Billionaire Space Shots

[5030]

Reading some of the comments on here, I'd say there are already a few posters on Mars and possibly Uranus too.

Brings up the old, well worn one liner... What does the starship Enterprise have to do with a toilet seat?

It circles Uranus looking for Klingon's....

Little Monday humor....

 

[jjp8182]

Reading some of the comments on here, I'd say there are already a few posters on Mars and possibly Uranus too.

Brings up the old, well worn one liner... What does the starship Enterprise have to do with a toilet seat?

It circles Uranus looking for Klingon's....

Little Monday humor....

Now that joke is really out of this world

 

[Jchonline]

17 years for a 17 minute ride to the edge of space...Seems like a massive waste of time and resources.

 

[k0ua]

17 years for a 17 minute ride to the edge of space...Seems like a massive waste of time and resources.

It isn't. All great advancement usually come in baby steps at great initial cost. If these showy tests are successful, more advancements will be made and costs lowered. Going into space may become mundane and available to many people. You have to start somewhere.

 

[Jchonline]

It isn't. All great advancement usually come in baby steps at great initial cost. If these showy tests are successful, more advancements will be made and costs lowered. Going into space may become mundane and available to many people. You have to start somewhere.

But to what end?

 

[jerrybob]

If I had a billion dollars.....I would own a lot more tractors and attachments.

 

[k0ua]

But to what end?

For the knowledge we gain as a civilization. When we explore space, it isn't just about exploring space it is about gaining knowledge and understanding of our universe.

 

[Frankenkubota]

But to what end?

space exploration brought us the semi conductor and lots of other goodies

 

[MossRoad]

Tang!

 

[Jchonline]

space exploration brought us the semi conductor and lots of other goodies

Im not seeing semiconductor on NASA's official list. I do see CT scan machine and a few others we could argue have a reasonable impact on society. Many others are on par with what we have developed outside the space program. Im not that impressed.

Don't get me wrong I love space exploration, and honestly the best way is to let the private sector billionaires waste their money on it. However I do still feel bouncing off of the atmosphere is not really worth 17 billion. One could argue pursuing the technology to go to Mars could be better spent pursuing the technology to modernize our power grid and reduce reliance on fossil fuels (really come up with a cost effective, efficient, sustainable method of power production and storage for the next 1000 years).

I guess us peons will sit back and see how it all works out! Still exciting to watch.

 

[rekees4300]

Jeff Bezos is the next billionaire at the plate on July 20. Hope he doesn't strike out. He's going to be landing in a rocket. R I S K Y

Home

 

[MoKelly]

yup, you hit it on the head.

what's more fun, fixing public education or.....building a $1.5 billion NFL stadium?

Ha! Any idea how much money is spend each year on public education at the local, state snd federal levels?

As the famous comedian Ron White likes to say —-.

MoKelly

 

[sd455dan]

Ha! Any idea how much money is spend each year on public education at the local, state snd federal levels?

As the famous comedian Ron White likes to say —-.

Carl Sagan was prescient back in 1995, when he wrote this:

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy;

when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries;

when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues;

when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority;

when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.

The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition,
but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.”

 

[Fixastuff]

When one of these "prophets" give a prediction of doom and gloom with a date/place and it happens I'll give them credit. Until them meh! Bad crap happens all the time so it's the easiest thing in the world to say someday something bad is going to happen...and eventually be correct. I have a great day everyday, "suffering and smiling" sometimes, but overall there is more good than ever before and I do best to make that happen! The fact that y'all have time to come on here and none stop tell us how terrible everything is kinda proves my point.

 

[sd455dan]

I think Carl was doing his best to warn us to always keep learning and basically to keep reaching even though we may exceed our grasp.

If getting people as a race, to be space faring - is accomplished through the billionaire group ( which I think fits with Sagans description of concentration of wealth/power with a few people,) It is still a way to a better future, where we solve some of the problems we have through continued learning an advancing technology.

 

[herm0016]

But to what end?

Who knows. did the person who invented cooking know that it would spur the evolution of humans to have more time to think about things instead of finding food? that's really where the shift of the species started.

the person who invented the radar led to the microwave. he or she did not foresee cooking food with their way to watch for airplane's in a fog....

i say let them spend all their money. they have 100s or 1000s of people and companies developing things for these programs. they also inspire us in ways nasa used to do. that inspiration of minds can lead to who knows what in the future.
Even if we took all the wealth of the usa's billionaires, the government would waste it away is less than one year. . . and not doing anything different than they do today, which is pretty uninspiring in my opinion.

 

[bigtiller]

Not to long ago we laughed at the idea of using light to cut things. Now, for a little bit of money, anyone in their garage can cut steel with a light in a CNC machine.

 

[Solitary Man]

Carl Sagan was prescient back in 1995, when he wrote this:

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time — when the United States is a service and information economy;

when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries;

when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues;

when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority;

when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.

The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition,
but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.”

You seem to have missed my quote on another thread.

“Society will develop a new kind of servitude which covers the surface of society with a network of complicated rules, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate. It does not tyrannise but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville 1835

 

[jjp8182]

Yep, it'll be interesting if/when smelting of metals can be done in space since it would likely reduce/eliminate the potential for impurities being absorbed from gases in surrounding atmosphere.

...and with no atmosphere to attenuate the sun's energy solar power has some different considerations.

Low/zero-g & vacuum could definitely create some interesting possibilities for manufacturing ....particularly if resources are also obtained in space.

There's already lot of technology that could/would support such endeavors, it just needs someone with a big enough checkbook and enough ambition to get after it.

 

[PILOON]

No matter what benefits come from this 'race' I still think it is like 'my toys is better than yours' style of bragging.
EGO!