New manned missions to Moon, Mars --- what do you think?

[Diffusion]

I'm definately excited.

Though I'm still holding out for NASA to send a probe to Europa. . .

[space toker]

Seriously, they should just give up on space exploration and get down under the ocean's surface. I cannot emphasize this point enough - there is absolutely no evidence of life or even somewhat profitable enterprises in space, while we know there is life underwater, and we've only explored something like 7% of the ocean bottom. Who knows what we could find down there?

You couldn't be more wrong about space. There is a good chance of current or past life on Mars, and evidence for oceans under the ice that possibly sustain life on all Jovian moons except Io, Enceladus, and even possibly Pluto and Charon. And if there why not on Eris or Sedna and elsewhere in the Kuiper belt? Titan has methane lakes and there is a slight chance extremophile life could develop in those conditions, and I think I even heard that there could be an ocean on Titan under the surface ice.
It is almost certain that life exists or existed in at least one of these places. Yes we should explore the ocean too, but the point of space having little to offer is way way off base. I think I heard that between helium-3 and other resources on the moon, and especially the asteroid belt have enough resources to build many orbital habitats or whatever they are called, and just the resources from the biggest asteroid could allow quadrillions of people to live in our solar system, all with the standard of living of the upper middle class. That's a lotta moola just waiting to be reaped if we ever get off our asses and make it happen! And if we don't make it happen and stay only on this planet, it is a certainty that we will all go extinct eventually from an asteroid or comet impact, gamma ray burst, or any number of events man-made or natural. We could all be knocked out of existence in one blow. If we settle our solar system and eventually send some of those orbiting habitats to other stars and sow our seeds there, we will not have "all our eggs in one basket" and will live on as a species, conceivably for millions or billions of years longer than if we just stay on Earth. We should be vigorously and actively funding and persuing every possible technology capable of enabling travel to other stars. Even warp drive or something similar is theoretically very possible. We should take half the money we waste on military spending (if we only sought to make friends instead of brutalizing everyone into submission, we would need a mere fraction of the military force we have now) and apply it to space funding. Colonies on the moon, Mars, floating cities in Venus's atmosphere, A Mercury base in the shaded polar craters, and so on, almost everything can be settled besides the gas giants themselves. Build the infastructure for a strong solar system-wide economy and the rest will follow. The need for new ways of doing things would spawn technologies we can't even dream of today. We must get serious about the Moon and Mars and do it sooner than they plan to. before it's too late.

[space toker]

I've been interested in the idea of space exploration for a long time myself, and I always wondered why operations weren't continued in regards to the moon. At our current level of technology we could have had a permanent settlement on the moon for years now. Also we could be mining asteroids in the near future for new and possibly invaluable minerals.
We could plant the seeds (so to speak) on mars by terraforming and in the distant future if we've raped the earth to the point that it's become unlivable then there is another option.

Exactly, if we listened to Von Braun and continued our presence on the Moon, by now we should have many well developed colonies on the Moon, a few developing colonies on Mars, and starting to set up the first bases on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Hell if we did all that, like I said one thing could have led to another technology wise and we could have warp drive by now or soon. But it is not too late, YET. If we get our shit together we could all flourish. If not we are doomed.

[space toker]

I've got a huge boner on for this too. I would really like to look up at the moon at some point in my life and say, there's life on that celestial object up there millions of miles away.

The moon is like 230,000 miles away dumbass!
kidding
Point is well taken though, I too would like to look up and see the Moon, Mars, even other stars and say there's people living there. Hell I wish I could be there and look at a star in the sky and say "that's where I came from". But barring some huge radical breakthrough really fast, that is not going to happen in my lifetime. But maybe someone born in the next 20 or 30 years could see it.
Mars varies, at it's closest it's like 35 million miles, next door in cosmic terms.

[Esoteric416]

Ok so who here would be up for living on the moon? If they ever did get to the point where people were needed to populate a moon colony, would you go if given the chance?

I know that eary stations and colonies would be populated by astronauts, scientists and research personelle, but eventually if it got big enough regular people would be needed to move there. I'd go in a heart beat personally, how about all of you?

One restriction I think would need to be made is: You cant move to the moon if your IQ is under 100. We dont need idiots living in an environment where they could screw up and get the whole colony killed. I'm not trying to put anyone down i'm just saying that I wouldn't be comfortable living in a moon base with a bunch of people who arent taking it seriously.

[dragonrider]

Ok so who here would be up for living on the moon? If they ever did get to the point where people were needed to populate a moon colony, would you go if given the chance?

I know that eary stations and colonies would be populated by astronauts, scientists and research personelle, but eventually if it got big enough regular people would be needed to move there. I'd go in a heart beat personally, how about all of you?

One restriction I think would need to be made is: You cant move to the moon if your IQ is under 100. We dont need idiots living in an environment where they could screw up and get the whole colony killed. I'm not trying to put anyone down i'm just saying that I wouldn't be comfortable living in a moon base with a bunch of people who arent taking it seriously.

I would definitely go --- to the moon, to Mars, or to a space station. I've always dreamed of going to space.

[NaughtyDreadz]

the most awesome part of that would be coming back and being a few months younger than everyone on earth..

[SnSstealth]

Im with ya dragon...If they needed to send a guy out there....I would gladly go...non-returnable trip?...thats ok...Ill pack enough nug:thumbsup:
whiskeytango

[space toker]

yeah I would gladly go. I just hope they "get their ass in their hands" and spped things up. Supposedly we went to the moon a mere 9 years after Kennedy came up with the idea and we started from scratch, so you mean to tell me it will take until 2020 to go to the moon and 2030 or 2035 for Mars? IF we had planned for it, we could have gone to both last decade or before, and could still go by 2014 or so. Hell 2035, I'd be like 65 by then, I don't suppose they'd have any use for fuds unless they find a cure for the ultimate disease by then: aging/death. Eventually they may be able to take a sample from you and isolate your great-grandparents DNA and bring them back to life. So anything is possible.

[dragonrider]

yeah I would gladly go. I just hope they "get their ass in their hands" and spped things up. Supposedly we went to the moon a mere 9 years after Kennedy came up with the idea and we started from scratch, so you mean to tell me it will take until 2020 to go to the moon and 2030 or 2035 for Mars? IF we had planned for it, we could have gone to both last decade or before, and could still go by 2014 or so. Hell 2035, I'd be like 65 by then, I don't suppose they'd have any use for fuds unless they find a cure for the ultimate disease by then: aging/death. Eventually they may be able to take a sample from you and isolate your great-grandparents DNA and bring them back to life. So anything is possible.

At first I thought the same thing --- why could we go to the Moon in less than a decade starting from NOTHING, and now it is going to take so much longer to get the ability to go back when we already know so much more about how to do it? But the difference is that with Apollo, they were just proving the ability to go. There wasn't much capability beyond that. With this program, they want to have the ability to take much much more with them, set up long term bases, do long range exploration, reach other parts of the moon, and do it with a lot more safety built into the systems. This time they are going for the long haul, so it will take a lot more to develop the systems for that.

Also, the budget is nothing like what it was during the cold war. Once Kennedy made that commitment and basicly threw down the challenge to the Soviets, we would have paid anything to make it.

I wish we hadn't lost our way. We should have started a program like this decades earlier, and we could have bases on the moon and Mars by now. Looking back, it seems like the Apollo program is a little piece of the 21st century that was picked up and somehow trasported back in time to the 60's. Next year it will be 40 years since the first moon landing. and we won't be back there for another 10 years on the current schedule. Seems like 50 years is a long time to wait between getting there the first time and going back. Who would have ever guessed it would take that long?