[Bill Hicks]

http://peakoil.com/publicpolicy/peak-ex ... ilization/

Thanks again to Peak Oil.com for republishing my article on the Apollo program today. I thought I'd link it here for wider comment.

[nobodypanic]

the apollo program clearly is not the peak of exploration. we've explored plenty since then. as we speak we have several probes exploring where 'no man has before' as they say.

i think you could claim that apollo was the peak of manned space travel.

[AgentR11]

I have real odd feelings, I've discovered, about manned space travel. Intellectually, I have always thought, and continue to think, it is the ultimate in dumb ideas.

Yet... I am *feeling* more disturbed than I thought I would be as the curtain closes on US manned space flight capability. I know in my head, that if we gave up the idea, we could drown the solar system in probes for what we spent to keep the shuttles running. Even more so, a weird feeling since its Obama that killed Constellation (an AgentR11 policy objective fullfilled by a marxist)! I think it was the right thing to do; a "mars, go and come back" mission seems the height of folly to me.

So... do the Chinese choose to fly? That is the question. As odd as it sounds, China probably is in the best condition to do it; they have enough tech, and they have the willingness and ability to deprive hundreds of millions of their citizens in order to achieve a monumental goal. So they could go where we never have been, if they wished to do so. The only question remains, is whether they want to.

If China lands humans on Mars, will science and engineering students in the US lose heart? Or will it become in their minds, "China, the new home for innovation and development." Multiple Silicon Valleys without the real estate disaster?

[Sixstrings]

Yet... I am *feeling* more disturbed than I thought I would be as the curtain closes on US manned space flight capability.

Yup, far as I know we have no way of getting guys into space anymore. I think we'll have to piggyback with the Russians? Pretty pathetic, we mostly paid for and built that station in the first place now we can't get to it.

The shuttle doesn't fly anymore.. in the collapse narrative, this is the first light to wink out. More unemployment, more good jobs lost, all thanks to a president who's dis-interested in space.

It's really a damn shame, this is one thing every American could be proud of.

[AgentR11]

Its unfair to lay the ending of the shuttle program at Obama's feet. That one is on Bush. It was also the right decision, even if one is dedicated to the notion of human space flight, a rocket with wings is dumb. Rockets look the way the do for a reason; that cylindrical tube main body is the safest, most efficient, and most effective configuration of a launch vehicle.

[Sixstrings]

http://peakoil.com/publicpolicy/peak-exploration-the-apollo-program-and-the-high-water-mark-of-western-civilization/

Thanks again to Peak Oil.com for republishing my article on the Apollo program today. I thought I'd link it here for wider comment.

Good article, Bill. From your piece:

It is incredible to think that 42 years have passed since Neil Armstrong took his one giant leap for mankind. A few years after he uttered his immortal words, on December 7, 1972, Apollo 17 was launched, which turned out to be the final moon landing and likely the last time human beings will ever stride upon any world other than this old Earth. Sadly, that last Apollo flight also marked the effective end of the age of exploration.

I'm a huge space nerd, but after thinking about this some more I have to admit that essentially the space race was a contest against the USSR. While the scientists and astronauts were noble heroes, the driving reason was militarism. Nobody yet knew how practical it may be to get weapons into space. ICBMs were in continuing development. And so the US and USSR frantically competed against each other, pushing the envelope to see where it may lead -- and what new means of destruction it may yield.

When Nixon canceled Apollo, there wasn't much of a race at that point. The USSR scuttled their own moon project, so without a militaristic space race there was no imperative driving us to keep pushing on. If you notice, what we've always done was to just stay ahead of the Soviets without going too much further.

Going forward.. assuming the US can afford to fund NASA at all, best we can hope for are some cool robotic missions. Further into the future, probably not our lifetimes, and assuming no collapse then space exploration will only kick into high gear when it becomes economically feasible for private interests.

(one mission I wish we'd fund right now is a probe to Europa to see if there's life in the water)

[peeker01]

giving all credit due to tang and velcro, the manned space flight program is a luxury we can
no longer afford. at 1.5 billion per launch, the shuttle is a monumental sink hole for money.
with a 40 percent loss rate in vehicles, the risk is unsustainable. how many guys can we send
to the space station before we go broke? we over-reached by trying to loft a dc-9 into earth
orbit on an economical and commercially safe basis. if and when we recover our financial
footing, i don't foresee any more orbiting airliners.

[Sixstrings]

Oh this is nice. The Tea Party has just canceled the next twenty years of astronomical research. And not one US news outlet reports it, I have to read it in a British paper. Maybe we are collapsing.

Nasa fights to save the James Webb space telescope from the axe

Last week the US House of Representatives' appropriations committee on commerce, justice, and science decided that it had had enough of these escalating costs and moved to cancel the project by stripping $1.9bn from Nasa's budget for next year.

A terse statement, released by the Republican-dominated committee, said that the project "is billions of dollars over budget and plagued by poor management". The decision still has to be approved by the full appropriations committee, the House and the Senate. Nevertheless, analysts say the telescope now faces a struggle to survive.

Not surprisingly, the move to scrap the telescope, which has been under construction since 2004 and is named after a former Nasa administrator, has horrified astronomers. The James Webb was intended to be the centrepiece of astronomical research for the next two decades.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/jul/09/nasa-james-webb-space-telescope

We have trillions for banksters, billions for Greeks, but can't replace the Hubble which has proven to be the biggest bang for the buck in the history of astronomy.

[Bill Hicks]

the apollo program clearly is not the peak of exploration. we've explored plenty since then. as we speak we have several probes exploring where 'no man has before' as they say.

i think you could claim that apollo was the peak of manned space travel.

Unmanned probes? Surely you jest. As a certain teevee show put it: to BOLDLY go where no MAN has gone before. Not an inert hunk of metal.

[Bill Hicks]

Its unfair to lay the ending of the shuttle program at Obama's feet. That one is on Bush. It was also the right decision, even if one is dedicated to the notion of human space flight, a rocket with wings is dumb. Rockets look the way the do for a reason; that cylindrical tube main body is the safest, most efficient, and most effective configuration of a launch vehicle.

I would actually place the blame on every president all the way back to Nixon for lacking "the vision thing" on this one.

[Bill Hicks]

(one mission I wish we'd fund right now is a probe to

China is the future of man in space now I guess.

As soon as their economy implodes, that will be the end of that.

[vision-master]

Some experts say we already have spaceships and have been going to Mars for quite a few years. Imagine if'n the genie get's out of the bottle that we actually came from there. Religion is holding us back folks.



Boris Kipriyanovich
Boriska suddenly perked up and began to energetically explain about the construction of UFOs: “We just launched and we were already near the Earth!” Then he took a piece of chalk and drew something triangular on the blackboard. “There are six layers,” he enthused. “The outer layer takes 25% of the durable material, the second layer takes 30% and is like rubber, the third takes another 30% and is again metal, 4% is a layer with magnetic properties,” he writes the figures on the board. “If you power the magnetic layer with energy, the apparatus can fly all over the universe…”



link

[nobodypanic]

the apollo program clearly is not the peak of exploration. we've explored plenty since then. as we speak we have several probes exploring where 'no man has before' as they say.

i think you could claim that apollo was the peak of manned space travel.

Unmanned probes? Surely you jest. As a certain teevee show put it: to BOLDLY go where no MAN has gone before. Not an inert hunk of metal.

inert hunk of metal? surely YOU jest. those machines we have roaming on the surface of mars; searching for extra-solar planets; hurtling towards pluto, vesta, ceres, and so forth are hardly inert.

the title was peak exploration, no? well, sorry, but we haven't peaked in that area. in fact, we're in a golden age. manned flight on the other hand... maybe.

there are plenty who would argue that the manned program is actually holding back pure exploration.

[Bill Hicks]

the apollo program clearly is not the peak of exploration. we've explored plenty since then. as we speak we have several probes exploring where 'no man has before' as they say.

i think you could claim that apollo was the peak of manned space travel.

Unmanned probes? Surely you jest. As a certain teevee show put it: to BOLDLY go where no MAN has gone before. Not an inert hunk of metal.

inert hunk of metal? surely YOU jest. those machines we have roaming on the surface of mars; searching for extra-solar planets; hurtling towards pluto, vesta, ceres, and so forth are hardly inert.

the title was peak exploration, no? well, sorry, but we haven't peaked in that area. in fact, we're in a golden age. manned flight on the other hand... maybe.

there are plenty who would argue that the manned program is actually holding back pure exploration.

I would argue that within ten years, twenty at the outside, the onrushing world wide peak oil-induced economic collapse will mean no more launches of any form of object into space, manned or unmanned. That's Peak Exploration.

[dorlomin]

Oh this is nice. The Tea Party has just canceled the next twenty years of astronomical research. And not one US news outlet reports it, I have to read it in a British paper. Maybe we are collapsing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Binocular_Telescope#Adaptive_optics


Since Hubble was launched surface based telescopes have actually been improved to the point they totally outperform Hubble in many wavelenghts.

Though in areas like IR there is nothing on the surface that can compete with a good lens above the atmosphere and there is no way we can do a deep field scan like an orbital platform.
We have some newlt comissioned telescopes that are truly awesome intruments that we are doing some wounderous stuff with.

The loss of the James Webb will be a big blow to certain types of astronomy but science will continue to progress forward.

[Sixstrings]

Though in areas like IR there is nothing on the surface that can compete with a good lens above the atmosphere and there is no way we can do a deep field scan like an orbital platform.

We have some newlt comissioned telescopes that are truly awesome intruments that we are doing some wounderous stuff with.

The loss of the James Webb will be a big blow to certain types of astronomy but science will continue to progress forward.

Eh.. I don't know, for the layperson the Hubble was the most interesting thing to come out of astronomy in decades. Maybe to scientists they're just as captivated by numbers on paper or gamma ray burst data or whatever.. but I want cool space pics.

I'm out of my depth here, I guess you're arguing deep field research isn't everything? Fair enough, and also I suppose finding more about the origins of the universe isn't practically useful, but it's pure discovery and solving mysteries and something we should be doing if we can. Just my two cents as a tax payer.

This telescope isn't canceled for sure by the way.. this was a subcommittee, it still has to go to full committee. It can be saved if the issue gets some attention. If they do cancel it, that's just beyond stupid.. billions are already spent, it's under construction. Yes there are always cost overruns but this isn't a manned mission to Mars it's a telecopse -- there's a limit to what it could possibly cost.

[Sixstrings]

the apollo program clearly is not the peak of exploration. we've explored plenty since then. as we speak we have several probes exploring where 'no man has before' as they say.

i think you could claim that apollo was the peak of manned space travel.

Unmanned probes? Surely you jest. As a certain teevee show put it: to BOLDLY go where no MAN has gone before. Not an inert hunk of metal.

inert hunk of metal? surely YOU jest. those machines we have roaming on the surface of mars; searching for extra-solar planets; hurtling towards pluto, vesta, ceres, and so forth are hardly inert.

Every space nerd wants to see manned exploration, but the rovers / probes can do quite a lot for a fraction of the price.

My sense is that public interest in space exploration has waned.. NASA is floundering.. sadly, if they can't get funding for manned missions that probably means the unmanned mission ideas won't go anywhere either. It's sad, there are some very interesting moons in the solar system. Forget about Mars, Europa has an ocean and may have life.

[vision-master]

the apollo program clearly is not the peak of exploration. we've explored plenty since then. as we speak we have several probes exploring where 'no man has before' as they say.

i think you could claim that apollo was the peak of manned space travel.

Unmanned probes? Surely you jest. As a certain teevee show put it: to BOLDLY go where no MAN has gone before. Not an inert hunk of metal.

inert hunk of metal? surely YOU jest. those machines we have roaming on the surface of mars; searching for extra-solar planets; hurtling towards pluto, vesta, ceres, and so forth are hardly inert.

the title was peak exploration, no? well, sorry, but we haven't peaked in that area. in fact, we're in a golden age. manned flight on the other hand... maybe.

there are plenty who would argue that the manned program is actually holding back pure exploration.

I would argue that within ten years, twenty at the outside, the onrushing world wide peak oil-induced economic collapse will mean no more launches of any form of object into space, manned or unmanned. That's Peak Exploration.

Then again, maybe our understanding of gravity is wrong and gravity is a weak field force. Maybe what we need to understand is that everything has it's own magnetic field and this is the strong force that we must learn to manipulate. By doing so, instead of using brute power to lift a rocket, we just use "anti-gravity" (magnetic fields).

I mean, someone knew something pre-history that we still can't figure out today.