Your Opinion on Space Shuttle/Programs

[Jerusha]

It is a waste of money that could be spent better elsewhere, like funding NoChildLeftBehind. :tsktsk:

 

[Curtiss]

I have mixed feeling about the manned space program.

The space program has brought more wealth to people on earth than it has cost them. Examples are digital imaging, improved mapping, improved weather prediction, satellite communications (cell phones, satellite TV and radio), and the space telescope which will do more for knowledge of the universe than manned space flight will ever achieve.

I’m all for space exploration when it increases our knowledge of the earth, but its value diminishes as the focus moves farther out into space. Exploration of other planets is not that useful and expensive trips to other stars would have no value whatsoever!

A friend once said of the space program that it is food for the spirit (note: spirit in the romantic sense - not soul). He had a point but there is also a point of diminishing returns.

Best regards,
Curtiss

 

[Steve_Andersen]

Curtiss:

…I’m all for space exploration when it increases our knowledge of the earth, but its value diminishes as the focus moves farther out into space. Exploration of other planets is not that useful and expensive trips to other stars would have no value whatsoever! …

Well, no. Since, the sample of planets that we know a lot about is 1; anything we can learn from observing other planets greatly extends our understanding of Earth.

I’m a child of the 60’s and I’ve never lost my gee-wiz appreciation for the space program. My folks let me watch all the missions.

What we need in this country is heavy lift. Sure the shuttle is wonderful…for 30 year old technology. But it will never let us colonize space.

Imagine if Queen Isabella said “No, Columbus, we don’t want you to go exploring. We’re going to spend the money here at home”

 

[DaveBj]

Background: I was brought up on science fiction back in the '50s and '60s, and I would love to be “out there,” exploring interstellar space.

Furthermore, many NASA projects (Hubble, Chandra, and the other space-based telescopes; the Mars missions; the recent and on-going mission to Saturn, and so on) have added gobs of new information about how our universe works. Remember, Genesis gives us the Who and the what, but it’s up to us to figure out the when and the how.

However, having said that, I am in favor of completely scrubbing all manned space missions and conducting only robotic missions until such time as 1) we have our national debt paid off and our spending under control, and 2) we have newer, safer vehicles.

Part of the problem is the NASA monopoly on space flight. Look back at the invention of the airplane: the Wright brothers flew in 1902. 24 years later a single man flew non-stop across the Atlantic, millions of people had flown in private aircraft, and dozens, perhaps hundreds of individuals and companies were developing new machines. Under the NASA monopoly, it’s now 40+ years since the first U.S. manned space flight, and it was only last year that the first privately funded and developed spacecraft flew. What’s wrong with this picture?

(I tried to post this yesterday–just as our phones went out )

DaveBj

 

[JamesD]

img128.imageshack.us/img128/9296/nasacallscartalk848au.gif
HaHa

 

[shockerfan]

David_Paul:

Still doesn’t answer why manned flight. The link mentions medical advances. All that I see would have been spun off from unmanned flight. Probably even more. Putting a human in an environment a machine can explore just as well is a huge waste of effort.

Btw…take windows out of passanger aircraft too. Another huge waste of money. Airliners would be safer and far easier to design without them.

We’ve had advances in food preservation and nutrition as a result. We have been able to perform experiments in space that need to have a human do them (we don’t have the robotic technology to accomplish some of them).

So the key line I take issue with is “Putting a human in an environment a machine can explore just as well is a huge waste of effort.” Machines cannot explore just as well as a human.

 

[jsk]

Compared to most other government programs, the space program is incredibly cheap. For that matter, very little of this nation’s resources go into basic research, the activity that generates the new technologies that makes tomorrow more promising.

We have enormous problems ahead of us, disease, pollution, depleteing energy supplies, hunger, etc. Without basic research over a wide range of disciplines (including space) the answers will be slower coming, or never.

 

[jsk]

JamesD:

I think that the most glaring example of NASA not being a very good value is the X-prize. How much money put 3 to the edge of space twice within what 2 weeks?

There is a very big difference between the edge of spce and orbital flight. The X-Prize suborbital flights achieved velocities of around 1000 mph, orbital flight must achieve velocities of 17,500 mph, or 306 times as much energy. Having to add that much more energy requires dissipating that energy on reentry, which is why even Burt Rutan doesn’t know how to do it…yet.

Low cost space flight will come eventually. Hope I live to see it.

 

[HitF12]

I have mixed feelings…

I’m all for discovering the universe. I spent countless hours as a child and as an adult looking up at the heavens, and asking questions and being amazed at its beauty.

However, I won’t get into a 20-year-old CAR, much less a spacecraft…