As Egon Spengler said as he came out from under the secretary’s desk in “Ghostbusters”…’print is dead’, so too is manned space flight. To say the ISS is in space is stretching it. Until someone can come up with a propulsion system rivaling “warp drive” why should we bother? Successful robotic missions to Mars stand at about 50-50. Nobody in their right mind (well, I would, but my mind’s not right) would undertake a mission after being told, ‘Well, son, you’ve got a 50-50 chance of getting there. Gettin’ back, though, is an entirely different matter.’ I’d be thinking, “who would want to come back?” Anyway, I could give you the blow-by-blow on the little science experiments they’d ask me to do and then settle down to a steady diet of frozen hot dogs and the nagging realization that... ‘Damn, Mars is really cold!’ Death would come quickly and all viewers would remember is the brand of hot dog I was eating. Sort of like all they remember, now, is Tang. Send the probes. Forget the men. Dave On Mar 1, 2012, at 7:43 AM, Kim wrote:
The voice-over sounds a lot like a Republican (or substitute Democrat) campaign ad.
Here's a question for friendly debate: Has human exploration hit a wall with space? Maybe it is simply not possible, and won't be for generations, if ever, to go any further than we have. I don't mean robotic probes, as I think they have really given NASA the best "bang for the buck," and I believe that part of space exploration certainly can and should continue. But human exploration? Perhaps technology has also reached its limit and will never overcome the immense barriers to further human exploration beyond near space (earth orbit and/or lunar exploration - maybe).
Thoughts?
Kim
-----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Patrick Wiggins Sent: Wednesday, February 29, 2012 9:46 PM To: utah astronomy listserve utah astronomy Subject: [Utah-astronomy] NASA video: We Are the Explorers
We Are the Explorers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=e7DEw70LVWs
patrick
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