Oil on other Planets?

Stonejaw

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Oct 24, 2005
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I was wondering if it is possible that oil could be on other planets. Now I know that oil is a byproduct of biomass, so that there would have had to be life on said planet at some point. I dont just mean planets in our solar system but others. This raises some interesting questions about life on other planets. For instance what if an intelligent form of life evolved on another planet, would it be able to become highly advanced without the large avialability of a cheap energy source such as oil? Are we extremely lucky that oil happened to be on Earth. Without the discovery of oil we surley would not have had the industrial revolution.
If there was oil on other planets we could use it and it would be a huge discovery. Or perhaps there is substances on other planets like oil that could be used for cheap energy.

Anyways I just wanted to see what others think about this.
 

firewolfsm

Golden Member
Oct 16, 2005
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I think you need to figure out where you're going with this post. Before thinking about oil, we have to find life on other planets. Then it has to be carbon based life, then there has to be a long history of life on that planet. Then there will be oil, that's it really.
 

DrPizza

Administrator Elite Member Goat Whisperer
Mar 5, 2001
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If there was oil on other planets we could use it
How are we going to use it?

1. If you're suggesting that if we advanced our technology enough, we could bring it back, be aware that it would take more energy to get the oil off a planet than the oil contains.

2. Human exploration of space is a silly idea. Even the space station is a waste of money. (meanwhile, the US isn't honoring its international agreements to fund particle and fusion research, partical accelators in the U.S. are being shut down, and the majority of researchers in this critical area are no longer in the U.S.

Oh wait... the space station isn't a *complete* waste of money. Pretty soon we're going to know if experimentally, the laws of physics are verified. They're going to see if a boomerang works in micro-gravity. (It won't.)
 

NanoStuff

Banned
Mar 23, 2006
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Trillions of stars multiplied by Trillions of galaxies... the answer to your question is, probably yes. Odd question to be asking though, oil of all things.

Originally posted by: DrPizza
Even the space station is a waste of money.

It serves more purpose as a diplomatic tool than anything else, maybe that in itself is worthwhile.
 

BrownTown

Diamond Member
Dec 1, 2005
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Originally posted by: NanoStuff
Trillions of stars multiplied by Trillions of galaxies... the answer to your question is, probably yes. Odd question to be asking though, oil of all things.

Originally posted by: DrPizza
Even the space station is a waste of money.

It serves more purpose as a diplomatic tool than anything else, maybe that in itself is worthwhile.

Not really, international cooperation on a science mission isn't exactly going to change any politicians views on other countries. Space explorations has always been more political dick waving than a diplomatic tool. In the end it is a huge waste of money for minimal scientific gain.

As for the OP, the question is non-nonsensical on several fronts, first off it would mean finding life on other planets which is infinitely more meaningful than finding oil. Secondly, any craft capable of navigating such distances would be far more advanced than an oil based society. Thirdly the amount of energy in a given mass of oil is less than the amount of energy needed to achieve escape velocity from any planet unless the gravity were only a tiny fraction of earths. So in conclusion this question is pretty silly because wtf should anyone care?
 

QuixoticOne

Golden Member
Nov 4, 2005
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Well I think the other respondents have covered the "space oil" bit well enough.

It's interesting to look back on the history of technology / industry on earth, though,
and try to estimate what would have been different or what could have been easily accomplished without oil's prevalence.

If you'll recall, oil wasn't used as an essential fuel for the most of the initial parts of the industrial revolution. Though the steam engine was known since antiquity, its practical development in the 1800s and early 1900s was mainly fueled by boilers fired by coal and wood. I've not checked the statistics, but I daresay even today more power plants are perhaps operated coal-fired than oil-fired, and respectable minority of them rely on natural gas (methane) fuels.

Certainly chemistry involving oil was relevant to discoveries of and industrial manufacturing processes relating to dyes, polymers / plastics, and to a much lesser extent aspects of organic chemistry in general.

That being said, however, I'll make a gross simplification and suggest that oil and its direct derivatives like gasoline are/were probably most industrially relevant historically (convenient) due to them being liquid fuels for vehicular uses rather than them being particularly essential for other definitive industrial uses (for which electricity, steam, coal, wind, water, et. al. might otherwise have been used ).

It's also speculatively arguable that the delay of industrialization by a few generations beyond its actual point of incipience might've benefitted mankind since one might hypothesize that a continued strong argarian society coupled with another century of small scale technological / industrial research & development might've yielded a better wisdom and maturity concerning the evolution of society as it sought new balances of agrarian, rural, industrial, population, health, environmental, social, military, technological developments.

The first couple of centuries of industrialization and european argarian to urban shifts were certainly marked by a lot of disease, famine, strife, unsustainable social / industrial constructs, exploitation, poverty, instability, et. al. due in large part to unsustainable industrial exploits, greed, short-sightedness about social / technological evolution, et. al.

There are old sayings about "if your only tool is a hammer, every problem in the world starts to look like a nail", and "be careful what you ask for, you might just get it". So if everything that's combustible (oil, coal, wood) is your preconception of a resource to be fed wholesale into your primitive boilers / engines to achieve 'progress' one might easily find in retrospect that one has been overzealous (and very technologically inefficient) about doing so with such great haste / waste.

It's hard to say if conceivable differing geology and natural history could have well led to a planet rich in coal, but poor in accessable oil, however.

Keep in mind that today (especially in the '3rd world'), and moreso during the industrial revolution wood or manufactured charcoal also played a significant role in fuel for heating, forging, cooking, and other industrial processes. So conceivably that would have been available even lacking plentiful accessable resources of coal and oil.

Also keep in mind that even in preindustrual times metallurgy, inorganic chemistry, math, printing, architecture (pyramids, cathedrals, universities,...), geography, et. al. were quite well developed technologies just using non fossil fuel resources.

It's an interesting question to ask "how would industry have evolved and sustained" without the use of fossil fuels because that's indeed the situation that we face today; a growing scarcity and cost of the non-replenishable and very polluting resources of fossil fuels, and a growing awareness of sustainable and more ecologically suitable alternative energy sources -- photovoltaic, solar thermal, wind, hydrological / tidal, biomass, photosynthetic, et. al.

With respect to the alternative evolution and space-fuels questions, it's worth pointing out that Hydrogen (whether used in simple chemical combustion with oxygen to form water, or whether used as a nuclear fusion fuel as the stars operate) is the most plentiful element in the universe, so it's an ideal fuel for both a civilization with space industries as well as one that's advanced and operates on fuels found soley within its own ecosystem.

It is also worth pointing out that methane (CH3) is quite a common constituent of comets, gas-giant planets, et. al. so that's another possible combustible fuel source; it is found (on earth anyway) in significant amounts freely available in nature; and it's easily produced by a biomass bacterial decay type of process (that's why it's called 'swamp gas') as well.

Given all the factors, it's not very hard for me to see how the technological understanding and capacity of a society might well evolve far beyond the scope of its industrial mass prduction processes in breadth. A good example is spaceflight itself -- though it's been fairly well understood for 70 years in basic technological / industrial ways how one could travel from the earth to the moon, it has seldom been chosen to be done other than as a one-off sort of intellectual / academic / political exercise. Other examples common to what has been considered 'futuristic' since the early 1900s are the "flying car" and the "video phone". Though our industrial / technological capacity has existed to make those 'futuristic' things mass realities for many decades, there's been no significantly compelling interest in manifesting those opportunities into mass produced realities. I suppose nuclear power technology is another similar example, the laboratories / scientists have long known more or less how to harness such power (if somewhat crudely), but it's really quite a rarity that it has been chosen to be deployed whereas still today 160 years after we began the industrial habit of burning coal to power steam engines, we're most often still doing the exact same thing on a wide scale.

One might suggest that we've been (in some respects) well served by (mostly) skipping the mass utilization first 3 generations of nuclear power technology and to have pursued (somewhat) earnest the better / cleaner / safer technologies of fusion instead rushing to put Chernobyl type plants in every town. One might also argue that society might've been better served skipping the widespread use of the first couple generations of steam/coal/oil heat engines as well; it didn't really take MUCH further research to come up with models that were VASTLY more efficient and less polluting / wasteful of fuels than the original sorts of "feed a whole forest into the boiler each month" designs.

Thus though a society might have a paucity of available resources of things like coal, oil, even metals, it's certainly possible that they'd develop technologically to become quite advanced, though the scarcity of widespread primitive fossil fuels might well serve to delay the *proliferation* of the use of those resources on a widespread scale, though they might long be understood / utilized on small scientific / research scales. It's conceivable that evolutionary path would just cause a somewhat slower advancement of science, a skipping of the mainstream uses of the most primitive sorts of combustion based industry, and ergo a more direct "quantum jump" to the widespread use of more advanced sorts of technologies / fuels as eventually their science / limited industry achieved those more advanced capacities.



 

Sho'Nuff

Diamond Member
Jul 12, 2007
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Originally posted by: Stonejaw
I was wondering if it is possible that oil could be on other planets. Now I know that oil is a byproduct of biomass, so that there would have had to be life on said planet at some point. I dont just mean planets in our solar system but others. This raises some interesting questions about life on other planets. For instance what if an intelligent form of life evolved on another planet, would it be able to become highly advanced without the large avialability of a cheap energy source such as oil? Are we extremely lucky that oil happened to be on Earth. Without the discovery of oil we surley would not have had the industrial revolution.
If there was oil on other planets we could use it and it would be a huge discovery. Or perhaps there is substances on other planets like oil that could be used for cheap energy.

Anyways I just wanted to see what others think about this.

I would hope that by the time we discover life on other planets and can travel to them that oil will no longer be a necessary source of energy. I hate to say it, but expensive gas right now is the best thing that could happen to the U.S. It forces our government to support alternative energy research, which will evcentually ween us off of oil. Then, and only then, will the U.S. not be at the mercy of oil producing nations.
 

wwswimming

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Jan 21, 2006
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Originally posted by: Stonejaw
I was wondering if it is possible that oil could be on other planets. Now I know that oil is a byproduct of biomass, so that there would have had to be life on said planet at some point.

most oil reserves that have been explored on Planet Earth
are fossil fuel in origin.

it is also possible to create "abiotic" oil. it's been done in
the lab, and some geologists make a bigger deal of it,
maintainint that it's a naturally occurring process, in the
Earth.

for companies that are willing to pay $3000 for a rosier
view of energy resources, CERA, Daniel Yergin, will
provide. one of their more recent forecasts predicts
an approx. 4.5% decline in production; i don't remember
if that is overall or if they were specific about certain wells.

that's from a peak of about 85 million barrels a day, in the
2005-2007 time-frame.
 

Modelworks

Lifer
Feb 22, 2007
16,240
7
76
Besides life you also need the right temperatures and pressures.
Too hot and what would have been oil becomes natural gas.
Too cold and it becomes coal or shale.
Thats why when the earth was covered by dead plant life you only got oil in certain places.
The ones were all the above conditions were met.

If you haven't seen the documentary crude, I highly recommend you go to:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/crude/

It is THE best explanation of oil past and present.
It is extremely well done .
 

Geniere

Senior member
Sep 3, 2002
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Originally posted by: Stonejaw?If there was oil on other planets we could use it and it would be a huge discovery. Or perhaps there is substances on other planets like oil that could be used for cheap energy?

Not to worry, there?s plenty of oil in our backyard, lots of it. In fact the US has more oil than the rest of the word combined, much more, 1/3 of the entire world?s reserve, about 1 trillion barrels, enough for over 200 years at present rates of consumption?more than the mid-east ever had. China has a lot, Russia has a lot, Europe has a lot?

Click on the link > > > > http://www.mines.edu/magazine/...es/oil_from_stone.html


 

BrownTown

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Dec 1, 2005
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Originally posted by: Geniere
Originally posted by: Stonejaw?If there was oil on other planets we could use it and it would be a huge discovery. Or perhaps there is substances on other planets like oil that could be used for cheap energy?

Not to worry, there?s plenty of oil in our backyard, lots of it. In fact the US has more oil than the rest of the word combined, much more, 1/3 of the entire world?s reserve, about 1 trillion barrels, enough for over 200 years at present rates of consumption?more than the mid-east ever had. China has a lot, Russia has a lot, Europe has a lot?

Click on the link > > > > http://www.mines.edu/magazine/...es/oil_from_stone.html

IF you had actually considered the post directly above yours you might realize that there is a HUGE difference between oil and oil shale. The chemical processes that created oil in many places take a long amount of time, and oil shale is a much earlier step in that process than oil itself, its like comparing the different grades of coal, there is a HUGE difference between say peat and anthracite, just the same is true for oil and oil shales, the chemical makeup is FER different than oil and the processes needed to convert it too an oil like mixture take VAST quantities of energy.
 

NanoStuff

Banned
Mar 23, 2006
2,981
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There you go then. There's half a trillion tonnes of known recoverable bituminous coal. Plenty of things left to burn when oil runs short.
 

Throckmorton

Lifer
Aug 23, 2007
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Originally posted by: Geniere
Originally posted by: Stonejaw?If there was oil on other planets we could use it and it would be a huge discovery. Or perhaps there is substances on other planets like oil that could be used for cheap energy?

Not to worry, there?s plenty of oil in our backyard, lots of it. In fact the US has more oil than the rest of the word combined, much more, 1/3 of the entire world?s reserve, about 1 trillion barrels, enough for over 200 years at present rates of consumption?more than the mid-east ever had. China has a lot, Russia has a lot, Europe has a lot?

Click on the link > > > > http://www.mines.edu/magazine/...es/oil_from_stone.html

Did your pastor tell you that?
 

BrownTown

Diamond Member
Dec 1, 2005
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Originally posted by: NanoStuff
There you go then. There's half a trillion tonnes of known recoverable bituminous coal. Plenty of things left to burn when oil runs short.

To bad you can't burn coal in your car, and like was stated earlier all coal is not bade equal, alot of that which is left is low BTU or high sulfur coals. Also as was stated before the same problem with turning oil shale to oil applies for turning coal into oil, namely that the cracking process takes vast quantities of energy. Right now all the current processes convert solids to oil by burning tons of natural gas. Converting different hydrocarbons isn't an energy winner, it seems like coal to oil makes sense until you realize that you have to burn as much energy in natural gas as you get out from the oil, and even if there is enough coal or oil shale for 200 years there definitely ain't enough natural gas to convert it all.
 

Geniere

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Sep 3, 2002
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Originally posted by: BrownTown... there is a HUGE difference between say peat and anthracite, just the same is true for oil and oil shales, the chemical makeup is FER different than oil and the processes needed to convert it too an oil like mixture take VAST quantities of energy.


Wrong on both counts. Just heat the shale to convert the kerogens to oil. Shell Oil estimates its in situ process will consume 1 unit of energy to yield twice its equivalent in barrels of sweet crude oil. Major corporations are evaluating four other processes.

(WO/1983/003676) ANALYSIS OF KEROGENS:

"?It has long been known that kerogens of particular composition generate oil and/or gas upon breakdown. The first stage appears to be thermal breakdown of the kerogen, gradually at first, then more rapidly to produce hydrocarbons. This is the principal phase of oil formation as designated by Vaeeoyevich et al (Ihternat. Geology Rev. 1970 _121276-1296)..."
 

Geniere

Senior member
Sep 3, 2002
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Originally posted by: BrownTown ... alot of that which is left is low BTU or high sulfur coals.
Wrong!

Originally posted by: BrownTown Also as was stated before the same problem with turning oil shale to oil applies for turning coal into oil, namely that the cracking process takes vast quantities of energy.
Wrong!

Originally posted by: BrownTown ?Right now all the current processes convert solids to oil by burning tons of natural gas.
Wrong!

Originally posted by: BrownTown ?Converting different hydrocarbons isn't an energy winner, it seems like coal to oil makes sense until you realize that you have to burn as much energy in natural gas as you get out from the oil, and even if there is enough coal or oil shale for 200 years there definitely ain't enough natural gas to convert it all.
Really, really, wrong!

Where do you come up with this stuff? Do you think they would burn expensive gas in the conversion process when the much less expensive coal and kerogen fuels are at hand?


http://www.clean-energy.us/facts/coal.htm

Countries with the greatest estimated recoverable reserves of coal are ?

United States -- 273 billion tons
Russia -- 173 billion tons
China -- 126 billion tons
India -- 93 billion tons

>
 

Gibsons

Lifer
Aug 14, 2001
12,530
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There are some clouds in space that have a lot of alcohol in them. Text

But if you're traveling across the galaxy, I kinda doubt you'll be burning carbon for an energy source... but who knows.
 

BrownTown

Diamond Member
Dec 1, 2005
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Umm before you go off declaring everyone else wrong maybe you should get some better proof instead of just attacking everyone who disagrees Geniere. Also, there is a point here to be made concerning not only pure thermodynamics, but also politics. One big reason why what you suggest is well off is that alot of these reserves are not going to be making the government happy to burn, by the time they become available there will be a carbon tax, and even if there is a good process to extract oil from oil shales that will only be half the battle, the government will also make them sequester the carbon. Same goes for these high sulfur coals, the government don't like people burning them, and if you do you have to install giant scrubbers and such to clean the sulfur out before it is released, and even scrubbers can only tolerate so much sulfur, the really bad deposits would not be usefull without even more expensive anti sulfur devices. Also, concerning usage of natural gas I am referring to tar sands there not oil shale because that is the only real example of a REAL process being used to extract oil from these sorts of areas. The amount of natural gas used is obviously less than the amount of oil produced, but that is only one of many energy inputs, for example oil is needed for all the transportation and mining equipment, electricity is needed for all the machinery etc... By the end of the day the energy return is pretty crappy, and that isn't just a bad thing in terms of the environment and such, all that extra work also mean higher COST, so maybe $200/bbl from oil shale is doable, thats not the end of the world, but it ain't exactly an end to our problems then is it, especially when half that oil is burnt as the fuel to produce the other half...
 

Geniere

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Sep 3, 2002
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Originally posted by: BrownTown
Umm before you go off declaring everyone else wrong
No, only you.

Originally posted by: BrownTown ...maybe you should get some better proof...
Better proof; is there a superlative, "more proofer", "proofier"? Unlike BT, I've provided some sources to substantiate my statements.

Originally posted by: BrownTown ...Also, there is a point here to be made concerning not only pure thermodynamics, but also politics...
You do know that this is the 'Highly Technical" forum. Political twaddle should be posted elsewhere. ?pure thermodynamics?; as opposed to impure thermodynamics? What?s that?

Originally posted by: BrownTown ...One big reason why what you suggest is well off is that alot of these reserves are not going to be making the government happy to burn
A congressional mandate exists that specifically requires the development of our shale oil resources.

Originally posted by: BrownTown Also, concerning usage of natural gas I am referring to tar sands there not oil shale because that is the only real example of a REAL process being used to extract oil from these sorts of areas.
How the Canadians process oil sand deposits is their business. The use of natural gas is not even being considered in the US nor, I?ve read, will it be used in future Canadian development.

Originally posted by: BrownTownThe amount of natural gas used is obviously less than the amount of oil produced
Finally, a correct assessment.

Originally posted by: BrownTownbut that is only one of many energy inputs, for example oil is needed for all the transportation and mining equipment, electricity is needed for all the machinery etc... By the end of the day the energy return is pretty crappy, and that isn't just a bad thing in terms of the environment and such, all that extra work also mean higher COST, so maybe $200/bbl from oil shale is doable, thats not the end of the world, but it ain't exactly an end to our problems then is it, especially when half that oil is burnt as the fuel to produce the other half...
$200/bbl is, without doubt and with absolute certainty, a product of your imagination.

By Joe Carroll -- Bloomberg News -- June 10, 2007 12:07 a.m. MDT

"Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp., the two biggest U.S. energy companies, and Royal Dutch Shell Plc are spending $100 million a year testing new methods to separate the oil from the stone for as little as $30 a barrel. A growing number of industry executives and analysts say new technology and persistently high prices make the idea feasible."

>>>





 

DrPizza

Administrator Elite Member Goat Whisperer
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Originally posted by: NanoStuff
Originally posted by: DrPizza
Even the space station is a waste of money.

It serves more purpose as a diplomatic tool than anything else, maybe that in itself is worthwhile.

Good point - one of the big things that they've been talking about is how we're learning to collaborate with other nations on a project. Then again, apparently we're apparently not learning anything. The U.S. essentially ignored international agreements and balked at paying for it's agreed upon share of the International Linear Collider:

Funding for research and development of the collider plan was cut 75 percent for this fiscal year by Congress in a surprise move in December, and Great Britain has said it is dropping out of the project altogether.

This would seem to doom a project that has, from the get-go, been an experiment not just in physics but in true international cooperation and financial responsibility for big-ticket science.

More than 2,000 people worldwide are involved; the directors and other executives on the Global Design Effort team come from England, Germany, Italy, France, Russia, Japan, Korea and Switzerland, as well as the United States.

The linear particle collider is real scientific research. Unfortunately, it lacks the political penis-waving attention that it really deserves. Instead, we get a president who can't pronounce nuclear, but tells Nasa to start getting ready to send a man to Mars. He doesn't understand much about science, and if/when he gets some scientific advice from a panel that he doesn't like, he simply replaces the panel with people who will tell him what he wants to hear.


 

Geniere

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Sep 3, 2002
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Originally posted by: DrPizzaThe linear particle collider is real scientific research. Unfortunately, it lacks the political penis-waving attention that it really deserves. Instead, we get a president who can't pronounce nuclear, but tells Nasa to start getting ready to send a man to Mars. He doesn't understand much about science, and if/when he gets some scientific advice from a panel that he doesn't like, he simply replaces the panel with people who will tell him what he wants to hear.

Is this a leftest political forum wherein one expresses their distorted political dogma or a technical forum?

 

manowar821

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Mar 1, 2007
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Seriously....? How could anyone but fundamentalists or narcissists think that space exploration is worthless?

Also, OP, the question of whether or not oil exists on other planets in other star systems is kind of irrelevant. When/if we develop technology advanced enough to reach those locations quickly enough, we will no longer have any need for mass amounts of oil... We may even have 100% synthetic oil only, by then, and they won't be using it as a combustible...
 

Gibsons

Lifer
Aug 14, 2001
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Originally posted by: manowar821
Seriously....? How could anyone but fundamentalists or narcissists think that space exploration is worthless?
If memory serves, I think you'll find DrPizza shares my view that space exploration is a great thing, but given our technology, sending humans into space is the wrong way to do it.
 

manowar821

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Mar 1, 2007
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Originally posted by: Gibsons
Originally posted by: manowar821
Seriously....? How could anyone but fundamentalists or narcissists think that space exploration is worthless?
If memory serves, I think you'll find DrPizza shares my view that space exploration is a great thing, but given our technology, sending humans into space is the wrong way to do it.

If that's a conditional view-point based on our current technological level, then that makes more sense. I didn't mean this as a response to any person in particular, I'm just astounded by the idea that space exploration is completely pointless to some people, as a whole. However, I do understand the thought that we're not going to accomplish much with our current technology, by sending people into space.