iPod Generation Indifferent to Space Exploration 526
An anonymous reader writes "CNN tells us that today's young adults are no longer excited at the possibility of space exploration: 'The 2004 and 2006 surveys by Dittmar Associates Inc. revealed high levels of indifference among 18- to 25-year-olds toward manned trips to the moon and Mars. The space shuttle program is slated to end in 2010 after construction of the international space station is completed with 13 more shuttle flights. The recent 13-day mission by Discovery's seven astronauts was part of that long-running construction job.' As a result, NASA's budget will include a greater amount of public relations spending."
Sounds Fair (Score:5, Funny)
This is possibly insightful (Score:5, Interesting)
And I'm not surprised. The members of our generation (in their teens in the 60s, I guess) who were interested in space flight were not exactly your average passive consumer. My brother worked for NASA, and I did work on, among other things, rad-hard real time computers. When I was an undergraduate at a university not far from Ely, your audio system did not count unless you had built it yourself, from components, and by components I mean tubes, transistors, and for real kudos turn your own vinyl turntable out of an alumin(i)um blank.
Nowadays our modern equivalent, when it isn't doing the same kind of thing, is writing its own audio decoders.
The difference between then and now is quite simple. There is a lot more rubbish about. The size of the recording industry was not so bloated in the sixties and the bandwidth was much smaller. People built their own turntables, for the most part, to listen to Mozart and Wagner and (Richard) Strauss and perhaps Berio and Ligeti as I recall, not pop music which was beneath contempt; it was, after all, the product of multiple remixings from tape and there was no depth to bring out. Now, the record industry is trying to extend copyright still further on stuff with a shelf life of hours, and this is, for the most part, what will get loaded into iPods.
My conclusion? The Space Exploration generation and the iPod generation are probably practically disjoint sets. Sheep and goats, in fact. Nothing to see here; move along.
Re:This is possibly insightful (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree, perhaps YOU were, but the 60's were the rise of pop, it was when music started following the form it does today with an actual "recording industry", my folks huge collection of LP and 45's refute your account, as does the rise of Elvis in the late 50's and the Beatles in the 60's, both of which could be seen as the birth of modern music.
Regardless, I don't see what people's choice in music have to do with it.
I think literacy might play a role though, and not only in taste of reading, but actually reading. As probably does level of education. Both of which we're abject failures at now, starting around when the "iPod generation" was in school. I grew up loving science classes, and reading old pulp Sci-Fi, and I am an aberrant in the real world. Most people my age would rather not read a book, much less care what a bunch of disattactched men in lab coats are rambling about in vaguely confusing terms. I'm sure their is a high level of correlation between level of education and elective literacy and interest in space travel.
Re:This is possibly insightful (Score:5, Insightful)
It allows the OP to feel superior. Simple!
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This simply isn't true. I was born in England in 1960, and did not come from a wealthy family: both my parents worked, we lived in a rented flat, and I remember them saving for well over a year to buy a small refrigerator, yet we had a record player and a fair number of records, and so did just about everyone else I knew (all of whom lived in council houses with two working parents and low incomes). Such devices were i
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I apologize for being a bit of a jerk here, but there are a few other things done by your generation which make Space Exploration not as big a deal to mine. (I'm slightly outside of the iPod age group) The world has changed extensively and definitively for a thousand reasons.
EX: I could eventually figure out how to build myself a radio. With enough time and patience I could assemble all the parts off of the internet. Then, I'd need to put together a workshop. Where? Oh, yeah, in my little studio
Low Risk = Less Interesting (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, I believe the image of NASA has changed from that of a cutting edge government sponsored organization to a lumbering money pit. We really need to "fight" someone if we want public support... even if it's more PR than anything.
They need a reason to care (Score:4, Insightful)
Youth, by nature, tends to be more shortsighted than mature adults. We'll also likely see a change as that generation ages.
NASA hasn't done anything exciting recently. (Score:5, Interesting)
Space exploration was exciting when it meant putting people on the moon; the public has lost interest when it just means sending people up to LEO over and over again, and the people in question aren't them.
I suspect that if we put a person on Mars, you would see an immediate renewed interest in space exploration. But seeing the state to which NASA and the government in general has fallen, I suspect most young people are (wisely) too cynical to believe that will ever occur. Thus they don't care, and turn their attentions to things that seem to be actually progressing.
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It should be...
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It's hard to get excited about something that is moving so slow.
Re:NASA hasn't done anything exciting recently. (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps the rate of technological innovation and incremental improvements have much to blame for this attitude. When kids grow up assuming next year's model will be twice as fast and one-third the price, it raises the question, "Why do we need to go to Mars right now?". The extension of this is, "If the same equipment will so much cheaper next year, just like an iPod, why not save some money and visit Mars later. Mars isn't going anywhere."
Re:NASA hasn't done anything exciting recently. (Score:5, Interesting)
I personally have hopes that the moon base will be sufficiently interesting to stoke the public demand for a Mars mission.
I'm 24 and when I was in grade school I had a teacher for 3 & 4th grades that was an absolute space nut. We had a chapter of Young Astronauts in the school, she had a space-shuttle cockpit (made from mostly wood with a bunch of dials and toggle switches inside) in her classroom that we could sit in and she filled the class with a sense of excitement about what was going on out there.
It's also worth mentioning that at this time NASA was a bit more exciting, too. Hubble just launched. Endeavor was brand new. And IIRC the Voyager had just left the solar system.
My point is that todays adults can get todays kids interested in this. And also that the prospect of people living on the moon is new and exciting enough that it just might work.
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Re:NASA hasn't done anything exciting recently. (Score:4, Insightful)
It doesn't matter what NASA does with robots -- they could send them to Pluto and have them building robot cities and making little robots and god knows what else -- but most people would still regard the high-water-mark of the space program as July 20, 1969. There is a fundamental difference between robotic exploration and human exploration, and it doesn't matter what kind of pictures you take or what kind of data you bring back, if it's not a person, it's just a bunch of geeks dorking around with expensive R/C toys.
The day we put a person on Mars, people will be gathered around their TV sets, the same way they were in 1969. But no number of robots or probes are going to engender that kind of interest.
Re:NASA hasn't done anything exciting recently. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:NASA hasn't done anything exciting recently. (Score:4, Insightful)
For a large number of us the concept of putting a man on the moon (let alone in space) is practicaly pedestrian, as opposed to in the 60s when it was a truely amazing (and NEW) thing.
I grew up with the knowledge that space flight, and going to the moon were things we have done, and we did them a LONG (to a 7yr old) time ago.
I for one still am interested in what we are doing in space (I am 23, just for ref), however it isn't the type of thing that it was when we first started.
Now most of us are more interested in what is happening at home (Earth), and understandign that better.
well, except... (Score:2)
Nothing exciting, that is, except for lots of probes to Mars, Titan, and other bodies, probes that have fundame tally changed out view of the solar system and send back stunning pictures.
It's tough to get excited about space exploration when it's a handful of people riding up and down in a vehicle that's older than most young people's cars,
Indeed, the space station and manned space flight is a waste of money and horrib
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Yet, if we send people to Mars, we get a whole new planet to live on and explore, forever.
I'll vote for sending people to Mars, thanks. Scientific data and photographs are cool and all, but actual real meatbags on other planets is way, way, way, infinitely, indescribably, ineffably, superbly more exciting.
Why bother with exploring space if we're not going to go there?
That's just me, though.
Re:well, except... (Score:4, Insightful)
A manned mission to Mars and settling Mars are two entirely different propositions; even if we managed to pull of dozens of manned landings on Mars, we'd still be far away from any sort of settlement.
Why bother with exploring space if we're not going to go there?
Who said anything about "not going there"? Eventually, we will settle on Mars. But for now, we're talking about near-term strategy for space exploration, and robotic spacecraft are not only the fastest way for gathering scientific data, they are also the fastest way towards a real manned space program.
If we're going to go ahead with a manned trip to Mars, the project will likely get killed before it ever gets executed, and manned space exploration will be held back by at least half a century.
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Thanks! We need more competent navigators and drive system engineers. Please send me your resume - do you have experience in hydroponic agriculture as well? It ought to be an interesting trip.
-b.
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I'm a beach vacation person. There's no ocean on either and while I'm sure the blast off would be entertaining the rest would be unbelievably boring for me.
Why would you ever think that a trip to Mars would be exciting for most non-nerds? Once the novelty of going to space as a civilian wears off, there's little draw.
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Re:They need a reason to care (Score:4, Insightful)
Today's fantasys are shaped by authors which focus far more on dark gothic horror and sex. Look where we are today.
No, it isn't the youth that eventually mature into beliving in space exploration, it is the youth that push the rest of the stay-at-homes into investing in the future.
It is dangerous and foolhardy to place the future of the human race at the mercy of the planet Earth. And viewing the planet as a closed system, without access to off-world resources is equally short sighted. As someone else once said, Humanity is too valuable to place all our eggs in one basket.
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Yes, we're living in a much better world -- at least in the civilized bits with access to gothic horror and sex. Cool!
Rate of Progress (Score:2)
For people who were growing up in the 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's the world was changing at a rapid rate and people were expecting that the investment in Space Exploration would have pay-offs in their lifetime. People who were raised in the 80's (and I suspect the 90's) look at the world as being far more stable because most of the advancement has be
Or, to state the converse, (Score:2)
So knowing that we a
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Maybe NASA could drum up interest by giving travelers to the moon free iTunes store credit for each flight?
If by "space exploration" (Score:5, Insightful)
iPod Generation? (Score:4, Funny)
I certainly couldn't care less about space exploration (and I'm just barely outside of that demographic. I always thought it was a waste of time and energy to do a manned Mars exploration. Let's get the moon and space station finished first -- we've already started afterall.
After that, end the programs and use the money right here.
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NASA's Vision Lost on Web 2.0 Generation
Ahhhh, much better...
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Yeah, I've been wondering how is the iPod generation different than the Walkman generation. Its all the same to me, I'd rather have a good stereo than be tied down to earphones stuck in my head.
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And people wonder how, with trillions of planets out there, we haven't run into another space-faring species. I think this is the solution to the Fermi Paradox right here.
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Meanwhile, I am in fact less interested in "trips" to Mars than a Base on the moon. All the launch efficiencies kick in, etc.
But we have to deal with a fundamental attitude that Bush rampaged on: we have to quit cowering in fear at the possibilities of terror attacks. We banned apple juice on airplanes for a couple months; the threat matrix is a zillion times worse for a space base. The movie Contact has a telling comment (we expected the attack, so we
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Where would we be now if Columbus was told not to go on an expedition, because the European youth were apathetic to exploration?
It's worth pointing out that Columbus went on his voyage not for the "love of exploration" as everyone seems to think, but because he was trying to open up a new route to the Indies -- In other words, for profit. "Exploration apathy" wouldn't have affected things in the least.
Space will be explored when the explorers have the same motivation as Columbus. "Because it's there"
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Crushed under the heels of our Aztec overlords after their successful invasion and world conquest in 1879?
That's usually what happens to me when I play civilization, anyway...the bastards
iPod generation? (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyway, I'm in that age range. I can tell you that space exploration is as exciting as it ever was, but I'm indifferent (or, rather, have negative feelings) towards NASA doing it. Wasting all kinds of money on projects that are either never finished or are spectacular failures that could be used for more useful things.
Strange, I would have thought the reverse... (Score:3, Interesting)
Then again, I read Slashdot, so I may not represent my demographic.
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Based on past performance, the idea that in your lifetime we will have a moon base or go to Mars is hard for me to believe as well.
iPod Generation... (Score:2)
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Does it matter? (Score:2)
Besides, not enough Americans care about taxes and program funding for this to matter. As long as politicians want huge NASA contracts going to their district/state, NASA will have funding. Whether or not this funding is merited is a different story...
Let's see... (Score:2, Insightful)
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Well, one of the ways to generate energy without using carbon is to launch solar panels into orbit and beam solar energy back to earth using diffuse radio waves (which are as safe or safer than cell phone and are not a death ray in any way shape or form). You get more power that way from the solar panels, since they see sun 24x7, about 3 or 4 times more than you get on the Earth and it can cost about the same to launch the panels as it takes to make them if you do both in large quantity.
The economics of do
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Orbiting solar power stations beaming power down to a station in an unpopulated area using microwaves have been proposed. So have orbiting mirrors to reflect some sunlight and possible combat global warming. This isn't even mentioning moving some mineral mining operations off the planet (moon or asteroid belt) given a cheap (nuclear?) energy source so that the Earth doesn't get polluted and scraped clean b
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We are not running out of oil. We are running out of cheap oil. Global warming is only a threat to poor people (callous but true). These are NOT life threatening problems for most people on the Earth. Running out of oil is not a problem at all as we have lots of time to switch to other energy sources. Global warming is not going to be fixed in the short term, if ever, unless it starts to directly affect lots of rich people.
This whole "we should fix all problems on the Earth first" attitude drives me craz
They don't get it (Score:2, Insightful)
Kids aren't interested in space because nothing new has happened except a disaster and a "space station" in the last 20 years. They aren't excited because NASA isn't going out of its way to make us believe that one day they will be able to travel to space. Unless, of course, they get a PhD. by the time they're 25, in perfect health, and a model citizen.
If they really want to ignite interest, let reg
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Mod parent up insightful!
That's what private companies based in places with more relaxed views of liability like India and Brazil are going to be for. If you die in space - too bad - you signs the contract, you takes the risk. And that's the only way to look at exploring a dangerous place. We (even NASA, though they do try) can't h
Could it be due (Score:5, Insightful)
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This is no different then Apollo (Score:5, Insightful)
The solution is obvious... (Score:2, Funny)
Why don't we see Aliens? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why don't we see Aliens? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nah: it'll be limited by human conceptions of what the universe ought to be. I'll bet that the real universe has parts that are more interesting (and frightening) than we could have ever imagined them to be. And this won't change the fact that we'll be just as screwed if the Earth somehow gets rendered unfit for habitation.
-b.
Why? (Score:4, Interesting)
The "exploration" aspect of space is basically gone; we've been pretty much as far as we can feasibly go. It's not a frontier anymore, and it won't be until some future Columbus makes it to another star system and brings a few natives back.
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Maybe with normal chemical-propulsion rockets this is true. I suspect that we could get a manned mission quite a bit further with nuclear-fission powered drives. But, no, the enviro-fascists would never allow something like that to be launched from Earth. A possible solution would be to build the reactor in space. Launch the fuel into space in basically impervious ceramic casings and then fuel the reactor in a safe, high Earth orbit. Even have emerg
They grew up with space... (Score:4, Interesting)
For most of their active life, as far as they were concerned, space flight is an everyday occurance.
They grew up with the Space Shuttle. They grew up with space stations. Exploration is practically common (face it, with the Mars rovers since the mid-90's...). So is it any surprise that manned exploration would get a yawn?
This happened in the 70's. I believe by Apollo 13, no one watched space launches on TV anymore (if the networks would even carry it) nor did the public actually care (until the tank exploded).
For those who grew up in the 70's, well, spaceflight was a mystical thing. These feelings probably stayed. It's basically assumed that spaceflight is a boring reality these days.
Go back a few years, say around the time I was born, and yes, you'd probably find more excitement about spaceflight (hell, I'd love to go).
Take aviation - nobody thinks much about hopping on a plane (other than the PITA that is security nowadays and long lineups) to go somewhere. Go back to the 1950s when travelling by commercial jet was fairly novel. Now, well, it's just another form of travel. The same thing is happening to spaceflight. The novelty has worn off on this "generation" - they grew up with it, and probably assume it's always been the case.
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Shit NASA can't get it up every MONTH much less everyday.
Kids aren't interested in Spaceflight b/c NASA has made it pointless. Shuttle flights to resupply the ISS, whose purpose is to be resupplied by the Shuttle?
Your taxdollars at work.
Now, if they were SERIOUS, I wouldn't have a problem, but MORE money for NASA is MORE money *NOT* spent on access to orbit.
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The ISS is a total waste of money. It's not even half-finished, IIRC, and probably never will be completed.
NASA's public image would be enhanced if at least *some* of the shuttle missions and IIS activities were focused on something other than the following two items:
a) keeping the IIS supplied and working
b) OMFG WTF WILL ANTS/GRASS/WORMS/CRYSTALS DO IN ZERO-G!!!11eleventy1
Hubble and the Mars Rovers are the only cool things they have, and they're letting Hubble die. The Rovers are unmanned.
How about this... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm within the age-group that they specified, but I enjoyed building Tesla Coils, playing with all kinds of electrical and electronic equipment, pyrotechnics and the like.
These days, a lot of kids in my age group aren't particularly motivated towards building anything.
They'd much do things on the computer. Hell, most of them do not even consider Lego Mindstorms to be vaguely interesting.
Then again, I bet every generation feels this way about the newer generation. Who knows?
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We are not the ipod generation! (Score:2, Interesting)
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Actually, you might be stuck with iPod generation. I think the term was coined by a think-tank organization, and it is actually an acronym for "Insecure, Presssured, Overtaxed, and Debt-ridden [reform.co.uk]."
Who cares what they want? (Score:2)
Easy way to fix that... (Score:2)
rj
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You want to see college-aged kids get more involved in politics? Simple: allow election-day voter registration. The younger you are the more likely you are to be bouncing from apartment to apartment, and the more diff
Dude, where's my warpcore? (Score:2)
Sci-fi set unrealistic expectations (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a far cry from warping halfway across the galaxy to save the universe from a universe-threatening quantum disturbance with no particular relationship to reality.
As our capabilities grow, as they will, it might get more exciting again. For instance, even if we never get a space elevator, it is still theoretically possible to have a space age with rockets; it's "just" a matter of getting enough energy, cheaply enough, with fusion.
But until then, it's become clear to anybody who can think (and that's more people than the sometimes-somewhat-elitist Slashdot crowd will credit) that nothing terribly interesting is going to happen anytime soon in the space industry.
Yea, and? (Score:2)
Space is big, mostly empty, expensive, and dangerous. So people know about space they just have no reason to care about it.
NASA has also had some *ahem* issues with spending money in smart ways instead of just acting as a funnel to the pockets of friends of government.
Opiate of the masses (Score:3, Interesting)
Fortunately, the US is not a democracy.
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Unfortunately, it is in the interests of government to keep people in that state.
Stop calling us the iPod generation. (Score:2, Funny)
Aaand... (Score:2)
Inspiration now vs 30 years ago (Score:2)
1. The Concorde
2. Star Trek
3. The World Trade Towers
4. The Space Shuttle (a little later)
Now 30ish years later:
1. Concorde retired without a replacement
2. No Star Trek
3. No World Trade Towers
4. Space Shuttle limping along and about to be retired without an obvious replacement
5. To be fair, we had Battlestar Galactica both times, and now people pay me to play with co
We can already do it... (Score:3, Insightful)
The probelm is funding. The feds don't want to put any money into space. If we took the budget we have put into the Iraq war 8 years ago, a moon base would already be under construction and ready to be completed in 5-10 years. Like I said, the technology has been around. The FUNDING has not.
I know why people nowadays don't care. Alot of people feel we won't do anything of great percieved importance in our lifetime as of right now, but hey you gotta start the advancement of the race some time. Why not now? When else in history have we had the opportunity to? We have the technology, the money is in circulation, and we have the motivation (survival).
Why the hell are we being so stupid as to throw away such an opportunity?
iPod or Web generation? (Score:2)
Because the current manned space program is boring (Score:4, Insightful)
Absolutely nothing interesting has happened in the manned space program since we first repaired Hubble in orbit. Since then we've done nada, nothing, zilch, zero, bupkiss of interest to much of anyone, be they John Q iPod, or a PhD in astrophysics.
The manned space program has become utterly irrelevant. NASA can spend as much money as they want trying to get people excited about 'crystals' grown in microgravity, but we have heard it all before.
Do something new and different. Send people someplace they haven't been before. Or maybe let's get people living, I mean really living, on the moon. It is not impossible with today's technology. It just takes more imagination and political will than NASA currently possesses.
Re:Because the current manned space program is bor (Score:2)
You're right! THE SUN! I would PAY to watch that!
See 12 astronauts fight for a place on the 3 man escape pod, and watch as the remainder are vaporised in the sun's corona!
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Certainly we have to build to higher tolerances these days. But we know what those tolerances are, and we are building nothing, doing nothing, but going in circles in low earth orbit running experiments drempt up by school children.
The space station serves no purpose. None. There is no
Crap Detector Alert - no study details given (Score:5, Insightful)
> 25-year-olds toward manned trips to the moon and Mars.
Erm, that's it? that's all we get?
How big was the sample? how were they chosen? was it ten people chosen from a Big Brother audience? what questions were they asked? how exactly do you decide what "indifference" is?
What a complete load of tosh. An utterly unsubstaniated story.
Hurry Up And Wait (Score:2)
As a 15-year old... (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh, I guess that the fact that I was homeschooled from grades 2 to 8 made a big difference aswell.
maybe they're just sensible and rational (Score:3, Insightful)
Good: sending astronauts to the moon or to Mars is a waste of money. What we should be doing is sending out a lot more robotic probes. If we don't waste our money on sending meatbags to Mars, we could have planetary rovers on every major solar system body within the next three decades, and we could have several interstellar spacecraft on their way by the end of the century. The data and images those probes would send back is what's exciting.
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And for your next vacation would you rather go to Hawaii, or merely receive a nice color picture of Hawaii?
Humans go to exotic and remote places themselves not because they merely wish to collect data from it, but because it is in the nature of our species to explore in person. A manned presence is not merely a necessary prerequisite to the acquisition of data; it is an end unto itself. The conquest of Mt. Everest, for example, had nothing to do with seeing what was on the top of the mountain. It was a
How to fix (Score:5, Insightful)
Me Neither... (Score:2)
Get off your high horses (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, being an ex-NASA guy, I feel fully justified in saying that the Administration is not a bastion of efficiency or efficient use of science dollars for science sake. Manned spaceflight will probably never be as cost effective as robotic exploration or remote sensing. Still, it can be a very valuable resource for the inspiration of younger generations to go into science and engineering. Both of those fields are critical to advancement against the world's ills of poverty, famine, globla warming, and disease. Since science doesn't pay as well as non-productive professions like accountancy, law, and real estate sales, we need some way to inspire the next generation to do something other than make enough disposable income to buy the latest iPod. NASA fuels both interest and the work they do has far reaching impact for science (and not just pens that write upside down and expensive mattresses).
What we do need is a real mission and real results. Without that, the popultation is going to see NASA for what it currently is: a rudderless agency spending lots of money to do very little real science. Sadly, with the pork included in its budget, NASA will never garner the excitement and focus it has had in the past. Plus with the contractor mentality it will never have the in-house expertise keep and propogate the corporate knowledge that allows for efficent and consistent advances in aeronautic science.
Right now the NASA beurocracy and the year-to-year funding methodology by congress has doomed the agency to its current fate - mundane and uninspired. I would love to see a rebirth of the agency, but I'm not holding my breath.
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That's completely opposed to my experience.
The more and more we learn about space, the more amazing I find it. We always knew it was mostly empty, so that's not news. But here is some news,
You don't find exoplanets captivating? 182 [exoplanets.org] of them.. don't you wonder what they look like? You don't find sub-terrain oceans [wikipedia.org] with who knows what below the surface of Jupiter's icy moons or water flowing on the surface of Mars not so long ago the slightest bit interesting? How about the ever changing notions of the shap
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Should mankind put its eggs in one basket, though? The way things are going with population increase and everyone wanting to live an industrialized lifestyle, the Earth will eventually wear out. Not to mention the threat of nuke war, an asteroid strike, or even something totally unforeseen. Being spread out throughout the Solar System will certainly help assure our survival. As will moving some mining and the mess
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And space explo. may provide technological solutions to these problems either deliberately or accidentally. Of course, it will raise new environmental problems, no doubt, but that's the way that things work.
-b.
This is the best idea in the whole thread (Score:2)
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Re:Are there any good reason to care? (Score:4, Informative)
There isn't?
http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/shuttle.htm [nasa.gov] And these are just in the past 15 years or so...