Yes, private individuals have taken it upon themselves to go on adventures; that's fine. Asking the public to pay the taxes to collectively finance a $400 billion adventure... That's something else entirely. The space race to the moon was accepted as necessary for our security and prestige. No such level of acceptance exists for a mission to mars; it looks like hubris, and a gargantuan waste of resources. That's my view and I'm a science nut. Now imagine trying to convince the voting public to accept the necessary tax hike... Dream on.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/05/experts-now-agree-humans-could-walk-on-mars-within-20-years/
As for Orsons obnoxious and ignorant remarks, the sum total financial support of 200 years of the humanities is dwarfed by a mars mission. You're out of your league; go back and join your high school buddies where your crass comments are more welcome.
Money is a crass way of looking at it. Think of it as an issue of resources. If a mars colony is tethered to earth, constancy depending on us for shipments of resources, then it's not the viable presence. If earth goes bad, everything tethered to it through dependencies goes bad too. In principal, a metal rich asteroid has all the resources a human colony would require for self sufficiency. Yes, that can be trivialized to a 'money' issue, but it's more than that. Throughout history, explorers have had to support themselves as they ventured forth. On mars, that would be very difficult. History tells us that the best path forward is one that places us on a sound footing, with a viable presence where ever we set down to explore, not a colony that's totally dependent on a continuous stream of deliverables from the homeland. Mars is a dump, and the moon is even worse. Resources do matter.
Arguably, perhaps mars is vastly superior to the moon, but the exact line of reasoning used to justify that arguement can be used to show that near earth metal rich asteroids are even better still. Presenting an arguement that we could limp along on the moon or mars is not the point; we have better options, and you've done nothing to challenge that premise.
In any even, it's academic. Nobody is going to fund an ultra expensive loosing proposition. It's been 40 years since we stopped going to the moon! Two consecutive generations of nothing! Produce a viable business model for a lucrative return to space, and we will go, and the asteroids offer that. The others are wishful thinking. There's no point arguing the matter. The 40 years of cheap talk and doing nothing by NASA, and plans falling into place by private enterprise focusing on asteroids is proving my point. In time, we will see where this all goes. I'm confident on my vision, and you can join up with newt Gingrich types and his moon colony ideas, and we will see who is proven right. Your own arguements focusing on resources show the path forward. I don't see the point in discussing this further.
Ugg, evacuation? Really, is that where this is going? In the time it takes to get a million people off earth, the population will likely grow by a billion. I'd give up on the evacuation plan. A mere sustainable presence elsewhere would be great.
Escaping gravity is the key, that's why mars is the worst, much of the gravity to overcome, and scares few resources to show for it. The asteroids have ultra low gravity, low escape velocity, and all the resources we could want. That's a better platform for launching some futuristic fleet worth of ships than struggling to overcome Mars's gravity and atmosphere, with nothing to show for the trouble. If we do manage to venture forth, to the outer reaches of the solar system, we will do so by hopping along a path of asteroids to get there... But don't hold your breath. We would need a reason for doing it, something more substantial than wishful thinking.
I don't want a space travel topic to degenerate into an environmental one, but if we are responsible with our resources, and live at equilibrium with our environment, we have plenty of time to worry about going elsewhere. My own suspicion is that we probably won't. It's that age old application of Occums razor, if we can go there so easily, why haven't all of them come here. Apparently, it's difficult. I'd like to imagine we can spread our kind to the stars by building probes with manufacturing capability, and the probes 'build' us, using availiable resources found on distant worlds, but traveling there seems to be difficult; as evidenced by the fact that the 'others' don't seem to have managed to get here.
I'll throw one last stone, hopefully not causing a flame. ironically, one flippant remark about moving earth to mars is not as silly as it sounds, seriously! NASA has written about an ultra long term possibility of using close flyby's of near earth asteroids to slowly transfer momentum to planet earth, nudging it incrementally, and causing it to migrate from its current location to where mars is now. Naturally, mars will need to be moved out of the way and migrate out as well. This was mentioned as a means for buying time, as our sun slowly gets hotter and the habitual zone migrates outward. In this way, we can keep the earth centered within this zone. We are talking about ultra long term plans here, 100 million years out, but it has been seriously discussed as a scientific endever that may be undertaken at some point.
I don't want a space travel topic to degenerate into an environmental one, but if we are responsible with our resources, and live at equilibrium with our environment, we have plenty of time to worry about going elsewhere. My own suspicion is that we probably won't. It's that age old application of Occums razor, if we can go there so easily, why haven't all of them come here. Apparently, it's difficult. I'd like to imagine we can spread our kind to the stars by building probes with manufacturing capability, and the probes 'build' us, using availiable resources found on distant worlds, but traveling there seems to be difficult; as evidenced by the fact that the 'others' don't seem to have managed to get here.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/05/experts-now-agree-humans-could-walk-on-mars-within-20-years/
I've taken plenty of heat for this already on this thread, but I'll respond to yacky's question as before: "Show me the money", If a viable business model can be presented for spending $100billion, one that will show a profit, then the money will present itself. I'd like to advance the space program too, but I'm not one to count on doing so on the backs of unwilling tax payers. I want it to happen, and I think we are getting closer to realizing it. I've discussed how that may happen above. I'll stand by my earlier claim, 40 years of little advancement proves my point, taxpayers are unwilling to pay for ultra-expensive adventures, we will advance the science far more by coming up with a profit-based motivation for doing so.
Fun4all,
I'm sorry. That was probably out of line on my part. I like a lot of things you've had to say on this forum, Fun4all. And as far as the mission of this forum is concerned, "Oh shut up about that already!" is probably among the least useful sentiments that could possibly be put forth.
No hard feelings I hope. I just got frustrated at seeing things get stuck in loops, when there seem to be so many other interesting places that the discussion of this topic could take us.
Cheers,
Matt
Again, I'm with you.
I really doubt unmanned, flying drones would have been developed for search and rescue or other civilian purposes. I wholeheartedly agree with Yackie and Fun4all in that respect.
Much like the Apollo missions, I think it will take some military-industrial motivation to push the U.S. into devoting resources to going into space.
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Fun4all and Tom, etc.,
You guys are probably right. I think my dissent stemmed mostly from a waning optimism that humans will keep trying to find new mountains to climb.
It can get pretty depressing reading about how unwilling we are to do so many of the things we ought to do--tackle social inequalities, try not to destroy the planet, etc.
It's probably more of a bullshit heartstrings argument on my part when I try to rationalize humanity trying new things for the sake of trying them. Still, a guy's got to hold on to something to look forward to.
It's trite. But I do find myself clinging to unlikely movements that try to make the world(s) better (Not sure how much attention you've been paying, but it can look pretty rough out there sometimes).
--Matt
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>... I think my dissent stemmed mostly from a waning optimism that humans will keep trying to find new mountains to climb.
Do not despair. Some of our high energy physics experiments for example have recreated conditions that have not been seen since the first few milliseconds after the Big Bang! Even super nova explosions fail to reach these temperatures. We are putting our mark on the universe, we are not done, and one never knows where advances will take us. Might we find a way to make a warp bubble to squeeze space and travel faster than light, might we tunnel through space, might we unlock energies we can't comprehend of now, who knows. However, we do know that a given method tends to go through a technology maturation curve of eventual diminishing returns. Rockets have not advanced all that much since the Saturn 5 days, and perhaps it's time to stop beating a dead horse. We will find opportunities. However, like the invention of the transistor or antibiotics, it will come on its own schedule, and may be difficult to rush. You see, maturing a given science can be rushed by throwing some money at it, but true breakthroughs are a different matter. They come when they come. Lol, perhaps I should tell an atheist group to 'have faith', nahhhhhhh.