The last space shuttle flight: Yeah..I am furious.

[daveman]

This should not be a partisan thing at all.

It's very simple. We have to do this.

Not because it is easy..but because it is hard. Humans need to be challenged and constantly.

The ultimate survival of the human species depends on us getting some of our eggs out of this one basket and out into a permanent presence in space. The moon, Mars, the asteroids, the LaGrange points -- even beyond, someday.

Look at science fiction from the '50s, written by scientists like Robert Heinlein. We were supposed to have moon colonies by now.

What happened? Our future was stolen.

 

[hortysir]

If you want to blame someone.....look around

Americans quickly lost interest in the Apollo program after Apollo 11. I can still name most of the Mercury/Gemini astronauts. They were like baseball stars to me. How many can name one astronaut today?

The shuttle was boring, a space truck. Other than Challenger and Columbia disasters, nobody cared. Send a teacher to space, send a Japanese/Muslim/Retired Senator-Astronaut...all gimmicks

We had rovers on Mars for two years.......Nobody cared

While that may be true for the other 48, being from Florida I don't see it that way.
Every launch I have seen still had cars lined up and down the highways, bridges and overpasses, beaches and piers.....co-workers and/or neighbors rushing outside to gaze NE just to catch a glimpse of it's unmistakable flame trail or timing it just right to be outside for that re-entry sonic boom!!

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

What the fuck happened?

Perhaps a realization that the human animal is too fragile and has too short a life span to make space exploration feasible. We’ve learned more with Hubble and probes than with manned flights.

The moon project was about Cold War politics, not science. And the science of space is too insignificant to justify the spending of taxpayers’ money.

But there never was any real ‘space exploration,’ nor will there ever be.

 

[rightwinger]

OM MY GOD....people mark the calendar!!!!

Rightwinger just blamed someone other than Bush for a problem.

Want to blame Bush? Let's blame both of them

Neither Bush proposed or funded a replacement for the Shuttle

Wait,,,did you just insinuate that Obama is at fault for something also???

That's it...ok folks...it's obvious, someone has hacked rightwingers account.

No President since Nixon proposed a replacement for the shuttle

Frankly, nobody cared...they still don't

 

[rightwinger]

What the fuck happened?

Perhaps a realization that the human animal is too fragile and has too short a life span to make space exploration feasible. We’ve learned more with Hubble and probes than with manned flights.

The moon project was about Cold War politics, not science. And the science of space is too insignificant to justify the spending of taxpayers’ money.

But there never was any real ‘space exploration,’ nor will there ever be.

Like I have always said...Our space program needs to be more about R2D2 and less about Buck Rogers

The cost of supporting a living being over vast distances for extended periods of time are prohibitive. Plus, if you lose a robot...nobody cares

 

[rightwinger]

This should not be a partisan thing at all.

It's very simple. We have to do this.

Not because it is easy..but because it is hard. Humans need to be challenged and constantly.

The ultimate survival of the human species depends on us getting some of our eggs out of this one basket and out into a permanent presence in space. The moon, Mars, the asteroids, the LaGrange points -- even beyond, someday.

Look at science fiction from the '50s, written by scientists like Robert Heinlein. We were supposed to have moon colonies by now.

What happened? Our future was stolen.

I thought you said global warming doesn't exist?

Hedging your bets?

 

[daveman]

This should not be a partisan thing at all.

It's very simple. We have to do this.

Not because it is easy..but because it is hard. Humans need to be challenged and constantly.

The ultimate survival of the human species depends on us getting some of our eggs out of this one basket and out into a permanent presence in space. The moon, Mars, the asteroids, the LaGrange points -- even beyond, someday.

Look at science fiction from the '50s, written by scientists like Robert Heinlein. We were supposed to have moon colonies by now.

What happened? Our future was stolen.

I thought you said global warming doesn't exist?

Hedging your bets?

Who said anything about global warming? There are other situations that can threaten life on Earth: the Yellowstone caldera blowing, a rogue asteroid or large comet. You know, real stuff, not AGW.

 

[rightwinger]

The ultimate survival of the human species depends on us getting some of our eggs out of this one basket and out into a permanent presence in space. The moon, Mars, the asteroids, the LaGrange points -- even beyond, someday.

Look at science fiction from the '50s, written by scientists like Robert Heinlein. We were supposed to have moon colonies by now.

What happened? Our future was stolen.

I thought you said global warming doesn't exist?

Hedging your bets?

Who said anything about global warming? There are other situations that can threaten life on Earth: the Yellowstone caldera blowing, a rogue asteroid or large comet. You know, real stuff, not AGW.

I see your plan now you sneaky bastard

Allow the wealthy to stockpile cash as the Republicans allow them to trash the planet. Then they will be the only ones who can afford to escape to another planet when it is uninhabitable


Thought you could get away with it didn't you?

 

[Rat in the Hat]

We choose to go to the moon, Not because it is easy..but because it is hard.

YouTube - ‪John F. Kennedy Moon Landing Speech - Rice Stadium 1962‬‏

What the fuck happened?

We decided instead to give $billions to foreign governments, spend $billions on un-needed and unwanted military hardware, to fund the United Nations, to look past outrageous multi-$billion annual entitlement fraud, spent $100's millions on airports no one needs, bridges to nowhere....shall I go on?

Speaking of airports nobody needs...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F-1daKavEY&NR=1&feature=fvwp]YouTube - ‪Mid-America Airport during one of the biggest travel days of the year - Wasted Tax Dollars‬‏[/ame]

 

[CrusaderFrank]

The SSC's planned collision energy of 40 TeV was almost triple the 14 TeV of its European counterpart, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva. The LHC was less expensive to build because, in addition to its smaller size, the LHC took over the existing engineering infrastructure and 27 km long underground cavern of the Large Electron-Positron Collider. The LHC eventually cost the equivalent of about 5 billion US dollars to build.

Superconducting Super Collider - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Big Science goes to the ash heap of history.

 

[rightwinger]

If you want to blame someone.....look around

Americans quickly lost interest in the Apollo program after Apollo 11. I can still name most of the Mercury/Gemini astronauts. They were like baseball stars to me. How many can name one astronaut today?

The shuttle was boring, a space truck. Other than Challenger and Columbia disasters, nobody cared. Send a teacher to space, send a Japanese/Muslim/Retired Senator-Astronaut...all gimmicks

We had rovers on Mars for two years.......Nobody cared

While that may be true for the other 48, being from Florida I don't see it that way.
Every launch I have seen still had cars lined up and down the highways, bridges and overpasses, beaches and piers.....co-workers and/or neighbors rushing outside to gaze NE just to catch a glimpse of it's unmistakable flame trail or timing it just right to be outside for that re-entry sonic boom!!

That's sounds great..


People still line up for fireworks too

 

[westwall]

This should not be a partisan thing at all.

It's very simple. We have to do this.

Not because it is easy..but because it is hard. Humans need to be challenged and constantly.

The ultimate survival of the human species depends on us getting some of our eggs out of this one basket and out into a permanent presence in space. The moon, Mars, the asteroids, the LaGrange points -- even beyond, someday.

Look at science fiction from the '50s, written by scientists like Robert Heinlein. We were supposed to have moon colonies by now.

What happened? Our future was stolen.

I thought you said global warming doesn't exist?

Hedging your bets?

No, he's cognizant of the fact that we're one asteroid away from following the dinosaurs. Over a hundred billion wasted on AGW crap research could have funded a nice bit of the space program that would give us definite benefits, the climatologists have been able to tell us that for the mere expense of 76 trillion dollars over the next ten years we MAY
lower the temperature of the globe by one degree in 100 years.

A more ridiculous idea has NEVER been uttered.

 

[rightwinger]

The ultimate survival of the human species depends on us getting some of our eggs out of this one basket and out into a permanent presence in space. The moon, Mars, the asteroids, the LaGrange points -- even beyond, someday.

Look at science fiction from the '50s, written by scientists like Robert Heinlein. We were supposed to have moon colonies by now.

What happened? Our future was stolen.

I thought you said global warming doesn't exist?

Hedging your bets?

No, he's cognizant of the fact that we're one asteroid away from following the dinosaurs. Over a hundred billion wasted on AGW crap research could have funded a nice bit of the space program that would give us definite benefits, the climatologists have been able to tell us that for the mere expense of 76 trillion dollars over the next ten years we MAY
lower the temperature of the globe by one degree in 100 years.

A more ridiculous idea has NEVER been uttered.

Oh yes...we have so much more to fear from a rouge asteroid than the FACT that we are fucking up our own planet

Scientists are just dorks you used to beat up in High School right?

 

[westwall]

I thought you said global warming doesn't exist?

Hedging your bets?

No, he's cognizant of the fact that we're one asteroid away from following the dinosaurs. Over a hundred billion wasted on AGW crap research could have funded a nice bit of the space program that would give us definite benefits, the climatologists have been able to tell us that for the mere expense of 76 trillion dollars over the next ten years we MAY
lower the temperature of the globe by one degree in 100 years.

A more ridiculous idea has NEVER been uttered.

Oh yes...we have so much more to fear from a rouge asteroid than the FACT that we are fucking up our own planet

Scientists are just dorks you used to beat up in High School right?

No, I AM a scientist! A geologist to be exact. And yes we should fear a asteroid. IT CAN destroy civilisation. Global warming can't. End of story. Just take a stroll through history some day. Whenever it has been warm it has been nice. The only time that life has been bad on this planet is when it has been cold. 90% of the planets history has been much warmer then it is today...much warmer.

olfraud loves to talk about "extinction events" and loves to talk about the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum and how bad it was for fauna on the planet. Unfortunately for him even wiki reports that other than for some foraminefera (small one celled critters) it was a paradise...I quote from them...and no I wouldn't normally but he likes it as source material..

There are many problems with their assumptions but the underlying information is actually correct for once.

The PETM is accompanied by a mass extinction of 35-50% of benthic foraminifera (especially in deeper waters) over the course of ~1,000 years - the group suffering more than during the dinosaur-slaying K-T extinction. Contrarily, planktonic foraminifera diversified, and dinoflagellates bloomed. Success was also enjoyed by the mammals, who radiated profusely around this time.

The deep-sea extinctions are difficult to explain, as many were regional in extent (mainly affecting the north Atlantic). General hypotheses such as a temperature-related reduction in oxygen availability, or increased corrosiveness due to carbonate-undersaturated deep waters, are insufficient as explanations. The only factor which was global in extent was an increase in temperature, and it appears that the majority of the blame must rest upon its shoulders. Regional extinctions in the North Atlantic can be attributed to increased deep-sea anoxia, which could be due to the slowdown of overturning ocean currents,[12] or the release and rapid oxidation of large amounts of methane.[20][verification needed]

In shallower waters, it's undeniable that increased CO2 levels result in a decreased oceanic pH, which has a profound negative effect on corals.[21] Experiments suggest it is also very harmful to calcifying plankton.[22] However, the strong acids used to simulate the natural increase in acidity which would result from elevated CO2 concentrations may have given misleading results, and the most recent evidence is that coccolithophores (E. huxleyi at least) become more, not less, calcified and abundant in acidic waters.[23] Interestingly, no change in the distribution of calcareous nanoplankton such as the coccolithophores can be attributed to acidification during the PETM.[23] Acidification did lead to an abundance of heavily calcified algae[24] and weakly calcified forams.[25]

The increase in mammalian abundance is intriguing. There is no evidence of any increased extinction rate among the terrestrial biota. Increased CO2 levels may have promoted dwarfing[26] – which may (perhaps?) have encouraged speciation. Many major mammalian orders – including the Artiodactyla, horses, and primates – appeared and spread across the globe 13,000 to 22,000 years after the initiation of the PETM.[26]



Paleocene

 

[Rat in the Hat]

I thought you said global warming doesn't exist?

Hedging your bets?

No, he's cognizant of the fact that we're one asteroid away from following the dinosaurs. Over a hundred billion wasted on AGW crap research could have funded a nice bit of the space program that would give us definite benefits, the climatologists have been able to tell us that for the mere expense of 76 trillion dollars over the next ten years we MAY
lower the temperature of the globe by one degree in 100 years.

A more ridiculous idea has NEVER been uttered.

Oh yes...we have so much more to fear from a rouge asteroid than the FACT that we are fucking up our own planet

Scientists are just dorks you used to beat up in High School right?

Actually, we need to be afraid of both of these things happening. We also need to fear Yellowstone letting go, some disease or virus wiping out the population, or some idiot politicians starting a global nuclear war.

We need to work on getting a colony started on the Moon or Mars so our species will survive any of these events.

 

[martybegan]

What the fuck happened?

Perhaps a realization that the human animal is too fragile and has too short a life span to make space exploration feasible. We’ve learned more with Hubble and probes than with manned flights.

The moon project was about Cold War politics, not science. And the science of space is too insignificant to justify the spending of taxpayers’ money.

But there never was any real ‘space exploration,’ nor will there ever be.

There was a caveman who once said "we can't cross that mountain, its impossible"

There was some European that said "Don't go West, theres nothing but water and death"

There were people that laughed at the idea of man powered flight

There were people that ridiculed the concept of orbital flight, and making it to the moon

Anything is possible until proven impossible, and proving something impossible is rather difficult.

 

[daveman]

I thought you said global warming doesn't exist?

Hedging your bets?

Who said anything about global warming? There are other situations that can threaten life on Earth: the Yellowstone caldera blowing, a rogue asteroid or large comet. You know, real stuff, not AGW.

I see your plan now you sneaky bastard

Allow the wealthy to stockpile cash as the Republicans allow them to trash the planet. Then they will be the only ones who can afford to escape to another planet when it is uninhabitable


Thought you could get away with it didn't you?

The plan is almost complete -- and there's nothing you can do about it! Mwa-ha ha ha ha ha!!

 

[daveman]

This thread seems to put the lie to the left's ridiculous notion that the right is anti-science.

Most of the people in this thread who oppose the space program are on the left. Most who support it are on the right.

What's more science-y than man in space?

 

[westwall]

This thread seems to put the lie to the left's ridiculous notion that the right is anti-science.

Most of the people in this thread who oppose the space program are on the left. Most who support it are on the right.

What's more science-y than man in space?

Indeed.

 

[Rat in the Hat]

This thread seems to put the lie to the left's ridiculous notion that the right is anti-science.

Most of the people in this thread who oppose the space program are on the left. Most who support it are on the right.

What's more science-y than man in space?