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Van Allen Questions Human Spaceflight
An anonymous reader writes "James van Allen - the discoverer of the Van Allen radiation belt - has called into question the motivations and expectations of space exploration and research, particularly manned space exploration. Van Allen comments that 'the only surviving motivation for continuing human spaceflight is the ideology of adventure.'"
"No. We have to stay here [Babylon 5] and there's a simple reason why. Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics and you'll get ten different answers, but there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe and Lao-Tzu, Einstein, Morobuto, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes .. and all of this .. all of this was for nothing unless we go to the stars." (Infection, season 1, ep. 4)
Sappy, yeah. But it makes the point nicely.
(quote copied from http://jdmoncada.tripod.com/babylon5.html)
Yeah, a rocket engine is complex but you are trying to make it seem like it is harder than any other numerous engineering challenges that have already been surmounted by human kind with trial, error, many times loss of life, but most of all with time until we have finally reached the day when the feat to be accomplished is routine.
I think you vastly underestimate the challenge needed to build a tower hundreds of feet tall that will not topple in the first storm or park a submersible on the bottom of challenger deep, under 11 miles (17700 m) of water at a pressure exceeding 16000 pounds per square inch (1125 kg/cm^2).
To you they are trivial because they have already been bested by engineering. Space is the new challenge and it will still prove to be a hard master for many years to come but we will eventually, given the willingness to challenge it, advance in engineering powers to the point where it too is a routine endeavor.
On thing that I find odd, is that in the context of space exploration loss, and the resulting death is viewed as such a horrible risk that the attempt should not be made. Of course I do not want to see people lose their lives... but I would risk mine to try if I was given the opportunity. Yet still, compare this reaction to the loss in the context of other human endeavors... If we made a roll of all those lost at sea in the name of exploration it would read on for pages, no for volumns upon volumns. Heck it was not that long ago when the building of a skyscraper was considered well managed if fewer than 15 workers died during its construction, but in the exploration of space, any risks seems to great to those of us that would rather we just stay here, at home.
Yes we should acknowledge the danger and we should not take undue risk... but we should not let the fear of loss paralyze us into inaction.
Have you thought for yourself today?