A philosophical question – about going to the moon.

Was humans putting men on the moon and getting them to return safely really that great an achievement, or are humans setting their sights too low? This question comes to you courtesy of beer and a clear night, and thinking it’s not that far.

Edited for Druidh.

I don’t know

Valid question.

I reckon I’ve got more chance of getting to the moon than into Liz Hurley’s pants, so yes, I do think that the human race is setting its sights too low.

Plus, I’d probably rather spend two weeks round at Liz’s house than collecting rocks on what looks like the most boring place in the galaxy.

Surrounded By Zulus – Member
IsWas humans putting men on the moon and getting them to return safely really that great an achievement,

For it’s day, absolutely. So much technology we take for granted today was unavailable.

A target for the first half of the 21st century would surely be continuous occupation of Mars – but that’s assuming we don’t have problems closer to home in need of funding and research.

I think it’s very impressive given the level of technology in the 60s, and slightly sad that we can’t do it nowadays. But I think it’s illustrative of how screwed up our priorities are that we put men on the moon and continue to send people into space when there are so many people living in utter poverty. Thinking about the space race makes me glad I’m British, though: the Americans built NASA, we built the NHS, and I know which I’d rather have (or should that be “have had”?).

There you go, something in that lot should set someone off. 🙂

I find it incredible that man has been to the moon and back in one piece.
It’s further than it looks you know. I do wonder when manned space exploration will next be attempted though as getting anywhere else is going to be mega expensive and we dont have spare cash these days.

Fantastic achievement. really really unparalleled – maybe columbus or Cooks voyages would be of similar standing

what looks like the most boring place in the galaxy.

You’ve never been to Swindon then?

TandemJeremy – Member
Fantastic achievement. really really unparalleled – maybe columbus or Cooks voyages would be of similar standing

Columbus??

I think it’s illustrative of how screwed up our priorities are that we put men on the moon and continue to send people into space when there are so many people living in utter poverty.

You could say that about almost anything – we have museums, theatre, sports, subsidised transport, massively subsidised roads, loads of things where the money could have been spent on more basic needs.

Humans need more than their basic needs met. Going to the moon was a way of sticking it to the Russians, but it was also one of the most astounding things that humans have ever done. Millions of years from now, when we’re all gone and all trace of humanity has been wiped from the surface of the Earth, there will still be some bits of metal on the moon saying “we were here”. That’s worth the money.

There was a nice item on the 99% Invisible podcast about going to mars and how distant a prospect it would be as at present you couldn’t get someone there with enough vehicle and fuel to come back again. As a result its reckoned a manned mission is unlikely in our lifetimes.

Someone (I forget who) is suggesting instead that we forget about coming back – send someone now, knowing full well that they couldn’t come back, a suicide mission.

NASA’s position is that a one way mission is unthinkable- the goal is to get to mars when we can get back from mars, even if that puts the mission beyond the life and careers of anyone working on the project just now.

However I wonder whether that shows that it isn’t worth doing now or at any time.

As for the moon – I think if you told any of the Apollo astronauts, while they were standing on the moon, that in the 40 years to follow that nobody would do it again, or plan to, well I think they’d be a bit miffed.

Agreed that at the time it was an amazing achievement. However, with advances in technology, I see no need to send humans back. Its costly and there’s no real need except oneupmanship between countries…send the robots to do the work/exploring.

there will still be some bits of metal on the moon saying “we were here”. That’s worth the money.

“Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair?”

Landing on the was an amazing achievement, but there are other events that have had a more important impact on humanity, like eradicating smallpox, which is an amazing example of what humans can achieve if they work together.

“Look on my works ye mighty, and despair?”

Possibly. Or maybe a sign that, despite it all, we achieved something more than trashing the planet then dying off. This is about Voyager, but sums it up:

Personally, I think that the Voyager missions are more impressive than the moon landings. For those probes to still be functioning and able to send back data more than 30 years later is outstanding.

I have to say, having watched the 69 landing and having lived through all the technological breakthroughs since, I’m disappointed they haven’t been back, had there been something there they needed, they would have done I’m sure.

It’ll be the Chinese or Indians next but until we can curtail our global differences and some realisation that this rocks resources are finite and sooner or later humanity is going to have to go find somewhere else to screw up, I can’t see anything other than Mars on the agenda for some time. Although one of those moons of Jupiter is supposedly going to be worth a look, Europa is it.

But, just think about it for a while, you need food, fuel, repair options against damage from space crap busting big holes through your craft, (remember Apollo 13) they were lucky with the Moon trips, going any further they are bound to bump into something, until they can work out the means of self determination from the craft itself, which afaik they don’t’ do yet, they are solar system bound for some time to come.

And anyway where the **** are we going to get dilithium crystals from for the Warp drive?

It’s further than it looks you know.

And it’s now 5 foot further away than it was in 1969.

I think it’s worth remembering that in 1969 the Morris Minor was in production, and it was considered such an excellent piece of motor engineering, despite being designed in the 40s, that the Old Bill drove around in them. That puts 1969 technology into some sort of perspective.

I’m disappointed they haven’t been back, had there been something there they needed, they would have done I’m sure.

The problem with the space race was that it was a race. At the end of a race whether you are the winner or a looser you’ve spent 100% or your effort and energy. Thats the real reason nothing really followed it up.

This is about Voyager, but sums it up

That’s qualitatively the same argument, just couched in emotive US telly terms.

Having said that, we don’t live in an ideal world where the biggest problems get dealt with first. So from a pragmatic point of view it is perhaps pleasing to know that we can achieve something spectacular like visiting the moon in spite of being so splendidly feckless that we can’t get by day to day without thousands of people dying needlessly. Ok, you have a point, I suppose. I reserve the right to find it depressing, though.

I concur.

i seen it when i was a kidley.. inspiring stuff.. but so was jaques cousteau.
the pretty boy cox spoke to the last man to leave the moon on the telly recently and he didnt have any issues about no one going back.. he was looking forward to thier been a sustainable moonbase.. from which a mars expedition could launch and not use antwhere near as much fuel.. but that d mean making the fuel on the moon from its resources.. and sure that isnt going tohappen in my life time but my grandad had a book printed in 1927 that said spaceships were impossible as the speed they needed to go to leave the earths atmosphere where impossible to reach

anything can happen/ be done the only limits are mans imagination..

In the 1960’s you had a lot of rocket scientists (can’t have them all openlly working on cold war intercontinetal ballistics), over the counter amphetamines and no Sky TV or Facebook. This is what made the Apollo mission possible.

I love the cost argument, as it’s pretty much completely invalid. There isn’t a massive scrap value for the materials left on the moon, or even the materials burned getting there, but the space race kept people in interesting and demanding jobs both directly and in any number of supporting industries (making those custom Corvette Stingrays for the Apollo astronauts for instance).

Its a nice distraction from going out and causing even more third world crisis.

I agree with Carl Sagan on this one. The entire human race will die out if we don’t get into space. Poverty, medicine and all the other stuff should be secondary to surviving in the first place. The aforementioned problems will never be solved completely anyway, but perhaps if you give society a goal like that, everything would fall into place, since people need to live in a fair, healthy society to get stuff done.

Carl Sagan was that idiot who expounded all kinds of childish theories wasnt he. Anyway the average ditance earth to moon is 238857 miles, not 4 billion.

When you watch some of the stuff on TV you realise just how hostile space is to humans. Talk about fish out of water. You can get people up and back, but realitvely quickly, keeping them there alive for a long time is the tricky part. The ISS needs constant replenishing.

FACEPALM——-^

Fantastic achievement. really really unparalleled – maybe columbus or Cooks voyages would be of similar standing

People are rowing across the Atlantic in nearly a month now. As Ernie says in ’69 Morris Minors were still in production and highly regarded, in 2012 we have the Bugatti Veyron.

Maybe collectively we should set our sights higher and go for a STW moon shot. If we could only agree on a meeting point and departure time.

Or we could start by trying to get something into space. Via weather balloon maybe?

I don’t think it was that spectacular of an achievement in technological terms. All you need is a pressurised container and a big rocket. The equations to get you there have been well known for hundreds of years and are first year material at university. So although they had much less computing power, they still had enough. If we did the same today the equations would be the same and you wouldn’t actually USE the extra power we have. Well, not during the flight.. you would in the design stages. The engineers would need more computing power to upload pictures to facebook in their lunchbreak.

Doing it without a gigantic rocket with thousands of tons of fuel – that would be harder.

There have been countless more amazing feats of engineering and science before and since. The scale of the achievements represented by the compact oblong thing with buttons on it under your fingers vastly outstrips the moon programme imo. It’s absolutely mindboggling – and what’s even more impressive is that you can get them for £349 from Currys and they are playthings for kids.

Achievement? Really?

I tend to see it as a bit of a peeing contest with the USSR and the Americans proclaiming in 1969 that they do indeed have a larget collective willy than the Russians.

Arms race ended up being the space race. It was a publically acceptable way to make a military point.

At the moment, I don’t see what we’re gaining from our manned space missions. The moon missions were a product of their own time, the Cold War point scoring race, and the biggest technological advances they produced were in ICBMs for Mutually Assured Destruction. Some Legacy!
At present, manned missions to Mars would be more of the same, political or tribal willy waving. We gain so much more scientifically by designing and sending unmanned probes, its too hostile up there for our earth-addapted bodies, we’re a liability to the mission in space

However,I have a lot of respect for missions such as the Voyagers, true exploration for the sake of science and discovery. However, all their results point to one thing: We don’t even understand the mysteries of our own planet, and from all the evidence, it’s by far the most interesting.
We should be putting so much more into understanding and protecting it.

Or maybe a sign that, despite it all, we achieved something more than trashing the planet then dying off.

Yes.

Not content with ‘trashing’ Earth & filling it’s immediate vicinity with space junk, then visiting the moon and littering the place, leaving whole cars amd what-not there.

We also learnt how to get to other places and start trashing those too.

Hooray.

Excellent legacy.

And of course, humans have a brilliant history of responsibly using natural resources.

One thing we can never be accused of is digging everything out of the ground and burning it all, thus changing a planets climate (allegedly).

Carl Sagan was that idiot who expounded all kinds of childish theories wasnt he.

😯

If it was worth doing, we’d have gone back.

Maybe collectively we should set our sights higher and go for a STW moon shot. If we could only agree on a meeting point and departure time.

If we could power the ship by arguments it is a winner
Starts thread on what tyres for moon

Maybe collectively we should set our sights higher and go for a STW moon shot.

I knew those fat-bike riders were up to something

Carl Sagan was that idiot who expounded all kinds of childish theories wasnt he.

Oops, I was thinking of Erich von Däniken. My bad 😕

Oops, I was thinking of Erich von Däniken. My bad

we all make mistakes.

but watch this:

my dad was 20 when ‘they’ landed on the moon, i’ve spoken to him about that time, and he accepts that sat-nav, the internet, smart-phones, etc. are all very clever, but it’s not the future he was promised.

we’re almost going backwards now.

(no moon base, no space shuttle, we can’t even cross the chanel by hover craft any more)

hijack………ahwiles, rim mate, can i buy it?