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#21 | ||
Fowl Administrator
Join Date: Dec 1999
Location: Calgary or Edmonton, Canada
Posts: 53,420
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Coney wrote:
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We need more projects like the Mars Rover, because they actually take advantage of what we have at our disposal. Quote:
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All of IronParrot's posts are guaranteed to be 100% intelligent and/or sarcastic, comprising no genetically modified content and tested on no cute furry little animals unless the SPCA is looking elsewhere. If you observe a failure to uphold this warranty, please contact a forum administrator immediately to receive a full refund on your Entmoot registration. Blog: Nick's Café Canadien |
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#22 | ||
Quasi Evil
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Maryland, US
Posts: 4,634
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." |
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#23 | ||
The Buddy Rabbit
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Trapped in the headlights..
Posts: 3,372
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#24 | |
Quasi Evil
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Maryland, US
Posts: 4,634
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Im a member of an organization called The Planetary Society and they send me things in the mail constantly asking members to harrass the congress into doing more for space exploration. Its a constant fight. Most senaters would rather spend some money on building a dam for their constituints rather then pour it into something you need an advanced physics degree to understand and that wont really pay off for another 10, 20, 30 years. PLEASE dont label me as The Shuttle Supporter here. Im just a realist about this stuff thats all.
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." |
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#25 | |
Elven Warrior
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Right here in between yesterday and tomorrow.
Posts: 357
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What do you mean by "space program"?
Astronomy and space science was a hobby of mine while in college at around the time of the transition between the era most notable for the Apollo missions (going OUT THERE) and the shuttle program (staying in the neighborhood) and so I could follow a bit the rather heated debate in the space establishment about which would be more beneficial. It was not without some controversy that all bets were finally placed on the shuttle program. If by "space program," one means staying in the neighborhood of Earth's outer atmosphere or a bit beyond -- wherever the satellites, stations and shuttles are active nowadays -- it's not even a question any more, what with communications needs, let alone the presence of ICBMs all over the place. It will do until we find something better (as we must, as the debris will just grow and grow out there and finally force us to look elsewhere on Earth for solutions). However, going OUT THERE is a pipedream. We don't need it. More especially, we don't need the temptations to play god that it offers: everything in human history on Earth predicts exactly what is going to happen when one group of people gains control, however innocently, over another group of people's air, food and water, and it's not pretty. Too, we look at planets like Mars and the Moon (ours) and invent terms like "terraforming" as if we actually knew what the heck we were talking about, which we don't. Nor do we have anything like the technology that would be needed to make even a small part of those solar system bodies economically habitable for any human population (also, see the first point). And I've developed a rather jaundiced eye on the whole "benefit mankind" approach anyway, having lived through the "we defeated smallpox!" celebration to the current era, in which the question boils down to when to get vaccinated against smallpox, before or after the terrorists use it in an attack. Would it be possible for humanity to isolate the technology it would need to develop to go OUT THERE well enough for it not to be accessed and abused right here on earth? Terraforming technology -- what a weapon. No, too many temptations. We should instead try something really revolutionary: learn to be happy with what we've got. To paraphrase G. K. Chesterton in The Hammer of God, humility is the mother of giants -- one sees great things from the earth; only small things from the space ship. Why keep trying to get out there and shrink our overall perspective?
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Last edited by The Lady of Ithilien : 02-26-2003 at 10:17 PM. |
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#26 | ||
Quasi Evil
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Maryland, US
Posts: 4,634
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you are suggesting we arrest our development. that we simply keep our heads in the sand and never look at the real world. we just cant do that. its impossible. and before we get into any Arthur C. Clarke discusions about terriforming other planets lets first LOOK at mars. see whats there. see how it relates to us. by exploring farther and farther beyond our home man learns more about himself then he ever could without exploring. why do we need to fear that?
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." |
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#27 |
Slacker
Warrior Admin Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Alabama
Posts: 2,759
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Humans have always wanted to explore unknown frontiers and push boundaries. Space is just our next step. When asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, George Leigh Mallory replied simply, "Because it's there." Why do we want to explore space? Because it's there. In the meantime, we continue to develop new technologies to make life better here on Earth while we explore space. Is it worth it? Yes.
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"If the giving of information is to be the cure of your inquisitiveness, I shall spend all the rest of my days in answering you." Gandalf to Pippin Psalm 107:31 |
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#28 | ||||||
Elven Warrior
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Right here in between yesterday and tomorrow.
Posts: 357
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Now, Insidious Rex: Quote:
On and off. Life and death. That is what I mean by playing God. And yet space exploration requires exactly that control all the time as a bare minimum. Quote:
That, too, is what I mean by playing God. Quote:
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![]() No thanks -- I'll just sit back and admire the view.
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#29 | |||||||
Quasi Evil
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Maryland, US
Posts: 4,634
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Secondly its not about looking through the window of your space pod. Its about being able to touch the seas of Europa and feel the heat of the volcanos on Io. THATS where we need to be. We cant do that from earth no matter how far we stretch. and beyond even that its about the natural flow of our species beyond the egg shell of our little birth place. Quote:
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." |
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#30 |
Viggoholic
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Australia
Posts: 1,749
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Remember, we have only 5 billion years before the sun goes nova and engulfs the Earth.
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Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try. |
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#31 | |
The Buddy Rabbit
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Trapped in the headlights..
Posts: 3,372
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#32 | ||
Elven Warrior
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Right here in between yesterday and tomorrow.
Posts: 357
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Do we know any better where we are, And how it stands between the night tonight And a man with a smoky lantern chimney? How different from the way it ever stood?" (From Robert Frost's The Star-Splitter) Or ever will stand. That's a question best handled in the comforts of home, not while freezing in Europa's putative "seas" or roasting in the hellfires of Io's sulfur vents (both of which just serve to distract us from this central question).
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#33 | |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Durham, England
Posts: 694
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Why the either/or option? Scientific explorational and technological progress is at the expense self-awareness? No: it's all too easy to offer fallacious "choices". Our society is developing in many ways, all tangled inextricably together. You cannot simply cherry-pick the bits you like and then claim the others are hindering your wish-list. The interlinking is just too complex for anyone to know what the effects of cutting one strand would be on the others. For instance, Apollo was the ultimate in short-term, goal-driven space programmes, with no logical follow-on attempted. However, but for the NASA-funded investment in developing Apollo's on board computers, we would probably still be waiting for the internet to come along so we could have this conversation!
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I'm beset by self-doubt ....or am I? |
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#34 |
Elven Warrior
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: the US of A! But I wish i was in austraila, never been, just think it would be a fun place to live :)
Posts: 372
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I knew about those lil side benefits of the Space Program. What I was trying to say is that we probably know more about the moon than we know about our own Rain Forests and Oceans. If we dont learn how to take care of the Rain Forests we wont be here to learn more about the moon.
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I'm Baaaack!! |
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#35 |
the Shrike
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: San Francisco, CA <3
Posts: 10,647
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Sure we will. We'll be terraforming mars.
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"Binary solo! 0000001! 00000011! 0000001! 00000011!" ~ The Humans are Dead, Flight of the Conchords |
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#36 |
Super Smilie Freak
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: In the entmoot army, trying to get rid of black and blue!
Posts: 350
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Sure!
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#37 |
'Sober' Mullet Frosh
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Queen's
Posts: 1,245
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I think we can all agree that space exploration is inevitable, and most of us agree it is desired, and probably in the long term, a necessary endeavor. The question is really what can we do to facilitate this-governmental super-agencies won't be able to do it. In the long-run there are two ways to space-money and war. Either it gets militirized or one can make a profit of it. But until that happens I doubt there'd be real progress.
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"Earnur was a man like his father in valour, but not in wisdom" |
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#38 | |||||
Elven Warrior
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Right here in between yesterday and tomorrow.
Posts: 357
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Most of us?
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But in a more general sense, in The Star-splitter the dichotomy/splitting is actually done by the technology, the 'space program,' if you will: that telescope bought by the man who burned down his family home to buy it (yes, telescopes were once very rare and very expensive, and hardly ever seen in private hands in the days when the space program was in the hands of academia), a telescope that "didn't do a thing but split a star in two...." I just love the New England dryness in the comment: "It's a star-splitter if there ever was one, And ought to do some good if splitting stars 'sa thing to be compared with splitting wood." More of us than you might imagine feel that it isn't. Quote:
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In that sublime and puzzling, earthy world, "to be social is to be forgiving." But in computer-assisted conversation among strangers, which I fully concur can be traced back to NASA support, we're not living alongside most of the people we converse with, and so there's no need to be forgiving, is there? Hence, the harshness, the narrowness, the flames that always seem to pop up, even on "family-oriented" sites. (Note: that's a general observation and not intended as a comment on this wonderful thread, or this wonderful board. Am just pointing out the limitations and risks involved in any such communications.) It would only grow worse with distance.
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Last edited by The Lady of Ithilien : 03-02-2003 at 12:33 PM. |
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#39 | ||
Quasi Evil
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Maryland, US
Posts: 4,634
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Ad Astra!
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Please people keep in mind that there are ONLY two possibilities for the future of our species: Expansion or Extinction. There is no third option about being content and all six billion of us actively deciding to sit around and read poetry. Navel gazing is the equivilent of extinction in the long run. Quote:
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." |
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#40 |
Super Smilie Freak
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: In the entmoot army, trying to get rid of black and blue!
Posts: 350
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Yeah we need a space program at least me and one of my bff's do!
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