Why is space so unpopular!!!

Persephones_Dream wrote:

Eric, Heh! Politicians have invented everything. That's how they get votes - especially from the people who don't bother finding out the facts first. ;) I'd have to slightly disagree with you about there being no colonies on the sides of volcanoes. There are quite a number of them in the world whose slopes are populated, sometimes rather extensively - such as Mt. Etna and Mt. Vesuvius.  And, let us not forget Pompeii. One of my favorite quotes of all time is related to both of the above: "Archeaology is the art of uncovering the Truth about the past whereas Politics is the art of covering the Truth about the Present." Cheers! -Ro

...like the long and broad shadow of Vesuvius, Etna and St. Helens, the vastness of space beckons us to dwell within but offers nothing but darkness on the other side in return...

Eric - LOL! Methinks you just might be a pessimist!

BGrigg - Alas, no, I don't work for NASA.  I'm more the university/academic type...sort of...  Years ago, I worked under a NASA grant on part of the SETI project (searching for planets around other star systems) but I have never worked directly for NASA. Maybe some day?  But, in some ways, they really don't need astrophysicists as much as they need engineers. With the advances in modern tech I'm now able to do my research in my own back yard with a CCD camera, computer systems, and a relatively small telescope (compared to the research behemoths of yesteryear).  Like I said, it's very strange how the times have changed!

-Ro

I hace to disagree with Mortar Magnet's (See reply on page 2 of this post) assessment that Space is not exciting.  The STS may not be the most aerodynamically sleek and sexy looking flying craft out there, but a "bus" it is not.  

Let's think about this for a second.  Five to seven people strap themselves onto a tank full of liquid Hydrogen and Oxygen with two candlesticks full of solid rocket propellent - a small amount of which could level a house - and go from 0 to 17,000+ mph in less than 5 miutes.  I think that would get most people's adrenaline pumping.  Yes, some of the things we do up there may seem boring looking at it from a terrestrial perspective.  Just think of growing grass in zero gravity in an environment that would kill you in an instant if not for that little metal "bus".  Also, youmust remember, though, someone growing grass in zero G today has implications 20+ years from now.  

That is the key.  Return on investments for space items needs to be measured in tens of years rather than tens of minutes.  In the almost instant world we live in today that fact seems to get lost.  And it's not just the twenty somethings that forget this...Congress and the public in general have forgotten.  It took Americans almost 10 years and the motivation of a slain President to get us to the moon, with many failures and sacrifices along the way.  To go back to the moon and beyond will take the same level of patience and commitment.

That's just a few from me.

I really don't think we have that level of comitment anymore.  We are too much driven by the "fast food" mentality and demand immediate gratification.  Like I had mentioned in a previous post, we are too cautious as a society now.  When something goes wrong, we set up hearings, investigations, commitees, and law suits to discover, deny and place blame on everyone and anything that we can.  Think about how things stopped during Columbia and Challenger.  The only people, it seems, that understand that what they do is dangerous are the very people who do the job.  The people who, for the most part, are clueless to the perils are the ones who stnad in their way.  All in the name of safety and to prevent lawsuits.

But then again, I could be completely wrong.

Space is so unpopular because nothing happens in space, and it doesnt effect us. Oh wow, we have a flag on the moon, or we discovered a new planet (That we can't get to, but we have pictures!) I mean for the money thats put in NASA we want more than some pictures, them telling us Pluto's not a planet, and a crew of dead astronauts that burned up in the atmosphere for absolutly no purpose at all, and they died because NASA didnt check some freakin panels on there space shuttle. Space simply isn't worth the cost.

 And people  dont relate to space. Everyone has cars, they're status symbols, and most people have relatives who have fought in wars, so it's natural to have an intrest in it.

 You may disagree but thats  just what a 15-year old thinks, my Grandmother loves space because it was big when she was growing up, but I have yet to see any good in it.

Sturm,

You need to go and research what the space program has brought us. Miniature computers, cell phone technology, advances in medical science (the CAT and MIR scanners are direct descendants along with orthoscopic surgery techniqeus), lightweight metals, the list goes on and on.

Here's a link that will help explain: http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html 

 Ahhhh but the reason I don't research that stuff to know that is because it's not interesting.

 Yeah yall will disagree with what I said but, I was just putting in my 2 cents.

I'm still amazed at how many people don't realize what has come directly and indirectly from the space program, not to mention how much we've learned about the earth itself like the atmosphere and the oceans and how it all fits into the solar system, galaxy etc.  And that one's lack of interest in the subject doesn't change it's impact. 

espins1 wrote:

And that one's lack of interest in the subject doesn't change it's impact.

Yeah I put that in because thats the reason I dont build space models.

Sturm,

Just for fun...the next time you try to find something good in space and fail....turn off your cell phone and don't use it again, don't use the internet, don't send emails, don't watch your local weather forecasts, do not try to make overseas calls, don't buy cars made with kevlar so they don't rust, throw out your cd and dvd playes/recorders, get rid of anything with fiberoptics, turn off your computer, don't tell your children that the most common element on the moon is oxygen, that the atmosphere of Venus is sulphuric acid and over 900 degrees, that we've found evidence of water, lakes, ponds, hematite, gamacite, water ice and just very possibly microbes on Mars, that we've found huge volcanoes of ice on Europa around Jupter, liquid methane seas on Titan, octagonal cloud patterns on the poles of Saturn, diamonds in meteorites that existed long before our solar system, light-wave echoes in distant nebulae, spiral galaxies billions of light-years away, and planets around other star systems.

Oh, those are just a few of the things that came from our endeavors in space - and many are ones we rely on every day in our modern world without so much as a second thought.  Space is not just about human spaceflight.  Space is about exploration and the challenge of the future for mankind, quite possibly our ultimate destiny as a living, sentient species.

Perhaps you don't find anything good in space - but remember that the next time you are building a Panzerkampfwagen or Bf-109. Remember it was the German engineers who had the drive and vision to design the first usable jet engines and rockets that led us on this wonderful quest of discovery.

And, remember too, when you wonder why a few people died in Columbia because - ahem, "NASA didn't check some freakin panels on their space shuttle", put that into True context.  The panels were destroyed from debris and were not noticed.  It's a sad thing that people lost their lives over this - but, remember too that the original V-1's from Germany were piloted by kamakaze pilots whose intent was death and destruction, not scientific inquiry that benefits us all.

So whille everyone may have their cars and their status symbols of modern technology, few of them realize that a good deal of that technology is spin-off tech from our endeavors to get into space.

Unfortunately that same tech has developed the video games and ipods that seduce our 15 year olds into thinking there is nothing in life beyond gaming, MP3's and texting their friends endlessy.  At least your grandmother knew the stars existed in the sky and would look up there on occasion with awe and wonder. 

THAT is what we have lost....

-Rowen

Because space is Big really Big..You may think it's a long way to the corner shops......But thats nothing compared to space....

(HITCH-HIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY)

CHRIS 

...I don't want to start a tussle in here, because I am no space expert, but V-1's were NOT suicide craft...

...also, a lot of technology might have come as a spin-off from space technology, but I am not sure the direct correlation between cell phones, computer games, etc. and space?...why do private companies and individuals own the right to such things if NASA discovered/designed them???

The V-1 was originally to be man-guided, but the idea was dropped.

The cell-phone's, PC's, etc, were develpoed by the need for smaller and more powerful electronic's in spacecraft. The minitureized electronic were developed by private companies under contract to NASA, later prinicpalies were applied to other items. They are not owned by NASA or any other government agency.

"The minitureized electronic were developed by private companies under contract to NASA, later prinicpalies were applied to other items. They are not owned by NASA or any other government agency."

ahhhhhhhh...maybe you should edit your previous post...NASA dodn't develop these things...private companies did...using our tax dollars, and now they are printing money selling us cell phones, etc... 

espins1 wrote:

It was the need for the improved technologies, which private companies developed for NASA, which has brought about so many of the advances we benefit from today.

 Think Espins answered it gor me

...fact is, private industry and free market will keep us up to our eyeballs in technology...because capitalism is driven by the market, and we now live in the technical age, we will have far more technology than individuals could ever afford to own...

...goes back to my earlier post in here: "which came first, NASA needing the gadgets or the market for technology?"  I suggest that we would have cell phones even if we had never landed on the moon...

...I wish that it were so simple as to be the answer to all of our ills...

You may be right, but the urgenacy of the space race drove development and they came about faster then it would have without it.

Manstein's revenge: ...fact is, private industry and free market will keep us up to our eyeballs in technology...because capitalism is driven by the market, and we now live in the technical age, we will have far more technology than individuals could ever afford to own... ...goes back to my earlier post in here: "which came first, NASA needing the gadgets or the market for technology?"  I suggest that we would have cell phones even if we had never landed on the moon... ...I wish that it were so simple as to be the answer to all of our ills...

Nope, I disagree (and that surprises who?). There are times during history when the challenges cannot be met by private concerns alone. At times the task is so large and so expensive, and so beneficial to all society, that government funding must be used to grease the wheels of development. In the past, those benefactors were often religious orders, or warlords, Doges, Kings and Queens, there is no real differences. They all were funded by tithes or taxes. The big difference between a King and a Government is the length of time for decisions to be made, and the King doesn't have to apologize. The giant leapfrog of technology of the past 60 years was driven by the tax funded space program.

You may believe that the market will drive such advances, but I fear you would be sadly mistaken. For partial proof I will submit the car industry, who in their infancy over a hundred years ago placed an internal combustion motor on a horse carriage, and which after more than a century of market driven decisions still places that same gas burning internal combustion motor on an albeit much improved carriage. Or the phone company, who kept the status quo for nearly a century before being forced to offer it's clients choices. LIke colored phones, let alone mobile and wireless communication.

We would have no such thing as the cell phone without NASA and those tax dollars. There was no reason to expect phones to work without wires. There was no push for smaller and smaller computers. There was no need for scanning equipment that could see "inside" a support beam which gave birth to the CAT and MMR scanners used in hospitals. And so we didn't get those items. It wasn't until there was a need for better communication that didn't rely on wires, or the ability to pack powerful computers into tight spaces that those items were required and built.

We do live in the technology age, and now there is a market that can be tapped to keep little gadgets coming out, but that market did not exist without the space program. Ha, it could not exist without the space program.

THERE ARE NO SIMPLE ANSWERS. Some answers are easier than others, some very hard indeed. One of the hard answers is "wasting" tax dollars on research that doesn't seem to have immediate benefits, but ones that can end up solving future problems that we haven't even discovered yet. The space program can't solve all the world's ills, but it can help save some, and that's better than none at all.

You keep equating space and poverty. I'll argue that the technology discovered during the push to land on the moon has made life better for many poor people, by providing the ability to convert salt water to fresh, or by hydroponics so that people who live in areas of extreme hot or cole can grow fresh veggies. 

It is our lack of determination that allows millions to die of hunger, or poverty, or disease, not the lack of tax dollars. 

...nicely argued...

Quote: "It is our lack of determination that allows millions to die of hunger, or poverty, or disease, not the lack of tax dollars."

...ahhhhhh...you argue my point as well: you just stated that sometimes Govt HAS TO STEP IN when the task is so overwhelming that we fail as a society to push forward...like in addressing poverty?...you can't have your quinine and eat it too...lol...

...we no longer need an astronaut make the demand that his "gadget" be smaller, or lighter, or faster...we, consumers now do that for ourselves... 

...I agree, it is our lack of determination...but no one in here has answered the question that the title of this thread asks, "why?"  I suggest that collectively, and maybe unconsciously, we have decided as a society that the answers do not lie on Mars, but on Earth...

Bgrigg wrote:

Manstein's revenge: ...fact is, private industry and free market will keep us up to our eyeballs in technology...because capitalism is driven by the market, and we now live in the technical age, we will have far more technology than individuals could ever afford to own... ...goes back to my earlier post in here: "which came first, NASA needing the gadgets or the market for technology?"  I suggest that we would have cell phones even if we had never landed on the moon... ...I wish that it were so simple as to be the answer to all of our ills... Nope, I disagree (and that surprises who?). There are times during history when the challenges cannot be met by private concerns alone. At times the task is so large and so expensive, and so beneficial to all society, that government funding must be used to grease the wheels of development. In the past, those benefactors were often religious orders, or warlords, Doges, Kings and Queens, there is no real differences. They all were funded by tithes or taxes. The big difference between a King and a Government is the length of time for decisions to be made, and the King doesn't have to apologize. The giant leapfrog of technology of the past 60 years was driven by the tax funded space program. You may believe that the market will drive such advances, but I fear you would be sadly mistaken. For partial proof I will submit the car industry, who in their infancy over a hundred years ago placed an internal combustion motor on a horse carriage, and which after more than a century of market driven decisions still places that same gas burning internal combustion motor on an albeit much improved carriage. Or the phone company, who kept the status quo for nearly a century before being forced to offer it's clients choices. LIke colored phones, let alone mobile and wireless communication. We would have no such thing as the cell phone without NASA and those tax dollars. There was no reason to expect phones to work without wires. There was no push for smaller and smaller computers. There was no need for scanning equipment that could see "inside" a support beam which gave birth to the CAT and MMR scanners used in hospitals. And so we didn't get those items. It wasn't until there was a need for better communication that didn't rely on wires, or the ability to pack powerful computers into tight spaces that those items were required and built. We do live in the technology age, and now there is a market that can be tapped to keep little gadgets coming out, but that market did not exist without the space program. Ha, it could not exist without the space program. THERE ARE NO SIMPLE ANSWERS. Some answers are easier than others, some very hard indeed. One of the hard answers is "wasting" tax dollars on research that doesn't seem to have immediate benefits, but ones that can end up solving future problems that we haven't even discovered yet. The space program can't solve all the world's ills, but it can help save some, and that's better than none at all. You keep equating space and poverty. I'll argue that the technology discovered during the push to land on the moon has made life better for many poor people, by providing the ability to convert salt water to fresh, or by hydroponics so that people who live in areas of extreme hot or cole can grow fresh veggies.  It is our lack of determination that allows millions to die of hunger, or poverty, or disease, not the lack of tax dollars.

...maybe now space technolgy will provide us with miniature breathalizer machines that the astronaut elites can use prior to blast-off...LOL... 

Why is space so unpopular as a modeling subject?

First let me note that I have built several paper "space" and rocket related models. In addition to Delta 7 Studios , Ralph Currell offers a number of outstanding historical rocket card models for free. Check out his Space Ship One model along with the V-1 and V-2 rockets. Outstanding and all free. www.ss42.com. also offers a large number of free card models of all subject including space and rockets.

What is a common factor that is shared by the top 2  forum groups ?

You are right.   The answer is War.  Conflict appears to be strongly related to modeling subjects and interest. I think we relate to our interest in history through modeling. Almost all the modelers I know are excellent students of history, at least in the area of modeling they elect to build in.

Space is also limited to a few selected folks who are given the chance to use the equipment.

I have piloted an aircraft, driven a tank, been on the USS Texas. These are things you can get your hands on. You can get up close and personal with.  Space stuff is, well out in space or on some static display behind a roped off area. Not much to relate to for me and perhaps not much interest to many other people.

What are your thoughts?

...space is so unpopular because all our space program now consists of is launching 30 year old technology into near-earth orbit and then trying to figure out how to get it back down without it burning up...

...the Space Shuttle's mission is now "to survive"...it is a joke, an expensive joke...I am so SICK of hearing about those tiles, please...

...space is so unpopular because all our space program now consists of is launching 30 year old technology into near-earth orbit and then trying to figure out how to get it back down without it burning up... ...the Space Shuttle's mission is now "to survive"...it is a joke, an expensive joke...I am so SICK of hearing about those tiles, please...

Hey, you said something about space we can agree on!

Bgrigg wrote:

...space is so unpopular because all our space program now consists of is launching 30 year old technology into near-earth orbit and then trying to figure out how to get it back down without it burning up... ...the Space Shuttle's mission is now "to survive"...it is a joke, an expensive joke...I am so SICK of hearing about those tiles, please...   Hey, you said something about space we can agree on!

I'm quoting my own post, as I couldn't quote Manstein's revenge with the quote blocks the editing software provides as default. This is only a test!