It's ok with me if NASA Human Space Flight is shut down. It's not like we would be loosing Star Trek. NASA won't even attempt to build a zero-mass field-propelled flying saucer (or requisition a DoD TR-3B) for air and space flights.

Considering humanities drive to explore and the fact that the surface of the earth has been for the most part explored, next on our plate will be space. If anything could draw humanity together I feel that it would be space exploration. And it's not like we humans haven't undergone hardships in our quest to explore, we use to navigate ships with maps claiming "here be dragons" and spend months on ships sailing to new lands. Space exploration would be difficult and dangerous but when has anything of that nature stopped us before?

Mankind has already broken its earthly bond. Now, there is some conjecture about the true extent of it when talking of the moon landings, but that is for another time. As long as there are astronauts heading into earth's orbit or spending time on the International Space Station, the chains of earth have been broken. To what extent? That is up to governments and private enterprise to mull over in the future. With the economy in the pits as result of the meltdown in 2008, we have seen calls to slash budgets to the space program in the US and I am fairly certain other governments are following suit. As far as privatization goes, I am all for it. However, when it comes to human death, or significant accidents that would arise, it seems the liability costs would be enormous? Would it be in a corporation's best interest to shoulder that cost?

We know what private enterprise is capable of with all the natural disasters caused by them. Most recently the BP oil spill, and the Fukushima incident in Japan. Now, they are going to be doing business in space where dangers abound, and is one of the harshest environments known to man? As far as I am concerned, I have reservations about private corporations doing business with space travel and exploration, because any business will do its utmost to make as much money as possible. Often times, safety and the general well being of the public is put on the back burner.

Some talk of NASA in a bad light because of the extensive costs, and the apparent cloak-and-dagger approach to releasing information. That is certainly something to debate. However, since the departments inception the space program has been largely safe. There was Apollo 13, and the shuttle disasters, and maybe more they have been tight lipped about because of national security implications. There may be more, but as far as I know, it seems safe. I just don't want to see some corporation mucking things up as they have in he past. I am split down the middle about how I feel about the future of space exploration, or who leads the way. One thing is for certain, there is so much more that is left to be discovered up there, and it would be stupid to sit on our hands because of the financial cost involved. Great thread, Slay!

I say anyone who thinks it all that important to waste so many resources to fly into space ought to stay there. Clearly they don't appreciate the wonders of the planet we currently inhabit. Good riddance. I'm happy seeing the universe in a grain of sad. And it requires no burning of finite resources.

Originally posted by BlackPoison94
Now look at Jupiter, Saturn...I'm not going anywhere near there

How about Neptune? I hear they have diamonds the size of a bus up there

Originally posted by SLAYER69
I'd go colonize Mars in a heartbeat

I hear they have some openings in the Mines I'll see if I can hook you up

Originally posted by PixelDuster

We can do this... I say "Go for it!"
Wonder if it's too late to sign up...

No... but you need connections. Also consider it's the PTB and the Elite that are going to be your companions

And you will need to pick up one of these babies; the Mars1 Humvee

The more I've learnt about space, the more I doubt we'll go past LEO for quite some time.

Take for example, the ISS, all it takes is a piece of debris no bigger than a marble to be on the right trajectory and it will be destroyed, the astronauts staying on board have had to evacuate to a Soyuz capsule just in case on a fairly regular basis. This debris often is from us which presents another issue and one someone mentioned earlier about having all our crap in space, there is already too much up there, it's a bloody mine field!

I think Zorgon did a thread on space garbage, or a post and if you ask me, we're pretty flippant about the whole thing.

So once we get past our own debris, we have to worry about things like asteroids, cosmic particles, solar radiation, cosmic radiation, and all sorts of nasties, space isn't some sort of empty vacuum I'm afraid to say.

So, all this leads to some sort of shielding, before we can have space hotels or moon colonies we need to build them so they are able to protect themselves from these things. I think this is the next big hurdle, we have the propulsion tech, we have the ability to be self sustainable but we can't fully protect ourselves from pace itself yet.

The second problem is money and the entire planet contributing together, already mentioned I know but two things come to mind here...

Star Trek and what ATSers would call the NWO.

Firstly, taking a leaf out of Gene Roddenberry's vision for space is probably the best way to go about it, when you break it down, the guy had the right idea.

Namely, a one world government.

Now, many here believe this is being put in place as we speak and that it's completely evil.

If the mass human exodus to space is to happen, we'll need this one world government.

Catch 22!!

Anyway, just throwing what's in my head down, there's a whole not more obviously.

It will be a tough ask whatever we do!

Originally posted by neo96

i mentioned he3 helium the main component for fusion reactors and hello? fusion is clean.

Where did you mention that? not in the post i was responding to.

there, you said "think about it no more coal plants no more waste dumps no more damage done to the earth "