I'd rather see neither.
Screw space exploration. So what if we find water on the moon? What would that change?
It's about time we started striking out at the moon. It's been nothing but a drag on the Earth ever since it formed.
Drakkon
Diamond Member
- Aug 14, 2001
- 8,401
- 1
- 0
Thank you very much. So what if the rings on Jupiter grow an extra 2 ft in diameter a year. Why?!
If we're going to colonize why not start building on something that's possible. Why the fvck send a craft to venus only to collect dust? We know it takes pretty long to get there and what human in their right mind would actually stand that? im sorry while i agree this is better than the iraq war, it's just a waste of money and time.
destrekor
Lifer
- Nov 18, 2005
- 28,799
- 359
- 126
you must not understand science at all. The whole point of a lot of these expeditions is to understand why everything is the way it is. And if we can understand the way the universe came about, we can focus our efforts much more on the most logical places of nearby space to look for other civilizations. The reason we have looked for life on Mars, is because we want evidence life has existed on places other than this puny rock of a planet. Why do we want to find other civilizations? Or even just find places where life is possible? So we can move there when this rock can no longer support us. We will very much likely become the very creatures we depict in sci-fi movies... creatures that move from one planet to the next, in search of hospitable conditions so we can live there... possibly terraform it, maybe rid it of creatures that pose a risk to our way of life, and live there until it too can no longer support us.
In all honesty... it's either this course of action we are taking now... explore the space around us to get a better understanding of the universe... or accept the fate of death in a distant time. Science is a slow process so we truly do need to do these things now if humanity is to survive.
The things we are doing now are mostly just side-projects, as we attempt to understand the properties of the universe so we can apply what we know to space travel... because any life, if none exists in our galaxy... is likely hundreds, thousands, or even millions of light years away, if not billions. So we need to devise a way to travel there efficiently and effectively. That's the other area that isn't discussed as much, even though more money is actually spent in that overall purpose than any other idea.
not to mention, the more we know about the universe, the better life will be here. Why? There are many things that can be learned from merely slamming atoms into each other, and that can be applied to a LOT of concepts. And once we learn more about dark matter and dark energy, we may be able to apply that knowledge. That knowledge alone may single-handedly solve any energy crisis we may run into.
Considering current knowledge details all elements as we know them as having been created in extremely massive stars.. well that's a revelation that blows away many other things. Thing of how we can apply that!
and as much as I could care less about the future of humanity (as of now we are but a major pain in the ass for nature)... many others actually do care.
KLin
Lifer
- Feb 29, 2000
- 30,483
- 780
- 126
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Pliablemoose
Lifer
- Oct 11, 1999
- 25,195
- 0
- 56
PottedMeat
Lifer
- Apr 17, 2002
- 12,363
- 475
- 126
I actually wouldn't mind seeing that either.
We have nukes. And there is the moon. We can reach the moon. It is our obligation to nuke the moon.
We should use nukes to tattoo 'USA! USA! USA!' or the US flag on the moon's surface.
why not spend all that money on colonizing the moon then?
"gee let me slam a muliti-million dollar vehicle into the moon"
"ooops, there's nothing there"
Let's do this 100 more times til we find water.
"Ok bob, we found water, now what?"
"Gee, i dont know, i was just hoping we'll find water. maybe we can colonize it now"
"oops nevermind bob, turns out there isn't much water left on here. onto Mercury!"
"gee let me slam a muliti-million dollar vehicle into the moon"
"ooops, there's nothing there"
Let's do this 100 more times til we find water.
"Ok bob, we found water, now what?"
"Gee, i dont know, i was just hoping we'll find water. maybe we can colonize it now"
"oops nevermind bob, turns out there isn't much water left on here. onto Mercury!"
Its cool man. We can all be ignorant towards one thing. Thinking the people with the brightest minds on the planet are stupid just happens to be yours.
Jeff7
Lifer
- Jan 4, 2001
- 41,596
- 20
- 81
They're not just randomly crashing something into the Moon for the hell of it. It's called "scientific research."
Drekstor already posted smething decent on the subject, but allow me to augment it with pastings from other similar threads complaining of the complete uselessness of pure scientific research.
Ok, found something, finally, from this thread:
(Search sucks without the sort-by-date feature, just like it did last time that feature was absent.)
"I want something to display images on boxes. To do this, you're going to need to discover the electron, then figure out how it interacts with magnetic fields. I think you should also discover that moving electrons can create magnetic fields. Then it's going to hit a screen of a substance that will glow. Get a chemist and discover phosphorus. Get to work on it right away!"
(This is a paraphrasing and augmentation of what Carl Sagan said here.)
When phosphorus was discovered, was it so that they could use it in TV's? When it was found that coils of wire could produce magnetic fields, was that for use in TV's? Was the discovery of the electron motivated by a desire to watch Seinfeld?
If you've ever watched TV, you owe it to this kind of pure science.
If you want to, just skip to 2:50 in that video.
MRI's, CAT scans, X-ray's- take your pick; radiology in general. Again, electromagnets - when that property of moving electrons was discovered, do you think they had in mind, "We can use this to see inside of people!" Or the same with X-rays. Or how about study of radioactive minerals? "A rock that emits invisible light that can kill people slowly. This kind of emission might be useful to save lives some day!" Now technetium is used in medicine, to help find cancer. Radiation being used to help find cancerous tumors, imagine that. Madame Curie probably never had such things in mind while she studied invisible radiation.
Pure science is critical to the advancement of our species. Many uses for natural phenomena are discovered by accident. Want fire? Striking two rocks together probably isn't the first thing that comes to mind to do this, but it can work.
Without pure science, our technology will stagnate. We'll lose the ability to find truly new things. Some of it is just to say, "I wonder what will happen," or, "I wonder why this happens." A natural thing is observed, and someone else decides, "Hey, that's nifty. I think I can use that for something!" Often times, it's completely unrelated to the original discovery. When electromagnets were first constructed, they probably never envisioned the ability to use them to move tons of metallic waste with the flip of a small lever, or their use in transportation in the form of maglev trains.
Drekstor already posted smething decent on the subject, but allow me to augment it with pastings from other similar threads complaining of the complete uselessness of pure scientific research.
Ok, found something, finally, from this thread:
(Search sucks without the sort-by-date feature, just like it did last time that feature was absent.
)Without pure science, we probably wouldn't have TV's, among many other things.
"I want something to display images on boxes. To do this, you're going to need to discover the electron, then figure out how it interacts with magnetic fields. I think you should also discover that moving electrons can create magnetic fields. Then it's going to hit a screen of a substance that will glow. Get a chemist and discover phosphorus. Get to work on it right away!"
(This is a paraphrasing and augmentation of what Carl Sagan said here.)
When phosphorus was discovered, was it so that they could use it in TV's? When it was found that coils of wire could produce magnetic fields, was that for use in TV's? Was the discovery of the electron motivated by a desire to watch Seinfeld?
If you've ever watched TV, you owe it to this kind of pure science.
If you want to, just skip to 2:50 in that video.
MRI's, CAT scans, X-ray's- take your pick; radiology in general. Again, electromagnets - when that property of moving electrons was discovered, do you think they had in mind, "We can use this to see inside of people!" Or the same with X-rays. Or how about study of radioactive minerals? "A rock that emits invisible light that can kill people slowly. This kind of emission might be useful to save lives some day!" Now technetium is used in medicine, to help find cancer. Radiation being used to help find cancerous tumors, imagine that. Madame Curie probably never had such things in mind while she studied invisible radiation.
Pure science is critical to the advancement of our species. Many uses for natural phenomena are discovered by accident. Want fire? Striking two rocks together probably isn't the first thing that comes to mind to do this, but it can work.
Without pure science, our technology will stagnate. We'll lose the ability to find truly new things. Some of it is just to say, "I wonder what will happen," or, "I wonder why this happens." A natural thing is observed, and someone else decides, "Hey, that's nifty. I think I can use that for something!" Often times, it's completely unrelated to the original discovery. When electromagnets were first constructed, they probably never envisioned the ability to use them to move tons of metallic waste with the flip of a small lever, or their use in transportation in the form of maglev trains.
AnitaPeterson
Diamond Member
- Apr 24, 2001
- 6,025
- 557
- 126
Sadly, judging by the exchange between these last two, sending them to school was a waste of time.
Please don't breed! and step away from the computer, nobody needs any stinkin' science and knowledge!
you are complaining about a tax dollar waste... I personally believe that any space exploration, even of this sort, is much more of a worthwhile cause...
so short sighted. i take it you have no idea how much technology that affects your daily life was developed by NASA. here is a good place to start - http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html .
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