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Neil Armstrong Gives Rare Interview
pcritter writes "In a rare coup for accountants' association CPA Australia, CEO Alex Malley interviews Neil Armstrong, whose dad worked as an Auditor, bringing him back four decades to the pinnacle of the space race. Neil reveals, 'I thought we had a 90 per cent chance of getting back safely to Earth on that flight but only a 50-50 chance of making a landing on that first attempt.' The four-part video series is now posted on CPA Australia's website."
I still don't understand this. We have the technology to do it, we have the people wanting to do it, and we have another group of people wanting to live and work there. Why don't we build a base on moon?
There would be no insects (I really hate those, but at least geckos take a good care of them!), and it would be a good base for our future discovery of new planets and solar systems. There ARE more there, earth is nothing special.
Is the United States incapable to do this? Does it take Russians, Chinese or Japanese to get there? What the hell happened to America?
If he'd faked it. And if his response was like Buzz Aldrin's.
Could have gone on that new Betty White show.
A certain group considers it a waste of money for the government. Ignoring the fact the NASA at it's peak allows billion in revenue to go back to the government. But some people don't want to understand anything about long term payoff, spin-off, and the fact that they create cutting edge industries.
This is what happens when non scientific and ignorant people get equal say how the government works.
And yes, I DO believe people without a fundamental understanding of science shouldn't be allowed to participate in the government.
Same with people who can't do intermediate algebra.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
What the hell happened to America?
Too busy spending money on killing people and figuring out more efficient ways of killing people.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Assuming the colony will produce it's own food, it may need insects to aid in decomposition of the compost.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Or maybe because even most scientists (actual scientists, not armchair commentators on slashdot) can't find an actual utilitarian reason to build a moon base other than juvenile delight at living out their sci-fi fantasies?
In an ideal world I would tend to agree. However, that does limit the number of people who can vote to maybe 10% of people, if that. It's a hard sell.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
Ok, we have people wanting to do it. We have the technology to do it.
But do we have the budget and what do we get out of it?
I am of course a slashdotter, and would love nothing more then a base on the moon. But for starters, I think that its stupid that you would differentiate between countries. All countries should be working together on this.
Second, the base would only be usable for science, at this time. So its not like we could say, "rent a flat" there. And working from there would also be a big problem. You couldn't go to meetings, and not even videomeetings would be very good. 2.5 seconds delay would be extremely annoying.
But then we have to think, what scientific benefits would it give that are really worth the enormous cost that we can't do with the ISS yet? We can currently figure out long term effects of being in space with the ISS, we can figure out how plants work and lots of other things in space. Building a base would have as main thing to test out "how to build a base on another planet". Which is without doubt something we MUST learn sooner or later. But we still have quite a bit of science left that could help us make the first base work well. So until we have to let go of the ISS, I don't think a moonbase is really worth it yet. We can do lots of science in the ISS without spending billions to make a moonbase which may be used for the same science we can already do.
Cue the incoming "take some from the military budget". I wish. I wish so hard, but we all know that humanities favorite hobby is killing every other fuck out there.
A certain group considers it a waste of money for the government. Ignoring the fact the NASA at it's peak allows billion in revenue to go back to the government. But some people don't want to understand anything about long term payoff, spin-off, and the fact that they create cutting edge industries.
This is what happens when non scientific and ignorant people get equal say how the government works.
And yes, I DO believe people without a fundamental understanding of science shouldn't be allowed to participate in the government. Same with people who can't do intermediate algebra.
I agree with your sentiment, but define "ignorant". Ignorance is subjective. Not everyone is scientific. Some people actually believe that reiki is legit and that believe Tim Ferriss actually knows what he is talking about. But these ignorant people are nothing compared to what ignorance was 50 years ago, or 100 years ago. Please codify (as in law, not C) a definition of ignorance that will be useful in 10 years, and then 100 years.
Isn't that reason enough? What happened to ambition, curiosity, and doing things "because it's there?"
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
I think this line of reasoning is very short-sighted. History is filled with examples of discoveries made by accident while trying to push the boundaries of a field. How do you know that a more permanent presence on the moon wouldn't lead to the next major breakthrough?
To think that we can learn everything that we need to by doing all of our experiments at the bottom of a gravity well in our own tiny little corner of the solar system is absurd.
Blog
Well, finite resources don't allow for infinite growth. See global warming / climate change
Isn't that reason enough? What happened to ambition, curiosity, and doing things "because it's there?"
It got buried under quarterly budget reports and two generations of short sighted politicians whose only motivation is to get themselves reelected and to push a hyperpartisan agenda.
Oh, and Democrats, who are generally worthless at any form of argument or debate.
Indeed. If Osama bin Laden hid on the Moon you would be there by now... for about the same money and with fewer people killed in the process.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
It's a pity Neil Armstrong did not explain about the remark he made to Mr.Gorsky.
it died with the educational system. now the new mantra is -- whats the ROI ? and whats in it for me ?
Isn't that reason enough? What happened to ambition, curiosity, and doing things "because it's there?"
What are the forecasted profits in the first quarter?
What? It's blue-sky and we're supposed to just see what valuable tech falls out? That isn't going to look good on my performance review! I need that bonus to pay the mortgage on my 23rd McMansion!
You're right. We should reinstate poll tests. Long live Jim Crow.
So why are we building so much other, even less useful, crap?
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
What's to understand?
Read the responses by the overwhelming majority of posters here for almost any space-related article, for starters. They already have the answers, so why bother asking questions?
Consider, perhaps, the huge aversion to risk, personally and societally, and the lawyerly legions ready to pounce on any 20-20 hindsight "mistake." Toss in the long-term trend of disparagement of learning, of exploration and discovery; the notion that it's somehow cool to be jaded by everything but the getting of more money and having fun, often as not at the expense of others, while thoroughly ignoring larger issues or even personal growth, and the rigid resistance to any kind of personal involvement beyond one's comfort bubble of prejudice and appetite.
I found it telling that Cdr. Armstrong estimated a 1-in-10 chance he wouldn't return. He went. He went, not because he was ordered to go, but because of whatever blend of desire, ambition, duty, honor, competitiveness, what have you. He damned sure didn't go for fame and riches.
All the astronauts at the time were pilots and aviators. All had degrees, many had advanced degrees, mostly in engineering. Many had been in combat. Most had done flight test. Every one believed, _knew_, that he was the best.
So, find that blend, those skills, that education, that dedication. Put behind them an infrastructure built to get things done and a public will to see it happen. I suggest you look elsewhere than the United States.
It's an urban legend.
HAND.
I agree with your sentiment, but define "ignorant" ... [p]lease codify (as in law, not C) a definition of ignorance that will be useful in 10 years, and then 100 years.
I can think of a relatively simple legal codification, though it would become expensive in terms of court time:
Any person whose general standard of knowledge and level of education is such that a reasonable minded person would consider that knowledge or level of education to be defective and below the standard ordinarily expected by the community.
Upon such definitions great case law is made. :)
No state can conquer the moon or put weapons on it according to the Outer Space Treaty. This author says "The current doctrine of international space law is restrictive and suffocating. For real progress in space to be made, the Outer Space Treaty and its res communis doctrine must be rethought in terms of the realities of today."
We've spent well over $100 billion on a foray somewhat out of the bottom of a gravity well. So far it has produced almost nothing, its called ISS.
Chances are a base on the moon would be only slightly more productive than ISS.
The moon might be worthwhile for mining water or Helium isotopes though this has not yet been well established. The far side might be a good place for some observatories. It might be a place to train for a base on Mars. Then the use cases starts trailing off pretty quickly
Its pretty simple, you need to build a strong, well thought out, case that there is something on the Moon worth doing that would actually justify the significant expense of returning and building a base. This is the step that was completely missed in the Apollo program which is why everyone stopped caring around Apollo 12 and the program ended at Apollo 17. An emotional case about the coolness factor, and pointless space races with other countries, doesn't really cut it.
The spinoffs from Apollo did end up making it worthwhile but its not really clear you would get anything close to the same spinoffs going back. Apollo had to actually invent a lot of things to pull it off. If you go back to the moon you would mostly be revisiting technologies that have already been developed so the spinoffs would almost certainly be much less.
Mars would be a much harder destination but it would be substantially more worthwhile since it is an almost colonizable planet. A case can be made for the that though it wouldn't be easy. It might also produce some new spinoffs since it would be a much harder journey and much more challenging to do.
@de_machina
You need to work on your tail-recursion.
You sweet bitch, you ruined me for anyone else. AhhHOO!!!!
If we want to ever colonize and live on Mars (and beyond), the mopn is the ideal jumping off point. Low gravity takeoff = less fuel consumption. A reliable launch window every two years. We have the abiity, knowledge and resources to accomplish near planet travel. If we don't start a moonbase now, humans may be stuck on this planet for good. Extreme short sightedness.
Or maybe because even most scientists (actual scientists, not armchair commentators on slashdot) can't find an actual utilitarian reason to build a moon base other than juvenile delight at living out their sci-fi fantasies?
No offense, but being a scientist (which incidentally many armchair commentators are on Slashdot) doesn't help you evaluate the utility of a moon base. And a large portion of space scientists have a natural conflict of interest. Namely, under current conditions, a moon base would cut into their funding.
I think the original poster which you replied to was way off base, but let's not go to a different extreme and let unqualified people make decisions for us merely because they have a degree.
Most scientists (actual scientists, like me) can't find an actual utilitarian reason to do what they're doing at the moment, apart from "Maybe something unexpectedly useful will turn up.". That applies to a moon base, too.
The spinoffs from Apollo did end up making it worthwhile but its not really clear you would get anything close to the same spinoffs going back. Apollo had to actually invent a lot of things to pull it off. If you go back to the moon you would mostly be revisiting technologies that have already been developed so the spinoffs would almost certainly be much less.
Yeah, but you wouldn't just be "going back". Building a long-term habitat on the moon is likely to bring about just as many - if not more - useful spinoffs. In fact, since the challenges that need to be met are largely centred around making a limited-resource environment friendly and liveable, I'd think their application would be even more direct, since we're all into the whole sustainable living/climate change/peak oil thing these days.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
because that results in a positive ROI aka whats in it for the person building it ? money.
Indeed. If Osama bin Laden hid on the Moon you would be there by now... for about the same money and with fewer people killed in the process.
Although I get where you're coming from, if Osama had the ability to hide on the Moon, much more money would be spent and many more people would have probably been killed in the process....
What was the utilitarian reason for landing on the moon? Saber-rattling? Hardly an important cause.
Trying to do something hard is a great way to spur innovation. Who better to make the effort than the federal government... an organization that can fund the attempt with less than 1% of its budget, and ensure that the resulting discoveries are available to the public. Even if we never build a base, we'll solve lots of hard engineering problems in the process, come up with innovations that can apply to other fields, and maybe even push back a little against a culture that more and more likes to celebrate idiocy and condemn intelligence.
Oh, and Democrats, who are generally worthless at any form of argument or debate.
True dat. The last several years can be summed up thusly:
Republicans: We want this!
Democrats: If you get this, than we get that.
Republicans: No! We get this or we filibuster!
Democrats: Okay.
Republicans: (later) Obama forced this on us and now our country is a step away from complete socialism!
Case in point: Obamacare, which is pretty much the same healthcare reform Romney passed in Massachusetts, and contains many rather Republican ideas (e.g. Gingrich lobbied for years to require everybody to have health insurance). If Obamacare was even halfway liberal it would contain a government option. The only thing Democrats 'got' was Medicare expansion, but that's only because Republicans depend on old homophobic and xenophobic bible-thumpers so much.
" All countries should be working together on this."
Excepting that multinational consortiums tend to turn in to bureaucratic quagmires. Haggling over who does what, who pays for what, whose astornauts get what rides. Some countries fall short on their commitments, others have to pick up the slack, schedules slip, budget soars. Just look at the history of the ISS.
If you want to do things fast, cheap and well a Kelly Johnson Skunkworks model is probably a much better choice than a bureaucratic quagmire. Find very talented engineers and program managers, give them a very precise goal and sufficient funds to do it, and keep the politicians as far away from it as possible.
Ones of NASA's now fatal flaws is politicians change the goal and the plan about every four years right before anything is actually done. They also dictate where and how things are done, not for engineering reasons but to insure they get pork in their states and districts. For example, every recent NASA proposed launcher has Shuttle SRB's in it just to insure Orrin Hatch wont try to kill it. That's why Ares I turned in to the monstrosity it was, and why Allient and Astrium have resuscitated the design that will not die as their proposed Liberty launcher.
@de_machina
This is what happens when non scientific and ignorant people get equal say how the government works.
If things ever truly worked that way, then you'd be among the first to get the boot for your non scientific, ignorant post above. There are no hard numbers or data surrounding your opinion above.
The only way to support such an argument scientifically is to compare how things would be with and without. We can't compare an Earth or particular society without space activity to one with, but we can compare contemporary societies with differing levels of commitment to space activities.
For example, the US spends a lot more on space activities than the member states of the European Space Agency, especially including DoD spending. Yet Europe is generally considered to be the more advanced culture scientifically and doesn't have quite the problem with the "non scientific, ignorant people" that are vexing you. So we have right here a data point indicating that maybe space exploration isn't all that beneficial in your own terms.
because the the outer space treaty forbids governments from building moon bases (sadly)
and as a left over from the cold war.... its still in force...
So NASA couldnt do it..
You really should have said that finite resources can't satisfy infinite demand. I can want far more than humanity's capability to provide. So we have to prioritize those wants.
Growth is a vague label that can mean many different things. Growth of knowledge, for example, can be sustained for a long time while growth of people (as we currently are) can only go so many doublings before we exhaust all physical resources (space, energy, matter, etc) in the Solar System.
Or farsighted politicians who don't want to have a multi hundred billion dollar base on the moon sucking up cash for no reason 10 years from now in circumstances they can't predict.
When you have money to burn a lot of things look like ideas you can fling money at, including tax cuts for people who don't need tax cuts, bridges to nowhere etc. The problem is that when the economy takes a negative dip (as it always does) you need to cut things which aren't necessary so you can focus resources on something that really needs it.
Any sort of adventure like a moon base needs to be as part of an investment into something. Maybe that's as a jumping off point to Mars, maybe that's for mining asteroids, or maybe it's just because we desperately need living space and it looks like it might be viable. But right now, it's none of those things.
National prestige is worth something, as is general investment in scientific curiosity. So you pay a bunch of scientists to figure out what is a good use of scientific money, and if they tell you 'not a moon base' then you should probably follow that. There are lots of other problems to be solved that look far more likely to be successful at this point.
I'm willing to wager a long term habitat on the moon would look disturbingly similar to the ISS . . . . but on the moon.
I am williing to bet it would be operated with a supply chain disturbingly similar to the ISS with just about everything shipped from Earth. I suppose they could open a land fill and dump the trash on the Moon saving having to fly it back to Earth like ISS. Is that what you would call a "spinoff"? There will probably be objections from the environmentalists on that one.
If they really pushed the envelope they might mine water on the Moon and get some Oxygen and Hydrogen, but I think that would require you to put the base on the South Pole and its not clear yet if there are in fact large ice deposits there.
If they were to put a nuclear reactor in the base that would be interesting but I'm willing to bet the opposition to launching one and doing that would be massive. I'm willing to bet instead it will have a big array of solar panels, like ISS.
You are seriously kidding yourself if you think its a given there will be huge technological breakthroughs as a result of this particular program.
@de_machina
Spinoff technologies. It will be cheaper to mine the moon for the raw materials for steel and put the finished product in geosynch orbit than it will be to boost every goddamned gram of every SPS we hang in space from Canaveral or Baikanour. SPSes are a spinoff technology. Also, lunar-built space vehicles that don't need to fight ehir way out of the Earth's gravity well. It's raining soup in space, and all everybody is doing is bitching their clothes are getting wet instead of hunting for a bucket.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
More likely, that 10% survivor rate will be someplace out in the 3rd World. Kill off the skillage needed to sustain a high tech civilisation, that civilisation will fall. For instance, kill off anybody who knows how an oil refinery works and how to make it produce gas & diesel. When the current stockpiles dry up, there'll be no more. Modern agriculture depends on that (relatively) cheap energy. No way we'll be able to feed 7 billion people on Bronze Age farming gear. The people doing Bronze Age style farming right now will still eat. Mostly. Unless they need to refrigerate some of their food. Then they're fucked.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
juvenile delight at living out their sci-fi fantasies
What's wrong with that? What do YOU live for? We have a lot of other things needing, but fulfilling my childhood fantasies is the long-term end goal, even if it doesn't happen in my lifetime.
youre forgetting that the biggest guns win. the 10% can compel third world slave labor to work for them if it comes to a food problem.
everything is fixable with enough firepower.
They didn't democratize education in Europe with any of that 'no child left behind' and 'let's teach them to embrace their diversity and acknowledge their uniqueness' bullshit. In Europe, they actually (gasp) try to make the kids read, write, do basic math up to elementary mathmatical analysis, speak at least 2 languages, learn their own and world histories, and more. Google up the stats on how the schools of the various countries are rated. Do it. I dare ya.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
NASA's budget comes up for review yearly. And every budget cycle, they still get a loud mouthed no-brained minority on the Hill bitching about all that 'money wasted in space'.
Hopefully, it'll have more than the 3000 kilo suborbital payload of Hermes. I'm thinking Falcon Heavy is the way to go. It'll lift just about any damned thing you can wrap a fairing around, cheap.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
how do you expect us to trump earth's limited resources then? perhaps we could look elsewhere for minerals. obviously fossil fuels aren't likely to be found off earth, but it's something to aim for.
also, OP said "self sustaining". one would presume the resource usage would be a one-time thing.
Watching and listening to the lunar landing sends shivers down my spine. For all our cool tech these days, nothing compares to that moment, and I can't help but wonder if our generation will have such a defining moment. Right now the world seems too obsessed with "safe" and "profit", and appears to have lost the vision and drive to push our boundaries.
I wish we would have some leaders who would follow in the footsteps of "we do these things not because they're easy, but because they're hard."
Or maybe because even most scientists (actual scientists, not armchair commentators on slashdot) can't find an actual utilitarian reason to build a moon base other than juvenile delight at living out their sci-fi fantasies?
You sound like a dinosaur to me... You know, the kind of ignorant fool who scurries about, oblivious to the Universe at large, worrying over utterly inconsequential crap while there's a huge asteroid headed for Earth about to make them extinct. Make no bones about it, one is headed this way right now. EVERY scientist will tell you that it's just a mater of time. What if we got out to the asteroid belt, captured us a few and had them orbiting the moon for quick dispatch. Meanwhile we mine them, not because it's oh so much cheaper to ferry them back to Earth, but because the raw materials aren't trapped in the bottom of a gravity well and it's cheaper to build shit in space.
The moon is just the first foothold, there's a whole solar system full of resources to utilise and SPACE to EXPAND since we hate the idea of state regulated birth control... Thirsty? Hell, Ceres is about 1/3rd the asteroid belt, and is probably full of water we can use. There's probably other BIG things floating about we have no clue of. You're either really clueless, or just chauvinistic because you're not extinct yet.
EG:
Eris, is the most massive known dwarf planet in the Solar System and the ninth most massive body known to orbit the Sun directly. It is estimated to be approximately 2300–2400 km in diameter, and 27% more massive than Pluto or about 0.27% of the Earth's mass.
Eris was discovered in January 2005 by a Palomar Observatory-based team led by Mike Brown, and its identity was verified later that year.
Now look here, you short sighted, ignorant twit: You don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Get your damn priorities straight. If getting off this rock isn't priority #1 then you're just burring your head in the sand, and ignoring the fossil records found therein. We've got a CHANCE to dominate our corner of the Universe, and prosper wildly beyond your puny minded dreams, you're saying: Nope, I vote for certain death at an uncertain time. FUCK YOU MAN, that's NOT how any rational being should think. Just off yourself now, you're hindering the herd.
If we had told these men that it was near certain death: that there was almost no chance of survival whatever but we might learn something from their ashen corpse - it would not have made any difference. They were ready to GO. They would have strapped in with a smile on their lips. Once upon a time we were made of sterner stuff.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Most scientists (actual scientists, like me) can't find an actual utilitarian reason to do what they're doing at the moment, apart from "Maybe something unexpectedly useful will turn up."
Define "actual scientist." Papers published in journals? Which ones? Which discipline? Particle physics, astronomy, biology? Do you consider Archimedes an actual scentist? What're his credentials? What's he published? I can go on and on listing "actual scientists" from history who were considered little more than charlatans by their contemporaries.
The chutzpah in here is deafening.
Back on topic, wouldn't it be nice to have a "Hubble" in a stationary mount on the other side of the moon? Wouldn't it be nice if we found tons of water at the bottom of a few craters up there? Wouldn't it be nice if it was a stepping stone to that vision Riker had in Startrek First Contact, when the whole moon was populated and cities up there shone down on us?
Perhaps you're lacking vision. Just a thought.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
How the hell are you being funded?
I'm a research scientist working on UAV systems - something that is arguably useful and a hot topic right now, and I'm finding it brutal to get access to funding. The money just isn't there, especially when you're competing with people who are developing vaccines and novel methods of leveraging social networks to sell tchotchkies. Unless you can show a serious payoff for your research within 5 years or so, nobody is interested in funding you, government or otherwise.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
Just had a spot of deja vu, I've finally gotten around to reading Baxter's Manifold series. He approaches that theme several times from both positive and negative viewpoints.
If you want private investment in space, the only way to do it is to return a profit. I've got no issue with that. I'm 100% behind not weaponising space for various reasons.
The Russians, Chinese, and Japanese are just talking about it, which is cheap. Practically free. Doing it is another matter.
Why would any government want to set up a trillion dollar base on what amounts to a lifeless rock in the middle of nowhere? Because you watched too much Star Trek as a kid, and want it really badly to be true?
We wouldn't get anything out of it, except things we could have gotten for a tiny fraction of the cost here on Earth! Spin-off technologies? That's like saying we should burn huge piles of money to stay warm in the winter. It's bureaucratic buzzword talk for "only 99% wasteful!".
If you think isolated cold rocks in a hard vacuum are so fantastic, why don't you move to Bouvet Island for the rest of your life? You can set yourself up a nice vacuum chamber there, sprinkle some radioactive isotopes around it to simulate the harsh radiation of outer space, and you have yourself a perfectly adequate simulation of life on the moon. For extra credit, take drugs that cause osteoporosis, and do all work outside the habitat in scuba gear. Make sure to carry your water, food and oxygen with you too -- no cheating! You're allowed supplies from the outside, except that you have to give $1000 to charity for each pound imported to the island.
Does that sound like something you want to do for the rest of your life? Would you want your family to live there like that, away from friends, family, and an "outside" that won't kill you in seconds? What would you do with your time there? Break rocks?
If you can't think of a good reason to move to Bouvet Island, then you don't have a good reason to live on the Moon either, which is a worse place to live, further away, and more expensive to get to.
Armstrong had balls of steel, nobody who has watched the landing approach can deny that. Not to mention their craft had tinfoil walls which they could not touch for fear of tearing them. However, as you have indicated, big balls without education and experience rarely achives anything more than a Darwin award.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
So why are we building so much other, even less useful, crap?
Because the human race would stop if we didn't have this:
http://www.fragrantica.com/perfume/Nicole-Polizzi/Snooki-13729.html
Obligatory "I don't want to live on this planet anymore."
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
The space race was never about that. It was a dick-measuring contest between two superpowers. Ambition and curiosity were good for the rousing speeches but not much else.
ISS with gritty dust that fouls all the seals and bearings. Can't do micro-G stuff because of 1/6th gravity. Really bad ping times, can't game or hold a decent conversation. No atmosphere to brake a landing, nothing but regolith to putz around in. The only thing that rock is good for is tides and sonnets.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
Or maybe because even most scientists (actual scientists, not armchair commentators on slashdot) can't find an actual utilitarian reason to build a moon base other than juvenile delight at living out their sci-fi fantasies?
Apart from that, sex and food what else motivates humanity?
Making money (which seems to be what *everyone* wants to do) is just to get more food, and sex time anyways. Oh and moon bases, ferraris, whatever.
So yeah. Good enough for me
Too busy spending money on killing people and figuring out more efficient ways of killing people.
Well.. it should be noted that when we went to the moon we were also rather involved in killing people. I could also be argued that we went to the moon with a largely military goal, and thus (at least indirectly) with the purpose of killing people. So lets not just pick popularized cliché critiques to hammer home what we must learn from Armstrong's legacy.
I am saddened that while our government bleeds out money on 'pork' and wasteful spending, they have cut the most successful and lucrative government program ever established. We are heavily in debt, but I could personally list a number of things I'd cut before the one thing that has brought such a great measure of success. But then, what do I know?
I believe our actions are often judged unfairly, but I readily admit we an imperfect nation. I will say, however, that if we fall it will be our own doing.
Our success or failure hinges on many factors, but I believe the more we can listen to, learn from, and be inspired by men like Armstrong, the brighter our future may be.
~theCzar
What happened to ambition, curiosity, and doing things "because it's there?"
A dose of reality? First there's the 9-5 followed by the wife and then the kids, the house, the mortgage and the cars. By the time that we're done doing all of these things there isn't much left for curiosity or doing non-essential things, "because they're there". Besides, why should I keep doing all of those things and paying my taxes so that you can live out your boyhood moon base fantasies? If you want a moon base, pay for it yourself.
I found it telling that Cdr. Armstrong estimated a 1-in-10 chance he wouldn't return. He went. He went, not because he was ordered to go, but because of whatever blend of desire, ambition, duty, honor, competitiveness, what have you. He damned sure didn't go for fame and riches.
my first reaction to the story was that surviving 9 out of 10 sounds way too high for that sort of project (bleeding edge tech driven by political deadlines) and that Armstrong did probably whole-heartedly buy a nice little lie by NASA (to keep his and his family's minds at ease).
Or maybe because even most scientists (actual scientists, not armchair commentators on slashdot) can't find an actual utilitarian reason to build a moon base other than juvenile delight at living out their sci-fi fantasies?
Well, how about experiments conducted in a low-gravity environment?
How about telescopes and other such sensors that are capable of things we'd never be able to do on the Earth?
How about because fuck it, it's there, which is one of the most important driving factors in humanity?
Why did we climb Everest? Because it's the tallest mountain. Why does man try to skydive from ever-increased heights? Because we've never skydived from that high before. Why does the Heart Attack Grill make a Quadruple Bypass burger? Because honestly, a good cheeseburger has more calories in it than a month of your salary.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Isn't that reason enough? What happened to ambition, curiosity, and doing things "because it's there?"
Actually, the US space effort was motivated by "because Sputnik's there".
Don't worry; it's just a matter of time until someone provokes our latent inferiority complex again.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> Some people actually believe that reiki is legit
Just because you've never done distance healing doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Scientists are still ignorant to the causes of electricity, gravity, only discovered 4 of the 6 fundamental forces, let alone don't have a fucking clue what consciousness is, so why are you surprised they don't understand energy healing?
Guess what traditional medicine doesn't always work either.
According to Science the Placebo effect should NOT even exist, but it does.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18524911.600-13-things-that-do-not-make-sense.html
It is a proven fact that the mind can effect the body's biochemistry.
See Morris Goodman's story:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfKn92klPeU
http://www.inspiresoul.com/miracle-man-proof-that-your-mind-is-bigger-than-any-science/
Like any modality of healing the standard disclaim needs to apply: Your Mileage May Vary. If it does then great! If not then try something else until it does.
Tossing the baby out with the bathwater just because your dogma of "doesn't work for you" being applied to everyone is plain stupidity and ignorance.
Case in point: Obamacare
I giggle when I hear it called "Obamacare", because he didn't exactly work up a sweat pushing for it.
And what little he did do, was almost entirely after the Democrats in Congress had already caved on practically every point, to appease Republican committee members who didn't vote for it even after they got what they wanted.
Democrats are stupid. If they had 1/3 of a clue they could have destroyed the Republican party after 2005.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
You need to work on your tail-recursion.
I'll get on that as soon as I finish working on my tail-recursion.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
somewhere, hopefully for a profit. The recent success of the SpaceX rocket is crucial because its vision pushes the envelope for cheaper launch costs, now. $ per lb is the hurdle for commercial space development. Mining, energy, colonization - flight has to be affordable for large scale development. That first step is hardest and most expensive. SpaceX just made a significant rung. Everyone else has to beat that, like the microprocessor manufacturers of the 1970s and 80s.
Sure, but I would say that getting a base on the moon may very well be more useful political than scientifically. Having a base that is funded by many countries, all working together for science would probably make it a lot more useful.
Just think about how wasteful it would be if we had to have a ISS for every major country that wants to do space experiments. Especially since the base being of just one country often ends up with science being done for just one country and it not being shared. In my opinion thats an enormous waste. I admit that its a political minefield, but who doesn't love having some politicians blow up. I still believe strongly that it should be joint effort between many countries, for on the scale of space, a country is nearly nothing. One full race may be worth it.
Go to China then. I remember reading somewhere that majority of the people running the show have degrees in technology rather than rhetoric.
Indeed. If Osama bin Laden hid on the Moon you would be there by now... for about the same money and with fewer people killed in the process.
I doubt it. Only tiny amount of the USA's post-9/11 security spending went toward I'm gonna git that bastid!
Most of it went toward pointless wars and security theatre.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Armstrong has made the "50% percent chance of success" comment several times before, for example in September 2005: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2005-09-06-mars-armstrong_x.htm
Right kids! One slingshot each from the table on the left. Choose marbles or ball-bearings from desk B. Now get out there and boost the economy!
P.S. A sentence should contain a finite verb.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
If we had told these men that it was near certain death: that there was almost no chance of survival whatever but we might learn something from their ashen corpse - it would not have made any difference. They were ready to GO. They would have strapped in with a smile on their lips. Once upon a time we were made of sterner stuff.
Actually, I suspect that the fraction of the population who would sign up for a job as a test pilot has been pretty constant since the invention of the airplane.
The notion of "the right stuff" is just propagandistic idol-making. Governments love to offer the public a hero.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The first thing to load was this: http://fimgs.net/images/perfume/m.600.jpg
Anyone else think it was something other than a perfume bottle?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
.
Oh wait...
Fine, but don't force me to spend my money on your fantasies.
/., SOMEBODY will complain.
I don't think anybody would object to private corporations making a moon base*, but if you want to use tax money on it, you had better come up with something better then "But it would be REALLY COOL".
*OK, this is
obviously fossil fuels aren't likely to be found off earth, but it's something to aim for.
Howzabout TItan? There's literally oceans of hydrocarbons there. Or do you want nice, clean-burning hydrogen? Can't go wrong with with the most common substance in the universe, and you can even get megatons the isotope of Hydrogen3 right next door on the moon if that's what you decide fusion power requires. Water? Hell, Europa has more than Earth does, by all reckoning. Of course, if you want cheap, abundant titanium, there's enough incredibly rich ore in locations on the Moon that would make you uber-wealthy if they were located here on Earth. You wouldn't even have to worry about pollution while extracting it.
Earth is only rich in comparison to the rest of the Universe in having all those nicely balanced environmental conditions and self-seeded biomass that's built up over a couple billion years that makes living on it comfortable. If all you're interested in is raw materials, theres places elsewhere where they're much more abundant.
Do have any idea of the logistical and industrial "tail" that's necessary to sustain a modern army in the field? And bear in mind we're talking about a situation where the society behind that has collapsed.
To quote from Zulu Dawn: "Bullets run out, them bloody spears don't!".
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
... something which we have clearly lost...
A respect and strive for humility.
Apart from that, sex and food what else motivates humanity?
Making money (which seems to be what *everyone* wants to do) is just to get more food, and sex time anyways. Oh and moon bases, ferraris, whatever.
So yeah. Good enough for me
Power. Monkey power.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
... less space than a Nomad.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Well said, indeed.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
"If getting off this rock isn't priority #1 then you're just burying your head in the sand, and ignoring the fossil records found therein."
Nice line, that's a keeper. I was just watching a show on the top 7 catastophic events to occur on Earth: "The Great Dying", "Ordovician Die-off", "K-T Event" (of course), etc. Cosmic events ranging from planetoids to asteroids to supernova gamma rays.
Diversify.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
Even with multiple space elevators, you can't move more people off the planet than are being born on it at any given moment. Expansion into space is not a realistic solution for overpopulation.
You also present a false dichotomy between space colonization and extinction somewhere in the short term. Instead of expanding into space, a quite possible future for sentient races is to move into a virtual reality. Merged with machines and living underground, the human race could withstand catastrophic asteroid strikes and last until the sun expands to a red giant. Voluntary extinction may even be a possibility at some point after the human races has transcended biology. Your fanatical dreams of immortality and exploration of the universe are not the way it has to be.
And yes, I DO believe people without a fundamental understanding of science shouldn't be allowed to participate in the government.
As someone who moved from mathematics into law because I saw scientists ambitious for political leadership as nothing less than technocratic fascists, I think that anyone without a fundamental understanding of and respect for law shouldn't be allowed to participate in government.
Unfortunately there are a lot of lawyers in that position - but more scientists, since at least the corrupt lawyers are merely self-interested, while the scientists tend to be on a Glorious Mission. And people with a Glorious Mission are the most dangerous of all.
---
Space Colonization Feed @ Feed Distiller
okey, so we've got the ISS up there.
what will we do when it's decomissioned? burn it up like the MIR?
why don't we send up some boosters and try to safely land it (module by module) on the moon. even trying would be an experience to learn from.
if all goes well, we can even send a rover which tries to level and assemble the stuff, pressurize and power up the systems.
it would be an ideal home base for returning to the moon, greatly extending the duration of the trip and since it's stays behind, we can try and turn one of the modules into a greenhouse so the air will be refreshed on the next mission.
only the thin foil solar panels should need replacing and some struts have to be fitted before trying. but we have people up there NOW, so it's doable.
That'd prolly be the smartest thing we could do. How has repealing those things worked out for ya?
Well, how about experiments conducted in a low-gravity environment?
Cheaper and easier to do it in low earth orbit and simulate however much "gravity" you need using a centrifuge. There are even some systems you can use on earth to effectively negate gravity which might be compatible with some experiments.
How about telescopes and other such sensors that are capable of things we'd never be able to do on the Earth?
Cheaper and easier to build a telescope that orbits the earth.
How about because fuck it, it's there, which is one of the most important driving factors in humanity?
I actually can't think of any human enterprise of any appreciable scale (the kind requiring national or international level cooperation) that was motivated entirely on the sake of doing. For example:
Why did we climb Everest? Because it's the tallest mountain. Why does man try to skydive from ever-increased heights? Because we've never skydived from that high before. Why does the Heart Attack Grill make a Quadruple Bypass burger? Because honestly, a good cheeseburger has more calories in it than a month of your salary.
None of these things are particularly meaningful or require vast amounts of resources/cooperation. Climbing Everest may require motivation and physical fitness on the part of the climber, but the act itself is trivial. Ditto with skydiving. (People eat the Q.B.B. because they're fucking morons, BTW...)
On the other hand, everything humans have done that actually required cooperation and investment of collected resources had financial, environmental and/or political motivation. If it wasn't for roaming herds and dwindling local resources I doubt humans would have even left Africa some 40,000 years ago.
=Smidge=
"Don't worry; it's just a matter of time until someone provokes our latent inferiority complex again."
Yep. Once another nation gets close to being able to throw rocks down the gravity well, we'll go into a panic, and get the military-industrial complex behind the project to "reach the asteroids first", or whatever.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
I suspect the Outer Space Treaty will have to be amended eventually, to allow bases, etc. Perhaps along the lines of the treaties governing nations in Antarctica.
sr
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
Because people are nincompoops. Which takes us back to the original point.
There is something warm and fuzzy about a free market economy, where everything "just works" because everyone is making decisions that are optimal for themselves. Back in cold, hard reality, that is a load of shit, because people are nincompoops who make retarded decisions, which collectively results in a massive clusterfuck.
Perhaps a moon base specifically is not a great objective (I don't know, I'm not an expert, I want the experts to decide). But I sure as fuck do know that NASA, engineering and hard sciences research, fusion research etc should get a lot more money than they currently do. I don't care what any nincompoop says, stop invading other countries, stop spending money on retarded shit that nincompoops want, and invest more in these things that benefited mankind and made USA the most respected and envied country in the world.
I think it's a matter of priorities, but I also disagree with NASA's current ones.
The main goal ought not be to go to the moon again or go to Mars, but to build a space station which is much larger than ISS and has artificial gravity. Research on life support systems and long-term stays in space is crucial for the future of space travel and might even be crucial for humanity on earth some day. We really need to figure out how to build self-sustainable biospheres.
I expect the human race to be able to move the Earth by the time our sun proves to be a liability.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
Nobody cares about advancement, they mostly care about the acquisition of personal wealth. In many cases, this must be at the expense of others - what's the point, otherwise?
Howzabout TItan? There's literally oceans of hydrocarbons there.
I am more interested in the possibility of fossil oxidiser on Titan.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Half of your post is about the economy of it which is a good point, but the other half is projecting on everyone else. Why are there people living in the coldest parts of Siberia when they could move to the tropics? Why do people live on Pitcairn Island thousands of kilometers from civilization? Why do people want to battle their way to the poles or the top of Mount Everest? Not everybody wants it easy. Not everybody wants it comfortable. As long as we send the right people they will thrive because it's the challenge and the difficulty of surviving that drives them.
Weed out the romantics and idealists, let them live a few months in simulation and I think 99.9% would freak at the idea of the rest of their life being that way. Hell, even if the right kind of type to go is one in a million there's still 300 of them just in the US alone. You might not understand them, you might not share their point of view but they are there, and they're really just waiting for a space base mission to ask. That really is not the problem.
We wouldn't get anything out of it, except things we could have gotten for a tiny fraction of the cost here on Earth! Spin-off technologies? That's like saying we should burn huge piles of money to stay warm in the winter. It's bureaucratic buzzword talk for "only 99% wasteful!".
Well for one we'd have to make a really sustainable, closed ecosystem based on renewable energy. We couldn't go around polluting and making landfills and it wouldn't have oil. Sure you can't say it's strictly necessary that we do it in space but than there's no cheating, no shortcuts. A lot of that would probably have spin-offs to make us more sustainable here on Earth too. And I'd consider a first base a trial run for trying to bootstrap a colony and by colony I mean a situation where each added person adds more self-sufficiency than cost. It'll probably be a running expense but we can't afford an accumulating expense that only gets bigger and bigger then more people go.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Military bases along with national (or private) ownership of the moon real estate are forbidden by the treaty. But research bases such as the ones in Antarctica are permissible.
http://internationallawobserver.eu/2012/01/28/moon-colonies-and-international-law/
If you want to do things fast, cheap and well a Kelly Johnson Skunkworks model is probably a much better choice than a bureaucratic quagmire.
I agree, though keeping in mind that it still took gobs of govt money. I think what's going on regarding govt contracts with SpaceX & the others is a good direction to go. These companies are our "Skunkworks" for the time being.
This doesn't provide directly for exploration, of course, but I think it will eventually facilitate it.
sr
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
Nothing is more important than showing them thar Goldless commies who's number one.
'cept Jesus.
Bottom line: if you want the US government to fund it, they need to find the money.
They get money by taxing US citizens.
Will the people of the USA agree to higher taxes to fund this?
My suspicion is that while the majority of US slashdot readers might pay an extra 100 dollars a year to help fund it, most US citizens wouldn't agree to this tax rise.
They might all agree to cut 100 dollars off some other government expenditure, but my suspicion is that it would be a total nightmare to get them to all agree on one thing to cut by say, 100 dollars a year. Some would want cuts to the military, old folk might want cuts to children's services, young folk might want cuts to older folks services, and so on....
Those sorts of bases are already permitted by the treaty. National and private ownership real estate is disallowed. Building structures does not give claim to the real estate under those structures. Military bases are disallowed. Exploitation of minerals and the like for national or private paries is disallowed.
But there is no blanket prohibition against building research bases or even a colony of sorts.
Why are there people living in the coldest parts of Siberia when they could move to the tropics? Why do people live on Pitcairn Island thousands of kilometers from civilization?
Because you can make a reasonable life for yourself in those places with nothing but stone, wood, and animal pelts, all of which are available in abundance.
Even so, I've seen many documentaries with interviews of people in those places complaining that the younger generation is moving to the cities, and abandoning their "cultural heritage", which is basically a hard life in a frozen hellhole.
Not everybody wants it comfortable... they're really just waiting for a space base mission to ask.
Fine, they can fund their own trip. Don't expect taxpayers to pick up the bill so that someone's else can wallow in their masochism. Good look scraping together enough crazy people to fund a ten trillion dollar Moon base.
As long as we send the right people they will thrive because it's the challenge and the difficulty of surviving that drives them.
There are difficult problems here, and those people would be most valuable here, not on some rock a light second away.
Well for one we'd have to make a really sustainable, closed ecosystem based on renewable energy.
No actually all that useful on Earth. Small ecosystems aren't what we have here. Renewable energy is easy, there's no need to actually go to the Moon to do that. Spend the money here for hundred-fold savings, and skip the sight-seeing tour.
A lot of that would probably have spin-offs
Still with the 99% waste. How do you not get this? Any spin-offs would be exactly the same as ordinary research done on Earth... except with the added multi-trillion dollar expense of sending some people to die on the Moon. Why would we do that? Why not just do the research directly?
each added person adds more self-sufficiency than cost
Every realistic estimate I've heard started at the tens of trillions of dollars before a colony could get to that point. Those were the more optimistic estimates. The pessimists start near the hundred trillion dollar mark.
Now ask yourself this: then what?
You've got a colony out there that no longer needs Earth, doesn't send us anything back except pictures, and won't want any more immigrants because it puts a strain on their environmental systems. Even if we could send more people, this won't solve anything (e.g.: overpopulation), because the cost of sending a person will likely exceed their lifetime earning potential.
You won't be able to afford to go there for a holiday. They won't have any exports with a sufficiently high value to justify the expense of sending it. They won't have any specially privileged insight into mathematics, or art, or computer programming, so any intellectual property they produce won't be all that special either.
Nobody here on Earth will gain anything even remotely worth the dollars spent basically by definition, because only the people on the Moon will be benefiting from 99% of the funds. They will be a tiny, tiny number of people, and you won't be one of them.
I was going to post this yesterday when I was watching it, but I figured "nah, slashdot will have already shown this by now, for sure!". Thanks for proving me wrong, guys.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
"I still don't understand this. We have the technology to do it, we have the people wanting to do it, and we have another group of people wanting to live and work there. Why don't we build a base on moon?"
Newt Gingrich lost the race.
If they can raise the money and do it themselves, then who would object? At any moment in time whoever wants to run a project can ask for donations or release token bonds to be bought and advertise this and if there are enough people who want to see a moonbase and they pay for it, then it wouldn't be a problem for anybody who doesn't want to see gov't spend money this way.
As to voting: those who don't pay taxes to government shouldn't be able to vote. Those who pay more taxes than others should get extra votes.
You can't handle the truth.
One day someone will think of a way to weaponize the moon (solar power genration/storage station and a kinetic harpoon railgun?) , then the military superpowers will be all over it.
including tax cuts for people who don't need tax cuts
- I agree. 50% of population only pays 3% of the income taxes, to have a more fair system they shouldn't be getting tax cuts, they should be getting tax increases.
You can't handle the truth.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Americans will generally believe we never went into space at all. We are a non-science, non-knowledge country now. But the sad reality is that when the ISS is gone, manned spaceflight will be over, except for rich guys going into orbit, forever. We're never going out there again.
Complete disregard for long term geo-(luno?)politics, -1.
Lunar astronomers can jump in here regarding how significant libration is, but there seem to be only two points on the moon that have both full-time solar exposure (ie power) and full-time line-of-sight to the earth: the north pole and the south pole.
Two total, on the only significant satellite earth has.
Look at WW2 and imagine how much harder that would have been to fight without Hawaii - an 'unsinkable aircraft carrier' sitting in the middle of the pacific.
It doesn't take a strategic genius to see that it would be militarily and scientifically helpful to be the state that gets a base planted on at least one of these, if not both.
-Styopa
Not stupid, just naive. After 2005 they tried hard to "take the moral high ground and work with our colleagues across the aisle." - i.e. prove they're better than Republicans by making everything bipartisan. Unfortunately, both sides were so bitter that neither seemed to understand the concept of cooperation. Republicans threw up every roadblock they could think of in order to keep the Democrats from doing whatever the heck they wanted to do, and the Democrats let this happen because they thought the public would see through the tactic.
Both sides were wrong. Republicans successfully kept the Democrats from getting an actual majority in the Senate until after many of the debates and votes of in the President's first few months. (ref: Minnesota senate race, absurd ballot complaints. Both sides did it, Republicans were a little more blatant about the absurdity.)
Eventually the Democrats had to resort to forcing things through without bipartisan support, which just fed into the Republican fears of what would happen to them after they lost control of House, Senate, AND Presidency. The fear-mongering had been going on for a while from pundits on both sides; this just threw extra fuel on the fire and made extremist views sound almost reasonable. (i.e. Bachmann, et al.)
"can't find an actual utilitarian reason to build a moon base"
Why did we go to the moon in the first place? Why send probes to Mars? Why send probes to anywhere else?
It's to learn and discover. You are clearly an expert, the moon, based on your expert opinion has absolutely no redeeming value, we learned all that we could in that expedition ~40 years ago and there's just simply no good reason to return there and setup a base...
The utilitarian reason is because:
a) The moon is relatively close by
b) The discoveries made setting up a base there could enable us to setup bases elsewhere
Space really is the final frontier. Aquatic organisms traveled out of the water to live on land, and we should travel off the Earth to live on other planets.
1) No insects -> no pollination -> no fruit or vegetables - unless you want to go around with a paint brush, busy like a bee pollinating your rock garden.
2) Also, but probably not as relevant, no insects -> no insectivores. No chicken for you, buddy. Might as well become a vegetarian. See 1 for your daily schedule.
3) And why do you think there won't be any insects? It only takes a few stowaways for all your base to belong to them...
--frank[at]unternet.org
In those days, there was a lot of fear that the US and USSR would engage in World War III, but with nuclear weapons. The news that the USSR had launched a earth-orbiting satellite caused a lot of military leaders to speculate they would soon put nuclear weapons in space and nuke us from above. Uncomfortable that we (USA) were behind in the space race, President Kennedy changed the game by announcing we would go to the moon in 10 years. This had the effect of changing the perception of the USSR's breakthrough into a first step on a long road to the moon. Americans got behind the moon race and it became accepted that the USSR's lead was temporary.
Once we "won" the race to the moon, the public lost interest. There didn't seem to be much reason to be there once the excitement died down. There was a unpopular war in Vietnam and the public was upset about the cost and all the body bags coming back. NASA figured out that an orbiting space station (SkyLab) made much better economic sense.
Place nail here >+
Well, do it then. If you think there's money in it, or it would be fun etc then I'd probably follow the blog or read the book. But I'm not getting up at 7am and travelling to work in the rain so I can be part of the $500,000,000 or whatever it's going to cost.
Or maybe because even most scientists (actual scientists, not armchair commentators on slashdot) can't find an actual utilitarian reason to build a moon base other than juvenile delight at living out their sci-fi fantasies?
And invading Iraq was productive exactly how?
If we're going to go on another adventure, let's try to make it something new, different, and with relatively few civilian casualties.
The Moon looks like a lot better payoff than the Middle East.
And if that's what we're doing, I'd rather do the measuring with Saturn Vs and Energias than Humvees and IEDs.
I still don't understand this. We have the technology to do it, we have the people wanting to do it, and we have another group of people wanting to live and work there. Why don't we build a base on moon?
Economics. There is presently no reasonable near term economic justification for a moon base. While there might eventually be such a justification, it doesn't exist at the moment. That's not to say there is no justification for a base - there are reasons to do it, just not near term economic ones. That means the only way to fund it is with tax revenue and good luck getting congress to fund a hugely expensive and risky moon base given the current economy. Even far less costly and easier to justify scientific missions are getting squeezed. Any economic benefits from a moon base are indirect, hard to quantify and will take considerable time to be realized.
BTW we don't actually have the technology to do it yet. It's feasible for us to develop it but there is a substantial amount of R&D that would have to happen before it is actually possible not limited to developing the heavy lift rockets, material delivery systems, habitats, etc. There has been some R&D but it's mostly been quasi-theoretical academic work, not practical engineering. What practical engineering there once was has been shut down for 40 years.
If you want people on the moon pay for it yourself.
Somewhere in the 1970s, a lot of people in power took the position that progress is out of control and regardless of the field, space exploration, medical technology, fusion power, they just throw on the brakes. They didn't manage to get a handle on computer networks before they became highly disruptive, but if we had simultaneous disruptive progress in several major fields at once, it would make things very challenging for the old guard.
Progress only benefits people who aren't already at the top of the heap.
I still don't understand this. We have the technology to do it, we have the people wanting to do it, and we have another group of people wanting to live and work there. Why don't we build a base on moon?
There would be no insects (I really hate those, but at least geckos take a good care of them!), and it would be a good base for our future discovery of new planets and solar systems. There ARE more there, earth is nothing special.
Is the United States incapable to do this? Does it take Russians, Chinese or Japanese to get there? What the hell happened to America?
Why bother? We know we can do it. I can't understand this obsession with space flight. What a waste of money. Maybe if there were a long-term plan besides just building a base and just sitting on the moon doing experiments it might be interesting. It'd be the ISS all over again. Can someone remind me why the world spent $100 billion on it again?
Yeah, there's a guy on a ``primitive'' archery site whose signature is something along the lines of, ``I don't have weird hobbies, I'm developing a robust, post-apocalyptic skill set.''
Funny thing is, a while back there was a company selling wooden bow staves which were roughed out w/ a CNC laser-cutter.
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
The need to go to space is because life has to outgrow this little rock.
If we stay here we will, eventually, die out. "Sustainability" is a myth.
If we had the resources to build giant contained cities, we could let the planet go back to nature. Urbanisation reduces cruelty and violence and civilises people. But we are not even half urbanised. We need more resources, be it using space rocks, to build the giant self contained cities. Then you can let nature flourish undisturbed.
The alternative is we go back to burning dung in mud huts and slaughtering every animal we can get our hands on. That's what we used to do. We were very good at it, hence our numbers grew and grew and we came to dominate the planet. Dismantling industrial society would only send us back to that, and we'd have to tear up the planet again a second time, because the mentality of people living in villages and tribes is much more brutal than what modern people have, and once your situation is back to that, your mentality goes back to that too in a dozen generations. There's a reason the "desert religions" were so brutal -- people were tribal and killing others was basically the only way to resolve things.
We have one chance now, in the 21st century, one window to get to space for real. If we don't do it now it is a downward spiral, and we won't have the resources from this planet to try industrialising again, so we will all hit the wall again, and slowly we'll poison everything, in our millions of warring tribes, and even nature won't really survive.
Either we get off this planet and figure out how to grab our materials from the lifeless solar system, or we slowly perish in a downward spiral of crises, violence, competition, wars, pollution and global extinction, taking this garden of nature down with us.
If the Moon is like North America to the Europeans of 1500, the ISS like a rowboat bobbing somewhere a few miles off the coast. I wouldn't expect much to come from the rowboat.
Isn't that reason enough? What happened to ambition, curiosity, and doing things "because it's there?"
No it isn't reason enough. Or rather, it is a reason with some rather severe limits to feasibility. Economic resources are finite and there are competing demands for them. "Because it's cool" will almost always lose to more practical concerns like economic security. If you can figure out how to sustainably fund the project, we can make it happen.
Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE to see a moon base but the arguments for one are simply too abstract right now.
I'm willing to wager a long term habitat on the moon would look disturbingly similar to the ISS . . . . but on the moon.
Define long term. To me, a long term habitat on the moon grows its own food. That won't be the first moon base, but in my perception, it's where the payoff starts coming.
Find water, build grow houses, when they can produce surplus food, energy and growing/living space, that's a long term habitat.
Farsighted politician!?! That's an amusing delusion. The limit of pretty much any politician's foresight is the next election, or just possibly their next bribe/sinecure. And as for not-wanting to have a base costing hundreds of billions on the moon, you're right. America's elected leaders would much rather spend trillions on military hardware they can use to kill foreigners with no return at all, unless you count the hatred of their friends and families.
Security staff don't need either.
Lack of insects is one of the reasons that a moon base is a low priority. True, some insects spoil crops or spread diseases, but others pollinate crops, recycle decaying matter, and are food for birds, fish and yes, people. They're a critical component of any sustainable ecosystem that works remotely like Earth's.
Somebody who can't see the positive aspects of insects is not qualified to make judgments about the role of space colonization in humanity's future, on the basis of irrational cultural biases and nature-phobia.
Now to answer your question of why we don't build a base on the moon, you can't judge whether something should be done on its own faults and merits, you've got to look at the merits of things you won't be able to do as result of pursuing it. In economics this is called "opportunity cost". Investing $1 at a 5% return when another, equally safe investment would yield 10% is like throwing away a nickel.
So when you look at whether the *government* should be investing in moon bases, you have to look at the other things it could be spending money on. Even if you think a government funded moon base is a net win in itself, you have to consider whether that money would be better spent exploring the Solar System so we know what's out there.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Also fine, don't force me to spend my money on failed military adventures into the Mountains of Afghanistan. The Russians weren't inept or weak, and after nine years trying, they just recently proved that there's nothing to gain from a military occupation there, do we really need to repeat their mistake, but more expensively?
If you really want to impress the world with your military might, a precision guided asteroid strike on a nuclear weapons production bunker would probably do the trick. Think long and hard enough and you might even come up with a "peaceful, scientific" pretext for the practice/demonstration (smaller) asteroid diversions.
Isn't that reason enough? What happened to ambition, curiosity, and doing things "because it's there?"
Those goals reasons exploration of the solar system a higher priority than settling the Moon.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Building bases on the moon would necessitate engineering improvements that could save billions in earthquake damage over the next century. Quakes on the moon can last twenty times as long as those on the earth due to its rigidity.
pointless wars and security theatre.
Sounds like a lot of jobs to me, isn't that what we're supposed to be addressing, all the idle hands?
Could you get any melodramatic? Sounds like it should be a speech in Top Gun.
It has nothing to do with risk aversion to do and everything with there being few compelling reasons to build a moon base apart from chauvinism. I can't speak for the reasons for going 40 years ago, but I suspect chauvinism and grandstanding was a big part of it back then, too. I guess that's what you call desire/ambition/duty/honor/competitiveness.
And to the people trumpeting the "trickle down" research benefits from doing bizarre prestige projects like this -- that's a moderately reasonable argument, but one that can be made for any project of such magnitude. Once you're willing to accept that the end goal of the project is less important than the research it generates, a virtually unlimited number of projects start to be reasonable. Make a national effort to dig the deepest hole, ever, and you'll get some actual useful research out of it.
If you argue in terms of trickle down research and not on the practical merits of the project itself, you have to argue why the project has the most promising trickle down research. I.e. why would a moon base result in more useful research than digging a deep hole; and not just that, why would it result in more useful research than all the other conceivable ultimately pointless projects. Not to mention all those huge-scale projects which do have merit and which would all result in useful "trickle down" research as well. E.g. ultra high speed passenger trains along the coasts, all kinds of medical research projects, energy research. I'm sure the national highway system -- a project of epic scale and of immediate utility -- had some useful research coming out of it, despite not being particularly high tech.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Because we have people who think welfare scum deserve to live on other peoples money doing nothing all day. So get used to it, especially with slash dots hero BO in office. Hell any party for that matter is into giving away money for welfare scum, no real difference in the parties. Welcome to the welfare state, no more progress just free stuff.
ISS speed is 7.7 km/s and escape velocity is roughly 11 km/s... it would have to be a really big "push".
Movie's coming out soon...
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Given how close Eagle came to running out of fuel for the descent rockets before touching down at Tranquility, that 50-50 estimate for landing sounds pretty accurate.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Yes, you are showing your ignorance. You'd have to give it a pretty big honking push. Most likely it wouldn't end up in the sun, it would end up as solar system orbiting space garbage. When you run into an empty beer can at 100,000 mph it does a lot of damage.
+1 I wish I had mod points. Unfortunately people without an ability to see the big picture or think strategically with a vision get into a position to make decisions.
Yes, except that people already lived in North America in 1500. And once they got here, Europe didn't have to send them all the food water and air they needed to live. Shortly after arriving they started exporting stuff back to europe. To produce food on the moon we'll need to take soil and water there. It will be a number of years before the moon MIGHT be able to "mine" water. There is nothing to eat or breath there. The dust on the moon is very very nasty for space suits. The suits the astronauts on the moon used would not have been able to be reused from all the wear and tear (think sandblaster environment). That limits what you can do "outside" significantly. A rover last longer on mars than the moon, the soil on mars isn't all sandblasty asbestosy like it is on the moon. If the Europeans came to north america and found no trees, they never would have returned. (hint england needed tall trees for ships, england was running out) What do you intend to mine from the moon that is worth more per pound than gold?
The moon will never be a "second home" for humans until we have star trek technology like artificial gravity and force fields. You may as well build a biosphere and live in that, because that's pretty much all a moon base would be.
It would be cheaper for say the US to invade and destroy russia and china and use the resulting land for ourselves than to do what you are proposing. Sure we could "get started" today, in the same sense you could get started at being a millionaire by opening a savings account with $100 bill. by the time we finish we'll find the star gate and it wont matter anyway.
This. What we have now is not only not sustainable, it's not even a good idea. Having half of all wage earners riding on handouts gives them no incentive to make good choices at the ballot box. When someone else is paying for everything, there is no reason for you to spend their money wisely. When some of your own money is on the line, even if it's a small percentage of your income, you tend to spend it more wisely.
Every (good) parent knows this: if you give a child things, they don't learn to take care of them well. If they earn those things themselves, even if only a fraction of the price, they will learn to spend their money more wisely and take good care of the things they do buy.
If half the money the Americans have pumped into their Defense budget had instead gone into a properly managed "space" budget ... Imagine all the people ... living on the moon ... woo hooooo ... you may say I'm a dreamer ...
As a space geek and military geek, I have to admit appreciating both :)
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
- I agree. 50% of population only pays 3% of the income taxes, to have a more fair system they shouldn't be getting tax cuts, they should be getting tax increases.
No, a more fair system is 100% of the population paying 0 income taxes. The US is at 50% are paying 3%? The first number should be higher, the second should be lower
It's like the crime rate. Right now, 50% of the population aren't getting robbed (by government) Ideally, 100% of people shouldn't be getting robbed.
But 100% is unrealistic, so people generally just aim for 1% paying (getting robbed) for the rest of society.
It's not like this idea is new. Throughout history, people allocate a small chunk of their production as some sort of offering or tribute or sacrifice to some god or king or whatever.
Most of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts saw their job as part of the Cold War to defeat the Russians. I heard a talk by Frank Borman (Apollo 8) and he said that was exactly his motivation. Their peers and friends from flight training in the military were being shot at and shot down in Vietnam. Being in space was dangerous but so was being over Hanoi at that time. So these guys were military men fighting the same war many of them had first been part of over the skies in Korea during that war. These motivations don't apply to a moonbase now.
There is something warm and fuzzy about a free market economy, where everything "just works" because everyone is making decisions that are optimal for themselves. Back in cold, hard reality, that is a load of shit, because people are nincompoops who make retarded decisions, which collectively results in a massive clusterfuck.
Actually, this is exactly why a free market works. See, the smart, hard working, and let's face it, lucky people tend to win. They are successful and they multiply. Google creates a search engine. It is successful, more search engines emerge. Some may be better. The better ones will survive. The crappy ones will fail. The "nincompoops" almost always fail. Others see their mistakes and make it a point to not repeat them. The nincompoops usually end up working for the successful ones, benefiting both. It's natural, really. See Darwinism. The strong survive and the weak must multiply fast enough to feed the strong. They are dependent on each other.
The problem is when an external entity, like government, steps in to and starts meddling with things. A politician will point at a successful person and say to the nincompoops, "What has he done to deserve the things he has?" Of course, the answer is, work hard, be smart, take chances and eventually you'll get lucky. The nincompoops hear, "luck" and think it's not fair. This is when the politician, in exchange for votes, vows to punish those that have more and reward those with less.
How do you fix this problem? Education. Why is that not working? The nincompoops have taken over education. For example, I pay to send my child to private school. In pre-K, she learned to read, add, subtract and other things that public school kids don't learn until the 1st grade. She learned this in PRE-K! Next year, in kindergarten, she'll be doing stuff on that public school kids do in the second and third grades. Now I bust my ass to pay for that school, but at the same time, I'm also paying to send my kid to public school, even though she doesn't attend (not that pre-K is even offered). Now in a free-market world, I would get whatever money the school would spend to educate my kid to spend it on the school of my choice. Nothing would be lost from the school as they are NOT TEACHING MY KID. An added benefit would be that those that can't afford to send their kids to the same school my child is going to would be able to do so and give their kids the same opportunity my child is getting. It's better for the kids and takes nothing away from the public schools. Why is this not allowed? Because the nincompoops don't like the competition. They feel that they deserve to get paid for doing lower quality work. The nincompoops are running education and have convinced the voting nincompoops that allowing them to choose where they send their own kids would ruin the eduction their kids receive.
Perhaps a moon base specifically is not a great objective (I don't know, I'm not an expert, I want the experts to decide). But I sure as fuck do know that NASA, engineering and hard sciences research, fusion research etc should get a lot more money than they currently do.
Agreed.
invest more in these things that benefited mankind and made USA the most respected and envied country in the world.
Yeah... that would be the free market. The thing that allowed us to go to the moon and fund a space program was a strong economy. We have had the strongest economy because we have a free market. Yes, natural monopolies should be regulated and unnatural monopolies should be broken up. Yes, environmental regulations are needed to ensure responsibility. But for the most part, the market should remain free. People should be allowed to keep what they earn. People should be free. People should be allowed to fail.
You can't succeed when there is no chance of failure. You can not be free until you are responsible for you own actions. /rant off.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Maybe, when you've got one of the first world's worst public education systems and its most expensive healthcare, there are bigger concerns than "HELL YEAH, MOONBASE". Wait, no, you're right - anyone who disagrees with you is just ignorant and must have no understanding of science.
There is no "settling" the moon. Why? Because there is no air there. We may be able to haul machinery to the moon to generate are locally, but those machines will require vigilant maintenance and a constant stream of supplies from mother Earth.
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Perhaps a moon base specifically is not a great objective (I don't know, I'm not an expert, I want the experts to decide).
That's the problem - experts never get to decide.
People fear those who know more than them, and those currently in power fear losing their own privileges and being exposed for the incompetent fools with big smiles that they are.
What a pitiful species we are.
There is no air there. The analogies to previous attempts at colonization really break down when you consider that if key infrastructure elements fail, you suffocate in a matter of hours, perhaps days. Worst comes to worst, a failing terrestrial colony can fall back on local food and water, or perhaps swallow their pride and make friends with the people already living there. They never had to worry about where their next breath would come from.
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pointless wars and security theatre.
Sounds like a lot of jobs to me, isn't that what we're supposed to be addressing, all the idle hands?
In principle, I agree with you. However, I cannot help but think that there might be more productive activities than groping four-year-olds or tossing around bits of lead in foreign locales.
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When someone else is paying for everything, there is no reason for you to spend their money wisely.
Then the solution is not more taxes, but zero taxes, as all taxes is the government using somebody else's money, whether it belonged to the rich or the poor.
I don't get why people like you blame the 50% for the spending decisions government made (aren't YOU the other 50% who could also vote?). If anything, that 50% is complaining that they have enough influence on government decisions (I doubt anybody amongst the 50% wanted the tax money to be spent on bailing out banks for one)
Sure, but we've already been to the moon. It's rather bland. There's a reason why 2001: a space Odyssey in 1968 was the last film or tv show to prominently feature the moon - it's gray, bland, and boring. Sadly, Mars is just slightly less monochromatic.
moox. for a new generation.
Plus, once we have moon base workers on a regular payroll with an ATM and a McSpacelys, we will finally be literally 'spending money in space'.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
No, that money is used to steal oil, coerce people into using US dollars or guarantee access to resources and personal kickbacks.
NASA very much was always implemented in a pork barrel way, guaranteeing jobs to a string of places that were politically expeditious not necessarily financially sensible.
And true, politicians only care about the next election, but the next election is 4 years away, and finding yourself having to explain billions of dollars in a half built moon base isn't a great position to be in.
pointless wars and security theatre.
Sounds like a lot of jobs to me, isn't that what we're supposed to be addressing, all the idle hands?
In principle, I agree with you. However, I cannot help but think that there might be more productive activities than groping four-year-olds or tossing around bits of lead in foreign locales.
I'm not sure our education system is enabling a lot of people to be more productive than that.
maybe this time they could bring a telescope and learn how to use a camera. That way they could take picture of the stars. A glorious starry night which was never shown. Because they never went to the moon.
You do realize that probably a quarter of the population has no income to tax, as they are under 18 and don't work, and another 10% are unemployed? Another bunch are pensioners on fixed income, or low income labourers, or labourers new to the workforce or students (college/university) who don't work a full year and therefore have very low incomes as well?
You realize that the 'bottom 80%' of the population controls about 7% of the wealth? http://www.forbes.com/sites/deborahljacobs/2011/11/01/occupy-wall-street-and-the-rhetoric-of-equality/
In other words, about half of that group (50/80ths) is paying close to it's fair share, if not more, because of the effect I stated (which is that a large chunk of the total population isn't old enough to earn income, and another chunk, especially pensioners and people just starting to work, have very low incomes).
This is also one of the core differences between running an economy and running a business. If you tax the people at the 'bottom' who are spending all of their money already you simply depress their standard of living and inhibit their ability to become tax paying citizens.
Now the US situation, and I presume that's what you're talking about given the talking point you re-vomited back up is a specific case of one government. Unnecessary tax cuts, bridges to nowhere, 'pork barrel' projects, general looting of the public purse, ridiculously wasteful schemes are in no way unique to the US, if anything, on the scale of things, it's not bad, which is a sad commentary on the rest of the world.
"What the hell happened to America?"
Creationists.
Let the private industry get us there. They are far more capable and efficient than some govt agency that taxes you to death.
It's about an hour of video. Here's a summary for those who don't want
to spend that much time.
Part 1
When he was a kid, he had an intense interest in aviation. His father
took him to airshows, etc., but his parents didn't try to direct him.
They let him do what he wanted. As a child he had a fear of death
(pets, relatives). His early interest was in being a designer of
aircraft, not a test pilot. He describes the job of a test pilot as
being basically the guy who tries to break things, find problems. The
safety culture back then was extremely different from today's; he had
an emergency ejection from a Lunar Landing Research Vehicle, and
immediately afterward went to his desk and started working again.
Part 2
He describes how the fatal Apollo 1 fire, which caused a 2-year
delay, gave them extra time to fix problems in all the different
systems. At the Apollo 11 launch, he recalls being "relaxed," because
"these things usually don't go off on time." An Apollo launch was
extremely noise, and a "very shaky ride."
Part 3
The crew got to sleep simultaneously rather than taking watches; in
order to do this, they spin-stabilized the ship so that the antennas
wouldn't drift away from Earth while they were asleep and cut
communication from the ground.
During the descent to the lunar surface, their computer signaled a
problem but "didn't admit responsibility." After checking with ground
control, they decided the computer was still functioning well enough
to allow a landing. The planned landing site turned out to be bad, so
he had to change at the last moment to land somewhere else.
While on the surface, there were a lot of worries about thermal ... it wasn't a time to meditate..."
problems, and they had to be ready to take off immediately. The
astronauts felt that landing ("the eagle has landed") was the big
deal, not stepping on the soil ("that's one small step"). They left
medallions commemorating the lives of both American and Soviet
astronauts who had died. He expresses appreciation for competition
with the Soviets, which spurred both sides on. "The check-lists were
all over us
In the bulky spacesuit, Aldrin inadvertently banged into a
circuit-breaker panel, hitting a circuit-breaker for the rocket that
was supposed to lift them off. As extra insurance against having the
circuit breaker flip during liftoff, they broke off a piece of a
magic marker to use as a "crutch" to hold the switch in place.
Part 4
They discuss conspiracy theories about the moon landing's being fake.
They compare Google Moon simulations to Apollo film, while Armstrong
narrates.
Re life after Apollo, "I'm an engineer by nature." He's
"substantially concerned about the policy direction of the
administration..." White house and congress are "at odds," and "NASA
is the shuttlecock." He sees the space program as a motivator for
young people.
Find free books.
There's nothing wrong with that. If you feel that way, save up your money and become a customer of the nascent space tourism industry.
But that's a completely different thing from forcing other people, who don't share your dream, to pay taxes for pork-barrel projects like the shuttle and the ISS.
Find free books.
Well are there insects on the ISS? It is going to take a looong time until we have the technology to actually build a biodome on the moon, and maybe then you will have these problems. Also do you seriously believe you need insects to get chicken-meat?
no, there are many scientific and research projects you could do on the moon.
Radio array, optical telescopes, material testing for materials to be used on a mars trip.
Many, many others. I'm not sure who these 'most scientists' are you refer to.
I'm sure there are people who would pay 50 million to stay on the moon for a week. Which isn't even close to maintaining the infrastructure, nut it is a source of revenue.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Isn't that reason enough? What happened to ambition, curiosity, and doing things "because it's there?"
It never existed in the first place*. Early colonists were either leaving horrible conditions, or wanted to exploit the new world for its riches.
If space travel becomes cheap enough, and the new worlds profitable enough, there will be a land rush.
*Oh, there were a few rich kids that wanted to become "explorers", and climb mountains, but they came after the new worlds were exploited and there was enough extra money to finance their explorations.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Olympics vs. War.
Even the ancient greeks knew that competition was important, and games less destructive than fighting.
In a proper competition, both sides are better for it.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
And you'll send that food home how, exactly? 99% of all shipping today runs on diesel. No more diesel. Fly it? No more JP5. It's gonna take time to build those sailing ships and teach crews to sail them. And you'll need a lot of them. Economy of scale doesn't work so well when it comes to sailing vessels. The reason why they didn't build sail-powered supertankers is, the damned things are too big to move under sail. They figured that out in the 1600's already.
Besides, where you gonna find all the wood you need? Steel & aluminum hulls, you say? The US doesn't have any working steel mills anymore, and aluminum takes lots of electricity to refine and shape.
Mos likely, all those troops you send out to the 3rd World to exploit the locals (and you haven't told us how they're getting there without transport, btw...) are gonna get swamped once their ammo runs out, as has been noted already in another comment. Then they'll either be killed or assimulated just like the Chinese did to the Mongols. Ghenghis Khan might have won the war, but the Chinese took the long game and swallowed them up and digested them. Look up Kublai Khan sometime.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
In this world, the psychopath wins.
And people cry out that it DESERVES to win, and you must be a commie for complaining.
To all the posters chuntering on about "what a waste of money" etc. to something that is actually inspiring and gets people interested in engineering and aerospace, consider this.
Let's invent a new unit of currency: the Iraq War Dollar. One Iraq War Dollar = the cost of the Iraq war, or $800 billion which is the Department of Defense's estimate of the direct costs.
Cost of the entire Apollo program: 16 Iraq War cents (in 2012 dollars)
Estimated cost of research needed to get to the first working fusion power plant: 10 Iraq War cents
Current cost estimate for Mars rover Curiosity: 1/3rd of an Iraq War cent
Entire NASA budget for 2012: Just over 2 Iraq War cents
Cost of the ISS for its entire lifetime: 19 Iraq War cents
Five huge engineering projects, that inspire people and push technology and hardly kill anyone - and we're not even up to half of one measly Iraq War Dollar.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
" Of course, the answer is, work hard, be smart, take chances and eventually you'll get lucky."
sometimes. Sometime it's 'he was born with money' , other times it's 'made millions as bonuses even though they do a crappy job'.
There are many reasons.
Assume all rich people work hard, are smart, is stupid. Hollywood is filled with rich people who aren't smart, and word a few month out of the year.
My kids learned to read and do math in re- K as well. And K, and 1st. All in public schools. My friend has a high schooler learned differential calculus and computer programming in public high school.
BTW the vast majority of private schools are no better then public school.
But you wouldn't no that because you have the bias that is it's government it doesn't work.
You are unaware of the fact the 10s of thousands of projects are done by the 'government' every year on time and on budget.
You are completely unaware that government projects have far more success then private project. 90%+. NO large private company has a 90-+% success rate. You don't here about it because they control the PR. You can look at the budgets for the government in your library, and probably online now.
Yes, we need a free market, but there is a hell of a lot more to it then you seem to presume.
". You can not be free until you are responsible for you own actions. "
ah. Another person with a completely over simplistic view of the world.
Sure, if I am driving 100 miles an hour and hit a deer? my fault. My responsibilty. Get a tivket for speeding, I pay it becasue I was speed. If I decided to blow off work and got fired, My fault.
However there are a lot of things that can destroy someone life that they had no responsibility in.
Farmers who had there money taken from accounts that were contractually and legally supposed to be isolated from investments. Now they are loosing there farm. Not their fault. Hard working smart person get rear ended by a drunk and now has to spend 30 days in ICE, and will never walk write or turn their head.
There are plenty of things that can put you from hard working successful person to homeless.
"But for the most part, the market should remain free."
that's not even in discussion. Of course. The discussion is 'the most part'. How much is that?
"People should be allowed to keep what they earn. "
Are you saying people shouldn't be taxed? Because that's pretty ignorant.
"People should be free."
We are. What kind of FUD train are you riding?
" People should be allowed to fail."
Oh, They are. However having a method for them to stay working is well worth whole.
So, what do you mean by failed?
I know plenty of people who ended up taking money and food stamps from the government when the tech bubble burst. I was out ogf work for nine months. That money allowed my to eventually find another tech job and pay taxes back into the system. It allowed me not to have to move in with my inlaws so my kids would at least have a roof.
Now, mathematically, I could have made the same at a fast food place; but I wouldn't have time to see contacts, go to user groups, interviews, and advance my skills.
And yes I had been saving, And that was used as well.
", I would get whatever money the school would spend to educate my kid to spend it on the school of my choice. Nothing would be lost from the school as they are NOT TEACHING MY KID"
False. See this is the problem. You have no idea what you are talking about, it just seems right.
You no NOTHING about budgets, nothing about maintenance, nothing about the need for a school system anyone can attend.
YOU benefit from those taxes even though your child doesn't attend*. The more people that are educated, the safer, and more productive the social system you participate is. Less crime, more business.
you problem the same kind of nincompoop that doesn't understand why government spend can actual make money for the government
Stop thinking everything is like your life.
*I don't know if you know this, but you child has the right to participate in certain activities, even though she goes to a private school.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Whenever people talk about what a waste of money Apollo was, consider that the Vietnam War was consuming as much money in ONE YEAR than the ENTIRE Apollo program. The final Apollo missions were killed because of budget cuts to fund the Vietnam War, not because of public disinterest. The Vietnam War was front and center in most peoples' lives at that time. On top of that was the Civil Rights campaigns and urban riots. It was like the country was having a nervous breakdown. If the Vietnam War hadn't happened, things would be so much different today.
pitiful? pitiful! WRONG SIR.
IN spite of you overly simple version of some situations in government we have made oasis out of deserts, developed a way to communicate near instantaneously, able to course a large continent in hours, pounded back disease, figured out how to live longer, we have sky scrappers of steel and glass stretching toward the sky, we have access to almost all information and data, we have been to the moon, and have a machine leaving the solar system.
We live in a world where a 9 year old blog can change a school system.
We are not pitiful. WE. are. AWESOME!
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Sustainability by your weird definition is a myth, in reality its possible.
"we could let the planet go back to nature"
why? W are nature. part and parcel. The irony is if we had the tech to make giant contained building, we wouldn't need other flora and fauna.
"taking this garden of nature down with us."
we may take are selves out, and we may do harm. But as long as there is the sun, life will exist on this rock.
I prefer humans are included, but even if it isn't, life will flourish, and evolve. Maybe in a billion years, there will be some person looking at rocks returned form the moon trying to figure out why there is aluminum and nylon on them.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
not stupid, perse. That just expect the pubs to behave like rational reasonable people. Of course, the Tea party ended the last vestiges of respect and rationality in the pub party.
The Dems don't play mean, and when they make a deal, they try to stick to it, ass opposed to using it to stall, and then not do what they said they would do.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Your two statements have little to do with each other and absolutely zero wiht what the parent poster said.
And it's modded to 4/Insightful?
Slashdot really has gone downhill. You fuckers are sad.
Surprised the name 'Snooki' wasn't already taken.
http://www.acetonestudio.com
If we had the ability to create giant contained cities, the entire earth would be covered in giant, contained cities.
when china has a moon base, suddenly a science education will be important in the USA again
noble motivations don't move the body politic. base motivations do. in this case, envy
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
over "voluntary extinction" any day
the only difference between your vision and the other guy's vision is the other guy's vision is a hell of a lot more appealing. motivation: the missing concept in your words
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"The problem is that when the economy takes a negative dip (as it always does) you need to cut things which aren't necessary so you can focus resources on something that really needs it."
well then get rid of the tax breaks, and knock defense spending from 980Billion to 960billion.
Why is it NASA that always need to be slashed?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Becaseu NASA develpoemnt on lprojects returns money to the tax system. NASA pays for it'self. However, thats done of a long period of time, and not 'we go to mars and bring back gold' time line.
You nede to reevaluate your life,.or reliaxe you are just a person who is a simple cog.
Either way is fine, but don't tell my there isn't time for curiosity, becasue you are wrong.
For the record, Single income family, wide two kids.
Mortgage's, no car payments any more.
You seriously can't find time to build a volcano with your kids? launch model rockets? find a wooded are, take picture of anything you don't recognize, then use the internet to find out what they are?
Model trains? share a minecraft world? learn a language together? learn music?
Find something new to do with your family? All the thing I listed you can do by spending an hour or two a week. Have sandwiches for dinner while you do them. Yes, I recognize those thing may not interest you, but find something that does.
Even when I was working 80+hour weeks I always found an hour on the weekend to do something new, or tromp through a park I have never been to.
Make it a priority, put it in your plan. what? you don't have a plan? well make one. Sounds dorky, but plan your week, create two priority lists
Have to to/want to do.
If you want it, in 6 moths you will be wondering why you didn't have the time before.
I'm sorry if I come off strong, but I am very passionate about this. I sue to to think I didn't have time for that, then my kid want to launch a model rocket. SO I squeezed it it, built a rocket and went to the park. I was busy, I was tired. Let me tell you something, when the rocket launched all the joy of doing things flooded back into me.
I realized that even though I am busy, have mortgage, it's all way to short to let it prevent my from doing interesting things. And the interesting things can be done in small doses over long periods.
You work 9-5? what are you doing 7pm-9pm? weekends?
Summer is approaching, think about something you want to do, and do it every weekend, even if it's only an hour.
or do nothing,. Be a cog in a rut; which is up to you. But remember this: The only difference between a rut and a grave is 5.5 feet.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
We have one chance now, in the 21st century, one window to get to space for real. If we don't do it now it is a downward spiral, and we won't have the resources from this planet to try industrialising again, so we will all hit the wall again, and slowly we'll poison everything, in our millions of warring tribes, and even nature won't really survive.
Either we get off this planet and figure out how to grab our materials from the lifeless solar system, or we slowly perish in a downward spiral of crises, violence, competition, wars, pollution and global extinction, taking this garden of nature down with us.
Totally agree. I've said this from a different perspective: If there were a global war that takes us back to the early industrial age, and before we've learned how to be self-sufficient in space, humans will be doomed to eventual extinction on Earth.
Industrialization occurred and was sustained because we had easy access to fuel, from coal and oil that took many millions of years to create. Most of the easy stuff is gone. Without it we can't realistically push our technology past early 20th-century levels, maybe not even mid-19th.
Isn't that reason enough? What happened to ambition, curiosity, and doing things "because it's there?"
Actually Mr "because its there" died on Everest. Don't get me wrong in many ways George Mallory was an incredible individual. However, following in his footsteps is not the path to a positive outcome.
I ate my sig.
Except that chickens (in the US) actually eat corn and leftover cow parts.
They ship the trash to earth? Really?
Why? I mean, this is a real question...I'm sure there's a good reason I don't know.
Is escape velocity from ISS too high? Is escape from the earth too high?
Why not just do what submarines do, only instead of sinking your trash to the floor in packed, weighted canisters... just... fire it at the sun?
"Does it take Russians, Chinese or Japanese to get there?"
One does have to ask: Maybe it does.
I mean I sure the Germans were wondering: Does it take the Americans to get there? And they were right, all the right German (Polish and Russian) scientists went to America... aside from the whole Nazi thing that threatened their lives...
Will it take a major event in the US to make it happen (either fleeing scientists to the east or an more open attitude to collaborate)?
"Could you get any [more] melodramatic?" Sure, but not on the first pot of coffee.
"there being few compelling reasons..." ah, there's the rub. Maybe time to haul out the Jameson.
Thanks for raising some good points. As for practical matters of moon base - dirty, gritty, cramped, a fine combo of squalid and mod cons - for unknown return (especially as these days folks want guaranteed pay-back on sked and spec), we won't know until we go take a good look. I'm still going mostly on the inertia from analyses by Gerard O'Neill and a few others, an Army study from '59 or so with some modern stuff thrown in, notably ideas aired on Jerry Pournelle's Roundtable on GEnie and the like.
For big projects, right on. All kinds stuff we could, and not just a few we might should, do. Btw, weren't the Rus recently doing their own Mohole? Fusion could definitely benefit from some big bucks. Below a few hundred meters the oceans are little known - what might be gained there, for knowledge and profit? For something wacky, incorporate chloroplasts in skin, get enough minerals in diet and get out in the sunlight - free energy (thought of this in '72.) Seems to me all our infrastructure needs a re-think and a re-doing. Recent ag methods are turning soil into dirt, which is a decidedly bad thing to do. Change tax and zoning stuff so's to build vertically - better land use, free up good soil, preserve water table, control runoff. Accelerate tech, law, insurance, convert to robotically-driven vehicles, mixed-mode hybrid and fuel cell powered. Use Bloom boxes, etc., to soften centralization penalties of power grid.
While we're on big projects: no private campaign financing; no lawyers or accountants in any chain of command. For Wall St., any stock bought must be held for six months - might smooth out a few things (not my idea; from a smart dude circa '53). None of these would need a raft of top-down stuff, mostly tweaks to tax code and such (which we do now, we're only shifting targets).
With any large project, enough of TPTB would have to convince themselves of its validity and usefulness. In my life there've been three in US: Interstate, Apollo and Internet. (Four if you add either Human Genome Project or SAC. (St. Lawrence Seaway was bi-national).) Shall we start a to-do list?
Sorry for run-on, into second pot of Java.
Urbanisation reduces cruelty and violence and civilises people.
The murder rates in US cities would like to have a word with you.
False. See this is the problem. You have no idea what you are talking about, it just seems right.
You no NOTHING about budgets, nothing about maintenance, nothing about the need for a school system anyone can attend.
YOU benefit from those taxes even though your child doesn't attend*. The more people that are educated, the safer, and more productive the social system you participate is. Less crime, more business.
you problem the same kind of nincompoop that doesn't understand why government spend can actual make money for the government
Sure, society benefits from a public education system. Society would benefit MORE if parents had a choice as to where their kids go. Most parents don't have that choice. For wealthy parent's, it's a no-brainer. For poor parents, it's a no-choice. Why should wealthy kids get that advantage over kids with poorer parents? Shouldn't our kids get equal opportunity?
BTW the vast majority of private schools are no better then public school.
Really? I've heard the opposite. BTW, 20% of public schools are better than four out of five public schools. What if the public school in your area sucks? And yes, some public schools suck. What can a parent do? They have no choice but to send their kids to a failure of a school. Yes, parents can help and teach their kids and make sure their kids learn at home, but if they do that, why send them to the school at all? Successful students are ignored in public schools. If you are smart enough to pass the tests, the teachers move on to those that can't.
And why would you pay to send your kid to a private school that is no better than a public one? If a school that costs money is no better than the free one, that school will fail. Remember, that's how free markets work. The problem is that public schools may never fail. No matter how bad the school is, it will continue to receive thousands of dollars per student. They'll even get paid for students that don't go to that school. Sure, there is the possibility that the elected officials in charge of the school system will get voted out, but in many communities, that never happens and failure multiplies. Ignorance breeds more ignorance. The more ignorant a voting public is, the more likely a failed politician is to be reelected. Public schools are becoming breeding grounds for ignorance every day. HERE is a teacher telling students that they can be arrested for saying bad things about the president. When asked about Bush, she said it was OK to bash him because he was "shitty". A teacher a private school would be fired for both complete ignorance as well as blatant bias. This teacher was suspended, only because there was an uproar over this video. How many teachers get away with this? And again, if I could not afford to send my child to private school, this is where I'd have to send my kids BY LAW! How many other parents are forced to send their kids to schools to "learn" from teachers like this?
Stop thinking everything is like your life.
So, whose life should I be living?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
As Buzz Aldrin told a friend of mine,"We ain't never going back to the moon. There is too much weird shit going on up there". . .
I'm not interested in joyriding into LEO. I want a permanent self-sufficient colony living somewhere off this rock. I don't care if it's me personally. It's a goal for humanity.
I'm not a supporter of the shuttle or ISS. As you say it's mostly pork. But despite NASA's failings, not all of the space industry is a waste.
A lot of the political motivation for the 1960s space program is that it was a convienent cover for developing missles with military uses, especially with the Soviets doing the same thing. That's why the US space program didn't get going seriously until after Sputnik. The civilian spinoffs were a fortunate accident, not a major motiviation.
The US will get not serious about a moon base until after the Chinese announce their base project.
There is something warm and fuzzy about a free market economy, where everything "just works" because everyone is making decisions that are optimal for themselves. Back in cold, hard reality, that is a load of shit, because people are nincompoops who make retarded decisions, which collectively results in a massive clusterfuck.
Actually, this is exactly why a free market works. See, the smart, hard working, and let's face it, lucky people tend to win. They are successful and they multiply. Google creates a search engine. It is successful, more search engines emerge.
You contradict yourself. Google isn't an example of the free market -- it wouldn't exist without the internet, which was created entirely with government funding. Google is a success thanks to a partnership between government and the free market. The same could be said for any business that requires the internet, highways, nationwide electricity, telephones, lasers, and a billion other things that we only have because of government intervention.
And those are just the easy ones. Don't forget that Americans used to die regularly from water-born diseases before the government decided to dictate how municipal water was treated (against the strong objections of the free-marketers). Would Google have been invented if clean water wasn't a part of American culture? Who knows.
Instead of expanding into space, a quite possible future for sentient races is to move into a virtual reality. Merged with machines and living underground, the human race could withstand catastrophic asteroid strikes and last until the sun expands to a red giant
Dude, that journal is FICTION! Being able to "merge with machines" is a fantasy that is likely to never happen, and even if it some day becomes possible, that some day is a lot farther into the future than domed cities on Mars.
Besides, you do know what the current theory of where the moon came from is, right? If an object the size of Mars hits Earth, there's not going to be anything but lava. Nothing and nobody will survive.
Free Martian Whores!
Billions and billions of dollars?
I think that people who can't teach intermediate algebra shouldn't be allowed to participate in that activity, either.
Well, there's room for curiosity, but for most people, these days, that is generally satisfied by a few minutes of "google seppuku".
sustain?
They only need to sustain long enough to punch in the launch codes. When it comes down to it.
I dunno. I think that about one of the nicest features of Hubble is that it's NOT in a stationary mount. But that's beside the point.
In the 50's, 60's, and 70's, we used to talk about how spaceflight was inspiring to the next generation of innovators and engineers and scientists. The reality of it was that we were pissing money into a massive taxpayer-funded arms-race with the Soviets. Then, when we really got-down to business, we (inspired space-enthusiast scientists) built the fucking Hubble and the ISS, and we CONNED the military-industrial complex into building us a Shuttle. ON THEIR DIME.
Do you get it? The Shuttle was supposed to be used by the Air Force to launch and recover spy satellites to high-inclination orbits. THIS NEVER ACTUALLY HAPPENED. (lol!) (suckers!). The sad trade-off was, that the "cheap, reliable, reusable" Space Transportation System, was not really cheap, or reliable.
Now, despite what the STS became, the 80's, 90's, and 00's, really were the golden-age of space exploration. (unmanned). We've sent up a crapload of probes and sensors and robots to all kinds of places.
Go dial-up YouTube and watch Pale Blue Dot again. Listen to Sagan's little diatribe. He's right. It may not be our generation that does this. And I "get" the urgency of AGW. (I really do think we're totally, totally fucked. - THAT'S our legacy. That's what I've come to accept.) But I think that we had our chance, and we did build some great things, but it wasn't going to really keep going the way we thought it was. It was never really meant to. And if you want to draw a parallel from Star Trek, just look at how humanity did get it's start in space in that view. Cochrane didn't work for NASA. And he didn't work for SpaceX. That's really, in my opinion, a more accurate, and down-to-earth view of how it will happen, when it happens.
I dunno about the rest of you geeks, but after getting up to speed on teh Apollo program and watching interviews, reading flight reports and generally informing myself on that whole era of space flight and I have to say that Neil Armstrong is possibly *the* coolest dude on the face of this planet. ;o) )
with the possible exception of Jim Lovell (interestingly, in NZ where I am we have two roads very close to each other named after these very 2 legends, both branch off a road called William Pickering Drive, google that guy if you dare
I could listen to him speak for an eternity without getting bored and Mr Malley expressed a number of sentiments i also hold, but that's just me....
*Anyone* who can assume manual control of a completely new type of craft in a completely new situation has balls of Unobtanium, not mere steel....did any other of the Apollo commanders have to do this? (I genuinely do not know at this stage)
PS I am a physics grad from U of Aucks so have some background in the difficulties of space travel...
captcha = cigars, and while Neil almost certainly doesn't smoke, we all know what cool guys who do smoke prefer =D
Heh, that is a better explanation. Still, I think the same dynamic is at play, a replacement of concrete objectives with vague, intangible ones. Great for removing accountability, be it space activities or public school, not so great for actually doing things worth doing.
There is something warm and fuzzy about a free market economy, where everything "just works" because everyone is making decisions that are optimal for themselves. Back in cold, hard reality, that is a load of shit, because people are nincompoops who make retarded decisions, which collectively results in a massive clusterfuck.
A massive clusterfuck that just works, let us remember. Perhaps you could point to an actual example of a free market that doesn't just work.
I think that about one of the nicest features of Hubble is that it's NOT in a stationary mount.
Six of one, half a dozen of the other. Both have their fine points.
The Shuttle was supposed to be used by the Air Force to launch and recover spy satellites to high-inclination orbits. THIS NEVER ACTUALLY HAPPENED.
Maybe not by the AF, but it certainly did send up spy satellites for some TLAs.
And I "get" the urgency of AGW.
I'll admit, I don't. But I'll be dead by then, so no prob. :-)
... but it wasn't going to really keep going the way we thought it was. It was never really meant to. And if you want to draw a parallel from Star Trek, just look at how humanity did get [its] start in space in that view. Cochrane didn't work for NASA.
Yes, it WAS meant to, by us mortals out here on the street. Why the hell do you think we were all cheering you on so loudly?!? Because THAT'S THE NEXT STEP! YES, GO! Take me with you!
Cochrane was a "Capitalist." He wanted to buy his way onto an island populated by half naked women. Oh well, he didn't get that dream because a better one turned up. Poor baby. "A statue?!?"
And he didn't work for SpaceX. That's really, in my opinion, a more accurate, and down-to-earth view of how it will happen, when it happens.
A lone tinkerer buys a Saturn 5 off EBay and bolts warp nacelles onto it? Who's the dreamer now? You're also ignoring the wars they barely survived to get to the point they could even try it. If Pakistan and India, or China, or North Korea, or Russia, or Uzbekistan, decide to go at it, THEN we'll be well and truly fscked! AGW, ptheh!
You don't think Hubble in a stationary mount on the back side of the moon would be cool? It could image the entire meteor belt between Mars and Jupiter from there! :-O
Luddite. :-)
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
I realize we are currently putting all our effort into global warming "because it's there"
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Nah; even if the engineering were complete we'd cut the program before it could build a prototype. Giant contained cities that somehow made a lot of money for Exxon and the NFL? That would get built. By the taxpayers.
I am guessing he gets funding through the time-honored and -tested method of lying; showing a payoff in five years is trivial if the appropriate reality is manufactured. The real trick is to deflect blame when the payoff doesn't materialize, and to take credit when it (unexpectedly) does.
See: natural ice age cycles. We're still coming out of an ice age right now. It's going to get a lot warmer regardless of human activities. Then, it will become cold again eventually, repeating the cycle.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Oh please. Globull Warming? Are you serious? CO2 has gone up in the past 15 years but temperature hasn't. That whole joke was old a while ago.
Fact: there is a 1 TRILLION+ dollar arms race on planet Earth to kill each other, I mean "protect ourselves from others".
Fact: The entire space budget for the entire world is about 1/40th of that.
Now think for a minute. Wouldn't it be great to divert some of that kill fund to the space development fund? Lots of scientists and engineers in the military industrial complex love working on big, hard, potentially impossible problems. They are not going to want to work on consumer gadgets. So give them a new goal.
The High Frontier - Gerard K O'Neill
I'm pretty sure the Somalian market is pretty damn unregulated.
Of course, what is the definition of "Just Works" here? If the answer is "just keeps going and generates the maximum profit in absolute terms", ok, maybe you have a point. But once we take other factors into account (such as wealth distribution and giving everyone a fair chance. How are you free if being born to the "wrong" parents has more influence on the course of your life than any other factors? And that still happens with the rules we currently have, rich kids with no brains who coast along and do just fine and smart poor kids who wind up in jail because that's the course in life that they were put on) it's not so simple anymore.
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
Hum... it will be as hard to do as having bankers understanding something in economy
That would help to force the local populace into agricultural labor to feed the motherland exactly how, pray tell?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
As bad as that is, it was apparently far worse in the past. See "The Better Angels of Our Nature: The Decline of Violence In History And Its Causes" by Pinker.
Ha hahahahaha ha ha hahaaaaaar harrrrgh haaaargh hahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
HAAAAA hahahahahahahahahahaha.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Why? If I have choice between shit, crap, Sheisse, caca, dritt, kak and merde how is that better than something that's sort of mediocre, you can take it or leave it?
For those confused by analogies, choice only works if [at least] one of the options is good. See also: cable TV, The Wall (37).
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Only the ones JESUS didn't love.
What's the going rate for melted-down clouds these days?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Because you're a snob?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I'm pretty sure the Somalian market is pretty damn unregulated.
Need I note that a heavily regulated market that fondles a considerable portion of the Earth's wealth is going to look more impressive than a free market that trades cows in an obscure country? But that doesn't mean it works better.
But once we take other factors into account (such as wealth distribution and giving everyone a fair chance.
Even if we did do that, what makes you think a free market isn't going to shine compared to the alternatives?
How are you free if being born to the "wrong" parents has more influence on the course of your life than any other factors?
Non sequitur since in a free market, it wouldn't be true. Parents wouldn't give you a big trading advantage in such a market.
And that still happens with the rules we currently have
So because we have problems (real and imaginary) with our broken society and its heavily regulated markets, we can use this experience to extrapolate to free markets?
Need I note that a heavily regulated market that fondles a considerable portion of the Earth's wealth is going to look more impressive than a free market that trades cows in an obscure country? But that doesn't mean it works better.
No, it does mean it works better, and what you noted is proof: the regulated market is fondling a considerable portion of the Earth's wealth
There is no better measurement of "better" than results. And the results is that the world is being dominated by various governments and their regulated markets. They are in control, not Somalia.
It's the people in regulated markets who are making it rich and enjoying a better standard of living, not people in Somalia
And that's how it is throughout much of history: it's the kings and emperors who ruled most of the known world, controlling its economy. It's their empires that stretched across the globe, overrunning and replacing whatever free market the natives had with an economy that shifts a chunk of wealth back to those tyrants (so they can enjoy things like castles, jeweled crowns, scepters, more and better food, clothing, and other things than the average man, etc)
Even if we did do that, what makes you think a free market isn't going to shine compared to the alternatives?
Because throughout history, free market rarely did. Again, most of human history is filled with kings and conquerors. The US - a land free of kings which also succeeded economically - was the exception, not the rule (and according to Libertarians, the US is no longer that free, not for a long time actually). If free market is really so great, none of the many nations and kings and royal families in Europe would have been able to survive for so long (as nation(s) with free markets would have shone compared to them, and overtake them)
So because we have problems (real and imaginary) with our broken society and its heavily regulated markets, we can use this experience to extrapolate to free markets?
The only one extrapolating are those who think free market is the best system we have. They look at the exception (US rapid growth in 19th century) and tries to extrapolate a rule that free market is the best out of it.
No, it does mean it works better, and what you noted is proof: the regulated market is fondling a considerable portion of the Earth's wealth
Proof doesn't work that way. After all, a more likely explanation is simply that any large enough market gets regulated.
Because throughout history, free market rarely did. Again, most of human history is filled with kings and conquerors. The US - a land free of kings which also succeeded economically - was the exception, not the rule (and according to Libertarians, the US is no longer that free, not for a long time actually). If free market is really so great, none of the many nations and kings and royal families in Europe would have been able to survive for so long (as nation(s) with free markets would have shone compared to them, and overtake them)
As the US overtook Europe? It happened, you give it as an example, and yet you ignore it.
The only one extrapolating are those who think free market is the best system we have. They look at the exception (US rapid growth in 19th century) and tries to extrapolate a rule that free market is the best out of it.
Everyone is extrapolating here (and you dismiss out of hand the obvious counterexample). There's a good theoretical underpinning for free markets and we can see some effect in real world markets that come closer than other markets (such as the stock markets, despite being heavily regulated, they're not as heavily regulated as they could be to our collective benefit).
A moon base would be the perfect penal colony.