01-16-2004, 09:26 PM | #141 |
Quasi Evil
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oh and by the way one of the really good reasons to establish a base on the moon is because we really would benefit by puting the next space telescope there. right smack dab on the dark side of the moon using the next generation of technology. It will make hubble look like a set of toy binoculars. its actually pretty key we do this soon. because with the shuttle scrapped the hubble will no longer get servicing which it needs periodically. So probably in the next 5 years youll see the hubble go out of commision. now if we put a much more powerful space telescope (and they are already developed) on the dark side of the moon my god the things we could see with that. and a small base around it could easily service it when needed. so say what you want about how stupid and passe the moon is but its a great place to look out over the heavens.
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01-16-2004, 10:33 PM | #142 |
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But there's really no 'dark side' of the moon. The moon orbits the earth every 28-29 days, with the same side facing earth at all times. Each part of the moon's surface spends half that time in the sunlight and half in the dark.
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01-16-2004, 10:54 PM | #143 | ||
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I think the idea of having a base or a telescope there is still a valid one though.
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01-16-2004, 11:57 PM | #144 | |
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01-19-2004, 07:43 AM | #145 | |
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Haven't we learned the lessons space research so far? - that technology is NOT on an inevitable upward curve - that you can't solve technical problems just by throwing money at them - that it's prohibitively expensive to send people to the moon - that you get better value for money from unmanned exploration |
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01-19-2004, 08:29 AM | #146 | |
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I would also really like to see an example fo where it has been demonstrated that technological advances have stopped. Technology breeds other technologies - it's the way it has always been and the way it will always be. It's sort of funny - it was declared in the early 1900's that all that could be invented had been invented. I wish that person was still alive to see the technology he claimed would never be invented.
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01-19-2004, 08:38 AM | #147 | |
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I never said that technology stopped; what I meant was that technological determinism is pretty much dead, and should not be revived. Lots of things have helped kill it off, such as Hiroshima and the Cold War (at last we realise that just because we can do something does not mean that we have to do it, and that we have to restrain technology with informed choices), but also the Apollo programmes (some technology is just too expensive). But perhaps a better example is genetic engineering: the progress in genetic research is much slower than was promised in the early days, principally because every time a gene is identified it throws up a whole raft of new questions regarding how it works, when and in combination with what, what the consequences of messing about with it are, etc. So, the more we find out about something, the more we need to know about it in order to harness it. The "upward curve" of technology slopes off towards the horizontal over time. This "normal science" is all well and good with stuff you can do in laboratories, but when you're talking about doing it in outer space, it just gets preposterously impractical. Last edited by The Gaffer : 01-19-2004 at 09:07 AM. |
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01-19-2004, 09:01 AM | #148 | ||
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Quotes from John F Kennedy... Quote:
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01-19-2004, 09:59 AM | #149 | |
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One big difference: The places those previous explorers went to were hospitable enough climes for human habitation. It would take overwhelming effort to provide an artificial hospitable clime for someone on a remote, barren planet. It would take enormousely more to attempt to make that entire planet hospitable for humans. We'd be better off working on THIS place - because no matter how bad it gets, it'll always be closer to where we need to get back to - than whatever we have to start with on another place sundered from us by many millions of miles, intense radiation and gravitational fields (not to mention the cold vacuum of space). If we ever have to get humanity off of this rock to ensure our survival... good luck to us! Once heard the mathematical problem given: If you could march all the people of the earth past a certain point, four rows wide, would you ever get everyone across? The problem is that you have a constantly growing population waiting to cross... and the line may just get longer the more time goes by. Now imagine trying to march all those people continuously onto ships that can take them into space, to a safe destination somewhere 'out there'... and imagine making the ships fast enough to keep the people moving. It's a losing battle all around... Last edited by Valandil : 01-19-2004 at 10:00 AM. |
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01-19-2004, 10:01 AM | #150 | |||||
I am Freddie/UNDERCOVER/ Founder of The Great Continent of Entmoot
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I see gaffer you edited your stuff after I posted.
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I already addressed this one - but I guess your original wording which I quoted in the post above wasn't sarcastic enough. Quote:
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As for the Apollo program. We gained a lot of knowledge and MANY MANY advances in science came through that. Many medical advances that help people everyday even. The technology that the Apollo program bred is invaluable and we take it for granted today. Quote:
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Traveling across the Atlantic in the beginning was also prohibitively expensive. Only the surviving and successful sea captains are remembered and celebrated. The others' ships are today playgrounds for divers and treasure hunters.
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01-19-2004, 10:13 AM | #151 | ||
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We will never get to that point with these "it's too impossible and impracticle".
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01-19-2004, 10:23 AM | #152 | ||
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So - I guess I'm thinking some kind of 'Solar System Patrol'... kinda like a 'Coast Guard in Space' |
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01-19-2004, 10:36 AM | #153 | |
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01-19-2004, 10:43 AM | #154 | |
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01-19-2004, 11:35 AM | #155 | ||
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01-19-2004, 12:25 PM | #156 | ||
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Well, the arguments in favour of manned missions to Mars and the like seem to be along the lines of:
- because it's there - because humans are exploratory and expansionist by nature - because it'll help technology to develop Those points again: Technological determinism is the belief that technical development is inevitable and part of "progress", a "reified" thing in itself which is over and above the specific areas being developed. I'm portraying this as an aspect of the argument that we as a species have to continuously expand. I put the link in so that people can explore the background to that if they want. Anyhoo, the point would be that technology develops where we invest in it, and that putting lots of money into one area would deprive another. Like renewable energy, for example. Can we say that if we spent the money needed to send a manned mission to Mars on renewable energy we would not get more benefit from it? Hiroshima taught us that our technology could destroy us all. It is immaterial (to this very important lesson) who was first to drop the bomb. IMHO, it was justified: it probably saved more lives than it cost by ending the war. But the point was that we sobered up a bit and realised that we need to be careful to control technology. Genetic research: Of course it takes time to develop. What I'm saying is that it is one thing to "map" the genome, it is another to develop applications and yet another to prove that they do more good than harm. This process is taking longer than we were promised ten years ago, for very good reasons. Pharmaceutical companies and biotechs are finding this out and hitting real problems because of it. Quote:
So, my argument would be that we can't justify manned space flight in terms of technological advancement: it's simply not efficient. It would take so long and consume so much effort that other, more important and pressing things, would suffer as a result. Since we're all fans of Thomas Edison, we should look to his example: Quote:
Last edited by The Gaffer : 01-19-2004 at 12:28 PM. |
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01-19-2004, 01:40 PM | #157 |
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Don't tell me they're giving up Hubble to get enough funds together for these new missions! After all the trouble they went through to get it fixed? After all those images it sent us? Just to let it burn up now in the atmosphere? What a bloody waste.
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01-19-2004, 02:11 PM | #158 | |||
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01-19-2004, 02:40 PM | #159 |
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I guess I heard it wrong then. I don't really realise how old Hubble is, I suppose.
An orbiting satellite should normally have an orbit that will stay stable for quite a while but I thought they would steer Hubble purposefully in re-entry in the atmosphere to burn up like what happened with poor old Mir. In a way, that's a useful way to avoid the space around earth to become cluttered with decommisioned pieces of technology. But I still think it's a shame to put him out of business now. That telescope on the moon may be better in the technological sense but we're still a long way off of getting it installed there.
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01-19-2004, 02:56 PM | #160 | |
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