Another Concorde moment...

Cressers

It seems that Man has reached as far as he is able to, has stretched too far, and can never reach as high again...

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10162/1064898-115.stm

Will future generations praise or curse this decision?

Anonymous

Cressers wrote:

It seems that Man has reached as far as he is able to, has stretched too far, and can never reach as high again...

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10162/1064898-115.stm

Will future generations praise or curse this decision?

Dunno.

What are the benefits ?

Cressers

Having a maaned spaceflight capability to deflect any rogue asteriods or comets on a collision course with the earth, and being able to mine minerals from other worlds when our stocks are all used. The technological by-products created by the space programme. Perhaps it is the very act of striving that gives us reason and inspiration, we learn and achieve in the doing.

As I child I grew up with a sense of wonder at the Apollo programme, it seems to be a sad comment on our aspirations that we can't build on what was achieved then, a bit like the european navigators deciding to stay at home rather than venture on to the unknown seas.

Anonymous

Cressers wrote:

Having a maaned spaceflight capability to deflect any rogue asteriods or comets on a collision course with the earth, and being able to mine minerals from other worlds when our stocks are all used. The technological by-products created by the space programme. Perhaps it is the very act of striving that gives us reason and inspiration, we learn and achieve in the doing.

As I child I grew up with a sense of wonder at the Apollo programme, it seems to be a sad comment on our aspirations that we can't build on what was achieved then, a bit like the european navigators deciding to stay at home rather than venture on to the unknown seas.

Well, when you put it like that, I have to agree. The Human spirit, ever searching and inquiring. Good stuff.

rdt

Well, if the US Govt was flush with spare cash, I'm sure they'd want to keep funding this, for all the reasons you outline. But they're not flush with cash, far from it...

The Constellation moon-return programme would have to be funded by the US Govt borrowing immense amounts of money ($230-$350 Billion), so adding to its national debt.

Debt that has interest charged on it each year until it is paid back - which if history is anything to go by means never - so interest being paid in perpetuity. Paid by current US taxpayers, then their children, and then their children's children, etc.

You asked the question "Will future generations praise or curse the decision by their Governments?"

The decision they shouldl be cursing for a long time to come is how they allowed financial numpties to be running their Governments' finances for so long, spending more than they earned for year after year, running up vast debts that seem impossible to ever pay back. Same here, same in Japan, same in half the "developed" world. If they've any sense, they'll blame those previously in charge who caused these problems, not those now saddled with removing the punch bowl and trying to sort out the mess left behind.

On a positive note, if these nations' finances one day get sorted out, and they pay off much or all of their debt, they'll not be wasting so much money paying interest on all that debt. So they'll have far more money to spend on programmes such as Constellation or whatever else floats people's boats at that time. Roll on 2035!

Gazzaputt

Point of getting to the moon is? To prove it can be done as we all the last landings were fakes

rdt

Cressers wrote:

As I child I grew up with a sense of wonder at the Apollo programme

I remember being asked as a kid (age 7 or so) what I'd do when I grew up. Question seemed crazy to me. I knew the future was bright, hi tech and full of robots doing the grunt work, so we'd all be living in "pleasure" domes, no need to work, chillaxing all around.

OK, my idea of "pleasure" at that age meant stuff like bunny-hopping my bike, unlimited Bazooka Joe, skateboarding catamarans and making immense peg guns to shoot at cats with, not some steamy Persian harem-filled lifeforce-sapping arrangement.

Sad to say, but I'm now of the age when my idea of pleasure is swinging back towards what it was at 7

Aggieboy

All that cheese wasted.

Bunneh

My Grandfather maintained that the landings were fake and I must admit I am none too sure these days. I reckon there's been a base there for a good number of years, it's run by lizard people!

rdt

Aggieboy wrote:

All that cheese wasted.

Maybe Obama, like Martin Landau, knows that the real Moon was blown out of Earth orbit in 1999 by a huge nuclear explosion on its dark side, and is still hurtling off into deep space somewhere. Sending a new "mission" up to the fake one they've hung up there to fool us runs the risk of exposure if the revamped Capricorn One team mess things up again. Easier just to quietly shelve it...

Cressers

Space 1999!

That bright future envisaged by Gerry Anderson became our squalid present.

Besides if we can't get to the moon what will SHADO be able to do to protect us from the UFO menace?

rdt

Cressers wrote:

Space 1999!

That bright future envisaged by Gerry Anderson became our squalid present.

Besides if we can't get to the moon what will SHADO be able to do to protect us from the UFO menace?

Don't know about the moon, it's who's on Mars I'm worried about, but at least we've got Lt. Hiro's Zeroids and the rest of the Terrahawks to defend us against the threat of enslavement by Queen Zelda & Co. :shock:

MichaelW

The whole of the manned space program since Apollo has been a collosal waste of money. The science return has been minimal compared to the huge return of cheap un-manned missions.
Basically the International Space Station was designed for 2 purposes
1. To give the space shuttle somewhere to go
2. To give Russian scientists something constructive to do to when the Soviet Union collapsed.
In a circular argument, the Space Shuttle now became essential to the continued life of the ISS.

Putting cargo on a human-safety-rated vehicle is stupid.

Should we have gone to Mars instead? Im not even sure its do-able. Christopher Columbus set off into what he thought was the far east with fair idea of the risks. More than 2/3 of the crews died. Mars robot missions suffer a high failure rate. We have to accept these figures. People will die or they will return physically broken but it will probably be worthwhile.

sloboy

Maybe a true Concorde moment as Concorde could be summarised as being:

- vastly expensive
- a technical marvel
- utterly pointless and misconceived

Can you imagine what the world would be like if Concorde had caught on ? I used to work in Reading and you had to time your meeting breaks to coincide with it flying over on the way out of Heathrow, if you were outside, conversation was impossible for a couple of minutes - and this was 30 miles from the airport ! If every plane had become like that, the flightpath would have been uninhabitable all the way to the sea.

Sadly, it has to be filed under "What were they thinking !"

MichaelW

The only time I cycled into Heathrow I met Concorde . I was riding across the taxi-way/perimeter road (its dual purpose) whe Concorde landed. You cant get any closer or louder than that. I had to get off my bike, get down on the ground and cover my head.

stigofthedump

Both the moon landings and Concorde achieved massive interest in science, technology and engineering and inspired generations of people to persue these careers. To dismiss them on the grounds of the products they lead to, such as teflon and goretex (and titanium construction and carbon composites), completely misses the point.
Also any money invested is used to employ people so it is hardly wasted. Many £billions go into research in all countries, some of which does not produce a tangible outcome, but only the narrow minded see this as a waste.
As for the 'did we really land on the moon' crowd. Ask Buzz
http://www.csicop.org/news/show/buzz_al ... y_theorist

cee

rdt wrote:

Cressers wrote:

Space 1999!

That bright future envisaged by Gerry Anderson became our squalid present.

Besides if we can't get to the moon what will SHADO be able to do to protect us from the UFO menace?

Don't know about the moon, it's who's on Mars I'm worried about, but at least we've got Lt. Hiro's Zeroids and the rest of the Terrahawks to defend us against the threat of enslavement by Queen Zelda & Co. :shock:

i haven't even thought about terrahawks for years...zelda gave me nightmares as a kid.

rdt

stigofthedump wrote:

Also any money invested is used to employ people so it is hardly wasted. Many £billions go into research in all countries, some of which does not produce a tangible outcome, but only the narrow minded see this as a waste.
t

Apologies for becoming boring again :roll: , but the point you've avoided addressing is the very simple one that the US Govt doesn't have the money. Like the UK Govt, it runs a large budget deficit, which means each year it spends more than it "earns" (receives in taxes), and borrows the difference. The amount of debt that the US Govt owes gets bigger and bigger, as each year it spends ever more than it "earns", and borrows the difference.

So a proportion of all existing spending on US Govt programmes is already funded by borrowing. Therefore any additional spending must be funded solely from further borrowing. And there's no plan to ever pay off these debts - just to keep borrowing more and more, thus squandering ever larger amounts on debt interest payments each year....

If you knew someone who tried to run their own financial affairs like that, you'd say they, and those lending them the money, were morons, as it'd eventually all end in tears. But strangely, some people seem to think it's fine for Governments to do that, as if there's some magical money tree they have access to to pay for it, or that the consequences of getting ever deeper into debt somehow don't apply to Govts...

The US Govt seems sensibly to have decided that it can't afford it at the moment: it's in a large debt hole and it needs to stop digging. In the future, they hopefully will be able to afford moon-shots and more besides. In the meantime, those people/companies/countries who do have the money and can afford it are more than welcome to step in, if they can see that the benefits stack up for them.