Topic: BREAKING: Space Shuttle Columbia Destroyed

[Jonnyboy117]

You think the US government spends billions of dollars each year on the space program just so it can entertain space enthusiasts?  Try educating yourself on an issue before you bash it.  You'll save yourself a lot of embarrassment.

[Mojo]

Name one thing that we as human beings have benefitted from with the space program. I can't think of anything other than it serving our curiousity. That's not to say I don't respect these people, because I do. Were it not for them I may never have known that a candle could burn upside down in zero gravity. Not only that, but they risk their lives doing something they love, and that's fine, but they're not heroes in my book. Bring home a cure for cancer from the moon and I'll change my opinion.

End of arguement. I don't feel like getting banned over something so stupid.

[MH-001]

I'd like to correct Rick here for a moment. Most AMERICAN children want to be astronauts. the Astronaut is the american birthchild. I can't speak for other countries but in Canada, we don't really care for outer space. And if the russian kids dream of anything, they dream of bring Cosmonauts, which is the name of the career in Russia.

[RickPowers]

Point taken.  It must have been my US-centric attitude creeping in there a bit.  But Canadians not caring much about space probably explains much of Mojo's apathy.

As for what the space program has done for teh human race right now, not a whole heck of a lot.  But saying that's a reason not to explore is folly.  We are DESTROYING this planet, and if the human race is going to survive, we're likely going to have to leave it at some point.  Every mission to space any country takes gets us one small step closer.  I can understand the young not being able to see the larger picture, but that certainly doesn't excuse it.  While it may never affect you in your lifetime, it will likely impact your ancestors in some fashion.

[oohhboy]

Mojo, they are trying to make anti-cancer drugs up there along with hundards if not thousands of other projects that can use the micro gravity enviroment to develop new substances that cannot be made on earth. Everything from drugs to building materials and yes seeing if strange things like candles burning upside down in space is true. All that rescreach eventally filters down to you in new products. New drugs that might not have been discovered. Making hardier crops. As a form of expession for humanities urge to grow and expand. These people are like the Columbus, or captain Cooks of our time, exploring chartered lands. Think of what might have happened if Man kind did not explore, did not grow and expand on it's very limited knowlegde of the world. We would all be dead. Died because we did not evole.

[baberg]

As a physicist at heart, I have a standard response whenever somebody states that scientific research is not producing any practical applications:

When Sir Isaac Newton was working with hand-polished lenses studying optics, do you think he had planned for his discoveries to be used in the Hubble space telescope?  Or to make the laser in your CD player?

So when you say "Name one thing that we as human beings have benefitted from with the space program", I say "Name one person from Newton's time who benefited from his optics discoveries."  300 years from now (Newton died in the early 1700s), if there have been no practical applications of the research done in space, then I'll concede that humanity has not benefited from the space program.

Until then, the closing lines of High Flight by John Gillespie Magee, Jr:

And while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of Space
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God

[uniracer45]

This is BIG news for two reasons (that I can think of at this moment).

Number one, it involved something exploding in the sky.  Things that explode in the sky get big news.  For instance, the 4th of July fireworks.  The national (U.S.) missile defense system.  I can't think of anything else, but you get the idea.

Number two, it was UNEXPECTED.  This is very important.  In the Olympics, unexpected medal winners get more coverage than expected ones (in big events anyway).  The Columbine shooting was UNEXPECTED.  South Park being so popular (in its first season anyway) was UNEXPECTED, which boosted its media coverage.  Stock markets react if the Fed changes the interest rate UNEXPECTEDLY.

Therefore, if both of these things happen, EVERYONE's gonna cover it.

There are many more reasons why it's getting so much media coverage, but there's my two ideas/cents.

Who wants Mojo to get banned?  Just curious.

[Bloodworth]

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Who wants Mojo to get banned?  Just curious.

Asking questions like that is probably the easiest way for you to get banned.  Don't be so quick to throw stones.

[uniracer45]

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Originally posted by: Bloodworth

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Who wants Mojo to get banned?  Just curious.

Asking questions like that is probably the easiest way for you to get banned.  Don't be so quick to throw stones.

I was just CURIOUS!  I would defend to the death the right of free speech.  It's just that other people were mentioning it, and I wanted to know if they were a very small minority or not.  Talk about throwing stones...

If you do throw stones at me, please throw pumice.  It's light.

[Bloodworth]

It's a matter of overstepping your authority.  If you think someone should be banned, you don't take a poll (which is also against the rules) to see who else wants him banned.  Instead, you click the little button that says "Report this to a Moderator".  

[RickPowers]

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It's just that other people were mentioning it, and I wanted to know if they were a very small minority or not.

You can do math, right?  Count the number of posts where people use the words "Mojo" and "banned", and subtract that from the number of registered users.  

[Dr.Mario]

The day that occurred was a sad one. Of course it did not strike me emotionally as much as 9-11, but it did affect me. The space program is very dear to my heart. I might be no expert, but I do know something on astronomy, astrophysics, physics, and chemistry. Looking in the sky, reaching for it, . . . This is humans great objective to go into space and colonize. This might not happen today or a century from now, but it will happen. We are humans expanding our minds to new ideas of science, mathematics, technology, philosophy, and all of those other things.

The people that go into space do take a risk. And not only that, but they take it for a reason. To advance human society in the large range; to advance our minds; to advance our understandings of where we came from and our place in it; and we must continue to go back into space as soon as possible.

Is this important? Of course it is! I don't know why someone would think otherwise or be at the negative of this topic on the form.

Carl Sagan; a great scientist & author (example "Contact", a great book! / movie)
"Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring."

He also once said
"Instead of acknowledging that in many areas we are ignorant, we have tended to say things like the Universe is permeated with the ineffable. A God of the Gaps is assigned responsibility for what we do not understand."

What has this have to do with this you ask? Much! Well I think you can interpret the quotations of Sagan by your self, but the idealizations and philosophical discussion is the key. Humans want to learn! Space is the step. Unfortunately during this process people die, but they die in a good cause. They die which is very said, but when they, as good people, have helped the human quest to go one step further in the evolution (not really about the theory, but the devolvement of the mind & knowledge) – that is honorable!

Honorable to taking us one step closer to understanding our place in the universe and our quest to seek that, which will never end, but will began. Not finite, infinity! So the quest will never end.

We should honor the crew that lost there lives. These people that died, did die, but also helped humanity in our quest. Our quest to understand and expand into space!

(Just the destruction of the craft for example will help us in making better craft and just that will help us. Not to mention the several experiments they while they were in space.)

~~Dr. Mario At YOUR service~~