Lunacy from Brussels

Look at it this way: almost 40 years ago, when men walked on the moon, the doubters and nay-sayers said, "Why don't you spend that money on planet Earth, to help people?"

Well, that's what we've been doing. How much progress have we made in wiping out poverty and hunger and oppression and illiteracy?

It's to increase the scope of Human Knowledge. We want to know what's on the other side of the mountain. Humans are innately explorers. "Why do you want to climb that mountain?" "Because it's there."

If I had a choice of whether they spent my tax dollars on space exploration vs. killing machines, I know I, for one, would vote for space exploration.

Hope This Helps! Rich

The way I see it, that's precisely the attitude that will see the human race fizzle out drowning in its own s*it.

No wonder some people don't like you.

Thanks, Rich

Heh. Reminds me of "Crocodile Dundee". "Y'see that rock over there? Two guys arguing over who owns that rock is like two fleas arguing over who owns the dog."

You can't "own" property - what you can "own" is the title deed.

Also reminds me of Dr. Asimov talking about the Pilgrims and so on colonizing the New World - the new immigrants didn't need to know how to build and sail a ship - all they needed was a _ticket_.

I hope to see that in my lifetime. :-)

Cheers! Rich

OK, you can stay home in bed. You will never be _required_ to take a trip to orbit. Some of us want to do more than just sit and watch TV and eat junk food.

If you had a form, where you could answer the question: "How would you rather your tax dollars be spent: A: weapons of mass destruction, so that we can more effectively murder more millions of people, or B: Exploration, advancing the frontiers of Human Knowledge"

which would you pick?

And, make no mistake, the US has been stockpiling weapons of mass destruction since they discovered the Atomic Bomb.

Thanks, Rich

an

I'm reminded of the argument that man will never travel at the breakneck speed of a hundred miles an hour because at such a speed, he would be heated to boiling point instantly and/or the air would be sucked out of the vehicle. Such an argument was presented in the early days of trains. Perhaps you might also recall the time when elevators were considered so dangerous that women were not permitted to ride them, and champagne was served onboard.

There are several proposed approaches to the transit time problem, and time will tell which approach(es) are successful and which aren't.

Oh, and every interplanetary spacecraft built to date would be pretty much "instantly destroyed" if it hit an asteroid of any appreciable size. Look up "Hohmann transfer orbit" and run some quick numbers to get a feel for the likely KE difference between a spacecraft in one, and the objects it's going to encounter over most of the journey. While you've got the encyclopedia open, look up the definition of a meteorite.

Or just crack another beer and order another pizza. Put a sitcom on TV. Nobody is asking you to be adventurous, and CERTAINLY no power on earth is going to force you to think about anything; governments stay in power by quite the opposite means.

In what way is it useful ?

Graham

Back then, the space race advanced technology along with the military. Today, technology moves so fast that it's tricky to keep up. Note that the military likes COTS stuff these days.

Graham

That's what I meant. For any practical purposes, I doubt it will ever be feasible to shuttle resources regularly between planets. The idea is to export enough information and tools to allow the settlers to build whatever infrastructure they need in situ. Any "colony" that relies on supply shipments from home is not a colony, it's an outpost.

It's a self-limiting problem. You might as well say "it's dangerous to set out on a journey of a thousand miles with only five hundred miles of gasoline". You'll either refuel somewhere on the way, or you won't reach your destination - simple as that.

There is, at the bottom of it, no way of slowing human resource expenditure without slowing down the birth rate. Increasing the spread of post-secondary education appears to be the easiest and most politically palatable way of achieving this.

If it isn't controlled, there will inevitably be famines and wars over the remaining resources - which is exactly why the species needs to spread to areas where a local conflict like this can't wipe it out.

Read Virginia Valian's "Why So Slow" ISBN: 0262720310 for - amongst other things - a detailed discussion of why positive discrimination is necessary, at least until you've got roughly balanced number of men and women, or whites and Afro-Americans, in courses and jobs.

If you don't do it, the "black" schools end up getting the weakest teachers, smaller budgets, and old and poorly maintained buildings.

Pretty much everybody but the U.S, does "disarm the population" and most them have a ten times lower gun murder rate than you do, and the same sort of non-gun murder rate. The way the U.S. handles freedom of speech means that anybody with lots of money gets to broadcast their ideas and can swamp the opinions of the less well off.

ust so long as they don't have to pay to further yours ....

The problem with "reducing the government and pulling it out of peoples lives" is that without government regulation, business will degenerate into monopolies and cartels and exert exactly the same sort of arbitrary power over peoples lives, and you won't even be able to vote to chose between Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee. You've got anti-trust legislation precisely because this became an obvious problem around the beginning of the last century.

No.

--------- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

You're not *seriously* thinking we can colonise the planets are you ?

Please take a reality check pill. It's so berserk an idea it's funny. Do you think that the entire Earth has enough resources to lauch even a million shaceships ? While the oil runs out in the meantine.....

Btw - cultures will inevitably clash wherever they are. Even if that means new cultures having to develop to do so.

Graham

I rather doubt it actually. The NASA budget in the Apollo days was way higher than it is now.

Besides- what's the point of living on the moon ? Mars is too cold. Venus is too hot. No point in humans going there. Nothing worth seeing anyway.

Graham

True. I never could understand why those folks didn't stay in Europe and 'examine the underlying reasons', instead running away to to the 'New World'.

Dave

And they all happen to be owned by someone.

Ask the Chinese when they get there.

They, and a lot of others were stockpiling weapons of mass destruction long before they 'invented' the Atomic Bomb.

Canada is still trying to find 2,800 tons of poison gas they made during WWII, and they have a pretty reasonable idea where they put it. Not too good when you can't find your own weapons of mass destruction!

Dave

It won't happen ever to any meaningful degree. Not enough resources. Also a little problem of nowhere useful to go.

Star Trek is simply science FICTION. Fun for sure but fiction.

Graham

When I was a youngster it was popularly imagined we could colonise the oceans. As outer space is rather more difficult it may be time to reconsider the space cadet ideas ?

Graham

You'd better learn to get on with ppl then !

Graham

They are far too sensible to waste money on fripperies.

Graham