Where should America have been in space by now?

[alexwcovington]

Now that China is gearing up towards a lunar colony within the decade, one must stop and ask the question "Where should we be?"

I think that by now America should have had colonies on the Moon and Mars... and a trip to Jupiter.

[Forkboy]

1. I don't know about colonies at this point

but our space program has become pretty lame.Much to my chagrin.

[alexwcovington]

3. Lame?

Manned flight is nonexistent at this point! How pathetic. We need to move forward.

[Forkboy]

12. hey I was trying to be diplomatic

:)

[CanuckAmok]

2. a more important question...

How many months/weeks/minutes will it take for the US to declare China's colonization of the Moon an invasion of her sovereignty and exchange blows...

I'm picturing the space battle from "Moonraker"--anyone else?

[alexwcovington]

6. uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.




Well, Bush has pulled out of every other UN accord, he'd probably pull out of the space weapons and territories ban.

[Leftist78]

4. at least a couple of trips to Mars

impossible to land on Jupiter cause it's a gas giant, but a couple of its moons are possibilities.

[alexwcovington]

7. Naturally

The moons would be the target...

[Systematic Chaos]

5. I agree with you.

If only HALF the money spent on "defense" in this country in the last 50 years would have been spent on scientific research and space exploration, we would probably be 20 or even 30 years further ahead of the technology curve than we are now.

As it stands, I'm not too keen on our species' prospects of establishing a colony anywhere in space. :(

Edited for grammar.

[LastKnight]

9. and...

if ONE THIRD of the money in defense was added to the education budget in math, science, and physics areas we would get a helluva lot farther, i am in advanced classes in those areas as a high school senior im doin some college level stuff, but we only have one class of advanced physics and only a few advanced math courses. all of which the teachers are vastly underpaid, the lab equipment is all outdated or broken, we need funding for education if were to succeed in these areas

-LK

[Maple]

8. Had the artificial space station

been skipped, and the natural one of the moon used, there could have been a colony on Mars by now.

[MarianJack]

10. Isn't it typical...

...of the cowardice of the halliburton administration that we've all but abandoned manned space flight since the Columbia tragedy?

I've always loved space exploration and study. When Columbia exploded I felt as though I lost friends. What a monumental act of disrespect to courageous people that our coward president virtually eliminates manned flight after Columbia.

At least nixon and reagan went on after the mourning and the space program found a new resolve.

Then again, revitalizing the space program and dealing with the issues that arose from Columbia would divert too much money from halliburton. We could NEVER have that now, could we?

[leftofthedial]

11. Moon and Mars

with a space-station planned launch for another solar system

[Forkboy]

13. We're still a LONG ways from exploring other solar systems

the distances involved,and time it would take to cover those distances,are just too great to overcome at the moment.

[Abaques]

28. Not quite true....

We have most of the technology (and are close enough on most of the rest) to build a ship that would be capable of inter-steller travel with reasonable speeds (like 50% of light speed).


Of course that plan involves building a ship that propulses itself by detonating nuclear weapons behind it and riding the shockwave... so maybe its not such a good idea. But in theory we are close on the technology....


But in general I'm with you. The moon, Mars, and maybe some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. We could learn sooooo much...

[Syrinx]

14. I would love to see humans on mars...

Before I drop dead. That would be so coooooool.

[auH2Olost]

15. Space is big

Really big. So big in fact that the simple exersize of picturing how
big it is will cause the most astute of the students studying it to
accept it is too big to comprehend.

To accept that space is one big circle that can be circumvented
is to ignore the fact that there is always something bigger beyond
that which we can understand.

The final answer is to ground yourself onto something solid like
a family and kids or relagate yourself to the infinite wonder of the
unknown.

I chose the latter.

[Gore1FL]

16. Nothing wrong with that

but if the earth dies, the sun goes out etc there won;t be much to ground to.

Granted, the events I mentioned won;t happen in our lifetime, but it is an eventuality that at some point needs to be addressed.

[auH2Olost]

18. There is never anything wrong with facts

The Sun will go out, the Earth will die and a very large circle of mass
will recombine and disperse due to overmass. I accept this fact and only
regret I can't be here to see it happen.

Many of us as kids love firework displays and when we become adults we
still love firework displays. Making it to adulthood is often overlooked
as the goal that we seeked and ignored when we arrived.

[HEyHEY]

17. I think we should hit up Venus

I know it's hot there...but there's gotta be a way.

[Exultant Democracy]

19. It is really a shame

If we don't step it up on the space and science front we are going to start heading into real problems maybe even in the lifetimes of our younger members. Within 50 years we are going to have used up many of the “easily” available necessary resources (fuels, water, etc...) When this happens we are going to be looking at a resource war that will make WW2 look like a picnic.
The best way to avoid this is to start to mine the asteroid belt; the problem is that the window within which we have to act to avert this easily foreseeable disaster is rapidly shrinking (if it hasn’t already passed.) All the while the politicians have yet to even accept that fact that we should be working on a solution.

[Byronic]

20. Swinging on a star

And if the budget allows, I suggest gathering moonbeams home in a jar.

[Kolesar]

21. Our manned space program is a waste

Human space flight gets 75% of the budget. We put crews in shuttle orbiters at risk to put up satellites. That could be done with expendible boosters with less cost and no risk to crews' lives. What is the purpose of the "science" being done on orbiters and the ISS? To watch spiders try to make spiderwebs in zero-gravity?

I would rather see more deep space probes and telescopes in orbit--you know--real science.

[bif]

22. Yep, we should be on Mars by now

But the gov doesn't fund NASA as well as they should. Think what the $87 billion could have done for the space program!

[kodi]

24. indeed, the technology is handy

there is more memory in an anti-skip device in a new car's cd player than there was on the entire first LEM Eagle Armstrong and Aldrin flew.

all that is necessary is the will to return to outer space.

[GinaMaria]

23. We should have

flying cars by now, damn it and they should collapse into a brief case at the push of a button.

[Heyo]

25. It's a terrible shame...

...that the best space exploration we did died out after Apollo.

It's a shame we did it just to show up the reds instead of for the right reason. Which, IMHO, would be that space exploration is mankind's crowning acheivment and seems like our natural destiny as an adventerous species.

-Heyo

[tom_paine]

26. Mars, but now that instead we opted for 500-channel cable

and of course to follow the course of every Empire that existed for the last 5000 years (updated for technology and changing mores), it is clear that the Amerikan Empire will NEVER colonize the solar system, let alone venture father...

Sadly, very sadly, I am 100% certain of this.

The Busheviks will probably militarize near-Earth orbit, but NOTHING beyond that.

Oh God, our beautiful country! What has become of it?

[Heyo]

27. I am hoping...

since the governments can't (or don't want to) do it....

That civilians will have access to space. Probably via private companies.

I don't think only the government should have acceess to go into space..(or people with 20 million dollars to spend on it)

I realize right now that it's cost prohibitive.. but I am hoping with things like the X prize, it won't always be that way.

Heyo

[tom_paine]

30. Welcome to DU, heyo!

If someone goes to outer space it won't be the Amerikan Empire.

1) Amerika is in the process of being turned into a Third World nation. Third World Economy, Third World voting, Third World law. You don't see Syria or N. Korea shooting for the stars. Even though, in real terms, Amerika will be one of the wealthiest Third World nations in human history, we are swiftly devolving into a de facto kleptocracy that makes the corruption of the Old Republic look dasmned near angelic.

2) So, with all that loot being transferred to the Aristocracy, how come they won't do it themselves. easy. Some things, particularly on the high end of technology, are simply not profitable. Space is that way. Even if our Aristocracy decided it would be a good thing to stop tearing up the planet, let's say, and begin mining the asteroid belt, what kind of economic sense would it make when they can just bribe the Busheviks at a fraction of the cost, and loosen regulations protecting the pollution of Imperial Sunjects' living areas, then dig it out of the ground and dump the tailings next to a ghetto? Increasingly, the Aristocracy views us as little better than animals, anyway. The only time the Aristocracy would consider colonizing space is if they themselves were personally threatened. By hen it will be too late, the shortsighted fuckers.

So you see the formation of a Third World Amerikan Empire gets us coming and going. Kleptocracies are incapable of self-preservational acts from the public or private sector. Everybody is too busy stealing what they can while there is still some meat on the bones.

No, the Amerikan Empire is not going to lead the human race into space. Only a restored Old Republic could do that.

[jafap]

29. people should not go into space

until they learn how to live on earth.
Clifford Simak wrote that.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

31. We should already have an affordable means of getting to space...

And something like on Star Trek where Rockets aren't necessary. Also, We should have a hotel in orbit. Wouldn't that be beautiful? And fun?
Duckie

[TXlib]

32. We should have toured the solar system in a nuclear rocket.

Read Project Orion by George Dyson.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0805072845/qid=1067923669/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/102-2816284-0215331?v=glance&n=507846

[Don_G]

33. Luna And Mars At The Least

It might have been expensive, but what's costing us more: Dimbo's non-support of NASA/JPL/MIT or his tax support of shipping research and jobs overseas?

And if we were there, who knows what a few origonal thinkers might have come up with?

[roguevalley]

34. All the way to the Klingon Empire.

[WindRavenX]

35. We should devote our time to the sciences...

Explore space.
Cure diseases.
Make life better for people.
But science has become something to generate money (AID medication), something to destroy. I wish we'd create more...
We humans seem to ignore the path to take.