One Step Closer......
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@Bill-Kindle said:
Some things also have to be invented. Things that do not yet exist. So yeah, it takes money time and resources.
But they didn't just focus on the invention, they used them in a very expensive, impractical way unnecessarily.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Bill-Kindle said:
Some things also have to be invented. Things that do not yet exist. So yeah, it takes money time and resources.
But they didn't just focus on the invention, they used them in a very expensive, impractical way unnecessarily.
Using them for their intended purpose was impractical? No. They were design for a purpose, and then those items found even more domestic practical applications.
Not to get off subject, but wasn't @Plantronics mics used for communications in the space suits?
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Bill-Kindle said:
I'm sure the same was said about the transcontinental railroad or prepping ships for the new world. Not saying that the cold war wasn't also a driver here but Space exploration is the final frontier.
I agree. But all of those others were done organically when it made economic sense for people to voluntarily invest because they had a predicted return value. Space exploration was forced on us early through a government welfare program which wasted valuable resources at a time when we were not ready for the burdens of space flight. We are only just becoming ready today to go to the moon in a sensible way. We wasted an immense number of resources pushing to do something too early.
Look at all the jobs that were created in building up NASA. NASA paved the way for outfits like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, which are private companies.
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@Bill-Kindle said:
Using them for their intended purpose was impractical? No. They were design for a purpose, and then those items found even more domestic practical applications.
Absolutely, the intended purpose was wholly impractical. A complete waste of time, money and resources. The only value to them seems to be in the ancillary uses since that time. I think there is no doubt that the lunar landings were impractical, the question is did their ancillary value offset that waste? My answer is no, not in the least. All of their benefit was available without the waste, so yes, the intended uses since they were wasteful, were a waste.
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@Bill-Kindle said:
Look at all the jobs that were created in building up NASA. NASA paved the way for outfits like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, which are private companies.
All included in my point. Yes social welfare programs have benefits. But there were far, far better ways to spend that money and employ those people. We could have invented more, produced more important things, done more for humanity than just prove we could be as wasteful as we wanted.
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Look at the space program like a business. What I am talking about is the cost of lost opportunity. The amount of invention, the amount of employment, the amount of good for human kind, the amount of advancement that couldn't happen because resources were thrown at the space program were staggering and remain staggering today. We lost so much that we will never know because we put it all into a rocket and lit our resources on fire for nothing.
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Here's a bit of "interesting" IT history.
When man was put on the moon, the return involved hitting a spot the size of an envelope. Too high? Off into space. Too low? Burn up on reentry.
The computing power we had could only calculate where the moon was to within about a mile.
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Yeah, it was absolutely crazy and terrifying.
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Can't we concentrate on fixing our issues here like homelessness, disease and famine before we start taking our issues somewhere else?
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@nadnerB we are taking the IT approach of turning it off and back on
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@scottalanmiller said:
Yeah, it was absolutely crazy and terrifying.
Which is why (at least I think) the phrase "Flying by the seat of your pants" was coined....
Long / Deep space exploration is impractical because of the amount of fuel, water and Oxygen that would need to be bottled and hauled with. You'd have to build a Bio-sphere type system.. a 'Mini Earth'
But I'm no rocket scientist..
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I love that she mentions the Cornell food study in this article. One of Scott and my first dates was attending a talk at Cornell given by a professor there who was working with NASA to figure out what would be the best foods to take on a Mars mission, and he talked about the "food fatigue" that the commander mentions. NASA, Cornell, and Disney's hydroponic labs at Epcot have been working on this for years.
I'm impressed that they chose a 34 year old to be the commander of the mission, because that is a high position, but I would imagine that they are thinking towards the future, and you simply HAVE to have young men and women on this mission due to the amount of time.
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@g.jacobse said:
Think of Christopher Columbus and discovery of the New World.. Where would we Americans be had he not ventured into the unknown and the dangerous waters of monsters and myth.
You did NOT just go there with Christopher Columbus. SMH, didn't you read the Christopher Columbus thread from the other day? Check out the real story.
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@Dominica said:
@g.jacobse said:
Think of Christopher Columbus and discovery of the New World.. Where would we Americans be had he not ventured into the unknown and the dangerous waters of monsters and myth.
You did NOT just go there with Christopher Columbus. SMH, didn't you read the Christopher Columbus thread from the other day? Check out the real story.
Exactly what I was thinking...lol
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@Dominica said:
@g.jacobse said:
Think of Christopher Columbus and discovery of the New World.. Where would we Americans be had he not ventured into the unknown and the dangerous waters of monsters and myth.
You did NOT just go there with Christopher Columbus. SMH, didn't you read the Christopher Columbus thread from the other day? Check out the real story.
Sorry @Dominica , I guess I missed it working.. or at least pretending to work. Let me go find it and see what the hubbub is about. (Okay.. I admit it,.. I was watching The Walking Dead, and LOST on NetFlix..)
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@Dominica said:
I love that she mentions the Cornell food study in this article. One of Scott and my first dates was attending a talk at Cornell given by a professor there who was working with NASA to figure out what would be the best foods to take on a Mars mission...
Mars bars?
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@g.jacobse It's okay, hun. Our teachers lied to all of us, it's not you, it's the American education system.
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@Dominica said:
@g.jacobse said:
Think of Christopher Columbus and discovery of the New World.. Where would we Americans be had he not ventured into the unknown and the dangerous waters of monsters and myth.
You did NOT just go there with Christopher Columbus. SMH, didn't you read the Christopher Columbus thread from the other day? Check out the real story.
Read - I find it interesting.. It of course was not taught that way 30 years ago when I went through school..
I do realize that many of the 'good intended explorers' really did nothing but plunder, pillage and other foul and unpleasant things,... all in the name of Progress
One wonders if we will again turn a blind eye ( or just poke the eye out completely) when we meet those beyond the stars...
Fear and greed -
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@g.jacobse we weren't taught it either. It has been coming to light more and more how much the American education system has been hiding things. "Lies My Teacher Told Me" is a great book that talks about the larger issue written by a professor who won a landmark court case because his textbook was denied use in a southern curriculum because it was "too accurate." He won in court that telling the truth could not be grounds for not choosing material for students.
His book points out that all college professors hope that their incoming students took as much coursework in high school as possible - except history students because the more history that they were taught in high school the more they would have to unlearn because high school curriculum are so universally falsified that the value of education there is actually a negative.
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@Dominica said:
I love that she mentions the Cornell food study in this article. One of Scott and my first dates was attending a talk at Cornell given by a professor there who was working with NASA to figure out what would be the best foods to take on a Mars mission, and he talked about the "food fatigue" that the commander mentions. NASA, Cornell, and Disney's hydroponic labs at Epcot have been working on this for years.
I'm impressed that they chose a 34 year old to be the commander of the mission, because that is a high position, but I would imagine that they are thinking towards the future, and you simply HAVE to have young men and women on this mission due to the amount of time.
If you've never been on that tour at EPCOT, it's a really neat sight. I went earlier this year.
