Are you sick of the excuses we get for lack of advanced, more of and easier Space Travel?

Question

Just seems to me the growing up in the late 70's and 80's we were promised so much in terms of Technology and space travel by the year 2000. Now they are even resorting to backward technology "the Orion spacecraft" instead of looking at future designs we were shown so much of. Now even that is being pushed back! The only thing we really have as far as advancements go is the internet. I just get sick of hearing why we "can't" do something, are you?

Answer 1

My class of 1968 yearbook predictions had me on the way to Mars with Yvonne R, the class valedictorian.  Unfortunately facts got in the way.  She became a lawyer: I was less ambitious and became a librarian.  The future is never what the predictions say it will be.  Even in the late 1950s it looked possible for both Mars and Venus to be inhabitable.  Then those kill-joy Mariner space probes pulled the plug on that notion.  When I graduated from high school it looked certain that by the end of the century we would have colonies on mars and the moons of jupiter.  Evil Reality got in the way.  Such things cost money. Lots and lots of money.  And they would never pay for themselves.  Even our congressmen weren't THAT stupid. The solar system is a worthless wasteland with earth as the only oasis.  Its not that we cant go there, its that it would be pointless and too expensive.

Answer 2

If it were not for the cold war, perhaps we (USA) would still have not visited the Moon. Hey, it's not just spaceflight where we were promised so much. In the 1970's we were told we would be living a life of leisure by now and who could forget those cute autonomous robotic house maids that would be doing all those nasty chores for us. Yes we have robotic vacuum cleaners but they only do *one* thing and they do it without a smile! In response to an above answer, I really don't think astronauts are 'frightened' to go to Mars, providing a well built and tested machine were available. In-fact a lot of NASA astronauts left their employment to pursue other careers after the Apollo era because much less ambitious projects were all that was to look forward too.

Answer 3

I know. The next thing we hear will be "I am sorry, we have been planning this trip to Mars on this beautiful day in March 21st but now we will not because of two reasons. One, our astronauts are afraid to afraid to go to Mars and risk their lives and two, the suns solar flares are whatever.

Well if the astronauts are to scared to then send a couple of robots and the sun thing will probably be made up just because they are supporting why they can't because the astronauts are to scared when really it just took too much money to make the X-2 shuttle rocket to Mars.  

Answer 4

money and priorities.

space travel proved to be really really expensive. worse, doing anything about that is even more expensive, and nobody wants to spend that kind of money.

i came of age just about the time apollo ended, and the space program has been largely in stasis ever since. it will get going again just in time for me to retire. i have always felt shortchanged by this.

Answer 5

Sure, I remember the talk about how we'd all be going into space, to the Moon, etc. by the end of the millennium.  But there really are good reasons it hasn't happened.

Getting into space is incredibly hard, and unbelievably expensive.  People in the 50s, 60s, 70s expected us to replace chemical rockets with much more efficient technologies like nuclear engines.  Sure we have nuclear engines now, but we don't use them, because--well, if you think pollution from chemical rockets is bad...

There's huge amounts of overhead to getting payload into orbit.  Remember, it doesn't just have to loft up 60 miles or whatever; it also has to move horizontally, fast enough to balance Earth's gravity so it doesn't fall back (the speed varies depending on the orbit).  And, it's just as hard to get out of Earth's orbit toward, say, the Moon as it is to get there in the first place.

But the main reason we haven't done much in space since the 1970s is because once we landed on the Moon a couple times, the public completely lost interest.  NASA even cancelled Apollo 18, 19, and 20 because no one cared about *another* Moon landing, so budgets fell off.  Big time.  We aren't spending the kind of money on space that we used to.  We could, but we aren't.  It doesn't help that the public has a very exaggerated idea of what percentage of the national budget goes to NASA.

Orion isn't the step backward that it seems to be.  Apollo was a very good capsule, on a par with Soyuz, which of course is still in service.  The Space Shuttle seemed like a good idea at the time (the enormous lobbying for it helped with that perception), but it's turned out to be a dead end: it's more expensive to use, not less, than expendable rockets and a traditional capsule.

Answer 6

It may be tiring, but let's not forget all those who are trying/have tried to get us to where we are here today. Let's not 'bag' on Neil Armstrong and Yuri Gagarin, they definitely played a huge role. It seems as if we predict too much for the next year and yet far too little for the next 10 and yes, that's a big bummer, but you have to realize that things take time. If we want a mission to go smoothly and well, or if we want to build a new space shuttle the CORRECT way, it's going to take time. We need more people in the space field I'm going to admit...but right now, I'm SURE this is the best we can do. Dumb government, also another reason why we're lacking.

thumbs down! [= how else you people planning on getting us to Mars, eh?

Answer 7

Darth -

As a child of the 60s space age, I am disappointed that everything else seems to be so much more important now. Is it dangerous? Sure. Is it impossible? Not at all. We devote gigantic sums of tax revenue to income re-distribution or welfare programs of all different stripes - and we try to do it even more (universal health care???!). Meanwhile, we stop all of our technical exploration cold. I think it's sad and I think we have our priorities mixed up. I think it will cost us dearly if we don't change soon.  

Answer 8

In the 1490's, Columbus could go to the Queen of Spain, and get her to finance a search for a new way to India.  The technology she paid for was, by and large, technology that had been around for the best part of 2 thousand years, and well understood.  To go into space is not only many, many orders of magnitude more difficult, despite our modern knowhow, it has to contend with factors that don't even occur on Earth, such as null G and a total lack of atmosphere.  If any mistakes were made, they were mistakes of over optimism.  Maybe we could do all those things you want, but are you prepared to pay for them?  Remember, governments only have the money they take from you in taxes.  Are you willing to pay to put your ideas into effect?

Answer 9

What makes you think the Orion spacecraft is "backwards?"  The space shuttle was a "future" design, and it turned out to be a lot more trouble that it was worth.  The best spacecraft design is the one that works well, not the one someone thinks looks cool or has the appropriate bells and whistles.  There's a huge difference between conceptual art and flying fact.