Heres an Idea..... take all that money people want to waste attacking a tiny desert country and put it into Nasa where it can build a future and expand science and knowledge.

100 years ago we rode horses up dirt roads to get to work, today we can go to the moon and send probes to all the planets and beyond. We have no Idea where we will be in 100 years. If you asked people in 1903 will we go into space they would thought you a fool. We have no idea how far we can go in another 100 years only if we stop do we know where will be in 2103.

Mike father of a 10 month old, who he hopes will be the first man to step on Mars.

Hoping we colonize the moon, mars and anything else...Heh. I sure as hell hope not, after how bad we cocked up our chance here. "Is there life on other planets?" "If there is, make it live on this little patch...We'll take the rest!"

It's also funny like someone else said...There was alread a plane crash this year with 21 deaths. 3 times the people that died on the shuttle.

NASA's a private company (though backed with a ton of Gov't funding)...Really, very few people died....And as the news has been saying...Hardly anyone even cares about space anymore, and few people nkow what shuttle's up at any given time. While it doesn't surprise me that it made news, I am surprised that people are making this big of a deal out of it. 7 people and a private companies space ship...How's that more important than 100 people and a private companies plane, which happens just about every year? Just kinda odd.

Don't mean any disrespect to the folks that were on the shuttle. My condolences to all their friends and family. Just surprised by the countries sudden interest.

Sorry about that last post, didn't mean to sound rude. I agree with your point, was just setting the record straight.


Steel.

---

A good friend is the one that bails you out of jail. A best friend is the one sitting next to you saying, "Damn that was cool, let's do that again!"

<<Umm...no. They're a division of the air force if I remember.

It is an independant agency of the federal goverment. The same as FCC, FEMA, CIA, FDIC, EPA etc.

<<I mean, as far as we know, it's not like we're gonna upset the delicate balance of the ecosystem or anything.

Actually we plan to change the balance of the ecosystem by terraforming. That is why it is so important to find water on Mars.

<<I feel for the families and my heart reaches out to them in this trajedy. I also feel we have so much left to discover. I fear, the next major event for NASA will be putting a man on Mars in 2015 or so, and afterwards the space program will lay stagnant as it did after we landed on the Moon. We need to boost funding in space program ten fold in the coming years. To smile and give encouragement to our children when they gaze up at the stars and say 'I'm going to visit them someday'. We landed on the moon 33 years ago and yet we claim to have won the space race. I think we have a long way to run.

As nice as it is to be done with the Cold War, it did provide great incentive.

<<So why expand the Shuttle Program when NASA could take that funding and put it towards the next generation of space travel?


The next generation of space travel requires a lot of research. The major step in this research is the 'establishment of a Permanent Human Presence in Space' this is ISS and the shuttle is the means of transport for crew.

Sylvado

"There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths."

My sister is a Scientist in federal employ. She was kinda depressed about the shuttle situation. It was posed to her "So, if you knew in advance that the shuttle trip YOU were on was going to have a chance of disintegration during landing, would you still go?" ...think... "Yes, absolutely." ... "So did they."

---

Andy

>Well I do believe we need to invest in space exploration I just think that sending people into space at this point in time is just too costly. We need to wait for time when it is more cost effective to do so. As for now, I believe in just sending robotic probes. While I understand robotics isn't the best substitution for humans, it is cost effective and doesn't have a life to be destroyed or loved ones to be hurt by their destruction. Most effects of space on humans has already been conducted, and what NASA wants to do with humans in space just seems better served by robots at this point in time.


One slight problem, people are not motivated to by what machines can do. People are motivated by what other people can do.

For instance we send robots to moving comets to take samples, and test everything under the sun, but does anyone really care what a robot can do? However, you tell someone that I put a person on a big piece of rock with no atmosphere, no water, no trace of anything and I got this same person back home, that same feat becomes exciting.

People start asking questions like: How did they get there? How long did it take? How did you find your way? Why did you go? How can I help? Who helped you? Can I do that? What did you do so you could do that?

I could go on for hours, but I am sure you can make your own questions.

Motivation is the key to exploration, and no robot no matter how good, will replace you when you come home from the moon or the ISS, and say "I made it, and I think I will do it again!"

Qivalon~ Babbling again about space exploration

>>Other than the possible Cost effectivness, I don't think it's better to send probes than humans. One is that it doesn't handle situations better than humans would do.<<

Eh, while I agree manned missions should continue (mainly for morale purposes), this isn't entirely accurate.

Space isn't like Star Trek. As my Astronomy 101 instructor said way back when, "Astronomy deals with figures that you are not able to comprehend. When you finish this course, you will still be unable to."

Even ignoring the fact that this is playing out on nearly unimaginable scales, space is the ultimate hostile environment. Extremes of temperate, radiation, and gravity unlike anything on Earth, combinde the utterly foreign (and, over the long term, debilitating) condition of microgravity. You don't just park your space shuttle, get out and kick the tires.

To put this in focus: As the NASA spokesmen keep saying, even if the Columbia's crew knew of damage to the tiles, they did not have the capability to fix them during the mission.

Human ingenuity is a remarkable thing, but you're dealing with a situation where error margins can be thin enough to slice tomaetos with. Automated and teleoperated missions have an enormous place in our expansion into space. I believe Humanity's place in space is to expand into near infinite room to grow and consume near infinite resources. A large portions of taming that wild frontier, however, does not require direct human involvement.

Larcus' Player

<<Human ingenuity is a remarkable thing, but you're dealing with a situation where error margins can be thin enough to slice tomaetos with. Automated and teleoperated missions have an enormous place in our expansion into space. I believe Humanity's place in space is to expand into near infinite room to grow and consume near infinite resources. A large portions of taming that wild frontier, however, does not require direct human involvement.

One of the most important aspects of science is observation. We can make machines to conduct experiments in space, take measurements and send back the data but they do not have the reasoning abilities of a human to observe unexpected events and make adjustments. This is why it is the best of the best that get selected to go into space.


Sylvado

"There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths."

<<I believe in just sending robotic probes.

Recent experience with robotic probes to Mars has resulted in a very poor ROI.


Sylvado

"There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths."

<<> Recent experience with robotic probes to Mars has resulted in a very poor ROI.

<<But has proven the worth of the Martian's SDI project. :)>>

And how important proper notation is on equations to differentiate between Metric and English calculations.

Personally I am saddened by the loss of the astronauts, I believe the achievments that NASA made in space exploration is phenomenal, and it really gives America something to be proud of. However, I disdain bambozling answers, and I have noticed two other posts regarding the Nasa statement about how even if they were aware of the damage to the heat tiles they couldn't have fixed it. While I have no doubt that they would not have been able to do anything about the tiles right then and there, they did not have to risk a re-entry. They could have stayed at the space station and been resupplied by the Russian launch that just happened, until we could schedule a rescue mission to get them back. To issue that statement and just dismiss their lives with an "well we couldn't have fixed it anyway" is a disgrace. I am glad they didn't have that attitude during the Apollo 13 mishap.

Motley

>>Space isn't like Star Trek. As my Astronomy 101 instructor said way back when, "Astronomy deals with figures that you are not able to comprehend. When you finish this course, you will still be unable to."

I do not think of space like star trek, star wars, starbucks...

My astronomy prof. said basically the same thing, but later in the year that no robot could handle all the situations that would, could arise since, robots lack one very important part of exploration...imagination.

Humans have yet to make a machine that can perform as well as another human...From most of the science shows I watch...we arn't even close.

Space exploration will be humans with a bunch of probes out there for quick reponce times...not something like 16 hours or something.

Brandon

In some, the aspiration to explore and adventure will always outweight the potential risk.

In some, fear will always overrule the ecstacy of potentially touching another world.

How many of you remember the first step Neil Armstrong took? Not just in a film in school, but watched as his foot touched the lunar dust -- and held your breath wondering how deep it would sink -- and trembled as you exhaled with relief? Do you recall the awe of looking to the moon, knowing a tiny speck was walking around somewhere up there and wondering when you might trace his footsteps?

Do you ever feel cheated of the potential thrown away? Why didn't we continue our outward journey? Where might we be now if we'd continued with the same energy as we used to get there? Of the various paths I've regreted our nation has taken, the retreat from space is the one I regret with the most bitterness. Most younger people I've spoken with about it don't see it that way, or understand it in the same way I do -- but then, they weren't there. And their fantasies of space remain just fantasies fed by Hollywood instead of realities fueled by real rockets.

<<Hollywood can't get any flying movies right. Especially if it's military or involves a helicopter. So how can you expect them to get outer space right?

I guess you are going to try and tell me that Jan Michael Vincent couldn't hover at 50,000 feet.


Sylvado

"There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths."

>>Space isn't like Star Trek.<<

No it isn't. Now. When it does happen, its likely to be very different. That doesn't make it scientifically wrong, however.

Where's the line between science fiction and science fact? Leonardo Da Vinci's flying machine? Jules Verne's submarines? Minute to minute communication across the entire planet? A man on the moon?

I wish more people would dream of the future as science fiction writers do. Maybe then we'd actually get to "the future" before we manage to kill ourselves.

Tam

>>I wish more people would dream of the future as science fiction writers do. Maybe then we'd actually get to "the future" before we manage to kill ourselves.<<

Since my responce is going to be completely off topic for this folder, I'm going to save the board monitors the trouble and move it myself to Social Side, Claims to the Highest Circle.

Larcus' Player

<<My only regret is I will likely not live long enough to see where the wonders of scientific advancement will take us.>>

And that is something that we all pray for......


Arctuniol <hums, whistles, slinks away>

"In an open world, Who needs windows or gates?"

Ayep, and their "impulse engines" ... does anyone realize what they are, really? Fusion reactors. Just exhaust the superheated helium that results from the fusion out through nozzles and voila ... jet action. (most people hear "impulse engine" and get some sort of twisted design of a combustion engine in their head ... internal combustion is NOT the only form of engine ;-))

Now put an extremely high-temp high-pressure version of a steam turbine in those exhaust vents ... there's your "impulse power system" or, as they called it, "auxiliary power".

And they use the same hydrogen (actually, deuterium, aka the hydrogen found in "heavy water" ... hydrogen molecules with neutrons they don't normally have) they use as their "matter" for the matter-antimatter reaction in the warp core.

Anti-matter exists, it has been proven in a particle accelerator. It just doesn't exist long enough for any of it to accumulate in such a mass as to be observed under normal conditions ... collision with a single particle of matter and POOF its gone. And since those particle accelerator incidents usually result in a particle each of matter (proton) and antimatter (anti-proton) being formed at the same time at close proximity, they almost instantly collide and annihilate each other.

There's only one thing that makes me wonder if we'll reach those new heights: whether the human race can pull themselves together long enough to GET there. Wars, PC fanatics more worried about trivial things than big concepts, greed ...

But as long as we have hope, desire and a dream, that's a start, right?

Those pilots had it. Let's not let their loss take it from us. It was a tragedy. But to back off and not continue the charge would mean they died for NOTHING.

Get that next shuttle on the pad, check it to make sure its as safe as it can be ... then let's get back in the saddle.

~~~Krin

>>Actually, I believe they've said quite a bit of the universe is antimatter.<<

In theory, at least the recent ones I've read, half of it is.

Tam
-There are only 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

Calvin once said something tot he effect of "we should probably fix our onw planet before screwing up anyone else's."

I'm too lazy to pour through 10 calvin and hobbes books to find the real quote.


Steel.

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A good friend is one who bails you out of jail. A best friend is the one sitting next to you saying "Damn that was cool! Let's do that again!"

<< Personally, until we get the world problems finished space travel isn't too viable in my oppinion.

Jerry Pournelle had a book out in the sometime in the early '80s that talked a lot about this. I personally still agree with his conclusions... get out in space sooner (now); establish a presence and get regular transits going now. If we wait for this mythical time when 'world problems' are fixed it'll likely be too late, or just no longer feasible to ever try.

Glenlivet