Why Did We Get Into Space
- Thread starter Orleander
- Start date
You assume that "we" get into space.
Only some of us went into space, because we dreamed and made our dreams a reality. Because of the need to explore beyond.
Meanwhile the rest majority have never gotten into space and never will.
So it's "Why did some of us get into space?"
A few things to ponder....
"Since, in the long run, every planetary civilization will be endangered by impacts from space, every surviving civilization is obliged to become spacefaring--not because of exploratory or romantic zeal, but for the most practical reason imaginable: staying alive... If our long-term survival is at stake, we have a basic responsibility to our species to venture to other worlds."
Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994
"I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I'm an optimist. We will reach out to the stars."
Stephen Hawking, interview with Daily Telegraph, 2001
"The Earth is just too small and fragile a basket for the human race to keep all its eggs in."
Robert Heinlein, speech
"Today the human race is a single twig on the tree of life, a single species on a single planet. Our condition can thus only be described as extremely fragile, endangered by forces of nature currently beyond our control, our own mistakes, and other branches of the wildly blossoming tree itself. Looked at this way, we can then pose the question of the future of humanity on Earth, in the solar system, and in the galaxy from the standpoint of both evolutionary biology and human nature. The conclusion is straightforward: Our choice is to grow, branch, spread and develop, or stagnate and die."
Robert Zubrin, Entering Space, 1999
More at http://www.spacequotes.com/
"Since, in the long run, every planetary civilization will be endangered by impacts from space, every surviving civilization is obliged to become spacefaring--not because of exploratory or romantic zeal, but for the most practical reason imaginable: staying alive... If our long-term survival is at stake, we have a basic responsibility to our species to venture to other worlds."
Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994
"I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I'm an optimist. We will reach out to the stars."
Stephen Hawking, interview with Daily Telegraph, 2001
"The Earth is just too small and fragile a basket for the human race to keep all its eggs in."
Robert Heinlein, speech
"Today the human race is a single twig on the tree of life, a single species on a single planet. Our condition can thus only be described as extremely fragile, endangered by forces of nature currently beyond our control, our own mistakes, and other branches of the wildly blossoming tree itself. Looked at this way, we can then pose the question of the future of humanity on Earth, in the solar system, and in the galaxy from the standpoint of both evolutionary biology and human nature. The conclusion is straightforward: Our choice is to grow, branch, spread and develop, or stagnate and die."
Robert Zubrin, Entering Space, 1999
More at http://www.spacequotes.com/
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Homo sapiens is a species of primate. Primates are arguably the most curious order of animal species. There was no way we weren't going to explore space once we had the technology to make it possible.
We all are in space & always have been.
I think we are not too far off from colonization (mars, moon, perhaps titan in the far future.). Bases with civilians in less than 100 years assuming no catastrophes that massively cull the population.
Why? Our population, we are close to a critical set of circumstances which will make certain members of our species want to get the fuck away from everyone else. Not just any members, but smart ones, rich ones, yes I hate to say it, the elite. Or perhaps the almost elite, shutted out from the inner circles of power on Earth, seek their fortune and need for control somewhere else. The resource of the earth will be depleted or carefully controlled, there will be a demand AND a need to get extra-planetary.
Why? Our population, we are close to a critical set of circumstances which will make certain members of our species want to get the fuck away from everyone else. Not just any members, but smart ones, rich ones, yes I hate to say it, the elite. Or perhaps the almost elite, shutted out from the inner circles of power on Earth, seek their fortune and need for control somewhere else. The resource of the earth will be depleted or carefully controlled, there will be a demand AND a need to get extra-planetary.
Pandaemoni
Valued Senior Member
I don't think we'd be in space but for both mankind's most noble and his darker instincts. Visionary curiosity and tyrannical struggles for dominance led us there. Werner von Braun was a member of the SS, for heavens' sakes. (Not to say he agrees with the Nazi goals in lock step, but it is where he cut his teeth before bringing his technical expertise to NASA.) Moreover the desire to protect ourselves from and outdo the Soviets was an obvious and huge impetus to our sudden desire to get out there.
I view von Braun as, in a sense, typical of the mixed motives that underlay the Space Age, he was a visionary with a deep love of his area of science, and he was willing to compromise with Nazis to pursue that love.
I view von Braun as, in a sense, typical of the mixed motives that underlay the Space Age, he was a visionary with a deep love of his area of science, and he was willing to compromise with Nazis to pursue that love.
Pandaemoni
Valued Senior Member
He chose to join the SS, they didn't demand it. He could have simply lived out his time during the war *without* developing rocket technology for the Nazis. He may well have been drafted into the infantry at some stage, though he certainly had the skills to deek a position as a civilian university professor, which would have allowed him to defer conscription until close to the end of the war.
He also did not need to accept the rank they provided him.
As I said, not that he was in agreement with Nazi positions wholesale, but it is disingenuous to think that he was held at virtual gunpoint during the war. He wanted to pursue rocketry and the Nazis allowed him to do that at a high level wiuth vast resources, but he had to accept a position within their structure to get that. He compromised with a regime he did not like because it got him into a position to do the work he loved.
Anyone who does not know they are in space & always will be should not be allowed to leave Earth.
We had the vision for hundreds of years. It took one space race to get us there. Americans would have gone slowly slowly, but with the fear of Russians doing it first, we did something about it.
Tang?....mmmm
LOL, I looked for that in the store the other day to make tea. Couldn't find it. Do they still make it?
* 2 cups instant Tang orange drink
* 1 (3 ounce) package sugar-free lemonade-flavored drink mix
* 1/2 cup instant tea
* 2 1/2 cups Splenda granular
* 1 teaspoon cinnamon
* 1 teaspoon clove
sounds like a good tea 
yeah they still make it ..I see it every once in awhile... but it really wasn't invented for the space program..urban legend
now koolaid... hails from Hastings
yeah they still make it ..I see it every once in awhile... but it really wasn't invented for the space program..urban legend
now koolaid... hails from Hastings
Pandaemoni
Valued Senior Member
But we (including the Russians) did get up there very shortly after it became technologically feasible. In relative terms it took us far longer to circumnavigate the globe after than became technically possible than it did to make it to the Moon and back,
and it became feasible faster because pressure was on due to competition, not dreams of a better future.
nothing like the motivation of a potential weapons program