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

[Viviennemary]

With this current fuel crisis it's total madness sending a rocket to the moon. What is the point. Nobody is even going to land on the moon. Doubt therei s any oil on the moon.

Yes, because we all see the world in exclusively black and white terms with no shades of grey. Everything is either perfect or the worst thing ever. Nothing in between

Again . Does that mean we should never innovate or look to improve? Should we still be stuck in the stone age then?

Absolutely this!

I am old enough to remember the Apollo missions. In fact it was my 7th birthday when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon! Just saying to DH how we all used to gather round the TV to watch the launches and splash downs.

We will definitely be watching the live stream from the NASA You Tube channel tonight.

Exactly. Those supporting going to Mars/the Moon are naive to think it's all sci fi and exploration. Mostly it'll be war and chaos. We need to sort ourselves out before going anywhere near.

As for innovation, we have access to space, we can innovate perfectly fine already. As we've seen with AI and the internet, it's not all sunshine and roses. It's all just rich men making themselves more money and ego.

For the appreciative, the next era in homo sapiens industrial progress will be materials made in space. Increasingly likely by robot factories connected by autonomous reusable rockets. (Much cheaper to dump keeping humans alive).

Pharmaceuticals and advanced chip design would probably be the first areas to be exploited. But eventually it's entirely possible that a lot of energy-intensive and polluting processes could be put into space. Thus reducing the burden on earth.

datacentres in space is probably a little far off, but also where we might be soon.

How much co2 is released when a rocket is launched? What about all the space junk which at some stage will fall back down to earth. Humans need to sort their own planet out before going further a field. Then again why stick with just ruining the earth when we can ruin the universe….that’ll teach any Aileen life forms that will!

A lot less from other industries. Space junk burns up in the atmosphere

This is such a great point. Such a colossal waste !

@SerendipityJane are you saying it is a good thing to pollute space?

I’m not saying science is bad but surely more forward thinking is needed nowadays. Invention of the motor car, great. Fuel used for it not so great. Electric car sorting out that problem, but what about the batteries, not great for the environment so now need to think of something to sort that problem out.

For every good thing, there seems to be an equal bad thing. Wouldn’t it be great if we good just have good technology

There will always be environmental issues. We should do our best to minimise them but don't need to stop innovating. What's your view? Just sit and do nothing?

I bloody loved Sam Seaborne

It's such a bad point. Lots of money is spent on other things and not solved.

I find it all quite exciting, and humanity does still need to develop space travel as eventually humans will need to find another planet (if we don't die out first) as our sun won't last forever.

Also slight personal bias (not for launch but other ones by space x) as I make little parts that are part of satellites so its pretty amazing to think that something I've made is up in space orbiting us.

I recommend the book (though I don't really like the humour that much)

A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? (Paperback) Dr Kelly and Zach Weinersmith

which gives you the pros and cons.

the sun is not going to mess us up for another 1 billion years, i think we have time.
By then, humans may have evolved into something else, hopefully a calmer, less violent species.

Not been following recent developments then?

Abd we just shouldn’t bother because it’s taken longer than some unrealistic optimists in the 1970s expected?

Not our fuel. Not our business. 🤷‍♀️

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

I had no issue with what the celebs did as well