40th Anniversary of the Moon landings... woot!

skiskate said:

Whats the point? Its just a big barren rock. Once they got there and researched a bit there really isnt much left to do.

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I respectfully disagree.

As we celebrate a milestone reached forty fucking years ago, I shake my head in disgust.

There should be a moon base with an American flag flying high. Screw the ISS and the Space Shuttle, which is nothing short of a low orbit bus. Obsolete and soon to be discontinued with no viable replacement.

Advanced astronomy and helium 3 are just two reasons why we should have never abandoned our satellite.

I find it shameful that we must look backwards to celebrate American technological achievement.

my dad worked on the apollo missions. we were in huntsville alabama 40 years ago. i still have all his awards and pins he recieved during that time. pop was a very educated man. i don't think they could of gathered that many people to work on a project of that size and pull the wool over their eyes?

I wonder if it's worth even bothering to teach history any more. No one believes it....

CrackerJax said:

I wonder if it's worth even bothering to teach history any more. No one believes it....

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I relish in the fact that people don't accept everything the government as gospel.

But those people are the most easily fooled....easily manipulated. Conspiracy minded ppl are missing a "logic" gene. Zeitgeist is a good example.

CrackerJax said:

I wonder if it's worth even bothering to teach history any more. No one believes it....

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Totally. It's a terrible shame.
There are people out there that deny that the Holocaust happened. I'm sure in the future there will be people that claim September 11th never happened. There are already people claiming it was our government's own doing.
I understand the whole "question authority" dogma ...but I can't believe that all it takes is a YouTube query in order for people to believe with 100% certainty, that the government faked the moon landing and destroyed the world trade center towers.

We are losing our educational foundations.

once i found out the WHOLE columbus story was a sham i pretty much gave up on history.

CrackerJax said:

We are losing our educational foundations.

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Agreed. I can't tell you how many times I've asked someone for proof regarding a topic we're debating; and all I get in return is a YouTube video of some loony ranting about the topic.
That's what passes for proof, these days? A YouTube video? What happened to researching a theory and legitimately proving or disproving it? People are growing increasingly apathetic and gullible.

they don't understand the concept of 'burden of proof'. so they come up with an
outlandish claim and then say "prove that i'm wrong". that alone should tell you
its a waste of time arguing with them.

*edit* anyway i disagree about moonbases and manned mars landings. i feel that
the primary mission of nasa should be exploration of the cosmos and answering questions.
while the moon landing was a tremendous accomplishment i feel that anything past that
is just misuse of resources. i'd rather know what the universe is all about then say
"we planted a flag on mars".

I don't know about that PVS. Man needs goals. Tough ones. The program that put us on the moon increased our technology by many levels. All kinds of innovations resulted that might not have otherwise. It's not about planting the flag. That's just the cherry on the cake. It's really about baking that cake.....no?

PVS said:

they don't understand the concept of 'burden of proof'. so they come up with an
outlandish claim and then say "prove that i'm wrong". that alone should tell you
its a waste of time arguing with them.

*edit* anyway i disagree about moonbases and manned mars landings. i feel that
the primary mission of nasa should be exploration of the cosmos and answering questions.
while the moon landing was a tremendous accomplishment i feel that anything past that
is just misuse of resources. i'd rather know what the universe is all about then say
"we planted a flag on mars".

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It's about baby steps. Mars is just the second stop on our universal road trip. "Exploration of the cosmos and answering questions" is the exact reason we're going to Mars in the first place.

what can a man accomplish on mars that a robot cannot?
all that can possibly come out of it would be bragging rights. i would rather have the resources invested
in telescopic technology so we can possibly see another earthlike planet in another solar system, instead of
landing on a dead planet and saying "WOOOHOOOO WE'RE AWESOME!". how about investing said resources
in deep-space travel technology. i keep seeing these nifty cgi spacecraft on TV, meant to approach light speed
and explore deep space and even other solar systems, but yet its on a shelf because we're busy trying to rocket
a human to the next planet. just my opinion on it all.

PVS said:

what can a man accomplish on mars that a robot cannot?
all that can possibly come out of it would be bragging rights. i would rather have the resources invested
in telescopic technology so we can possibly see another earthlike planet in another solar system, instead of
landing on a dead planet and saying "WOOOHOOOO WE'RE AWESOME!". how about investing said resources
in deep-space travel technology. i keep seeing these nifty cgi spacecraft on TV, meant to approach light speed
and explore deep space and even other solar systems, but yet its on a shelf because we're busy trying to rocket
a human to the next planet. just my opinion on it all.

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Telescopic technology? Sure, that will help, but how the hell are we supposed to find another earth like planet with a telescope? We need probes to find out what the atmosphere is like. Like the mars rover has already found that there was most likely life on mars not too long ago. (In universe time) Would we have known that by just looking at it? Nope.

Louis541 said:

Telescopic technology? Sure, that will help, but how the hell are we supposed to find another earth like planet with a telescope? We need probes to find out what the atmosphere is like. Like the mars rover has already found that there was most likely life on mars not too long ago. (In universe time) Would we have known that by just looking at it? Nope.

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well i dont want to go on a youtube-link frenzy but there are telescopic technologies which have yet to be explored. and...well...if you see a blue planet out there with clouds i think it would be pretty damn encouraging...the thought that there might be advance forms of life roaming that planet...maybe even intelligent life, as opposed to the possibility that we may find some fossilized microbes on mars. (again something robots can look for just as efficiently if not more since we can keep sending them over and litter the whole damn planet with them)

you cannot send a probe into deep space without the technology to make it go at a practical speed. (at least a reasonable fraction of the speed of light). again, the priority of researching this technology is on a shelf so that we can figure out how to send a living being to a dead planet, to accomplish nothing more than probes/rovers are capable of. the real goal of a mars mission is to keep human beings alive for a journey there and back. apart from that there is nothing new to learn since apart from life support, the problem of how to get there and land were already solved and executed.

I want to skateboard on the moon

PVS... you need to take a course in science buddy. Most all of the technology we now enjoy with space exploration can directly be linked back to our man on the moon days.

man is NOT going to mars in person anytime soon. Again, if you do a bit of reading, you will find out that space is lethal to us once we leave the atmosphere...the womb so to speak. It takes far too long to get to Mars. the only thing that would arrive are corpses.

You must have been the one standing at the dock when Columbus sailed off.... "why bother going over there"?

CrackerJax said:

PVS... you need to take a course in science buddy. Most all of the technology we now enjoy with space exploration can directly be linked back to our man on the moon days.

man is NOT going to mars in person anytime soon. Again, if you do a bit of reading, you will find out that space is lethal to us once we leave the atmosphere...the womb so to speak. It takes far too long to get to Mars. the only thing that would arrive are corpses.

You must have been the one standing at the dock when Columbus sailed off.... "why bother going over there"?

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please, learn to read someone's post and comprehend their point before you try to insult their intelligence and mock them. i never tried to discredit the advancements from the first moon missions (if insist that i'm wrong feel free to point out where i did).

as far as corpses arriving at mars thats the whole point i was making about the hindering the advancement of space exploration: by keeping a necessity for manned spacecraft.

ffs

I read your posts....I stand by my comments

No one is saying we are going to shoot off towards Mars with a manned spacecraft right off. It will take many steps in between to do it. Just like the moon attempts which started in trips to the edge of space, with the amazing Chuck Yeager. In the same methodology that has given you all of the modern devices you use on a daily basis and take for granted, a foundational layering of innovation was necessary to perfect even the toaster in your kitchen.

It's all about learning. Don't forget that from Kennedy's BOLD assertion to go to the Moon (which many think was a foolhardy speech), we were on that Moon just 8 years later. 8 years! Truly Americas shining moment of achievement if we do nothing else.
Robots yes, to start, but in the end we'll get there, in person.
It has to start somewhere and believe me Nasa knows all about its limitations. It's all about making the foundation, layer upon layer, until the objective is achieved.



Captain Kirk would throttle you...

PVS said:

what can a man accomplish on mars that a robot cannot?
all that can possibly come out of it would be bragging rights. i would rather have the resources invested
in telescopic technology so we can possibly see another earthlike planet in another solar system, instead of
landing on a dead planet and saying "WOOOHOOOO WE'RE AWESOME!". how about investing said resources
in deep-space travel technology. i keep seeing these nifty cgi spacecraft on TV, meant to approach light speed
and explore deep space and even other solar systems, but yet its on a shelf because we're busy trying to rocket
a human to the next planet. just my opinion on it all.

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You really think we can learn more from looking at a planet via a telescope than we can from actually sending humans to it? You think the only reason to implement a manned mission to Mars would be to say "WOOOHOOOO WE'RE AWESOME!"?
For once ...I'm speechless. Maybe CrackerJax is right about the state of the public school system after all.