Is "space Exploration" A Pipe-Dream?

[Khandro]

The NASA and Florida State University study revealed its findings on Thursday. They state that so far three Apollo astronauts, including Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon, have died from cardiovascular disease, apparently as a result of the extreme cosmic radiation they were exposed to during their missions.
It appears that not only is leaving the Earth's magnetic shield highly dangerous, there is also the massive problem of finding sufficient energy to launch rockets without the Earth's dwindling fossil fuel.

[Khandro]

OG; where do you get that figure from and what does it represent ?

[Old_Geezer]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States
$18 trillion GDP from the above, $18 billion from yourself.

[Khandro]

But that isn't expenditure by the federal government

[Old_Geezer]

Never said it was but it is a measure of the economy. As a proportion the amount spent of space exploration is trivial.

Here's another way to look at it.
http://www.space.com/10849-nasa-budget-contribute.html
Just $33 per year per person. Compare that to what they spend on military.

[Old_Geezer]

I should make a correction
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=how+many+billions+in+a+trillion&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b&gfe_rd=cr&ei=MJGbV7uSCfHW8gf41baADA
Google is sometimes unclear when you ask it a question and trust their (bold) answer without double checking. It's still a small % though.

[Khandro]

I don't know if your figure is correct, but if it is, $33 per person per year with a population of over 300 million is a colossal sum to spend on such a crackpot scheme which has no future, paid for by taxes to the federal government. I would certainly resent paying for it.

[EDDIE51]

The 'problem' is that unmanned exploration has come further than we could ever imagine back in the 1960's Moon Landings.
The NASA Mars Rover has been driving round the surface of Mars taking photographs and analyzing soil samples for over 12 years now!
It is still working as well as ever and you can tune into live TV ! direct from the surface of Mars!
http://mars.nasa.gov/mer/home/

[EDDIE51]

Here is a link to the Cassini project
https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/
Another unmanned probe that has been unimaginably successful , it is currently in orbit around Saturn . It will continue on to the very end of the solar system and then beyond the orbit of Pluto out into interstellar space.

[wildwood]

Do we know which way outer space in expanding? Surely we can never reach the 'edge'. Our present knowledge and benefits could surely have been obtained without going further than the moon?

I find space exploration very interesting, but can't find a justification for it to help human kind when we still have 1000s of children dying of starvation daily and religious nutters are committing mass murders on a regular basis.

[Khandro]

Eddie; //Another unmanned probe that has been unimaginably successful//

Well, it isn't beyond my imagination. Photographs of a lump of ice at a cost of trillions doesn't stir me in the slightest. Where does it get you?

[mikey4444]

We may continue to explore our own solar system, but exploration out of solar system will always be impossible, unless some solution can be found to the problems of travelling for light years.

As Einstein demonstrated, nothing can travel faster than light.

Alpha Centauri is our closest star system and is 4.37 light-years away !

[Cloverjo]

I think space exploration should continue. The money doesn't disappear into a black hole. It pays people to do their jobs who then spend it elsewhere and it carries on around the globe. There are are other things that need to be sorted out to help starving children.

[naomi24]

Khandro, //Photographs of a lump of ice at a cost of trillions doesn't stir me in the slightest. //

Would it stir you if life, or signs of life, were found on it?

[Old_Geezer]

There will ALWAYS be problems needing to be solved on the home planet. Possibly always starving individuals and folk with mental issues. It is irrational to insist these must be solved first before getting out into space and learning how to stop having all the human eggs into the one solar system basket. We don't do exclusively serial problem solving, we organise effort and resources efficiently and solve things in parallel.

It's somewhat sad some don't see this enterprise of human curiosity and advancement as being eminently worthwhile, exciting, and interesting. Luckily the human race are varied and some can provide the necessary enthusiasm others lack.

[Zacs-Master]

Curiosity and the extrapolation of research instigated by it is a natural human condition. To stifle it is both unnatural and counter-intuitive.

[Khandro]

naomi; Stephen Hawking has said that if we were ever to find extra-terrestrial life be would be smart to leave it alone - throughout history whenever one civilisation came into contact with another, it has always been a disaster for one, or both.

[Old_Geezer]

But does the same apply when the species have advanced enough to cooperate on inter stella travel level projects ? Surely they'd have got beyond squabbling by then. Besides how long can one try to hide, head in the sand, before being discovered as a race of inadequate wimps anyway ?

[Zacs-Master]

there are many many SF books which deal with first encounters. The advanced nature of a civilisation shouldn't be assumed to mean they wouldn't be hostile.

[Old_Geezer]

Nor that that would be hostile either. But taking fiction writers' imagination out of the equation, shouldn't it be less likely rather than more ?

[Zacs-Master]

OG, you wrote 'Surely they'd have got beyond squabbling by then'. I merely pointed out 'surely' shouldn't be assumed. I never claimed they would all be hostile.

Whether it's less likely or more likely is impossible to assess. It would require one to take every possible scenario and times that by the number of possible advanced civilizations.