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Post by Cyberpaladin85 on Oct 14, 2003 23:48:39 GMT -5
China has successfully launched it's manned space mission. This is only the beginning of China's space program. They plan to explore the moon within three years and sometime in the future start a Mars colony. Exciting, isn't it?
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Post by Dr. Doom III on Oct 15, 2003 0:27:40 GMT -5
Maybe this can get NASA off it's ass. If Bush's wars don't bankrupt your country.
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Post by Draxy on Oct 15, 2003 0:42:08 GMT -5
Hi Doom,
NASA has NEVER sat on it's ass. Their funding is a grotesque joke even for what they manage to do with it. Give them the funding necessary and the US will have half the system colonized before the dawn of the 22nd century. The will to do so is there, as firery and passionate as ever, but the money to do it is SORELY lacking.
Draxy
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Post by Dr. Doom III on Oct 15, 2003 0:49:51 GMT -5
Never said the sat on it by choice.
But sat on it they have. When was the last moon landing? When were the Space Shuttles made?
Not to much but ass sitting and lame ass robot missions.
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Post by Hussar on Oct 15, 2003 1:46:18 GMT -5
The last moon landing was 30 years ago I believe. ;D
Have you guys checked out the X-prize? Now that's interesting. Make space exploration private.
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Post by Draxy on Oct 15, 2003 3:01:50 GMT -5
Hi Hussar,
Have you ever read Heinlein's "The Man Who Sold the Moon". Great read and, I think, not too far off the mark except that it's far too kind to the Corporate mindset. Still, it might be the way to go, since Bush has wrecked the US economy to the point that NASA's funding will probably decrease in the next decade and they don't have enough to even keep present projects going as it is. Atleast we'd have Corporate money doing something useful for a change.
Draxy
BTW: My inner Lich brought something to my attention and, errrr, I'm sure you know this anyway, but either your inner gorrilla is having a really wretched hair day, or someone slipped a orangutan into the gene pool somewhere along the line.
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Post by Hussar on Oct 15, 2003 3:56:45 GMT -5
Hey, if he wants to be called a gorilla, are you gonna argue with him? The thing is, Nasa has become like any other large government body, bloated and more worried about their budget than in doing any science. Look at NASA's proposals for a Mars mission. They were talking about sending something like a hundred people or more on the mission sometime in the next decade. A gentleman, whose name I have forgotten at the moment, came out with a workable plan for putting a crew of ten on Mars in the next five years. It is a feasible plan and everyone agrees that it is workable. But, because a bunch of NASA bureaucrats wouldn't be able to suck on the government teat for the next twenty years and protect their retirement packages, the idea will never happen. Certainly, NASA's budget constraints are a problem. But, the current mindset of NASA's administration is also at least partially to blame. NASA really needs to get some decent management in there and produce some results.
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Post by Draxy on Oct 15, 2003 5:13:16 GMT -5
What you neglect to say with that, is the proposal made, would require scrapping twenty percent of the present projects underway.
While I agree that the "hundred man, sleeper ship proposal", which is what I think you're refering to, is ludicrous, the reason for it's presentation was probably NOT to insure retirement packages, since damned near EVERY scientist and support personnel that work at NASA could make more in the private sector if they were as money driven as you paint them, is probably more this:
"When you adress Congress, you always ask for thirty times what you actually need; and suggest projects with immense amounts of fat on them, so that the Congress-critters can trim it and hack it and cut it down to the point that they'll actually give you almost half of that number that you actually needed and still look good to their constituents."
That is a paraphrase quote from Sean O'Keefe, a NASA administrator I was fortunate enough to be able to chat with some years back.
You might be surprised by how much lower than private sector averages that the people who work for NASA make for similiar output. It puts an entirely other spin on things too.
Draxy
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Slag
Soldier
F'n A, mate!
Posts: 157
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Post by Slag on Oct 15, 2003 14:50:59 GMT -5
"When you adress Congress, you always ask for thirty times what you actually need; and suggest projects with immense amounts of fat on them, so that the Congress-critters can trim it and hack it and cut it down to the point that they'll actually give you almost half of that number that you actually needed and still look good to their constituents." No kidding... Like the old joke goes: "They say that the Pentagon was originally supposed to be a standard, four-sided building, but when they first proposed building it the DoD added in a fifth side to the requirement as padding. To everyone's surprise the fifth side was accepted."
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Post by Wyrmfire on Oct 15, 2003 17:01:50 GMT -5
I seriously doubt that anyone will get a space colony going in the forseeable future. To be honest, aside from scratching the human psyche behind the ears, the benefits just aren't there. We don't need extra space, because we still have room to expand down here, for the moment. Same with food and rescources. We have enough to eat (obviously, this can be contested, but I am talking about from the perspective of the people with enough technology to build spaceships, not third world countries), we are doing okay mineral wise, (we can still afford not to tap Alaska, for example), and there is no indication that the Earth will be unsafe in general for a very long time.
Think about it in terms of the age of exploration and the colonization of the New World: the drive for colonization was fueled by three things; Christianity, gold, and overcrowding. All three had to be there before colonization was on in full.
The influence of christianity was then what the science fiction books are now, the drive to colonize for purely impractical reasons. They dreamed of converting whole populations to christianity, we dream of faster than light travel, but its the same kind of motivation, in my view. Unfortunately, this is the only motivation we have right now, and we need all three. There must be some reason for governments to make a concerted effort at colonization, either rescources or rivalry. And, second, there must be a reason for people to actually go to the middle of nowhere and start new lives. The easiest way to fulfill this requirement is to not have enough room for them in the first place.
So, we will eventually colonize space, but only if New York meets LA in the middle of the country and/or we find a lot more up there than we have so far.
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agamoto
Soldier
Greetings and salutations one and all!!
Posts: 239
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Post by agamoto on Oct 15, 2003 17:32:09 GMT -5
Well, if more people like me had the resorces to work with, space would become crowded real quicly. I like the idea of exploring just because I haven't been there yet. The unknown is reason enough for me. Like some one once said when aked why he was climbing a mountain,"because it is there.".
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Post by MjolnirH on Oct 16, 2003 1:31:05 GMT -5
yeah we had all those plans too and see where we still are. I mean McDonalds has already bought the rights for the first returant in space
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Post by Hussar on Oct 16, 2003 2:40:34 GMT -5
The idea of colonization as an outlet for overpopulation simply will never work. We cannot send people out fast enough and in large enough numbers to alleviate population problems down here.
Actually, when you think about it, the colonization of North and South America had little to do with population pressures and a lot more to do with political expediency. Get rid of your agitators by sending them to the "New World". However, this won't work in space since it is far to costly to do this.
The point of colonizing space isn't to relieve pressure, nor is it a method of releasing stress on the environment. The point is to not have all our eggs in one basket. If you look at the Earth's history, you realize that every so often, nature gets wiped pretty clean either by several tons of ice or a great flaming rock slapping into it. Either one spells the end for us. Put a colony on Mars and now, you can afford to get whacked with a great big ball of crap. The other colony can wait a couple of centuries and then repopulate the homeworld pretty quickly.
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Post by Draxy on Oct 16, 2003 9:30:13 GMT -5
Hi Wyrmfire,
If and when colonization actually begins it will very probably be to exploit the unimaginable resources available to a space going society.
I remember reading that because of elemental consangunuity it is strongly believed that many asteroids will be heavily comprised of limited elemental types. This means that if you find an asteroid that has fissionables, like plutonium, which is rare here, it will very likely be jammed with them. One projection that I've read discusses the probability that on an average asteroid where there are strong plutonium veins that you would have relatively immediate access to more of it than has been mined on Earth in the last 50 years... and there would LIKELY be hundreds or thousands of such asteroids.
Nickel, iron and the industrial metals are extremely common but do not require that we strip mine our hills and mountains here to obtain it, again, in quantities that stagger the mind.
Wyrmfire, you say "we are doing okay mineral wise, (we can still afford not to tap Alaska, for example)" but that isn't accurate.
First, Alaska doesn't belong to the world community, but to the United States, and secondly, while we can still extract the minerals we want or need, we are severely damaging our ecology to do it in such a way as will provide enough raw materials to work with.
Somewhere it was quoted in a science fiction book that "in space it's raining soup, and we don't even know about bowls". That is an apt statement, just with the possibility of mining the asteroid belt, hell, of just mining half a dozen asteroids total.
Too, "space technologies" have ALWAYS had massive return for investments. In computer technology, in medical technology, in energy production technologies, we owe more to the space program for our advances in the last century than we owe even to wars, mankinds normal impetus to advance.
The return for something that, on the surface, sounds as inane as colonizing Mars is VERY LIKELY to be greater than a like amount of money spent on food production technologies; something we are sorely lacking in, truth be told.
They say that by the dawn of the 22nd century there will be, at the present birth/death rate, more than FIFTEEN BILLION souls in this poor, over burdened eco system. That is less than 100 years away friend. My son and daughters may live to see that time. I hope they are out off of this dear mud ball of ours because if there are still no colonies, with the population pressures then, the quality of life for everyone but the very rich would all but have to be not worth living by our standards.
Hi Hussar,
I am FAR less worried about a rock or ice ball smacking us than some moron with too much power and a godhood delusion making this fragile eco-system we depend on untenable. The chances of our getting hit by something that causes a horizon level event are slim to non-existant anytime in a future tha has any real meaning. Sure, it could happen tomorrow, but the likehood is as great that it won't happen for millions of years. Man's own moral and ethical stupidity though... especially when linked with his brilliance for creation... THAT gives me nightmares.
Draxy
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agamoto
Soldier
Greetings and salutations one and all!!
Posts: 239
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Post by agamoto on Oct 16, 2003 10:36:56 GMT -5
Unfortunatly Drax, I have to agree with your last statement, I sincerly wish I could dissagree with it but I can't come up with a plausable argument.
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