Another NASA Annoucement!

[No Limit]

But why should Nasa fund sending people in to space when this is one of the most expensive forms of space exploration and it gives us almost no new insight?

If Richard Branson wants to do this, cool, more power to him. But Nasa has limited funding and that funding should be used to give us as much information about everything around us as possible. It should not be used to do expensive things just for the sake of doing them because they are cool.

 

[Tyguy]

I've enjoyed reading this thread but I have to side with No Limit based on the practicality of sending people further from earth opposed to spending considerably less in our aim to further our understanding of the universe. Apollo 11 was a milestone for humanity, I don't think anybody would argue otherwise. The issue now is almost strictly monetary and although another manned mission to the moon would be fascinating, it serves virtually no purpose besides attaining cosmic bragging rights. Take into account all of the practical reasons for putting people on the moon again and you'll find that we've accomplished more with satellites and robotics, at least in terms of geologic discoveries. We now know about the existence of water on the moon and in what concentrations not because we sent up a team to drill, but because of a ballsy idea which involved slamming a probe into the moon and measuring the the debris it kicked up with another probe. So in terms of the moon there is not much more interest besides the notion of creating a lunar base which is, unfortunately, not realistic at this point.

To put things into perspective, Hubble's lens alone cost upwards of a billion dollars. When it was determined to not be working correctly (it was off by around 1/50th of a typical human hair) it cost an additional 8 million to fix. I mention this only because Sheepo's position, however dignified in scope, does not accurately account for the price of the technology.

Mars is obviously the next giant hurdle but in order to get there and back the planet must be aligned in such a way that will minimize flight time and cost. Basically, multiply the amount of time it would take to get there and back with the amount of time you'd need to keep the crew and spacecraft on the planet before the planet can realign itself again (at least 1.5 years) and you can extrapolate the ridiculous amount of money you'd need.

One of my favorite missions has been Voyager 1, by far. Not only is it the furthest manmade object from earth (11 billion miles) but it's travelling at almost 40 thousand miles per hour. It's basically serving little function now but it was the first to explore Jupiter and Saturn, each pass giving it more velocity. I know there are more exciting things to marvel about but I think having a spacecraft so far away that it takes light 16 hours for light to travel to us is just a mind****.

 

[Sheepo]

No new insight? You don't think trying to plan an expedition to have astronauts travel to and survive on a different planet will not give us new insight? I realize you're fascinated just by studying the universe, as am I, but if we ever have any plans of moving away from the Earth, this will give us incredible lessons on the sheer basics of surviving in alien locations. It has to start somewhere, and it has to start sometime.

 

[No Limit]

What new insight that is useful will come of sending an actual person to mars? And is whatever insight it provides going to be worth the $30 billion dollars it will cost? To put 30 billion dollars in to perspective the total cost of building, launching, and operating hubble for the last 20 years was 4-5 billion dollars. The LHC? 9 billion. Kepler? 600 million. WMAP? 100 million. All of these things are redefining modern physics as we know them and bringing us closer to the theory of everything (if such a thing exists). And all of these things combined still cost far less than a single mission to mars.

Also, why would we be planning to leave earth at this time? Where exactly would we go and why the hell would we go there? I'm sure Mars would be a cool place to visit, but who in the world would want to live there even if we pretend such an option is realistic? If you truly want to go to another planet don't you think the smarter option is to look outside of our universe for a planet that could actually support us? Kepler (I believe it was Kepler) has found a planet just 20 light years away that is much like our earth. 20 light years away on a universe scale is our next door neighbor. Maybe we should take 30 billion dollars and use it to develop better techniques and better instruments to identify and study these types of planets. That way if we truly want to leave this planet we actually have somewhere useful to go.

 

[Sheepo]

Studying another planet that can support us won't be nearly as helpful as the experience of actually going to one, even if it can't. I realize I have a naively optimistic view of human potential, but even I couldn't think that it won't be many centuries, if not millenia, before any venture with that planet as its destination could possibly be conceivable. And that comparison doesn't really put the money in perspective so much as it highlights how cheap maintaining Hubble is. $30 billion dollars (though I don't know where you retrieved that number, and in truth, I think it's a pretty generously low estimate) is a drop in the bucket for the national budget. If the country is serious about ridding itself of debt I think waiting before we actually have abolished it is the best course of action before pursuing just a massive undertaking, but I've seen no convincing evidence that it is.

 

[No Limit]

Well if this country was willing to give more money to Nasa maybe I'd be all ears. But the country isn't going to do that. So 30 billion is a huge figure, I got the number from what the european space agency estimated the cost to be.

Going 20 light years isn't an overnight trip. It would probably take several generations living on a space ship. But if you think something like that will take a really long time to acheive then fair enough. But my question is then what the hell is the point of going to mars? What exactly are you going to do there? The only exciting thing I can think of is hunting for evidance of prior life, but robots are perfectly capable of doing that and much cheaper.

 

[Sheepo]

Build something more permanent to study the planet, study the planet, and survive. We're never going to come up with the technology to take this to the next level unless we push and challenge ourselves. If we traveled on something that went as fast as Voyager it would take us over 300,000 years to reach something 20 light years away. We need to take things one step at a time.

 

[Bad^Hat]

But my question is then what the hell is the point of going to mars? What exactly are you going to do there?

Haha. Not to demean your point too badly, but this is such a Pilkington-esque line of thought.

"What's he gonna do up there? Just... muck about?"

 

[Tyguy]

Haha. Not to demean your point too badly, but this is such a Pilkington-esque line of thought.

"What's he gonna do up there? Just... muck about?"

I only discovered Mr. Pilkington a few weeks ago but he fascinates me. Everything he says is funny, regardless of the words that come out. I think I always imagine Ricky Gervais laughing hysterically in the back of my head which just makes it funnier.

Anyway, back on topic. I got a tad carried away so bare with me. From what I've read it seems the most efficient way to populate the cosmos (outside the solar system) would be by machines operated by the eventual breakthrough of artificial intelligence. There'd be no need to send humans hurling through space for thousands/millions of years in cryo-stasis. It would be much more sensible to send along the building blocks of human life with the robotic colonies and create clones once a suitable planet is found and an infrastructure is built; all entirely plausible with a stable AI. But before a single planet is colonized our technology on earth will reach the point where even the unknown unknowns are non existent. We'd have completely understood the laws of the universe and would no longer require a body to imprison our consciousness. Life would seemingly move from an android like state to a digital environment where physical existence is reduced to a system of subatomic particles that are engineered to mimic human consciousness. This is assuming that faster than light travel is proven to be impossible. If wormholes or whatever are discovered than I suppose things would get weird. We'd understand the physics behind time travel and would most likely destroy ourselves by changing even the smallest details.

Each colony will eventually reach its destination and begin the same process of technological evolution as on the earth. Alien contact will almost certainly not be worth our time to investigate if it's not discovered already. Basically the entirety of human existence is spread throughout the cosmos and stored in a digital universe. Death is a choice but pain does not exist. Networks of colonies will eventually consist of nothing but the most advanced computer simulated dream world that technology can allow. Everything is fueled by solar radiation capable of storing enough power to outlast every star in the universe for billions/trillions of years. At the very end when energy is nearly depleted a singularity composed entirely of our technology will form and create new stars and planets which will be seeded with the remnence of human biology and the entire process is restarted but at a much faster rate. Eventually entropy will overcome our ability to survive and everything will stop functioning.

Or the US will do something stupid in the middle east and in return our allies will get nuked and then we'll retaliate with a virus that wipes out entire cities in a matter of days until the human race is reduced to rubble. Any surviving people will devolve until the population is unsustainable. This is probably the route we'll take but hey, we COULD actually decide not to kill each other one day.

 

[Dead Phil]

So with this all raped up, can we officioly call this thread dead??
pleasure reading this thread, other threads await

 

[No Limit]

We really need to stop raping up threads around here, rude.

Build something more permanent to study the planet, study the planet, and survive. We're never going to come up with the technology to take this to the next level unless we push and challenge ourselves. If we traveled on something that went as fast as Voyager it would take us over 300,000 years to reach something 20 light years away. We need to take things one step at a time.

But what more is there to learn about Mars that robots can't already figure out better and cheaper than humans? Science is cool, but how much science can you do on Mars before people get bored with it. I don't see any real reason we would set up a permanent base on mars.

And yes, 300,000 years is a long time. But over the years rockets will continue to get faster. And if we can get anywhere close to the speed of light time would move much slower for the people on board the space craft than for us. Don't get me wrong, I don't really think going to a far off planet 20 light years away is all that realistic right now. But I think studying these planets we could eventually live on in great detail would be far more practical than setting up a permanent bases on Mars which would serve very little purpose.

 

[Bad^Hat]

So with this all raped up

This is my new favourite sentence lead-in.

 

[Tyguy]

But I think studying these planets we could eventually live on in great detail would be far more practical than setting up a permanent bases on Mars which would serve very little purpose.

The only permanent base we'll want will be a lunar site to launch from. It takes an outrageous amount of fuel simply to overcome earth's escape velocity but presently we don't have any means to leave low earth orbit, especially from the ISS. When we do eventually add mars into the equation it will be much easier to take off from the moon...but again, that's a long ways out.

 

[No Limit]

Yeah, but I still don't see the point of spending that much money and resources on setting up bases on any planet in our solar system. Even if there was some huge amount of really valuable resources out there, having to bring them back here would probably not be practical.

 

[Tyguy]

No, I agree with you for the short term, especially when there's no money. I'm thinking more along the lines of what would be financially sensible when missions to mars are commonplace (assuming we get that far). You're mostly right though in terms of practicality but considering the enormity of such a feat, to finally set foot on another planet, it's hard to believe that will not be heavily lobbied for even if it yields nothing but headlines. I'd settle for a telescope on the dark side of the moon though, that would be worth the money.

 

[No Limit]

Yeah, I agree with that. If people actually wanted to provide funding for a manned mission to mars without chipping away at the rest of the Nasa budget I'd probably be all for it. I still think it wouldn't be all that useful but if it renews people's interest in space then it might be worth it.

A telescope on the moon would be very cool, but I don't think we actually need bases on the moon to do that. I think unmanned telescopes could be launched and configured to set themselves up on the moon automatically. Might still be cheaper than having people do it.