[Bill Hicks]

http://peakoil.com/publicpolicy/peak-ex ... ilization/

Thanks again to Peak Oil.com for republishing my article on the Apollo program today. I thought I'd link it here for wider comment.

[nobodypanic]

the apollo program clearly is not the peak of exploration. we've explored plenty since then. as we speak we have several probes exploring where 'no man has before' as they say.

i think you could claim that apollo was the peak of manned space travel.

[AgentR11]

I have real odd feelings, I've discovered, about manned space travel. Intellectually, I have always thought, and continue to think, it is the ultimate in dumb ideas.

Yet... I am *feeling* more disturbed than I thought I would be as the curtain closes on US manned space flight capability. I know in my head, that if we gave up the idea, we could drown the solar system in probes for what we spent to keep the shuttles running. Even more so, a weird feeling since its Obama that killed Constellation (an AgentR11 policy objective fullfilled by a marxist)! I think it was the right thing to do; a "mars, go and come back" mission seems the height of folly to me.

So... do the Chinese choose to fly? That is the question. As odd as it sounds, China probably is in the best condition to do it; they have enough tech, and they have the willingness and ability to deprive hundreds of millions of their citizens in order to achieve a monumental goal. So they could go where we never have been, if they wished to do so. The only question remains, is whether they want to.

If China lands humans on Mars, will science and engineering students in the US lose heart? Or will it become in their minds, "China, the new home for innovation and development." Multiple Silicon Valleys without the real estate disaster?

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', 'Y')et... I am *feeling* more disturbed than I thought I would be as the curtain closes on US manned space flight capability.

[AgentR11]

Its unfair to lay the ending of the shuttle program at Obama's feet. That one is on Bush. It was also the right decision, even if one is dedicated to the notion of human space flight, a rocket with wings is dumb. Rockets look the way the do for a reason; that cylindrical tube main body is the safest, most efficient, and most effective configuration of a launch vehicle.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bill Hicks', 'h')ttp://peakoil.com/publicpolicy/peak-exploration-the-apollo-program-and-the-high-water-mark-of-western-civilization/

Thanks again to Peak Oil.com for republishing my article on the Apollo program today. I thought I'd link it here for wider comment.

[peeker01]

giving all credit due to tang and velcro, the manned space flight program is a luxury we can
no longer afford. at 1.5 billion per launch, the shuttle is a monumental sink hole for money.
with a 40 percent loss rate in vehicles, the risk is unsustainable. how many guys can we send
to the space station before we go broke? we over-reached by trying to loft a dc-9 into earth
orbit on an economical and commercially safe basis. if and when we recover our financial
footing, i don't foresee any more orbiting airliners.

[Sixstrings]

Oh this is nice. The Tea Party has just canceled the next twenty years of astronomical research. And not one US news outlet reports it, I have to read it in a British paper. Maybe we are collapsing.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Nasa fights to save the James Webb space telescope from the axe

Last week the US House of Representatives' appropriations committee on commerce, justice, and science decided that it had had enough of these escalating costs and moved to cancel the project by stripping $1.9bn from Nasa's budget for next year.

A terse statement, released by the Republican-dominated committee, said that the project "is billions of dollars over budget and plagued by poor management". The decision still has to be approved by the full appropriations committee, the House and the Senate. Nevertheless, analysts say the telescope now faces a struggle to survive.

Not surprisingly, the move to scrap the telescope, which has been under construction since 2004 and is named after a former Nasa administrator, has horrified astronomers. The James Webb was intended to be the centrepiece of astronomical research for the next two decades.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/jul/09/nasa-james-webb-space-telescope

[Bill Hicks]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('nobodypanic', 't')he apollo program clearly is not the peak of exploration. we've explored plenty since then. as we speak we have several probes exploring where 'no man has before' as they say.

i think you could claim that apollo was the peak of manned space travel.

[Bill Hicks]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', 'I')ts unfair to lay the ending of the shuttle program at Obama's feet. That one is on Bush. It was also the right decision, even if one is dedicated to the notion of human space flight, a rocket with wings is dumb. Rockets look the way the do for a reason; that cylindrical tube main body is the safest, most efficient, and most effective configuration of a launch vehicle.

[Bill Hicks]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('GASMON', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '(')one mission I wish we'd fund right now is a probe to

China is the future of man in space now I guess.

[vision-master]

Some experts say we already have spaceships and have been going to Mars for quite a few years. Imagine if'n the genie get's out of the bottle that we actually came from there. Religion is holding us back folks.



Boris Kipriyanovich
Boriska suddenly perked up and began to energetically explain about the construction of UFOs: “We just launched and we were already near the Earth!” Then he took a piece of chalk and drew something triangular on the blackboard. “There are six layers,” he enthused. “The outer layer takes 25% of the durable material, the second layer takes 30% and is like rubber, the third takes another 30% and is again metal, 4% is a layer with magnetic properties,” he writes the figures on the board. “If you power the magnetic layer with energy, the apparatus can fly all over the universe…”



link

[nobodypanic]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bill Hicks', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('nobodypanic', 't')he apollo program clearly is not the peak of exploration. we've explored plenty since then. as we speak we have several probes exploring where 'no man has before' as they say.

i think you could claim that apollo was the peak of manned space travel.

[Bill Hicks]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('nobodypanic', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bill Hicks', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('nobodypanic', 't')he apollo program clearly is not the peak of exploration. we've explored plenty since then. as we speak we have several probes exploring where 'no man has before' as they say.

i think you could claim that apollo was the peak of manned space travel.

[dorlomin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'O')h this is nice. The Tea Party has just canceled the next twenty years of astronomical research. And not one US news outlet reports it, I have to read it in a British paper. Maybe we are collapsing.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dorlomin', 'T')hough in areas like IR there is nothing on the surface that can compete with a good lens above the atmosphere and there is no way we can do a deep field scan like an orbital platform.

We have some newlt comissioned telescopes that are truly awesome intruments that we are doing some wounderous stuff with.

The loss of the James Webb will be a big blow to certain types of astronomy but science will continue to progress forward.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('nobodypanic', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bill Hicks', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('nobodypanic', 't')he apollo program clearly is not the peak of exploration. we've explored plenty since then. as we speak we have several probes exploring where 'no man has before' as they say.

i think you could claim that apollo was the peak of manned space travel.

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bill Hicks', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('nobodypanic', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bill Hicks', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('nobodypanic', 't')he apollo program clearly is not the peak of exploration. we've explored plenty since then. as we speak we have several probes exploring where 'no man has before' as they say.

i think you could claim that apollo was the peak of manned space travel.