"It could tell us more about life on Earth.."

[Edcrab]

Meh, considering the billions spent on space travel they damn well better come up with some sort of revolutionary technological theory that's essential for the betterment of life on all the planet. I've never been too bothered about how the Universe formed. No matter what is discovered, some will always dispute it, although more solid evidence would be brilliant.

Chances of ever finding something that'll prompt statements along the lines of "oh yes, we now know for sure that the Big Bang happened/the Steady State theory is correct" are slim, of course. Unless scientists starting lying a bit more.

 

[StardogChampion]

I think Bill Hicks said it best:
"Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money that we spend on weapons and defences each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace. Thank you very much, you've been great."

 

[Hectic Glenn]

OMG you know who Bill Hicks is, fans are so hard to come by! THe best unknown comic of all time. No way you cant see the ****ing road! XD. So sad to lose him...its just a ride!

Sorry thread has been derailled further.

 

[Ennui]

OMG you know who Bill Hicks is, fans are so hard to come by! THe best unknown comic of all time. No way you cant see the ****ing road! XD. So sad to lose him...its just a ride!

Sorry thread has been derailled further.

Cheers! Bill Hicks is the MAN! Or rather... was. ;(

 

[Apos]

This would be extremely useful information on determining effective counter-measures against Comet impacts.

We might be able to do something about asteroid impacts. But not comet impacts. They move far too fast, and the truly dangerous ones can come out of nowhere (Since most have a period over 100,000 years, meaning we haven't seen them in near earth passbys in recorded history).

 

[TheAmazingRando]

That is why we need to study them to find out how to stop one.

 

[Apos]

There really ISN'T much point to most human-manned space missions today. Since we aren't ready to start colonizing space, about the only thing actually having people in space teaches us is... how humans react to being in space. All the other experiments are pretty silly and can be done on earth.

However, missions like this (by the way the Cassini probe that got the lander there was a NASA probe, not the ESA: the ESA made the lander) are incredibly scientifically important because of what they teach us about the universe we live in. Titan is the ONLY other place we currently know of IN THE UNIVERSE that's anywhere close to being like Earth was in it's early years, when life began. It's temperatures are much lower and chemistries somewhat different (liquid methane instead of water), but it's a reductive environment conducive to the formation of organic compounds.

 

[Razor]

You can't put a price tag on knowledge.

 

[dawdler]

You can't put a price tag on knowledge.

Then why are school books so expensive? :x

On another note, of course it could tell us more about life on Earth. NASA already know we dont come from here

 

[Tr0n]

Hell I can tell you more about life on earth than some machine....

We suck as a race and we like to mess things up.No satellite could tell you that.

 

[dawdler]

Hell I can tell you more about life on earth than some machine....

We suck as a race and we like to mess things up.No satellite could tell you that.

Actually it can, just take satellite pictures of NY cab drivers running over people and detect the pollution in the atmosphere.

 

[Element Alpha]

And maybe one day we will discover a planet full of space babes.

 

[Edcrab]

Which we can feed to the planet full of space crocodiles we discovered earlier.

Broadening our horizons is good and all, I just think the sheer amount of money spent on space exploration is insane- but perhaps not as insane as repeated efforts to put people on the Moon for no good reason.

Once we can safely colonise a world things might get interesting...

 

[kirovman]

Which we can feed to the planet full of space crocodiles we discovered earlier.

Broadening our horizons is good and all, I just think the sheer amount of money spent on space exploration is insane- but perhaps not as insane as repeated efforts to put people on the Moon for no good reason.

Once we can safely colonise a world things might get interesting...

Yeah colonise the Martian surface...and uncover some ancient martian artifacts, while experimenting with teleportation, all of a sudden, something goes wrong, etc etc you know the rest.

But the devil's just a choirboy compared to me! A choirboy!

 

[AzzMan]

Bah, all this NASA money is nothing compared to what we spend on the military on a daily basis, not to mention this Iraq "war", if you can call it that, and I don't see any of you bitching about that....

 

[Apos]

That is why we need to study them to find out how to stop one.

There just isn't any way to stop one. They travel with such force at such speed, such mass, that even direct nuclear strikes would do nothing at all. Even blowing them up wouldn't stop the mass, just split it up into more pieces traveling in the same direction.

Regardless, even if there were ways to stop comets, sending _humans_ into space wouldn't help. Anything we need to do in space we can do with machines. The only thing we can do with humans in space is study humans in space.

 

[Edcrab]

Heh, you don't see my bitching about military spending? That's because I'm not bitching about military spending. But check other forums (i.e., the one where such conduct wouldn't be off-topic) and you'll see just how many forumites do bitch about military spending.

Maybe I'm just bitter and want a few million myself...

 

[The Mullinator]

Which we can feed to the planet full of space crocodiles we discovered earlier.

Broadening our horizons is good and all, I just think the sheer amount of money spent on space exploration is insane- but perhaps not as insane as repeated efforts to put people on the Moon for no good reason.

Once we can safely colonise a world things might get interesting...

If we don't spend the money now to do the smaller things then we will never get to colonize anything.

 

[DarkStar]

DE.....

I love ya man but I couldn't disagree with you more on this one. The space program has given the world so much new technology it's absolutely incredible. Computer technology alone wouldn't be nearly advanced as it is today without NASA. Not to mention space exploration is just exciting and awesome! Think if they actually find life somewhere else in the solar system, like under the ice on Europa! That would be an earth-shattering discovery that isn't possible if you don't look for it.

 

[Edcrab]

The colonisation comment was a joke, really. I don't think it'll be possible to colonise a world within my lifetime or even those in the next generation, nevermind all these theories regarding terraforming.

Anyway, what smaller things? We've established that we can go into space, whoop-de-do. And we hardly need to send rocket after rocket up to research a system that can safely supply a large area with oxygen (without the usual chemical scrubbing deficencies we apparently encounter)- we've got perfectly usable rocks to build things on here.

Once we're capable of making a completely independant structure, I'd be more understanding when they go into space again.

 

[Dan]

I think the goal is to ultimately start mining asteroids for the huge amounts of mineral resources they carry.