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MasterCaneman -> RE: NASA... why? (12/22/2013 8:09:34 AM)
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ORIGINAL: sweetgirlserves
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ORIGINAL: MasterCaneman
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ORIGINAL: FelineRanger
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ORIGINAL: TheHeretic
I watched Spaceship One claim the X-Prize from my front yard. I've watched the space shuttle coming in to land from my deck, and saw the final arrival of Endeavor in California from 150 feet off the runway.
My feeling is that commercial/private space is going to fuel a renewed interest. Maybe we'll get a reality show about tourists getting ready for their ride, and that will do the trick.
Sadly, I think there was a series planned about civilians preparing for a trip as space tourists that was canceled due to lack of interest. I think DarkLyDesires is right about interest in space exploration of any kind vs. basic survival.
I think it will be the realization that the Chinese are getting ready to start developing the lunar surface, and that is what's going to kick the next phase of the space age into gear. Even back in the heady days of the early program, they all knew that it wasn't really going to happen until someone figures out how to turn a buck on it. We are now standing near the point.
As for why most people aren't more enthused, most people have the attention span of gnats I've found. That's why the Duck Dynasty guy gets more airplay that what's happening on the next frontier. And ironically enough, it revolves around money. Another reason is that people have been spoiled by the SFX and CGI of movies and TV shows, and when they're faced with the real hardware and people, they universally go "meh", and proceed to bitch about their tax dollars being better spent on other things.
Space, in the terms being used here, isn't sexy. It's a hard, dangerous place that most people don't fully understand, and those three things tend to spook people off of things. It's easier to worry about what some pop singer is doing with who, what reality show team is going to win, or some other inane shit like that. But once someone figures out how to really start making it rain, so to speak, and it'll get sexier. That's the hope, anyway.
MasterCaneman,
No disrespect intended, and I'm sure I don't know enough, but I know enough to know, right now, I am more worried about what's going on on on the earth than what will be the next step on the moon.
What's that song, "One step, one step leads to an o o ther".
Sincerely,
~sgs
Consider this. Picture an infant in a crib. Over time, the infant grows up some, but never leaves it for one reason or another. As long as someone cares for the infant, it lives. If something happens to that someone, or the crib starts falling apart, the infant may die.
Humanity is that infant. Everything we are now and have been is located in one place. If something happens to that one place, cosmic or mundane, we stand to lose it all. A normal infant starts to try to walk at a certain time in its life, and using that as an example, we are at the 'pre-toddler' stage. We need to begin to spread out in order to assure our survival as a species. Only now are we learning just how dangerous our neighborhood is, and if we wish a meaningful future, our best chance is to become a multi-planet species, or at least one that knows how to create off-planet habitats.
And by all means, we should work on fixing up the crib, as it were. It makes sense, and can be done at the same time as we start to extend our reach. But it's imperative that we begin expanding outward as soon as we can, if only at first for economic reasons, then for nobler ones. NASA's budget is tiny compared to what we've wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan and the hundred other fires we've been pissing on for the last half-century. It's not a matter of it 'costs too much', it's that as a nation (and to an extent, the world), we're too focused on short-term goals.
Now is the time we should be putting on our walking shoes, in a manner of speaking, and start to explore the neighborhood. There is so much out there that needs learning, and still a lot here as well. What I'm trying to say is, we (as a species), need to take a serious look at what could be our possible future. Right now as it stands, we could manage to make ourselves extinct in several ways, we could meet our ends like the dinosaurs, or how the Great Die Off (the Permian Extinction event) occurred, which is believed to have been from a nearby gamma-ray burst. Boom-90% of all species on Earth died off overnight.
We need to spread out, scatter, and continue on and the only way to do that is to really learn how to cross that immense gulf of hazardous territory we call "Space". There are things out there that can benefit those on Earth as well. Orbital power generation is one concrete item I can mention at the moment, but there are also other benefits to be gained by undertaking this task. Spin-off products (like the computer or smart phone you're using to read this), medicine, materials science, even agriculture all benefited from the space program in the past.
By all means, we need to fix up the crib to ensure the infant is safe and healthy, but the time draws near that it has to begin to make plans to at least learn what the rest of the house is like. Hopefully, this wasn't too vague.
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