The decline of Man's desire to achieve?

I went to Florida over Christmas and whilst there took a lovely drive in our rented convertible mustang out to the cape and the space center.

I've not always been a space fan, but recently read Riding Rockets by Mike Mullan, his descriptions of the nights he spent sleeping looking at the earth are amazing. I've watched a few TV series and movies, Right Stuff and Earth to the Moon, Tom Hanks excellent chronicle of the apollo program, so a trip to the cape was a fantastic final experience.

But the whole thing leaves a very disappointing taste behind. The space center felt closed and un-used, they are dis-assembling the launch pads. It felt like the first time you went to school out of hours, the deserted hall ways. The talk of this is where the space shuttle used to be prepared. Then to see all the pictures and a moon rock and realize that we actually went there, but nearly 40 years ago. Coulped with the recent retirement of the shuttle and no comparable replacement coming to follow.

It all just left me with one feeling, have we had the best of our times in acheivment, are we contented, everyday software and new hardware are being developed at alarming rates, but there are no new major breakthrews, not like in the C19th. How did they go from Wright Bro first flight in 1903 to landing man on the moon in 1969, 66 years thats within a persons lifetime? Putting aside computers and all that they've done, mechanically we have nothing comparable to the bounds made before. Why haven't we? It feels like the best of acheivements are all dying and not being replaced, space shuttle and concord being the main two.

Is it that we are content with other things, or can we expect great things for the next century, or have we peaked?

maybe later...

  On 1/21/2012 at 2:21 AM, El_Chemso said:

breakthrews.... acheivements... concord

apparently society is degenerating in other ways, too

LOL. he misspelled all those words

i went to the space centre once. got a picture of me and my family with a guy in an astronaut suit.

  On 1/21/2012 at 2:21 AM, El_Chemso said:

Putting aside computers and all that they've done, mechanically we have nothing comparable to the bounds made before. Why haven't we?

Most new stuff like nanoscale assembly or bioengineering is tiny, intricate, and very hard to understand. Try checking out how the CPU in the smartphone in your pocket was assembled. New technology is not big, it's small, and it's hugely impressive if you don't take it for granted.

I'm guessing most wattm-ers would put space exploration very high on the priority list...shame we don't run the world.

Government doesnt give a shit about space.

I think the discovering that neutrino particle faster than light was pretty good.

  On 1/21/2012 at 2:48 AM, chassis said:

Government doesnt give a shit about space.

 

 

I think the discovering that neutrino particle faster than light was pretty good.

hate to say it but wasn't that disproved?

http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-cetera/cerns-faster-than-light-neutrinos-dilemma-may-have-been-solved-20111014/

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-10-theories-emerge-opera-faster-than-light-neutrinos.html

  On 1/21/2012 at 2:21 AM, El_Chemso said:

Putting aside computers and all that they've done, mechanically we have nothing comparable to the bounds made before. Why haven't we? It feels like the best of acheivements are all dying and not being replaced, space shuttle and concord being the main two.

 

Is it that we are content with other things, or can we expect great things for the next century, or have we peaked?

I wouldn argue that computers themselves were done during that age of adventure - all that's happened since is they've gotten smaller.

In terms of physical things like space exploration - we've run up against some pretty difficult limits to overcome - the laws of physics primarily.

The Concorde? What a waste that was - inefficient, noisy, and superseded by technology.

The desire to create and invent - not gone - just perhaps a little more difficult to obtain :)

I think the desire to make money destroyed any chance we had of becoming "space colonizers". The only thing that would kickstart the desire to advance as a species is a proper "survive/adapt or die" situation.(example climate change)

  On 1/21/2012 at 2:21 AM, El_Chemso said:

It felt like the first time you went to school out of hours, the deserted hall ways.

wow, i had totally forgotten how that used to weird me out for some reason.

sagan was always urging to get beyond low earth orbit. i think the day he died was the day the space program proper did. everything we have done since with the exception of a few things like hubble has been pissing about within low earth orbit, aka diet fucking coke space program.

we need another sagan, another visionary who can rally public support using wonderful, poetic descriptions. sadly i do not think this is going to happen. neil degrasse tyson wants it to, but unless his revised version of cosmos is truly fucking amazing, it's not going to.

and i think it's really sad because the planet is kinda fucked, and getting a man to step foot on mars regardless of the cost is exactly the kind of thing we need to inspire hope in the fact we can get shit done. but the only thing that could probably get that done is a second cold war.

  On 1/21/2012 at 4:16 AM, kaini said:

the planet is kinda fucked, and getting a man to step foot on mars regardless of the cost is exactly the kind of thing we need to inspire hope in the fact we can get shit done.

This is such an appalling perspective to have. Running away from Earth and all the problems we've created would be the ultimate bitch move - the final proof that we've learned nothing as a species. We need to take responsibility for our actions and clean our act the fuck up. Technology can help us do this but really we need a shift in mass consciousness if we are to have any chance of 'making it'.

If we could stop killing each other and raping the environment that would be a real achievement. Not some fucking useless space program.

the thing that brought home the atrophy of imagination in most Americans was the failure of the mars rovers to create a surge of public interest. When Spirit and Opportunity first landed on mars and for several months thereafter, I was constantly checking their latest photos. Even years in, I still check their website from time to time. But it seemed apart from a few magazine cover stories, public interest fizzled. Even George Dubya couldn't incite enthusiasm for new manned mars missions. Wtf? I don't give a shit about ipad 4, give me mars colonies...

Edit: way to troll, Lucy Faringold. Seems to me the two aren't mutually exclusive; if we could make a thriving colony out of the dry sand on Mars it should go a long way to teaching us more about sustainability on Earth, imo.

  On 1/21/2012 at 4:36 AM, Lucy Faringold said:

  On 1/21/2012 at 4:16 AM, kaini said:

the planet is kinda fucked, and getting a man to step foot on mars regardless of the cost is exactly the kind of thing we need to inspire hope in the fact we can get shit done.

 

This is such an appalling perspective to have. Running away from Earth and all the problems we've created would be the ultimate bitch move - the final proof that we've learned nothing as a species. We need to take responsibility for our actions and clean our act the fuck up. Technology can help us do this but really we need a shift in mass consciousness if we are to have any chance of 'making it'.

 

If we could stop killing each other and raping the environment that would be a real achievement. Not some fucking useless space program.

you really think so?

think of all the accidental technological advances just placing a man on the moon has had. modern CPUs like the one you're using to post your opinion here? you'd be posting your opinion a lot more slowly if it wasn't for that. high-precision mirrors like than on hubble? wouldn't exist without the high-precision mirrors apollo placed on the moon. i don't know if you use GPS, but that's based on the same space program (as well as being the first true practicall demonstration that relativity actually exists beyond a few vague astronomical observations). what i'm talking about is not just the act of placing a man on mars, but all the accompanying stuff we'd learn along the way as well. we'd learn stuff about radiation shielding, extremely long-distance communication, and more esoteric stuff like space medicine, the effects of isolation on the human psyche, potential applications of zero gravity to industrial manufacture, data regarding industrial hardening of CPUs, which sort of exercise is most effective to maintain our muscles which are evolutionarily suited to earth gravity, space agriculture, and i could go on and on... all of which would prove useful in future endeavours.

this would not be simply about landing a man on another planet, it would be about learning other stuff so we can go further.

and besides any of that, hope is the strongest thing we have. placing a man on the moon was definitely a major factor in ending things like nuclear testing in space, and potentially on earth too. placing a man on mars might well be the unifying factor we really need at this point.

Plus ray-guns. It's crucial we kill all martians now, before they can spread to earth...

we never really went to the moon

ok

we went to the moon and the aliens told us never come back

ok

we went to the moon and everything was ok but

but not really because

El_Chemso feels otherwise

it's a test

choose one

  On 1/21/2012 at 4:51 AM, yikes said:

we never really went to the moon

 

ok

 

 

we went to the moon and the aliens told us never come back

 

 

ok

 

we went to the moon and everything was ok but

 

 

 

 

but not really because

 

 

El_Chemso feels otherwise

 

 

 

it's a test

choose one

oh shut the fuck up you waste of SQL space.

  On 1/21/2012 at 4:36 AM, Lucy Faringold said:

If we could stop killing each other and raping the environment that would be a real achievement. Not some fucking useless space program.

one other thing, we really don't know jack shit about the environment, because it's a chaotic system that moves at a rather slow pace. the best possible chance we have at understanding to any degree is to study other, similar systems that have run out of control. we have two choices there - mars (dry, cold, fucked) or venus (hot, wet, fucked, but where surface pressure is similar to that at the bottom of the ocean, and it rains ammonia and sulphuric acid). i know which of the two i'd pick.

i'd rather fire a million probes at mars in the hope of learning something than to sit at home and remain bewildered why my climate is running out of control. mars and venus are both examples of what could happen if we leave earth's climate to do what it does, perhaps due to us. that particular last statement definitely deserves the 'perhaps'; we just don't know. but i'd like to err on the side of safety and get as much information as i can.

if the desire to conquer space gets voided, it is decidedly so by the rapidly diminished will of married men. the desire to conquer anything other than a twelve pack, a salami, 2 football games and a block of cheese the size of a car battery is all one can realisticly hope for. any 2 of those is a succesful sunday which means it was a succesful week. the space time continuum can go fuck right off.

  On 1/21/2012 at 5:09 AM, jules said:

the desire to conquer anything other than a twelve pack, a salami, 2 football games and a block of cheese the size of a car battery is all one can realisticly hope for.

lol

  On 1/21/2012 at 5:01 AM, kaini said:

  On 1/21/2012 at 4:36 AM, Lucy Faringold said:

If we could stop killing each other and raping the environment that would be a real achievement. Not some fucking useless space program.

 

one other thing, we really don't know jack shit about the environment, because it's a chaotic system that moves at a rather slow pace. the best possible chance we have at understanding to any degree is to study other, similar systems that have run out of control. we have two choices there - mars (dry, cold, fucked) or venus (hot, wet, fucked, but where surface pressure is similar to that at the bottom of the ocean, and it rains ammonia and sulphuric acid). i know which of the two i'd pick.

 

i'd rather fire a million probes at mars in the hope of learning something than to sit at home and remain bewildered why my climate is running out of control. mars and venus are both examples of what could happen if we leave earth's climate to do what it does, perhaps due to us. that particular last statement definitely deserves the 'perhaps'; we just don't know. but i'd like to err on the side of safety and get as much information as i can.

While I fully agree that sending probes and eventually manned flight to Mars is a worthy goal, I would have to disagree that the earth's environment would become like that on Mars or Venus. Simply because the path of our heliocentric orbit prevents us from being either too cold or too hot. When the sun dies, then yes, we're fucked - but all the technology and terraforming possible by then won't do jack shit to save us.

We do understand quite a bit about our environment, and we're learning more all the time. We're also better equipped to create better hypotheses about what changes in the environement we might be causing. Bad Astronomy just did a piece (I love that blog) that's pretty darned informative: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/01/20/2011-the-9th-hottest-year-on-record/

I have to say that video someone posted here a while back with that physicist talking about how the increasing expansion of the universe will mean at a distant point in the future we won't even be able to see other galaxies (presuming we still exist) because they will be moving away from us at faster than the speed of light, really blew my mind. I now believe the space race is really nothing more than a diversion, a really cool diversion to be sure, but I expect the major transformative "Childhood's End" moment will come from within rather than from without. Probably our AI will outgrow us and spread out into the universe, doing things we could never imagine...it wouldn't surprise me if mankind's last great moment is waving goodbye to our AI progeny