only come from a lack of understanding of the early colonial period. The first, and many colonies failed altogether. The first colony to succeed, Jamestown, went through starving times and only ~1/3rd the original population survived. Whatever case you make for it, it's rather plain: Lots of technology is required to survive in space, yes. But nonetheless, far more than 1/2 the astronauts that go up, come back down alive. It would be interesting to get the actual figures, but from the STS, death rate was ~1/50, as opposed to 2/3rd for the New World.

Sorry, but you can stand in the New World, and the chance of immediately dying (mauled by wild animal, shot by native, eat poisonous frog, etc) is quite low.

Stand on Mars, and without an expensive and complicated and specialised piece of equiment, you will die. Almost immediately.

But we have that piece of specialized equipment, and far more colonists died than astronauts.

Oh yes it is, very much so. Worse than pretty much anywhere on Earth. The only places that might be worse, are the deep oceans (because there's a lot of pressure there), or the polar/alpine deserts (only because the air is thicker than that on Mars and might rob your heat more effectively).

The only real hyperdesert would be LEO or any place in orbital space. There's no natural rescources in the vacuum. Or if you go by water content, Mars isn't a hyperdesert - it has entire poles covered with water. And the oxygen and nitrogen are there to breathe - you just need a device to extract it.

The Moon, on the other hand, is a different story...

Again, limitations and dangers. And cost.

In the New World, you could maybe build your cabin out of wood. Wood is preexisting building material. On Mars, there is no preexisting building material- you will have to make it first. The materials might be there, but you can't just cut them down and stack them into a shelter.

I never said there were no limitations or dangers. There are, but they're less of an issue than they were for colonists in the New World.

And the colonists didn't have the luxury of being to bring a cabin to live in. We do.

If it ended up being such a bad thing for them, no, it wasn't worth it.

Are you proposing wasting money and sending people to their deaths?

That sounds like a very bad idea to me.

Judging by
A) Their decision to go in spite of the risks and
B) The course of human history and how it's been changed as a result,
I would say it wasn't a bad idea in the long run at all.

As for the risks involved: (Sentences 2-3 give yet another reason for manned space exploration)
“We’re in a risky business and we hope if anything happens to us, it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life. Our God-given curiosity will force us to go there ourselves because in the final analysis only man can fully evaluate the moon in terms understandable to other men. " - Gus Grissom

So... you're suggesting we waste money and effectively kill people, to colonise unlivable hyperdeserts, so these colonised hyperdeserts can come back to us in several hundred years and defend us from an entirely hypothetical World Aggressor?

I don't buy it. Sorry. If Venus was a jungle and Mars was a meadow...

No, I'm suggesting we use maybe only 2% of federal spending, which is still peanuts compared to other fed. programs, to lay the foundations to ensure the freedom and survival of the human race, as well as inspiring rising generations, and giving the world a hope to work towards, and furthering the cause and expanding the borders of human existence and experience, and laying the foundation for a brighter, more technologically and economically advanced future.

Governments, throughout history, only grow in power, and increasingly damage human rights and restrict freedoms. The only ways this is fought, is if another nation serves as a precedent for increased freedoms, or by a violent revolution. This stuff I keep talking about about inspiring nations - isn't the gooblygunk you keep taking it as. It's been suggested by some rather respectable sources that the hope of the New World, and the inspiration it brought to the people of Europe may be the thing that took us out of the medieval ages, and brought us into the renaissance. Humans need something to look forward to - humans need a glamorous future to hope for. When they don't have that - as is the case for many people - they don't work as hard, they don't have a "drive" to create product and spin the wheels of society and the economy. But by giving people this hope, which psychologically gives them that drive to work harder - this may be one of the key things that brought us out of the dark ages. Just look at all the scientific and technological progress that was made in the last century - specifically during the space race, and a while after. That's more than coincidence. It's another "New World" that caused another leap in innovation and economic growth - which is now slowing down.

Why don't you want to use money here on Earth? To help real people in the real world? Not people in some far-off hypothetical scenario that you came up with?

I'm not against funding the Space Program. I'm against waste of money in the space program. With the space program we need to figure out how to do what we do for far less and increase the advantageousness of the whole operation.

A colonisation effort would be a massive waste of money.

Just as a comparison between the New World and Space, how much do you think it cost someone to get to the New World?


How much do you think it would cost to send someone to Mars, with realistic technology?

Space powerplants won't help you here... if they are magical, they will help, but they will sadly also be impossible.

This IS the real world, and it DOES help people here in the real world, I've explained why at least three or four times now. It's not some far-off hypothetical scenario, it's how the course of human history has progressed, and undoubtably will continue to do so. Every generation has thought that they were different - that somehow the course of human history wouldn't apply to them because they were "modern". Don't fall under the same delusion.

And I said I'm not talking about colonization now, I'm talking about laying the foundation and developing the technology to make colonization not just possible, but feasible. Technology like high-efficiency solar panels that use more than 16% of solar radiation, a self-sustained fusion reaction that could be used as a Gasdynamic Mirror Fusion engine, a self-powering engine with massive ISP. Perhaps a more efficient way to reach LEO than chemical rocket engines. These are the things that will lay the foundation for that future.

EDIT, Added:
"The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision."
- Randall Munroe

 

[T.Neo]

True, but the infrastructure wasn't established, and it was an alien environment. What you're implying is that survival in the New World was as easy as survival in Europe. This simply isn't true, and could only come from a lack of understanding of the early colonial period. The first, and many colonies failed altogether. The first colony to succeed, Jamestown, went through starving times and only ~1/3rd the original population survived. Whatever case you make for it, it's rather plain: Lots of technology is required to survive in space, yes. But nonetheless, far more than 1/2 the astronauts that go up, come back down alive. It would be interesting to get the actual figures, but from the STS, death rate was ~1/50, as opposed to 2/3rd for the New World.

Doesn't matter. The infrastructure wasn't there, but surviving in that environment was and is far easier.

Also: it would have been very easy to go wrong and die. Because space is such a bad environment ( ), things are heavily monitored and controlled, which helps prevent the occurance of stupid failures... but this essential carefulness also increase cost of everything.

Also, you can't equate the 'survival difficulty' of a New World colonist with that of a space colonist. I'm not saying it was as easy to survive in the New World as it was in Europe, I'm saying that the technology needed to do so was not radical, and available for a non-exorbitant cost.

By comparison, a lot of the technology required to survive on Mars is very specialised and very costly. You have spacesuits, for example. These are things that pretty much have no analogue in Earthly use.

But we have that piece of specialized equipment, and far more colonists died than astronauts.

I am not at all making a point of probability of death, but rather difficulty of survival. That difficulty is one of the factors that drives spaceflight costs up so high.

The only real hyperdesert would be LEO or any place in orbital space. There's no natural rescources in the vacuum. Or if you go by water content, Mars isn't a hyperdesert - it has entire poles covered with water. And the oxygen and nitrogen are there to breathe - you just need a device to extract it.

The Moon, on the other hand, is a different story...

I am comparing to Earth. You know... the beautiful gem of a naturally occuring environment in which humans can survive.

Mars does not compare. It is not equal to Earth, just because it has some permafrost... or because there is a bit of nitrogen in the atmosphere. It is an incredibly poor environment compared to Earth.

The Moon is worse than Mars for several reasons, which makes it even more of a hyperdesert, but Mars is definitely a hyperdesert.

I never said there were no limitations or dangers. There are, but they're less of an issue than they were for colonists in the New World.

No, they're not. They are far more of an issue.

And the colonists didn't have the luxury of being to bring a cabin to live in. We do.

That is no luxury!

It is a big, big disadvantage!

Do you know what it costs to land something on Mars? :shifty:

Take the launch cost of your vehicle, take its TMI capability. Now you have the cost to TMI.

Let's say, that this landing system is almost fully nonpropulsive... in other words, it has a nice inflatable heatshield or something, and it spends a couple of months bringing it's orbit down, like the MRO, before final EDL. Let's say that of the total mass delivered to Mars, the EDL package may be 30% of that mass, and the payload mass might be 70% (which might be totally unrealistic).

Using Falcon Heavy with a launch cost of $100 million (between the lower and upper bound figures provided by SpaceX) and a TMI mass of 14 tons, we are looking at a cost of over $10 000 kg to the Martian surface.

And this is not including the cost of the EDL package hardware, which would increase that cost even further. And of course the cost of the hab, which you would have to pay for as well.

Judging by
A) Their decision to go in spite of the risks and
B) The course of human history and how it's been changed as a result,
I would say it wasn't a bad idea in the long run at all.

Except, we don't care about the long run. We care about the here and the now, and protecting our interests in the immediate future. We're not going to crash our entire infrastructure or whatever on the off-chance that some fantasy scenario will come true someday.

As for the risks involved: (Sentences 2-3 give yet another reason for manned space exploration)
“We’re in a risky business and we hope if anything happens to us, it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life. Our God-given curiosity will force us to go there ourselves because in the final analysis only man can fully evaluate the moon in terms understandable to other men. " - Gus Grissom

Grissom's enthusiasm is endearing, but really? Are you gonna die for Mars?

Mars is an incredibly poor place to live. I'm saying this as a person who would love to go to Mars, I sure as hell don't want to live there. I'd rather live in the middle of the Sahara.

No, I'm suggesting we use maybe only 2% of federal spending, which is still peanuts compared to other fed. programs, to lay the foundations to ensure the freedom and survival of the human race, as well as inspiring rising generations, and giving the world a hope to work towards, and furthering the cause and expanding the borders of human existence and experience, and laying the foundation for a brighter, more technologically and economically advanced future.

And 1% of that federal spending could be spent on stuff oh so much more useful.

Lay the foundations and ensure the freedom and survival of the human race? Really? Freedom? Freedom from what? :dry:

A brighter future? How? More economically advanced future? In an unlivable hyperdesert?

Can't we build a brighter future and ensure our survival on Earth? :dry:

Space exploration is a good idea... eventually. But there is no immediate need for space colonisation, and no driving factor for it. Earth is where humanity is located, and our primary efforts must be to ensuring the existence of the best possible civilisation on the surface of the Earth.

Governments, throughout history, only grow in power, and increasingly damage human rights and restrict freedoms. The only ways this is fought, is if another nation serves as a precedent for increased freedoms, or by a violent revolution. This stuff I keep talking about about inspiring nations - isn't the gooblygunk you keep taking it as. It's been suggested by some rather respectable sources that the hope of the New World, and the inspiration it brought to the people of Europe may be the thing that took us out of the medieval ages, and brought us into the renaissance. Humans need something to look forward to - humans need a glamorous future to hope for. When they don't have that - as is the case for many people - they don't work as hard, they don't have a "drive" to create product and spin the wheels of society and the economy. But by giving people this hope, which psychologically gives them that drive to work harder - this may be one of the key things that brought us out of the dark ages. Just look at all the scientific and technological progress that was made in the last century - specifically during the space race, and a while after. That's more than coincidence. It's another "New World" that caused another leap in innovation and economic growth - which is now slowing down.

Firstly, the space age was not the major driver of technological development during the 20th century... war was. The 20th century was pretty much defined by wide ranging and deeply impacting wars: the first world war, the second world war, and the threat of a third world war.

War was what made the space age possible. The essential knowledge for the manned space program(s) was gained via the development of ballistic missiles from WWII and onward. The first human spacecraft were converted ballistic missiles. A ballistic missile derivative- the Soyuz rocket- is very reliable and still in service today.

The massive industrialisation after the war was what enabled the space program. Some of these facilities were used in war efforts, for example. Many of the astronauts had served in the military.

The whole reason for the space program in the first place, was an international prestige battle between the superpowers. If it was not for that prestige battle, space travel would either have been a minor issue considered by scientific entities, or by the military (or both together).

Now, in no way whatsoever am I suggesting that war is a good thing, or that we need war to further our civilisation. But I think it is pretty important in understanding a lot of the driving factors during the 20th century. War has been far more important technologically, than spaceflight. It has far more spinoffs.

Spaceflight itself is a spinoff of war...

Secondly we need spaceflight for 'freedom'? Huh? To escape governments? To prevent dictatorships?

Sorry, but that's not how it works. The glorious future we should all be working hard to achieve, is one with strong democracy, strong education, and strong human development.

Not one with a population eagerly waiting for the life support system of some cold, lonely 'brave explorers' to cut out and leave them dead among the sands of Mars.

This IS the real world, and it DOES help people here in the real world, I've explained why at least three or four times now. It's not some far-off hypothetical scenario, it's how the course of human history has progressed, and undoubtably will continue to do so. Every generation has thought that they were different - that somehow the course of human history wouldn't apply to them because they were "modern". Don't fall under the same delusion.

Except: we are different, very different. We are industrialised, we are modernised, and we have a wealth of information at our fingertips. This already makes the dynamics of our civilisation far removed from that of people in years past.

Maybe it is still similar in underdeveloped and developing nations, but we can pretty much see the result of those conditions.

And if you really want to be cynical: our civilisation has not failed yet. Manned spaceflight has.

Manned spaceflight has failed at 'easy' Moon and Mars missions. It has failed at regular and 'safe' access to space. It has failed at being cheap enough to permit its wide scale proliferation. It has failed to provide useful applications in and of itself (useful applications in space are done by unmanned vehicles now).

I think that in a way, a lot of space enthusiasm is still thinking in the 1950s. We should know better by now.

And I said I'm not talking about colonization now, I'm talking about laying the foundation and developing the technology to make colonization not just possible, but feasible. Technology like high-efficiency solar panels that use more than 16% of solar radiation, a self-sustained fusion reaction that could be used as a Gasdynamic Mirror Fusion engine, a self-powering engine with massive ISP. Perhaps a more efficient way to reach LEO than chemical rocket engines. These are the things that will lay the foundation for that future.

- Solar panels with far higher efficiency exist.

- Fusion? Yeah... very far away, has applications far more useful than spaceflight (power generation!) and won't solve everything- comes with a lot of problems.

- There is no more economically efficient way to reach LEO than chemical rocket engines. Physically more efficient, yes. But these schemes make things worse economically.

Sorry, but there are so many other things that you could do... that are far more useful.

How about ending reliance on fossil fuels?

Or how about an efficient global transit network?

A means of meeting the basic needs of people in underdeveloped nations?

All of these are far more helpful than sending a bunch of people to freeze on Mars.

 

[Codz]

Sorry, but there are so many other things that you could do... that are far more useful.

How about ending reliance on fossil fuels?

Or how about an efficient global transit network?

A means of meeting the basic needs of people in underdeveloped nations?

All of these are far more helpful than sending a bunch of people to freeze on Mars.

And no one will give a crap about any of that if a massive asteroid or comet slams into the Earth. We won't have any means to continue the human race because "it was just too hard and too costly" to invest in humanity's future. There WILL be an asteroid impact in the future. The only thing we can change is if we have the will to do something about it, and stop with this whiny short term crap for a little while.

 

[Ghostrider]

Yes, because not going to Mars is going to stop our reliance on fossil fuels, meet the basic needs of people in underdeveloped nations or anything. Plenty of nations do not have a space program at all, they do have the money and they haven't done it. We haven't had a space program for most of mankind's history and we haven't solved those problems. You could stop all space research, manned or not, and you will still not solve them.

You say we have a wealth of information at our fingertips? Yeah, check out how it benefits your mythical "man in the street" who can't be bothered to Google how seasonal changes work. Civilized? Yeah, that's why we knife each other over a parking place or a football game. Thinking that homo sapiens today is any better than it was 100'000 years ago is delusional. We have splashed a thin paint layer of pretenses over it and try to keep it in check, but you and me are no different than our ancestors.

Your reasoning is an endless GOTO loop. You never stop and think that the money you will "save" by shutting down manned spaceflight will simply go to build pork-barrel projects, to finance "social research" that goes nowhere, or to bail out the umpteenth "too big to fail" business. You will not benefit from it. Ever.

 

[n0mad23]

Wars have always been and will always be about resources. Everything else is the irrational creature "man" rationalizing his way around things. All the ideological and political reasons are simply the ways we explain it to ourselves so it has meaning.

Which is exactly why we need to go to and be in space. The biosphere is no place to play with such technologies. If we're going to play with destructive forces, we need to do it someplace where we can do it safely.

 

[Codz]

Yes, because not going to Mars is going to stop our reliance on fossil fuels, meet the basic needs of people in underdeveloped nations or anything. Plenty of nations do not have a space program at all, they do have the money and they haven't done it. We haven't had a space program for most of mankind's history and we haven't solved those problems. You could stop all space research, manned or not, and you will still not solve them.

You say we have a wealth of information at our fingertips? Yeah, check out how it benefits your mythical "man in the street" who can't be bothered to Google how seasonal changes work. Civilized? Yeah, that's why we knife each other over a parking place or a football game. Thinking that homo sapiens today is any better than it was 100'000 years ago is delusional. We have splashed a thin paint layer of pretenses over it and try to keep it in check, but you and me are no different than our ancestors.

Your reasoning is an endless GOTO loop. You never stop and think that the money you will "save" by shutting down manned spaceflight will simply go to build pork-barrel projects, to finance "social research" that goes nowhere, or to bail out the umpteenth "too big to fail" business. You will not benefit from it. Ever.

Beautifully put.

 

[T.Neo]

And no one will give a crap about any of that if a massive asteroid or comet slams into the Earth. We won't have any means to continue the human race because "it was just too hard and too costly" to invest in humanity's future. There WILL be an asteroid impact in the future. The only thing we can change is if we have the will to do something about it, and stop with this whiny short term crap for a little while.

Why do people always massively overplay the risk of bolide impacts?

Seriously, this is not a Micheal Bay movie.

Yes, bolides will impact the Earth in future. This is a certainty. It is not at all a certainty that they will impact the Earth in the next 100 or even the next 1000 years.

The rates at which these objects impact Earth range between millions and tens of thousands of years. Yes, of course there is a threat that an Apophis-sized asteroid could impact the Earth in the next 100 years. There is the probability of a K/T-sized impactor hitting the Earth in the next 100 years, but it is pretty slim.

Meanwhile, hurricanes and typhoons continue to form over our oceans and waft over our coastlines. Floods and droughts, fluctuations in climate, will continue to happen and affect people all around the world. These phenomena have occured, are occuring right now, and will occur in the future.

Earthquakes will continue to happen. Earthquakes happen every day. Tension is building up in the crustal plates of the Earth, as usual. That tension will release one day, and it will cause a large, damaging earthquake somewhere in the world.

There are far, far more pressing natural disasters than bolide impacts. Sorry, that's the fact. And while few disasters are as bad as a large bolide impact (or even a small one), bolide impacts are relatively rare.

And also: you don't need manned spaceflight, to develop asteroid deflection techniques. Again, reality is not a Micheal Bay movie. There are many theoretical means of deflecting asteroids, and pretty much all of them use unmanned spacecraft. A human spacecraft is just a way of wasting mass in a case like this.

Of course, these are all theoretical ideas. Even the efforts to track these asteroids, don't get all that much funding compared to a lot of things in the manned programs.

Yes, because not going to Mars is going to stop our reliance on fossil fuels, meet the basic needs of people in underdeveloped nations or anything. Plenty of nations do not have a space program at all, they do have the money and they haven't done it. We haven't had a space program for most of mankind's history and we haven't solved those problems. You could stop all space research, manned or not, and you will still not solve them.

You say we have a wealth of information at our fingertips? Yeah, check out how it benefits your mythical "man in the street" who can't be bothered to Google how seasonal changes work. Civilized? Yeah, that's why we knife each other over a parking place or a football game. Thinking that homo sapiens today is any better than it was 100'000 years ago is delusional. We have splashed a thin paint layer of pretenses over it and try to keep it in check, but you and me are no different than our ancestors.

Your reasoning is an endless GOTO loop. You never stop and think that the money you will "save" by shutting down manned spaceflight will simply go to build pork-barrel projects, to finance "social research" that goes nowhere, or to bail out the umpteenth "too big to fail" business. You will not benefit from it. Ever.

Please stop with the idea that manned spaceflight magically works all the time, and that diverting money to other things will always be a failure.

It is not.

Also: the reason you give for non-spaceflight money being wasted, is something that badly plagues the space program as well. In fact, you could probably say that the main defining force in manned spaceflight right now is this sort of pork politics, and it isn't a good thing for manned spaceflight progress at all.

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with 1% for space, or 2% for space. Or even 5% for space. I'm saying it is wrong- very wrong- to put the fantastical vision of a niche group, that has already failed and flopped over itself, in a position of priority over many of the very real problems facing our civilisation today.

Also, please do not paint a bad stereotype of all of humanity, based on a few people that do stupid things. They aren't where the value lies. And maybe in some ways they are- after all, you cannot really call the person who has no idea of what causes seasons a 'bad force in civilisation', if he or she is useful elsewhere.

Do you know why people knife or shoot eachother? The answer is more complex than "humans are stupid". Do you know what the solution is? The answer certainly isn't spaceflight, and it is likely pretty complex too.

Also, I never said that humans- human nature, has changed. Our society and our civilisation has changed. A lot of it is the same, a lot is based off of the same things... but it has new factors in it that change the game.

You can't just say, "history will repeat itself". The key is trying to figure out when, and where, and why, history repeats itself. Which is pretty much done after the fact, but that doesn't change that it is not as simple as "King James Will Tax Us To Death If We Don't Live In A Hyperdesert".

 

[Codz]

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with 1% for space, or 2% for space. Or even 5% for space. I'm saying it is wrong- very wrong- to put the fantastical vision of a niche group, that has already failed and flopped over itself, in a position of priority over many of the very real problems facing our civilisation today.


".

I have no idea why you're using a spaceflight forum if your going to act like one of those people that cry about how diverting the less than 1% that space flight gets financially will magically make problems humanity has faced for decades suddenly go away.

 

[Urwumpe]

Please stop with the idea that manned spaceflight magically works all the time, and that diverting money to other things will always be a failure.

Nobody says so. But you seem to believe that spaceflight is a big failure, despite being actually the most cost effective branch of industry so far. You will NEVER find another industry in history that has to achieve bigger goals with smaller budgets. Even in the consumer electronics market, you have a pretty peaceful life, once you have established a brand. In spaceflight, there is no brand bonus.

 

[T.Neo]

A failure within itself? Maybe not. A failure externally?

A mission to Mars, for $50 billion? That would sure be a triumph in spaceflight, but which other scientific research endeavour has cost that much for its returns?

Is a bunch of Mars rocks, really worth it to the population at large? Consumer electronics is one thing, such 'philosophical science' is another.

I have no idea why you're using a spaceflight forum if your going to act like one of those people that cry about how diverting the less than 1% that space flight gets financially will magically make problems humanity has faced for decades suddenly go away.

You don't understand. I'm saying that if people exert enough effort in important fields, many problems we have faced for decades, will go away after a lot of hard work.

I'd rather fix those problems than field some huge Mars colonisation program. I'm not saying I would anihillate space budgets, just that problems in the here and the now are far more important than unlivable hyperdeserts elsewhere.