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Geek Culture / Project Constellation (Debate version)

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Chris K
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Location: Lake Hylia
Posted: 12th Nov 2004 06:51 Edited at: 12th Nov 2004 06:52
Just to please Philip I put this in another thread.

I just wanted to say that I think the plans to send manned missions to the Moon & Mars are stupid.

I believe that we should move forward scientifically. All the searching we do should be to add more and more tiny nuggets to the mountain of human knowledge.

Manned space missions are not the way to go about doing this.

For example, what did the Moon landings achieve? Ok, some dusty rocks that haven't really told us anything.

We know a fair bit about the Moon but we could have learnt just as much with a un-manned flights and a lot cheaper.

What's the point in going back to the moon? To scientists, it's boring, that's why nothing's been back there in 30 years.

Laurence Krauss from Case Western Reserve University, Ohio said

Quote: "The Bush administration has caused a delay in important projects designed to do cosmology and astrophysics because of their desire to have humans orbit the globe and perform acrobatic feats, or whatever it is they do on the International Space Station. There is a place for manned space missions, but it's not to do with science."


Bush has severely cut funding for scientists and is now putting billions into this project which will ulimately give us nothing but the fact we did it. Whoop whoop.
Philip
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Posted: 12th Nov 2004 09:04 Edited at: 12th Nov 2004 09:06
Thanks for starting a new thread for the debate.

You would attribute no value to mankind's greatest achievement and the iconic moment of the 20th century? And you would also attribute no value to the opportunity of the first time when mankind could stand on another planet? These achievements would be meaningless events to you?

As for science, the Moon landings caused enormous scientific advances in, to name a few, rocketry, computing, physicists, material sciences, space and satellite technology, etc. They also provided a great deal of information about the Moon and its chemical constitution. We now know, for example, that the Moon was once a part of the Earth. That in turn has significantly altered our theories about this solar system and, indeed, the Universe was formed. Do a google search - you will find page after page after page after page on the incredibly productive results of the Apollo missions.

Simply trashing the idea just because of the cost implies you are in danger of growing up to become a grey suited accountant. Dreams have no price.

Philip

What do you mean, bears aren't supposed to wear hats and a tie? P3.2ghz / 1 gig / GeForce FX 5900 128meg / WinXP home
Philip
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Posted: 12th Nov 2004 09:07
Read this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2573129.stm

Philip

What do you mean, bears aren't supposed to wear hats and a tie? P3.2ghz / 1 gig / GeForce FX 5900 128meg / WinXP home
The Wendigo
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Posted: 12th Nov 2004 12:07
I like Moon. Moon tastes good in coffee. I'm excited about it and it means every one of my takes on the WingCommander Privateer and Elite (reverse the order) series are finally going to be reality! That's massive!

IMO, I think going to the moon and finally Mars is a great idea. That would mean we are one step closer to terra-forming and then we could spread out the population in the stars more. This would be important because in the long run it would mean less people burning fossil fuels and less deformation of the landscape on earth. Ultimately, we'd be preserving earth more. Is it at a cost? Yes, because we would be deformin other planets then, but at least cohort damage per planet would be relatively smaller. Plus there'd be much more raw minerals! I'm on a tangent!


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Lost in Thought
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Posted: 12th Nov 2004 12:33
I think we should explore space for new places to live (and how are we ever going to perfect hyper-speed in space flight if we are never traveling in outer space?). But we should be warned of putting too many things on the moon. It has great control over our ocean currents. We do not know what will happen if it is thrown off the least little bit. The movie "The day after tomorrow" comes to mind

Ian T
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Posted: 12th Nov 2004 12:40
Quote: "Dreams have no price."


Ahhh, that's a great quote.

There are a few things here I'd like to point out.

One is the above which I totally agree with. There is meaning beyond scientific discovery in setting human foot on another planet. It marks a historical moment that will be remembered as one of the greatest landmarks in time millenia from now. It's a feat of humanity, something every religion and country can look forward to and look back upon with joy and pride.

The second is that it's pure guesswork to say that a manned base on Mars would be unscientific. There are worries about enviornmental contamination, but a well excecuted landing would not cause that. Research on Mars could be instant, instead of minute data analysis on a handful of objects that, though it was bleeding edge when the rovers were designed, is antiquated by the time the data comes back to Earth. Five humans could research in one day what all our probes haven't since we first began scanning the planet. We may not find anything groundbreaking-- but we'll never know until we try. And even if we don't, there's still so much more to be done there than anything robots will be able to accomplish for many decades.

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BearCDPOLD
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Posted: 12th Nov 2004 12:58
Manned missions to the Moon and Mars are being done in the hopes that we are furthering our nowledge of space travel and will eventually explore the areas, in person, outside our solar system.

Crazy Donut Productions, Current Project: Project Starbuks
Sony stole our name!
Chris K
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Location: Lake Hylia
Posted: 12th Nov 2004 16:13
To try and put a scientific spin on this mission is ridiculous.

A robot could do just as much analysis as a human for a tiny fraction of the price.

I would much rather a robot went to Mars and the rest of the money was put into researching a cure for cancer or a proof of the Riemann hypothysis.
Wiggett
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Location: Australia
Posted: 12th Nov 2004 18:05
research is too hard, lets just put out a signal to tell aliens to come give us technology so we can build ships right away.

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