#Last Days
7 messages in this thread
Thought that was an appropriate title for this thread.
I agree with you that they made a mistake when they didn't push ahead with
the space program. We should have been to Mars by now in my opinion. But
the mistake has been made and I believe that it is too late now. There are
more pressing problems now and the people would be up in arms if money was
spent on the space program. We can't relieve the pressure because we can't
put that kind of money in the space program. So the pressure continues to
build and things get worse (relative or not). The outcome is still the
same.
I have no urge to live in another time. History was my favorite subject in
school, although I'm a little out of pratice now. I know you can't look
back and find any peace. About the only time I have an urge to go back is
to stand where Vancouver now stands before anything was there. I bet that
was a real beautiful area before we got ahold of it. I'm not against
technology but I am a nature lover. My dream is a house on the side of a
lake where I can sit out on the porch with my morning coffee and listen to
the loons.
Kb
I guess I should warn you that I'm a Ph.D. in history.
Western governments are always much better at putting on band-aids than
in developing long-term solutions. Space isn't a waste, it's an investment
and a way towards a solution, and all that money is spent here on the
ground creating jobs in a positive program that matches the essentially
negative sum game of military spending. We'll keep feeding the rest of the
world for a while but sooner or later our resources are going to hit the
wall. We can either start in at solving the problem in a positive manner
now or wait until massive deaths by starvation and resulting wars force us
to do it, in which case we'll have to endure a decade of horrors before the
thing's ready to go.
While I expected to see a manned Mars landing in my lifetime (I don't
now) it's not the immediate task at hand. That task is to create permanent
floating colonies of large size and self-sustaining nature which can be
used to convert pure solar into beamable microwave energy, produce
high-tech advances possible in zero-G labs, etc. Initial research using
soil that is the chemical duplicate of the samples taken in the Mars
landers has shown that Mars lacks only a higher water content to raise its
surface temperatures to the human comfort zone and that the soil in that
case will sustain plant growth. The potential is there, but we are missing
the boat.
Believe me I will never take you on in history. You're right when you say
space isn't a waste. The thing is we blew our chance at it. Things are
falling apart here on terra firma and the people will not allow the money
to be spent on space. Perhaps if we wouldn't have had the cold war and
that money had been spent on space then we would be someplace now. We
should by this time had if not a full functioning biosphere on the moon.
There should atleast be a full time science station. The Russians had the
right idea but they had their focus in the wrong place. There were working
towards the long term stay in space. If they would have been looking out
instead of back then they could have been on the moon by now. Everyone is
so concerned with ruling this little dot of a planet. Now we have old
Saddam shooting rubberbands at the stars. We have the Serbs and the Croats
trying to clean up each others yards. We have Ireland, South Africa,
Middle East and all the rest to numerous to mention. I know I know, that
has been going on all through history. That is just my point. It has been
going on and is still going on and is where all the money is put and will
be put. We blew on chance on space, it will always be just a token effort.
A waste of money.
Kb
No, it hasn't been a waste of money, it's just not been what it could
have been. My mother lived 17 years after she was given less than 5 to live
almost entirely due to space medicine advances and that's just a small part
of the gains. The problem is, any program involving massive expenditures
that does not have immediate, easily shown major benefits to the average
person has to be sold either on fear (defense) or as a sporting event (and
when you win you go home).
Humanity will go into space eventually, and to stay. The question is one
of "when," and, of course, whether there will be any North Americans there.
It's too bad we can't get all these penny anti dictators and thugs
interested in space. If we could get them to channel all that energy into
beating each other into space then maybe we could put our money where it
belongs. As it is we have cutting back our military presensce overseas but
also increasing our UN involvment. Everywhere you look you see the blue
helmets. It seems that mankind can not get by without playing our little
war games.
Kb
It never could get by without them. After all, Russia is showing now
what the rest of us always knew: take away the military might and it's just
a Third World country and fairly backward at that. A military is
particularly useful to penney-ante dictators in that it (A) makes them feel
strong and that they have "respect," (B) is useful in controlling the
people, and (C) can start up a little war or two whenever the people start
grumbling about the dictatorship.
The modern era of Great Peace (1815-1914), when there were no global
conflicts of any kind for one of the longest periods in a thousand years,
was contradictorily one of the bloodiest periods in the world's history. I
think we're seeing much the same thing again.
Since nobody can afford a world war, since everybody loses, trust
humanity to come up with a way to kill as many or more without one! Happens
every time….
Jack I don't mean to snub your conversations but I have a flight to catch
in two hours and still a few things to do. You get as long winded as Paul
does<g>. We'll continue this on my return.
Kb