Those astronauts must be slightly insane.

[thinktoomuchtoooften]

I mean obviously they’re highly intelligent individuals and must know what they’re doing… but the risks are so huge and they have families. To me it’s just madness.

Good point.

Even nowadays a lot of the astronaut cohort come from a military flying or flight test background and so have a different take on risks to many people and probably better at rationalising it than most.

Someone mentioned the single Dad..that's Reid Wiseman and his background is Naval aviation, starting with flying F-14s off carrier decks.

It's probably debatable which is more dangerous..operating an F-14 with the support of one other crewmember or flying the SLS with all the overwatch from experts on the ground.

Not insane. Courageous.

Yes it’s well designed, planned etc but it’s still incredibly risky and orders of magnitude riskier compared to every day activities. The rocket is incredibly complex will a thousand things that could go wrong and cause disaster. And yet they chose to go anyway. Good for them.

just here to recommend Taylor Jenkins-Reid novel Atmosphere! This thread got me thinking about it all over again 😂

You lack vision.

agreed!

The thought of being in space terrifies me. It's the vastness of it that gets me. When I'm flying, it's not the empty space below me that scares me, it's the empty space above me.

However, I can't help but become emotional watching launch and landing videos. I think it's all those people working together for a common goal. And being so passionate about it.

Because there’s a moon lander sat on it?

Because they have different objectives and want to explore a different area?

Because no-one landed on the moon in the first place!!

I think that bravery, wonder and exploration is how we get humanity to a better place, and that this is therefore the vest possible use for the money.

Not only that but they have enough fuel to fill every car in the US. Utter madness,

Exactly. Opening up possibilities for humans, developing the technology to go further than ever before, to look upward and outward. To push the limits.

It's a completely different type of fuel.

Travelling in a small metal box above the earth into space is very unappealing to me. I also think the money could be better spent.

With liquid hydrogen?

Part of the point of exploration as you don't know what the benefits will be.

Past space exploration has given us a huge amount - not least the transformation of our world driven by satellite technology, but also incidental discoveries and developments from memory foam to the tech that underpins cameras in phones. NASA has around 2,000 spin-offs.

Exactly. It's all about the development of human knowledge, what boundaries of science and technology can be pushed, what can be discovered about physiology and space.

Lol, not like biological systems them. Nothing biological has ever failed unexpectedly, or acted erratically (or picked up a gun and started shooting, or randomly started a war).

Quite.

Everything you’ve said here is incorrect.

I'm not convinced it is in the best interest of humanity to have the "bomb baby bomb" Americans colonising the Moon. Unless we can come up with some international law that says all Americans would have to go up.

They're incredibly brave. There's no doubt that space exploration has advanced humankind in so many ways. Courageous people.

I have the same feeling towards getting in a space shuttle that I do getting into a submarine. Both metal (and other materials, I know) boxes thrown into inhospitable (to humans) environments. The claustrophobia would get me within about 30
seconds.

i have the utmost respect for those who strive in their life to get to a point of achieving their dreams - astronauts included. And I very much believe in space exploration - I just wish it wasn’t such a political activity.

They are no different from f1 drivers or moter bike skiing snowboarders, all the early explorers of time Man will alway want to push forward. That why we have done so well.

i hope they make some amazing discoveries

They're not going to "colonise" the moon.