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Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Liberator on September 12, 2003, 11:27:28 pm

Title: This is promising
Post by: Liberator on September 12, 2003, 11:27:28 pm
Saw this (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c108:H.R.3057:) on Slashdot.  It looks really interesting.  Though for some of us it has a "took ya' long enough!" feel to it.
Title: This is promising
Post by: Bobboau on September 12, 2003, 11:52:54 pm
****!
is this for real!!

woot!
Title: This is promising
Post by: neo_hermes on September 12, 2003, 11:59:59 pm
Damn cools
Title: This is promising
Post by: StratComm on September 13, 2003, 12:07:23 am
Quote
(3) Within 15 years after the date of enactment of this Act, the development and flight demonstration of a reusable space vehicle capable of carrying humans from lunar orbit to the surface of the Moon and back, as well as the development and deployment of a human-tended habitation and research facility on the lunar surface.


Oh!  Oh!  Can I go?  ;)
Title: This is promising
Post by: phreak on September 13, 2003, 12:44:24 am
hate to spoil your fun, but this was introduced three days ago.  I'd like to see it passed, but it probably be revised or killed.
Title: This is promising
Post by: Top Gun on September 13, 2003, 04:02:15 am
The Chinese need to start serious space exploration, that'll prompt them.
Title: This is promising
Post by: diamondgeezer on September 13, 2003, 05:18:11 am
Quite frankly, yay. This has been far too long a time comming.

As an aside, my housemate works at the National Space Center here in Leicester as a misison controller. Right now he'll be running a simulation, taking a bunch of kids up to the ISS or over to Mars. He phoned me the other day, saying 'I can't talk long, I'm in the middle of a mission' :D


[EDIT] Hold on... 50 million next year and 200 million in 2005? I can't remember how much each Apollo shot cost, nor how much that cost would work out to in new pence, but that's not really all that much of a budget for a space program. I mean obviously they're not planning a moon shot in the next two years, but all the same...
Title: This is promising
Post by: Rictor on September 13, 2003, 06:02:10 am
Though I'm all for space exploration, I thnik the billions that are going into this (and similar) programs could be better spent solving some of the issues we have on Earth, like global poverty etc.

Hehe, sorry to be a killjoy.
Title: This is promising
Post by: 01010 on September 13, 2003, 06:36:30 am
Quote
Originally posted by Rictor
Though I'm all for space exploration, I thnik the billions that are going into this (and similar) programs could be better spent solving some of the issues we have on Earth, like global poverty etc.

Hehe, sorry to be a killjoy.


Unfortunately I don't think you can solve the worlds problems by just throwing money at them.
Title: This is promising
Post by: karajorma on September 13, 2003, 02:06:37 pm
Bah. There are always people who come up with comments like that but ask them to pay another cent on the dollar in tax to do it and they suddenly go quiet.
Title: This is promising
Post by: Zeronet on September 13, 2003, 02:41:48 pm
Quote
Originally posted by 01010


Unfortunately I don't think you can solve the worlds problems by just throwing money at them.


Most problems can be solved by throwing money at them, or monkeys.
Title: This is promising
Post by: Tiara on September 13, 2003, 02:43:48 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Zeronet


Most problems can be solved by throwing money at them, or monkeys.

Yeah, monleys work too! Just don't throw gorrila's... :p
Title: This is promising
Post by: Nico on September 13, 2003, 04:20:00 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Tiara

Yeah, monleys work too! Just don't throw gorrila's... :p


why? Gorillas are great to make noisy people shut up. even dead ones work, if they've been well fed before.
w00t, I spammed :doubt:
Title: This is promising
Post by: kode on September 13, 2003, 04:40:05 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Venom


why? Gorillas are great to make noisy people shut up. even dead ones work, if they've been well fed before.
w00t, I spammed :doubt:


but gorillas are also heavy, and they also don't respond well to being thrown. unless they are dead, in which case they don't disapprove. however, they are also threatened to be extinct.
Title: This is promising
Post by: Bri_Dog on September 13, 2003, 05:23:54 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Top Gun
The Chinese need to start serious space exploration, that'll prompt them.


No, we don't need anymore space commies :p
Title: This is promising
Post by: Ace on September 14, 2003, 02:01:43 am
Quote
Originally posted by Bri_Dog


No, we don't need anymore space commies :p


[obscure reference]Yeah, we'd have to have Mel Brooks rewrite History of the World part II. It's taken him years already to work on it, I'd hate to see it delayed more :) [/obscure reference]
Title: This is promising
Post by: neo_hermes on September 14, 2003, 03:21:06 am
:lol:
Title: This is promising
Post by: Admiral LSD on September 14, 2003, 04:53:58 am
Quote
Originally posted by 01010
Unfortunately I don't think you can solve the worlds problems by just throwing money at them.


But you can prevent a lot of them getting worse by simply not taking the money away in the first place ;)

Seriously, I'd love to know exactly where all this money is going to come from, my bet would be relatively unimportant stuff like Health and Education.
Title: This is promising
Post by: karajorma on September 14, 2003, 05:00:07 am
I'd rather see it going on the space program than cheese subsidies (BTW I'm not joking about that. Check out how much money is spent on that!)
Title: This is promising
Post by: Tiara on September 14, 2003, 05:39:15 am
"Money isn't everything in life, but it sure helps!"
Title: This is promising
Post by: kasperl on September 14, 2003, 06:29:27 am
money doesn't make people happy, but no money does make them unhappy.
Title: This is promising
Post by: Rictor on September 14, 2003, 07:49:18 am
What is required to affect significant and lasting change (in any area) is money+attitude. Having either or those two, though not perfect, is still very much better than nothing. Its naive to say that since money doesn't solve everything, spending money on anything is useless.

Oh and, sorry for hijacking the thread. Reurn to your regularly scheduled space exploration talk stuff..
Title: Roo?
Post by: Corsair114 on September 14, 2003, 10:03:37 am
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Seriously, I'd love to know exactly where all this money is going to come from, my bet would be relatively unimportant stuff like Health and Education.


Edumacation? Wuzzhat?

Quote
(4) Within 20 years after the date of enactment of this Act, the development and flight demonstration of a reusable space vehicle capable of carrying humans from low Earth orbit to and from Martian orbit, the development and deployment of a human-tended habitation and research facility on the surface of one of the moons of Mars, and the development and flight demonstration of a reusable space vehicle capable of carrying humans from Martian orbit to the surface of Mars and back.


I wanna go! I wanna go!
Title: This is promising
Post by: silverwolf on September 14, 2003, 10:59:37 am
i guess this means we're one step closer to freespace lol
Title: This is promising
Post by: pyro-manic on September 15, 2003, 10:03:08 am
Dear god, I hope not! While it's a very cool game, I don't particularly fancy being vapourized from high orbit by a ship full of five-legged spidery things....:shaking: ;)

Yeah, it's a good step, though - I think that space exploration and colonization could be the key to getting humans to act halfway decent towards each other at least some of the time, and stop these pointless bloody wars all over the place...or am I just being idealistic?
Title: This is promising
Post by: Carl on September 15, 2003, 10:13:41 am
call your congressman and tell him you support the space exploration act :yes: :D
Title: This is promising
Post by: Liberator on September 15, 2003, 04:43:48 pm
Quote
Originally posted by pyro-manic
Yeah, it's a good step, though - I think that space exploration and colonization could be the key to getting humans to act halfway decent towards each other at least some of the time, and stop these pointless bloody wars all over the place...or am I just being idealistic?


Mildly Idealistic.  Advancments in space travel simply mean that instead of dropping a few thousand pound of aircraft on a city the terrorists can drop a few hundred thousand pounds much more expensive and volitile spacecraft on a city.

Also, most of the "Pointless" are religious in nature and the conflicts won't cease just because the race can travel beyond LEO on a regular basis.  The only way to stop them is for one side or the other to have complete, total, undeniable victory over the other.  Such as the US over Japan in WW2.  

This will be a controversial statment, but the argument could be made that the bomb "saved" Japan from being a second tier nation, instead of the world class economy it is today.  Of course you won't get any of the survivors to agree to this, and it doesn't stop it from being a horrific act.  But it probably did save more lives than it took.