Exactly

Great to finally see this in print.
This extremely destructive illusion should be brought to an end; the hidden legacy of "perchlorate" is criminal.

About those conspiracy theories, where ARE the stars in the background of that shot with that "man on the moon"? wtf?

How stupid are the masses, how evil is man?

The moon landing was a

The moon landing was a hoax.

The USA did not like the USSR showing them up..

Sorry, conspiracy dudes....

Take a look at any photo of Mir Space Station or something similar - no stars there either. The reason is exposure time.

The moon landing was no hoax: the "fake landing" story came out of NASA itself as a smokescreen for the real cover up: why they really went to the moon and what they found there. NASA is a defense agency with deep occult roots, dontchaknow. Check out Richard Hoagland's book DARK MISSION for more info and for insight as so why there's this sudden talk of going back to the moon and onto Mars, which as Kilian rightly points out, is an utterly idiotic thing to do.

oops....we erased the original moon landing tapes

http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre56f5mk-us-nasa-tapes/

Humans doing what they do best...

Humans are an amazing species with a fixation on changing our environment. We can make use of just about any resource available to do just about anything we can conceive of. We're constrained by the planet we live on.

We're surveying Mars to see if it's worth adding to our inventory. People won't go there just for the sake of sending humans off-world; they will go as exploiters, overseers of largely automated mining operations, etc. Someone's got to fix the robots when they break. If there's anything that makes economic sense to grab, we'll take it.

Any understanding we gain along the way is incidental. The question all this science is trying to answer is "Is there anything for us offworld?"

Sure there will be a few initial trips without much return on investment; we need reliable and proven vehicle designs for interplanetary flight.

I don't think humanity will be able to help itself - Mars will be ours. Greed will win the day, and that's fine. It's what we do as people. We take things, and we change them!

The author apparently thinks we don't belong anywhere that can't support humans wearing T-shirts and flip flops. Next, I'd like to hear Crawford's thoughts on deep-sea exploration, polar research, and maybe an essay on why people should stop climbing Everest - it's hard to breathe up there and it's so been done before!

wanderings/trips

First thought that comes to mind:

Just pushing further away from "home" just doesn't seem all that adventurous. If the trip to Mars ends up feeling the same as trip to Moon, then so what? Progress? Really? It is perhaps just the experience of what we're doing when we travel, travelling anywhere--corner store, gas station, Pluto--whatever--what travel amounts to, means to, us, that needs adventurous change. Explorations of, developments in, how we experience our external world.

Second thought that comes to mind (involving some reconsideration--i.e., forward progress [?])

If we travelled to the moon again, but did so not in an effort to show up another nation, not to accomplish something grandiose, spectacular, phallic, but out of recognition that a planet will always mean something to us, and stepping beyond, reaching beyond, something too, that might well be something of real value to us. We could do so not to plant a flag on it, simply tag it, but to encounter it--that could be something beautiful, worthy of resources and support--maybe. And thinking this way, it is possible too, that reaching beyond a solar system will always means something epic to us as well, no matter how much we try to persuade ourselves that, really, you can have/live the same experience just by finally convincing yourself to leave old life habits behind you, and maybe out of respect for natural desires, we should aim out there as well.

We need to appreciate the fact that it just feels different when a human being is the one out there, rather than just an instrument of some kind. When a human being is out there, s/he is not one of a few: in a very real sense, we feel like we were out there too--We were in touch with something New, too. Can't be denied, I think. Scientists, objectivists, need to respect human ways of experiencing, making meaning out of, their environment. Otherwise they're just robots, technicians, drained of soul. Human being on Mars. Touching Mars' soil. Waving back to Earth. Waving forward, further out there. You know this could be something really great. I'll think further about this.

Man's ego.

With all of earth's problems that need solution it is unbridled hubris that assumes we should leave our "footprints" on any other planet. If we can't solve problems here, what are we doing spending billions on space travel?

It's about not being dumb... as a species

I don't know. Sometimes I suspect it's maybe just a guy thing, even though I know there are "ladies" into it too, of course. Even I kind of trip out on all the fire and rock the earth power of it all, and all the high tech toys that trickle down as a consequence of the adventure. And it is pretty amazing, no doubt. Though I remain seriously unimpressed.

What makes it hard to justify is the incredible poverty here on earth, the trillion dollar wars, declining health budgets and social programme needs of "the masses" of humanity, while the intellectual elites get to scratch their esoteric itch, and their corporate/state owners, suppliers of "stuff" to the space programme, get to stoke and stroke their wallets.It's that there is a serious and huge morals and values disconnect to it all, and that all that brain power and matériel, to say nothing of cash and material resources could be better and more strategically directed... I mean if the real end of it all is to serve humankind, in a broader sense than just the corporate boardroom.

But then, I really doubt it... nay, I know its not really about fulfilling some higher human ideal, that it is really more an ongoing manifestation of the nature and value system of ongoing, endless growth, shag the masses capitalism and whoring to the corporate instinct. It has its bright shiny distraction bauble aspect for the masses too, of course, but you can't take that to the bank when you're unemployed, squatting in a Mumbai slum or having to hook the old lady or daughter to feed the kids. It's more like the baubles and beads at the founding of the continent... used to fleece the Natives out of their land, and if that don't work, carpet bomb them.

By all means let's go into space... when we've gathered up the shit we've defecated into our own earthly nest, cleaned up the world's oceans, brought our population footprint under control and provided for, at least, the elementary education, nutrition and health needs of the worlds absolute and relative cheap labour supply, to say nothing of the home working class. Until then, we are just acting out the corporate capitalism value system, which is standing on its head trying to make the cart pull the horse.

It's not just a guy or chick thing. It's even bigger and more screwed up than that. And everybody acts like its okay, and the thing we should be doing.

Screwed. Just screwed.

Two things...

1. The moon landing is widely credited with helping sensitize a whole generation to the importance of protecting the environment - those pictures of the lonely earth floating in the sky etc...
That in itself might make the investment worthwhile.

2. Going to Mars is not ANYTHING like going to the moon. It's several orders of magnitude more difficult. For eg - the window of travel only occurs every 2 years. The trip would take about 6 months. Then the humans would have to spend 18 months on Mars before attempting to come back. No-one knows (yet) how to provide food, fuel, technology etc to make this possible. To say nothing of how to ensure the people don't lose their muscles and their minds during the trip.

Is that worthwhile to the world? Hard to say, but it would certainly be the one of the biggest challenges science and technology has ever faced.

Making new craters

And what about NASA's plan to slam an SUV-sized vehicle into the moon at 9,000 kilometres per hour this October in order to find water?

That's just expensive, wasteful, (and likely senseless) bullying:

http://lcross.arc.nasa.gov/impact.htm

Now that's reaching...

"1. The moon landing is widely credited with helping sensitize a whole generation to the importance of protecting the environment - those pictures of the lonely earth floating in the sky etc...
That in itself might make the investment worthwhile."

Now, that's reaching for the moon. A good laugh too. :-)

Getting our priorities in order

I share some of Crawford's ambivalence, for I too feel the sense of adventure a trip to Mars represents, even while I know in my heart that it is shameful to waste (Yes, shameful and waste in this other sense) literally billions of dollars on this unnecesary exercise when people are sick and dying for lack of potable water and NO sanitary sewage.

It doesn't take much imagination to see these purely technical problems would be a thing of the past if the same money and expertise was devoted to solving them.

And if profit is an issue, it is obvious that there would be plenty to be made there too.

You're kidding right?

Crawford that is one of the most ridiculous things I've read her (well except for the tinfoil hat club posting about faked moon landings.) The space race, and in particular the race to the moon, had far more spin-offs than tang and spam in a can. The total tax dollars generated as a direct result of the space race was many times what was spent. New technologies were developed and they in turn led to new jobs and new fields of research. Many more people became engineers and scientists simply because of the space race and the fascination it engendered in them and then in turn they helped increase the US' productivity and tax base. For every dollar the US spends on space approximately $8 of economic activity is generated - that's one hell of a good return on one's money - I suggest you do a little research next time before sticking your foot in it.

Human exploration excites far more than robotic. Not to mention that if global climate change continues as it looks like it will we may very well need the technologies developed to sustain astronauts on a 2 year journey through space,and the new scientists who develop them just to survive here.

coyoteman

Do a little research and you'll see that the images of the earth from space had a significant impact on environmental consciousness.

walmart

And when an asteroid comes hurtling down on us, the Kilians of this world would have us stand by helplessly as doom approaches.

When the No-Nukes gweenies and their ally's at Big Coal/Oil give us run away global warming do we like Kilian, just roll over and die, or do we use that "spam" tech to build a sun screen at L2

And satellites of course are of no value.

Does Kilian think a robot could have fixed the Hubble?

When the Russians and Chinese control space should we stand by and let them drop rocks on us?

Ten thousand times as much money is spent on Walmart necessities like big screen TeeVee's, dogfood, fast food, candy , soda pop, new clothes and shoes as well as giant homes, booze, cigs, wars in Iraq and Afhganistan, and SUV's. Every dime of that is wasted as well.

Access to space is the future, guys like Jeff Bezos are finding cheaper ways to get there.

sigh

seth, even when you write a post with which I essentially agree, you still manage to make it weird ...

Doug Alder - Thanks for

Doug Alder - Thanks for providing a much-needed reality check here.

we'd be better off waiting for an ecounter of the third kind

Space travel, aside from the number one goal of establishing military supremacy, is little more than a make work program for a select segment of those who believe technology will solve all of our problems.

While there’s no doubt technological change, that has spun from the space travel endeavor, has made life easier for some folks … those that can afford it … the real spin-off benefit of the space-travel challenge is the fact it keeps folks employed and out of trouble.

What possible benefit will be gained by keeping astronauts alive in space while global warming runs it course? Giving mankind a new start (with an extremely small gene pool) after the environmental apocalyse?

"Space travel, aside from

"Space travel, aside from the number one goal of establishing military supremacy, is little more than a make work program for a select segment of those who believe technology will solve all of our problems."

Which about says it best, in my view. Good post amd excellent points.

no nukes

@Kevin

Well the title is lunar looney tunes

Perhaps I can help you out with the "weird"

Gweenies is the popular vernacular for Green folk who think wind power is the best answer to global warming. "No nukes" refers to gweenies who not only love wind but think nuclear power is Satan's Choice. These gweenies are funded with millions of dollars from Big Coal/Oil who know nuclear power could more or less put them out of business in ten years while wind power has zero chance of displacing their noxious product.

Current research shows there is a significant chance of us tipping over the climate precipice in the next ten years. Ocean acidity and permafrost methane emissions are two potential disasters that worry climatologists.

Gweenies with their immense well funded support in most Western administrations have been able to greatly slow down nuclear energy alternatives and will likely be able to do so until it is too late.

Hence the need for a sun shield at Lagrange point two, requiring space based construction and massive and inexpensive launch capacity.

Loony tunes

The space program was micro-pennies on the dollar and gave us hope. Hope that the stupidity of humans would not end the species on the planet. If I could have one year of the US' military budget, I'd have a million people on Mars within the next decade. Living, working, learning, expanding humanity. Give me the funds of the global miltary industrial complex, and I will give you Star Trek capability within the century. Crawford, you just have to stop people killing each other in senseless and useless wars. Until you manage that, the environment, poverty & what-not don't amount to a hill of beans.

loony tunes

why did the first person set sail to somewhere unknown, why do we want to climb the highest mountain because that is who we are. is that a bad thing? I agree wholeheartedly with Doug I could not have expressed it better.

What's the point?

There are valid arguments to be made about the cost of space exploration and what should be funded. But the premise of Killian's arguments about lunar or Mars exploration seems to be robots can do it more cheaply and there is better places to spend money. Call me impractical and flighty if you will, but the vast majority of us make enough money to eat and have a roof of some kind over our heads. Everything else, except perhaps health care, is a "waste of money". From baseball games to dog ownership, war machines to the newest fashions – they are all unnecessary. While some say the spinoffs are valuable (true) I believe if you pour billions and billions into anything, there will be valuable spinoffs. But it isn't exactly what you do, but why you do it. I don't like watching professional sports much, but millions of people do and are actually inspired by it. It shapes their lives; it gives them meaning and something to do beyond eating, excreting and existing. Perhaps space exploration is expensive, but at least it is productive, inspriational and isn't about trying to kill others or exploit them. At least, not yet.

Spaceship Earth

We already have a space ship that we cannot sustain, let alone 'spam cans' to go to Mars!

The space ship is called Earth!

Spin-offs?

Years ago the spin-offs from various things were printed in the Sun. Space and military spending fared way down the list compared to things like health. Of course the methodology on any such list can be argued endlessly.

Of course there will be spin-offs from spending money to go to Mars, but the fact is we could do way better by spending the money on something that was actually useful.

As for why people crossed the oceans, they were driven by the hope of becoming rich via the exploitation of new lands and peoples.

By the way...

If we want the human race to survive, don't invest in putting a man on Mars, invest in birth control and the education and protection of women.

All of our planet's problems come down to one thing, overpopulation.

appeal to Obama

Before Crawford's article, I had read that in a few weeks various science advisors to the President will meet him to talk about the next direction in space travel. I wrote a letter to the US President (a real one, on paper, mailed the old fashioned way):

Dear Mr. President:

as you listen to experts discussing and advising you on the next steps to be taken in space exploration, I would ask that you consider what an equivalent amount of funding could do to save THIS planet from the environmental catastrophes looming in the years--and months of your administration--ahead.

What we need, what the world needs, is dramatic leadership: a country bold enough to step up to the plate and state, in unequivocal terms, that the planet, all of humanity and indeed all life on earth, is in grave and pressing danger, that we must focus all of our scientific and engineering excellence not on returning to the moon, a lifeless body whose dubious mineral benefits to us are outweighed by the cost of retrieving them, but to slowing and even reversing the otherwise inexorable increase in CO2, methane and other gaseous causes of global climate change.

We need to know that the United States has taken the depletion of oceanic plankton due to warming seas and PH alteration so seriously--because every second breath we humans take is oxygenated by plankton--that it is unilaterally taking steps to decrease its CO2 output. Your state governments and all their regional and national lobbyists will howl in protest: but there's no point in saving jobs if our policies or lack of action leads to the deaths of our families and the land they love.

I urge you to read Alanna Mitchell's recent book Seasick: the Global Ocean in Crisis (isbn 978-0-7710-6116-5 ); it is a most frightening read, more so than any other single book on the environment. Few of us (myself included, until I read this book) realize that our fingers are poised on a trigger that will, if tripped, cause irreversible changes to the biosphere. The fate of the ocean is our fate.

I beg you, sir: much as we may dream of one day landing explorers on Mars--and beyond--we need to repair our damaged home, OUR planet, earth, before we continue our outbound journey.

The Moon

is there. Waiting. Beyond the Moon, the planets also wait. After the planets, there are other solar systems, and the billions of stars within the Milky Way with their possible planetary systems too. And billions of galaxies strewn across the years and the limits of space.

In truth, we are not made for anywhere else but on Earth, a singular inhabitant of a singular environment. And when we have fouled our own nest to the point of its destruction, will we be able to stretch out our wings and fly, or will we just become a lifeless part of its detritus?

Teilhard de Chardin described humanity as "a rising bubble in a downward stream." Time is not on our side. We have the ability to do better than we have, but do we have the will?

Lunar Enterprise

Establishing an industrial infrastructure on the Moon is a totally acheivable goal. Note that all industrial enterprise on the Moon does not contribute to Global Warming or release Pollutants on the Earth. And at the Lunar Poles there is 24/7 bright sunlight coupled with a tremendous high efficiency heat differential between light and dark regions for really cheap, reliable energy. And likely water ice at the poles as well. The value of lunar enterprise could easily exceed the cost of its development by a factor of a thousand to one. Once you are out of the Earth's gravity well, it is far easier and less expensive to:

1) build and launch satellites to Earth Orbit, a trillion dollar business, at one twentieth the energy expenditure of an Earth launch – as a matter of fact as little as 15 cents a kg to launch materials from the Moon to the Earth or Earth Orbit
2) send mining missions to Near Earth Asteroids, many of which contain a trillion dollars worth of minerals, and are actually quite simple to send to the Earth
3) mine minerals on the Moon which can be sent to the Earth by rail gun, tether or lunar elevator, due to the low gravity of the Moon
4) manufacture materials, including pharmaceuticals, in the low gravity and vacuum of the Moon that can’t be made on the Earth – a potential trillion dollar industry
5) build a sun shade at the L1 point between the Sun and the Earth (easily launched by rail gun, tether or lunar elevator from the Moon), this would provide an emergency protection against Runaway Global Warming, allow increased sunlight after a massive Volcanic explosion (two in the 1800’s) that cause worldwide crop failures due to dust & SOx released into the upper atmosphere, protect against catastrophic droughts caused by industrial emissions or deforestation ( such as the last major African drought was believed to be caused by emissions released by European Industry ) – certainly a potential value exceeding 10’s of trillion dollars
6) launch the materials to Terraform Mars, certainly it is entirely within our ability to make Mars habitable to Terrestrial Life. Establishing a new world ecosystem, essentially the progeny of the Earth, would be the greatest ENVIRONMENTAL ACHIEVEMENT since the pre-Cambrian Explosion. It would make all the damage Humans have done to the Earth’s Ecology a comparative triviality.
7) mine Helium 3 (current value $1500 per gm, a potential Clean Energy Black Swan) and other substances that cannot be done on the Earth economically
8) establish a base from which any potential asteroid or comet collisions with the Earth can be detected and prevented (just 13,000 years ago a comet or comet fragments devastated North America and wiped out the Clovis People.)

lunar enterprise cont'd

9) build a huge liquid mirror telescope that could detect life on other planets on nearby Stars
10) make industrial products like poly-crystalline sheets for Solar Panels, (they are very lightweight and easy to send to the Earth), and produce terrible toxic waste on the Earth – toxic or radioactive waste on the Moon could be safely stored there or easily launched into the Sun by rail gun, tether or lunar elevator)

Undoubtedly, there is dozens or even hundreds of other high value applications that I haven’t mentioned or that nobody has even thought of yet.

Looney Article

Mankind was always meant to explore. Science and technology exist today because we decided to go to the moon. Much of this new technology has contributed to our society in ways that many people just take for granted.

Where NASA went wrong, in my opinion, was to abandon exploration of the moon and to develop the Space Shuttle. This kept us in Near-Earth orbit and inhibited the discovery of new science on the moon. Robots on Mars have significantly contributed to our knowledge of the solar system and our nearest neighbour. We now know that water exists on the moon and Mars that might harbour life forms that will help us understand our own planet. By exploring the moon we can find new resources that are not abundant on earth such as He-3 which holds a key to fusion - an energy form that can solve many of our current energy and climate problems on earth.

It is likely that our earth will be visited in the next hundred years by a large object that could do considerable damage. Many people have forgotten that 100 years ago, an explosion over Siberia caused the flattening of 20,000 sq. km. of forest. And millions of years ago, the dinosaurs were wiped out because of a suddden impact of an asteroid.

Creating moon bases and colonies in space may save the human race from extinction in a similar explosion. This potential is likely of a similar risk to that of global warming yet we are spending very little in comparison to locate and monitor such potential dangers.

Bah!

I'm dismayed by the lack of concern for our fellow humans that is being displayed in these comments.

Of what value is it to bring these sentiments to another world, and then do it all over again?

How Sad...

It's really sad to see how many people on this site are in complete denial of all of the qualities that make humanity great. Without our sense of curiousity, exploration and ability to adapt and prosper, we are nothing but mindless animals that roam the Earth.

Nothing could be greater to benefit humanity than the exploration of the universe. And we will never solve the problems we have now on Earth until we better understand our relationship with the universe and our miracle of sentient life.

Those who lose hope for humanity have condemned themselves to the prisons that they have built.

human

We have the capacity to think, to dream, to discover. By traveling to space we are exercising what it means to be human.

We have flourished (in a way) on this planet because of those deep-rooted traits. Let's not turn our backs on that now.

Save money? The reduce military expernditures. Promote better (domestic) agricultural practices and clean energy solutions.

Save the Earth? Sometimes it's good to get some perspective. Seeing the Earth as a glowing globe in the darkness of space changed how we see ourselves in the Universe. Imagine traveling to Mars, setting foot on another world - and perhaps discovering signs of life? Imagine how profound those implications would be...

We would not be where we are today without science, without curiousity and discovery.

If you believe the moon landing was faked - I won't be able to convince you otherwise in a few sentences - but I urge you to read/watch the arguments that debunk the conspiracy videos. Be open-minded to the evidence, otherwise, you're as bad as you criticize us to be: closed-minded sheep.

It's a shame to think that you don't believe in perhaps the greatest intellectual achievement of humankind.

If you don't believe in that - what do you believe in?

Exploring Inner and Outer Space

It seems we always rhapsodize over the possible discovery of minute or trace vestiges of water (life) in outer space yet this planet is brimful with the sacred stuff and we shrug off the urgency of conserving its miraculous properties.

Imagine if we found a planet somewhere out there
...just like us.... with the rare multiplicity of bountiful life that fills this one. Butterflies, birds...and baboons. Talk about the boundless exhilaration and sheer joy that would come of that kind of major league scientific discovery. We would be jumping on sofas a la Tom Cruise.

And yet, funny us, the grass "out there" would still look greener than our own here on earth.

Though for all that I still think exploration seems a natural and deeply rewarding.... and human thing to do.

I can't think of a better way to spend a day on earth. It is just plain fun. Ask any kid playing in a tidal pool on the beach.

So to be out of the bounds of earth must also be wondrous stuff as well.

But as a species we seem to have become our own worst enemy.

Why is that?

We should at least first try to take a crack at answering that before we take another giant leap for mankind.... into another giant abyss of our own making.