Sir David Attenborough says we in serious trouble if we dont change our ways.

[Codz]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

My point is, the USA does not much support space travel anymore.

Just because we retired one type of ship doesn't mean we're done. We had an even longer gap between the Shuttle and the Apollo capsules in the 70's and NASA did just fine. NASA has recieved funding to develop a new rocket and capsule designed for BEO missions. We also have an incredibly advanced rover heading to Mars. We have astronauts on the ISS. We have a probe that's been actively exploring the Saturn system for years. To top it off, we have probes en route to Pluto, Ceres, and Jupiter. I'd hardly call all of that "not much".

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

That's about what i'm saying. We may or we may not see that drastic change (fall?) within our lifetimes, but given the way things are going and how they're being run, it's a safe bet that ship has already departed. The question really is, how long tell it gets here? We may see it, we may not. Odds are we won't see it, but our children or grandchildren will.



Yeah. Colonization? HA! We'd be lucky to set foot on the moon again. I doubt we ever will.

I don't think we will see the changes in our time. My two kids(17 and 14) have recognized issues in the world. My one daughter said she wants to adopt.

The moon again? Not with the current administration.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Codz

Just because we retired one type of ship doesn't mean we're done. We had an even longer gap between the Shuttle and the Apollo capsules in the 70's and NASA did just fine. NASA has recieved funding to develop a new rocket and capsule designed for BEO missions. We also have an incredibly advanced rover heading to Mars. We have astronauts on the ISS. We have a probe that's been actively exploring the Saturn system for years. To top it off, we have probes en route to Pluto, Ceres, and Jupiter. I'd hardly call all of that "not much".

We have been probing for decades. The rovers have been to Mars. The ISS looks to be a good will gesture to me. Currently, we ain't got nothing getting the USA to space. I do not hang my hat on space manned flight with the current administration.

[Codz]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

I don't think we will see the changes in our time.

Most people in the year 1875 probably didn't think that the world would progress very fast either. Less than one hundred years later we invented prop aircraft, jet aircraft, nuclear bombs, nuclear energy, manned and artificial space flight, and we walked on the Moon.

[Codz]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

We have been probing for decades. The rovers have been to Mars. The ISS looks to be a good will gesture to me. Currently, we ain't got nothing getting the USA to space. I do not hang my hat on space manned flight with the current administration.

The ISS has made numerable contributions to Earth ans space science. Those probes bring back an incredible amount of scientific information and have more "bang for the buck" than any single program that I've seen.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Codz

The ISS has made numerable contributions to Earth ans space science. Those probes bring back an incredible amount of scientific information and have more "bang for the buck" than any single program that I've seen.

I agree the ISS has provided some scientific finds. But I also believe it is good will gesture. Probes are more bang for the buck. I agree. I still stand that space exploration is not supported by this administration. Looking at your signature, space and all it entails is your interest. As such, what has the current administration accomplished in moving forward with space exploration? The shuttle has been retired. I believe private investment is engineering craft for manned space flight.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Codz

Most people in the year 1875 probably didn't think that the world would progress very fast either. Less than one hundred years later we invented prop aircraft, jet aircraft, nuclear bombs, nuclear energy, manned and artificial space flight, and we walked on the Moon.

Yes sir. As I posted with Ducimus, the USA industrial growth has been nothing short of astonishing. However, the growth IMO, is not as aggressive as it was. I don't believe there will be any astronomical breakthroughs in the coming decades.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

I think ideas of colonization are ummm, a bit far off the mark from what is possible in reality. Seriously, look at the current state of the world. It isn't exactly a stellar foundation for any star trek fantasy's.

"You understand what the Federation is, don't you? It's important. It's a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada."

Damn a humanitarian and peacekeeping armada... sounds like exactly what we need.

There are already members of the US military volunteering for missions to other planets. A Starfleet Foreign Legion?

Originally Posted by Oberon

Personally, I am in favour of an Orion drive system, however it would need to be built in orbit, which involves getting stuff up there.

The launch of an Orion would increase the yearly radiation exposure to the global population only a minimal amount. The largest nuclear blast ever (189 megatons) yealded an increased exposure of 0.11 mSv/yr, which has degraded now to 0.007 mSv/yr. An Orion would be equal to only a 10 mT blast. Currently you are exposed to 2.4 mSv of natural radiation every year.

Currently its possible to build nuclear devices that require only 2-3% Fission to detonate. Compared to something on the order of 60% for a normal H-Bomb. Fission is what (for the most part) makes fallout.

[Codz]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

I agree the ISS has provided some scientific finds. But I also believe it is good will gesture. Probes are more bang for the buck. I agree. I still stand that space exploration is not supported by this administration. Looking at your signature, space and all it entails is your interest. As such, what has the current administration accomplished in moving forward with space exploration? The shuttle has been retired. I believe private investment is engineering craft for manned space flight.

The Space Shuttle needed to be retired to clear funds for spacecraft that are specialized for BEO activities. Honestly, the current administration hasn't really been better or worse than the recent previous ones in my opinion(Bush, Clinton, Reagan). We haven't really had an administration that really cared about space since JFK/LBJ.

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by Codz

Most people in the year 1875 probably didn't think that the world would progress very fast either. Less than one hundred years later we invented prop aircraft, jet aircraft, nuclear bombs, nuclear energy, manned and artificial space flight, and we walked on the Moon.

Man rediscovered oil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...Modern_history

Originally Posted by Codz

We haven't really had an administration that really cared about space since JFK/LBJ.

Two words:

Cold War

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Codz

The Space Shuttle needed to be retired to clear funds for spacecraft that are specialized for BEO activities. Honestly, the current administration hasn't really been better or worse than the recent previous ones in my opinion(Bush, Clinton, Reagan). We haven't really had an administration that really cared about space since JFK/LBJ.

Agreed. I think private enterprise spacecraft can be designed and built much less expensively than what the gov't can do. Let's see what they can come up with.

I'm still of mind that earth itself has yet to reveal all she has. The rain forests contain numerous undiscovered species of plant, insect and animal. The ocean's depths are still a mystery. The problem here is we, as humans, are decimating these regions.

Let's look to the stars!

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Codz

Space exploration and colonization are an answer. Earth won't last forever.

We just heared the sound of the sea whgile still being far away from the shore, inside the land. We have not even dipped our toe into the waves at the beach - and you talk of crossing the ocean, settling on the other side, and building habitats at the deepest bottom?

In several centuries - maybe. I doubt that we have that much time. And sending two men to Mars and back - what meaning could that have? It may offend our boasting egos, but the meaning rates close around zero. Even a station on Mars, crewed with half a dozen person, means nothing for mankinds future.

And moon - I can not imagine to build habitats for huge autark colonies on moon. At best we will have a kind of robot mining up there, and automatted ore-transportation to Earth'S orbit. MAYBE. Moon has no atmospühere, and we have no idea how to get one up there. So, living there, colonies and all that - no. I think it also is not desirable. It would be like spendign all your life aboard a dived submarine. Whioch maybe only is bearable because a submarine can surface, if it wants, and open the hatches, and there you climb out and tank some sun and light and wind and fresh air. A moon colony can not "surface"..

And I do not think our technology is so solid and surviving that it would maintain human life for decades on Mars, in autarky, and independen t from Earth. We have nio technmology for realsitical terraforming in a forseeable timeframe. Even the flight to Mars can fail and kill the expedition just because one single chip for 8 cents breaks down. Our technology is not of that kind that we can trust it to run for generations.

We have visions, fantasies, yes, and I love them. But I am also aware that they are science fiction, and will remain to be that for another couple of centuries at last. If they ever get realsied at all. And that is a very big "if".

Either we get along on this planet, or evolution is done with this failed design of ours. I really wonder if inventing instrumental intelligence and these two hands of ours - marvellous tools - was such a great design of evolution. It has not resulted in a design that fosters life, increases its own survivability in the evolutionary race and does not exterminate itself. So what is it good for, from an evolutionary POV? It seems to bear no advantages. Other, less complex and sensible life forms seem to outlast us easily, and at a smaller cost to the planetary biosphere.

Chances are high that homo sapiens is a dead end of evolution. Sad, but I have started to take this possibility into account. And I think it is the one with the greatest probability.

In other words: No, like Attenborough I'm also not optimistic.

"We are too many." I keep writing this since years.

Meh.
Mankind will probably find a way to survive no matter what.
It just won't be the cozy, jaunt down to the deli, go home and watch cable TV, type life anymore.

Closer to Mad Max maybe.

[JU_88]

Originally Posted by Skybird

We just heared the sound of the sea whgile still being far away from the shore, inside the land. We have not even dipped our toe into the waves at the beach - and you talk of crossing the ocean, settling on the other side, and building habitats at the deepest bottom?

In several centuries - maybe. I doubt that we have that much time. And sending two men to Mars and back - what meaning could that have? It may offend our boasting egos, but the meaning rates close around zero. Even a station on Mars, crewed with half a dozen person, means nothing for mankinds future.

And moon - I can not imagine to build habitats for huge autark colonies on moon. At best we will have a kind of robot mining up there, and automatted ore-transportation to Earth'S orbit. MAYBE. Moon has no atmospühere, and we have no idea how to get one up there. So, living there, colonies and all that - no. I think it also is not desirable. It would be like spendign all your life aboard a dived submarine. Whioch maybe only is bearable because a submarine can surface, if it wants, and open the hatches, and there you climb out and tank some sun and light and wind and fresh air. A moon colony can not "surface"..

And I do not think our technology is so solid and surviving that it would maintain human life for decades on Mars, in autarky, and independen t from Earth. We have nio technmology for realsitical terraforming in a forseeable timeframe. Even the flight to Mars can fail and kill the expedition just because one single chip for 8 cents breaks down. Our technology is not of that kind that we can trust it to run for generations.

We have visions, fantasies, yes, and I love them. But I am also aware that they are science fiction, and will remain to be that for another couple of centuries at last. If they ever get realsied at all. And that is a very big "if".

Either we get along on this planet, or evolution is done with this failed design of ours. I really wonder if inventing instrumental intelligence and these two hands of ours - marvellous tools - was such a great design of evolution. It has not resulted in a design that fosters life, increases its own survivability in the evolutionary race and does not exterminate itself. So what is it good for, from an evolutionary POV? It seems to bear no advantages. Other, less complex and sensible life forms seem to outlast us easily, and at a smaller cost to the planetary biosphere.

Chances are high that homo sapiens is a dead end of evolution. Sad, but I have started to take this possibility into account. And I think it is the one with the greatest probability.

In other words: No, like Attenborough I'm also not optimistic.

"We are too many." I keep writing this since years.

Amen to that, Despite all of mans exceptional accomplishments and acts of greatness, our overall master plan seems to be; money comes first, breed like rabbits, muddle through.
Fail.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by JU_88

money comes first, breed like rabbits, muddle through.

Thats a way to put it, too.