Manned Spaceflight Is A Waste Of Resources

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This guy seems to think that, just because we have VR and robots, manned spaceflight is just a waste of resources. So what do you think? Is he on to something or just on something?

Virtual reality goggles are also getting very good at giving people the sense of being outside their bodies. The right equipment mounted on a robot on another planet could allow every human on earth with Internet access a chance at feeling like they are on another planet. So why go the expensive, manned spaceflight route? What often goes unstated is the role of business in lobbying for the most expensive space program possible.
 
Yeah! Why leave the house?!? Let's all just stay inside where it's safe...
 
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i would love whatever wirelees connection he has that can give such low pings at that distance ,that it is like being there...
 
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I'll spend your money however I please!!!

Jerk...

:p
 
I wasn't able to read the original article since the newspaper wants you to have a subscription. But it seems that he's trying to say that manned space flight is equal parts exploration and crony corporate welfare. I think he has a valid point about it being corporate welfare and given our national debt, I'm personally against any space program. I think a lot of people are operating under the delusion that they are going to be among a small group of people who get to escape earth before all life here dies and so they support going to other planets. If they want to leave, fine, but let them pay for it out of their own pockets. If it were up to me, I'd eliminate all the parts of the space program that aren't real military operations.
 
This guy right here is on some really lame stuff. Wonder if he wants a gf or if vr is going to be good enough for that too.....
 
Didn't read the article because of one point, distance. It is quite obvious he does not understand it.

Mars is not 6 minutes from earth, its more like 12, 6 there, 6 back. That isn't a constant number either.

We need immediate, on the ground intellegence and reaction for space travel. Add in relativity problems, and he is just a... human that wants to interact with the world via vr.
 
For now it may be, we need to continue to work on propulsion and logistics to make it practical. Hell, one day it may be mundane.

We're still using explosions to move just about everything we move, on roads, on the water, in the sky, or into space. Explosions are really cool, but kind of inefficient.
 
Fucking an ugly girl feels pretty much the same as fucking a hot one. Like this guy, I see no reason to spend the extra effort to get a hot one.
 
It must be nice to have no dreams or sense of adventure.
I think he's just being practical though, and space truly is incompatible with man, if you see the studies on the negative effects on the human body of extended space time even in just a few months.

Humanity will still reach out and explore the universe, but we can do so without our physical bodies and see without the limitations of our soft dull gelatin cow eyes, by the use of tools, which is what has always separated man from beast and made us so special.

Besides, for 99.99999% of us, that is a far more egalitarian solution, since we will all be able to experience that travel the same, rather than sending a handful of the billions upon billions of us out on an adventure which practically none of us can experience anyway.

I believe that the future of space travel will be virtual, and feel just as real as VR experience improves, and we will ultimately traverse the void perhaps frozen in tiny containers just for the practical purpose of getting from A to B, but our bodies are designed to be terrestrial and luckily there is no shortage of planets in this universe.
 
Manned spaceflight is really only useful if we're going somewhere to live.

Going to mars to set up a colony? Manned space flight!

Going to the moon to study some dust? Send a probe!
 
Fucking an ugly girl feels pretty much the same as fucking a hot one. Like this guy, I see no reason to spend the extra effort to get a hot one.

don't even need the girl, your hand can make you release so just use VR and jerk off. That is the same as having sex with a real person.
 
So, this is a test to see how many people read the article? Because you can't without subscribing to the Houston Chronicle. As low as $1/week! What a bargain!

We need to spread the love all over the universe. In person and via robot/VR. IMO
 
Ships sailing to another land is a waste of resources. (Must be something someone thought a long time ago.)
 
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The lag.. oh the lag.

Time to set up macros for everything so you can just issues movement commands one right after another instead of one, waiting a few minutes, then another.

I think we need to force this guy to play online games with a satellite ISP and see what he thinks about his idea then.
 
For now it may be, we need to continue to work on propulsion and logistics to make it practical. Hell, one day it may be mundane.

We're still using explosions to move just about everything we move, on roads, on the water, in the sky, or into space. Explosions are really cool, but kind of inefficient.

Nobody harnesses the energy from explosions like humans!
 
Manned spaceflight is a waste of resources in many cases.

It's not like we'd send Mars Rover's up there years ago that are human controlled on a one way trip, or a human on Voyager would still be flying.

There might even be a way to set up a valid moon base in the near future just from caves there, and a valid reason to do so once there is a system developed to easily go back and forth.

Trying to someplace like Mars is just a mistake waiting to happen currently.
 
Manned spaceflight is a waste of resources in many cases.
Manned spacefllight is a waste of resources.
Then again going around and around on a racetrack is not a waste of resources?

People do a lot of things that have no direct purpose.

But we still only just scratched the surface of space travel.

Long term space travel has a ton of issues that needs solving. And to solve them you need to travel even if the journey has no purpose. The purpose of the journey ot mars is the journey itself.

When the first people crossed the Atlantic or the Pacific in a plane their journey had no purpose either. The goal was to prove that it can be done. And 50 years later people were leisurely travelling back and forth. Sure it will probably take more than 50 years to make space travel into what is flying but it will happen.
 
I am pretty sure at least 99% of everything we do is a waste of resources.

Most people I know don't really care about space exploration, future technologies, aliens, etc. Incidentally, the ones that care the least about that stuff are the ones that care a great deal about the lives of other people.
 
I wasn't able to read the original article since the newspaper wants you to have a subscription. But it seems that he's trying to say that manned space flight is equal parts exploration and crony corporate welfare. I think he has a valid point about it being corporate welfare and given our national debt, I'm personally against any space program. I think a lot of people are operating under the delusion that they are going to be among a small group of people who get to escape earth before all life here dies and so they support going to other planets. If they want to leave, fine, but let them pay for it out of their own pockets. If it were up to me, I'd eliminate all the parts of the space program that aren't real military operations.

The space program brought us GPS, Velcro, and all the various spin-off scientific advancements in inside medical tech, firefighting tech, environmental tech, food development tech, and countless other fields that have benefited from the research done in order to accomplish the incredible feat of putting us meatbags into an environment we don't belong in. I will leave an excerpt from an article I can link you to if you ask. I am Canadian, and I recognize the massive advancements the US has made with this program. I wish our government would be more collaborative and contribute to more joint ventures as well. As for money, check this out.

A few other things to put NASA’s budget in perspective:

Former NASA administrator Mike Griffin mentioned recently that US consumers spend more on pizza ($27 billion) than NASA’s budget. (Head nod to Ian O’Neill)

Miles O’Brien recently brought it to our attention that the amount of money Bernie Maddof scammed with his Ponzi scheme ($50 billion) is way bigger than NASA’s budget.

Americans spend a lot of money on some pretty ridiculous things. Returning to that oft-used phrase about spending the money used in space to solve the problems on Earth, consider this: *

Annually, Americans spend about $88.8 billion on tobacco products and another $97 billion on alcohol. $313 billion is spent each year in America for treatment of tobacco and alcohol related medical problems.

Likewise, people in the US spend about $64 billion on illegal drugs, and $114.2 billion for health-related care of drug use.

Americans also spend $586.5 billion a year on gambling.

It’s possible we could give up some other things to help alleviate the problems in our country without having to give up the spirit of exploration.
 
TIt’s possible we could give up some other things to help alleviate the problems in our country without having to give up the spirit of exploration.
Woah, back up, bruh. I understand the argument is that the resources we are devoting towards MANNED space flight should be going towards UNMANNED space flight.

You still explore Mars, but you do so with all kinds of unmanned vehicles, instead of trying to figure out a way to shoot sacks of flesh over there and back.

The other advantage of unmanned space flight is the reduction in risk, as it becomes purely economic if a mission fails, instead of worrying about killing some of our best people.

That means we can go far more balls out, reduce the red tape, and get far more experimental to increase the rate of progress.
 
The space program brought us GPS, Velcro, and all the various spin-off scientific advancements in inside medical tech, firefighting tech, environmental tech, food development tech, and countless other fields that have benefited from the research done in order to accomplish the incredible feat of putting us meatbags into an environment we don't belong in. I will leave an excerpt from an article I can link you to if you ask. I am Canadian, and I recognize the massive advancements the US has made with this program. I wish our government would be more collaborative and contribute to more joint ventures as well. As for money, check this out.

A few other things to put NASA’s budget in perspective:

Former NASA administrator Mike Griffin mentioned recently that US consumers spend more on pizza ($27 billion) than NASA’s budget. (Head nod to Ian O’Neill)

Miles O’Brien recently brought it to our attention that the amount of money Bernie Maddof scammed with his Ponzi scheme ($50 billion) is way bigger than NASA’s budget.

Americans spend a lot of money on some pretty ridiculous things. Returning to that oft-used phrase about spending the money used in space to solve the problems on Earth, consider this: *

Annually, Americans spend about $88.8 billion on tobacco products and another $97 billion on alcohol. $313 billion is spent each year in America for treatment of tobacco and alcohol related medical problems.

Likewise, people in the US spend about $64 billion on illegal drugs, and $114.2 billion for health-related care of drug use.

Americans also spend $586.5 billion a year on gambling.

It’s possible we could give up some other things to help alleviate the problems in our country without having to give up the spirit of exploration.

Another way to put this in perspective. The bank bailout was greater than the entire running budget of NASA, since its creation. We spent more in one year to save corporations that made shitty decisions, than we spent on NASA. We also spend more on defense in one year than the entire running budget of NASA, yet for some reason people think we're investing too much.
 
The lag.. oh the lag.

Time to set up macros for everything so you can just issues movement commands one right after another instead of one, waiting a few minutes, then another.

I think we need to force this guy to play online games with a satellite ISP and see what he thinks about his idea then.
The slowest satellite connection available. Then make him control a remote controlled vehicle on the other side of the world using it...with severe consequences for any and all mistakes. Maybe put his mama (or whoever supports him) in it.
My first thought was "and I bet this guy really, really, really hates lag in games". This would be lag completely incomprehensible to him; and when controlling megabucks equipment in unknown environments at that. This guy needs to just stay in mama's basement.
 
The guy has it wrong and here is why.

Mankind must expand off the planet to avoid going the way of the dinosaurs. The ELE is already headed our way, it’s just a matter of time. 100, 1000, or even 10,000 years is all we have left on this planet. Look at the geological and archeological history all around us. It has happened many times in the past and is literally “written in stone”

Mankind, for some reason, has become self-aware and can look to the future and see these things, unlike any of the animals that walked on this planet before us, who are now resigned to the stone as fossils and oil and dust scattered throughout the strata beneath our feet.

Mankind cannot sit around, VR’d in, watching the CME, 50 mile wide asteroid, or whatever is going to end 99.9% of all life on this planet like the dinosaurs did. They were blissfully unware of their pending demise, we would not be.

So, it is not a waste of resources to pursue these goals to spread out among the stars, it is the only course of action that makes sense. To preserve our species by mastering the technology needed to conquer the solar system, the galaxy, and dare to dream, the universe?

Why start with the Moon?

The moon has some large advantages that make it ideal for researching the technology needed to survive in space. The environment requires advances in housing, recycling, hydroponics, mining, manufacturing, robotics, energy production, and more.

It is also close enough to earth to allow the delivery of personnel and supplies that will be needed to establish and grow a base all the way to a self-sustaining enterprise.

If we can achieve that, then will we be ready to expand to Mars, Titan, the asteroids, and even generation ships to the nearest stars.

Only then will we be assured that our species will survive. The clock is ticking, lets get it done...

My 2 cents…….
 
Manned spacefllight is a waste of resources.
Then again going around and around on a racetrack is not a waste of resources?

Do you have any idea how many races can be raced with the resources that it takes to take a single human to space? Lol. I can tell you that's not an insignificant figure.
 
The guy has it wrong and here is why.

Mankind must expand off the planet to avoid going the way of the dinosaurs. The ELE is already headed our way, it’s just a matter of time. 100, 1000, or even 10,000 years is all we have left on this planet. Look at the geological and archeological history all around us. It has happened many times in the past and is literally “written in stone”

Mankind, for some reason, has become self-aware and can look to the future and see these things, unlike any of the animals that walked on this planet before us, who are now resigned to the stone as fossils and oil and dust scattered throughout the strata beneath our feet.

Mankind cannot sit around, VR’d in, watching the CME, 50 mile wide asteroid, or whatever is going to end 99.9% of all life on this planet like the dinosaurs did. They were blissfully unware of their pending demise, we would not be.

So, it is not a waste of resources to pursue these goals to spread out among the stars, it is the only course of action that makes sense. To preserve our species by mastering the technology needed to conquer the solar system, the galaxy, and dare to dream, the universe?

Why start with the Moon?

The moon has some large advantages that make it ideal for researching the technology needed to survive in space. The environment requires advances in housing, recycling, hydroponics, mining, manufacturing, robotics, energy production, and more.

It is also close enough to earth to allow the delivery of personnel and supplies that will be needed to establish and grow a base all the way to a self-sustaining enterprise.

If we can achieve that, then will we be ready to expand to Mars, Titan, the asteroids, and even generation ships to the nearest stars.

Only then will we be assured that our species will survive. The clock is ticking, lets get it done...

My 2 cents…….

What he's saying is that we should create robotics to work in space instead of humans and reduce the waste payload (human operators). Bots could assemble a mars flight with resources harvested from the moon and passing asteroids so that you wouldn't need to use huge resources to assemble a spacecraft from bits built by humans on earth.

Several savings can be done with unmanned flights. LOTS of saved space, weight and you don't need all the redundancy necessary to protect human life.
 
Populating Mars is even still a silly concept atm, even in anyone's wildest dreams.

But that still falls back on the AI thread also, if it hits level 3 in 50 years all kinds of things might be possible, if the AI would decide to keep humans around at all.

People seriously think it is a joke, but if AI actually hits a god like state of self progression, it would be making decisions and operating outside of human comprehension.

50 years ago people thought something like the internet was a joke.

Even 20 years ago I was in a Compuserve Forum with Madeline Allbright and mentioned it at work, and the foreman in the place thought it sounded ridiculous.

He showed up a year later asking me if all that www stuff he was seeing was related somehow :rolleyes:

Jerry died a few years back RIP.
 
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Considering what we are doing to our planet; getting off of it at some point makes sense.
 
What he's saying is that we should create robotics to work in space instead of humans and reduce the waste payload (human operators). Bots could assemble a mars flight with resources harvested from the moon and passing asteroids so that you wouldn't need to use huge resources to assemble a spacecraft from bits built by humans on earth.

Several savings can be done with unmanned flights. LOTS of saved space, weight and you don't need all the redundancy necessary to protect human life.

The propose is expansion of Humankind, we already use probes to explore, lets move beyond that.....

Build them on the moon using local "resources". Launch them with railguns into orbit using no earth based resources. Then move mining to the asteroid belt, etc... Have to get there first. If we sit around worrying about using "local" earth based resources it will never get done...
 
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