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Spiffor
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CPA - Evil Clone brigade
Nov 2001
time: 06:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Berzerker
Wasn't useless or futile for those "exploring" or those being "explored", millions died here |
Considering we're exploring uninhabited planets, this won't be a problem.
quote:
and back in the old world as the riches of the new world fueled more wars instead of solving problems. |
1. This is false. Thanks to the discovery of the new world, new plants were found (tomato, potato...), which considerably improved the ordinary man's life.
2. Besides, such a thing can be said of absolutely any economic venture: the wealth it creates can be abused. Should I understand that you're a hippie who wants us to abandon wealth and go back to the caves?  Finding wealth through exploration isn't more conducive of abuse than any other economic venture.
quote:
Now, where up in the sky do you see something comparable to the new world? |
Remember why the kings and merchants sent ships to the new world (and to most other parts of the world as well): to gather resources that were rare or inexistant in Europe. In this regard, you can look no further than the moon, which has rich deposits of a material useful for fusion power, which material is very rare on Earth. Or if we ever reach "peak oil", we could find huge quantities of hydrocarbons on Titan.
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Impaler[WrG]
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Cheif Manufacturing Officer of Morgan Industires
May 2002
time: 22:37
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NASA has been VERY succesfull at in its Scientific Probes, yes they do fail often but the important point is that they fail "Going ware no probe has gone before" and that makes all the difference. Each Probe is unique and it strives to answer a REAL scientific question and build our knowlage.
The Shuttle and Space Station programs are just the opposite, they repetedly do again what has already been done and do not add to our knowlage in any way. We have had decades to study the human body under weightless conditions (and the russians having had a space station of their own were able to perform much longer studies then the US), the chessy little experiments like watching the web a spider spins in zero gravity and other "science fair" dribble do not justify the costs involved. The whole Shuttle/ISS boodogle represents one of the most agregess wastes of funds ever, not because of wastfull enginers or buricrates but because the work fundamentaly serves no purpose and dose not move us towards any greater understanding or exploration of space.
To realize how this could happen you must go watch the space voyage scene in 2001 (the part ware they play the Blue Danue). Now remember THIS was seen to be the future of Space. People expected us to be on the moon in perminent settlments in about 50 years. The Shuttle was actualy designed to be A SHUTTLE, a mear space taxi to take us to massive Pinwheel space stations from which we would travel to the moon and assemble nuclear powered ships to reach Jupiter and other such grandious endevers.
But it was all too much too fast. The tecnology simply wasn't up to the task, a single stage to orbit vehicle wasn't feasable (and still isn't today as the X-33 shows). The Shuttles massive maintance costs combined with Budget reductions left nothing but table scraps which were used for Probes (ironicaly this has been the only money put to good use). The Giant Pinwheel stations were never built, the moon was never colonized, the missions to Jupiter sound laughable. At first this didn't seem so bad their were Satalites to launch and studies to make in Low Earth orbit, but if one looks closly you can see the cracks. All this mucking around in LEO and the much touted "spin off" tecnologies like tang and thouse airo-foam matresses are a proxy goal feed to the world to mask the UTTER AND COMPLETE FAILURE OF THE INITIAL VISION!!
Even now as we pour Billions into the ISS, we will not move any further "out" into space. If the Shuttle is a space taxi with no destination the ISS is a space RV with no destination. We cant colonize anything in space with the shuttle lift costs and the ISS wont be used in any kind of manned mission beyond Earth, like a landing on Mars for example. No concivable mars missions involves space based assembly of vehicles. The cheapest and thus likliest senario involves several complete boster stages being lifted seperatly and docked in a train to a crew capsule then injected to mars without the astronauts even using the station. Likewise the return to earth would involve the astronauts entering a small apollo size capsule and simply splashing directly down in the ocean, this saves millions of pounds of fuel because no fuel is expended to brake a ship into earth orbit.
The solution is clear, imediatly scrap the Shuttle and ISS, the Billions that would be freed up by this (even after we buy off the other nations that were going to be part of the ISS) could be put into basic research which has been neglected for decades. Their are so many new ideas for drive systems out their. Take the Ion Drive for example againits the Probes that are realy advancing our understanding here both in Astronomical knowlage but also in drive tecnology. These things should realy be developed untill they can become the backbone of a "post rocket" space transportation system. Then we can return to manned space flight with the vigor and enthusiam that comes from going ware no one has goon before.
quote:
we could find huge quantities of hydrocarbons on Titan |
Spiff are you listening to yourself?? Oil from Titan a Moon what ~8 Astronomical Units away! It could be raining Diamonds on Titan and it wouldn't be economicaly viable. For that matter the moon could be made of solid gold bars and it wouldn't be worth mining. The production of Biofuels from crops (a major industry in Brazil) would be orders of magnitude cheaper even if it required every internal compustion or turbine engine on earth to be replaced.
Last edited by Impaler[WrG] on 29-07-2005 at 13:11
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Berzerker
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topeka, kansas,USA
May 1999
time: 23:37
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quote:
Considering we're exploring uninhabited planets, this won't be a problem. |
Uninhabited? Euros lucked out in the virus wars, I'm not eager to test that luck again with extra-terrestrial viruses.
quote:
1. This is false. Thanks to the discovery of the new world, new plants were found (tomato, potato...), which considerably improved the ordinary man's life. |
It ain't false, the Spanish plundered the new world for gold and used it to fund even more warfare and millions died in both the new and old world. How many would have survived had anti-biotics been developed first?
quote:
2. Besides, such a thing can be said of absolutely any economic venture: the wealth it creates can be abused. |
Which is why the world would have been better off had Europeans concentrated on improving their part of the world first. The fact is the wealth was used for abuse...
quote:
Should I understand that you're a hippie who wants us to abandon wealth and go back to the caves? |
Abandon wealth? My position is we shouldn't waste wealth, not abandon it. You wanna abandon wealth? Shoot it off into space on your beloved shuttle. 
quote:
Finding wealth through exploration isn't more conducive of abuse than any other economic venture. |
It is when so much wealth is wasted in the name of exploration.
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Spiffor
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CPA - Evil Clone brigade
Nov 2001
time: 06:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Berzerker
Uninhabited? Euros lucked out in the virus wars, I'm not eager to test that luck again with extra-terrestrial viruses. |
Please tell me how inhabited the planets on our solar system are.
quote:
It ain't false, the Spanish plundered the new world for gold and used it to fund even more warfare and millions died in both the new and old world. |
What is false is your claim that the exploration of the new world didn't solve problems. It considerably improved the diet of millions, and New World plants are largely responsible for the rarity of famine in today's world (even in Africa: most African will never experience famine in their lives - they are plagued by malnutrition, which is a different beast).
quote:
How many would have survived had anti-biotics been developed first? |
I strongly doubt we would have ever given anti-biotics to the natives.
quote:
Which is why the world would have been better off had Europeans concentrated on improving their part of the world first. The fact is the wealth was used for abuse... |
I don't see how "improving our part of the world" would make us any less prone to abuse a new source of wealth. It's human nature.
quote:
Abandon wealth? My position is we shouldn't waste wealth, not abandon it. You wanna abandon wealth? Shoot it off into space on your beloved shuttle. |
It was a jibe 
And I don't love the shuttle. It has outlived its usefulness, and it siphons money out of actually interesting science projects. What I'm defending is space exploration (something pretty cheap), and not the white elephants that are of very little use: the shuttle and the ISS.
And Space science is not useless at all, because of its great many technological offshoots.
If it wasn't for space science, we wouldn't have the computers we have now, nor Internet nor mobile phones, and these devices are instrumental in the amazing economic change we've been undergoing for 20 years.
If it wasn't for space science, we'd have much worse weather forecasts, which would mean a much more dangerous air and sea travel (especially in this day and age, where air travel is generalized, and international trade means a great amount of ships).
Militarily speaking, if it wasn't for space science, our ability to have "surgical strikes" would be much less, and every splendid little war would kill many, many more innocent people.
In short, even in a day where space isn't economically exploited, we're benefiting from very important technological offshots. The day we can exploit the riches on other planets, space exploration would pay off even more. Just imagine us strip mining other planets and stopping to do so on ours: much, much earthly pollution would be avoided, and many people would benefit from the improved environment.
quote:
It is when so much wealth is wasted in the name of exploration. |
5 billions (which is the cost of the actual space exploration at NASA, the 11 other billions are for white elephants) are nothing. One day in Iraq is more costly to the US than the yearly Space science budget. The Space exploration programme yields very interesting results from an academic perspective, and yields technological offshoots. I fail to see how it is a waste.
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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:37
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So we don't have to build a whole delivery system each time. Right now, the fleet really serves no purpose, but had it not been deliberately stripped of much of its funding, it could have been so much more.
Here's how the whole conservative destruction of government in the U.S. works.
Someone proposes Program A to fix problem A.
Conservatives decry it as big government, too expensive, etc.
Moderates agree to cut funding in the spirit of compromise.
Program A now has barely necessary funding to moderate problem A, let alone solve it.
Conservatives claim the results justify their initial opposition.
Moderates, in the spirit of compromise, agree to additional funding cuts, since reality seems to have proven the conservatives correct.
Program A now no longer has the funding to do its job at all, and only survives as a pet project. It serves not its originally intended function, but instead becomes a rallying cry for conservatives and "moderates" alike about the wastefullness and inefficiency of big government, but it is never actually killed, because conservatives wouldn't be able to ***** about to rile up supporters anymore.
Thus is the history of all good ideas in the U.S. government.
Last edited by chegitz guevara on 29-07-2005 at 17:45
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Spiffor
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CPA - Evil Clone brigade
Nov 2001
time: 06:37
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quote:
Originally posted by chegitz guevara
So we don't have to build a whole delivery system each time. Right now, the fleet really serves no purpose, but had it not been deliberately stripped of much of its funding, it could have been so much more. |
I agree with your description of the way conservatives destroy your government, but I think the shuttle was a bad idea from the beginning.
The re-useability of the shuttle makes it much more heavy than a non-reuseable (because you can't just throw off useless weight, you have to keep it around). As a result, it's economically much more expansive to launch a shuttle than to launch a non-reuseable. Every rocket launch is expansive and polluting (there is much, much fuel in these things), but the shuttle is worse in this regard.
The shuttle would have some merit if there was any reason to have a space vessel land gently on Earth when it comes back. For example, if the vessel brought back material from space. But for the time being, this is wholly useless, and it actually eats up tons of money that could go to genuine space science (and NASA is doing a very good job at it).
The shuttle may be cool, but it's not useful.
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DanS
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Kickball Capital of the World
Jan 1970
time: 00:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Yes it is. DanS made a flawed comparison. He can only compare it to other space agencies, such as the ESA, or Russian and Chinese counterparts. |
The Russians would be no worse for this comparison. They acquit themselves well on a budget that is economical.
Last edited by DanS on 29-07-2005 at 19:34
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Tingkai
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To find the Northwest Passage
Aug 2001
time: 13:37
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Really? What have the Russians done lately? Compare that to all that Nasa is doing.
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DanS
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Kickball Capital of the World
Jan 1970
time: 00:37
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Good question.
The Russians spend a half billion to a billion dollars year -- depending on the exchange rates -- on civil and manned space (what NASA does), about 1/20 NASA's budget.
For this, last year -- a year in which NASA did not launch a single manned mission -- the Russians put together 4 Progress resupply missions to the space station and 2 Soyuz manned recrewing missions, as well as their normal ground operations activities for the station. In addition, they put an earth remote sensing satellite (weather satellites aren't part of NASA's work but is rather part of NOAA's work State-side, but some other work such as climate change is part of NASA).
NASA launched: (a) Gravity Probe B, a satellite that had been "sitting in the hangar" for 40 years; (b) Messenger, a small probe to Mercury; and (c) Swift, a small gamma ray burst telescope. In addition, it did ground station operations, ground Hubble operations, and ground Mars rover operations, etc.
Every time the Shuttle launches, it spends the entire annual budget of the Russians. Even if the Shuttle doesn't launch, it still spends the money.
Last edited by DanS on 29-07-2005 at 21:26
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29-07-2005 09:17
We didn't need to send a probe for that, Venus is upside down, not rotating much at all, and ~ no magnetic field to deflect solar radiation. JPL knew all that and they still sold that waste of money to us with lies.
Missed the gay thread by a minute.
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