Those astronauts must be slightly insane.

@Notmyreality That's a pretty high bar you're setting for 'is something significant': will it be perceptible in a million years! I think human-caused climate change meets it though.
a. humans are causing mass extinction
b. the last time the earth's CO2 levels were as high as they are today, sea levels were 12-32m higher
c. the likelihood of triggering positive feedback loops where warming causes further warming
Sending people to space isn't going to help avoid worst case scenarios. What we need is political willingness to use the technology we already have and move away from fossil fuel dependence. It's a political problem not a technology problem - just look how much damage the election of Trump has caused (in so many ways!).

Wow I’ve found my page here. I absolutely love space. I watched interviews of the crew and the lady said that as a child she loved anything that made her feel small, like the ocean and mountains. I totally get this feeling, I find space absolutely fascinating. I would love to go but I think my anxiety would take over, plus I’d be claustrophobic in that small ship they’re living in for 10 days. I think it’s amazing though that as humans we have this relenting need to explore as much as we can. I understand they want to try and create a base to see if we can do the same to Mars in the 2030s, but surely we need to come out of our solar system because the whole point is we’re buggared if our sun dies? Or would mars be safer than earth for a long while longer if our sun slowly expands and dies? I wonder what the thinking behind Mars in the 2030’s is?

If everyone were so risk-averse, or simply chicken, nothing would have been explored, discovered etc., I can't imagine Edmund Hillary standing at base camp and whining Oh, I can't do this, it's a bit risky and there's the family to think of!

I couldn’t even watch the take off, too many memories of Challenger. Not for me, but I am pleased and grateful for the sake of human endeavour and achievement there are braver men and women than me who are willing to do it!

Going to space isn’t going to fix many of the issues that our ecosystem faces. I work in ecology. Trotting around the moon and adding more trash to the 9000 cubic tonnes already in the earths orbit is not the answer to habitat loss, soil degradation, climate change, marine pollution and so on.

Yes, and the only way to solve those issue facing us today is via technological innovation driven by pushing the envelope with ventures like going to the moon.

But not to the species and people living right now. Not to our children and grandchildren. Not to the animals going extinct and struggling with habitat loss. Your big world view is very nice but not very useful in the grand scheme of things. We are doing damage, just because that won’t matter in a million years is not relevant to right now.

We are having a significant impact yes. Damage is subjective and temporary. The Earth is currently half way through its lifespan - it’s been here 4.6 billion years and,
barring obliteration from an asteroid or some such, will be here for another 6 billion+. Humans will likely become extinct in that timeframe - maybe in a few hundred years, maybe in a million. Either way we will just be a foot note in history. All trace of us will be erased. Even the microplastics will be gone in a million years. Your entire stance on the subject is based on your human emotions and human timescales. It’s all utterly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

Absolutely. And just imagine the massive problems on earth that amount of money could solve. Clean water systems for instance for developing countries

Yeah I thought this was a horrible thing to do to his kids tbh

You need to do some thorough research into the last 250 years in comparison to all
over time since earths existence. We are doing horrific damage. Yes, just humans. And it’s our children and grandchildren who will suffer from our current actions. We have nanoplastic in our brains and species going extinct at a fast rate (100 times faster than pre-humans). Read Silent Spring. Seriously, pull your head out of the ground and do the research. It’s shocking and depressing. I think it’s your ignorance and arrogance to assume humans are not doing horrific damage.

It has also lead to 9000 metric tonnes of garbage in the earths orbit and god knows what else. We ca be thankful for the byproducts but that doesn’t mean we have to support further jaunts to the moon and beyond. We can learn to say no.

I'm sure I'm not going to change your mind but for info Challenger had no crew escape system (long story behind the reasons for that).

Orion/SLS has a Launch Abort System that in theory at least would give the crew a decent chance of escape in the event of a similar mishap.

www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/news/features/2025/how-orion-s-launch-abort-system-protects-astronauts.html

YANBU. Nothing on earth would persuade me to do their job. Look what happened to the Challenger space shuttle back in 1986.

How?

3 Million litres of fuel alone to launch it, which has a certain irony in current circumstances!

Humans haven’t ruined the planet. The planet is just fine. The planet was here long before us and will be here long after us. The human species are but a blip on the history line of Planet Earth. It is your own human arrogance and inflated sense of self-importance that prescribes us as having “ruined” the planet.

Humanity’s survival, evolution and ascendance to top species would all indicate we are, in fact, extremely good at fixing things. If we weren’t we would be extinct by now.

That doesn't make it actively happy.

Bad: waste of money, pointless exercise, we should focus our money and efforts on making life on earth better.

@StandFirm I'm fine with making the case for pure scientific research with possible side benefits. What drives me mad is people pretending that it's important because there might be a future where humanity has wrecked earth and yet somehow retains the capability to travel to another planet where life is viable and start from scratch - not appreciating that what we have here on earth is irreplaceable.
And I think that space travel shouldn't get an automatic special pass for vast spending when other science is being cut to the bone. Not that it's NASA's fault that their colleagues around the US are being made redundant, obviously!

Agree but space programmes usually boost progress in general because they deliver genuine innovation across the board. For instance, rekindling the space programme is a boost for research into fusion and other propulsion methods. It's not true that it's at odds with saving the planet. Exoplanet research for instance is a great way to understand gases and how climates work. All that is extremely helpful to us on Earth.

Space exploration has led to profound scientific discoveries and technological advancements, including the confirmation of black holes, detection of thousands of exoplanets, and the mapping of cosmic expansion. It has yielded essential technologies like satellite communication, weather forecasting, CMOS sensors for smartphones, memory foam, and advancements in medical imaging (MRI/CT scans

Humans have ruined this planet through sheer greed. It disgusts me that some of them arrogantly assume the right to expand beyond Earth so the same can be done more widely.

I think it’s stupid. We do not need to do this. We have fucked yo this planet so much, we don’t need a base on the moon or to explore mars. It’s absolute human arrogance to do this.

Yes, there is a privacy door. I suppose you just have to make the best of it, hurtling through space as they are!