The Big Picture: Once Upon a Time in The Future

[Dastardly]

Once Upon a Time in The Future

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

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We've lost our sense of wonder. Anything that requires imagination is a waste of time, a diversion meant for children... or so we're supposed to believe as "grown-ups." We have forgotten the pivotal role imagination plays in our lives, or the role it could play if we don't abandon it foolishly.

What is it really that separates us from the beasts? Isn't it, at least in large part, our ability to look at something and imagine something better? That's what feeds our ability to solve problems, invent things, empathize with other people--it all comes down to being able to imagine something. Imagination isn't a childhood fancy. It's a critical thinking skill, and we're losing it. I blame our consumption-based entertainment.

As I'm fond of saying, how can we ever hope to make the world better if there's no one who can imagine how that better world looks?

 

[Fr]anc[is]

USS Mountain Dew? More like the iShip or Windows 9 XXX JK LOL Premium Space Spacehip Edition... ship.

 

[A Gent of Villainous Intent]

Bob you have only one choice.

Become a super-villain, steal money from around the world, and build your own colony on mars.

 

[SensibleCrout]

There are better arguments for space exploration than "I like it". And as Bob is well aware of you do need to find and name those arguments in order not to be a bad guy?. Hunger and justice are indeed more important problems than a selfish wish to be prod of NASA's achievements.

BTW, that sounds very much like the kind of pride I just cannot get my head around. Sure, NASA has done awesome things, but what was your or my part in that to be proud of it?

Space science is not only cool but also important and we shoud spend money on it, but not just so we can win d*ck size competitions.

 

[TwistedEllipses]

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...

 

[Thick]

I don't think it's so much the alcohol talking right there so much as it is the nerd. All the pictures he showed depicting what a future of space travel might lead to were pure nerd-wank.

Really? A guy standing next to a hot chick fighting a giant lion thing to the backdrop of some Martian metropolis? Oh, and the guy had a broadsword too, natch. If that wasn't a picture of nerd wish fulfillment, I don't know what would be.

I could go into some diatribe about the difficult problems we face on Earth, but you already fucking know that.

The most immediate-and most ironic- tangible benefit to continuing space research would be the application of the technology on terrestrial problems.

The next most immediate, though "next" is qualified in this case as being in the non-foreseeable future, would indeed be the colonization of places other than Earth. That's brought up as an argument in favor of space travel because we don't have "indefinite lease" or whatever here. If we're not creative enough to come up with a solution other than "abandon ship", then we fucking deserve to go extinct.

If it makes you feel any better, there will always be dreamers like those men you named, and they will spend their lives pursuing that dream, and even if they get nothing out of it, there will be value in their efforts. But I would dare say that their dreams are more pure than than the nerd-wank you seem to aspire to.

 

[JDKJ]

I don't understand how asking for proof of where Obama was born is racist. You have to be born in the US to be president, no matter what color your skin is.

You could argue that isn't been asked and answered, or is no longer in question. That's fine. Argue that the burden of proof has been met. No problem. But racist for asking? That's just plain lazy. "I don't like that you ask those questions, so I'm going to just call you a racist, and hope that you go away."

Sure, and every WHITE president has had a bunch of mouth-breathers asking whether he was born in Sweden, Scotland, or Croatia.

Oh, wait, that didn't happen.

But the first time a black man takes office, it JUST SO HAPPENS... Sure, buddy. Lemme guess, you start every other sentence with "I'm not a racist, but..."

Haven't played the video yet, was checking the comments to see if I wanted to.

I will say in response to this that there is more to the issue than that. The whole "I'm not a racist but" thing is due to fear of persecution from questioning a popular leader.

I don't feel any need to start comments that way however, and I've never made bones about my problems with Obama. Largely because of the efforts being made to sidestep certain questions about his citizenship. By this I don't mean the question of whether he was born in the US, or en-route to the US and given a birth certificate when he shouldn't have one.

The problem with Obama is that when he went to school overseas, one of the requirements was that people had to renounce citizenship to other countries in order to attend. There is a BIG question about whether he did this or not. This comes down to a very simple pass/fail thing where you don't even need to ask him or his people. All you have to do is look at whether that's a policy, and if he attended there. Nobody was willing to look into that one officially, and that accusation tends to get "glossed over" in these situations.

Now, no offense, but if this guy renounced his citizenship to attend school he definatly shouldn't be President, even if he got it back later. Simply being willing to do something like that should have been a major mark against him. People were however so anti-Bush, or wanted a liberal victory so bad, that nobody was willing to address this issue officially as far as I ever saw.

What color he is doesn't matter with that kind of accusation, it would be a big deal with anyone. What's more, when you discuss racism in regards to Obama, it's just as easy to ask people "Do you support him just because he's black?". The race issue cuts both ways with Obama and criticism.

Any way it goes, questions WERE raised that should have been addressed.

Above and beyond his citizenship, which is now a moot point (we can't very much have someone prove he wasn't a citizen now that he's been in office for years), I've had more of an issue with his actual term as president. I had less issues with Obama than I did with say Kerry, despite voting for Mccain (and I actually wanted Giuliani for president for reasons I won't go into), however he started me towards joining the Anti-Obama crowd when he assumed the office during a time of economic crisis, and then ran what was supposed to be the most expensive circus of an inaugeration in history. If there was any time for a president to ascend quietly, that was it. Even so I wouldn't have had an issue with the inaugeration celebrations (they all do it) if his price tag wasn't supposed to be so record setting under these conditions. It's almost as bad as Bill Clinton using "Air Force One" to go get a hair cut (which was a legendary incident), but Obama this happened when he was just coming into office.

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?

 

[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".

Okay for starters, we found trace elements of minerals on Mars like Iron with our probes. Enough in the soil and atmosphere to show that the planet is loaded. This is where all of the "martial mining" stuff comes from. Minerals being a very important thing here on earth. Mines are being depleted, and even enviromentally destructive strip mining in places like Africa is going to deplete the supply of mineals in short order, especially given our rapidly expanding population and need.

What's more we've been able to terraform Mars for a while now, indeed I believe that this is where the whole "terraforming" idea came from to begin with (but I'm not sure). I'm no expert on the details, but the bottom line is that ecosystems are fragile, as enviromentalists point out there are literally dozens of ways we could radically change our own enviroment. The foilage in Africa produces a lot of the world's oxygen. If we literally defoliated the area, and a few other places on earth we could pretty much smother all life on earth. We could probably do it inside a week if we wanted to committ racial suicide somehow.

While it's a slow process, scientists more or less understand why the atmospheres of planets like Mars are the way they are (or so I've been lead to believe) due to the probes and such we have there. We could effectively "destroy" the enviroment of mars like any other ecosystem but do it in a way that benefitted us as we slowly intergrated the things we wanted to support life. It could take centuries, but we've apparently had the tools for decades.

As far as comments by guys like Shinji talking about how we might get as far as Jupiter some day, I think in the course of conveying the size of space people exagerrations have leaked into the actual education, which is understandably demoralizing.

Truthfully we already have a degree of cryonic technology and have been in possession of it since those old rumors about Walt Disney. We're pretty close to the point where we can freeze and unfreeze people at will, and that makes sleeper ships a viable possibility. What that means is that not only is reaching every corner of our solar system within the realm possibility (and yes people would volunteer to do such things) already, we could put people into other solar systems if we really wanted to (over a ridiculous period of time).

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.

 

[clockout]

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.

 

[Okysho]

The title of this series is misleading. When this first started up I was ok with the "I hate halo!" bit because it was the first video and I figured the series needed a chance. But this takes the cake. This isn't a "big picture" at all! This is probably the furthest thing from it. Moviebob does realize we're in a recession right? That the world DOESN'T HAVE ANY FUCKING MONEY!

Of course people aren't going to care about colonizing Mars when THEY CAN'T EVEN FEED THEMSELVES! This is the furthest thing from the big picture.

I think the escapists needs to re-think how this show is supposed to be running. Maybe it should be more about the "big picture" rather than "oh my billion dollar dreams!!!" These videos are so closed minded... At least make him look at both the issue and the world stage and it's ties to the issue. The space program is a current sacrifice if it means that the world doesn't screw itself over because they played with INVISIBLE MONEY.

Come on... let's be reasonable...

sorry for caps...

 

[Apples_McGrind]

The thing is there is no reason for us to go to the moon or Mars. There aren't any natural resources worth spending billions of dollars to obtain. Unfortunately that's what make the world go round. If there was something up there that is worth all that money spent, then we would have colonized the moon years ago.

I would point out Helium 3 (He3), but then again at this point it isn't cost effective despite it being clean energy up there. Also of the top of my head I don't think they have any real way to mine it yet. Hopefully it'll be more of a concern in the future, then again this does tie into green technology and climate change which is a whole other subject

 

[daavisb]

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

 

[Aulleas123]

*sniff* *sniff*

Smells like pretentious to me.

Getting to space takes money, if we're broke we can't get to space. So fix the economy then get to Mars. Look at the big leaps in American advancements into space.
-1960: Right after a period of economic stability and general social dullness when everything was in black and white. At this point, we send our first pieces into space. Yes, it's a reaction to the Soviets, but it got us moving.
-1980's: After the shit-hole that was the '70's, we develop the space shuttle which gives us the opportunity to have more prolonged journeys into space. This was at the time when we got our economic footing and national confidence back. Look, not everyone likes Reagan, I get it. But he did a fair amount for the national space movement than most other presidents of our time.
-2000's: While our government was doing everything it could to get involved with every other country in the world, the private sector grew. This was when millionaires decided to go into space. I am glad Bob mentioned this, however it's also interesting how he takes a typically naive view of private business. I'm pretty sure if we send up people from Boeing and Lockheed Martin into space, we won't really need to worry about the first contact being the Vulcans meeting the Jersey Shore.

All in all, there were things that I agree with Bob on. But brushing aside private advancements into space travel and pointing the finger at the American public because we're a bit more concerned with 10% of our country being out of work than sending people to collect space rocks seems incredibly pretentious to me.

 

[Vytautas Rindzevicius]

Good episode! Liked it and understood, at least I hope I did

 

[Exterminas]

I think there is an european space programm, I mean we just built that international space station, would be silly to not be able to go there by any means.

So, why not leave this outdated peice of technology (space shuttles) behind? Sure it is sad that there is no follow up, but that is due to americas economical und political decay, not because the world doesn't care anymore.

The world isn't america.

 

[thejboy88]

Great video Bob, as usual

As for the subject matter, I completely agree with you. Space is the future and people around the world need to realise that before its too late. I mean, think of all the problems which could be solved if we embraced it: solving overpopulated countries, gaining new resources to help the dwindling supply we have now, broadening our understanding of the universe and most important of all, getting as far away from all the jackasses, racists and just plain unpleasant people on this planet that think that expanding our species potential is a waste of time.

Seriously, nowhere on this planet is far enough away from those sorts.

Anyway, look forward to the next video Bob.

 

[psivamp]

actually, what happened to the space program is that the USA lack a competitor. The WW2 and the cold war with the USSR, as bad wars are, did give a big kick in the ass to the humanity. By fearing that the communist would populate the moon first, the USA push themselve over their limit and created the apollo program. Now that the focus is only on war against terrorist, that push is no longer there. I bet that if al-kaida was an actual country and that they were trying to go on mars first, chance are that the space program would be still nicely funded.

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.

 

[Warforger]

I grew up wanting to go into space. When eyesight and other factors made it clear that I wasn't cut out for that life, I focused on writing about space instead.

Bob, I like you am glad that the luminaries of science fiction, from Heinlein to Roddenberry, are, for the most part, dead. This would sadden all of them. It certainly does me.

There are groups on Facebook and whatnot who are interested in seeing programs like Constellation continue. Unfortunately, we're a minority. Since we're not screaming racist epithets or ignorant insults at our current Commander in Chief, it's unlikely we'll be heard. This is a country where clever and smart television like Firefly, Better Off Ted and Rome have to knife-fight for their audience share while American Idol, Jersey Shore and Cougar Town make embarassingly large piles of money for people who don't give a damn about this planet or anybody on it save themselves, to say nothing of other planets that might sustain our population if we just put our minds to it instead of waiting for the next pandering, flickering image to come at us between advertisements.

Uhhh the point of cancelling NASA is the fact that its probably going to be inefficent and a waste of money especially in the long run, the idea is that since air planes were done through the private sector that they would do the same for space ships, so Bob's analogy to finding new life forms would be wrong since the US and other important nations would find them in their government funded exploration.

*snip*

Thats not really competition, it means that if they made space travel that they'd also sell it to the US, Russia, China and India.

 

[Zeromaeus]

I honestly don't know what to say. i honestly thought we were still moving forward toward space travel. I had no idea it had been set back so much. Its a shame, an honest shame that we as a people seem to have lost our longing for the stars. The same longing that fueled our advance in science and technology for so many years.
I've always seen space travel as a symbol of humanity's progress. The closer we got to the stars, the further along we were and the more we 'evolved' as a people. Whenever space travel was advanced technology would boom, hopes would rise and people were able to see their dreams realized. The near-abandonment of the space program not only shows us abandoning that stage of development, but of abandoning our dreams as a people. It is only through realizing our dreams and hoping for a better tomorrow that we can advance.

 

[Rawle Lucas]

I'm going to have to disagree with Bob's video and the general thrust of the comments on page 1.

There's no great focus on space travel because there's no money to be made in space. Keep in mind that economic incentives spurred exploration and colonization of the New World, as well as the Age of Imperialism. Why blow trillions on a colonization project that won't make anyone any richer, not even the hated top 1%?

Also, the video, as well as some on the beginning comments, was suffused with utter contempt for "common" people and their wants and needs -- indeed, it's quite fitting that he would choose cities on Mars over world peace; that way the Jersey Shore-watching, Mountain Dew-drinking commoners could suffer for their disobedience. Wishing suffering upon people just because they don't buy into space travel is just terrible.

If this makes me an idiocratic [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy] moron, I guess I have to live with it. I'd rather be a moron who likes a trashy show than a misanthrope who wants to build a utopia on a pile of bones.