I personally think if all the resources and money required for those space programs (less active in recent years anyway due to unwillingness of government to provide funds) out there can be used for medical research, education, and other things, it would have been the better use.

What do you think?

I think it has definitely been advantageous and will continue to be so. There's a huge number of things that we have today - communications especially, that we wouldn't have if the space program hadn't existed. I don't know what the future may bring but I suspect that in the future we'll be able to look back and see that the space program was worth while. Of course this is somewhat dependent on a space program with scientific goals instead of one that wastes time and money trying to determine if ants can be made to sort nuts and bolts in zero gravity.

The "money could be better spent elsewhere" argument is always going to be there. I don't think we can stop trying to advance knowledge, science, and culture just because there are other very trying issues that exist. It's all about achieving balance. Besides, arguably the space program has produced more tangible advances than say AIDS research. Which isn't to say that we should stop AIDS research - I'm just pointing out that spending lots of money doesn't automatically bring results.

space programs are not as devoted to sending manned misssions up anymore: which is good, considering that until we have a reason to send people up, it's just easier to send up robots. i do like the efforts being made to find out more about our solar system and those closest. i do agree that we do need to look inward more, but there are always those people who ARE rocket scientists whose aim will forever be the stars- who wasn't inspired by kennedy's Moon speech?

Since the beginning mankind has looked upward with awe and wondering. It seems to be in our nature. Space exploration should continue plus we reap benefits of the side discoveries and inventions found in the process. Right now Robotic exploration should be involved. Its safer and the loss of such is colateral damage. Who knows there may be dust on mars that cures cancer, for an extreme example.
"Wasted money that could be used for other more important things" can be found in the Pork of modern politicians.
Lets stay with the adventure of space exploration! :)

I think they’re definitely wroth it, we need to have scientific exploration and experimentation in all areas of science or else we will be lacking in others. Plus, when the Zhorg come to colonize you won’t have enough praises to sing about NASA’s death ray technology.

The race needs to be able to step beyond the planet in order to survive. There's some 6+ billion of us here now, and people certainly won't stop reproducing. We need manned and unmanned exploration to continue.

Right, but the population is expected to even out around 12 billion. Earth can only hold so many people.

Originally posted by Dirigible Horde
Right, but the population is expected to even out around 12 billion. Earth can only hold so many people.

well, that's good to know... however, the earth is not a replentishable resource unless left to it's own devices, which are by now incontrovesially fucked up. i'd love to see how 12 billion people feed themselves on an earth that can barely feed a quarter of that number adequately.

12 billion idiots running around, and we think things are bad now. I don't see how we can double without alot of trouble, heck water is allready like gold in some places.

Originally posted by MajiPirate
well, that's good to know... however, the earth is not a replentishable resource unless left to it's own devices, which are by now incontrovesially fucked up. i'd love to see how 12 billion people feed themselves on an earth that can barely feed a quarter of that number adequately.
Genetically modified food may be the answer to that.

well, food will not be the only problem faced, and while GMO technology could be a viable solution, things such as water (thanks mad dog) and living space will be problems also. not to mention the sheer amount of waste produced by 12 billion people (both organic and not). face it, if/when the population hits 12 bil, everyone's going to be in deep shit...literally and figuratively.

1. Too many people
2. Too little food

I know how we can kill two birds with one stone.

Nature has ways of handling over-population of any species.
When too many deer are present in a particular area disease or famine cull the weak. Only the strong are left to further the species. Humans may eventually encounter such culling.
Man may one day find another inhabitable world and I am sure only the young,most fit, will be the seed . That is if it is not already inhabited and overloaded.

yeah, but how do we get to the other inhabitable world without a space program?

According to the Fermi Paradox, the possibility of finding habitable worlds WITH intelligent life that found a way to overpopulate is very small indeed.

Besides, Dan, I think what with all the political correctness floating around the world this "culling" you speak of will always be perceived as genocide or mass murder. The earth is already overcrowded as it is, since everybody wants to live longer and stay alive than ever before (despite famine and natural disasters). This is unnatural.

Besides, exploration and habitation of new realms happen before a perceived overpopulation and stuff like that. The only thing stopping space exploration is the government's and the UN's monopoly on space travel. Independent businesses which wish to establish a foothold in space have to work along the lines of NASA, ESA, or any other government sanctioned space agency.

Here's a few incentives to space exploration: raw materials, energy, and construction. We have found that many asteroids and moons have high concentrations of rare metals and elements. This can be worth billions of dollars in the world market. It is relatively simple to establish solar plants in space to beam energy down in the form of microwaves down to geosynchonous power grids situated on strategic locations on the globe. Kinda like a energy GPS system. We have already found that we can make super-light, super-strong alloys in the zero-g and low-g environments of earth orbit, the moon, and Mars. This, combined with the abundant natural resources found on the moon, Mars, and the asteroid belt can lead to self-sustaining colonies on other worlds.

One idea to cut the cost of space travel is as radical as it sounds: a space elevator. Take a ultra-strong cable 36000 kilometers long connected to a large satellite in geosync orbit and string it down to some point on the equator. No more bulky, wasteful rockets to fight against gravity. The only cost is the electrical power to drive an elevator car up to the satellite, which it gains anyway on the return trip. The only drawback is the strength and abundance of the materials to build the cable, not to mention the cost and duration of its construction. But see, that's why we have to go now, so it would be cheaper to go later.

Whoever said that the earth's oceans are a more vast exploration project than space is an utter fool. Space is infinite (not really, but the universe expands at the speed of light, and since we can never go faster than that, we will never cross the universe, so we can say that space is infinite), and even if it isn't, just find two planets with oceans like those of earth's and right there you'll find more exploration possibilities for space.

Besides, it seems that all the money used for the other stuff isn't helping us all that well anyway.

The elevator is an interesting idea. First thought is that the weight of the cable,payload and wind effect would pull the space anchor from orbit.
Food for thought though.

Originally posted by psamtik071
One idea to cut the cost of space travel is as radical as it sounds: a space elevator. Take a ultra-strong cable 36000 kilometers long connected to a large satellite in geosync orbit and string it down to some point on the equator. No more bulky, wasteful rockets to fight against gravity. The only cost is the electrical power to drive an elevator car up to the satellite, which it gains anyway on the return trip. The only drawback is the strength and abundance of the materials to build the cable, not to mention the cost and duration of its construction.

What about the aerodynamic drag on the cable? The fact that any cable that long, no matter how "ultra-strong" it was, would snap under its own weight? Collisions with space junk? Actually, I think the satellite would have to be farther out than geo-synchronous orbit so that the centripital force would help support the cable.

Originally posted by psamtik071
The only cost is the electrical power to drive an elevator car up to the satellite, which it gains anyway on the return trip. The only drawback is the strength and abundance of the materials to build the cable, not to mention the cost and duration of its construction. But see, that's why we have to go now, so it would be cheaper to go later.


you realize that there would also be a huge amount of funding being dumped into a F-ing HUGE space station? and the number of rockets and such that it would take to MAKE this space station?

Not true.

First of all, current technology allows us to build free-standing structures hundreds of kilometers in height. The only reason we haven't built any is because there is no need to build that high (the tallest tower was built 40 years ago).

Aerodynamic drag is negligable since the cable moves as fast as the earth as it rotates. If not, aerodynamic drag would be the least of our problems: the cable will just wrap around the earth.

The construction can be a combination of a 300 km compression tower with the rest being a high tension cable whose CENTER OF MASS is located at GEO. That's why a counter-balance is needed. If not, the cable would be over 144,000 km long.

Of course it has its problems. All I'm saying is that it does not have to exist in the realm of science fiction. It may be possible to build by the end of this century at the very latest. As it opens the possibility of space to exploration and exploitation, the elevator will more than pay for itself.

Originally posted by psamtik071
Aerodynamic drag is negligable

Not for a cable that long it wouldn't be. Not to mention a tower that tall. The jet stream isn't exactly slow moving air. Even at the lower pressures at that altitude you're talking about of lot of drag. Interesting stuff to think about though.

You're talking about winds in an effective dynamic pressure at about 10 km in altitude. Most of the mass of the cable complex is located in space thousands of kilometers above the atmosphere, so drag forces would do little to offset the counterbalance (a large asteroid). Also, winds are relatively calm in equatorial regions (hurricanes and tornadoes are impossible). I realize that this is an issue. Here's what NASA has to say about this in their 1999 Advanced Space Infrastructure Workshop Report:

"Wind conditions in the equatorial regions are calm, varying from near 0 to 16 km/hr year round. Higher wind speeds in the jet stream are <54 km/hr, and have minimal impact due to the low air pressure at higher altitudes. At altitudes of the highest stratospheric balloons, 35-45 km, the wind speed generally does not exceed 180 km/hr. At 25-km altitude the wind speed is <72 km/hr. Lower altitudes have lower wind speeds and higher altitudes have less air pressure, which results in a maximum dynamic pressure at about 10 km in altitude."

Perhaps the greatest issue with the space elevator is collision with space debris, which would make maintenance a pain.

Space offers all kinds of advantages. The moon is full of helium 3. One shuttle-full is enough to provide energy for the entire United States for a year. It's virtually non-polluting. The only problem is that it requires fusion or something to get energy from, and I don't think that we can do that yet. Another energy source is putting geosynchronous solar energy collecting satellites in orbit. They can turn it into microwaves and send it down to Earthly antenna farms, which can turn it into usable power. Colony planets could also be used for reducing the earth's population problems.

True about use of space logistically: solar energy, also some critical use of zero-gravity would be helpful in some high tech manufacture. I believe though they won't know how to do fusion until more is known about the patterns folded into chaos, in this case, fluid turbulence.

But in terms of using space sociopolitically - that's frought with problems.
A) Overpopulation is not the problem. The major mushroom countries all show lesser increases in their pops already. Politics of food, water, and energy control are the problems. Studies show that the best way to get a group on a path to comfortable, sustainable development is to educate the women (would-be mothers) so that they can decide their own fertility and assert their rights.
B) Even if overpopulation was so immediate that shipping people out of places had advantages, people would resist. While it might be possible on paper to terraform a planet, it will never be earth, and people aren't going to want to give up their ancestral home. A few intrepid types will, but they will have to go set it up, and they will have their own kids "overskies". Space will increase the human population, never reduce it. Space will spread the human population, never move it.