h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm with Pedro on that one..
There is a tendency amongst US top politicians to either start a war, or a huge weapons program when their economy starts to come unglued. Given that the infamous Military Industrial Complex accounts for up to a third of the United State's economic output, they can actually stimulate their economy with government funds, whilst seeming not to. I wonder how much of the renewed space program is Government interference in a free market economy, just dressed up differently..
Rant Over

Personally, as someone who grew up watching stuff like Star Trek, I love the idea of exploring space. So I think going to the moon again would be pretty .

The space programme seems to be one of the things us humans use to continue to learn about our planet, the places around it and everything else.( Life the Universe and Everything..?)

I also think we have a responsibility not to put goals, like going into space again, before the more mundane(?) things like trying to give ongoing aid to countrys which need it.

I also wonder about how much is jettisoned when we go ito space. We may not think it effects anything now ,but 50 years ago we knew a lot less about how we are affecting our own environment is it wise to leave parts of our old space vehicles floating in space?

'Moondust' by Andrew Smith is a fascinating and sometimes very moving account of one man's quest to find and talk to the remaining Apollo astronauts. There are some very interesting thoughts and viewpoints in there on whether we should go back to the moon, as well as unique insights on what it's like to have gone there.

For me, just the thought that (at the time the book was published) there are only 9 people left alive who have seen our world from the surface of another planet is rather sad. Since Apollo, manned space travel has taken a giant leap (or a small step) backwards.

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Lx

I wonder what happened to the desire to just explore, to simply be places that no ones ever been?

I remember watching some interviews with Armstrong and some of the other Apollo astronauts. I was struck by how their outlook on the world and humanity seemed to have been radically altered by going to the moon.

I also got a definte sense of melanchollia, especially from Armstrong. As if they expected to be the first of massive wave of space exploration that never came, or simply wanted to go back up there.

Yeah, personally I hope that a new frontier opens up soon, and I don't much care where it is. Space seems like a good option. I simply can't take much more legal encrustation, bureaucracy, and overcivilization. Even without potential colonization, however, I think that it's too valuable a bit of technology to let slide. Honestly, we've barely made any real improvements to space travel since the shuttles came out. Even when the ISS's plastic bits are being eaten by a fungus we're not really working on solutions and technology... does that seem wrong to anybody else?

They probably stopped going when they ran outof astronauts and the ones they had left weren't thrilled about being possibly blown to , plus there wasn't a restaurant that delivered and no baseball!

There are so many places left on Earth that we know nothing about so rather than sending people up into space, why can't they explore the planet we live on before trying to ruin another one?

Will

Because some men prefer conquering than cleaning up after themselves

"I remember watching some interviews with Armstrong and some of the other Apollo astronauts. I was struck by how their outlook on the world and humanity seemed to have been radically altered by going to the moon"

In what ways? Sounds interesting. Can you give any specific details or links? I did hear that an astronaut (may have been a moon lander but not sure) found he could cover the earth with his fist and was never the same again.

A space elevator? That sounds more like it! That would surely capture the public's imagination and be more useful than a moon/mars trip. But now to £££ considerations....how much are we talking roughly?

It was a TV programme on ages ago, i can't remember what it was though

I think they described how small and fragile the earth looked from the moon and how you could pretend to hold it between you finger and thumb, which changed their perspective on our world and humanity.

It was somewhere in 'The Planets', a BBC programme...

"There are so many places left on Earth that we know nothing about so rather than sending people up into space, why can't they explore the planet we live on before trying to ruin another one? "

But they are exploring the planet we live on. The Earth is a fascinating place and there are tons of researchers (geologists, botanists, zoologists, sociologists, oceanographers, volcanologists, etc) dedicating their whole life to understanding different aspects of it. Space is fascinating and awe-inspiring too though, so why can't you do both at the same time? And when exactly would you say "ok - Earth is done, let's start researching space now"?

The fact that we have gone to the Moon is one of the most inspiring things humanity has done, because it puts a lot of the things we do in some perspective. It shows that we are capable of great constructive achievement and that if we pull together we can overcome huge challenges. It also creates a kind of moral perspective : that a race that can put a man on the Moon should not be condoning intolerance and hatred, damage to our environment and mass acts of destruction. Whether putting a man on Mars would really change this picture, I am not so sure.

I think we should continue to research the effect of space on humans, and go back to the Moon again when we are ready, but maybe to spend a bit more time making sure that we can do a longer trip as cheaply and efficiently as possible. I would put the odds on humans dying on a trip to Mars at 80% at the moment - that's not an acceptable risk to take.

"I would put the odds on humans dying on a trip to Mars at 80% at the moment - that's not an acceptable risk to take."

But thats just the point, space travel will never be safe so where does the risk become acceptable? If 80% is too much, would 79% be ok? 78%?

Humanity has got where it is by taking risks, and that will have to continue. There have been numerous deaths in the global space programmes already, with some before they even leave the launchpad (Grissom, White, Chaffee) in circumstances that with hindsight look blindingly dangerous.

I have a couple of kids and I joke with my eldest (4 years) that I would love her to be the Mission Commander on the first Mars mission.
Friends of ours are horrified and say "But what about the risk?" to which I reply it is far better to have lived dangerously and achieved something than not to have tried and been safe.

Yes, it's a good point. It actually raises an interesting issue about whether our insurance dominated and risk-averse society can really achieve the types of discoveries like that any more without considering the consequences.

I would tend to view it from the perspective that, in the case of Mars travel, there are alternatives that could be worked on first of all: robot probes, human exposure to the space environment, practice on the Moon. I think that, at least, we should do more work to reduce the risk before we embark on a mission. As you say, you can never eliminate the risk, but you could do things to reduce it.

There is an analogy between space exploration and deep sea diving associated with the offshore oil industry. When offshore oil got rolling around the early 70's all sorts of maintenance and inspection tasks were carried out by divers. It was a hazardous business especially as water depths increased. The diving industry was well regulated and safety was paramount.

However what really improved sub-sea safety was the development of ROV technology that allows the same tasks to be carried out by robots. There have been some absolutely stunning successes by unmanned space probes over the last 30 years: Mariner, Galileo, Magellan and Messenger to name a few.

And this is what leads me to be very, very suspicious of Bush's latest space plans. In 1996 I remember reading in the Oil Field press the Neocons speculative plans to invade Iraq, secure US oil supplies and push the price of oil to $60 a barrel.

Nasa plans return to Moon by 2020

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4261522.stm

We do need to get back out in space soon. Otherwise it will be up to the generation that didn't get to climb trees as children as they might break a bone. Do you really see a generation that grew up wrapped in cotton as able to do anything which has the risks space travel has? I fear things might stagnate, and it's back to donkeys and hamlets.

Pick me! Pick me!

They were looking for Danish astronaut applicants recently. But those damn height requirements leaves me out. That and my lack of any kind of qualifications.

I'd go but I did biology at school, not physics

Well, they do biological experiments on the ISS.