Full article at the link. Watching some clips of the old enthusiasm today and reading this got me thinking - is this really it? Should this be it? On the one hand, I fully agree with the sentiment that government shouldn't be funding this - it seems like a huge waste of resources and once you've got government in there, it's going to get bogged down anyway. On the other hand... well, I'll let Ayn Rand make the point: I don't know the answer (hell, I don't even know the question...) but it seems like an interesting topic to discuss.
Man, I'm seeing double here. To the point, the industrial complex we have grown up with has diminished to the point that there may well be truth in this. Shame really, it was such an enterprising and discovery filled time. I'm just glad to have lived it.
[YT="The Space Race is Over"]CTEugaK9q9I[/YT] The real problem is the lack of long term thinking. Corporations are largely interested in solely the profits of the next quarter, so they have little interest in funding something which may take years or decades to turn a profit. Even technology which should be a "sure thing" like satellite phones have had trouble staying afloat, because people are only interested in short term results. There are also unrealistic demands placed on space efforts. The ISS is considered a boondoggle because there's no obvious return on the investment, even though technology developed for use on the ISS is rapidly making its way to the market place (some of the sensors used by astronauts are now being adapted for medical gear on Earth, for one example). The argument that "Oh well, this stuff would have been developed anyway." doesn't really hold water, either. Most of the flame retardant gear in use today can trace its roots back to the desire of NASA to not have a repeat of the Apollo 1 fire. People had been burned to death in fires for untold millennia, but it took the death of three men to get a serious effort put behind finding a solution for the problem. Additionally, most technology being developed today is simply an improvement and/or refinement of existing technology. Smartphones were around before Apple introduced the iPhone, all Apple did was take a better process and better software and sticking into an existing concept. Technology developed for the space program often is completely unique in its origin, and, like the ecosphere which has grown up around smartphone apps, yields considerably unexpected spinoffs. Even if humanity decides that it doesn't "need" those new technologies, there's ample argument for us pushing out beyond LEO. Not even the tardbiscuits who think that the Earth is only 6K years old can deny that the Earth's climate has changed over the centuries. We can expect changes to the climate to happen even if one doesn't believe in global warming, and in order to survive those, we're going to have to do some geo-engineering to stop those changes. Terraforming Mars not only would give us a better idea of how to do those things on the Earth, but it would also yield incredibly valuable data for other things as well. Studying how oceans form on a gradually warming Mars would give us insights into how it happened here on Earth, and help us to better manage them. Things like that, which would take decades, if not centuries, to occur, would be seen as being "unprofitable" by large corporations, but given how vitally important they are, clearly call for government involvement.
Space may be done for now, but one day there'll be some breakthough or other that'll make it viable and popular again. Just don't expect it to be warp speed or a stargate. I'm thinking more along the lines of Google Mars.
Somebody has to perfect some kind of SSTO or runway-launched spaceplane at some point that makes it easier and safer to get to orbit. THEN (hopefully) the gate will open for orbital commerce and orbital tourism. Once we're in orbit "casually" and numerously, the interplanetary stuff will follow. I hope.
Yep, use the space planes to send up pieces for the Mars ship. And we'd better have at least 5, and be working on another 10. Cuz guess what, folks? It's risky, and a couple will probably blow up. Life ain't safe. Cue Kirk's risk speech.
The real problem is the Brain Drain. NASA suffered it in the post-Apollo era so that by the time the Shuttles were flying, there was almost none of that old-school, "failure-is-not-an-option" workforce and mindset left. We went from a NASA that brought Gemini 8 home when a thruster malfunction sent the spacecraft out of control and saved Apollo 13 against all odds, to a NASA that lost Columbia and Challenger out of sheer carelessness. When they were preparing the Mars Pathfinder and Sojourner rover for landing in 1997, they had to figure out how to land on Mars all over again because there was no one left from the Mars Viking missions in 1976. It also points to a major failure of our academic system. NASA has actually had to conduct training sessions in critical thinking for their personnel because our schools and colleges don't teach it any more and our society doesn't allow it. Who needs critical thinking in a regulated society?
I'm not biting. I'm with Dr. Kaku on this one. If we get as serious about space as we were under JFK, there is no limit to what we can become.
