To think millions of litres of fuel shouldn't be wasted on sending a rocket to the moon

I don't think the moon can be polluted. It's a satellite of Earth, it cannot sustain life unless we have the wit to go there.

There are bags of human faeces up there/

How are people going to “pollute the moon”?

Space is big. Really big. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.

@ArtemisMission I think people are more concerned with the space that is ‘near’ us. Will we be polluting the moon like we have polluted Earth?

I’d also like to know how you think human beings are going to “ruin the universe”?

Please can you explain your concern about how you believe this will happen.

Again:

Alpha Centuri (the nearest star system to the Sun) is 4.37 light years away. Using our current technology (travelling at 25,000km per hour like Artemis) it would take at least 189,000 years for us to travel there.

That’s the nearest star system. There are hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way. It is over 100,000 light years from one side of the Milky Way to the other. Travelling that distance would take the Artemis spacecraft 4.3 billion years.

Andromeda, the nearest galaxy to the Milky Way, is 2.5 million light years away. It would take the Artemis spacecraft at least 108 trillion years to travel that far.

There are billions, if not trillions of galaxies each containing billions of stars.

I don’t think space is in any imminent danger from human beings based on the above. Yet we have posters (you and others) repeatedly claiming human beings will “ruin” or “pollute” or “destroy” the universe, which I find quite amusing given the sheer incomprehension of the size of the universe that is involved in making such claims, but I am genuinely interested to hear your explanation for your assertions.

I’ve asked the others who have made such claims very assertively as if they have some valid basis for making such statements, but as yet have received no response at all.

Perhaps you could enlighten me, please, how you envisage humans could possibly “ruin the universe” and how you envisage this taking place? There are, at the lowest estimate, 200 billion galaxies. Based on the most recent data with telescopes that see further out into space the estimate is in the trillions. In each galaxy there are hundreds of billions of stars, and it would take us 108 trillion years with current technology to send a manned mission to the nearest galaxy to the Milky Way.

Even sending a manned missioin to the star system closest to our own Sun (which is not remotely feasible but if it were would mean humans beings were in 2 of the star systems out of several billion star systems in our own galaxy, the Milky Way) would take us 4.3 billion years using a spacecraft travelling at 25,000km/h like Artemis. This would leave the other several hundred billion star systems in the Milky Way untouched, let alone the hundreds of billions (or perhaps trillions) or other galaxies in the universe also each containing hundreds of billions of stars.

How do you envisage humans “ruining the universe”? I would genuinely be grateful for an explanation of these comments so I can try to understand your thought process and that of other posters who have made similar comments.

Is it just that you don’t understand science or maths but want to comment on it anyway for some reason and disparage it, while living with all of the benefits it has brought to your life?

Or do you have some genuine rationale for your comments that you could please share with us so that these comments are less baffling?

Yes. Basically.

Name a activity in another country where we have a say in it?

does that apply to all activities other countries undertake ?

If Britain isn’t paying you have no say.

I'd say the launch today is vastly less detrimental to Earth in terms of resources used, environmental impact and general pointless, damaging crapness than events in the Gulf over the last few weeks. Also, the astronauts who are risking their lives (and they are) are willingly choosing to do so.

@ProjectHailMary has pointed out the huge differential in $$$ too, thank you.

No idea which celeb you’re referring to as I have no interest in them but I am glad that my and other more sensible and scientific comments on this thread have changed your view. Scientific progress is humanity’s only hope, and space exploration is the cutting edge of that which helps to drive it forward.

Space launches create less than 0.01% of global emissions. Go worry your head about something significant.

Who’s Aileen?

I love that quote - there’s a WW line for most things!

“Pollute space”?!

As I stated in my post at 13:10 today:

Alpha Centuri (the nearest star system to the Sun) is 4.37 light years away. Using our current technology (travelling at 25,000km per hour like Artemis) it would take at least 189,000 years for us to travel there.

That’s the nearest star system. There are hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way. It is over 100,000 light years from one side of the Milky Way to the other. Travelling that distance would take the Artemis spacecraft 4.3 billion years.

Andromeda, the nearest galaxy to the Milky Way, is 2.5 million light years away. It would take the Artemis spacecraft at least 108 trillion years to travel that far.

There are billions, if not trillions of galaxies each containing billions of stars.

I don’t think space is in any imminent danger from human beings.

I’d rather keep pandas

Have to respectfully disagree. I think it trivialises/diminishes what real missions involve and the sort of people who are still (and will for a very long time) be the only ones who can go on them and why that is the case.

The big mistake though isn't that, it's still (IMO) that apart from the ISS and the shuttle (although both wonderful and hugely important) the programme was cut back when it should have been building towards having a moon base in those 50 years.

ETA global co-operation on that would have been good, but seems far away at the moment

I had no issue with what the celebs did as well

I think the whole wretched Blue Origin "space flight" nonsense has muddied the waters around this. It isn't a bunch of vacuous celebs heading off for 10 minutes but serious, highly trained and qualified people, including representatives of groups who have never been near the Moon before.

Really wish the same sort of coverage the vanity flight got was forthcoming for this, widely.

The amount of science and technology that has come out of space exploration is insane. Tech which everyone on this thread will use every single day and would have paid for itself 10 times over.

The cutting edge becomes the mundane, but it needs to start off as cutting edge and for that to get developed a reason for it's development needs to drive it. This is not hard to understand.

Again. It generates economic revenue that more than pays for it.

I have been following recent developments closely.

I stand by my observation. In 10 years time. we will be just 10 years away from nuclear fusion.

Part of the problem has always been political. There just isn't the will to deliver "free" power. Because politically it would end capitalism.

One species pollution is another species existence.

If cyanobacteria hadn't "polluted" the earth with their noxious oxygen waste, you would have evolved very differently.

Tbf you’ve changed my initial view more than the last celeb who did the space thing, I think it put me off a bit.

YANBU. I agree. The same way I think that all the fuel used for Formula 1 racing is a criminal waste.