Space travel

Yes but I think it's vital. Otherwise we have all our eggs in one basket.

 

I think that FTL travel isn't required in any way to pursue space travel and that we should definitely do it. You don't really need planets to do that anyway - that's what space colonies are for. So what if it takes years or decades to get to other stars? Spend time perfecting techniques in this solar system and then use them to go elsewhere. This might be done via some form of hibernation, biotechnology to make people live much longer, or send big self contained ships with entire communities onboard. Or some mix of the above. The time frames involved are really fairly trivial historically speaking and with enough energy to throw around (which the solar system has lots and lots of), you can actually get going pretty fast. There are many different designs for real starships in the literature and with some time spent on colonizing this solar system, we can perfect some of those or come up with new ones.

Totally disagree with the idea that we should somehow magically fix every societal problem before pursuing space travel, both in general and because the spin-offs from pursuing it could alleviate various societal problems. If we followed the policy of never doing anything because people are suffering and dying, we'd never get anything done.

Todd

 

Absolutely we should. Do you have any idea the advancements we have made just in the pursuit of space. NASA current budget is a shame. The U.S. should be leading the way into space.

One thing I know for certain, man belongs in the stars. We are getting there one way or another. The private sector is already starting to fill the void the public (Gov't) left behind.

 

I love the idea of space travel, when I was a kid I was very fascinated with space. However I think if we do colonise any other planets, we should take better care of the environment than we have on Earth.

 

My two favourite subjects are astronomy and the natural world.

Mankind is supposed to be an intelligent being, yet continues to destroy both his planet and his fellow humans. Until we can grasp the fact that it's vital to cure ourselves of this self destructiveness, then we have absolutely no chance of reaching the stars.
Sometimes it seems that nature is trying her best to get rid of us for the sake of the planet, yet we won't see it until it's way too late.

 

yeah....visiting planet outside our solar system is one of my dreams. Realistic i know!

 

Absolutely, they said it best in Cowboy Bebop~ "Nothing good comes from the earth anymore"

 

There are certain minerals in space, that could make life easier... theoretically. Most likely, the corporations that could even afford, to go into space, would harvest such, and sell them for ridiculous prices. Also, there is water, frozen, on various 'space rocks', that could help us out.

I do think, space, has it's advantages and allure. But, it needs a priority, a focus, or else, it'll just be another means to exploit those, unfortunate enough, to not have the accessibility to such.

 

I love the idea in an abstract way. Oddly, it was spacesuits and astonauts that were among the first things that turned me on sexually, like when I was 12. But I digress...

I'd love to travel though space, though there's SO many huge problems, one of them being radiation. There currently is no realistic way to shield people from the intense radiation our own atmosphere does, during extended travel...even a few trips back and forth to the Mars would be very risky, and extended trips impossible. Then, you have things like highly corrosive dust, asteroids, debris...

But I'd like to hope it could be explored, eventually.

 

I say go for it breh. There's nothing else out there (space) for you or anyone else to corrupt. or whatever you're worried about doing (no offense ). Visit some lonely planet or dead galaxy . Hope you have a good phone plan too .

 

I think you and I disagree mightily. (I must add that I needed to take a break from Kerbal Space Program in order to post this )

With purely Newtonian methods, yes it's impossible to reach light speed. However, rather than needing to break the rules, we just need to play a different game, meaning propelling the space itself in which the ship resides. The theory of warp technology is all over the web already; I don't think I need to go into that here. But even the untested idea is incredible and I believe in it.

Even so, I also don't feel you're right about sublight travel being of little value. Look at how much we've learned from space travel already-- so many discoveries brought about not because we were looking for them, but because they played some other role and somebody saw another use. We've made advancements in lenses, materials science, geology, and obviously space-related fields. Saying it's not useful is like looking at the Wright Flyer and concluding airplanes are an ultimately pointless novelty.

Thirdly, I believe you've got it backward. No matter what happens here on earth, we have to keep our eyes to the sky. Advancements in space technology benefit earthly society at least as much as the other way around. Departure from Earth is our future, and ignoring space to work on terrestrial problems is missing the point. Granted our planet is dysfunctional for some and a shit-show for others, but I believe in space and will contribute my part to its exploration.

Plus, Mass Effect is hella cool. :lol:

 

Aliens, all day, err'day.
Colonial Marines, son! LOL.









Vasquez, why'd you have to die? It was because you were my favorite, wasn't it? Damn Xenomorphs, LOL.​

 

You'd have to be careful about running into aliens, with their probes, and all.

 

Wasn't the Nostromo a slowboat? Aka non-FTL capable? Slackers. XD

 

I definitely don't know any of these specific advancements due to space travel that wouldn't have happened by focusing resources , both cerebral and financial, on something scientifically terrestrial. I'm really confused about how said results equalize their cost factor when it comes to space travel (ok, that was sort of redundant ). Basically , I think it's a colloidal waste . Valuable resources that could have been diverted to anything more productive for real people are not the thing to be squandered on illusory dreams .

 

put me on the moon

 

How about satellites? . . .


Anywho. . .Necessity is the mother of invention. Sure a lot of things could have been developed earthbound. Who's to say they would have been pursued? It could have been seen as useless. This is all hearsay. No one really knows as it didn't happen that way.
I think I'll keep my illusory dreams; as they've made my modern life quite comfortable.

 

We should pursue it, do much more research about it, and so on. We can't be here forever, so if we want to 'survive' as a species, we should look to other planets/opportunities.

 

Regardless of whether we should or not, people will leave Earth anyway.

Think there's a program launched in 2012 that aims to colonise Mars by 2023 or something. Seems hugely improbable but who knows. There's a girl Alyssa Carson training to be an astronaut who is very certain about her destiny on Mars, though she seems more like a scion of some wealthy family than a promising prodigy.

There is also the space elevator in progress, which sounds much more practical and profitable than planet colonisation at the moment. It would be a reliable, safe, and cheap way to reach space and its resources, and it is almost ready to be built. We just need to find a way to cultivate carbon nanotubes for the cables - the rest is all worked out. And it must be pretty simple too, if a high school assignment is designing a space elevator (AP Physics, but still).