The Big Picture: Once Upon a Time in The Future

[Koeryn]

Once Upon a Time in The Future

This week, Bob rants about the abandonment of the Space Shuttle program.

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One of my best friends is/was (they're expecting the axe literally any moment as NASA continues to bleed jobs, they're currently in Schrodinger's Cat range at the moment), an aerospace engineer. The space treadmill? Yeah. SHE HELPED MAKE THAT.

Which is totally awesome. Space in general is totally awesome. So, no you're not the only one.

However, I would love to see a concurrent mission of exploration, not just of local and/or deep space, but of the deep sections of ocean we've never laid eyes on before. Astronauts are trained in null-G water tanks, they've already got a step up in exploring the deep!

I just think it would be cool. 'Cause, hey, why NOT explore them both? I know there are advances that would further mankinds ability to kill ourselves to oblivion in both directions.

 

[Falseprophet]

We'd rather spend trillions on equipment and weaponry to destroy the planet than the few billion extra it would take to make these dreams a reality. And for all of you people who complain that there are too many problems here on Earth: NASA is not your enemy. Militarism and Greed are the enemy!

NASA's annual budget is something like 19 or 20 billion dollars (generally somewhere around one half of one per cent of the total budget). The US spends TRILLIONS on "defense" programs - well over 20% of our annual budget. (And that's only the things they'll talk about publicly, not including all the black budget stuff.) Something like 40% of the military spending in the world is done by the U.S. ALONE.

The problem isn't merely the space program. We dropped out of all large science projects. The ITER in France (which I think may be jumping the gun, but -- fuck it -- let's push the envelope), the LHC (we were supposed to build this one or the next one here). Sure, we 'support' these projects -- maybe we let a million trickle over. NASA's budget is only about 26 million. That's chump change in the realm of government spending. The American people are, by and large, ignorant about science. It doesn't interest them and they don't know about it.

Thank you both. It's not the "bleeding hearts". No one with money or power really listens to them and most of what they want would cost a few paltry billions at most. Why are trillions being channelled to bail out failed banks and strengthen an imperial military presence worldwide? How about these regressive religious conservatives who sabotage science education and are convinced the Second Coming is right around the corner anyway?

There's one very important reason to keep funding space research. If a couple of decades from now, we find a Near Earth Object [http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/] in real danger of impacting with the Earth, wouldn't you rather have something in place to address it? Or would you rather put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye?

 

[franzieperez]

The end of the space shuttle does by no means mean the end of space exploration.

First of all, there have been many ideas that have been proposed over decades, like orbital launch platforms and thing like that, as substitutes for the shuttle program. Hell, many of the die-hard rocket scientists didn't want the shuttle because it would phase out multi-stage rockets, which were then seen as the pinnacle of manned space exploration, and to be fair, man didn't go to the moon in a shuttle, so it can be said that it hasn't even had the biggest impact on space exploration.

On the other hand, even if this does mean that people are no longer interested in going to space themselves (at least for the moment), unmanned exploration has always brought back plenty of information in terms of the viability of establishing settlements on the moon, mars, and even further away.

If the probes, robots and telescopes all say its not worth trying to colonize right now due to lack of resources, quite honestly that's good enough for me.

Actually that's not true to be honest. Such arguements are born out of ignorance and a desire to try and defend a liberal-centric view of where resources should be expended. If this is what they are teaching in school, it's no wonder people have lost interest. Between you and Shinji all I can say is "wow".

...

People are always saying "it's impossible" as an excuse not to try. They are continuously proven wrong. Right now I think it's more or less an attitude born of politics and people obsessed with the short term being unable to see the solutions to their own problems.

I believe you may have misunderstood me.
I'm not saying that it's impossible, or that we shouldn't bother trying to colonize Mars at all or anything like that. It's just that at the moment, sending PEOPLE up there when there is nothing set up for them seems like a huge waste of resources. There's very little reason to risk the lives of talented people by sending them up into space with limited supplies to sit on mars establishing a colony when most of the groundwork could be done remotely. Surveying, mining, construction and other such things do not require a person to actually be present, just to be at the controls. Once the groundwork for a sustainable community is set up, send up as many people as you can!

And ya, it may seem I'm ignoring exploration just for the sake of exploration, but that's not the case. Sending people to the moon and mars just to go look and come back has always been highly contested by scientists within the field, and it was even said recently that if we were to send people to Mars in the near future, it would likely be a one-way trip.

 

[Therumancer]

Outta curiosity, do you also believe that the U.S. government had advance knowledge of the attacks on Pearl Harbor and the World Trade Center? That Lee Harvey Oswald didn't act alone? That Bill Clinton had Vince Foster killed? That there are bodies of dead space aliens stored in Roswell, New Mexico? That the footage of the Apollo landing on the Moon is faked and was actually shot on a studio lot in Burbank, California? That the Kennedys killed Marilyn Monroe and staged it to look like an overdose? That fluoridation is a Communist plot to take over control of the entire world? That your cable set-top box contains a miniature camera used to spy on you? That your dentist is really a NSA undercover agent who has planted a microchip in your lower jaw that's being used to track your movements? That the tin-foil hat you wear on your head will actually succeed in blocking those harmful ultra-gamma radio waves from entering your brain?

No in all cases except two. I don't wear a tin foil hat, and I do think the Kennedies had Marilyn Monroe killed.

The Kennedies having made their money through organized crime, bootlegging during the Probition . This was outed by Frank Costello (a known mob boss) in the 70s, of course this wasn't something that could be prosecuted at the time due to changes in the laws and the passage of time. There have been allegations through the years that the family, despite arguably being the "face" of new money and being involved in politics never went entirely straight either, even if nothing could be linked to them. I think the family had her whacked. I do NOT however believe that JFK personally ordered her killed by goverment spooks. One of those things that we'll never know for sure, but from what I know all of the circumstantial evidence does point that way.

All of that aside, there is no conspiricy theory involved in what I was saying about Obama. It's a pass/fail thing. You simply check officially if he attended that school, and if indeed that was one of the policies. I'm still waiting for someone in an adequete position of authority for it to matter to do that. Given that it's a very simple thing to prove or disprove it's disturbing that nobody has addressed that, and instead people are obsessed
over his birth certificate, which is a done deal since it exists, and whether he should have gotten one or not is irrelevent.

The closest thing to a conspiricy theory involved in any of this is that I do think The Democratic party backs him like all political parties do once they select their cantidates. I doubt the party knew all of his secrets, and was surprised by all the allegations on these grounds. However, they are committed. Anyone in a similar position would receive similar coverage at this point. I do not think there was some kind of shadowy conspiricy to put a non-citizen into the White House or anything of the sort.

 

[JDKJ]

"Space ain't man's final frontier. Man's final frontier is the soul . . . ." -- Arrested Development

 

[lazinesslord]

You're not alone I'm sad about this too. And what pisses me off about myself is that I didn't even know until recently that the space shuttle is being shut down until recently. (and I mean very recently) It's really amazing how we decided that the space program was unnecessary and that we won't be making any more progress. I'm curious to see what's out there but apparently the morons in D.C. don't care. I wish I could do something but I'm not sure what. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[JDKJ]

Outta curiosity, do you also believe that the U.S. government had advance knowledge of the attacks on Pearl Harbor and the World Trade Center? That Lee Harvey Oswald didn't act alone? That Bill Clinton had Vince Foster killed? That there are bodies of dead space aliens stored in Roswell, New Mexico? That the footage of the Apollo landing on the Moon is faked and was actually shot on a studio lot in Burbank, California? That the Kennedys killed Marilyn Monroe and staged it to look like an overdose? That fluoridation is a Communist plot to take over control of the entire world? That your cable set-top box contains a miniature camera used to spy on you? That your dentist is really a NSA undercover agent who has planted a microchip in your lower jaw that's being used to track your movements? That the tin-foil hat you wear on your head will actually succeed in blocking those harmful ultra-gamma radio waves from entering your brain?

No in all cases except two. I don't wear a tin foil hat, and I do think the Kennedies had Marilyn Monroe killed.

The Kennedies having made their money through organized crime, bootlegging during the Probition . This was outed by Frank Costello (a known mob boss) in the 70s, of course this wasn't something that could be prosecuted at the time due to changes in the laws and the passage of time. There have been allegations through the years that the family, despite arguably being the "face" of new money and being involved in politics never went entirely straight either, even if nothing could be linked to them. I think the family had her whacked. I do NOT however believe that JFK personally ordered her killed by goverment spooks. One of those things that we'll never know for sure, but from what I know all of the circumstantial evidence does point that way.

All of that aside, there is no conspiricy theory involved in what I was saying about Obama. It's a pass/fail thing. You simply check officially if he attended that school, and if indeed that was one of the policies. I'm still waiting for someone in an adequete position of authority for it to matter to do that. Given that it's a very simple thing to prove or disprove it's disturbing that nobody has addressed that, and instead people are obsessed
over his birth certificate, which is a done deal since it exists, and whether he should have gotten one or not is irrelevent.

The closest thing to a conspiricy theory involved in any of this is that I do think The Democratic party backs him like all political parties do once they select their cantidates. I doubt the party knew all of his secrets, and was surprised by all the allegations on these grounds. However, they are committed. Anyone in a similar position would receive similar coverage at this point. I do not think there was some kind of shadowy conspiricy to put a non-citizen into the White House or anything of the sort.

Don't underestimate the protective powers of a well-made tin-foil hat.

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

Let's face it: It comes down to money. Right now, every Tea Party nut job that got elected is looking to cut the government, and NASA has always had the problem of being really expensive with only a little to show for it. Constellation was a product of bad timing.

As for the president, while he does earn some scorn for his quiet cancellation of the project, it comes down to people being really pissed at him for doing what he can. NASA's unofficial motto was "don't ask us how much it cost" for years because space-based programs are extremely expensive, and that's before you strap a living thing to that object. To restart the Constellation project will take a very large investment of not just capital, but sheer political will-power. The US needs to raise taxes to fund this kind of stuff. The US needs to push math and science to fuel this stuff. The US needs to get off its behind and get to work doing what needs to be done, and none of this will happen while people are complaining that their taxes are too high when their the lowest in the developed world.

 

[Therumancer]

The end of the space shuttle does by no means mean the end of space exploration.

First of all, there have been many ideas that have been proposed over decades, like orbital launch platforms and thing like that, as substitutes for the shuttle program. Hell, many of the die-hard rocket scientists didn't want the shuttle because it would phase out multi-stage rockets, which were then seen as the pinnacle of manned space exploration, and to be fair, man didn't go to the moon in a shuttle, so it can be said that it hasn't even had the biggest impact on space exploration.

On the other hand, even if this does mean that people are no longer interested in going to space themselves (at least for the moment), unmanned exploration has always brought back plenty of information in terms of the viability of establishing settlements on the moon, mars, and even further away.

If the probes, robots and telescopes all say its not worth trying to colonize right now due to lack of resources, quite honestly that's good enough for me.

Actually that's not true to be honest. Such arguements are born out of ignorance and a desire to try and defend a liberal-centric view of where resources should be expended. If this is what they are teaching in school, it's no wonder people have lost interest. Between you and Shinji all I can say is "wow".

...

People are always saying "it's impossible" as an excuse not to try. They are continuously proven wrong. Right now I think it's more or less an attitude born of politics and people obsessed with the short term being unable to see the solutions to their own problems.

I believe you may have misunderstood me.
I'm not saying that it's impossible, or that we shouldn't bother trying to colonize Mars at all or anything like that. It's just that at the moment, sending PEOPLE up there when there is nothing set up for them seems like a huge waste of resources. There's very little reason to risk the lives of talented people by sending them up into space with limited supplies to sit on mars establishing a colony when most of the groundwork could be done remotely. Surveying, mining, construction and other such things do not require a person to actually be present, just to be at the controls. Once the groundwork for a sustainable community is set up, send up as many people as you can!

And ya, it may seem I'm ignoring exploration just for the sake of exploration, but that's not the case. Sending people to the moon and mars just to go look and come back has always been highly contested by scientists within the field, and it was even said recently that if we were to send people to Mars in the near future, it would likely be a one-way trip.

Actually you need to send a group of people out there to live for a long time before sending massive amounts of colonists up there to see if there are enviromental complications we don't know about. You need to do human testing and the like. The last thing we want to do is send thousands of people there only to find out that they start dying like flies and we don't know why. There are some things your just not going to be able to tell by sending machines.

It would be an even bigger waste if we shot all the robots up there and built the habitats, and then sent the people, had them die, and then found out we needed to rebuild the entire thing.

Exploration for the sake of exploration is a good thing in general, however that isn't what this is really. It's a mission of exploitation pure and simple. We want the space, and the mineral resources that the planet offers.

Volunteers spending their entire lives there is no big deal, since we plan on people living their lives there for generations anyway as part of the overall intent.

 

[IronGrayam]

Really liked the godzilla reference and i too would pick city's on mars.

 

[Rawle Lucas]

There's one very important reason to keep funding space research. If a couple of decades from now, we find a Near Earth Object [http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/] in real danger of impacting with the Earth, wouldn't you rather have something in place to address it? Or would you rather put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye?

Near-earth objects...I'm surprised it took so long for anyone to mention them! See, there's an incentive right there.

 

[Iconoclasm]

Been pissed about this for months - glad someone else is too.

Thanks for that, mate... good to know I'm not suffering alone...

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

I've always had my eyes set on space and I'm angry about this too but I still see that the problems here on Earth do take a bit of priority. Hopefully we can sort it all out before we lose the trained elite of Nasa and have to start from the ground up.

*sigh*

This still sucks but I know why Obama cut it.

I'm a big sci-fi fan, but I don't let that get in the way of realising that manned space travel to Mars or colonisation of the moon and Mars is nigh on pointless. What would you hope to achieve? They're dead rocks. We can't terraform. It would just be an enormous waste of resources and there are way, way better ways to collect scientific data then sending a bunch of people to build trailer parks on the moon...

Also this.

Makes me proud to be a Canadian where we still care about the exploration of space.

http://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/missions/expedition34-35/default.asp

Indeed, I'm rather happy with the part that Canada plays in space exploration.

Hell yeah! Canada contributes

*Canadian highfive* [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/groups/view/Escapism-Canada]

 

[ShadowThePika]

I honestly wished i cared more about space travel, but it isn't my interests. But boy wouldn't that have been awesome. I remember reading in Science class one day that by 2020, we'd have actual space colonies & people living on the moon for prolonged periods of time. Oh well, gotta stop the terrorists & fix the economy, right? But, even if I don't care, the media should. This is NATIONAL, no INTERNATIONAL, not even that, INTER-PLANETARIAL (i hope that's a word) NEWS! Oh well, I guess next time i am looking at the solar system, i will have to deal with no pluto & Mars being called Alkaidaland, or something to that effect

 

[franzieperez]

The end of the space shuttle does by no means mean the end of space exploration.

First of all, there have been many ideas that have been proposed over decades, like orbital launch platforms and thing like that, as substitutes for the shuttle program. Hell, many of the die-hard rocket scientists didn't want the shuttle because it would phase out multi-stage rockets, which were then seen as the pinnacle of manned space exploration, and to be fair, man didn't go to the moon in a shuttle, so it can be said that it hasn't even had the biggest impact on space exploration.

On the other hand, even if this does mean that people are no longer interested in going to space themselves (at least for the moment), unmanned exploration has always brought back plenty of information in terms of the viability of establishing settlements on the moon, mars, and even further away.

If the probes, robots and telescopes all say its not worth trying to colonize right now due to lack of resources, quite honestly that's good enough for me.

Actually that's not true to be honest. Such arguements are born out of ignorance and a desire to try and defend a liberal-centric view of where resources should be expended. If this is what they are teaching in school, it's no wonder people have lost interest. Between you and Shinji all I can say is "wow".

...

People are always saying "it's impossible" as an excuse not to try. They are continuously proven wrong. Right now I think it's more or less an attitude born of politics and people obsessed with the short term being unable to see the solutions to their own problems.

I believe you may have misunderstood me.
I'm not saying that it's impossible, or that we shouldn't bother trying to colonize Mars at all or anything like that. It's just that at the moment, sending PEOPLE up there when there is nothing set up for them seems like a huge waste of resources. There's very little reason to risk the lives of talented people by sending them up into space with limited supplies to sit on mars establishing a colony when most of the groundwork could be done remotely. Surveying, mining, construction and other such things do not require a person to actually be present, just to be at the controls. Once the groundwork for a sustainable community is set up, send up as many people as you can!

And ya, it may seem I'm ignoring exploration just for the sake of exploration, but that's not the case. Sending people to the moon and mars just to go look and come back has always been highly contested by scientists within the field, and it was even said recently that if we were to send people to Mars in the near future, it would likely be a one-way trip.

Actually you need to send a group of people out there to live for a long time before sending massive amounts of colonists up there to see if there are enviromental complications we don't know about. You need to do human testing and the like. The last thing we want to do is send thousands of people there only to find out that they start dying like flies and we don't know why. There are some things your just not going to be able to tell by sending machines.

It would be an even bigger waste if we shot all the robots up there and built the habitats, and then sent the people, had them die, and then found out we needed to rebuild the entire thing.

Exploration for the sake of exploration is a good thing in general, however that isn't what this is really. It's a mission of exploitation pure and simple. We want the space, and the mineral resources that the planet offers.

Volunteers spending their entire lives there is no big deal, since we plan on people living their lives there for generations anyway as part of the overall intent.

For the most part ya, I agree with you, obviously we wouldn't want to send up more people than could survive, all I meant was that once it was cool for people to be there, having more people would definitely bring the sustainability issue to the forefront.

Also, I in no way have anything wrong with exploration for its own sake, but sending people on those particular missions just seems like a way for the space program to get mascots, IMO.

 

[The_ModeRazor]

What. The. Fuck.
Didn't catch it on TV.
Or come across it on the intarwebs, and I use themz a bit.

You just fucked up my day... but hey, he who increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow and all that shit.
*goes off to invent FTL travel with a fork and bits of something vaguely resembling a writing utensil he found on his desk*

 

[dark-amon]

the part with "humanity hasnt shown me kindness, so i wont either" was kinda stupid. illogical if you want.

Actually, it's more of a eye for an eye. Not illogical, at worst unethical.

OT: I'm actually really suprised that the US has so to say closed the doors on their space-program, considering they where first on the moon it's a suprise they give up so easely considering all the progression the rest of the world is making.
BTW ain't USA members of the international space station that courses around our little planet? How are they gonna contribute to the station if they stop launches?

 

[JDKJ]

There's one very important reason to keep funding space research. If a couple of decades from now, we find a Near Earth Object [http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/] in real danger of impacting with the Earth, wouldn't you rather have something in place to address it? Or would you rather put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye?

Near-earth objects...I'm surprised it took so long for anyone to mention them! See, there's an incentive right there.

Nothing to fear from that one. Trust me, I know how the story ends. Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton and Ben Affleck get blasted out into space, land on the object, and blow it to smithereens long before it can ever collide with Earth. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along, please.

 

[orangeban]

You have to remember that really we need to sort all the crap on earth before moving on.
Though thats a rather communist point of view

 

[cathou]

No competitor? The Japanese deployed an ion-sail and retrieved physical samples of an asteroid THIS PAST YEAR. The US doesn't even present competition.

The problem isn't merely the space program. We dropped out of all large science projects. The ITER in France (which I think may be jumping the gun, but -- fuck it -- let's push the envelope), the LHC (we were supposed to build this one or the next one here). Sure, we 'support' these projects -- maybe we let a million trickle over. NASA's budget is only about 26 million. That's chump change in the realm of government spending. The American people are, by and large, ignorant about science. It doesn't interest them and they don't know about it. Europe is a little better. Most of this I read in Unscientific America. The space news above I got from Newscientist.com

Maybe I'm a little bitter.

the US dont see them as treath. there,s no nation that they fear, that they want to beat on everything at all cost. that's what i meant by competitor.