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Lunar landing anniversary today
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rstofer:

--- Quote from: gnuarm on July 22, 2022, 04:18:30 am ---["Getting off this rock" is in no way useful to the 7 billion of us who will have to remain behind.  I've never understood why anyone thinks it is important to perpetuate the species by colonizing outer space.  Even if that were an important goal, we are so far from being able to accomplish that, it's not even a dream at this point.  Give it a few hundred more years and maybe we can take another look.  For now, there's no place we've identified as being remotely practical to go.

--- End quote ---

If the species is to survive, locational diversity is required.  Otherwise we go the way of the dinosaurs.  Richard Feynman had something to say on this subject but I can't find the quote.

Most of our advancements from the vacuum tube era were driven by the space program.  For certain, integrated circuits started from the space program.

https://ethw.org/Integrated_Circuits_and_the_Space_Program_and_Missile_Defense

Advances in science and medicine are directly attributable to the space program.  Science, for science sake alone, is worth the expenditure.  Besides, what other jobs are there for astrophysicists?  In fact, the program created a huge demand for engineering students in the early '60s.  Frankly, October 4, 1957 [1] scared the hell out of us.  I was just starting 7th grade and the shift in emphasis toward math was immediate.  No more post-war screwing around, everybody had to get an education so we would have enough engineers for national defense.

Of course I also remember the reporting of the Strontium-90 levels on the hourly radio news broadcasts.  And the weekly air raid siren tests.  Everybody in San Diego County was supposed to head out toward El Centro when the siren went off.  All those cars and, I believe, a single lane highway for about 100 miles.  I don't think it was well thought out.  Hence the 'duck and cover' drills.

The space program provided an enormous number of jobs scattered throughout the country.  MANY small machine shops employed quite a few machinists and other workers making subassemblies for the space program.  I was ther, I worked in one.  Interesting times...

[1] Sputnik launched
IDEngineer:
+1000 to everything rstofer said above.

Even if we never leave the solar system, the spinoff benefits at the individual, national, and global level are incalcuable. Much of today's electronics technology was prompted by aerospace and the need to drastically reduce volume, weight, and power consumption. Medical advances, and understanding of how the human body works (and thus how to maintain and "repair" it) stem from research into extended spaceflight. The list is nearly endless. A huge number of things the average person takes for granted today exist thanks to the "space race" and its derivative technologies.

There's also the defense aspect. Space is the ultimate "high ground". Whomever has the best space tech will be in a position to control what happens below. I don't like that any more than anyone else, but it's the truth and we ignore it at our peril.

Permanent base(s) on the moon are absolutely doable. And the moon is the ideal launch point for more distant efforts. The moon has almost all of the raw materials (including water) and plentiful solar energy to process them. Launches are 1/6th of earth's gravity so less fuel is required - and fuel is the single largest payload, so the ripple effect of its reduction improves everything. It probably makes some missions possible that would otherwise not be.

Permanent base(s) on Mars are doable too, especially if we leverage what we learn from doing it on the moon. Baby steps. And the spinoffs will continue to benefit all of mankind, just as those from the "space race" still do today.

Lots of things were impossible until someone did them. "Man will never fly." "A human cannot run a mile in under four minutes." "Man will never step on the moon." Those who claim something is impossible should get out of the way of those making it happen.
rstofer:

--- Quote from: IDEngineer on July 23, 2022, 05:37:41 pm ---There's also the defense aspect. Space is the ultimate "high ground". Whomever has the best space tech will be in a position to control what happens below. I don't like that any more than anyone else, but it's the truth and we ignore it at our peril.

Permanent base(s) on the moon are absolutely doable. And the moon is the ideal launch point for more distant efforts. The moon has almost all of the raw materials (including water) and plentiful solar energy to process them. Launches are 1/6th of earth's gravity so less fuel is required - and fuel is the single largest payload, so the ripple effect of its reduction improves everything. It probably makes some missions possible that would otherwise not be.


--- End quote ---

I kind of wonder what the Chinese are doing on the dark side of the Moon.  It certainly isn't tourist weather...

That Russia and China are going to joint venture a permanent Moon base in the next 15 years (give or take) isn't really good news.  The US simply doesn't have the will to counter that with our own base(s).  We need one base yesterday and a half dozen more by next week!

NASA is just a shell of its former organization, incapable of doing much of anything.  It's certainly not the NASA I remember from the '60s and '70s.  We had been subcontracting to Russia to get to the space station and back - unacceptable!  SpaceX (and Elon Musk) has improved on that situation! 

Still, we are the only country that was sent 6 spacecraft and 12 astronauts to the Moon.  Funny how the first is the most well known (Armstrong) and I doubt that many people could name the last (Cernan).
SiliconWizard:

--- Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on July 23, 2022, 06:26:03 am ---
--- Quote from: dunkemhigh on July 23, 2022, 06:16:46 am ---
--- Quote ---You missed my point.  If there is nothing useful to do at the moment, then we should do that.
--- End quote ---

There is nearly always something useful to do. Just finding out how not to die for an extended period can be useful!

Waiting for a warp drive to pop into existence is futile, even if one could exist. And suppose it did - we're not going to just hop on and find EarthII all ready for the first colonists. That's if we even last long enough for such a drive to be a twinkle in anyone's eye, which it won't be if we're sitting around waiting for something to happen before getting off our arse.

--- End quote ---

Sometimes I wonder, if the Russians had of kept going, if the US would have had by now a Antarctica-style moon base set up with regular visits/crew shifts like the space station.

--- End quote ---

The fact China has moon programs is exactly why the US is getting interested in moon programs again as well. This is happening again.
rstofer:
One thing I like to point out:  The Moon landing on July 20th, 1969 should take "can't" out of the dictionary.  That word should be banned in all its forms:  written, spoken or thought.  There's no such thing as can't.
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