OT: space age (was Re: [sdiy] the function of neon lamps?)

[Richard Wentk]

At 15:01 24/01/2005, Rainer Buchty wrote:
> >just another comment, off topic... as someone born in the 50's, to
> >associate 'space age' and 'science fiction' with a quaint silly past
> >that had fantasies of exploring the planets... 'Forbidden Planet'
> >etc.... just seems a bit sad..  I mean, we're sending pictures from
> >Titan, right?  Knowledge for it's own sake and all?
>
>Sad part is that despite any progress (most notably in the field of
>microelectronics) we are still no step further than back in the 60s.
>
>It would still take 3 days to the Moon and Mars is still way out of
>reach, even for a one-way trip.

One of the Apollo astronauts has proposed a kind of taxi mission which 
includes a permanent orbiter in an energy efficient orbit that could get to 
Mars and back much more quickly than a point to point mission.

It looks like a good idea, but it seems to have been ignored.

The Moon is distant because ISS, which was supposed to be the Great White 
Hope turned into the Great White Elephant for political reasons instead of 
providing a staging platform. (E.g. keeping some of the former USSR missile 
designers gainfully employed.)

>Sure, NASA and ESA mastered playing cosmic billard and did a brilliant
>job on Mars exploration, probing Titan, doing comet rendez-vous... In
>other terms we're far behind and it's getting worse and worse:
>
>- MIR abandoned in favor of ISS (which currently just costs money)

Well, MIR just cost money too. It's biggest innovation was its association 
with space tourism and commercial space sponsorship.

>- Hubble to be abandoned in favor of JWST (even though JWST is literally
>   blind compared to Hubble's range)

Technically that's because there's more science to be done at longer 
wavelengths. It won't produce as many pretty pictures, but should be more 
informative in other ways.

>- Shuttle pretty much grounded

The shuttle was round about where NASA jumped the shark. *Bad* design 
throughout. It's easy to say with hindsight and in many ways it was ahead 
of its time as an idea, but they never quite got it right.

>Looks like the genetic engineers need to do their homework so I will be
>still alive when manned exploration of the solar system takes place --
>and they're searching colonists for Moon or Mars (or Titan, for that
>matter;  after all it looks like a great candidate: water, oxygene,
>organic chemicals, thick enough athmosphere -- all in place, so all you
>basically need is heat).

These are all great places to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. ;-)

Richard