Especially when they cringe over what synonym of “humanity” to use and find the concept of “conquest” distasteful, even if all that’s getting conquered is dead rock, some more dead rock, a colorful bit of dead rock, some reddish dead rock, a dusty dead rock, and, to change things up, some probably dead ice.

Pity we’ve become to fat, comfortable, and risk adverse to realize a future in space. That sort of thing takes will; a will this nation of cowards and wimps no longer have.

How come the future never came? We got ripped off.

Yeah, all we got was this stupid global information infrastructure that allows us to choose from hundreds of TV shows, buy music from our living rooms, publish our own journals so that anyone on Earth can read them, carry pocket phones, index vast amounts of data for quick retrieval, view photographic maps that have enough resolution to see cars on the road, install tracking devices in our cars that can pinpoint our location within feet, and watch pornography involving any fetish conceivable.

What a gyp. The world would be so much better with rocket ships and flying cars.

[[home grown solar power has severe limitations, like interference with local wind patterns(wind power), ocean current mixing of nutrients(wave power), fertilizer overflow into the gulf of Mexico from growing corn for ethanol and the subsequent creation of “dead zones”, excessive land requirements for solar cells electric generation, etc, etc, etc,,,,
]]

The amount of energy involved in air motion in Earth’s atmosphere is several orders of magnitude greater than anything we can tap with windmills in the foreseeable future. And ground-based solar thermal power is doing just fine. They even use molten salts to store extra heat during the day so the plants can run at night. Some STEC plants run almost 24/7. I’d much rather have solar and wind power than either fossil fuel or nuclear… or space solar power, which has severe technical problems of its own. Do you know how fast materials and instruments degrade in cislunar space? Do you remember how much it cost to fix the Hubble?

Perhaps in the near term, yes, but that’s not nearly as important in the long run as learning to live there. I also submit that there would be some major economic reshuffling if solar power satellites got up and running in a serious way. They’re much better for the ecology, certainly, and I wish we’d get down to using them much more quickly than we are, but as the rules change for who acquires energy from the source, who distributes it, and how much it costs, don’t think that it will leave the home economy significantly unperturbed.

Energy is the gold and not something that would ruin the home bound economy. It will become the single most important reason for settling the High Frontier, especially when people finally come to the conclusion that home grown solar power has severe limitations, like interference with local wind patterns(wind power), ocean current mixing of nutrients(wave power), fertilizer overflow into the gulf of Mexico from growing corn for ethanol and the subsequent creation of “dead zones”, excessive land requirements for solar cells electric generation, etc, etc, etc,,,,

Granted, high orbit solar power generation has its problems, but at least they don’t garbage the local ecology by interfering with local wind, water and nutrient mixing patterns.

GAry 7

Bah. Upload for a better humanity!

METAL IS BETTER THAN MEAT!

Plus, uploading means no ELSS mass and allows for proper MANLY CONQUEST OF SPACE! RAWR!

I disagree. The best reason to go out into space is ultimately to find out how to live there, not to try to figure out what we can bring back.

If we must look at your New World analogy, consider the countries that sent back gold — primarily Spain and Portugal. Their economies were ruined by both the enormous expense of making round trips with all amenities on board as well as the sudden, massive influx of precious material that used to be much more rare.

On the other hand, there were the Dutch, the English, and the French, who had people go to the New World and set up camp. Their settlements weren’t exactly flashy, and the goods they sent back were humble: furs, food, and the like. But they built empires. (The United States — a country that sent people to the Moon — owes a great deal of its political philosophy to England, for example.)

We need to send people out there so that they can eventually create great societies of their own, not so that they can find some magical McGuffin and bring it back to justify the cost of sending them.

While we are at it, maybe we can find a way to raise human intelligence?

I really don’t care if we send men to mars,
or back to the moon–scientifically, it isn’t so important.

Instead, we have invested heavily in understanding biology–such things as the human genome, vastly improved computers and electronics, solved most of the famous open mathematics problems of the 20th century, discovered the quark, invented the laser, explored the planets with
robot probes, built and used space telescopes, discovered extrasolar planets,
developed the theory of Black holes and found them, developed MRI and CAT and
Organ Transplants etc.

Gee, maybe people should be less depressed. There is only so much time and talent–and it was quite well spent.

>All one needs to know about the prevailing mentality…

>@Chauncy: Not to mention “Man” Conquers Space. Sigh.

Considering the title is related to the article that the movie is based on, I think it’s pretty cool.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Will_Conquer_Space_Soon!

If they changed the name, I’m sure someone else would be displeased.

Hey, if we’d spent all our resources on space exploration, we’d have never wiped out poverty, eliminated cancer, won the war on drugs, and achieved world peace and social harmony!

Would you really have traded all that for a few lonely outposts on Mars?

/snark

July 20th, 1969 was just days before my 9th birthday.

Nothing was impossible.
With Science and human Will and Ingenuity, even the moon was within our grasp.

By my 19th birthday, I realized that it takes more than Science, Will and Ingenuity to get into Space. At the time, I thought my dreams were being knifed by cowardly accountant types that protested that the money should be spent on Earth rather than in Space.

Then, later, I realized that the real reason humanity is not out there is because there is no “gold”. Countless lives were lost exploring the New World because there was money in it. Look at aviation. Lots of money and lots of lives spent on aviation. So, when we can identify the “gold” in space, that is when we will conquer it.

And I think we are on the verge of finding that gold – tourism. I would absolutely pay dearly for a 1 minute ride on the moon – even if it is themed with Sponge Bob.

:-J

As anyone who plays EVE Online will tell you, this is how REAL MEN Conquer Space!

Me, on the other hand, only know secondhand because my ex-roommate played/plays it a lot. Just too… well… I can’t even say time-sinkish. More like Progress Quest. “No, really, the combat requires strategy!” “It looks like you’re just orbiting at optimal range, firing stuff.” “You need to change weapons sometimes, and decide when to run for it!” “Ah.”

Well, Chauncey, we would be happy to provide foreign aid to space as an alternative if you can find someone to cash the checks.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

I’m not sure it would be considered “foreign aid” to space. I think it would be more like space taxing us.

I didn’t see it on the site but is this a movie basically being made by a couple guys in a basement?

Boo. Hoo. Would you prefer “Humyns Engage In A Mutually Beneficial Relationship With Space?”

We’re very sorry that our language doesn’t fit the Sapir-Whorf archetype you’d like where everyone is full of perfect equality and warm hugs for everyone. This probably stems from the fact that, well, we’re not perfect. Admittedly, femninism and joy-joy understanding in language has indicated that what we says show bias. As long as we recognize that bias, I think we’ll live.

“Man” Conquers Space: I’m pretty sure we mean “everybody.” As in “humanity.” We recognize that women are all Man too.

(“Hey, Vasquez, have you ever been mistaken for a man?” “No. Have you?”)

Man “Conquers” Space: Darn tootin’ we do. And we’re gonna OPPRESS all those masses of indigenous moon rocks and pollute the waterless seas and destroy the nonexistant biomes for the betterment of our glorious sentient species!

How come the future never came? We got ripped off.