Thread: Space exploration, why we do it

I watched a rerun of a BBC miniseries last night, it was about a fictional manned spaceship named Pegasus, which was sent on a mission through the solar system. It showed how they visited Venus, Mars, Io, the rings of Saturn, Pluto and a comet before going home. It was very well done. The scenes from all those worlds seemed to be realistic and absolutely fantastic and stunning. They also demonstrated how difficult it was to develop technologies necessary to land humans on such hostile worlds and Venus or Io, or to go really close to the sun, and the dangers of radiation and all those things.

It made me think about something that Wernher von Braun said:
"Don't tell me that man doesn't belong out there. Man belongs wherever he wants to go--and he'll do plenty well when he gets there."

And I realised that even though all these worlds are terribly hostile to us, it must be a testament to humanity that we still try so hard to protect ourselves so that we can go out there. Scientists are working on how to shield astronauts from radiation for example, and how to combat some problems with long-term zero gravity exposure, so that one day we can return to the Moon, continue to Mars and beyond. It's terribly dangerous yet we want to go. It seems to be a really strong desire.

And when I look up at the sky, or observe the planets through my telescope, or look at the images brought back from our robotic explorers out there, I cannot help but feel that strong desire too, to go into Earth orbit, to go to the Moon and to Mars. I want to go to Jupiter and many of its moons, to watch Jupiter in the sky as I stand on Callisto. And then on to Saturn to see the rings with my own eyes, and to land on Titan, and maybe even land on Iapetus to stand upon that giant equatorial "wall". I wish to visit Uranus and some of its moons, and then continue to Neptune, where Triton is an obvious place to visit, with its giant nitrogen/organic compounds geysers. So many fantastic worlds. I am conviced that one day we will have visited many of them.

Somehow, sometime, I want go into space, even though it's epensive. Knowing there are risks, it might be the last thing I'll ever do.

I believe there are many practical reasons to spread out through the solar system, as well as scientific reasons. Then of course there are the uplifting effect it should have on the public, and the spinoffs, and that, in my belief, our society needs to expand and evolve and grow, unless we want to go the other way.

But there's also the wish for adventure, to experience new and strange worlds that so far has been out of our reach. The sense of wonder and awe is surely one strong reason why we want to go. The worlds in our solar system are so diverse and so strange, that it would be hard to make them up. And that's just the worlds in our own neighbourhood. There are surely billions of more planets in this galaxy alone. We have a lot to do. Let's not waste any more time. :-)

I much agree with your expressed ideas here, Stargazer.

Humankind has long showed the traits of curiosity and wanderlust. Our mudball has all but been explored with the few exceptions of the inaccessable and the ocean. Even with those two parts they have been reasonably mapped through satellite.

One of the fears I have is that we don't get off the planet before we run out of nonrenewable resources. With world population increases also comes demands on all resources on this world. There isn't but just so much of them. Vast though they may be there is an end and when the population reaches the point that it is being so rapidly consumed that it can't be replaced we will again see wars and the like as the resources are fought over. You could lay Little Shrub up as an example of this.

There are resources out in the solar system. Far richer than we have known on this planet. You can readily do a search to find out that the pureness of say platinum might run at around 80% in an asteroid while its terrestial equivalent might run at 20% or less. For things like platinum you begin to find that most of it that was part of the original matter of earth is harder to process. There are places like in Canada where much of the worlds supply comes from an impact site where the concentration is far better than what would be found in the wild of the planet. Even that pales besides the richness of that of the asteroid belt and what is estimated to be found there. In all it would be well worth going for that reason alone.

Space for now will never be a population pressure reducer. Simply it costs to much to raise the mass out of the gravity well to make it economically possible for the now. Prehaps if a beanstalk is ever erected that could change.

Desparetely we need to spread the human population and habitat out into the system. While this could help remove the "eggs in a basket" problem it would likely not help us with something like a neighboring supernova. Still it would be better than we have now. The planet history has already shown that massive dieoffs has happened in the past, no matter the reason. We are fools if we think it can't happen again or that it couldn't be us.

"Then of course there are the uplifting effect it should have on the public, and the spinoffs, and that, in my belief, our society needs to expand and evolve and grow, unless we want to go the other way. "

What other way?

We are ever expanding for we gain knowledge everyday in many different subjects not just cosmology.

Originally Posted by cleft

One of the fears I have is that we don't get off the planet before we run out of nonrenewable resources. With world population increases also comes demands on all resources on this world. There isn't but just so much of them. Vast though they may be there is an end and when the population reaches the point that it is being so rapidly consumed that it can't be replaced we will again see wars and the like as the resources are fought over. You could lay Little Shrub up as an example of this.

Yes there are limited resources, but I suppose it's a matter of extracting them from the Earth. And also we need to start recycling, we can't just keep throwing everything on a big heap and forget it. Perhaps with advanced nanotechnology it will be possible to make use of those resources again.

There are resources out in the solar system. Far richer than we have known on this planet. You can readily do a search to find out that the pureness of say platinum might run at around 80% in an asteroid while its terrestial equivalent might run at 20% or less. For things like platinum you begin to find that most of it that was part of the original matter of earth is harder to process. There are places like in Canada where much of the worlds supply comes from an impact site where the concentration is far better than what would be found in the wild of the planet. Even that pales besides the richness of that of the asteroid belt and what is estimated to be found there. In all it would be well worth going for that reason alone.

Absolutely. We can send those resources back to Earth, and we could also use them in space, since it's much easier to build huge structures in zero G. Spacestations and spaceships larger than anything imagined before would be possible at a lower cost.

Space for now will never be a population pressure reducer. Simply it costs to much to raise the mass out of the gravity well to make it economically possible for the now. Prehaps if a beanstalk is ever erected that could change.

Well yes we can't send out a billion people to the Moon and Mars in one go, that would strain our resources! But there's still plenty room left on Earth where people can live. We just have to do so responsibly without destroying nature as we go along.

I'm a huge fan of the concept of the beanstalk. I am sure we can build one within a few decades.

Desparetely we need to spread the human population and habitat out into the system. While this could help remove the "eggs in a basket" problem it would likely not help us with something like a neighboring supernova. Still it would be better than we have now. The planet history has already shown that massive dieoffs has happened in the past, no matter the reason. We are fools if we think it can't happen again or that it couldn't be us.

True, to protect us from nearby supernovae would be difficult. Luckily there are no stars nearby that are close to become supernova.

To shield ourselves from comets and asteroids we need to go out there, we need to explore those worlds to understand them, we need to carry out more surveys to find more of them. Then we need several different methods of deflecting them, and they need to be implemented before the asteroid comes too close. Blow it up, nudge it gently, push it away... many ways we can do it.

Originally Posted by cosmictraveler

"Then of course there are the uplifting effect it should have on the public, and the spinoffs, and that, in my belief, our society needs to expand and evolve and grow, unless we want to go the other way. "

What other way?

We are ever expanding for we gain knowledge everyday in many different subjects not just cosmology.

That's absolutely true of course. I do believe though that the project of becoming a spacefaring species is a huge undertaking that could possibly be a way for us to become more united. It will also result in new technologies, and more scientific knowledge. It will widen our horizons. I believe it's generally a good thing to do. It's not necessary that we will go back or stagnate, but to explore and colonise space would definitely not allow it to happen.

I'm all for space exploration. But why not do it as economically as possible. If machines and computers, i.e. robots can perform the necessary tasks at a fraction of the cost of sending people, then I think they should be used. Sure, it seems likely that the time will come when tech advances allow for people to venture in the 'footsteps' of robots with far less of a financial overhead. In the meantime, we can understand that those less passionate about 'man in space' would rather see the energy applied to earthbound technology - nanotechnology, medicine etc. - all of which will eventually serve humans well when they do venture to the planets.

As for uniting mankind, yes, but only if it involves co-operative international effort. We are seeing this in other research already. For example, the Human Genome Project. Could the exploration of space be done by Iranians, Iraqis, Afghans and North Koreans working alongside Americans and Europeans? I hope so. Otherwise we can envisage a Star Wars scenario. There always seem to be some politicians who are very busy finding people to bomb here on Earth. Is there any reason to believe that things will be different in space?

Originally Posted by redewenur

I'm all for space exploration. But why not do it as economically as possible. If machines and computers, i.e. robots can perform the necessary tasks at a fraction of the cost of sending people, then I think they should be used. Sure, it seems likely that the time will come when tech advances allow for people to venture in the 'footsteps' of robots with far less of a financial overhead. In the meantime, we can understand that those less passionate about 'man in space' would rather see the energy applied to earthbound technology - nanotechnology, medicine etc. - all of which will eventually serve humans well when they do venture to the planets.

In my opinion it would be a shame to stop the tradition of sending people to new places to explore, as we've done all over Earth. Scientists, explorers and adventurers have gone to the highest mountainst, deepest oceans, to the glaciers and the deserts and even Antarctica. People live in such diverse places as Greenland and the Sahara desert and everywhere in between. Right now I see a huge movement for human exploration and colonisation of other worlds, both government projects and private ones. I think robots will not necessarily go in our place, rather we will use robots to go out there.

As for uniting mankind, yes, but only if it involves co-operative international effort. We are seeing this in other research already. For example, the Human Genome Project. Could the exploration of space be done by Iranians, Iraqis, Afghans and North Koreans working alongside Americans and Europeans? I hope so.

Maybe one day. In the near future? No.

Otherwise we can envisage a Star Wars scenario. There always seem to be some politicians who are very busy finding people to bomb here on Earth. Is there any reason to believe that things will be different in space?

I'm worried that gun crazy people will bring weapons into space. I'm not sure how it would benefit humankind though.

I say that space colonisation is the way to go.. who's with me?

Originally Posted by latehorn

I say that space colonisation is the way to go.. who's with me?

I am. I should have started a separate topic in my forums dedicated only to space exploration/colonization and start some detailed projects ..

Space Exploration, why we do it?

Easy:

Why?
1. It is there.
2. Because we can.
3. Because a minority of us humans are curious.
4. Because of all the other more mundane arguments and rationalizations (colonization, zero gravity manufacture, safety for the species, new energy, military needs, asteroid defense, weather satellites, communication, cold war compeitition, etc.) that we basically spout when needed to convince the majority of the non-curious humans to support the effort of the minority of us humans who are curious. Columbus and Magellan had to do the same thing.