Looks like exoplanets are common afterall

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Aesop
Posts: 6149
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2013 9:17 am

Re: Looks like exoplanets are common afterall

Post by Aesop »

Kommander wrote:One of the big issues as I understand it is the fact that were not sure when to start. Lets say we spend a ton of money on a few probes that will take 30 to 100 years to get to their destination. The fear is that in the intervening time we will develop an even faster way of travel that will have new probes blowing right on by the old ones, making them a waste of money. This gets even worse when were talking about manned space flight. Who wants to go into cryo-sleep for decades or die on a generation ship only to discover upon reaching their destination it's been colonized for decades or centuries via more advanced propulsion.
I'd go in a heartbeat, even now.
I grew up watching Gemini and Apollo, and wanted to go along for the nest steps. Which turned out to be folding up the tent and getting the f*** out of the business. Yay, myopic social welfare addicted Democrat congresses. Now we have 10 times as many shiftless douchnozzles on welfare, and still neither a real moonbase nor a functional space station/waystation, both of which would have cost a fraction of the US welfare bill since 1973.

I started reading Heinlein in my twenties, not my teens, and he covered all that and more.
The answer is, we go because we're human, and it's next.
Just effing go.
Let history and advancing technology take care of itself.
If someone catches up going faster, they can pull over and give us a lift.
"There are four types of homicide: felonious, accidental, justifiable, and praiseworthy." -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
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MiddleAgedKen
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Joined: Mon Aug 18, 2008 8:11 pm
Location: Flyover Country

Re: Looks like exoplanets are common afterall

Post by MiddleAgedKen »

Aesop wrote:I'd go in a heartbeat, even now.
I grew up watching Gemini and Apollo, and wanted to go along for the nest steps. Which turned out to be folding up the tent and getting the f*** out of the business.
I could tell you why we got out, but you probably don't have SECRET GOLD JULY BOOJUM clearance. :P

I'd climb on top of a rocket and go to the screaming void of SPAAAAAAACE! in a hot minute too. First time I was at the Cape was in '72, when they still brought tour groups into the VAB.
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MarkD
Posts: 3969
Joined: Mon Aug 18, 2008 5:59 pm

Re: Looks like exoplanets are common afterall

Post by MarkD »

Aren't we forgetting that NASASs primary mission is no longer space exploration, but making Muslims feel good about their contributions to science?

Count me as another who'd go in a heartbeat. I watched Neil Armstrong step onto the moon in a little 12" B&W TV, and I fully expected that, by the time I graduated High School we'd have people living on the moon permanently and we'd be on our way to Mars. By 2001 we'd be on our way to Jupiter (Arthur C. Clark and Stanley Kubrick said so!).

Now we haven't had a human beyond low-Earth orbit in decades. Bah.
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