When JFK made his now famous speech in which he promised that America would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, our fledgling space technology was nowhere near equal to the task. A very prominant mathematician even "proved" that because of the number of parts needed for a moon trip and the statistical probabillity of at least one of those parts failing thus causing failure of the mission, that it was impossible to achieve. Yet despite the lack of computers, or advanced rocketry that we enjoy today, on july 20 1969 neil armstrong emerged from the lunar lander and spoke those now famous words. The doubters still persisit to this day who say that we could not and did not achieve the dream of landing a man on another hevenly body and returning him safely home, Just as they did in the days leading up to Apollo 11. And yet despite the relatively primitive state of our technology n the 60s and 70s America was able to achieve something extrordinary. But while the bulk of the nation has viewed the astronauts, engneers and scientists who made the program work as heroes (and rightly so) The people who are truly responsible for the great leap forward that the U.S. made is the Sovet Union. Had we not been n the midst of a "cold war" and our national pride not been at stake, President Kennedy would never have had the courage to charge America with achieving such an improbable vision. Today NASA has access to resources which would have caused the engneers of yesteryear to faint from near orgasmic pleasure, Technologies which would have boggled the mind of even the most brilliant scientists, and, once again a President who has charged them with a great vision. And yet despite all of theese advantages the two greaset which NASA enjoyed in the 60s and 70s are gone. There is no great public thrst for exploration and no great adversary to chalenge our national pride, and without these two factors the pace of explortion and achievement will slow to near halt. Yes we have sent probes to jupiter and saturn, launched dozens of robots throughout the cosmos, and seen further into the universe (and thus time) than ever before, but without the national will of the American people firmly behind them NASA can not make the bold leaps that they did in the past. Though the idea of colonies on the moon and mars is exiting to some to others it is the height of irelevance, and without a challenge to our natonal pride it will remain so. We need a space race, we need an adversary, we need someone, anyone to challenge our pride and goad our slumbering giant into impassioned action. As I think upon the world I see our historic enemies shatered, divided, broke, and unworthy of our competition, those ene,ies who are still dangerous are not the sort to loft men into the heavens, and our alles successes are usually as a result of our guidance. So who then will Challenge the United States of America? Who has the resources, the technology, and the will to throw down the guantlet and challenge our supremacy? Who has the potiential to become the adversary of the only nation to ever send men into the heavens to touch the face of god? There is only one country who can fit this description, only one country who can be the savior of our space programs by stepping nto the ring and going toe to toe wth the red white and blue, China. So I extend a challeng to China, its peoples and its leaders, step up to the plate and force us to throw the heat, Be the adversary we deserve and demand, for in a cmpetion between U.S. and you, (pun intended) regardless of who is left standing when the final bell tolls and the smoke clears and the time for counting coup has come, regardless of who loses the world entire wins.

we need international co-operation and lets race with whole mankind
..

then you will say but with whom to race..
we know there is life out site our own world
even if its is not been proven with hard facts we
can life to the facts that there are other life forms and
let race against the other life forms so that we
race which one creates the best or the fastest way
to travel trough space.
it is not needed the others know of this race but just
pretend that they do.

I don’t think that even renewed competition with other countries would be enough to spark the interests of America in space travel and exploration. I think most Americans are at best apathetic concerning the prospects of a rejuvenated space program, and by that I mean a program dedicated to truly attempting things that have not been done before such as lunar bases or even space stations in lunar orbit, not to mention expeditions to Mars. If the Chinese do develop a successful space program and do go to the moon, I think it would be more likely that American astronauts would try to hitch a ride with them while NASA would continue putting shuttles into orbit and be content staying closer to home. I do think that NASA would jump at the chance to construct a lunar base either on the surface or in orbit, but point blank, America doesn’t want to pay for it no matter who else is trying to go there. Its ironic that most Americans don’t recognize what the space program has contributed to our everyday lives and view the whole thing as a waste of time and money. Personally, I hope the Chinese are very successful and show us how dramatic and inspiring space travel still is.

Originally posted by MarkLuitzen
we need international co-operation and lets race with whole mankind

I totally agree. The only way we will ever truly explore space is through cooperation as a whole. Or unless major corporations find a way to make a decent profit off of it...

Cooperation unfortuntely is not a great motivator, competition is. The idea of the whole world workin together to explore space is nice in a roddenberry sort of way but it wont work. Humans have the tendancy to defne themselves by thier enemies, and without a challenge to our national pride nothing momentous will happen
Geekzilla you are right America is apathetic, but let the chinese land a man on the moon and that will change. The chicoms will gloat and the U.S. will rage and from the competion will come great leaps forward.

In my opinion the ONLY thing which coud unite all mankind is a common enemy. I.E. agressive aliens.

you can cooperate and still have an internal compition.
like we need a propulsion system and say to every nation
can you do it, well some of them say yes and
then those nations which can will go in to compitition to
make the best or fastest, or as they say the best of the best
of the product ordered for the cheapest price.
this way you can go with allmost every part of a craft
or sat.

I completely agrre with Bush in his plan to send man back to the moon and to mars. I only wosh it happened sooner.

mwm1331, you said what I exactly had in mind. Studies have proven Humans work the best under competitive situations. If we want the things we see in movies about colonization to occur, we need a threat from extraterrestials.

Could you write with spaces next time, like in form of paragraphs, so people like me who have a really low attention span get your ideas. Thanks a lot.

Originally posted by qwzxas
I completely agrre with Bush in his plan to send man back to the moon and to mars. I only wosh it happened sooner.

Who wouldn't agree with that, however, he needs to put the money where his mouth is. All he has done so far is cut NASA's budget even further and drive up record deficits...thats no way to get it done.

He's full of it, that statement by him was politically motivated and he knows it...but to be fair the last president who truly embraced space travel was gunned down in Dallas...

Take care.

Bush shouldn't be funding NASA anymore! NASA has done almost NOTHING compared to what small private organizations have. Has anyone heard of Unitel, Gravity Control Technologies, Archer Enterprises, StarDrive, or the IMP. These are all AMERICAN organizations working on developing true propelentless starships and they are getting close to launching prototypes (Many within a year or less from launch). Organizations like these need to be funded. They are the ones making all the progress while NASA isn't. If NASA was interested in exploring the universe they wouldn't of cut the funding for the BPP and they would have gaven up on the rocket by now. Rockets are old, we need something newer and better. The physics of a rocket has been proven time after time.

It is correctly stated in this thread that the moon race was a product of Cold War. It needs to be viewed as such. It kick started the American space tech as we know it now. However, it's main value was and still is propaganda.

However, despite being a SciFi fan and all that, and being fascinated by the lunar landing and such, I think that it would be a waste of resources to go to the Moon and Mars at this point.

If you "want a challenge", how about ending the desease and hunger in the world, controlling the world population, doing something about the foodchain (90% of seafood supply already depleted), or curing cancer for gossake. These are very real challenges and it hasn't been done before. On 9/11 (just as any other day) 6,000 children in the world died of diarrhea. That's a fact. To me, saving thousands of lives from diarrhea is more poetic than the space flight. On that same day, 25,000 persons perished of hunger.

There is plethora of valuable data yielded by unmanned probes. Lay people have trouble understanding this, though, and it doesn't gets them as excited as the footprint on lunar surface. Well, tough.

Let's clean our house first. And you know, what about the budget deficit? I would agree that if Bush didn't squander $100B in Iraq, there could be some spare change for the space program, but there is not.


[edit on 14-8-2004 by Aelita]

[edit on 14-8-2004 by Aelita]

Bush simply has other prioritys then we do. He is to focused on wars and helping other nations while he's not helping his OWN nation. He needs to start focusing on fixing our issues, not afganistans and iraqs (Why are we fighting Iraq?).We had no reason to go into Iraq. Its Sadams soil and anyone living on his soil should have to fallow his rules. We can't go in there and just take things over, its not right.

If we begin to see everything in that way, then the very existence of us, arguing what to do, instead of solving it is a waste. For example you could have given the money with which you bought the computer to those poor people, so pretty much everything is a waste. No Offense with the example.

If we stop all our excess spending and use it to cure cancer or try to stop sea pollution, we would be fighting for defeat. There are always going to be new diseseas, we can't possibly destroy every one of them, so why bother.

If we could somehow stop all those 6000 children from dying, wonder what will happen to Earth if that happens everyday, wonder what will happen to world population. It would sore, growth rate will skyrocket thousand times greater than the agricultural revolution.

There is a reason we die, at least in my mind, is to allow new people to be born (that is what they thought me in school and home.) If everyone lives on forever, it wouldn't be long before the Earth becomes like any one of the other planets:uninhabitable. Dying is part of a natural process just like coming into this world.