We heard about the launch scrub just as we were pulling into Titusville. We headed back down the coast, but took A1A all the way, so it was a longer, but more scenic trip.

I find it a little ironic that the part that failed today was one of the components that Mike wants to keep ad infinitum, while there was no problem with the Orbiter, which he wants to retire. I may have some further thoughts on this at TechCentralStation, if I can work up the gumption for a piece, but unfortunately, because I lost any productivity today to this futile expedition, I've got three other deadlines breathing down my neck in the next couple days.

I saw a shuttle launch once. I was several miles away, though, and what I came away with was how really small our biggest achievements look against the panorama of a blue sky. Five minutes afterwards there was only a wisp of smoke left behind.

I'm all for more space exploration, but I think that it won't happen so long as we devote ourselves to our narcissistic preoccupation with our impact on the environment. I'm starting to think that NASA's budget will be frittered away on pumping CO2 back into the ground, as if humanity hadn't had to cope with rising or lowering sea levels in the past, or the CO2 levels hadn't ever been higher than they are now.

I'd rather save the environment and allocate all of NASAs funding to research programs in clean energy and other research which helps keep the ecosphere from being totally destroyed. I can't think of a less narcissitic pursuit than to help ensure that we all live on a planet that is well cared for environmentally. What's the point of sending people into space anyway? The galaxy does not need more people! Lets learn to live on our little planet and keep humanity where it belongs.

Living on "out little planet" has a nice ring to it, but it's a dangerous survival strategy. Earth will be hit again by a massive asteroid - it's happened many times in its history and it will happen again. Most life will become extinct, like the dinosaurs, and the words "environmental catastrophe" will take on a whole new meaning.

For humanity to have any chance at long-term survival, we have to venture out into space. Not only must some of us learn to get off the planet, but we need to identify and protect earth from the myriad of threats that would make the global warming problem look insignificant by comparision.

This really is a race against time. When our time runs out, we'll either have the means to survive or we won't.

If you've ever tried to see a launch, Rand, you'll recall that scrubs are a way of life. It's frustrating; so much so that I passed up a number of opportunities to view launches from inside the Space Center complex (this was back in the '80s when such things were more common).

The point is that we have a relatively narrow window in which to escape the prison that is Earth. If we miss this window - that will be it. Eventually the Human race will join the dinosaurs and mastodons. Then, ~nothing~ we ever did will have mattered. All the effort, all the sacrifices, all the nobility will have been for naught.

The Earth has a finite life expectancy. What do we do then? Apologise for the fools in the 20 & 21 st centuries who wasted the opportunity to save life by fighting imiginary windmills?

X, do you have evidence for the existance of aliens? No? I didn't think so. There is no valid reason to either believe or disbelieve that there are intelligences other than us or for that matter life outside the Sol system. Seems probable I'll grant but that butters no parsnips.

Short version, I've spent 14 years of my life protecting the environment. It matters to me. But I'd willingly kill off a hundred (or hundred thousand) species to get humanity and other species into space in a permanant self sustaining way. Or would you prefer that we and every thing else on Earth become extinct? I say to hell with that. You and yours are welcome to stay on this rock - and be forgotten. I want my progeny to inhabit the galaxy.

The point is that we have a relatively narrow window in which to escape the prison that is Earth. If we miss this window - that will be it. [...] The Earth has a finite life expectancy. What do we do then? Apologise for the fools in the 20 & 21 st centuries who wasted the opportunity to save life by fighting imiginary windmills?

The implicit assumption here is that the window has opened. But is it open, really? Or are we currently no more able to really escape than our ancestors in (say) the 18th century?

If we aren't there yet, quixotic (good metaphor, those windmills) attempts to pretend that we are will just waste money and effort. If we're closer now than those ancestors, it isn't because our ancestors decided to go into space, it's because of the general advance of knowledge in science and engineering. This general advance will not stop even if NASA were abolished tomorrow and manned spaceflight abandoned.

IMO, our ability to move into space is currently at best very marginal, and at worst nonexistent. It's not clear why we need to apologize for not doing something if it's not realistically possible; if anything, we'd need to apologize for attempting to do otherwise.

Creating a "Space Exploration versus The Environment" contest is, of course, a phony choice. But, fanatical environmentalists, driven by a dogma that's remarkably akin to medieval conceptions of original sin, are so ashamed of being born that they're likely to use any phony device to advance their position that the human race is a plague that shouldn't exist anywhere, in space or on this planet.

Humans belong anywhere humans go. Exhortations that the galaxy doesn't need people and that we should all stay home and tidy the place up are indicative of a deep shame at being human. If our ancestors had succumbed to this defeatist dogma, most of us would not exist and what few humans did would be struggling in environmentally-balanced collections of huts somewhere in East Africa. (I can just imagine some fanatic going after the women who want to cut down a patch of savannah to plant some seeds. Agriculture, after all, is an artificial instrusion on the natural way of the world.)

I'm rather proud to be human, and consider our species the crowning achievement of life on this planet, so far. We have a responsibility to manage ourselves and our planet, but no reason to apologize for being here.

I don't ever want to be accused of narcisism!!!

I'm going outside right now to light some tires on fire.

I guess that should be "narcissism." I don't want to be accused of that either. I'm going to go dump my trash in the street!

>IMO, our ability to move into space is currently at
>best very marginal, and at worst nonexistent. It's
>not clear why we need to apologize for not doing
>something if it's not realistically possible; if

>anything, we'd need to apologize for attempting to
>do

There are a lot of ways of getting up there with current technology. SSTO, Big Dumb Boosters, NERVA, Orion. We just put a lot of it on the shelf to meet international agreements and to give the NASA bureaucracy a monopoly on space. Additional interesting launch technology could be developed, and would be an engineering problem rather than a physics problem. I'd be willing to accept that we won't have faster than light travel, but not that it is impossible to have a large fraction of humanity in orbital cities, on the moon, mars and the asteroids.

Sure, there are lots of ways of getting up there, on paper. Do they really make sense, though? Moving into space means doing it sustainably, which means solving real problems of real customers as you go; bulling your way forward by 'triumph of the will' doesn't work very well in reality.

What's missing isn't technology so much as a reason to develop the economic infrastructure that would support such a technology. Sure, we can artificially push forward technologies in a government-funded technological ICU, but they'll just flatline when the funding dries up if they aren't serving actual markets.

Going into space is not a science problem, or even mainly a technology problem. It's a market problem -- but that doesn't make the problem any more tractable.

"We just put a lot of it on the shelf to meet international agreements and to give the NASA bureaucracy a monopoly on space. Additional interesting launch technology could be developed, and would be an engineering problem rather than a physics problem. I'd be willing to accept that we won't have faster than light travel..."

Actually, we COULD have faster than light travel. It's just that all these dang international agreements and the NASA conspiracy to keep us out of space is preventing us from breaking the light barrier!

X: We're not going to "completely destroy" the ecosphere.

I'm not sure we could if we intentionally tried, and we sure as hell can't do it accidentally.

Global warming? Happened before, as have ice ages. The ecosphere survived just fine, thank you.

Global thermonuclear war? At the worst case scenario, given the most pessimistic models I know of, mankind and many of the mammals get wiped out. Life, however, continues, just as after a giant meteor strike.

People not recycling their soda cans and leaving the 6-pack rings uncut? Well, unless Baby Gaia comes and destroys the Earth in a fit of vengeance, that's not going to destroy the ecosphere either.

So, uh, whatcha got for that?

Living on "out little planet" has a nice ring to it, but it's a dangerous survival strategy. Earth will be hit again by a massive asteroid - it's happened many times in its history and it will happen again.

And after such an impact, the Earth will still be more habitable than any other location we've found in the solar system. It'll still have air, and water, and pressure, and shielding from radiation. The temperature will be broadly tolerable.

So what's the point (from a species point of view) of colonizing space here? If your point was to save lives, then it's a silly solution, since the people on Earth killed by an asteroid impact will be just as dead even if someone is living in a tin can orbiting Mars.

If the proposal is to divert the asteroid, then you don't need space colonization for that.

While I think, Paul Dietz, that the capability to detect and thwart some ateroid and comet impacts will be an effect of, not a reason for, the exploration and exploitation of space, there is no certainty that damage from impacts can be entirely prevented. For that matter, there is no guarantee that an impacts can be prevented. For all we know, right now there's a 60-kilometer Oort Cloud rock, on an incoming path to Earth, somehere a little east of Pluto.

Even if the species would survive such an impact, aren't you at all concerned about the loss of life involved? Or, are you so wedded to your own notions that the thought of hundreds of millions of deaths does not trouble you?

The harping and debating about a "reason" to go into space mystifies me. I find it inexplicable. Why was it acceptable to explore and exploit this planet, yet any move off planet -- the logical path for our curiosity and technology, requires a reason? We always go to new places. Sure, there's a legitimate debate about who pays for it, but arguments against space exploration always seem to me to be arguing in the face of human nature. We go because we want to go. What better reason is there?

billg: ah, but now you're talking about impacts larger than have happened in a billion years or more. These have not happened 'many times' in Earth's history, or at least haven't after the late terminal bombardment 3+ billion years ago.

Even if the species would survive such an impact, aren't you at all concerned about the loss of life involved?

Of course (your snarky and insulting insinuation notwithstanding). And space colonization, as I argued, is a non-solution to that aspect of the problem, unless you are proposing depopulating the planet (and all other planets).

The harping and debating about a "reason" to go into space mystifies me. I find it inexplicable.

This suggests you don't have a good mental model of human motivation and collection action. Most other people don't share your particular desires.

There really isn't much difference in principle between exploring/exploiting this planet and the solar system. Wealthy people, organizations and governments funded exploration of the earth and are doing so with space to some extent. The difference is cost and technological capability.

The point about needing a reason is perfectly reasonable. Pure exploration may be enough for some of us, but it's not usually enough for those who can afford to fund these explorations. Columbus didn't sail to the New World for the joy of discovery - he did it in an attempt to find lucrative new trade routes.

When there's a good economic reason to go to space, private folks will fund it. The hopefully emerging suborbital industry shows this. There could be other reasons that trigger provate or public action, but money is probably the most likely one.

If I may add my 2cents Paul,

It really doesn't matter if you think it's a good idea or not, or if you think we're ready or not... that genie is out of the bottle and left the building. People are going to live in places other than the Earth.

You may agree, but say you don't wish the government (which includes your tax dollars) to fund it. That doesn't matter either, private companies are now making plans to go, and they will succeed.

So what's the point of the argument?

Sigivald: Global warming? Happened before, as have ice ages. The ecosphere survived just fine, thank you.

Call me obsessive, but I have a special interest in the well-being of 7-10 billion large land vertebrates dependent on agriculture. If you can show me that such a population "survived just fine" during a previous large climate excursion, I'll relax.

"Call me obsessive, but I have a special interest in the well-being of 7-10 billion large land vertebrates dependent on agriculture."

You are being obsessive AND narcissistic! It is selfish and petty to be obsessed with the cleanliness of the place you live. Don't flush your toilet from now on!