[Aer]

If you guys aren't aware, the space sector of the economy is slowly but surely becoming more and more privatized, and when the prices come down and new technologies are developed it will be a relatively hot industry.

Once economic stability returns in the United States, I really hope people realize that space is not just for nerds and rocket engineers, but that it should be a public concern of exploring the solar system. There truly isn't anything like observing a galaxy 1000 light years away (Andromeda) through a small lens on the top of a mountain. Or seeing a rover touch down on another planet. Even if the space industry is fully privatized, scientific research at the forefront will remain with NASA.

Maybe this is just the child in me talking, but I really am concerned about the lack of focus on the space industry in the world today. Once we truly have our shit figured out down here, it should be our number one concern. The benefits for both the near future (medical research, mining on the moon, satellite development) and the far future (solves our real problem of overpopulating the Earth) outweigh the tremendous costs.

In all the movies you saw as a child, 2030 is a time which humans are colonizing the moon and expeditions are being taken to Titan to map the surface. Ever since the Reagan Administration and the funding of the shuttle and the end of the Cold War, there has been nearly no focus on the space industry in any governmental organization aside from NASA, and funding for that has decreased as the decades have gone by.

We need to explore, it's in our genes. Why do you think we explored this earth top to bottom? Why do you think we migrated place to place?

Because we wanted to know what was over that horizon. Because we're curious.

Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people. -Carl Sagan

[Emancipator]

Thankfully, due to the fact that the government can't do much more due to the public's distaste with NASA funding, the private sector companies like Space X will continue to develop in addition to other emerging countries' space programs.

I hope to see in my lifetime colonization of other celestial bodies.

(Who will get the first alien notch?)

[Cincinnatus]

(01-25-2013 01:37 PM)Emancipator Wrote:  

(Who will get the first alien notch?)

Soup, SVK, and I pondered this back in June.

[kosko]

"How do I make money though?"

-Kevin O'Leary

[Screwston]

[storm]

(01-25-2013 12:26 PM)Aer Wrote:  

The benefits for both the near future (medical research, mining on the moon, satellite development) and the far future (solves our real problem of overpopulating the Earth) outweigh the tremendous costs.

I think it's very telling that even though we've had the technology to exploit space resources we have yet to do so. Is it really worth the cost?

I talked about this at length a few years back with a friend who was entering the private space industry. Mining on the moon is off the table - everything there can be had cheaper here on earth - including He3. Now, if shortages occur, demand increases, this may change but for now there's no reason to face the incredible costs of building an entire space mining industry when you can open a catalog and order your materials for much less.

There's still plenty of minerals on the earth, and it's still extremely cheap (compared to launching a mission to man an asteroid, or onto the moon) to do so.

I don't really know what you mean about medical research or satellite development, especially why we would need to do that offplanet and why the ISS wouldn't do.

The bottom line is what kosko said: is the money isn't there. You can bet you ass that if there's some precious mineral needed for, say, efficient power generators, everyone and their cousin will be flying off to venus to mine it faster than you can say science fiction. But you need that incentive, and we just don't have it. All we have are dreams.

[polymath]

The time will come.

SpaceX is doing really well, and they've hired up a lot of young engineers recently.

Just because NASA sucks now, doesn't mean the USA has given up on the cosmos.

[Screwston]

I'm scared of what's out there in space. Maybe movies have messed with my head to much.

[Aer]

(01-26-2013 05:44 AM)houston Wrote:  

Houston, we have a problem.

[speakeasy]

Until there's a major breakthrough in physics, I don't think manned exploration beyond earth orbit or the moon is worth the tremendous costs. There's really no real incentive to go to Mars other than its own sake. There's absolutely nothing there of any use to us. Only interesting thing is finding out whether bacterial life ever existed there, and robots are doing that work now, so no need to send humans on a 2 year RT journey. Plus space is still really dangerous.

I'm all for exploring the solar system and beyond and I think humans if we survive long enough will eventually make it to the stars and I hope so. But it won't be rocket technology or anything based on velocity/propulsion that gets us there. It'll be some new branch of physics we've yet to discover. Maybe some sort of hyperspace fold or worm holes. There is this theoretical physicist named Miguel Alcubierre that has some interesting theories on how to get to faster than light travel by collapsing space-time in front of a ship while expanding space-time behind it so that you are moving inside of a "bubble" that doesn't violate the laws physics. And even then, we don't have technology in the foreseeable future that could provide that sort of energy output. Anti-matter might be the most powerful form of fuel we could envision and the technology to make it in large numbers and contain it isn't even on the horizon yet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive

Until something like that is invented, we can forget humans ever leaving the solar system or traveling even to other planets in our own system with the ease that we can fly a jet to another country.