Why Don't We Have More Stuff Going on in Space

We all find our selve stairing up at the night sky some times and we all also wish we can fly also. I love the vast beautiful excistanes we find ourselves questioning and testing. We are the most inteligent animal we know of and yet we haven't even gone past our own satilite. Its sad. We can do it though, which leads to the question why haven't we. We can say its because the lack of funds but i think thats just an excuse. Or maybe its because we gave that responseibility to our government when it should be up to the UN. Our rival countries think they can do it by them selves and so do we so we stand devided and slowly progressing. Its sad that we don't come together for this common goal. When will we fix this delema.
oh and the space station sucks! Go ahead and disagree, butit does. I mean god it doesn't even have artifical gravity.

Originally posted by eightpoundworld
maybe its because we gave that responseibility to our government when it should be up to the UN.

Giving the responsibility to an agency that's even farther from the people is going in the wrong direction. Nothing would ever get done. Companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic will lead the way in the future because they don't get paid if they don't produce results.

Because the robotics guys won the argument back in the eighties with the mantra "farther, faster, cheaper": the reality was slower, less, more expensive. When you count all the robotic failures, the utter lack of drama and broader engagement, and the loss of all the inventions that manned space flight would have generated....it just makes me sad and sick.

The reason we're behind in so many areas today and we have nothing remotely resembling a vision for the future is that a whole generation's imagination has been limited to get-rich-quick in the financial "industry"; pretty thin gruel for dreaming and achieving grand visions.

Originally posted by eightpoundworld
We can say its because the lack of funds but i think thats just an excuse.

It's not an excuse. Space exploration is very expensive and a lot of people have little to no interest in it, so funding for it is generally neglected.

Or maybe its because we gave that responseibility to our government when it should be up to the UN.

That would be even worse I'd think. The best option would be a mix of Government funded and private spaceflight.

Its sad that we don't come together for this common goal.

There is actually a lot of cooperation between space agencies. Cassini-Huygens is one of many examples.

oh and the space station sucks! Go ahead and disagree, butit does. I mean god it doesn't even have artifical gravity.

Well I strongly disagree. Is the lack of artifical gravity your only reason for not liking it?

Just think where the US space proggram could be if it wasnt spending $410 million a day in iraq & afganistan!

I am of the opinion that the Shuttle and subsequently ISS has been a considerable waste of time and money. A large proportion of the science experiments it is used for were either performed on Skylab, or Mir, or by Hubble, or could have been performed by unmanned satellites. One manned trip to the moon or mars can do the work of tens of rovers, landers, and such.

I hate feeling as though we are going backwards in human technological achievements, i don't accept we should be content with Apollo as the only visits humans have made to another world. 40 years ago we had the technology to go to the moon, now we can barely reach 350mile LEO without the shuttle having to be rescued, if we are going to be spending the money and risking the lives, why can't we do something inspiring, rather than menial microgravity research in LEO for 3 decades.

[edit on 29-1-2009 by Ridill]

All I know is that all this money spent on wars and elections could of had us in the cosmos along time ago. It would of fed every hungry person in the world for the rest of their lives too. There's no money or control in space so why leave when everything is good here? Maybe when technology comes along that allows us gravity in spaceships and an endless supply of food and oxygen then space will be our new frontier.

Originally posted by Ridill
I am of the opinion that the Shuttle and subsequently ISS has been a considerable waste of time and money. A large proportion of the science experiments it is used for were either performed on Skylab, or Mir, or by Hubble, or could have been performed by unmanned satellites. One manned trip to the moon or mars can do the work of tens of rovers, landers, and such.

Do you think that going to moon and mars will like getting inside your car and driving it to your nearest supermarket?

It is really complex, research is still going on how the astronauts body conditions will change in the long microgravity conditions while travelling to and fro from mars and that is why the ISS was put up in orbit for research of effects on human body.

The flow of space exploration is simple, skylab and mir were the base for the ISS and the ISS is now the base for future missions to moon and mars.

We haven't learned how to take care of the planet we already have.

I don't think we should be going anywhere to make more mess -
until we clean up this mess.

Clearly we are too irresponsible.

Originally posted by Solarskye
All I know is that all this money spent on wars and elections could of had us in the cosmos along time ago.

I dare say that the money spent on "wars" has made it safe for us to freely speculate about not spending money on "wars," but I know that's an extreme minority opinion around here. I'd also like to say that of all the things to complain about spending money on, elections never once crossed my mind. Are you against a representative form of government?

There's no money or control in space so why leave when everything is good here?

Without space exploration you wouldn't have modern hurricane forecasting, modern tennis shoes, modern computers, modern solar power, ozone monitoring, enriched baby food, iodine water purification systems for developing nations, fire-resistant materials, smoke alarms, dust busters, home security systems, sports bras, transitions lenses, and quartz crystal clocks, to name a few. I dare say that some of the breakthroughs in space exploration have contributed to the well-being of people in developing nations, so it's silly to complain that the money would be better spent helping feed/cloth/take care of people. Necessity is the mother of invention, and there's no place as demanding of innovation as space. It forces to do things in unusual ways, and therefore you end up creating things that you wouldn't thought of any other way. I know you're not personally complaining about spending money on space, but I'm seeing that sentiment cropping up so I just wanted to throw this out there.

[edit on 29-1-2009 by ngchunter]

Originally posted by spinkyboo
We haven't learned how to take care of the planet we already have.

I don't think we should be going anywhere to make more mess -
until we clean up this mess.

Clearly we are too irresponsible.

But that's one of the neat things about space exploration. They try to reuse and recycle everything possible, since resources are extremely limited. We could afford to live a little more like they do in space. And technologies derived from things used in space can help us do that.