A philosophical question – about going to the moon.

Ton, yes – sorry! i’ve had a few snow-related issues to deal with, ‘your’ mavic rim is buried at the back of the shed, i’ll dig it out tonight, and get it in the post on wednesday.

paypal gift is fine.

carry on!

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.

The era of moon landings, super-sonic air travel, and what-not … then the internet came along and we can do everything without even having to get up off our sofa’s.

Quite depressing in many ways.

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.

This.

We’ve gone backwards in so many ways, we’ve become more timid, inward looking and selfish. It’s all about a profitable return these days and we’re all the poorer for it.

Even trying to get funding for a mission to Europa which may well resolve one of the most fundamental questions mankind has ever asked itself is proving long winded and problematic.

It’s all about a profitable return these days and we’re all the poorer for it.

That’s what happens when you let blimmin’ accountants near things.

we’re almost going backwards now.

No, we’re going forward in all sorts of incredible ways that are far more practical than going to the moon. Have you been reading about the invisibility cloak research that keeps coming up on the BBC? That’s about a million times more impressive than going to the moon. As is the internet, to be honest. That has changed the world in ways that a moonbase never would have.

Well there are a few moonlanders* on here 🙂

* obscure choccyfoot reference from back in the day.

we’re almost going backwards now.

No, we’re going forward in all sorts of incredible ways that are far more practical than going to the moon. Have you been reading about the invisibility cloak research that keeps coming up on the BBC? That’s about a million times more impressive than going to the moon. As is the internet, to be honest. That has changed the world in ways that a moonbase never would have.

i know (i did say almost), but i want a hovercraft jetpack. and i was sort of speaking on my dad’s behalf.

from his point of view, we were in a rocketship to the future, but when we got there, it didn’t look like it did in the brochure.

but moon landings – very impressive, even if only from a ‘so many people and organisations needing to cooperate’ point of view.

No, we’re going forward in all sorts of incredible ways that are far more practical than going to the moon.

This. Take a look at modern medicine, for example. Compared to the state of it in the 60s we are light-years ahead of where we were, and partly because the accountants looked at the balance sheet for space exploration and the balance sheet for making ill people well, and saw that it was something of a no-brainer to invest money in fixing people up.

I’d much rather be stuck on the ground with the knowledge that if someone gets Parkinson’s disease (like my mum) then whilst there is no cure (yet, they’re working on it) there are medications available to make life much more bearable for much longer than was even dreamed of in the 60s. You can keep your space rockets, I know what I’d rather have.

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.

I was promised a hover bike and a flying car – as well as holidays on the moon.

I want them now *stamps feet*

the internet, … That has changed the world in ways that a moonbase never would have.

Ah, but how can you be so sure?

There’s loads of stuff the 60’s space race gave us that we’d never have anticipated.

Although admittedly a moon base wouldn’t have given the world wall-to-wall xXx websites, which is what 99% of the internet seems to be ..

if you did a little deeper, past the p0rn, you’ll find it’s actually full of cats.

Moon Landing?, Hoverboards are much more impressive for me.

As Ernie says in ’69 Morris Minors were still in production and highly regarded, in 2012 we have the Bugatti Veyron

In 1969 we had the Countach, GT40, Porche 917
In 2010 the Police drive Vauxhall Astra’s, and you can still buy wooden framed sports cars for £50k+, have we really come that far?

Have you been reading about the invisibility cloak research that keeps coming up on the BBC? That’s about a million times more impressive than going to the moon.

Your right there, a device that will allow us to kill our enemies more easily and take a look round the girl’s changing rooms all in one. Mankind has truly reached the ultimate goal.

The science is amazing, what other people use it for is not an indictment of the achievement.

Ah, but how can you be so sure?

It’s transformed global communications and put people in touch like never before. We are social creatures, this is very important to us. More important than having a dozen special people up in space.

The space race did give us some inventions, yes, but there have been an awful lot more civillian inventions and lots of earth-based military ones too.

I was promised a hover bike and a flying car – as well as holidays on the moon.

TJ – this is for you (clicky):

Interesting article on how the size and costs of teams required to innovate and the conservatism of the funders of innovation might be slowing down technological innovation

“In 1967, the futurologists Herman Kahn and Anthony J Wiener published The Year 2000, predicting highspeed data processing, the fax machine and possibly even mobile phones.

That sounds like a pretty good forecast — until you realise the book also predicted interplanetary travel, foolproof hangover cures, dream-control machines, artificial moons and undersea colonies. The phones have been a pleasant surprise, but then you realise that in many ways the last 40 years have been a technological disappointment. Compare 2011 with 1971: we still fly in jumbo jets; only two new classes of antibiotic have been launched; and a cheap, safe alternative to coal and oil continues to elude us.”

Anyone can make today look bad by pointing out what pie in the sky inventions we don’t have. What we do have is amazing but you take it all for granted. As for the antibiotics bit – I wouldn’t belittle medical achievements, to be honest:

On average it found that 45.2% of cancer patients are now expected to survive at least 10 years, compared with 23.7% in the 1970s.

I knew how to make invisibility clothing when I was a child. It was obvious that all that was needed was an all in one suit covered in microscopic combination cameras/screen “scales”.

I feel rather sad that people think doing something on the internet is the same as actually doing it in the reality that we inhabit. I can only assume that a lot of you would actually prefer to live “in” the matrix than reality. I’m making a point there I can differentiate fiction from reality.

I was 7 years old when “we” landed on the moon. A lot of what our species has achieved boggles me but for me, reaching the moon WAS our greatest achievement, even compared to other space stuff, Voyagers et al. Humans left this planet and visited an admittedly near neighbor. And came back. As far as we know nothing else on this planet even has the ability to comprehend that anything exists beyond the environment it inhabits.

The moon landing was a master stroke of technology, bravery and imagination.

I honestly look on our species now and don’t think we even have the imagination anymore to think like that.

Bit flowery hippy crap I know but that’s just me.

I would love to see a woolly mammoth before I die.

I disagree that we’ve gone backwards. When we landed on the moon there were no supersonic scheduled flights which could get you from London to New York in 3 hours…

Wheres my hover bike!

I was promised one!

The moon landing was a master stroke of technology, bravery and imagination.

More the bravery than anything else. Ahead of the moon landings when the Russians put the first man in space Gagarin went up knowing there was no way of actually coming back down again safely, not that there was a risk – there was no way to bring him back down – the ship was designed to crash and he’d have to bail out.

I also heard an interview with an another early cosmonaut who went up as a team of three – but there were only funds for two space suits so he didn’t get one. The interviewer asked him what he wore instead “pretty much the same sort of thing as I’m wearing now”.

I would love to see a woolly mammoth before I die.

they are pretty bad tempered, seeing one is often the last thing that happens before you die

I feel rather sad that people think doing something on the internet is the same as actually doing it in the reality that we inhabit

a) who thinks that? and
b) the internet is real life. I am real, this computer is real, and you (presumably) are real.

And it seems like you share the same metaphysical presumptions that the makers of the Matrix did. If a virtual reality is indistinguishable from a ‘real’ one, then what’s the difference? And why is one intrinsically better than the other? The baddie in the Matrix was the baddie because he wanted to stay in the Matrix – this is just plain wrong according to a film made in the country that values truth and justice above all else (supposedly).

I have discussions on here just as good as any in real life. Are they intrinsically inferior because I used my fingers instead of my lips? My brain is still working the same way.

I honestly look on our species now and don’t think we even have the imagination anymore to think like that

Rubbish – that is absolute rubbish and a damned insult to the scientists of the world. The moon trip was the most obvious sciency thing they could think of, and they did it, got not much more than a few rocks and a mirror, and then stopped – mainly because they’d won and stuck one over on the Ruskies. Hardly imaginitive is it?

When we landed on the moon there were no supersonic scheduled flights which could get you from London to New York in 3 hours

You sure as hell couldn’t go to America on holiday on an average wage! You are all looking at the wrong things!

The focus is cost rather than speed. 747-400 does the equivalent of 110mpg per passenger, concorde only 17.

Anyone can make today look bad by pointing out what pie in the sky inventions we don’t have. What we do have is amazing but you take it all for granted.

+1
Things that capture the public imagination and real paradigm shifts or big steps forwards aren’t necessarily the same thing, so there can be plenty of the latter without the former.
Also game-changers that are obviously game-changers at the time and are basically embodied in one single event or invention are pretty rare, compared to lots of little things coming together.

“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 has to be taken relative to the time in which it occurred – while it may not be as impressive if it were to happen now, it was a milestone back then. I don’t think you can really say humans were setting their sights too low, and that in itself opens up a whole new can of worms.

Also, the question isn’t philosophical.

It was an amazing achievement for its day. Show’s what can be achieved with large scale teamwork and sheer determination.

just a pity that sort of willingness and effort has to be channeled into something that was the product of the Cold War. Yes, plenty good came out of it, but it was as a result of militaising space.

What I can’t understand is that after millenium of so called modern society, we still have such tribal conflicts, petty national bickering, and such self interested posturing from virtually everyone. It is a real shame that it will take a long time yet before we can become a united world.

Show’s what can be achieved with large scale teamwork and sheer determination deep pockets

The implication there is that everyone else doesn’t have determination and teamwork, which is terribly unfair to everyone else. The world is full of brilliant people completely dedicated to their worth causes, however much of it is not immediately understandable to the general public, and is not very easily used for political gain. So it languishes without funding.

What I can’t understand is that after millenium of so called modern society, we still have such tribal conflicts, petty national bickering, and such self interested posturing from virtually everyone

Really? You can’t understand that?

And really, we’ve made great strides in society in the last thousand years.

I also heard an interview with an another early cosmonaut who went up as a team of three – but there were only funds for two space suits so he didn’t get one. The interviewer asked him what he wore instead “pretty much the same sort of thing as I’m wearing now”.

Not entirely accurate – that would have been Voskhod 1, where none of the cosmonauts wore suits, as the craft had been designed for 2 people and there wasn’t space inside for 3 in suits. I should think the cost of a suit was fairly trivial compared to all the other costs involved!

molgrips – Member

Show’s what can be achieved with large scale teamwork and sheer determination deep pockets

The implication there is that everyone else doesn’t have determination and teamwork, which is terribly unfair to everyone else. The world is full of brilliant people completely dedicated to their worth causes, however much of it is not immediately understandable to the general public, and is not very easily used for political gain. So it languishes without funding.

What I can’t understand is that after millenium of so called modern society, we still have such tribal conflicts, petty national bickering, and such self interested posturing from virtually everyone

Really? You can’t understand that?

And really, we’ve made great strides in society in the last thousand years.

Was slightly tongue in cheek. Yes, deep pockets was a very big part of it.

Yes, we have made great strides, we can now kill far more efficiently than ever before, there is still conflict in the Middle East, though not as much in Europe for the last 16 years. Africa has been plundered and the people there no better off than 1,000 years ago.

OK, we can extend help in a crises for better than before, but there is still far too much self interest to make proper progress.

Yes, we have made great strides

Well slavery is mostly history in the West at least and most of us are not feudal serfs. Then there’s social security and healthcare. Human rights, widespread democracy, universal suffrage.. but APART from that, what have the Romans every done for US?!

I think it was a massive thing. Not so much for the technological aspect – more that we had the bravery and desire to do it.

In the 60’s, space travel was like XTR. Everybody wanted it, but only a few could have it. But the technology, materials and ideas are clearly trickling down the Deore, SLX and XT that most of us buy nowadays. The average family can afford to fly all over the world on holiday, we ride bikes made of carbon, and can send messages around the world via satellites. Hopefully one day, the benefits will become so cheap that they trickle right down to the Acera range to give kids in Africa clean drinking water.

The thing that concerns me is not that the moon landing wasn’t really such a big thing in the 60’s, its more that I’m not sure what the XTR equivalent spearhead is nowadays…

A space elevator would do it, but that will probably be built for commercial gain (not that this is necessarily a bad thing). As I see it, the next people to walk on the moon will be tourists. Mars is a long way off (in both senses), I suspect that if we do get there, it will be on a craft that can support life indefinitely and the people living on it will just be going there because there are bored of open space.

I would like to see huge developments in exploration and answering the fundamental questions just like everyone else, but there is more to gain from spreading our knowledge across the world’s population, looking after the planet, and trying not to completely **** things up before we get the chance to really explore.

To put things into perspective:

“Most educated people are aware that we are the outcome of nearly 4 billion years of Darwinian selection, but many tend to think that humans are somehow the culmination. … It will not be humans who watch the sun’s demise, six billion years from now. Any creatures that then exist will be as different from us as we are from bacteria or amoebae.”
– Martin Rees

We have plenty of time to get to Mars. The last few decades of advancement have been good enough for me.

I also heard an interview with an another early cosmonaut who went up as a team of three – but there were only funds for two space suits so he didn’t get one. The interviewer asked him what he wore instead “pretty much the same sort of thing as I’m wearing now”.

Not entirely accurate – that would have been Voskhod 1, where none of the cosmonauts wore suits, as the craft had been designed for 2 people and there wasn’t space inside for 3 in suits. I should think the cost of a suit was fairly trivial compared to all the other costs involved!

No, it was a mission that involved a space walk between two capsules, obviously the guys doing the space walking got the suits

I don’t think sending men to the moon was that big a deal. I mean it’s hardly rocket science!

Boom, boom.

Columbus??

Was a joke. He went looking for another route to the source of valuable spices around the Indian Ocean and Indonesia. That’s why the West Indies are called that; he thought he’d reached India. He didn’t take into account South America and the Pacific Ocean. Americans have Columbus Day, but he never discovered America; Vikings and John Cabot did.
Fishermen from Bristol were fishing the Newfoundland Grand Banks while he was fannying around in the Caribbean. Columbus = Fail!

For all the folk moaning about what they see as a lack of progress here’s my 2 cents:

I feel privileged to live in the internet era. Having so much information literally at my fingertips has enriched my life immeasurably. Impressive though it might be I doubt that a moon base would have had as much impact on me personally.

Americans have Columbus Day, but he never discovered America; Vikings and John Cabot did.

What about those people who discovered America after walking across the Bering Land Bridge ? (Not to mention the Solutrean people)

I think the Vikings turned up a little late for the party.

If nothing else it was the zenith of Nazi science.