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."
We have to go... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:We have to go... (Score:5, Funny)
Except a largish cometary impact.
Re:We have to go... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:We have to go... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:We have to go... (Score:3, Funny)
bad luck (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:We have to go... (Score:3, Funny)
Seller: Yes. It's in great condition
Book Dealer: Well, there's not much call for Bradburys... they generally aren't very rare.
Seller: But mine is UNSIGNED!
Dealer: (drooling) Would you take a cashier's checks? I don't have that kind of cash on hand!
Re:We have to go... (Score:5, Funny)
Nothing, perhaps, except marriage.
"Honey, I'm going out to explore Mars."
"Not before you clean out the garage.
Re:We have to go... (Score:5, Interesting)
Others have pointed out and I agree, It is HIGHLY short sighted and extremely selfish to NOT continue pushing further into space.
Are we Selfish? Yes. We tend to only think about ourselves, or maybe one generation, we must adopt and ideology that extends beyond our own lifetimes and taking the money (taxes) we have now and applying them to the future.
Space travel IS necessary, we must reach beyond the local boundries, I agree with Bradbury, we never should have left the moon. Why did we go to the moon? was it merely a political statement?
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.
"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?
We should not go (Score:3, Interesting)
This is quite some form of cosmic transferrence. We have failed here on Earth so somehow a new world will be better? The cynic in me is stamping all over my romantic side with large boots.
I recall an Arthur Clarke's novel where he predicts that ch
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.
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 footn
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.
Re:Should we not go? (Score:4, Interesting)
When people decide to have children, they don't know whether their children will grow up to be humanitarians or criminals. But most people give their kids an opportunity at life, knowing that most people turn out alright.
We don't know whether humanity's child will be good or bad. But we believe, based on past experience, that we should take this chance, knowing that human settlements are more likely to be good.
Re:Should we not go? (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Later than sooner (Score:5, Interesting)
My two cents
-Iowa
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.
When I was your age, people looked AHEAD to 1969! (Score:3, Interesting)
No, they aren't a "Can't Do" generation. They are a "Done it Already, Seen it, Taped it, Watched it Reenacted by an Aging Tom Hanks" generation.
Space travel is old news. Didn't you hear? Mankind went to space. People went all the way to the
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 A
Re:We have to go... (Score:3, Interesting)
B) Go here [thespaceplace.com] to view the positive contributions from the space program.
Re:We have to go... (Score:3, Interesting)
We go to Mars to revive the interest in space exploration and hopefully cause a boom in space technology development. This, in turn, gives us the following benefits:
Space mining. Asteroids are full of precious metals and other material
Braces self (Score:3, Funny)
Why? (Score:4, Funny)
But Ray stays home (Score:5, Interesting)
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!
Re:From the link (Score:3, Funny)
Why not just say it was published in 1988?
Grinning, ducking, and running...
So where's Marco Polo? (Score:3, Insightful)
Who to send out there (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Who to send out there (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Who to send out there (Score:2)
yes poets, management consultants, hairdressers, telephone sanitisers. Send the lot of em.
Ummm, leave it to generally disgruntled slashdotters to miss a reference. See the movie "Contact".
Re:Who to send out there (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Who to send out there (Score:2)
=Smidge=
Cave life (Score:5, Funny)
'Too Soon From the Cave, Too Far From the Stars'
Yeah, much too soon. One minute you're an ape triumphantly hurtling a bone into the air under the theme of 'Also Sprach Zarathustra', and next thing you know, the bone turns into an orbiting satellite in the year 2001. Also, you've become human and there's this weird monolith on the moon.
Talk about culture shock ...
Re:Cave life (Score:3, Interesting)
- Jim
Didn't Arther C. Clark say (Score:3, Interesting)
Too Soon From The Cave (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Too Soon From The Cave (Score:3, Funny)
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?
Money (Score:2, 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:What wrong with traveling to Mars? (Score:3, Interesting)
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:What wrong with traveling to Mars? (Score:3, Informative)
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
I believe it was Clark who said... (Score:5, Interesting)
Other reasons to go:
Re:I believe it was Clark who said... (Score:2, Insightful)
Only on Slashdot... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I believe it was Clark who said... (Score:4, Informative)
The US will be continued to allow to borrow so long as people believe that the government can repay those loans in the long term. During the Clinton administration, there was hope that we might actually pay down the debt in 15-20 years.
If the debt reaches a level where the US cannot make an interest payment, there will be serious repercussions in the world economy. A depression worse than any previous is a likely outcome of that situation. Hopefully we'll be smart enough to raise taxes and cut spending before that happens.
Deficits Don't Matter (Score:3, Insightful)
The government already "defaults" on all of the money it collects in the for
Re:I believe it was Clark who said... (Score:4, Interesting)
Remember the story about the Chinese all getting in line and marching past a given point and how the line will never end?
There are compelling reasons to explore space - but population control is not one of them.
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: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.
Quote from Ray Bradbury (Score:5, Funny)
"If we can find any living relatives of Columbus, and Caboto, and Verrazzano - wouldn't that be remarkable if we could send them on the first manned rocket to Mars."
Descendants of Columbus?! Oh sure, so we're going to send out another white man to treat the native Martians as slaves. Great idea!
Re:Quote from Ray Bradbury (Score:2)
Why Ray Bradbury? (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Why Ray Bradbury? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why Ray Bradbury? (Score:3, Funny)
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:Why Ray Bradbury? (Score:4, Insightful)
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 C
Re:Bradbury needs a history lesson (Score:2)
Re:Bradbury needs a history lesson (Score:2)
with charts of the Carribean and Gulf of Mexico drawn by people who had already been there.
Sounds like a pretty apt comparison to me, then. Mars is probably the second or third best-charted body in the Solar System. The top two, of course, being Earth and the moon. And as a double-bonus, there's probably not even any natives for him to enslave!
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
Re:Bradbury needs a history lesson (Score:5, Interesting)
Either the Chinese didn't get here, and you're absolutely right, or they did and they were of primary importance to the exploration that followed. The fact that its existance, if it happened, wasn't understood until recently and the fact that, if true, the Europeans were going to American knowing it was there and what they would fine wasn't fully understood until recently is irrelavent to its significance. Lots of critically important discovery over the centuries has inspired later discovery, and the sheer importance of the original was not appreciated until much later.
Bradbury's Dreams (Score:5, Interesting)
The parallels with American colonization do not stand up. 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. But the logistics of a Mars mission require the exchequer of a major nation state and the technology is far from perfected. Courage is not enough. And unlike America the lure, the promise of a commercial harvest is so much slimmer. This is not 1482 any more. Those rules no longer apply.
My heart agrees with Bradbury. But my head... it says no.
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:Bradbury's Dreams (Score:3, Informative)
With the same amount of energy that you send equipment to a nearby meteor, you could have
Re:We Like Tha Moon (Score:4, Informative)
The moon suffers from three main issues. First, it has no atmosphere. Second, it has a 28 day light-dark cycle, and third, it is very resource poor, from a survival standpoint.
Not having an atmosphere is a big problem. Experiments have shown that C02 can be cheaply made into hydrogen and oxygen, with little more than hydrogen feed stock. From hydrogen and oxygen you can get air, fuel, and water; three of the four things you'll need on a colony. Mars has a lot of C02. Plants also use C02 to function. This means that a Mars base can use pressurized greenhouses to grow food. On the moon you would have to create a biosphere, which we've never succeeded at on Earth, let alone on the Moon. Also, the atmosphere on Mars provides protection from a lot of radiation. This means that a Lunar base would have to be underground in order to work, making construction that much more difficult.
The 28-day 'day' on the moon presents another problem. Plants have been growing on earth with a 24-hour light-dark cycle for billions of years. To get them to grow like heck during the 14 days of light and then to lay dormant for 14 days of darkness on a lunar greenhouse would be very difficult, not to mention the glass would also have to provide protection from radiation as well as thermal extremes of ~400 degrees. Growing them underground would require having enough light bulbs to last for a few years and a nuclear reactor or solar panels and enough batteries to run for 14 days straight, unless it was a polar station (which limits the amount of space we have to build on considerably). Martian greenhouses could use construction much like terrestrial greenhouses, and with the Arean (Ares, Mars. Get it?) day only about 30 minutes longer than that of Earth's, the plants would adjust quickly. Not to mention that the Martian colonists wouldn't be out of direct communication for half the time they are there.
Finally, there is no atmosphere and very little water on the surface of the moon. Most of the water has been evaporated away. Unless we find a lot of water, there's no economical way we could colonize the moon: I'm not going to pay to ship water to a colony on the moon. Mars has recently been shown to have lots and lots of water, as evidenced by the Free Shrimp Give-Away from Long John Silvers. [ljsilvers.com] This is easily processed on the surface into all the things needed for life.
Also, space is such that the total cost of going to the Moon is only slightly smaller than going to Mars, because most of the cost is from getting off of Earth and out of our gravity. And since we have to ship everything to the moon (air, food, water) the cost rises quickly compared to the needs of a self-sufficient Martian colony. Not to mention that Mars is closer to the asteroid belt, which is where all the really great stuff is, like raw materials.
So, as you can see, a Martian colony, though farther away, is a better option than a lunar colony, unless you want a nice, quiet place to set up a major astronomical station. (The far side of the moon is always radio-silent and has lots of ready-made craters for radio telescopes and no atmosphere to interfere with visual/IR/UV observation.)
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.
Oh no! (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously, I enjoy Bradbury's books as much as the next guy, but he's not exactly a scientist. His testimony is more of the same philosophy expressed in The Martian Chronicles, that Mars is no different from the New World. Unfortunately, it IS very different, because whereas the Americas are perfectly habitable, Mars is quite hostile, to say nothing of the unbelievable expense of getting even a single person out of Earth's gravity well. His only real argument is "if we want to do it, we can." He's right of course, but he fails to give a convincing explanation for why we should want to. For us here on Slashdot, he's preaching to the choir, but he's going to have to do a lot better than that if he wants to convince the population at large.
Re:Oh no! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Oh no! (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
I like the way Commandar Sinclair put it. (Score:5, Interesting)
"No. We have to stay here and there's a simple reason why. Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics and you'll get ten different answers, but there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe and Lao-Tzu and Einstein and Morobuto and Buddy Holly and Aristophenes
Re:I like the way Commandar Sinclair put it. (Score:4, Funny)
Ray Bradbury rocks (Score:4, Informative)
The thing about Bradbury is that what he focuses on is not the science, but more the social aspect of humanity. He writes about people, not spaceships.
For example, some of the earlier short stories use SciFi as backdrop against which to express more immediate social concerns. There are stories in which a population of black people build their own rocket, and quietly depart for Mars, where they can live in peace.
In the context of the civil rights movement and equality rights, this is a powerful and strong statement. It strongly reflects the simple sentiment that these people just want to be left alone to live their lives in peace.
Bradbury is a wonderful and imaginative author. He was a large influence on my views and perspectives. What he beleives and says deserves respect - because he is a respectable man.
-Laxitive
I've heard all this before from Ray (Score:3, Interesting)
Many of us graduates were a little dissappointed in the speach, accurately pointing out that there were likely not any future astronauts or SF writers in the audience that day. While I thought it was kind of neat to get to hear a literary icon speak at a graduation, I am skeptical of the role that these writers should play in influencing public policy on these issues. People like Bradbury are driven by their emotions and immaginations, noble characteristics, but I think that a solid cost/benefit analysis is the only reasonable way to decide what to do with the billions of taxpayer dollars at stake here.
Still, he seems like a nice guy. It would be nice to give him his mars mission while he's still arround.
Whatever happened... (Score:3, Interesting)
...to the idea of colonizing space itself? O'Neill habitats and that whole thing. It seems to me to be a much better idea than colonizing other planets: why would you want to go back down into the gravity well once you've gotten out of there? And why would you want to live somewhere where you're stuck with whatever gravity the planet gives you?
Okay, so there's the small matter of building the things, but still. I want my grandkids to grow up with lakes and forests overhead.
At least someone at NASA [nasa.gov] seems to think it's still a good idea.
Must... Resist... Obvious... Jokes... (Score:5, Funny)
including why three Italians should be the first on Mars
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:Beat The Chinese (Score:2, Insightful)
You mean China, or the United States?
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: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 dictionar
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
Re:Beat The Chinese (Score:2)
That's all well and good except for the fact that the PRC is fascist and totalitarian. Remember that little incident in Tiannamen Square? Try asking a Tibetan exile if they agree with Bradbury's statement.
That being said, the Chinese have been steadily getting better as they realize that being a global economic powerhouse isn't compatible with a communist command economy and China stopped being truly communist the second Deng Xioping said "to get rich is glorious" - but still, Bradbury's comments aren't j
Because... (Score:5, Interesting)
As much as it may pain some to admit it, China really is a facist
We should cooperate with when we can, and especially with the other great free counties, such as those found in Europe.. But when dictors become greater than you, it is not a happy day for civilization.
-My two cents, -Iowa
Re:Beat The Chinese (Score:3, Funny)
Our IT companies are losing out to cheap foreign competitors from countries that are poor but have highly-educated workforces. A newly colonized Mars would be extremely poor (no natural resources!) and everyone who lived there would be a MENSA-level scientist!. There's no way a patriotic John Q. MSCE could compete with that kind of competition competitively.
Also, if some Chicom "hacker" outfit wanted to publish stolen source code or red
Re:Beat The Chinese (Score:2)
I just wanna see the look on his face when he hears "Return plans? Sorry, those got scrapped due to budget cutbacks to fund your war against the wood-hogging Amazonian pygmies..."
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 ecolog
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.
10^100 humans impossible (Score:3, Interesting)
10^100 is more than .005 % of the planetary systems. In fact, 10^100 is several dozen orders of magnitude larger than the estimated number of atoms in the known universe [google.com], and as far as we know every planetary system must contain at least one atom.
You might try to argue that the universe is much larger than the portion
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,
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 fundam
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 pe
Re:"new thing", democracy? (Score:4, Interesting)
The US is only one of many countries that have pushed the boundary of democracy and freedom. It wasn't the first, and it isn't the country that has pushed it the furthest. By modern standards, the US electoral system is for instance fairly bad at providing a representative government, grouping it with a few of the other of the early democracies as countries that still stick to one man circuits for many types of elections.
The US weren't crucial at revitalising the concept of democracy any more than France or England or Germany or any other of the countries that had growing movements pushing for democracy were. The US was a result of an ongoing movement all over the industrialised world for liberation from feudalism, that heavily influenced your founding fathers, as it influenced thinkers, politicians and rebels everywhere.
Trying to pretend the US is some kind of beacon for freedom and democracy is an insult to the millions of people all over the world who fought, and died, to protect and extend democracy long before the US was conceived, and who has fought, and died, since then to expand democracy and freedom often in the face of international intervention to keep them down - including US government supported oppression (Chile, Indonesia, Nicaragua to name a few).
Nobody should have any reason to discredit the importance of the founding of the US and the US constitution as a step towards a more democratic world, but neither is it fair to ignore the shortcomings of the US and disregard everyone elses accomplishments and participation either.
Re:"new thing", democracy? (Score:3, Interesting)
The point is, nobody else was the fucking powerhouse of the 20th century. The Americans were the biggest, and the baddest (in both senses of that word). You may not like that. But the last century has been the American century. And when I say 'modern concept of a democratic state'.. that means the 20th century. Modernism is a 20th century thing.
I'm not saying that the Ame