what kind of space mission would cause the same buzz as apollo?

[coppercone2]

it sounds like he is in the realm of theoretical mathematicians, hopefully some equation will solve the worlds problems in 500 years?

you can't have something show up unless you have a specification in mind, other wise its nebulous. It sounds like you are looking to hit some kind of lottery. 

[fsr]

FTL travel or finding intelligent extraterrestrial life would do the trick.

[Mr. Scram]

Difficulty: airplanes exist. Your fantasy spacecraft ... don't.
Difficulty: engineering exists. Your fantasy technologies... don't.
Difficulty: incremental changes from existing technologies and energy sources allowed the early 20th century explosion... you require leaps in materials and energy sources in the orders of magnitude. What is more likely? I'm right, or your fantasies that still, after DECADES, amounted to NOTHING, might happen?

bet: in the next ten years, no one will have gone farther than LEO. Or the next twenty. Just like the twenty before.

The end.

So sad.

I hadn't realised aircraft materialised out of thin air and spacecraft are designed through magic and the offering of goats. It's almost as if history isn't full of people looking at something more feebleminded folks considered unattainable saying "how hard van it be?" and consequently moving the goalposts for all mankind.

Not even 10 years ago a rocket landing upright and with a useful payload was pure science fiction, yet now it's already mundane. There's a car orbiting the Sun well clear of the SOI of Earth because some guy went "I'd like to do that" and figured out how to do that. Let's get back on topic.

[coppercone2]

FTL travel or finding intelligent extraterrestrial life would do the trick.

lets not degenerate into scratch tickets unless you have a serious idea for a research effort.

[Nominal Animal]

FTL travel or finding intelligent extraterrestrial life would do the trick.

lets not degenerate into scratch tickets unless you have a serious idea for a research effort.

As long as this planet is full of people like In Vacuo Veritas, any sensible scientist who has an idea about FTL travel or such, will bury the idea as deep as they can.  I know I hwould.  Even extinction is better than letting those spread.

[coppercone2]

what if it takes over? some people might rather explore then go on that date

notice how all the horrid things come from isolated areas? some people might want to leave deliverance, jawjah to go to orange county CA you know.. could prevent some 'selections' from occurring. it has to be nice though. well maybe not in this case I can see someone going to LV426 rather then on a date with a nasty creep...

point2: we need really good transit systems to prevent people from getting stuck to prevent space deliverance from developing. you might get some funny looking babies otherwise. be sure to put some violins and a musician up there so someone does not get the bright idea to make a banjo out of some rover break cables. And you can't have a dry drug free colony because you will end up getting space shiners hiding 'moon'shine stills in craters. How hilariously bad would that be?

i think I just determined the moon absolutely needs some hard woods growing on it to prevent a degenerate pure unflavored ethanol culture. Also don't rely on just grapes, you need hard woods so you don't end up with little italy on the moon. before long garlic plantations and lunar cheese cows.

and you need some kind of zen rock garden or something. i dunno how that is gonna work out if china is killing all the faung gong practitioners capable of creating such a feat.

[Nominal Animal]

point2: we need really good transit systems to prevent people from getting stuck to prevent space deliverance from developing.

If we look at humanity as a whole, a major reason for the current numbers of birth defects is the prevalence of marriage between cousins.
It's not a redneck hillbilly problem; it is much more prevalent in certain other cultures.  You'd be surprised how big a problem it is in big cities.

[cdev]

Here is the scary thing, if by "could" you mean legally, what (space or non-space) projects, presumably to help fix something, something big, could a government of a nation do, that was allowed in the current international regulatory environment? (and by regulations, I mean the kinds that limit countries.)

We might ask a completely different question.  What large project could we do today, which is likely to be looked back upon with rose-tinted glasses, by the next generation?  Is that a loaded question?  Well, of course, but so was the original question, and one must understand why, in order to construct a solution to it.

All of the great other things governments used to do, like in the US all the things done during the Great Depression, all of the big programs like Social Security, Medicare, the WPA, public works and so on, are all off the table now.

Whatever new action of any kind they do generally has to be the most minimal possible. To use the exact phrase, everything has to be minimally trade restrictive. Which has specific legal definitions.

Government 'measures' everything they do, basically, have to be "not more restrictive than necessary to ensure the quality of the service".

Note that this only applies to measures by governments at the Federal, state and local levels (or  the actions of all quasi-governmental entities defined by whether they use some tax money. In other words are subsidized, which could be in non-direct ways too. Certain laws, like minimum wage laws may be seen as a government subsidy.)

Also governments can continue things that they did in the past in exactly the same way as long as NOTHING is changed even a tiny bit. If they change them it has to be in the direction of reducing of non-conforming measures or eliminating them.

Would space programs be a 'measure?' Thats a good question but its probably irrelevant because the US and other countries already subcontract out space quite a bit commercially.

So they likely cant go back to not doing that. Since that is deregulation (privatization = deregulation) its "ratcheted" (locked) in.

[coppercone2]

point2: we need really good transit systems to prevent people from getting stuck to prevent space deliverance from developing.

If we look at humanity as a whole, a major reason for the current numbers of birth defects is the prevalence of marriage between cousins.
It's not a redneck hillbilly problem; it is much more prevalent in certain other cultures.  You'd be surprised how big a problem it is in big cities.

yea but some isolated ass shit is gonna end up being worse man

but yea this is why you don't shut down subways and buses in the city lol

if the MTA keeps hiking rates your gonna end up with some serious bobo's

[mairo]

the first person on Mars. That's something only one person in history can ever do...

...although it may be cheaper/easier to try and be the first person to have sex on the moon.

Don't you need a minimum of two people for this? If so, you will be sharing the fame with a minimum of one more person.

[coppercone2]

you also want good rad shielding so the DNA does not go judge dread. that accelerates problem areas.

if the bean counters keep pounding on those payload costs and you will end up with those Reavers from Firefly.

[Mr. Scram]

Who says people haven't already had sex on the Moon?

[coppercone2]

no wonder there are missing reels

[wraper]

you also want good rad shielding so the DNA does not go judge dread. that accelerates problem areas.

if the bean counters keep pounding on those payload costs and you will end up with those Reavers from Firefly.

There is Russian saying: "If you want to be a dad, wrap balls with lead"  .
(Если хочешь быть отцом, яйца оберни свинцом)

[coppercone2]

you also want good rad shielding so the DNA does not go judge dread. that accelerates problem areas.

if the bean counters keep pounding on those payload costs and you will end up with those Reavers from Firefly.

There is Russian saying: "If you want to be a dad, wrap balls with lead"  .
(Если хочешь быть отцом, заверни яйцо свинцом)

do they have lead lined cups on nuclear submarine emergency kits?

[Marco]

There are many more problems on Earth that could need some fixing:
1) Overpopulation
2) Pollution
3) Wars with all kind of conflicts (religious, economical, petrol, ...)
4) Starvation

Political problems, for which there is only one obvious solution everyone is simply unwilling to commit too (making me world dictator). Doing more research won't help.

5) Lack of cures for deadly or incapacitating diseases

Not everyone wants to be a doctor.

I think the main problem is that we live in a time where we've all realized we'll have a massive population collapse long before we can get off this rock. Maybe broad scientific optimism can return after the collapse. Assuming we can do it without killing ourselves entirely.

[coppercone2]

mr. optimism right there

don't let Jehovahs into your house

[james_s]

I just don't see tourist trips to the moon happening, at least not beyond a small handful of the richest people in the world who are either interested in going there or willing to endure days of mind numbing boredom on the way there.

There is a vast distance between low earth orbit and the moon. If you want to land and then take off again to get home that is hugely expensive and likely always will be. It takes a LOT or energy and that's not realistically going to change.

[coppercone2]

3 days right now is not so bad. you need something to prevent it from being a scary corpo-town

at least a hotel would bring it to banana republic status.

earth related events might make it less so.

[Mr. Scram]

I just don't see tourist trips to the moon happening, at least not beyond a small handful of the richest people in the world who are either interested in going there or willing to endure days of mind numbing boredom on the way there.

There is a vast distance between low earth orbit and the moon. If you want to land and then take off again to get home that is hugely expensive and likely always will be. It takes a LOT or energy and that's not realistically going to change.

People make longer and more boring trips on Earth.

[coppercone2]

can you imagine a limited liability lunar corporation corporate theme song? (scarily reminiscent of the movie snowpiercer). and featured in the movie 'pirates of silicon valley'.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/08/tripping-through-ibms-astonishingly-insane-1937-corporate-songbook/

i really think you will need some nonforprofit stuff there some how, even with events, which could be insanely corrupt.

    We don't pretend we're gay.
    We always feel that way,
    Because we're filling the world with sunshine.
    With I.B.M. machines,
    We've got the finest means,
    For brightly painting the clouds with sunshine.

    —from "Painting the Clouds with Sunshine"

[Marco]

mr. optimism right there

I'm a sign of the times

[Nominal Animal]

yea but some isolated ass shit is gonna end up being worse man

Space is so dangerous the stupid ones don't live long enough to procreate, and those clever enough to survive learn to control their impulses and procreation.

If you look at hillbillies, or any rural semi-isolated groups, they tend to have at most one or two inbred families that basically live off the largesse of the others (or via crime, like selling drugs, stealing stuff, and so on).  Any place where humans have to work to survive, inbreds do not.  Which is why I wouldn't worry about that.


I think any unmanned probe with a realtime VR rig (and that means a huge bandwidth to Earth orbit, comparatively speaking), that would let humans experience "firsthand" what it feels like to crawl around on the moon or Mars or in the upper atmosphere of Venus, would probably create a similarly big buzz.  I don't know why Elon and others haven't thought of that yet.

[coppercone2]

Should the moon have a government? should it be run by the UN?

[apis]

I can think of plenty of science you could do there. And I can imagine a few tourists (billionaires) who would pay to go there. Are there military reasons some would send people there? Except for mining though, I can't really think of a reason why corporations would go there. On the other hand, people are talking about mining in space already so maybe some rich people are willing to try and invest in that.