Why Did We Get Into Space

To be honest Sputnik was just a test for Russia's first ICBM, in the same way the north Koreans tried to launch a satelite to test their rocket system. Except that Korea literally "crashed and burned"
 
Orleander said:
and it became feasible faster because pressure was on due to competition, not dreams of a better future.
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It's true that both sides were strongly motivated by a desire to "show off" to their own people and the rest of the world. But all the stuff that various people in this thread have been saying about the human desire to explore etc. is the reason why people cared enough about it to be impressed with it in the first place. If people weren't already inherently excited about exploring space, it wouldn't have been an effective way for the USA and USSR to show off.
 
Pandaemoni said:
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.
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He certainly wasn't held at gunpoint, but I believe he was basically told that he had to join the nazi party, and later accept an SS commission, if he wanted to retain he job as a scientist in the German rocket program. Since the German government wasn't allowing any civilian or academic rocket research at the time, he basically had the choice of joining or being fired. Of course, he could have simply quit.
 
Orleander said:
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.
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I doubt if it would have taken even another generation, 25 years. Communications satellites started going up not long after Sputnik, and we would have needed them regardless. All the other communication technologies were marching forward.
Nasor said:
He certainly wasn't held at gunpoint, but I believe he was basically told that he had to join the nazi party, and later accept an SS commission, if he wanted to retain he job as a scientist in the German rocket program.
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That happened to a lot of people. I had a friend who was born in Germany at the beginning of the war. His father had a job that was not nearly as exalted as von Braun's, but he still had had to join the party in order to keep it, much less advance. They wanted all the people who were respected to be Nazis, for the domestic propaganda value.

In another century or two we'll desperately need space travel to build giant orbital solar energy collectors. That will be the only feasible long-range solution to our energy crisis. Fossil fuels will run out sooner or later, and the earth's surface isn't big enough to collect all the solar energy we're gonna need before long. Sure we'll build nuclear plants and put off the waste issue like we put off Y2K, but after one more accident public pressure will mount for orbital solar.
 
I could give you the easy and facile answer, 'because we havent been there before.' I think it's mainly because we like exploring, and space is the ultimate playground--it's also the ultimate proving-ground as well, obviously. Test your mettle against the ever-present potential of instant annihilation, if you dare...:cool:
 
Xylene said:
I could give you the easy and facile answer, 'because we havent been there before.' I think it's mainly because we like exploring, and space is the ultimate playground. . . .
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As I noted earlier, curiosity is a strong instinct in almost all primate species.
. . . .it's also the ultimate proving-ground as well, obviously. Test your mettle against the ever-present potential of instant annihilation, if you dare.
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On the other hand that instinct is uniquely human, but it's powerful.
 
im pretty sure all inventions have a war-based origin, look how technologically superior Israel is with enemies at every border.. Even that musical electric instrument the Theremin started life as a proximity detector
 
dazzlepecs said:
im pretty sure all inventions have a war-based origin, look how technologically superior Israel is with enemies at every border.. Even that musical electric instrument the Theremin started life as a proximity detector
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You're wrong: war may speed technological developments, but not science itself (with some exceptions of course).
 
Pandaemoni said:
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,
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Shit, we went from the first powered flight at kittyhawk to a man on the moon in, what, 60 years? Pretty fuckin' impressive. Of course, we haven't done jack shit since.
 
A space rocket and an ICBM are basically the same thing. We got into the space race to prove we can put a man on the moon/we can nuke you and ground zero is your forehead.

We did it to prove our technology beats their technology- and we did it through Reaganomics, which we're still paying for today.

As far as the concept of space travel goes- it is a natural inevitability. Look at Branson and his private fleet of sub-space ships... if NASA never existed, we'd still be in space today- it's an inevitability.

The moment after a solid propellant rocket capable of space was developed came a desire to actually do it.

I support small business in the space field- I support the efforts of a dozen companies all trying to perfect the art of space travel.

And I am taking bets. Who wants to bet me "Mars Base One won't be "brought to you by Pepsi!"...
 
dazzlepecs said:
im pretty sure all inventions have a war-based origin. . . .
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That's a wild exaggeration. It would be more accurate to say that a large percentage of inventions are motivated by our instincts for survival and security, and defense against bullies is merely one manifestation of that instinct. Agriculture, by creating the first surplus in history, made us more secure against famine, but the permanent settlements it both made possible and required made us easier targets for enemy tribes.
madanthonywayne said:
Shit, we went from the first powered flight at kittyhawk to a man on the moon in, what, 60 years? Pretty fuckin' impressive. Of course, we haven't done jack shit since.
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Only from the perspective of an aerospace engineer. I was already a software engineer when we landed on the moon, and we have done things with information technology in the last four decades that even I--a lifelong sci-fi fan--could not have imagined in my lifetime.

An iPhone with an internet connection surpasses most of the information technology on the original Starship Enterprise.

I'm sure space travel would be fun--if you're into long periods of risk, deprivation and solitude--but I'm a musician and what I.T. has done for music has made this planet a truly wonderful place.
 
Sophergeo said:
The theory of gravitation said that according to F = G x m1m2/r^2 heavier than air flying machines are impossible.
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Rubbish.

"Heavier than air flying machines are impossible." -- Lord Kelvin, gravitational physicist, 1895
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So what?
Many famous people have been wrong.

In WWII, the Nazis developed the V2 rocket and the jet planes followed.
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Jet planes were developed before the V2.

In 1963, Joe Walker experienced weightlessness in his X-15, becoming the first human to experience zero gravity and the falsification of universal gravitation.
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Pure nonsense.
 
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