Quote:
Originally Posted by renormalised
Here's an article from a site I go to every now and then to read and make comment at, OpEd News. It's about human spaceflight and the costs, risks and viability involved in putting humans into space. The guy who wrote it, Gregory Paul, has some good points to make. However, I have never read anything more pessimistic and depressing about space travel in all my life. I'm somewhat pessimistic about the US getting back into space anytime soon, given the situation they find themselves in (all of their own making). But this guy....if it was upto him, we'd go hide under our little rocks and never set foot outside our own homes!!. We'd be stuck here, forever, and the only exploration would be done by our proxies....little beeping tin cans with the brains of lobotomised ants. Or maybe, in the far future, they may have the brains the equivalent of lobotomised mice.
Not only pessimistic and depressing, but also insular and defeatist.
All I can say is, thank the stars this guy has little to do with government policy or the space program (what's left of it).
http://www.opednews.com/articles/The...10721-407.html |
Interesting article.
The initialisation of major programs always requires widespread impetus.
The common-man has to see a reason for undertaking resource intensive programs. If there is no acceptance of the reasons .. there will be no further exploration programs.
Simply, there has to be a clear, short-term compelling reason for humans to undertake space exploration. At the moment, there isn't any such compelling reason. As long as space exploration appears as a luxury item for affluent cultures, 'watered-down' versions, like robotic exploration, are the best we can hope for.
Visions of expanding human intellect through space exploration are simply insufficient, and merely appear as an attempt by scientists to step outside the real world in which the bulk of the common-man spends his/her entire lives.
As soon as the compelling reason becomes apparent, this will all change.
These reasons might be entirely unexpected and may come from several programs already underway (LHC, gravity probes, neutrino detection, etc, etc). They may also appear through chance-alignments with future unknown political agendas. Theoretical developments often perform this bridging role in society and are unlikely to ever cease, for any reason.
The interim hiatus might also allow for the gradual maturation of current technologies, or the development of missing technologies, any of which may then outweigh the reasons against it, (eg: human health/safety, life sustaining technologies matched to alien environments, propulsion systems capable of realistic travel times, etc).
Overall, I don't find what this guy has said, necessarily pessimistic, depressing or defeatist. More like … merely opinionated. Actually all he's done for me, is make the negative case against manned space exploration a little clearer.
How can the case
for manned space exploration be strengthened ?
Cheers