Did you know space travel is happening?

[Jadak]

If it wasn't for the stupid cold war and all the world leaders being idiots, I bet we would have a moon base by now.

Errr...what? The cold war is one of the main reasons anything involving space has made as much progress as it has.

 

[bigmen0]

Nope. Let's divert the money to researching methods of fixing existing problems before we allow beardy tory-boy Branson to start trying to sell tickets to an enormous empty nothing.

Call back when we start colonising other planets.

You are the kind of dude who got us out of mars *cough* http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/2482-Once-Upon-a-Time-in-The-Future *cough*

 

[fraserf88]

Frankly, we should already have a moon base. I'm serious. The American moon landing program never should have stopped. Sadly, the combination of budgetary issues, governmental BS, and a general lack of interest on the world stage (i.e. the general public) stymied that endeavor. Had it continued, we would have likely had a research base on the moon by the late eighties or nineties and would already being using it as a launching station for mars missions today.

A moon base is no small thing, but I'd grant you it should be possible.

Why would it be useful for Mars missions, though? Now, a station orbiting the Earth would, IMHO, be a much better intermediate step for that than a moon base, unless you mean some sort of training/acclimitisation thing.

The moon has resources, just like earth has resources.
The big benefit to a moon base is reduced gravity and no atmosphere.
It would be the perfect place to mine and extract resources for use in the construction of large interplanetary spacecraft. You could build large spaceships, and launch them with a mass driver instead of expensive solid rocket boosters, and a greatly reduced amount of fuel. And with no resistance from the atmosphere any spacecraft coming in for repairs doesnt have to worry about reentry shielding. Which is especially nice if the repair is a large hole in the hull.
The moon is the perfect staging ground for exploration of the rest of our galaxy.

 

[Pinkamena]

We've held anti matter for 11 minutes, we discovered a small particle that may or may not be able to out run light, we've discovered a new form of plasma. We have computers in our pockets and games with great graphics.

Yes, that certainly is one of the greatest scientific feats!
Sorry, I just laughed at that XD That you put "great graphics" into the lot of muons and anti-matter.

 

[ckam]

Being a childhood lover of space, I'll just say that I'm really excited for this.

 

[Dawns Gate]

If it wasn't for the stupid cold war and all the world leaders being idiots, I bet we would have a moon base by now.

Errr...what? The cold war is one of the main reasons anything involving space has made as much progress as it has.

Again.... what I'm saying is that we would have much, much, more than we do now if the world powers would have pooled their resources and knowledge instead of pretending the other side wanted them dead. Nobody wanted a war anyway.

 

[Jadak]

If it wasn't for the stupid cold war and all the world leaders being idiots, I bet we would have a moon base by now.

Errr...what? The cold war is one of the main reasons anything involving space has made as much progress as it has.

Again.... what I'm saying is that we would have much, much, more than we do now if the world powers would have pooled their resources and knowledge instead of pretending the other side wanted them dead. Nobody wanted a war anyway.

Doubtful, while everyone always like to think that pooled resources might lead to greater progress, and it's probably true, but it is not necessarily true that such a thing would result in more progress than something like the cold war, as such competition, either in war or merely rivalry has a tendency to motivate innovation.

Yes, pooling resources would be better, but without that drive to beat the competition, it's less likely anyone would feel as strong about committing anything towards such projects in the first place.