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Originally Posted by pornask
LOL D... you got to be kidding me.
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I find it ironic that you're calling me the "dumb follower."
Believe what you will, man.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Markham
Launching missions to Mars and Venus? Please give me a break. What is there that will benefit mankind in return for the money, energy and resources for going?
As far as going further is concerned, stop watching Star Wars, it's fiction. The actual cost of going to another solar system would bankrupt the whole worlds economy and for what cause. We have far more pressing and cheaper problems to solve here.
How about solving the problems of driving to the local mall and not fucking the Earths atmosphere first?
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I'm all for working on other issues that face us, but there's alot of us humans, you know - as a species, we can multitask pretty well... and whether you choose to believe it or not, we are planning on being back on the moon in 12 years... quite a few missions have already been launched to meet that end... and part of the design of the mission is to ready a base for subsequent launches to other outer-worldly destinations.
You realize, the world's internet was science fiction in Gibson's mind 45 years ago. Traveling in space was science fiction 60 years ago. The act of flying itself was part of the plot in the first science fiction work I believe.
And here we are... living the "Star Wars" life.
We're not gonna be here - on the Earth - forever, ya know. That's pretty much scientific fact. It's gonna die out one day.
Space is where we have left to turn... and we gotta start somewhere. This is the next logical step.
As far as fiscal rewards - if we could find an easy way to mine the moon and asteroids and other planets... we pretty much have a near-infinite source of whatever natural elements we could ever need. Mars could provide us with invaluable scientific data as to how the Earth formed, and where, exactly, it's going.... not to mention there's enough minerals on the planet to last us a few hundred generations, if need be.
And it's all a hell of a lot better of a focus and use of our budget than sending kids to Iraq, imho.