Originally posted by @twhitehead There are two basic reasons:
1. There were plenty of other things to do.
2. The funding for NASA was cut significantly in favour of making weapons.
Originally posted by @apathist No immediate payoff. We made a point, and now we are back in the real world.
So here we are 50 years later still sucking hind tit. Waiting for the Chinese to do it for us. We could have had a thousand people on a moon base by now but like you said, weapons are WAY more important that just getting the hell off the planet. It should have already been done and we should have already had a thriving colony on Mars and exploring Encaledus, looking for signs of extraterrestrial life by now to start answering the question of how did we get here. If some kind of life is discovered on Encaledus, microbes or not, it will say, is it our kind of DNA or something really alien. Either way gives us a huge start on answers to questions like 'are we alone'.
Originally posted by @sonhouse Where did that rule pop up?
Follows from 'infinite'. Not only must x occur somewhere, it must occur an infinite number of times!
I don't know the first occurrence of the idea, but Douglas Adams said that “In an infinite Universe anything can happen.” And there is the 'infinite monkey theorem', where if they hit typewriter keys at random and forever, they would produce any text you like. But you know all this.
I have sensed signals that Chaney thinks he has won this discussion. That he really think that the total solar eclipse is some kind of proof that the universe is designed by someone.
These are two questions that I'm sure that Chainey can answer to show he is right in these matters. If he fail to give an adequate answer to each of them, then I assume he understand that he is totally lost in these matters and in fact showed that there is no 'designer' involved.
(1) Do you understand, Chaney, that the Earth / Moon / Sun gravitational system has orbital elements that by all means is not perfect, but random and unstable over time?
(2) Don't you think that if there were some designer behind he would make these orbital elements in a more beautiful way? Like create an inclination of zero degrees, and more, to let it be a perfect total eclipse every month?
Originally posted by @sonhouse We could have had a thousand people on a moon base by now .....
I actually believe that robotic missions are a much better use of the money, and would even scrap the ISS. But Elon Musk made a valid point that without people, there is a lot less popular support for missions and thus less funding.
Scientists get a lot more out of robotic missions.
The public get more out of manned missions, even if it involves astronauts dying.
Originally posted by @twhitehead I actually believe that robotic missions are a much better use of the money, and would even scrap the ISS. But Elon Musk made a valid point that without people, there is a lot less popular support for missions and thus less funding.
Scientists get a lot more out of robotic missions.
The public get more out of manned missions, even if it involves astronauts dying.
This is partially true of course but a person on a moon or asteroid may have more observational ability than a robot which may not understand a find is important and just roll its treads away from a possible momentous find, like a thigh bone sticking out of a hillside on Mars, just as a frivolous example. If images are sent to Earth in time, operators may recognize a find but if it was a bit too far for the imaging optics it would be missed but a person on the ground may see things a robot does not. At least in THIS century. Next century is an open bet.
The Moon and Design
09 Jul '17 13:38
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