Ray Bradbury's Reasons to Go to Mars 387
An anonymous reader writes "Ray Bradbury's testimony to the Presidential blue-ribbon Commission, 'Moon to Mars and Beyond', covers a range of rather optimistic space-related topics, including why three Italians should be the first on Mars. But at age 83, Bradbury's next book, entitled 'Too Soon From the Cave, Too Far From the Stars' seems to set an overall vision that this is an in-between generation caught between the brutal and primitive and the advanced."
So where's Marco Polo? (Score:3, Insightful)
Who to send out there (Score:3, Insightful)
What wrong with traveling to Mars? (Score:5, Insightful)
It ended up working out ok for some countries but not for 50-75 years after the initial voyages. There wasnt really a need or reason to go, but some naval officers and private sailors convinced the people with cash otherwise.
Although these "discoveries" didnt work out to well for Indians I suppose.
You have to start somewhere. We will do it eventually, why not now?
Re:Beat The Chinese (Score:2, Insightful)
You mean China, or the United States?
Money (Score:2, Insightful)
Why Ray Bradbury? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I believe it was Clark who said... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Beat The Chinese (Score:5, Insightful)
This really doesn't sit well with me. Why does patriotism always seem to require hatred for everyone else? Isn't it enough to be proud of your country without considering a different culture fascist and totalitarian? Or, is 'pride' just a nice way of saying 'hate', as in "I'm black and I'm proud of it" = "I hate whites"? I don't think so. I think that you can be proud without being hateful.
Have you considered this option: Become friends with the Chinese and work together to get to Mars using the best minds and resources of each country.
Re:Why Ray Bradbury? (Score:5, Insightful)
You need someone who can put some fire behind the ideas. non-scientists just can't see any reason to do things just for the science, you need someone who can appeal to their sense of adventure, excitement and mystery.
Bradbury needs a history lesson (Score:2, Insightful)
When you were the first to perform a voyage of discovery like that, thats significant. Of course they weren't... the Chinese, Vikings and others of course were doing it long before.
When you set out as a representative of your country to explore, well thats significant I guess to your country. But we all know the history around Columbus and who was supporting him, right? Being the first of your people to get somewhere when it was an accident of timing isn't all that significant either.
And all of that is completely ignoring the (hotly contested, but significant enough to be interesting) evidence that Columbus set sail knowing exactly what he was going to find, with charts of the Carribean and Gulf of Mexico drawn by people who had already been there.
I think if you were going to honor the nationality of the people who really were the first to do global exploration in an organized manner by having them land on Mars first, it would be the Chinese, not the Italians.
And, the way China is moving with their space program, that might just happen.
Re:Why Ray Bradbury? (Score:5, Insightful)
But seriously, plenty of science-fiction writers turned out to do a pretty decent job of predicting things that eventually became real science. If nothing else, you're dealing with people who made a career out of thinking things through and imagining what things could be like, based on the present. That may not qualify them to give advice to the govt. - but they probably have more interesting input to offer than many people.
Re:Why Ray Bradbury? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What wrong with traveling to Mars? (Score:4, Insightful)
What about the possibilities of finding the shortcut to India, or the fabled Fountain of Youth(TM)? Sure, there weren't any guaranteed returns, but if they were successful then they certainly would've been well worth the investment...
Re:Why Ray Bradbury? (Score:4, Insightful)
escapism (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm glad that it looks like we are forced to figure out how to solve our problems here for now: we need to figure out how to keep us from killing each other on earth, how to reduce our population, how to take full advantage of our human resources by making sure everybody gets basic educational and health services, and how to live sustainably.
If we ever get manned interstellar space travel (and that's a big if), maybe we'll have figured out how to behave sensibly and responsibly towards ourselves and other species we may encounter. On the other hand, if we kill ourselves before then, that's just as well--leave the stars to some other species that's smarter than us.
Only on Slashdot... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Beat The Chinese (Score:3, Insightful)
Two things. First, who cares if it doesn't sit well with you (aside from you, that is)? Second, the parent post never mentioned anything about hate, although you did.
It's interesting how some people will go out of their way to make a comment about political systems something seemingly personal. You don't need to 'consider' China to be fascist and totalitarian, you can look up the definitions of those words in the dictionary and say "oh...China is a fascist totalitarian state...interesting".
Pride, to a certain extent, IS just another way of saying hate, just not in every instance. I think it would be fair to say that the author of the parent post may actually hate totalitarian fascists.
It is equally true that people will think very differently about the statements "I'm black and I'm proud", and "I'm white and I'm proud".
Does the first one mean "I hate whites"?
Does the second one mean "I hate blacks"?
I don't think you honestly say that using the first example without the second isn't just baiting, plain and simple.
Finally, a government and the people of a given country are not the same thing. You assume the parent's author has no Chinese friends and has no desire to work with them, rather than taking his comment at face value, and assuming he took issue with the Chinese government.
If you're going to criticize someone on their point of view, at least come back with something more substantial than "I bet you HATE them, don't you?"...it just comes off childish.
Re:Why Ray Bradbury? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I believe it was Clark who said... (Score:1, Insightful)
Quickshot
Re:escapism (Score:3, Insightful)
Not to worry. There is no conceivable technology that would allow us to send people elsewhere fast enough to have nay significant effect on population growth or pollution. So going to space will not relieve us of the need to solve our problems. More likely, it will do the opposite. It is not a coincidence that the ecology movement really began to take off once pictures of the earth from space became available. How often have you heard the term, "Spaceship Earth." There's nothing like managing life aboard a space ship or colony to make people acutely aware of the importance of resource management and recycling. Indeed, technological advances arising as spinoffs of space travel are likely to do more indirectly to help us deal with those problems on earth than throwing the same amount of money at their problems here on earth--because in space, if a solution doesn't really work, you find out in a hurry.
it makes no sense (Score:3, Insightful)
No big fuss, other than that it is hugely expensive. Is Bush going to raise taxes for it in order to pay for it? Are scientists willing to sacrifice the potential scientific results from 200 robotic probes in order to pay for a couple of people getting to Mars? It just makes no sense: not economic, not scientific.
500 years ago sailors went to the New World (risking their lives) with really no garunteed return on investments.
They thought they were going to find a route to India. It was a high-risk investment, but would have been hugely profitable if they had succeeded. So, it wasn't some shot in the dark, it was a business plan that could have made people fabulously rich.
What they actually found was even more valuable: a sparsely populated, fertile continent with incredible natural and biological resources. That didn't help the original investors much, but it helped Europe as a whole in the centuries to come.
With Mars, we already know what we are going to get, since we have studied it extensively: there is nothing there of economic value to us. Establishing a colony there would be hugely expensive and it would be centuries before anything could become self-sustaining, if it ever could. The only value Mars seems to have is scientific, and that value is largely destroyed by putting people on it.
Re:But Ray stays home (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because someone is personally afraid of something does not translate to that thing being bad for people. I personally am terrified of bees, but that doesn't mean I won't eat honey!
You got it exactly backwards (Score:1, Insightful)
Let's get one thing straight. Since you claim to be talking about what is significant in history, the point is not who discovered a place or when it was discovered.
Columbus's voyage was incredibly significant because it was followed by an immense wave of European exploration and conquest. Whereas, previous expeditions led only to small and temporary colonies.
Re:I believe it was Clark who said... (Score:5, Insightful)
Too bad, because it'd be fun to watch from the confines of the richest nation on earth.
Re:Bradbury needs a history lesson (Score:3, Insightful)
No, such voyages are significant when something comes from them. The Viking settlement in Vinland lasted, what, less than a generation, and the most that came out of it was a saga; and the Chinese voyage was so earth-shattering that no one'd even heard of it until this last decade.
Nope, the pre-Columbian voyages are like the Apollo flights -- interesting footnotes, but ultimately unimportant.
Martian Chronicles (Score:3, Insightful)
Someone must have brainwashed him into saying it is a good idea to go there.
Seriously - the early chronicles about Mars from Ray Bradbury made me cry several times while reading them.
Re:Bradbury's Dreams (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you any idea what kind of resourcesHave you any idea what kind of resources are in space? Everything you could ever want (Iron, nickel, cobalt, platinum-group metals, He-3) in effectively infinite supply. And because there's no tectonic motions or air resistance (and because we live at the bottom of a gravity well) it costs almost nothing to harvest, and is in extremely pure forms. The value of one asteroid is over $10 TRILLION. How's that return for a $10 billion investment?
The rarest thing in the universe isn't petroleum or gold or diamonds or iridium, it is life.
Once America had been discovered and the seas charted, it was a matter of affordable logistics and courage, not technology, to get people to the US.
It isn't a matter of technology. We have the technology *right now* to go to Mars, and colonize it at the same rate as America was colonized in the 1500s. Heck, we could have done it with Apollo-era technology. The chemical reactions for processing Martian and lunar materials have been used for almost a hundred years and are very robust. All it takes is someone willing to take the risk. I'm willing, but I don't have the money. The only reason it takes a major nation-state to foot the bill isn't because the technology is all that expensive, but because the fuel costs are so high. Solve the problem of lifting 100 tons to earth orbit for the cost of electricity, and it's relatively economical. Cost-plus accounting is mostly to blame for the myth that space flight is monetarily expensive.
Why limit ourselves to this planet when we could easily (and cheaply, compared to the cost of blowing each other up) spread throughout the solar system and universe? Once you get to orbit, the cost of going to the moon or mars or anywhere else in terms of energy is very, very cheap. Focus our energies on getting to orbit cheaply and then humanity will take over.
For more information check out Mining the Sky [amazon.com] and The Case for Mars [amazon.com]. And for more information about the best way to get to Mars, check out Mars Direct [nw.net].
Re:We have to go... (Score:3, Insightful)
<rant>You don't think, for one second, that there are things more important to do right now than in 20 years go to a planet which we'll just eventually screw like we have done our own (so far)?
There are billions of people around the world starving, and you're talking about a thirst for knowledge and adventure? How about a thirst for water? Ever known that? Unfortunately, large swathes of Africa know it only too well, and their idea of adventure is getting shot at going to get a drink. Think about that next time you climb into your SUV sippin' a big gulp.
I know it sounds like a hippy tree-hugging perfectionist attitude, but right now the world is SCREWED. I'm not talking about "could be better" screwed, but "if we don't do something soon it's gonna get a whole lot worse, very quickly" screwed. If we spent the money on the space program now, on people who actually need it to survive, we could actually do something good for our planet.
I'm all for space travel, but seeing as our forays into space so far have been rubbish, I think we should let that cake bake for a bit longer before we try again. I want star trek as much as the next person, but our technology is too limited to do anything actually practical in space short of looking at stuff (maybe with a bit of prodding), and communications. Moving stuff physically around our solar system is a really, ridiculously laborious and expensive procedure. It would be like discovering the vacuum tube valves and deciding to make 125 million of them to create a Prescott core. We shouldn't confuse being in space with being able to do important stuff in space. First steps first, people.</rant>
phew.
Re:Bradbury's Dreams (Score:3, Insightful)
1787-1492=295.
So are you saying that space travel won't improve at all in the next three centuries, or do you just not know the difference between the continent of America and the United States thereof.
Stupid Government regulations would sadly kill any (Score:5, Insightful)
I won't defend what government regulations have become, but I can understand how they got to where they are.
Example: Guys at work were griping about septic systems, and how it takes an engineer to "certify" that the thing is correctly done. Yet the septic system isn't really "designed", but rather taken from some tables out of a book. X type of soil, household for Y people, therefore use Z sized tank and W feet of leach line.
But the regulation, engineer, and inspector most likely (IMHO) have their roots in an unscrupulous builder who put in an undersized tank, then ran the output into an arbitrarily-sized pit filled with some gravel - no leach lines at all. After selling houses in the neighborhood, the contracting company reorganized, or otherwise became 'unavailable' by the few years afterward when the homeowner discovered he didn't even really have a septic system, but a fake.
There will always be people trying to sleaze others. Sometimes they can be caught through the Law, but (IMHO) as often as not those sleazy people know how to sleaze the Law, too. Hence new regulations.
Sometimes you can substitute incompetent or thoughtless for sleazy. From what I've read of the X-Prize contestents, non of them are any of the above. But remember that they ARE playing with high explosives.
Finding the comfortable middleground for regulations is difficult, perhaps impossible, considering the way the sleazes try to game the system. Again, I realize that the sleazes are not currently a factor in the X-Prize, but just wait until the concept is proven, and space tourism becomes a growth industry. Then you'll seem them crawling out of the woodwork.
Re:We should not go (Score:5, Insightful)
I put that in quotes because it brings the question to mind: "What is fixed?" Most of the things we are talking about are social ills. So what is "fixed"? I mean, how do you define it? No crime? No poverty? I doubt that's possible, ever. There will always be those willing to exploit weaker individuals (crime, at all levels), and there will always be the myriad of reasons for poverty (from purely lazy to the exploited).
Saying we need to fix Earth before going elsewhere hamstrings us. Why not set up an experiment in a new place, with no history to tie you back?
Think about the Americas in the late 1700s. The Great Experiment was the government of the US. Granted, it's far from perfect, but it was a helluva lot better than anything else around at the time (emphesis to prevent misunderstandings). Moving to a new place was the catalyst that allowed the experiment to occur. Personally, I think the relative stagnation and degredation of most of society (globally) since then is the result of the lack of new places to try things like this out. When the disenfranchised have no place to go and do things their own way, they fight the system, and the system fights them back out of reflex, without regard to the merit of the ideas.
If, however, the disenfranchised have a new place to go and do things their own way, they can demonstrate to the system that they have a better or improved system. It's like evolution: you need a niche to grow. If a new species fights an entrenched one for a niche, it will lose unless it is vastly superior. Normally, the improvement is too small to be considered an overwhelming advantage. If, however, the new species (or system) is capable of exploiting a new niche, it will thrive and eventually be able to demonstrate its superiority by thriving, or its inferiority by its demise.
there's more than one way to skin a cat (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think anyone believes that we'll be ferrying billions of people off the planet anytime soon, but that's not the only way to control population. Citizens of first world countries have much lower birthrates, including some, like Italy, which essentially have negative birthrates. When human beings live in a rich environment with the resources to pursue their own happiness, most people delay having children or don't have them at all.
So providing a first world standard of living for third world countries isn't just a moral imperative but the most practical way of controlling population growth.
The problem is that bringing the entire planet up to first world standards of living requires more energy and natural resources than we have available on Earth.
Orbital or lunar solar power is one way we could provide the energy this sort of economy would need. Farther out, robotic mining of asteroids would be another way of bringing needed resources home. But we're going to have to look beyond our planet if we want to meet the challenge of bringing prosperity to everyone, and not just an elite group of nations. Population reduction is just an added benefit.
Re:Oh no! (Score:1, Insightful)
Scientists are the best judges of the worth of science missions, but colonization missions should be judged by all of us. All humans have a stake in developing a new world for humanity.
"Unfortunately, it IS very different, because whereas the Americas are perfectly habitable, Mars is quite hostile"
When humans first migrated from the warm climates of Africa, the cold climates of the north (eg. Europe) and south were quite hostile. But humans managed to colonize those areas, using their cutting-edge technologies of fire, shelter, clothing, agriculture, etc.
Modern humans can colonize Mars using our cutting-edge technologies of life support systems, space habitats, space suits, etc.
"to say nothing of the unbelievable expense of getting even a single person out of Earth's gravity well."
It is expensive for an individual, but is it expensive for a nation? The world?
NASA's current budget is less than 1 percent of the Federal budget.
"He's right of course, but he fails to give a convincing explanation for why we should want to."
Humans expanded from the continent of Africa to live all over the world, for a better future for their children, and their children's children, and the generations after them, which includes us. Humans will expand from the planet of Earth to live all over the solar system, for the same reason.
Re:"new thing", democracy? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's America through and through. Read American history books, and you'll see this is an insitutionalised phenomenon, not a new trend. America has always portrayed itself as the model upstanding, truthful, altruistic, fair nation. It isn't. Lies about how America have been spread ever since its founding. Back in the day, it was probably essential to its surviving ("taxation without representation" nonsense, etc.).
Now, we can see this ideology manifested in some darker contexts - PATRIOT act, etc. Names created to instill feelings of patriotism in all who hear them. With many people, it works. Ever notice how many times Pres. Bush mentions "America" by name? Ever wondered about the pledge of allegience? What about the national anthem at every ball game (and movie, a while back)? What about the ubiquitous US flag fluttering everywhere? It's all part of the same racket - getting everyone hell-bent on being American. The problem is, attach that flag to anything you want, and people instinctively defend it as being "American". That's what we're seeing now, with all these republican loonies running around saying how everything's unAmerican for criticising pres. bush. unAmerican simply because it's doubting the word of the leader. That's hardly sound logic. I've seen it face-to-face, and people who believe that crap are dangerously deluded.
This is something that's so painfully obvious to the rest of the world, yet somehow completely overlooked in mainstream US culture. It's the scariest thing in the US, more scary than Bush. And he's scary!
Re:Beat The Chinese (Score:3, Insightful)
Your first argument may be that they are technically a republic, but the people only have a choice between two evils in each election - not a true choice. I feel the same way about our electorial process, so am I to believe that the United States is a fascist totalitarian state?
Again with the baiting. Sure, if you agree with the obviously false statement that in the USA, you are only allowed to vote for one of two candidates for president (let alone any of the other myriad offices and issues that appear on the ballots you may vote on), then you may state that the USA is a fascist, totalitarian state.
You'd be wrong to say so, though, since you can vote for the individual of your choice, regardless of whether their name appears on the ballot. If you want to equate the governments of the USA, and China, then go right ahead, but I reserve the right to vehemently diagree about the degree of control these governments excercise on their citizens.
Since you believe that the comment about China being totalitarian and fascist is untrue, lets take a trip to the dictionary, shall we?
I will stipulate that under the first definition, the "dictator" prerequisite is not strictly met, but if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...
Return trip to the dictionary:
You could attempt to argue that China's government ecourages political and cultural expression of all viewpoints, but I doubt you'd make a lot of headway. To be fair, things there are changing slowly, and I admire the fact that they are, but right now, the two labels mentioned in the original post appear applicable. Since I disagree with your view that the labels are untrue (perhaps not completely, but they are true enough that attempting to point out that they are not strictly true seem trivial), I disagree with your conclusion that any statement of opinion that reflects this view is necessarily born of hate.
Second, I equate the statement that China is fascist and totalitarian to hatred because both terms are highly negative and untrue. I stand by my opinion that the original post was hateful. It could have been: "Let's get to Mars before China so we will have more to be proud of in our great country." instead of "I, for one do not want to see this fascist, totalitarian state score a propoganda win by landing humans on Mars first."
Or, it could have been "I for one don't want to see those damn chinese do something that WE should be doing first!"...had the sentiment been along those lines, I would be inclined to agree with your analysis. If the people had been referred to rather than the state, I'd say there was probably a problem with emotion related to something other than political ideology.
Be careful of analyzing a statement that makes you angry, and bear
Should we not go? (Score:3, Insightful)
However, Bradbury talks about new lands and new opportunities and promises much for them. However, I still don't see how we will not export many of our problems with us. After all, what is now the United States was ruled by a British monarch for a good chunk of its history following the initial colonisation. If a few battles had gone differently, the experiment with American democracy might have become a footnote in the history books. It is not a given that the American experiment would have succeeded.
Who is to say that a Martian colony might fail to slough off its past and remained chained to Earth as a slave vassal? Or what if it creates something new and dangerous? What if the harsh frontier of Mars did not produce new democrats but a fascist oligarchy instead?
This is not to say such a thing would happen, but to question the notion that the drive into space automatically results in social progress, which is what Bradbury claims. There are lots of 'ifs', 'ands' and 'buts' here. The optimist will say 'well, that's no reason NOT to try the experiment', and they'd be right. However, it's not unreasonable to approach the prospect of space colonisation cautiously. Instead of the new frontier we might get a new race of Teutonic knights - interplanetary crusaders conquering all before them in the name of America and its allies.
The future is not always bright.
Re:Oh no! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What wrong with traveling to Mars? (Score:2, Insightful)
Mars aside. The next generation of reusuable space craft will be capable of horizontal takeoffs and landings. Instead of creating a craft with such an enourmous payload, unmanned rockets will be delivering cargo, with manned craft flying up to install, configure or test it. These will be inherently safer vehicles. I would hardly say our current techonology is "crap". The main reason why we use the shuttle is because NASA doesnt have enough resources to develop a new, cheaper one. They have just enough to continue sending the shuttle up.
Some useful techonlogies that came out of early space development, velcro, teflon, medical monitoring instruments, and navigation equipment. The last two have in turn led to advancements in countless other areas (HA planes for example) . Besides its only a plan now. Resources are only being gathered to research the trip. The total cost of this will be spread out over 10-15 years (if they even decide to move forward).
It sounds like you have issues with something more than the Mars mission. Your mention of politics confirms that.
Re:Should we not go? (Score:4, Insightful)
And it is not always dark. In the abscene of change, improvement is impossible. In the presence of change, improvement or degredation is possible. I guess it depends on wether or not you're a gambler, or are willing to take the chance. But I do agree the "approach with caution" sentiment. I just think we should focus on the "approach" part of the statement right now. The caution is irrelevant if you aren't approaching
I've been thinking about the analogy of evolution...I like it. It removes motivation, purpose, and all other factors of the like from the equation. It just looks at what winds up making a better society. Whatever works, beats out the rest as long as true competition is allowed. Right now, true competition is waning. Someday, it will be gone and the selective process will no longer work.
Sweden and Spain (Score:2, Insightful)
there goes quite a bit of his credibility.
Re:escapism (Score:3, Insightful)
Probably not even that much.
Even now, on earth, you could have every human, now alive, live in the state of texas, with the population density of, say, paris.
Re:"new thing", democracy? (Score:3, Insightful)
And just as a note, I'm the kind of person that would get dismissed as commie left wing whacko by most Americans, and a Canadian to boot.
But let's give credit where credit is due. The Americans were crucial in revitalizing, and bringing to the fore, the concept of democracy in the modern world. The US has done a lot of horrible things in the name of democracy, and in the name of freedom, from the distant past to the present. There is a fundamental conflict in the US between the principles that they want to hold themselves to, and their inherent desire to be prosperous and powerful. This leads to a lot of hypocrisy.
However, this does not detract from the fact that the concept of the modern democratic state derives largely from the American example. This is partly because they are powerful enough to project it across the world, but also because Americans have a fundamental need to see themselves as good people living by just rules. Double standards and hypocrisy is human nature.. as is abuse of power.
That doesn't mean that Americans are worthless. We should understand them for what they are - their faults and their strengths.
-Laxitive
Cassini/Hyugens (Score:4, Insightful)
Etc... unless people simply don't care about learning unknown knowlege (which I have trouble believing - people have done that throug history), space will always have a strong draw. I can't wait until the data from some of our upcoming planet-finding missions starts coming back. If we can find a planet out there with an atmosphere that contains the spectral signature of O2.... it'll be a complete paradigm shift in public thinking about space exploration.
Re:"new thing", democracy? (Score:3, Insightful)
I have to step in and say that America has only championed democracy when it suited it. Hitler did some pretty undemocratic things, and the US stood by and watched. If the US was so much about democracy as it says it is, it would have been first into WW2, not last. It also wouldn't have charged its allies for help, but that's another story ;) The spin in the US is that the USA is a global champion of democracy, which comes back to my point - the media says the USA is good, so most people thing that to be true. There's a huge trend in the US at giving Pro-US arguments/stances the benefit of the doubt. That fact alone is frightening. Lets not mention the US's invading of many countries and replacing democratically-elected leaders with US-friendly cronies.
I know Americans aren't worthless (heck, I'm married to one), but I know there's a huge, HUGE problem with the American mentality, a problem that has serious repercussions for the entire world.
American insularity has furthered the idea that the US is the champion of democracy, simply because Americans aren't exposed to any history stating otherwise. Americans aren't bought up knowing the truth about the first few presidents of the US, or their rather interesting views on the Indian "problem". They weren't raised knowing about what the founding fathers rebelled against. Their history lessons were rose-tinted, and highly cherry-picked.
I think Greece has more to do with modern democracy than the US. Britain's done more, too. There was a parliament in London long before the first Indians got offed by overzealous pilgrims. Ever since the last US election, the US has given less and less in terms of democratic influence on the world. They ignored the UN, and no-one's even looked into impeaching Bush for a fraudulent election. If the US wasn't as big as it was, it would have been pulled up for these transgressions ages ago.
(ps - i was called a lefty commie pinko by some republicans at a protest in LA - people actually think like that :) scary!)
Re:We have to go... (Score:2, Insightful)
Great plan, to whom do I sign the check?
Re:I believe it was Clark who said... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:We have to go... (Score:2, Insightful)
Obviously, you don't live anyplace that hurricanes come ashore.
and no, it isn't necessrily "ridiculously laborious and expensive" to move things around the solar system. Just rather more expensive than the pittance NASA (and other space agencies) have had to work with. Which, in the big picture, isn't much. Let's see, NASA's budget this year is ~$16B - that means my family's share is ~$160. Which is less than I spend at the movies in a given year. And less than I spend eating out in a given month.
And "billions of people around the world starving"??? Where? China exports food to the USA. So does India. Leaving those two and Europe out (I don't think anyone believes the Europeans are starving), "billions" would imply more than half the people left over. Where are these billions of starving people? Africa? There aren't even ONE billion in Africa. South America? Not a billion there either. Nor are most of the people in either place starving.
and the problem of being shot at while trying to get some water isn't one that can be solved by throwing money at it. You'd have to do something like invade the country, take control of it, and stop people from shooting at each other over water. And, that, as we see in Iraq, isn't a trivial exercise.
Now, it can be argued that there are better things to do with NASA's money. Fund Rutan, for one. I expect if we REALLY wanted to get to Mars, give a billion a year to Rutan with the instructions to get to Mars with a crew of six within 20 years, we'd be doing the smartest thing regarding space travel that's ever been done....
Re:Eugenics is the solution (Score:1, Insightful)
Was history ever well taught? (Score:2, Insightful)
"Final Frontier"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Several hundred years ago they probably said the same thing about the Atlantic Ocean. The same was probably said about leaving the Fertile Crescent many thousands of year before that too....
There is still plenty of exploring to be done here on Earth (ie. deep ocean trences, rain forests). Granted, we would require space travel to explore other planets, but our physical universe isn't necessarily the last place to go spelunking. What about the possibility of extra dimensions and alternate realities that we can't even conceive of at this time?
Re:We have to go... (Score:2, Insightful)
It is HIGHLY short sighted and extremely selfish to NOT continue pushing further into space.
This may be true, but it's just as short-sighted to rush into space before we're prepared to do it, and at a time when the benefits will be outweighed by the costs. Just as you wouldn't try to teach a one-year-old who can't walk how to ride a bicycle, there's no point in throwing $500 billion into a Mars mission that won't serve any particular purpose outside of PR.
Let me provide one example of why we should wait to go to Mars that's particularly close to me as a member of the space physics community. In order to fund this Mars initiative, they've pulled a big chunk of NASA funding from the solar-terrestrial science and diverted it to spaceflight. But this funding is really important, since understanding the mechanisms that drive solar flares, coronal mass ejections, the solar wind, and the earth's magnetosphere is absolutely critical to protecting any hardware we have in space, and a lot of earth-based technology too. The more we depend on these things, the more important good space-weather forecasts and damage prevention protocols will become. Cut this funding now, rush a Mars expedition, and your explorers -- unprotected once they leave the magnetosphere -- could end up stranded or dead when some massive solar storm hits. This could happen to any probe of course, but losing a $500 million unmanned probe won't hurt nearly as much as losing a $100 billion dollar craft with seven crewmembers aboard.
If you think public sentiment is against space exploration now, just wait until people die in space and a big chunk of their tax dollars has been flushed.
Of course we need to go into space eventually. But we shouldn't do it prematurely, just because it's cool. Wait 50 or 75 years, until propulsion is cheap and efficient, space-weather forecasting is a near-exact science, and the the expedition can be mounted cheaply, quickly, and safely; and can do some kind of really useful science or pave the way for permanent colonization.
If we're going to Mars, we should wait and get it right on the first try. Like the previous poster said:
It is all about seeing the BIG picture, instead of 50 years, just start thinking 100 years, thinking beyond our own lifetimes and start thinking about making multi-generation advancements.
martion chronicles? (Score:1, Insightful)
This was the impression I got from reading the Martian Chronicles.
Deficits Don't Matter (Score:3, Insightful)
The government already "defaults" on all of the money it collects in the form of "taxes". The less money that is taken away as taxes and the more the economy grows, the more money will be available to lend to the government. With the revised current deficit figure (3.1% and falling) less than the growth rate of the economy (4.2% and growing), we can easily afford more than the current debt, another tax cut, and trips to the Moon and Mars.
All of the depressions in the US have happened during or immediately following periods of budget surpluses. The last thing I want the government to do is raise taxes to buy bonds.
Is Space Exploration Worth the Cost? (Score:5, Insightful)
"For instance, this year, total pet-related sales in the United States are projected to be $31 billion - the double, almost to the cent, of the $15.47 billion NASA budget. An estimated $5 billion worth of holiday season gifts were offered - not to the poor - but to the roving family pets - six times more than NASA spent on its own roving Martian explorers, Spirit and Opportunity, who cost the American taxpayer $820 million both."
"Instead of betting on the future, Americans spend $586.5 billion a year on gambling. It is perhaps immoral to criticize one's personal choice, so instead of kicking the habit and feeding the poor with this money, one should stop instead the enormous waste in space who stands at a scandalous amount of 40 times less than gaming tokens."
"Speaking about personal choice, $31 billion go annually in the US on tobacco products - twice the NASA budget -, and $58 billion is spent on alcohol consumption -almost four times the NASA budget. Forget space spin-offs - here are genuine tangible benefits: $250 billion are spent annually in the US on the medical treatment of tobacco- and alcohol-related diseases - only sixteen times more than on space exploration."
These figures represent how, as a society, how lowly we value space exploration. If we spent 50% as much on space exploration as we spent on Hollywood entertainment, Orbitz would selling weekend passes to the most popular lunar resorts.
Re:We should not go (Score:3, Insightful)
It was also not exactly a democratic setup, if memory serves. It's been a while since I read about it, but wasn't it a gathering of local lords? Besides, prior to 1944, Iceland wasn't even a nation for 500-600 years. It was part of Denmark or that Scandanavian united kingdom....I can't remember the name.
But we nitpick. My original contention was that when placed in an open area, people were able to try out new ways of doing things, without being actually tied to their past. You got a new setup in the US, a new combination of things that had not been seriously considered together before.
Regardless, I can't believe nobody's jumped on the fact that first of all, the US is NOT a democracy, it's a representative republic. And second, if you want to find an old democracy, I can think of a REALLY old one that no one's mentioned for some odd reason. Think Zeus.