End of Manned Space Flights?

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Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 6:40 am

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-07/space-shuttle-atlantis-touches-down-ending-era-american-manned-spaceflight

I know that not everyone here is American, but I'm sure you can sympathize. As a kid who love had model shuttles and a love for space, this is kind of depressing even as an adult now. Crying or Very sad

Why can't we as a species get our priorities together? Confused

Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 11:25 am

It is depressing.I remember being allowed to stay up late to watch the 1st moon landing.Something like that can really fire your mind up.

Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 11:47 am

I can recall getting up early to see Apollo 11; hell, I was born the year after Sputnik I and grew up reading and taking in everything I could about space travel.

I guess if the US wants to cede space to China, the Russians and the ESA, the future will bear no resemblance to Star Trek but more to Firefly.

Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 11:55 am

Erm, as far as I know, mankind is still going to fly to space, it's "just" NASA Space Shuttle program that has ended.

But it's the end of one era nevertheless...

Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 12:17 pm

^^ On Russian tin cans.

NASA's manned space flight programme was far, far in advance of anything that any other nation possessed. The Shuttle program was over 30 years old but it still exceeded anything that the rest of the world has ever put together since then.

The fact that it's gone and that there's no viable replacement means that mankind as a whole has regressed back to the 1960s in terms of being able to advance into space.

The only hope now is the private sector.

Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 12:25 pm

^^^ Yeah, I know... I was speaking more about the private sector but well, if US put less money in the amry and more in the space shutttle program who knows where would mankind be by now...

Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 12:40 pm

I'm not so sure.

There are experts claiming, that only limited knowledge that can be retrieved from an unmanned mission to, say, Mars. To get full revenue in knowledge from such a mission, there must be analytic minds present on the spot. In other words, human beings.

Personally, I think they're right, for the simple reason, that mankind has too much curiosity built into its organisms to stay here. Wink

It's not the end of an era, it's just a small interlude. Wink

Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 1:18 pm

^^ there's a huge problem with sending a manned mision to Mars, and it's not fuel, it's martian dust storms, they can destroy anything

Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 1:38 pm

This is what makes me sad:

If I'm reading this right, NASA is the 0.6% slice. Granted, this was 2008 but NASA's budget has only be denied and cut since then. crying

Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 1:59 pm

Holy cow! Just over 52% on entitlements?

Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 2:23 pm

Yuri Gagarin, John Glenn and Neil Armstrong have inspired many of us old folks. Charles F. Bolden lit a fire in my son when he was 8.

Quote:

“Children who dream of being astronauts today may not fly on the space shuttle … but, one day, they may walk on Mars. The future belongs to us. And just like those who came before us, we have an obligation to set an ambitious course and take an inspired nation along for the journey. I'm ready to get on with the next big challenge.”

I would like to thank General Bolden for what he and the Space Shuttle program did for my son.

Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 4:26 pm

The US only had a great space program because we had to be the Russians, errr Soviets, to the Autobot crash site. Doesn't everyone know that?

I think we ditched the Shuttle program because mission control got sick of being on hold for component tech support then getting a strange accent on the other end. Rumor has it a lot of accidents could have been avoided if not for a 2 hour phone que...

Baiting Guru Joined: 08 Feb 2005 Posts: 2301

I'm not going to say what I want to say, because if I did I'd have to delete my own post then ban myself. I'm extremely angry over this.

Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 5:22 pm

^LOL, then delete mine Smile

I'm glad it's over, I had no use for it at all.
But the reason it's over is economical, they got now up there what they wanted and by shutting down they can protect the knowledge and the secrets better.
Maybe they are able to solve some other small problems now first, like 300.000 kids dieing of hunger a year, jellyfish taking over the oceans or something else simple.
Just my 0.02 cents

Baiting Guru Joined: 08 Feb 2005 Posts: 2301

^^^ I don't even understand what you said...or were attempting to say. Confused

Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 6:53 am

username14: Nice pie chart, from what I have heard, NASA cost anually the same as 2 days of War in Afghanistan....

I dont have any source though so...

Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2011 9:06 pm

I was talking to my daughter about this and I was wrong. General Bolden talked to my son when he was 6.

I taught a niece how to fly and she later dedicated her life to becoming a shuttle pilot. Its amazing how close she came.

Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 8:11 am

There's so much space crap floating around the globe between 150 - 1500 miles, from all the stuff breaking up that we've sent up, that manned space flight is becoming more and more dangerous. A fleck of paint traveling at 18,000mph can tear a hole through anything man made it meets.

A collision between a US and Russian satellite in 2009 has created a deadly shrapnel belt at about 500 miles. They broke up into thousands of smaller bits that are big enough to be tracked, and millions of particles so small they can't be seen. If one piece hits another object, that breaks up into more bits and so on.

There are some predictions going around that give a rough date, when we effectively become entombed here because you'd need to be in a tank to stand any chance of getting through this multiplying hail of hypersonic bullets. New satellites generally have some kind of manoeuvring system that can either push them into a higher orbit once they end their design life, or bring them back into the atmosphere so they can burn up.

The space station has been nudged out of the way of incoming objects two or three times in it's life. If that ever breaks up it's game over for us and manned space flight.

I expect orbital manned space flight is nearing the end of what can realistically be achieved and is affordable anyway. Apart from tourist hops into low 60-100 mile jaunts that is. Near and deep space vehicles will most likely become smaller, cheaper and robotic like everything else these days. And probably armoured.

Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 9:04 am

^^^ And then the armored one that accidentally explode will create debris strong enough to break through other armored ones. So they have to make stronger armor, making stronger debris.

Got to love conventional human logic. Keep making a bigger stick/sword/bomb/tank so it won't break on theirs. Not take care of the underlying issue so neither of us will need them. Rolling Eyes

Yeah, I've heard of the whole space debris issue. It's like one of humanity's many dirty, untold secrets. It really isn't brought up in the mainstream unless it causes some disaster. And even then, it's made to sound like a freak accident, not like it's freaking everywhere up there.

Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 6:53 pm

I hated space flight as soon as the Russians put up Sputnik. The board of education then changed our graduating requirements to include more science and math.

Now if we could send all our criminals to outer space, it might be worth it.

Granted, however, due to new things developed by and for NASA we have benefited today. I do like the TANG crystals.

Elite Baiter Joined: 02 Jul 2006 Posts: 1702

We should train up some lads for the next missions then.

I vote:
Sitting head in trash can and hit with sticks - to simulate asteroid strikes.
Bycycle helmet being dropped on ground - to simulate rough take off
Tied to car roof and driven fast and brakes - g-force training.

Water landings should be handled with great care, cycling right into a river usually produces the typical "splash down", of course make sure they got a rope round the waist, drowned lads cannot email there video's Wink

Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2011 9:10 pm

I recall the Zambian Space Program hoax.

http://news.discovery.com/space/to-mars-zambias-forgotten-space-program.html

http://acrossdifficultcountry.blogspot.com/2008/11/i-see-zambia-of-future-as-space-age.html

Master of Master Baiters Joined: 26 Sep 2008 Posts: 689

Gene Roddenberry (presumably) the author of Star Trek through James T Kirk and then Jean Luc Picard said "... to boldly go where no one has gone before." For me that sums up all of our hopes, dreams and aspirations. Like others here I've lived through the space age, the moon landings ... I'm an avid sci-fi reader. I truly believe we need to get off this planet and get out there.

To sacrifice that or at least postpone it once more indefinately is a tragedy mankind may yet regret.

and for what?

To grow the human population at an even faster rate because it is necessary to cure the ills of the world we live in ... poverty, famine, starvation and disease. Saldy all the things we dont want to think about but can't dismiss through cynicism.

Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2011 12:29 am

That machine you are sitting in front of and tapping away on is one of the most significant benefits of space program. The limited space in manned vehicles required NASA to develop microcircuits, which eventually became the chips that run our PCs.

Posted: Tue Jul 26, 2011 4:30 pm

^^^ So how does Al Gore fit into the scheme of things! Rolling Eyes

Oh, that's right he is the internet guy!

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