Space Programs: Waste of Money or Humanity's next great achievemnt?

**Farnan** · March 13, 2007, 09:29 AM

What are your thoughts?

**-Conan the Barbarian-** · March 13, 2007, 09:32 AM

Next great?

**Farnan** · March 13, 2007, 09:33 AM

Well as its potential.

**-Conan the Barbarian-** · March 13, 2007, 09:36 AM

Then yes ofcourse the space program potentially is humanities next great achievement and I would not say that it is a waste of money although there might be some instances where money is wasted.

**William the Bastard** · March 13, 2007, 09:45 AM

Would I be right in saying that most of the old space program that took men to the moon was actually more to do with the cold war and rocket/missile technology? War has always progressed technology and so I think that with the current enemies of the technologically proud West the need to push for space has floundered. What's your opinions.

**Spart** · March 13, 2007, 09:50 AM

Umm.. Yeah, maybe we should get things right here on earth before moving to other worlds. As a science, it's fine, but the space tourism for rich people and such.. Waste.

**the_mango55** · March 13, 2007, 09:59 AM

Originally Posted by Spartacus the Finn

Umm.. Yeah, maybe we should get things right here on earth before moving to other worlds. As a science, it's fine, but the space tourism for rich people and such.. Waste.

Yes, but this would be akin to saying "we need to get things right here in Europe before we start moving on to the new world." Things are never going to be "set right."

And cars started out as being only for rich people.

**Idwayreth** · March 14, 2007, 02:10 AM

Originally Posted by Spartacus the Finn

Umm.. Yeah, maybe we should get things right here on earth before moving to other worlds. As a science, it's fine, but the space tourism for rich people and such.. Waste.

Thank god people do not follow that line of thinking or we'd still be ignorant of the New World to this day.

**-Conan the Barbarian-** · March 13, 2007, 09:52 AM

War was an incentive to push the boundaries of technology in that field and there has been a pause in achievement by the government. Privately however there has been achievement such as Burt Ratan and his commercial spaceship which is pushing the boundaries of affordable rocket ships.

**William the Bastard** · March 13, 2007, 10:07 AM

Being a tourist is not what I consider a great achievement no matter where it is (unless you put in a lot of effort to get there eg. Everest but then your not a tourist your an explorer). The world needs to do something to lighten the mood of the planet. Putting men on Mars would be great. I would like to see a flag for the human race instead of the stars and stripes on the surface. Even if the Americans are the main investors and project leaders with NASA countries such as Iran would probably see this as a humbling and selfless gesture to mankind as opposed to look at us and our achievements attitude that many now feel towards the US. These are my views not my opinions.

**LoZz** · March 13, 2007, 10:37 AM

space could do many things.

the problem is, we dont know what is out their, it could bring amazeing things.

for example their must be somewhere out their living organismes, like bacteria, and we could find the cure for cancer this way, we could also find a deases so deadly as to distroy us

**~~Cassy~~** · March 13, 2007, 10:48 AM

I think it's a very good investment. I think less should be spent on militarising space, however.

**Anachronist** · March 13, 2007, 11:04 AM

Originally Posted by Cassy

I think less should be spent on militarising space, however.

Star Wars anybody?

**Erik** · March 13, 2007, 11:44 AM

Manned space flights were a complete waste of money.
But most other space programs have been very useful to humanity and the progress of science.

Just imagine a world without telecommunication satellites or GPS.
And I'm glad we know as much about the universe as we do now.

**Syron** · March 13, 2007, 11:51 AM

Originally Posted by Erik

Manned space flights were a complete waste of money.

Without "human interest" in space, unmanned space projects would never get the funding they need. for example in the US, manned flight is the flagship that gets attention at congress. If manned flight didn't exist, unmanned exploration wouldn't get more money, it would get less.

Supports of humans in space, and the technology involved in doing it, are what bring many of the benefits. You can't have technological progress from where humans don't go, there is no interest. Why don't you think ESA has never done away with manned flight completely?

**Muizer** · March 13, 2007, 12:40 PM

As a step to breaking the space frontier, manned spaceflight and research aimed at sustaining human life in space are a waste of time and money. It's never going to happen. It may be worthwhile to research uploading the human mind into a machine and send that off into space. After all, such "spaceships" would be incomparibly smaller (less weight=higher speed), require less energy and matter and be less picky with material resources.