I believed in NASA, in America, in Europe, in China, in everyone. We would be able to go further, leave our troubles behind, and strive for a better future, where we no longer live with all our eggs in a basket with suicidal tendencies.

As I grew, I learned more of reality. I no longer believed my adulthood would be filled with Star Trek-age technology, with my own starship to travel the galaxy. Inspirational "Hard Scifi" books, such as Red Mars, served as more appropriate dream-feeders for my age.

Each delay, each problem that plagued us as a species, was just another piece of evidence that we were moving forward, making progress. The unforeseen was a challenge that proved, in my mind, that we could forge a path to the future.

When the ISS was behind schedule, I didn't worry.
When Colombia burned up, I didn't worry.
When Bush proclaimed Space to be the next frontier, I cheered.
While progress slowed, the new designs for the future, the latest "What's Next" kept me occupied.

Go on

And yet, I could not hide forever.

Cancellations of programs, reduced funding, politics, red tape, conflicts, wars, fighting, spending elsewhere, apathy, ignorance.

My dream is gone. Man seems all to eager to sleep in his cradle, while my mind strives to be free.

Where did we go wrong, /sci/? How could the species that brought itself to its natural satellite in less than a decade of effort fall so low?

your from newmars aren't you?

I noticed that someone told you to come here to start a meme

>>1472163
Don't worry Private corporations will take us back to the moon.

>>1472163
...increased funding...
Fix'd

>>1472165
Newmars?

>>1472173
I asked this because I have continually been in despair over the state of Space Exploration. What is meme-like about my question?

>>1472163
Lets try to make it better instead of complaining about it on the Internet.

>>1472177
Over its history, NASA has received less and less funding. Minor boosts do not reverse a long-term trend. NASA currently receives about half a penny of every tax dollar in the USA. As for other Space Agencies, I have less knowledge.

>>1472163
preoccupation with popularity instead of something awesome

panem et circenses is the bane of the populist civilization

There is no profit in a short-time frame (ie; the lives of the investors) in space.

>>1472182
I can write to politicians, but I'm only one man. I'm studying to be an engineer, but I'm only one man. Do you have an idea?

>>1472200

>>1472104
i can relate, op

unfortunately,
we live on a planet full of people waiting to die and get rewarded for their faith. not much motivation for progress in a life they believe is just a test of faith.

>>1472190
>>1472198
Shortsightedness will be our downfall.

>>1472163

People just don't see the importance of it all the way we do man. My own family doesn't even give a shit. They'll humor me from time to time but 99% of my telescope sessions are done alone. They think I'm some kind of super genius because I love astronomy and physics and they assume whatever I have to say will go right over their heads. That's fine by me. You just have to find people that share your passion and surround yourself with them, and never forget that the government can't stop us from dreaming.

>>1472163
Because we started wrong, space was a program, a medium to measure strength between two powers, and not a place to be developed and grown into. We touched the moon, but we did it with tools that were useless to do more than poke, then we lost interest and those that didn't were poisoned by visions of monolithic super programs that would never find a reason to be funded. Only now grudgingly are we looking at doing it right, many different groups doing different thing for different reasons, many will fail, some will die, but every success will seed paths to further growth.

>>1472104

All the major world powers (with the exception of China) have democracy as a fundamental pillar of their government. Democracy is based, in some way, on majority, or popular, rule. The majority of people are idiots.

The best form of government in use today is nowhere near perfect, and results in situations like this one.

>>1472181
google "flyback booster" click second link

these folks are like all the best of space threads on /sci/ without the cancer

The shuttle was a ridiculous boondoggle which, if anything, set the space program back.

>>1472208
more?

>>1472245
As I recall, NASA needed funding for their new Super Shuttle, which would have great turnaround times and generally be a good, cheap space vehicle. The only ones that would fund it were the Air Force Brass, and they wanted to be able to use it as a weapon. NASA changed the design, Air Force said "lol whatever" and didn't use it, and now we have the LEO piece of crap we have today.

That sound about right?

Tell me, what will I get for investing billions of dollars into this? That's right, nothing. Therefore, GTFO.

OP, this guy is the reason everything has gone to shit >>1472265

>>1472245
You likely don't know the half of it, read a book called "this new ocean", covers the history of space exploration up to the early 90's with a lot of focus on the politics behind the curtain, the politics played and out right lying done to get the shuttle flying is downright grotesque.

I am doing something. I will make a solar powered tug. First I will use it to ferry shit from leo to higher orbits, then I will buy satalites that where deliverd to unusable orbits and sell them to people who can now use them. Next I will ferry shit to the moon, land it on the moon shoot moon rocks up and ferry them back to reentry trajectory. I will sell the rocks to folks. I will continue tuging around satellites and selling moon dirt untill I can build a cannon on the moon to shoot shit out cheaper. Then I will start a platinum mine on the moon, flowed by a fuel prosing plant and manufacturing areas. I will build colony ships in parts shoot them to low lunar orbit for construction then its off to mars...

Ancient China had the art of massive shipbuilding down pat. They set out exploring, and discovered (and conquered) much. They then decided to cease exploration, and within a century lost the art. Europe came into the picture soon after, and China was whored out to foreign nations for centuries.


Moral of the story? Exploration is vital.

>>1472312
later I will make a magnetic train in the ort cloud 2-3 au long and shoot multi generational closed life support colony ships deep into space

>>1472314
Investing to explore the Earth with ships will easily give you power and profit within your lifetime, even years. Exploring space will be a massive money sink to start off with, and no "profit" for at least centuries.

Umm yea you faggots, we kinda have bigger issues to deal with than fucking throwing all our money into space. This is why scientists should never control money. They're too disconnected from reality.

We thought that space travel would be just like everything else we've ever accomplished: Hard to imagine but easier and easier to do once we understood it. We experienced technological advancement as a continuous upwards climb towards the simple and the routine.

We had gone from the beginnings of manned flight to a moon landing in a single human lifetime.

But space travel never got easier. There wasn't some amazing new power source out there that made it cheap and easy to escape Earth's gravity... and there's no natural world in space to provide air, water, comfortable temperature, and the protection from radiation that we take for granted here on earth.

>>1472410
does this look like /cosplay/ you fucking faggot?

In other words, the dream you had was a false dream. As much a fantasy as Tolkien's Middle Earth.

>>1472314

Yet Chinese exploration contributed nothing to Chinese society, since they really never discovered anything in the process. And they pretty much bankrupted themselves in the process, which was what led to that backlash in the first place.

>>1472314
Plus the costs inherent to space exploration dwarf anything on earth. Once you leave our atmosphere, there's nowhere as habitable as Antarctica anywhere within trillions of miles. That's daunting.

>>1472425
A neutral effect is preferable to a negative one, correct?

High expectations tempt us to exceed them...but when we expect so little, we fall apart...

There are two versions of the NASA Authorization Bill going through the legislative procedure in Congress right now... the original draft of the Senate version was pretty fucking sweet, but now in the newer versions, both the House and the Senate have caved into the pressure from the Constellationfags. Both bills now cut virtually all funding set aside to help the commercial industry develop, as well as most of the science and development funding in order to continue shoveling money into the black hole that is Ares I.

About the only thing you can do is write to your representatives asking them to support the original draft of the Senate bill and hope enough people do the same.

>>1472345
> Implying those people knew the exploration would pay off

>>1472451
I know a lot of people who expect the world to end within their lifetime because Jesus is coming back any day now. Will trying to exceed those expectations by working to end the world themselves lead to a brilliant new tomorrow?

>>1472442
That is why some research is being done on how moon bases may be self-supportive. With nuclear reactors (fusion, hopefull), moon bases, and even mars bases are doable, but are intially very expensive. Terraforming is also theoreticall possible, but is also very, very expensive and will take time.

>>1472468
Those people can't work, though. Their faith requires them to do nothing and just wish the world was a better place.

>>1472460
>implying the explorations did pay off

>implying exploring new lands for resources like cold and cotten, technology, trade, etc. weren't known to profit derp

>>1472470
You did not just seriously suggest terraforming the fucking Moon.

>>1472487
I meant Mars.

>>1472442
>>1472422
>>1472410
>>1472385
You should be ashamed to even call yourselves human beings.

>>1472470
Yes. If we had developed cheap, simple fusion in the 1970's then we'd be living in a brave new world. Heck, if we'd developed cheap, simple fission in the 1970's we'd be well on our way.

We didn't.

There is no energy technology on earth that works better than oil. Not for lack of scientific effort, but for lack of easy answers.

silicon world

>>1472458
THIS!!

>>1472442
>>1472422
>>1472410
>>1472385

Hari Seldon would be disappoint.

>>1472501
>>1472501
That is such an embarrassing lie that I don't even know where to start.

>>1472501
More like cause funding for nuclear engergy was drastically cut cause of faggots protesting it from fear of another Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, etc.

>>1472505
Fuck. EVERYONE is disappointed with these guys.

>>1472501
We have trained ourselves to fear the word Nuclear, much like a dog salivates in anticipation of a meal. Pavlov would be proud.

>>1472507
Start with naming one energy resource that's as fungible, as energy dense, and as easily convertible into every kind of power as gasoline.

>>1472523
Fungible?

>>1472501
>Heck, if we'd developed cheap, simple fission in the 1970's we'd be well on our way.
We did. Politics prevents it from being used.

>>1472513
>>1472520
We only have nuclear power BECAUSE of fear. It's so absurdly expensive that it could only be justified as defense spending.

>>1472534
Nuclear is even cheaper than coal.

>>1472523
Things that are guaranteed to be around long after peak oil: The sun, Geothermal energy, the basic physics of nuclear reactions.

>>1472534

>>1472545
None of those thing can really replace gasoline.

>>1472548
Those nuclear costs ignore the enormous defense subsidy that fuel enrichment receives.

Oh, I forgot about hydro-electric power.

>>1472554
Yes, they actually do.

>>1472557
[citation needed]

>>1472557
Does Finland also get money from the US's defense budget?
>>1472560

>>1472561
Yeah, they work so well that we have solar, geothermal, and nuclear cars for sale right now.

>>1472575

>>1472520

>>1472578
?

>>1472575
Are you trolling or are you really that stupid?

>>1472575
We don't have that because there's is/was too much protest against nuclear energy research and developement.

>OP expresses disappointment in apathy towards space program.
>anon suggests something people can do about it >>1472458
> /sci/ continues to philosophize about technocracies and and bitch and whine 'if only there was something we could do about it!'

let's start a bakesale to raise funding to go the moon again, who's with me?

>>1472583
It's not stupid to realize that solar, geothermal, and nuclear power can't run a real car.

>>1472588
You have a point, but I still think a nuclear powered car is far fetched.

>>1472590
>>1472590
>>1472590
>>1472590
>>1472590
>>1472590
>>1472590
>>1472590
>>1472590
>>1472590
>>1472590
>>1472590
>>1472590
>>1472590
>>1472590

>>1472590
but that would require getting off their metaphorical asses and no longer being able to blame others for a lack of progress.

THERE IS ONLY 1 INTELLIGENT SPECIES ON OUR PLANET OUT OF LIKE 2 MILLION.

THERE IS ONLY ONE PLANET IN OUR SOLAR SYSTEM WITH LIFE.

BASED ON THIS, THE PERCENTAGE OF STAR SYSTEMS WITH INTELLIGENT LIFE IS PROBABLY LIKE 1 OUT OF 100 MILLION.

THAT MEANS THERE ARE 1000 STAR SYSTEMS WITH INTELLIGENT LIFE IN OUR GALAXY.

THAT MEANS ON AVERAGE YOU HAVE TO VISIT 100 MILLION SOLAR SYSTEMS TO FIND INTELLIGENT ALIENS.

THAT MEANS IT WOULD TAKE ON AVERAGE ABOUT 200 MILLION YEARS TO FIND A SINGLE INTELLIGENT SPECIES.

>WITHIN 50 YEARS WE WILL BE ABLE TO GENETICALLY ENGINEER CREATURES WHICH ARE STRANGER AND MORE INTELLIGENT THAN ANYTHING IN THE GALAXY.

>>1472592
Sorry to burst your bubble there, but American public schools get more funding per pupil than any other country in the world. They DO 'get all the money they need'.

Politicians/rich people are the faggots that can do something, and whoever we elect turns out to be retarded.

Don't worry, OP. I'll take over this country one day and restore the pioneer spirit.

>>1472603
>derp, i don't know that superconductors at room temp. will be around within the next few 100 years, thus allowing totally electric cars, powered by solar farms on the other side of the planet

>>1472636
>Implying that the next few hundred years is now or the near future.

>>1472590

this

>>1472590
>>1472609
>>1472623
>>1472643
samefag

>>1472642
>Also implying tat solar will ever be competitive, that we won't have fusion by then, that we will still be confined to the earth, and that we will even be around by then.

>>1472648
>idiotfag forgot to check for samefag before accusing of samefag

>>1472632
>They DO 'get all the money they need'.
You're kidding, right? And it was just a random picture I put on the post. It's somewhat relevant.

>>1472634
And hey! Most of the progress being made today is funded by successful entrepreneurs like Bigelow, Musk, and Branson. Waiting for the second coming of JFK isn't going to accomplish anything.

>>1472634
Yes... but the thing politicians want more than anything else is to keep their asses in office.

YOU are their constituents. A congressman keeping his job depends on making sure his constituency is happy with the job he's doing. While it doesn't seem like writing a letter will make a difference, think about it from the perspective of your representative.
It's a midterm election season and you, like a LOT of congressmen are up for reelection - you NEED every vote you can get... and every person whose support you lose because of how you vote on a bill or the stance you take on an issue is potentially one less person voting for you, one less person convincing their friends and family to vote for you, one less person campaigning for people to vote for you.

Sacrificing one person's support can cost you one vote or it can cost you a whole district.

>>1472667

Fuck the corporations.

>>1472693
how about...
>fuck the evil corporations that only care about money

I mean, there are some small corporations that are kinda cool

>>1472693
eat the rich, fight the system!

End corporate personalization, right a treacherous wrong that has plagued international society.

>>1472728
There has never once been a rich man who deserved his wealth. Prove me wrong, faggot.

Sci:
>I could do something to make a difference... but I'd rather sit on my ass and complain about like... how stupid rich people are and how like... you know... the corporations and fatcats and stuff man... they're like... bad and junk...you know?

>>1472759
A whiny child of privilege wants to argue about earning, ah 4chan never change.

Let's ask a better question for this board, what is the best medium where ideas on the space exploration issue can be discussed effectively? We want to be as open to original ideas as possible while still being able to avoid crap like this: >>1472812

>>1472878
Let's ask an even better question of this board: Are you content with sitting on your asses while NASA is stripped down and transformed into a glorified jobs program and while the developing private spaceflight industry is snuffed out... ensuring virtually all exploration and expansion in space is shut down in our lifetimes? Or would you rather do something about it?

go read some baxter and niven. the sci fi you listed is sub par at best.

>>1472922
I'm working with robotics, my immediate goals are terrestrial, but automation in manufacturing and agriculture will be key to developing space. If my ideas work out I'll certainly be investing some of them in space.

>>1472922
I want to do something about it. I've written and performed speeches at tournaments about Space, but that's about it.

TIME TO WRITE TO POLITICIANS, TIME TO CHANGE THE WORLD.

>>1473023
This, since nobody care about sending human in space we may as well cut the cost and send robot that will do repetitive job ten time faster.

>>1472505
Sometime I really wonder if our only chance would be to prepare things sort of like Hari Seldon.
World will collapse ? Stay out of range, brace for impact and rebuild behind showing the precedent model as utter failure.

Unfortunately since we surely won't agree about what goes bad it may be just a cyclic Chaos.

I stopped paying attention the to shit in Congress right now. I'm just disappointed that Obama goes on endlessly about creating and saving jobs, but there's been a ton of layoffs at NASA.

So not only are we not going to space, but he's destroying the already fucked up lives of everyone in South Houston. Fuck you, Mr. President.

>>1474725
He's been saving other, useful jobs.
If NASA can't get us to Mars and back in a month with trillions of dollars in benefits, then no president will ever approve the budget needed for any real Space missions.

That's the harsh reality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc

This is for you OP.

ops image totally broke my heart again

(>>1475726 here)

This is the most touching thread I've seen on /sci/.
Problem is there are more and more people on /sci/ on the opposite line of thinking.. I wish we could depart from each other.

>>1474562
This!! I'm going to write my senators too! Cmon guys, if enough of us write, and we convince enough other people to write, it might be enough to at least get their attention :)

>>1474725
Most of the jobs being lost are because of the shuttle program ending. There's nothing anyone can do about that anymore, the end of the shuttle program has been set in stone for six years now, and most of the architecture needed to continue the program has (like what happened with the Saturn V) been shut down for years already.

Constellation isn't a 'bold space plan'... it's just a very very expensive, taxpayer funded effort to keep as many of the shuttle jobs as possible. NASA is not a fucking jobs program... if you think aerospace engineers and the like are going to have a hard time finding a job you're out of your mind.

so much collectivist stuff going on here

>>1472603
>Implying the coming generation of electric cars aren't real cars

>>1472181

If it took them less than a decade to put a man in space....

Don't you think they'll figure it out once the earth is unusable? It's not far off, definitely by the end of the century. OP, if you're in the same age bracket as the rest of us (14-30), I'm sure you'll get a chance to go to space.

>>1475945
... I think I'm going to go with the "make an effort to convince our elected officials NOT to completely fuck over space exploration for the next century" option over your "sit on my apathetic ass on the off chance that I get to go into space when I'm 90 years old" option.

>>1472603
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon

bump

>>1472314
Pffff, like that would ever happen to us.


Ohhh.. waaiit..

>>1477926
It's not too late for us to redeem ourselves though... especially if we help get the private spaceflight industry up and running.

Hell, with so many countries and private interests wanting to start their own space program... 'space' could become an American export. How cool would that be.

OP here, I suppose the best I can do at the moment is to write my representatives and senators. Politicians are the ones that control NASA, even if indirectly.

I only hope the private industry manages to take up the slack, but it's a long-term investment.

>>1472163
Politics. The end of the space race, we didn't need to beat the Soviets anymore, WE HAD WON! Senators started looking to for money they didn't have to spend. There was a war going on after all. So they cut going to the Moon. But NASA still had ambition then.

It wasn't until 1977 when some senator got angry, went national television, and basically said building a space colony was stupid and that NASA's budget should be cut to the bone. After all we had plenty of land on Earth and we didn't need to have a space solar power satellite or space manufacturing capability. He got his wish and NASA's budget was cut to the bone.

>>1479260
NASA never really recovered from that. Their attitude changed. They lost ambition. "No we can't do that, if we do some senator might get angry at us and chop our funding some more." They didn't want to repeat what had happened before.

There's hope however, the Japanese space program is doing some pretty interesting stuff, they landed a probe on an asteroid, possibly sampling some dust on it, and that wasn't even the point of the mission. They deployed the first working solar sail. And they're doing all this on a shoe string budget.

The thing is though, they're doing this as a national economic recovery- national pride thing. They've even found a way to get the public involved, much more so than NASA does. IE putting anime characters on their spacecraft and personalizing their spacecraft into mangas.

Still they don't have any human spaceflight plans, but they're ambitious.

>>1479260
Which Senator? I want to read up on this.

>>1479336
a dead one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Proxmire#Legislative_career

>>1479377
American politics, the real reason why we will never have nice things.

>>1479326
Fuck waiting for someone else to do it... /sci/ needs to grow a pair, those of us pissed about the direction our space program is going need to actually DO something about it!

>>1479427
I'm writing to my senator as I speak.

>>1479438
before you do:
http://mother-of-robots.org/

Fuck NASA, the future is in the private sector.

http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=56

>>1479403
Don't see uk doing anything real in space

>>1472218
are you me in another dimension?...

>>1479471
The UK is a member of the European Space Agency:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Space_Agency

>>1479510
No, they were never part of the ESA, and now they're starting their own program, UKSA