Reading this book I feel as I’m on the board while going to the moon. I am a wheelchair user nepalese and interes to reading materials about the paleanthropology and austromony. your book is very interesting for the school of the thirld world country. If any other materials are there with you would you let us know that can be useful for such children.

Regards,
LAHCEN

“…the lunar mission was a $35 billion happy pill administered to a generation of depressed Americans.” ? Gerard J. DeGroot, Professor of Modern History, University of St. Andrews, Scotland [planet Earth]

Hundreds of years from now (assuming our species doesn’t kill itself off once and for all), archaeologists and paleontologists will dig up stuff like that and say, “what the hell were those jerkoffs thinking?” A couple of hundred years ago, anybody who said the world is round got murdered by church and state. Yikes. Have a nice little life, Dr. DeG. Consider revisiting the concept of vision.

But today I am not so readily and ungraciously inclined to dismiss DeGroot’s arguments. As an expression of “vision” or “human aspiration,” I wonder whether the moon program wasn’t more likely a grand example of humans’ propensity for distracting themselves from the hard, incremental, but vital trenchwork of trying to ensure the species survives and prospers?

I agree that many of the wonderful spinoffs from the space program are no justification; of necessity, we would have invented those wonderful things, or their counterparts, anyway. I agree that humans’ chances of surviving into another century or three are not looking too good, and escape to another neighborhood is a lovely idea, but I don’t think there’s any chance we’re going to make it — even if all humankind threw its collective resources into the task.

Several years ago, The New Yorker had an interesting article about how NASA and the astronauts have downplayed and even hidden the the fact that a little space travel is very hard on even the fine physical specimens we’ve sent up so far: many astronauts have gotten repeatedly, violently, throwing-up sick from weightlessness; and more subtle but potentially dire effects, such as calcium loss in the bones, have also been measured.

The message I got is that Earth is all we have, and we need to start behaving more like we seriously believe it. Air and water pollution, radiation poisoning (of the ground, not just our bodies), global warming, overpopulation and malnutrition, the spread of nuclear arms, are all far more deserving of a crash program than putting a person on another heavenly body.

If that is so, then the moon shots were little better than a lovely, charming distraction. They galvanized Americans to accomplish a hard, clear task, and made us a dream a little while . . . but was there anything more of real, lasting substance?

For myself, I will freely admit that part of my objection is spawned from resentment at having to give up my money at gunpoint for something I don?t agree with (and if you question the ?gunpoint? part, try refusing to pay your taxes then refusing to submit to the government?s retribution). Don?t get me wrong, though, I don?t mind paying taxes to provide essential services. However, this is all an argument for another day.

Back to the point; the rational arguments above offer some good perspectives and are thought provoking.

?Synergist? presented some good alternatives.

?Mood? made an accurate observation about the technological spinoffs. We all use Velcro, light weight alloys, etc. To this point, however, I am reminded that necessity is the mother of invention and laziness is the father. So I believe that whether we went into space or not, we would still come up with the necessities and conveniences to make our lives easier and safer.

?Drive2xs?, regarding your plea for my continued contribution, please see paragraph 2 of this response. Plus, nothing personal, but I?m not really encouraged to dish out more of my money on the advice of someone whose screen name is ?Drive To Excess?.

Finally, ?Greg?, thank you for your clear arguments (though you did get a little hot under the collar on point #1).

I still think we do not need to spend the money and take the human risk (let?s not forget NASA?s track record of late) of putting people on the Moon or Mars or elsewhere. I do agree that the creative thought process that a human can provide is essential, but I also think that with the process of sending a machine there to retrieve samples and return them for analysis, the risk of loss, both in dollars and in human lives is far, far less than sending humans there and back.

I am sure that, in spite of my objections, space exploration and colonization is the way of the future (barring an eminent ELE, of course), and I?m sure that I and my children will reap some benefit from it.

Thank you all who presented well thought out arguments, and for those whose best argument was an emotional reaction, I respect your need to express your emotions, but don?t make the mistake of thinking that such an approach advances the debate at all. Though you will score points with your fellow emoters by that method, those who wish to truly debate the issue will not be swayed with that approach.

The advance of civilization will always be driven by the necessary tension between the idealist and the pragmatist, and the net result will always, and most appropriately, be a path between the two.

1) Robotic space probes are no replacement for living astronauts. As advanced as machines like (for example) Cassini and Spirit / Opportunity are, they’re bumbling insects when compared to a creative, intelligent, knowledgeable human being armed with the right tools. Anyone who believes that sending a machine is “just as good” as having a scientist on-site simply doesn’t understand how science works. That is not an opinion, it is a fact.

2) All of the talk about destiny and exploration and a “vision for the future” is great. I agree with such ideas and support them 100%. But that stuff is a minor point when compared to the issue of survivability. ELEs (extinction level events) happen on Earth every 50 to 100 million years, and the next could come at any time. Maybe it’ll be a killer asteroid, or a virus we can’t cure. Perhaps the Yellowstone caldera will completely let go and shroud the Earth in volcanic ash for 200 years. Regardless, SOMETHING will eventually come along to wipe us out. It’s not a matter of “if”, it’s a matter of “when”.

The only way to ensure mankind’s long-term survival is to expand into new environments that are completely seperate from the Earth. At minimum we must colonize the Moon, Mars, Ganymede, Callisto, and probably some asteroids. Of course I’d love to see interstellar colonies too, but that’s going to be a task for the fourth millennium, not the third.

Our manned space program is the precourser to doing all of this. Right now it’s not about colonizing, it’s about learning the lessons that will one day allow us to colonize. If we want people to live on the Moon and Mars in the 22nd century, we have to send people there during the 21st to learn how to do it.

The space program is not a vanity project. Is is about nothing less than the survival of our entire species.

Greg

If you wish to enjoy the benefits of a civilized society then please continue to contribute your minimal penance otherwise move to a less civil society where your tax contribution is greater, but your family’s welfare is in actual jeopardy. Have a nice day!

And they shall be called Professors.

Off-planet exploration/industrialization is not nearly as
economic as just sitting here in our
own shit, but if we don’t manage to
sell people on the Luxury of Space,
things are gonna get _very_ unpleasant
here at the bottom of the well.

Dhu

There are certainly better ways to ?contribute the most to Humanity? than throw good money at a project that has no better purpose than to give an extremely exclusive few the opportunity to leave a few footprints on the moon and bring back a few rocks. Again I assert that there is very little that man can do in space that his machines can?t do well enough and at a much lesser cost. By that measure, the moon landings were a dismal failure. And, if the measure is man?s drive/destiny to explore then the moon landings were a dismal failure on that count, too. With only an extremely elite club of people going to the moon, that is hardly fulfilling man?s drive to explore. 21 out of some 6 billion?what percentage is that anyway?

I choose to ?contribute the most to Humanity? by sending my children to college and raising them to be responsible, rational thinking adults. A much more worthy use of my money and efforts, don?t you think?

Go to the moon if you like, but do it on your dime, not mine

Who complained about the television coverage of the Apollo program? Not the ones willing to stap themselves to the top of an explosive device in the name of Humanity. Nor the ones who conceived or designed the thing.

Would Steven Hawking complain? Of course not. How about Marie Curie? Fermi? Edison? Pasteur? Mendel? Copernicus? Newton? All space geeks those…so no fair? Okay then…how about Jesus Christ, Confuscious, Mohammed, Siddhartha Gautama? How about Carl Jung, Alfred Nobel, or even the immortal Robert Burns?

It seems to me that the persons who contribute the most to Humanity wouldn’t have minded missing the end of Medical Center.

If we allow the opinion of the lower end of the bell curve–including souless clods like DeGroot–then we’re allowing the inferior to steer the course of Humanity.

So, go ahead…denounce space exploration, Mr. DeGroot. Do it while you’re on holiday in some exotic locale you felt compelled to visit for the simple you’d never been there before. And, please, do it while sucking down a beer, part of that six pack you seem so fond of.

The most convincing argument I’ve heard in favor of man in space is the “need to explore”. But, if that’s your best justification, dig into your own pockets and keep your hands out of mine. Besides, with today’s robotic technology, there is very little that man can do in space that machines cannot.

Stop cheerleading for an overgrown, gluttonous bureaucratic entity (NASA) and use your money for something that can really make a difference. Demand a 50% downsize of NASA!

To sum up the space program as merely a 35 billion dollar happy pill for depressed Americans only highlights DeGroot’s ignorance of the subject.

If you want to know why we absolutely, positively must have a manned space program Dr. DeGroot, I suggest you go ask the dinosaurs.

Regards,

Greg Neuman

Thank goodness some visionary folks can persist in exploratory action and fortitude despite cynical knuckleheads such as yourself. What have you accomplished of value in your time on Earth?

Sincerely,

Jim Lindelien