Fight for Space

[Hagi]

Came across this pretty cool new Kickstarter for a documentary:

http://www.fightforspace.com/​

Spoiler: About them

Space is expensive, space is dangerous, space is exciting, and space is awesome! Before I was born, we landed a man on the moon. This accomplishment launched an entire generation of scientists, engineers, and technological enthusiasts, at every educational level from high school to P.H.D. Since before I can remember, I was always enamored with space. I watched television
shows and movies like Star Trek, Star Wars, the Outer Limits, and Babylon 5. Whenever there was a new space show on TV, I was there to watch it succeed or fail.
Looking back, it feels like I had a claim to the ?Space? section of my elementary school library. I was always renting the eyewitness space books and reading about the solar system. When news
broke while I was in third grade that there might be a ?Planet X,? it was all the rage. We didn?t care about who was president or what the country?s economic woes were. We were hearing about engineering breakthroughs with the International Space Station, shuttle launches, and plans for NASA?s new space plane.
That was just the 1990s. I can?t begin to imagine what life was like for the kids in the 60s, growing up and watching us send a man to space for the first time, landing a man on the moon, and broadcasting video back to an eager earth, far away.
It is 2012. We have no space shuttle, no space plane, and no lift vehicle at all. We are left with virtually no manned space program. We have been reduced to hitching a ride with our former sworn enemy and still corrupt Russian government, to get to the International Space Station. Is this the mark of a great nation; a nation of innovators, pioneers, explorers, and dreamers? I don?t think so.
As a film maker I have taken on the task of exploring this problem, gathering the evidence, and showing the people that our space program is worth fighting for.
We want you to ?Fight for Space? in your own way:
? Care about the environment and climate change? Venus is a great example of a runaway greenhouse effect that we need to study. Mars used to have running water and now has none.Why did this happen? Fight for Space.
? Do you have an American flag hanging from your porch? Do you fly it for national pride? We are a United States of Innovators, Pioneers, and Dreamers. We will not settle for second best in anything. Fight for Space.
? Economy getting you down? Maybe you lost your job or you have a friend who lost his or her job. You think tax breaks or government hand outs are going to save you? Think again. The fundamental disease is that this nation that we call home lacks ambition. The ambition to innovate and dream big, dreams has driven this country since day one. Fight for Space.
? Double NASA?s budget? Sounds like a great idea but the problem isn?t just money, it is a the lack of a goals that is holding us back. We believe in a stronger NASA budget, but it must be properly controlled to maximize it?s effect. Without a vision we will go nowhere.
Fight for Space.
Sincerely,
Paul Hildebrandt
Director

Thought it was worthy of a topic. Space is pretty cool after all.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

I love space and I love documentaries! I don't love lacking the money to help out things I want to see realized... :/

 

[Lionsfan]

As usual, there's an XKCD comic to explain some of my thoughts:

Alt Text: The Universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures who 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

To me Space is something that we should keep on exploring, and I want a Moon Colony by the time I die damnit

 

[BanZeus]

Support the space program!​

 

[Rastien]

As cool as space travel would be, i aint going to see it in my life time.

I would rather focus on getting this shitty planet sorted out rather than wasting resourses leaping into space :/. I probably won't see the planet gettign any better in my lifetime either but i think that should be a prioty rather than trying to escape the planet why not fix it.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

As cool as space travel would be, i aint going to see it in my life time.

I would rather focus on getting this shitty planet sorted out rather than wasting resourses leaping into space :/. I probably won't see the planet gettign any better in my lifetime either but i think that should be a prioty rather than trying to escape the planet why not fix it.

Because why solve your problems when you can run away from them?

 

[Popadoo]

I think now would be an appropriate time to use this:

''Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there ? on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.'' - Carl Sagan.
If we spent a fraction of the money going into things like weapons and training soldiers, we could fund a space program.
''Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.''
Why spend all that money to become, as Mr. Sagan put it, momentary masters of a fraction of a dot?
It really does disappoint me that governments are putting so much money into killing people over something so insignificant rather than seeing the bigger picture.

 

[Nerexor]

As cool as space travel would be, i aint going to see it in my life time.

I would rather focus on getting this shitty planet sorted out rather than wasting resourses leaping into space :/. I probably won't see the planet gettign any better in my lifetime either but i think that should be a prioty rather than trying to escape the planet why not fix it.

Because why solve your problems when you can run away from them?

If anything mass exodus for another planet would be the best thing we could do for Earth. Sudden drop in the human population means there is a lot less pollution to go along with it. If we created reserve spaces where people weren't allowed to live it would end up allowing those areas to ecologically recover from the damage we've done to them.

What we really need to make that viable though is terraforming tech, reliable propulsion systems, possibly reliable cryo-stasis (and by reliable I mean that we can freeze and unfreeze people without killing/damaging them in the process), and a destination planet/system of planets to land on.

 

[Rastien]

As cool as space travel would be, i aint going to see it in my life time.

I would rather focus on getting this shitty planet sorted out rather than wasting resourses leaping into space :/. I probably won't see the planet gettign any better in my lifetime either but i think that should be a prioty rather than trying to escape the planet why not fix it.

Because why solve your problems when you can run away from them?

This is true, it's human nature to run from problems rather than solve them.

On Topic:

Also even in the future i can't see space travel being easily avaible to the average working man, it will be for the rich and privelaged. Taking flight for example sure we can all get in a plane and fly to another country once in awhile for a fee, but how many people do you pesonally know with a plane or some form of flight? probably not many.

I would love to experience space travel but it is going to be a long ass time before we are there and i'm going to be long dead.

Hopes and dreams are important, the unattainble ones even more so, they keep us going.

 

[templar1138a]

Spoiler: Why I believe that the space program will not be revived to a point of significance.

1. Reaching a lifeless rock just won't cut it. People won't care about the space program unless colonizing an Earth-like planet that requires little-to-no terraforming is feasible.

2. Even if it's feasible, people are afraid of the uncertainty of colonization and won't do it unless forced. You know how the English got people to colonize North America? By scooping up the dregs of society off the streets and throwing them onto a boat. If we go into space, most of our colonists are going to be the homeless and the unemployed.

3. Our home planet isn't screwed enough to make it seem like a good idea. And once it is, it'll be too late to fund the research and too many people will have the attitude of "This place is a shithole, but it's my home!"

 

[Soviet Steve]

Spoiler: Why I believe that the space program will not be revived to a point of significance.

1. Reaching a lifeless rock just won't cut it. People won't care about the space program unless colonizing an Earth-like planet that requires little-to-no terraforming is feasible.

2. Even if it's feasible, people are afraid of the uncertainty of colonization and won't do it unless forced. You know how the English got people to colonize North America? By scooping up the dregs of society off the streets and throwing them onto a boat. If we go into space, most of our colonists are going to be the homeless and the unemployed.

3. Our home planet isn't screwed enough to make it seem like a good idea. And once it is, it'll be too late to fund the research and too many people will have the attitude of "This place is a shithole, but it's my home!"

1) Or they'll be lured by the infinite resources that the universe has on lifeless unclaimed rocks.

2) Australia was a penal colony. The reason people went to America was the chance to get rich whereas Europe had no such prospects. Today this is called 'The American Dream'

3) Once again, the infinite resources of the universe and our curiosity and greed is going to lure some dumb bastards out there, the reason we've stopped for the moment is that robots are cheaper.

 

[CrazyJew]

Spoiler: Why I believe that the space program will not be revived to a point of significance.

2. Even if it's feasible, people are afraid of the uncertainty of colonization and won't do it unless forced. You know how the English got people to colonize North America? By scooping up the dregs of society off the streets and throwing them onto a boat. If we go into space, most of our colonists are going to be the homeless and the unemployed.

3. Our home planet isn't screwed enough to make it seem like a good idea. And once it is, it'll be too late to fund the research and too many people will have the attitude of "This place is a shithole, but it's my home!"

I would colonize.

 

[templar1138a]

1) Or they'll be lured by the infinite resources that the universe has on lifeless unclaimed rocks.

Firstly, you have to know where those infinite resources are. For example, Japan could have sent ships across the Pacific to exploit the gold deposits on the west coast of North America long before colonization. They didn't because they didn't know the gold was there specifically and had no reason to. It's the same thing with space mining.

Secondly, even if resources were found, it would cost a hell of a lot more to establish mining operations and transportation than would be worth it with our current tech. Again to Japan: Even if they'd known about the gold deposits in California, they may not have gone for it on account of how long voyages between continents would take and how dangerous they'd be. Not to mention that the value of gold would have dropped drastically, but that's a whole nother can of worms.

2) Australia was a penal colony. The reason people went to America was the chance to get rich whereas Europe had no such prospects. Today this is called 'The American Dream'

Yes, Australia was the penal colony. England didn't send prisoners to North America. They sent prostitutes, the homeless, the jobless, and anyone else they could scoop up off the streets because their economy couldn't provide enough labor. The only colonists who were starry-eyed about it were those suckered into thinking North America was a veritable Garden of Eden. The rest colonized because they didn't have any other choice. Most early colonists went into indentured servitude in the colonies. The main reason slavery was used later on was because it was cheaper (though not by much). The "American Dream" didn't exist until much later. Fun fact: Most colonists in the time of the Revolutionary War didn't think of themselves as Americans; they viewed themselves as English, albeit disenfranchised.

3) Once again, the infinite resources of the universe and our curiosity and greed is going to lure some dumb bastards out there, the reason we've stopped for the moment is that robots are cheaper.

Greed may not be picky, but it isn't stupid. In order to go out into space, there needs to be faster space travel. In order for there to be faster space travel, there needs to be research; In order for there to be research, there needs to be funding; In order for there to be funding, there needs to be the support from a large corporation or a government branch with a giant budget; In order for there to be either of those, there needs to be interest; in order for there to be interest, there needs to be evidence of profit opportunity (yes, governments seek profit too, it's called balancing the budget); in order for there to be evidence of profit opportunity, there needs to be data gathering.

That's a lot of maybes stemming from sending out a few probes with multi-million dollar price tags. Much as I'd like to establish a colony, I know that if I was a CEO or determined where government funding went, I wouldn't fund space expeditions if the pitch boils down to "The universe is infinite!" because that sounds like funding a blind crap-shoot.

 

[templar1138a]

[deleted]