Space exploration is an easy target. It’s high profile and when something fails, it’s usually pretty spectacular in its failure. This fuels people’s perception that it’s a waste of time, effort, and money.

Well, if the government used all the money from the space program and put it toalleviating poverty, we would blah, blah, blah

The Government declared War on Poverty in the 1960s. The number of people on permanent benefits (i.e. welfare) has increased
The Government declared a War on Drugs in the 80s. The drugs are now more plentiful, cheaper and better quality.

Please, please save us from another Government program! NASA included.

They were the ones who got obsessed with the shuttle at the expense of ANY alternative. And when the shuttle is retired it will be years before the space program can get something up and running (especially with King Welfare in the Oval Office)

China will own the high ground

Yay….

We already had a space shuttle called Enterprise. It was the first one.

Apart from the resources that we’ve put into orbit (what goes up …) and a few pieces of scrap metal scattered about like child’s toys, all the resources are still here on Earth. We may have to dig up garbage dumps to get at them, but …

Apart from matter, we’re not running short of energy (’til the Sun craps out anyway). We won’t be able to pig out thoughtlessly any more, but hey – there’s some ‘exploration’ for ya.

Apart from mining, though, it’s clear there’s *no place worth going* in the solar system – and little hope of getting beyond it in the foreseeable future. So just where are we going to explore or escape-to? No-atmosphere Mars? Near-absolute-zero moons of gaseous giants? Please. Sheer pulp fantasies. The ‘desolate’ moon? For what … to ’survive’? For sure insanity would survive.

If we’re going to build arks (or whatever Gerard called them) then yeah, we’ll need resources – but nobody’s given that serious thought. Deorbit the space station we spent $100 billion on? Why not park it in a higher orbit and save it – in case we think of a use for it? What about all the precious bodily resources we used to push it up there!

This conversation is a cacophony. Because there’s no accord whatever on the direction to take. Because the options are few and tendentious. Because our technology is too limited. Because we’re burning through options to support any number of pulp fantasies that will never be realized.

We’re essentially stuck here, we’re not going anywhere, we’ve proven that we don’t even know how to get along and live in an *cushy* environment and yet we want a *bigger* challenge?

Phil, you’re on the wrong crusade.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Situ_Resource_Utilization

http://www.nss.org/settlement/mars/zubrin-frontier.html

or we will stagnate and die.