View Single Post
Old 04-22-2010, 11:40 PM   #13 (permalink)
SecretMethod70
Human
 
SecretMethod70's Avatar
 
Administrator
Location: Chicago
Thank you supersix2, those two points are my main complaints about Obama's proposal as well. Especially #2. The moon isn't Mount Everest. It's not a place that we conquer and then say, "well, that was cool." It's a place where we can do real science, and a place that we could potentially inhabit. The moon is a relatively safe place to experiment with permanent structures before we go to Mars, and a robust presence on the moon would theoretically make it easier to get to Mars in the first place. I also imagine there would be more interest in civilian visits to the moon if there were a more comfortable place to stay for a bit when they got there. Few people are going to seriously want to take a vacation to the moon where they will eat crappy food, sleep on crappy beds, etc. We've barely got a market for Antarctic tourism (relatively speaking); there is certainly not enough market to promote private development of lunar travel. Make it a more hospitable trip and visit - in the process of conducting science - and maybe that could slowly change.

I understand debating the relative worth of returning to the moon vs other manned space missions, but I do not understand the outright dismissive attitude that Obama's statement seemed to convey. Of course, it has long irked me that we haven't been to the moon for about 40 years now. It almost makes the conspiracy theorists seem reasonable*. After all, why would we go to the freaking MOON 6 times over the course of 3.5 years and then just forget about it for 40 years? In the meantime, we've invented the internet so that anyone from around the world can communicate instantly, and we all carry little phones in our pockets that have the computing power of entire buildings back in 1972. In 1980, 2GB of data storage weighed 4,400 pounds, and now it weighs 0.001 pounds. And yet, despite all this advancement, we haven't returned to the moon? It makes absolutely no sense... except, that's what we've done. We've squandered 40 years of space exploration, and sadly I wouldn't be surprised if we squander 40 more. In the meantime, I'll be lucky if we even land on the moon once in my lifetime, let alone Mars.




*I say this only to emphasize how ridiculous it is that we haven't been to the moon in so long. I have never believed in any way whatsoever that the moon landings might have been faked.
__________________
Le temps détruit tout

"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling
SecretMethod70 is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360