Human Spaceflight: No Single Rationale Justifies it, NRC Report

[kael013]

You do realize the prospect for long term colonization on other bodies is slim to none right?

I mean do you know the host of ways the human body starts failing once it leaves the earth's shell? Our bodies were designed from the ground up to work in this environment. Think I'm talking bull. consider this. and I've always said this. Before you colonize a planet colonize the bottom of the sea. You'd have to deal with many of the same problems, minus the issues caused by gravitational differences causing things like 'weakened immune systems' , 'Space diabetes', Spinal dislocation' 'bone thinning', the list goes on.

And that list will never get shorter unless we actively try to colonize other planets. There's a goal and challenges blocking us from achieving said goal; we'll overcome those challenges before achieved the goal - most likely with technological advancements or innovations created by [i/]studying[/i] the challenges. That's how it works. And at that point we don't even need to colonize planets: we could just build space stations big enough to house nations.

In other words:
Step 1: Study and overcome physical and environmental challenges.
Step 2: Develop habitats that mimic Earth's environment, are self-sustaining, and provide for growth.
Step 3: Grow by colonizing celestial bodies or expanding said habitats(like a city building a suburb).

OT: "There's no single rationale" is the stupidest excuse I've ever heard. So we should stop doing something because everyone has their own reason to do it? If we used that philosophy for everything we'd never get anything done.

 

[shirkbot]

[...]saying that there's no reason to explore space would be like telling Columbus there's no reason to sail west[...]

Point of Pedantry: What sane person was going to tell Columbus not to go West?

All the people that still believed that the world was flat and that he'd be sailing off to his doom? Indeed he did want to find a shortcut to India, but everyone thought he was nuts.

He had to shop the plans for his voyage around to different nations just to find a backer because most monarchies thought it was a fool's errand.

They thought it was a fool's errand because they thought the man couldn't do math. It was accepted since the days of ancient Greece that the world was round, so they knew he would eventually hit China, Japan or India, but they thought he was massively underestimating the resources required. Perhaps it's not the most well regarded of sources, but Wikipedia has the details if you're interested:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus (Sorry, I don't know how to embed links)

-self snip-

You mean like sailing west when everyone thought it was a death sentence? We've explored all there is to explore on this planet (generally speaking). There's a reason that space is considered "the final frontier". For all the mysteries and wonders on our own planet, there are vastly more out in the vastness of space, just waiting to be discovered.

I agree there is a great deal to find in space, but I don't see the need to risk human lives to find them just yet, especially when we still have so much to learn about our own planet. We've found many things, but there's a lot more to find, and even if we have found everything of geographic significance, there's the matter of actually identifying and researching all their systems, which themselves are not static. I'm not against it in the long view, but as it stands I much prefer the advancement of extreme-environment-tolerant robotics to shipping some squishy meat creature off to explore the rust desert that is Mars.

 

[Zakarath]

Because we should seek to ensure survival for our species. (Personally, I really think we should fund research into terraforming, as it seems likely it will eventually be as useful here on Earth as well as on other worlds). All that we are, all that we've accomplished, could be undone by one wayward rock, or by our own folly, while Earth is still the only world we can call our own.

Because we should seek ascendancy for the human race instead of being content with one little rock.

Because it is just cool.

 

[Raziel]

I don't buy the whole "risk to crews" nonsense. This is the kind of pc garbage that comes up because of the way the write the questions. Its the bullshit politicians drum up in order to cut funding. Look at the real world and how many people get killed doing every day things all the time. Look at the reality shows like deadliest catch or ax men or swap people. A part of the audience is waiting for someone to be killed or maimed. Like people watching nascar for crashes.

Forget all the inspirational and its what our species does crap, that is not going to win an argument. Let alone drum up funding. We should be going to space for all the stuff it do to improve our freaking lives. New technologies. ENORMOUS resources, new energy sources. Giving ourselves somewhere else to live after we finally finish ruining earth.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Because everyone who doesn't believe that mankind walked alongside dinosaurs knows the reason why we're here and they're not: A really, really big rock. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater] And there are a lot of really, really big rocks out there in the blackness of space, and it's just a matter of time before another one comes calling. So if you give the slightest damn about the future of our species, you'll support any reasonable effort to get off this rock before a different one plows into it.

And if you don't care about the future of our species, then you're useless and I have no time to listen to you.

Why does there have to be one core rationale?

Because unfortunately, these days you can't get the majority of people behind any idea too complex to express in a five-second sound byte.

 

[Gary Thompson]

Why can't "To beat the commies" be a good enough reason?

There're still commies, and they need constant reminders that we're better than them.

 

[4Aces]

MinionJoe got it right, mostly. Mining is the public first, though the actual second. Weaponizing those asteroids will be the secret first, and the reason the projects get green-lit by the American/Chinese Governments. They will hide behind reasons such as mining, and exploration (new alloys that can only be created in space, etc.). Even a small iron-rich rock can take out a missile base or city, with no radioactivity and virtually no means of stopping it. I know, but it is human nature and military spending usually leads the way.

 

[Draconalis]

Eventually the planet is going to die...

Does the continued existences of the human race not count as a good rational?

 

[Fdzzaigl]

It's not simply a rational thing, it's about emotion too.

Sorry scientists, but the general public doesn't give a flying frak about landing some kind of advanced drone on a piece of space rock fifty billion kilometers away.
Landing a talking & walking emotional human being on that same rock though? Everyone will cling to their TV screens and remember the minute, hour and day they witnessed such an event. Literally.

It's exactly that interest and motivation that you need to progress in any field.
With that progress come new reasons and motivations to do things, the same will undoubtedly be true for space.

If we can invest billions of dollars into new kinds of hairspray or make-up, as well as investing that money in some fleeting popmusic trend. Then it's completely within the boundaries of our rationale to invest that kind of money into space flight as well.

 

[themilo504]

I understand that because of the economic crisis space flight is a bit impractical right now, but even so saying that?s there?s no reason to try is just wrong, we humans have always tried to explore new locations and solve the mysteries of the universe, to give up now would be doing a disservice to every scientist who spend his life trying to expand our knowledge of the universe.

I blame the lack of a new good star trek show for the current disinterest in space travel, people need a reminder of how awesome the future can be, even if it is filled with cyborg zombies, space roman?s, evil changelings, and Wesley.

 

[SnakeoilSage]

GET ME OFF OF THIS DISEASED ROCK.

 

[wulfy42]

There is no rational for a space program like what we have had. It is a waste of resources.

That being said, it makes sense to colonize other planets/moons in our solar system as soon as possible, but it would take a world wide, long term effort to accomplish that goal. We, as a race, not a nation, would need to band together and work towards one goal, plan it out, and implement it over decades and eventually centuries.

It's worth doing, and it is possible, but we are WAY behind, and honestly with the population of the earth being so large, resources being limited, global warming etc...the only way we have any chance at this point is if cold fusion becomes possible in the next 10-20 years or so.

I consider it highly probably that a group of scientists knows this already and has a contingency plan ready to wipe out a large majority of human life on this planet, leaving a small amount of humans left around afterwards to try and repair the damage we have done. Population control, in the form of reduced births, would take to long at this point and a more drastic action would be required.

That sadly is the only long term solution I can see for this race. Space, while a long term goal that is worth achieving, is not going to save us from ourselves fast enough. We need to deal with our planet first, ensuring it will sustain us for long enough, before we waste resources on space exploration.

There is a set list of things that need to be accomplished in order to make any efforts in space worthwhile. We need a decent sized perpetual space station...which can be used to combine multiple small parts into working machines in space. That is the first goal. Then, using that space station we could build what would be required to create stations on the moon. That can allow us to use resources from the moon, and build things there (if cold fusion is possible by that point we could use mass from the moon for power as well etc). That is just the start of a long process before we actually could have a sustainable society away from the earth....it's not gonna happen in the next 20-30 years...so yeah...no point on working towards it till we get things settled down on this planet. We need some form of unified goverment (At least to the point of actively working together, if not under one set of laws/rules etc). We need a sustainable energy source for our population and a way to curtain our population growth...using only the amount of resources that are replenishable on this planet etc. That is what we need to focus on.

 

[EXos]

Lovely... They seem to forget the technology that we've gotten in return. Like the micro processor anyone? Although we hardly use this tech anymore... Oh wait.

 

[TrevHead]

Given much of our economy depends on finite resources still left in the earth it would be economically stupid to not fund space exploration in the long term.

Speaking of a manned mission from the little I know it's supposed to be doable with current tech for the past 20 odd years? Despite the plan costing very little for a project of this nature NASA debunked it because it doesn't make use of all those expensive NASA pet projects as well as carrying a high degree of danger to the crew from solar winds.

I'm expecting China will be the first to put humans on Mars given their preference for cheap budget solutions and little regard towards the human risk.

 

[joshuaayt]

Absolutely, those are huge road blocks- But it's either find ways to deal with that, or die out the second earth stops being habitable. Or try to find ways to deal with it, fail, and die out any way. Still, at least we'd go down fightin'.

Also, I'll do you one better- we build a giant space ship around the inner four planets, use the sun as a power source/tanning salon, and go cruising off to Gliese 581c in style.

You do realize what you've said amounts to someone in the desert deciding to blow their water supply on what amounts to a a slip and slide?

And the Inner 4 planets? Why? Have you forgotten what these planets are..

'Mercury' Hard rock that's already baked to a crisp.

'Venus' Otherwise moe accurately known as Hellworld. Surface temps hot enough to melt led, toxic atmospher , rains glass shards. Next to the sun I don't thing any other body in this solar system is so aggressively against the idea of 'Life'

'Mars' Dry windy rust ball.

Why would we want to take these planets with us?

We're hardly in the desert- we've got plenty of time. I don't want this done tomorrow, I just want it to happen. It's more accurate to say we're CEO of DesertCo, and we keep open a little division for experimental research, or whatever.
And, fine, we can take Jupiter with us as well. We'll probably have to use all of its moons anyway, to just make this increasingly large space ship.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

Sorry kids, there won't be any more astronauts, at least in your lifetimes. Come up with another dream.

It would be nice if the major nations could pool their resources and come up with an international space program, but the world doesn't work like that until a major fucking disaster is imminent.

 

[Eri]

People can be such idiots. This is all the reason they need.

If you can watch this, and not think we need space exploration, you have literally lost your sense.

We NEED exploration.

 

[MisterColeman]

I can't imagine I'm the first to say this but this is how I read the conversation:

"Why do we do manned space flight?" - Morons

"12 Different Reasons!" - Almost Everyone

"Oh, you can't all give me just one reason? I guess we'll stop funding that." - Morons

What a ridiculous conclusion... My reason would be because I like Microwaves, Good Lubricant, Memory Foam, and a ton of other things: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies

Manned Space Flight leads to technological advances that benefit EVERYONE.

 

[RJ Dalton]

I guess "because it's awesome" doesn't count. How about "overpopulation"?

And apparently from your perspective, we're at a point where shipping people into space like it was WW1 seems like such a good idea. The technology isn't even there where it wouldn't cost a substantial amount of human lives.

The misanthropist in me wants to say "anything that sharply reduces the number of living human beings is alright in my book."

The part of me that's less of a dick says, "Well, of course there are some hurdles still left to overcome, but that what drives scientific advancement."

 

[RJ Dalton]

I guess "because it's awesome" doesn't count. How about "overpopulation"?

We have many cheap and effective ways of dealing with over population.

I don't think Nuclear Holocaust is the way to go, friend.