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What should be the next true space mission? Should we shoot for Mars, or try for a return to the Moon?

The dream's dead, I'm afraid. Deal with it and move on.

Enlightenment wrote:The dream's dead, I'm afraid. Deal with it and move on.

Oh, of course, you're the absolute authority on such things. That's your fucking opinion, asshole, not a fact.

Hotfoot wrote:Oh, of course, you're the absolute authority on such things. That's your fucking opinion, asshole, not a fact.

Oh, shut up. Everything everyone posts here is opinion. Deal with it.

The dream died not with Columbia, not with Challenger, not with Skylab, but when Apollo was canceled. The public will to move out and explore simply no longer exists.

Finish the ISS and watch to see if China's moon missions actually work first.

Darth Fanboy wrote:Finish the ISS and watch to see if China's moon missions actually work first.

Better start praying the Shuttle resumes operations within the next year, then. If the ISS isn't finished soon there will be no point in finishing it at all.

Enlightenment wrote:

Hotfoot wrote:Oh, of course, you're the absolute authority on such things. That's your fucking opinion, asshole, not a fact.

Oh, shut up. Everything everyone posts here is opinion. Deal with it.

Wonderful excuse, but that's all it is, an excuse. By the way, wonderful use of repetition. Do you just say "deal with it" whenever you don't want to engage your brain?

The dream died not with Columbia, not with Challenger, not with Skylab, but when Apollo was canceled. The public will to move out and explore simply no longer exists.

Funny, from where I stand, that's not the case. Maybe your will to move out and explore simply no longer exists, but last I checked, you don't make up the entire "public" of the United States.

Hotfoot wrote:Do you just say "deal with it" whenever you don't want to engage your brain?

I see little benefit in expending more than the minimum quantity of energy and effort necessary to explain the fundamentally obvious to those who are oblivious and willfully ignorant. Deal with it.

Maybe your will to move out and explore simply no longer exists, but last I checked, you don't make up the entire "public" of the United States.

If the United States stilll has the national will to expand the sphere of human spaceflight then where is the evidence? Are you hiding it under your bed? Did Shrubby eat it?

You can't provide the evidence because it doesn't exist. No human has ventured beyond LEO since the final lunar mission. The drive is gone. The expansion of the human experience into space is no longer important to Americans or to the world at large.

Enlightenment wrote:

Darth Fanboy wrote:Finish the ISS and watch to see if China's moon missions actually work first.

Better start praying the Shuttle resumes operations within the next year, then. If the ISS isn't finished soon there will be no point in finishing it at all.

Trust me, I am.

The next major phase in space exploration will be led by the Chinese. As theirs is a government run by ideology rather than economics, we can expect them to push very hard to expand human presence in space. However, you can forget about it being "for all mankind". This will be about making The Middle Kingdom the dominant power on Earth.

We can expect them to achived the following within the next five to ten years:

• A permanently-occupied manned space station, probably based on the Salut/Mir design
• A programme of manned lunar landings that will dwarf Project Apollo
• Concrete plans for a manned landing on Mars

Costs will not be an issue as this is a matter of national prestige. The Chinese take such things very seriously.

Oh, shut up. Everything everyone posts here is opinion. Deal with it.

*coughcoughHasteyGenerilizationcoughcough

Last thread I'd expect to go to flames.


Space exploration is still alive. We're still sending robots to Mars (I think Soyuz is delivering a Mars explorer or something sometime this year).

Enlightenment wrote:I see little benefit in expending more than the minimum quantity of energy and effort necessary to explain the fundamentally obvious to those who are oblivious and willfully ignorant. Deal with it.

More like you're so set in your cynicism that you can't be bothered to seriously consider that you might be wrong. I'm beginning to think you take comfort in being so damned negative.

If the United States stilll has the national will to expand the sphere of human spaceflight then where is the evidence? Are you hiding it under your bed? Did Shrubby eat it?

You can't provide the evidence because it doesn't exist. No human has ventured beyond LEO since the final lunar mission. The drive is gone. The expansion of the human experience into space is no longer important to Americans or to the world at large.

Argument from Ignorance. It's been two days since we lost the Columbia, and you're declaring that the Space Program is dead, why? Because space exploration has proceeded at a slower rate than it did after we got to the moon? You're mistaking the lack of breakneck speed for a lack of will to do anything in space, and you have yet to prove that your position is even remotely accurate. No, you just go on, doom and gloom without any real justification.

Space exploration is far from dead. If anything, this will give it a boost. It will let the public know how sorely NASA needs a new spacecraft. I don't care if the shuttles were designed to go a hundred missions, the things are 20 friggen years old. Now, that might not seem like much, but these things go through more stresses in a single launch than a jet airliner goes through its entire lifespan.

But to say the space program is dead is a bit hasty.

We have a long ways to go, and maybe Bush will decide to give more funding and PR support to NASA. It would be in NASAs best interest to go to the moon or to Mars. It would gain badly needed public support and set them ahead of China.

We need another competitor in space. Look at the advances in technology and exploration made in the space race. The shuttle missions pale in comparison to the Apollo moon shots.

BenRG wrote:The next major phase in space exploration will be led by the Chinese. As theirs is a government run by ideology rather than economics, we can expect them to push very hard to expand human presence in space. However, you can forget about it being "for all mankind". This will be about making The Middle Kingdom the dominant power on Earth.

We can expect them to achived the following within the next five to ten years:

• A permanently-occupied manned space station, probably based on the Salut/Mir design
• A programme of manned lunar landings that will dwarf Project Apollo
• Concrete plans for a manned landing on Mars

Costs will not be an issue as this is a matter of national prestige. The Chinese take such things very seriously.

And that's a good reason why we need to beat them there. Unlike us, the Chinese will have no qualm about weaponizing space, and that means that we're going to have to do the same, if we want to remain dominant.

Space is essential to American interests, and it will remain so, whether the politicians realize that or not.

Umm, last time I checked, the Chinese were the ones lobbying against weaponising space while the Americans were for it.

Pfft. They just don't want *us* to do it.

To the Chinese government, there are two sets of rules: the rules they lay down for the rest of the world to follow, and the rules THEY follow. The modern Chinese government is not so different from the Imperial dynasty system that preceded it - they still think themselves the center of the world, and that everybody else owes tribute to them.

Sure, the US government thinks *it's* the center of the world, too, but WE have the firepower to back it up.

There will be a shuttle mission within the year. Anyone saying otherwise is being dense and forgetting three important facts.

The three guys up in the ISS right now.

Someone will have to bring them down, or at least bring them munchies(Their vodka is flat), and the US will not be abandoning them.

Also, as others have said, the Chinese have space ambitions. All we really need to do is start whispering into influential politicians ears that the damn reds are going to go to the moon.

BenRG wrote:The next major phase in space exploration will be led by the Chinese. As theirs is a government run by ideology rather than economics, we can expect them to push very hard to expand human presence in space. However, you can forget about it being "for all mankind". This will be about making The Middle Kingdom the dominant power on Earth.

We can expect them to achived the following within the next five to ten years:

• A permanently-occupied manned space station, probably based on the Salut/Mir design
• A programme of manned lunar landings that will dwarf Project Apollo
• Concrete plans for a manned landing on Mars

Costs will not be an issue as this is a matter of national prestige. The Chinese take such things very seriously.

that is exactly what the American space program needs! competition. people in this country don't like being second place in anything. i sewar that is something that is hardwired into our culture. if the Chi-commies start an effort to put people on the moon and then on to Mars there will be a public uproar demanding we get there first, get there faster and get there with a better space ship.

What should be the next true space mission? Should we shoot for Mars, or try for a return to the Moon?

I think the next mission should be to not die onthe way home...

Iceberg wrote:Space is essential to American interests, and it will remain so, whether the politicians realize that or not.

This reminds me of that Simpson's episode where they showed an old space-propaganda movie to Lisa's class, ending in: "The Moon belongs to America."

I don't think that 'commie' pressure is what is needed to motivate NASA. At least, not anymore. If anything, the space project will remain active just because of the huge wads of money they've already sunk into equipment, personnel, research, and existing systems and satellites, not to mention the people who have already sunk vast wads of cash into upcoming missions. Abandoning it all now would cause more of an uproar than continuing. As for the public opinion, I think most people realize that there are risks in any job. Cops and firefighters get killed all the time, and no one calls for the abandonment of the police force or fire service. If the vast anti-Osama stuff on the web and in the media is any indication, it doesn't take much of any tragedy to whip up Americans into a supportive frenzy. To use a boxing analogy, Americans are always quick to spring back with an uppercut when they get jabbed in the eye.

I do, however, agree with the comment that 'the dream died with Apollo'. I think that everyone basically realized that there was no money to be made from the moon at that point in history. I don't believe there's any money to be made NOW. The motivation is entirely scientific: research and exploration, which tends to produce results and knowledge, not products or cash. If they showed political interests pictures of vast, untapped veins of precious metals on Mars, we'd be there tomorrow.

ach, why should the shuttle programm be abandoned? there are still a couple of shuttles left. letting them rot in their hangars or putting them up as tourist attractions wouldn´t be that smart.

Iceberg wrote:Pfft. They just don't want *us* to do it.
To the Chinese government, there are two sets of rules

a bit off topic but: dont blame it on the chinese government. more countries than just china have one set of rules for themselves and one for the others.

SirNitram wrote:There will be a shuttle mission within the year. Anyone saying otherwise is being dense and forgetting three important facts.

The three guys up in the ISS right now.

Someone will have to bring them down, or at least bring them munchies(Their vodka is flat), and the US will not be abandoning them.

That can be done with Soyuz (which doubles as the crew escape vehicle) and Progress (automated supply vehicle).

phongn wrote:That can be done with Soyuz (which doubles as the crew escape vehicle)

Is that that old Russian thing that was put there to give the illusion of safety and a back up plan until we finished our designs on a better one?

ArmorPierce wrote:Is that that old Russian thing that was put there to give the illusion of safety and a back up plan until we finished our designs on a better one?

Hey, the Soyuz does have a proven track record. I can't even remember the last time a Soyuz went down in flames... and the last Progress accident was caused by a human operator overcompensating and ramming the module into Mir.