what do you think of astronomy?

[Torkuda]

Well?

Okay, so I'll preface that. What has it done for mankind? Personally as a person with libertarian type views, I think it's done remarkably well to be as successful as it is, considering all the public funding it receives, but that's hardly a commendation. Also to be fair, astronomy is NOT a completely government based science only used to attract the eye of the public, as many on my side have tried to say. Not at all, in fact many private industries rely on the discoveries of NASA just as much and the government relies on them to distract us in America... which let?s be honest NASA isn't a good tool for that anymore... and I'm sure the conspiracy theories write themselves on that, considering that they're having funding issues right now...

Anyway, yes I?m aware of cell phones and that the connection I have right now is? well a cable connection, but DSL was a big deal for a while so there?s that. I?m more talking about the exploration of Jupiter and constantly trying to figure out the age of the universe by looking at the stars and spending so much on mega telescopes (yes, I know that?s not what they?re called) to find new stars. What do you think it does for us? Or do you kind of doubt its necessity, or maybe even wonder if we should be leaving well enough alone in many cases (like on black hole experiments)?

 

[FalloutJack]

Space is the future, man. It's inevitable. It's vast and unexplored and choking with things we could use. Plus, if we never find any life out there, it's technically all ours.

 

[Torkuda]

Good point with the whole "if we never find life thing". What could be less controversial than colonizing previously uninhabitable planets with no previous owners? Nature would exist because of us, so environmentalism would be a hard sell unless we really screwed up (and yes, we've done so here so, global warming or not, we've still messed up on a colossal level, so yea, I can see it being a problem again) and if no one owned the place before us, no issues with arguing with the natives or being to generous with them or being too nasty with them (lets be honest, the situation is never ideal).

 

[Julius Terrell]

We need astronomy! It's all about understanding our place in the universe. Surely you wouldn't want to keep letting the religious people tell us what THEY think is the truth. We've learned so much about the universe, and hopefully we'll use this knowledge to push man-kind to evolve with the universe.

 

[Torkuda]

Yay, pointless religion bashing! Seriously buddy, you're towing the line. The religious would then bash astronomy for making us assume we know things about the universe that ultimately we have good cause to be unsure of. I wonder if some folks think Star Trek, at least in part, portrays how far we've ACTUALLY come. We're not there people. Right now we're looking at the stars and making guesses. Educated guesses, but look at all the theories we had about the moon before we landed. Some right, some wrong, some like Nostradomous predictions, give em' a spin and they kinda work. Point is, without dredging up religion, discovery is a process. We haven't even managed to leave the solar system and we have folks convinced that we know precisely what happened during the first ten seconds of the universe six trillion years ago, and declaring you uneducated when you say "yea... no.". I'm sorry, but can we NOT make scientists the new gods?

 

[Fireaxe]

Okay, so I'll preface that. What has it done for mankind? Personally as a person with libertarian type views, I think it's done remarkably well to be as successful as it is, considering all the public funding it receives, but that's hardly a commendation.

NASA has been directly responsible for a large portion of scientific progress in the past 60 years, there are a large number of innovations and discoveries that NASA found while working on something else that the private sector was been given access to and made a lot of money from (and paid taxes on -- certainly enough to cover the minuscule NASA operating budget).

 

[Esotera]

If you're approaching it from an economic approach, do you really need to think about anything other than the returns? Scientific research tends to be high risk, high reward, and has brought along several disruptive technologies - I'm sure astronomy has done wonders for the space sector & lenses etc.

From the scientific approach, it's very useful to know where we are in our universe and how our universe was created, because these questions have massive implications on all other fields of science. As our understanding of physics improves we can use it to create progressively better things. From a survival aspect you could say it's important as humanity needs to determine whether there are any hostile aliens out there, and find habitable bodies that we could eventually colonise.

It might not seem like constructing massive telescopes is the best way to answer these questions, but it is. Astronomy is not about stargazing (although that's what a lot of researchers spend their time doing)

 

[Yopaz]

Space is the future, man. It's inevitable. It's vast and unexplored and choking with things we could use. Plus, if we never find any life out there, it's technically all ours.

So is the ocean floor. Large amounts of rare mineral deposits, unknown species, fuel sources, accumulation of noble gasses and we actually know less about the ocean floor than we do about the surface of Mars. Don't see why space is where we should put our money other than the fact that spaaaaaaace.

OT: Astronomy is a poor way of telling the future and I don't believe in it at all! I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I just love deliberately mixing up astronomy and astrology. It has definitely been a useful field and based on the increased sun spot accumulation that happened in the 90's there's clearly a use for at least some of it (this is of course ignoring the importance of satellites which is useful enough on its own) in order to prepare for future events since it can cause some serious disturbances in the satellites and make large parts of our society collapse. Astronomy can used to minimize the damages, the costs and the panic if we were to get extreme levels of solar activity.

 

[FalloutJack]

Space is the future, man. It's inevitable. It's vast and unexplored and choking with things we could use. Plus, if we never find any life out there, it's technically all ours.

So is the ocean floor. Large amounts of rare mineral deposits, unknown species, fuel sources, accumulation of noble gasses and we actually know less about the ocean floor than we do about the surface of Mars. Don't see why space is where we should put our money other than the fact that spaaaaaaace.

Under the ocean is inevitable too. I'm not condemning either field of study. Didn't say you put all your eggs in one basket.

Captcha: Grand Slam

Yes indeedy.

 

[Yopaz]

Space is the future, man. It's inevitable. It's vast and unexplored and choking with things we could use. Plus, if we never find any life out there, it's technically all ours.

So is the ocean floor. Large amounts of rare mineral deposits, unknown species, fuel sources, accumulation of noble gasses and we actually know less about the ocean floor than we do about the surface of Mars. Don't see why space is where we should put our money other than the fact that spaaaaaaace.

Under the ocean is inevitable too. I'm not condemning either field of study. Didn't say you put all your eggs in one basket.

Captcha: Grand Slam

Yes indeedy.

The future should be something that's within our grasp rather than an ideal. I could say fusion reactors is the future, but after decades of work we're still unable to make it put out more than we put in. Spaaaaaace exploration is much the same. Only by finding some new technology that we have hypothesized may be possible (while our resources are depleting making it plausible that our technology will get worse) so it's more like science fiction than our actualm future at this point. So is ocean exploration for that matter. Lots of resources, but some of it is inaccessible and some of it just isn't worth the effort.

 

[FalloutJack]

Space is the future, man. It's inevitable. It's vast and unexplored and choking with things we could use. Plus, if we never find any life out there, it's technically all ours.

So is the ocean floor. Large amounts of rare mineral deposits, unknown species, fuel sources, accumulation of noble gasses and we actually know less about the ocean floor than we do about the surface of Mars. Don't see why space is where we should put our money other than the fact that spaaaaaaace.

Under the ocean is inevitable too. I'm not condemning either field of study. Didn't say you put all your eggs in one basket.

Captcha: Grand Slam

Yes indeedy.

The future should be something that's within our grasp rather than an ideal. I could say fusion reactors is the future, but after decades of work we're still unable to make it put out more than we put in. Spaaaaaace exploration is much the same. Only by finding some new technology that we have hypothesized may be possible (while our resources are depleting making it plausible that our technology will get worse) so it's more like science fiction than our actualm future at this point. So is ocean exploration for that matter. Lots of resources, but some of it is inaccessible and some of it just isn't worth the effort.

Funny that. There's an independent organization working to colonize Mars. Not really theoretical.

 

[Olas]

I've always been fascinated by astronomy. Not necessarily human space exploration itself which is somewhat dull, but of the vast reaches of space and all the crazy unimaginable shit that's out there. When I was a kid I wanted to be some kind of astronomer, before reality happened. The way I see it astronomy is the study of the other 99.9999999999999...% of what exists as opposed to just what's on this tiny little speck with us. Why anyone would not find it fascinating baffles me.

I couldn't care less about the financial benefits of it however. As far as I'm concerned learning about what's out there is it's own reward. Needing a justification for the funding is simply an annoying obstacle we'll have to contend with until we live in a post scarcity economy.

Anyone looking at distant planets and immediately thinking about the valuable minerals they hold probably doesn't deserve to explore them in the first place. At least that's how I see it.

 

[Yopaz]

Space is the future, man. It's inevitable. It's vast and unexplored and choking with things we could use. Plus, if we never find any life out there, it's technically all ours.

So is the ocean floor. Large amounts of rare mineral deposits, unknown species, fuel sources, accumulation of noble gasses and we actually know less about the ocean floor than we do about the surface of Mars. Don't see why space is where we should put our money other than the fact that spaaaaaaace.

Under the ocean is inevitable too. I'm not condemning either field of study. Didn't say you put all your eggs in one basket.

Captcha: Grand Slam

Yes indeedy.

The future should be something that's within our grasp rather than an ideal. I could say fusion reactors is the future, but after decades of work we're still unable to make it put out more than we put in. Spaaaaaace exploration is much the same. Only by finding some new technology that we have hypothesized may be possible (while our resources are depleting making it plausible that our technology will get worse) so it's more like science fiction than our actualm future at this point. So is ocean exploration for that matter. Lots of resources, but some of it is inaccessible and some of it just isn't worth the effort.

Funny that. There's an independent organization working to colonize Mars. Not really theoretical.

There are also organizations that have worked with fusion power for a long time and we keep hearing every 5 years or so that in just another decade we'll see it. Just because someone is working on it that doesn't mean it's really plausible.

 

[FalloutJack]

Space is the future, man. It's inevitable. It's vast and unexplored and choking with things we could use. Plus, if we never find any life out there, it's technically all ours.

So is the ocean floor. Large amounts of rare mineral deposits, unknown species, fuel sources, accumulation of noble gasses and we actually know less about the ocean floor than we do about the surface of Mars. Don't see why space is where we should put our money other than the fact that spaaaaaaace.

Under the ocean is inevitable too. I'm not condemning either field of study. Didn't say you put all your eggs in one basket.

Captcha: Grand Slam

Yes indeedy.

The future should be something that's within our grasp rather than an ideal. I could say fusion reactors is the future, but after decades of work we're still unable to make it put out more than we put in. Spaaaaaace exploration is much the same. Only by finding some new technology that we have hypothesized may be possible (while our resources are depleting making it plausible that our technology will get worse) so it's more like science fiction than our actualm future at this point. So is ocean exploration for that matter. Lots of resources, but some of it is inaccessible and some of it just isn't worth the effort.

Funny that. There's an independent organization working to colonize Mars. Not really theoretical.

There are also organizations that have worked with fusion power for a long time and we keep hearing every 5 years or so that in just another decade we'll see it. Just because someone is working on it that doesn't mean it's really plausible.

Oi, ye of little faith. I know fusion power isn't working. Space travel isn't theoretical power generation. It's rocket science. Furthermore, it's the first try, not a series of unfortunate mess-ups. Yeesh, it's like the LHC all over again, people thinking they'll destroy the world...

 

[NiPah]

I see a thread about astronomy, but then I also see you bringing up your political viewpoint and an offhand remark that given the money they received their accomplishments are not commendable, hoo-boy.

So if you're interested in what those "mega telescopes" are used for here you go:
http://www.keckobservatory.org/images/files/WMKO_StateProfess_Astro2010ver2.pdf
http://www.keckobservatory.org/images/files/Akeson_NASAKeck_FFP_IPP.pdf
http://www.keckobservatory.org/images/files/Creech-Eakman_OptInterferometry_FFP.pdf

And your quote:

We haven't even managed to leave the solar system and we have folks convinced that we know precisely what happened during the first ten seconds of the universe six trillion years ago

You'll have to link me the exact theory you've disproved due to interstellar travel, for the life of me I can't think of how getting a human into interstellar space would disprove any current theory on the origin of our universe but I'm open to new knowledge.

Oh and on the topic above you mention that by disagreeing with your as yet unexplained disproving of said theory we are making scientists the "new gods", that statement just leaves me baffled and you'll have to explain it a bit better, unless you're defining god as an individual with more knowledge then those who disagree with them in such a fashion as your own, which I guess they are gods.

There are additional questions I have with your above comments, but I'll let you explain the above first before we get to which experiments with black holes you're quoting from (just in case have the published journal article ready, they can be a ***** to find).

Oh yes, on topic;
As long as we're stuck on Earth humanity is doomed to die, the faster we develop technology and colonize space the less likely we'll die as fast.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

I'll say two things that have a little to do with astronomy...

1. If we're truly alone in the universe it seems like an awful waste of space.
2. It seems illogical for the universe to create minds such as ours with a time limit based on crude matter, that when we expire there's nothing afterward... Illogical and wasteful... "Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter" - Yoda


Onto the question: Space is our future and the best way for our species to bond together once we find a way to travel FTL... then resources and land won't matter for shit and we can move beyond petty fights over who has more gold or oil...

 

[Skeleon]

It's the only chance for long-term human survival, so... go for it. And be quick about it.

 

[Yopaz]

Space is the future, man. It's inevitable. It's vast and unexplored and choking with things we could use. Plus, if we never find any life out there, it's technically all ours.

So is the ocean floor. Large amounts of rare mineral deposits, unknown species, fuel sources, accumulation of noble gasses and we actually know less about the ocean floor than we do about the surface of Mars. Don't see why space is where we should put our money other than the fact that spaaaaaaace.

Under the ocean is inevitable too. I'm not condemning either field of study. Didn't say you put all your eggs in one basket.

Captcha: Grand Slam

Yes indeedy.

The future should be something that's within our grasp rather than an ideal. I could say fusion reactors is the future, but after decades of work we're still unable to make it put out more than we put in. Spaaaaaace exploration is much the same. Only by finding some new technology that we have hypothesized may be possible (while our resources are depleting making it plausible that our technology will get worse) so it's more like science fiction than our actualm future at this point. So is ocean exploration for that matter. Lots of resources, but some of it is inaccessible and some of it just isn't worth the effort.

Funny that. There's an independent organization working to colonize Mars. Not really theoretical.

There are also organizations that have worked with fusion power for a long time and we keep hearing every 5 years or so that in just another decade we'll see it. Just because someone is working on it that doesn't mean it's really plausible.

Oi, ye of little faith. I know fusion power isn't working. Space travel isn't theoretical power generation. It's rocket science. Furthermore, it's the first try, not a series of unfortunate mess-ups. Yeesh, it's like the LHC all over again, people thinking they'll destroy the world...

Fun fact: More than 99% of our energy has its origin in fusion. So fusion os not merely theoretical, it's astrophysics and nuclear physics.

Also you missed my point entirely. Just because there's work on a project that doesn't mean it will go anywhere. Since you don't believe in fusion let me bring up a few other examples. There are research projects that have tried to find out why we hit puberty. Lots of research, well known subject, years of work. Cause unknown. How does the brain alternate between short term and long term memory and how is long term memory stored? Currently we understand short term memory and we know that the limbic system is involved with long term memories, but not how and why. How do birds navigate? How do chemical catalysts behave over the course of a reaction? What is the connection between media and violent behaviour? How can we determine how much impact singular genes have on an organism throughout its life?

We should always wait for any sort of results before we start saying "this is the future dammit!" because more often than not things don't pan out. Either we can't do it at all or we can't do it without breaking the bank. We can improve planes with our current knowledge and technology, but it would end up costing more and thus it has been abandoned. I'm not saying we won't colonize Mars, I'm just saying I won't hold my breath, but if you think you can hold your breath that long, go for it.

 

[Pharsalus]

So you're saying some more money in the worlds pockets (which statistically would be spent on weapons), is worth more than all the knowledge of stars. Knowledge has no intrinsic value basically. Even if you could show that the effort that has gone into astronomy would save x number of lives your still missing the point. Even if we never make it to the stars the knowledge we have gained is an achievement in itself. I can't even think of how to argue with you man, how can you think that a science, a legacy of continuing discovery in the bounds of our experience isn't worthwhile?