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End of the Space Age?


ColinW

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Who would have ever thought as we watched the black and white pictures of Neil Armstrong's small step for a man that only 41 years later the Space Age would all be over? I really thought back then that by now we'd have a permanent base on the moon and men walking around on Mars. It seems incredible that the USA now has no capability to put a man in space, let alone on another planet, apart from as a passenger on 50 year old Russian technology. I think America has truly lost the plot. The spacefaring nuclear superpower seems to be retreating into its shell like a tortoise that has been hit with a stick. If they can't get us off this planet, who the hell will? Is their ambition to end up like us, a country of shopkeepers, call centres and corrupt politicians and newspapermen, whose own government doesn't trust to build its own railways? A sad day.

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as i said on another thread i think the baby boomers have probably seen the best of progress ,concorde come and gone ,petrol now almost back to the price it was in the 50's (my old man had a car but it was too expensive to run) ,prices rising again ,standard of living now falling etc

from reds under the beds its now terrorists under the bed ,all that remains constant is corruption and the lust for money in some people even when you can never spend what you already have and wars to ensure the poor stay poor

are we better off ? we have more "stuff" but most of it runs on electric which gets more expensive every year ,is industry running out of people and resources to exploit or are third word countries pricing themselves out of the market ,sometimes knowledge isnt good for the west when its available to the rest

in just over 100 years britain has gone from world master to worlds joke :D

Edited by chesters1

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Designed in the 1970's, first flown in the early 80's, the shuttle is well past retirement age and it's lack of a replacement is down to several previous American administrations rather than just the current one.

Fortunately, the British are waiting in the wings - although obviously, if our very own re-usable space plane ever gets built, we'll outsource all the jobs to foreign companies and allow them to claim any resulting technical innovations as their own.

Edited by Ken L

Species caught in 2020: Barbel. European Eel. Bleak. Perch. Pike.

Species caught in 2019: Pike. Bream. Tench. Chub. Common Carp. European Eel. Barbel. Bleak. Dace.

Species caught in 2018: Perch. Bream. Rainbow Trout. Brown Trout. Chub. Roach. Carp. European Eel.

Species caught in 2017: Siamese carp. Striped catfish. Rohu. Mekong catfish. Amazon red tail catfish. Arapaima. Black Minnow Shark. Perch. Chub. Brown Trout. Pike. Bream. Roach. Rudd. Bleak. Common Carp.

Species caught in 2016: Siamese carp. Jullien's golden carp. Striped catfish. Mekong catfish. Amazon red tail catfish. Arapaima. Alligator gar. Rohu. Black Minnow Shark. Roach, Bream, Perch, Ballan Wrasse. Rudd. Common Carp. Pike. Zander. Chub. Bleak.

Species caught in 2015: Brown Trout. Roach. Bream. Terrapin. Eel. Barbel. Pike. Chub.

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Is their ambition to end up like us, a country of shopkeepers, call centres and corrupt politicians and newspapermen, whose own government doesn't trust to build its own railways? A sad day.

 

You could easily be describing the US of A, Colin. The fact is, we can't afford a space program. Our short-sighted politicians have excavated a colossal pit of debt - $4 trillion since Obama took office - and we're headed for national default. The current debt-deiling negotiations are a harbinger of future events. Unless we elect fiscal conservatives and stop the bleeding soon, things are going to get very ugly.

Be good and you will be lonely.
~ Mark Twain

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You could easily be describing the US of A, Colin. The fact is, we can't afford a space program. Our short-sighted politicians have excavated a colossal pit of debt - $4 trillion since Obama took office - and we're headed for national default. The current debt-deiling negotiations are a harbinger of future events. Unless we elect fiscal conservatives and stop the bleeding soon, things are going to get very ugly.
The fact is that you really can't afford not to have a space program. The US is in danger of terminal decline. How are you going to feel when the Chinese or the Indians have a permanent presence on the moon and are exploiting resources from the asteroid belt when you guys are still hitching rides on Ruskie rockets?

The problem isn't what people don't know, it's what they know that just ain't so.
Vaut mieux ne rien dire et passer pour un con que de parler et prouver que t'en est un!
Mi, ch’fais toudis à m’mote

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The fact is that you really can't afford not to have a space program. The US is in danger of terminal decline. How are you going to feel when the Chinese or the Indians have a permanent presence on the moon and are exploiting resources from the asteroid belt when you guys are still hitching rides on Ruskie rockets?

 

Can't argue that. But in order to pay for it our politicians had better get their fiscal priorities straight and stop wasting money that they don't even have.

Be good and you will be lonely.
~ Mark Twain

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I don't think that the Indians or the Chinese will be as all out for space exploration as the USA was.

I mean really, we cannot even get a Man beyond Mars at the minute. Not to mention the amount of pollution from each trip.

Space exploration provides little reward for the amount of money it costs. The money would be better spent here on Earth.

People are so worried about space exploration and yet ignore the fact we are killing our own planet. I think we will have polluted it long before we need worry about an asteroid or comet hitting it.

As to travelling to the stars, what do we want to do colonise and kill another planet?

 

 

There is no danger of potential decline in the USA for they have already taken the down slope. America is going to go bang very soon and maybe it is time that the Eastern nations moved to the front for a while. The UK also is only deluding itself as to the extent of the problem. The West could definately end up as 1st world Countries living in 3rd world conditions.

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Space exploration provides little reward for the amount of money it costs. The money would be better spent here on Earth.

The first sentence is nonsense. The second is open to some serious debate. I dug up the below info with a little searching. All accurate and verifiable and easy to find.

 

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/oped-04b.html gives a pretty good overview. Below are a very few of the many specific helpful spin-offs of the US space program.

 

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Throughout its 40-year history, the US space program has set goals that required innovation and technology yet to be developed, and the results have been astonishing. Miniaturized integrated circuits, satellite technology, GPS navigation systems, bone-density measurements, miniaturized heart pumps and other technologies derived from NASA research and development have saved and improved our lives.

 

New spin-offs include water filtration systems that turn wastewater into drinkable water, wireless light switches, remediation solutions for sites contaminated by chemicals, the development of Liquidmetal and sensors on reconnaissance robots used in Afghanistan and Iraq to deal with improvised explosive devices. The list goes on and on.

 

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Do you use a cordless drill or shrub trimmer? How about a Dustbuster®? Did you know that the technology that made these products possible came from NASA's Apollo program?

 

Astronauts needed a way to drill down beneath the moon's surface, as much as 10 feet, to collect core samples. Like everything else that went to the moon, this drill had to be small, lightweight and battery-powered. To develop the drill, NASA chose a company that has since become well known for its cordless products: Black and Decker.

 

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Hopefully you've never been waked up in the middle of the night by a smoke detector. It would be bad enough in your home, but imagine having a fire on your space ship!

 

In the 1970's, NASA needed a smoke and fire detector for Skylab, America's first space station. Honeywell, Inc. developed the unit for NASA. Smoke detectors are now required by law to be placed in all new homes. They are credited with saving countless lives.

 

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In the mid-1960's, as NASA prepared for its Apollo moon landing program, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) developed the technology known as digital image processing to allow computer enhancement of Moon pictures. This technology later became the basis for the NASA Landsat satellites.

 

Digital image processing is now being used by doctors and hospitals to record images of organs in the human body. Two of the most widely used body imaging techniques are computer-aided tomography (CATScan) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

 

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Light emitting diodes (LED), used for plant experiments on the Space Shuttle, are being used to perform surgery on patients with brain cancer. Photodynamic Therapy, a MSFC Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Quantum Devices collaboration, uses LEDs to activate photosensitizers (light-sensitive, tumor-treating drugs) that have been injected intravenously. Light activation allows the drugs to destroy cancerous cells, leaving surrounding tissue virtually untouched.

 

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Early in the 1970’s, NASA began working to improve firefighter breathing systems, which had hardly changed since the 1940’s. The old equipment was so heavy that a lot of firefighters chose to leave it behind!

 

NASA’s Johnson Space Flight Center conducted a four-year program that applied technology from the portable life support systems used by astronauts on the moon. The new breathing system is made up of a face mask, frame and harness, a warning device, and an air bottle.

 

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The Hi-Shear Technology Corporation of Torrance, California, has been supplying NASA with explosive nuts and bolts and related equipment since the Apollo days. Hi-Shear had the idea of using small explosive charges to power the jaws of metal-cutting tools for rescue workers and firefighters.

 

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How do you clean up an oil spill? With balls of beeswax, what else?! These aren’t your usual balls of beeswax, however. These contain microorganisms (little critters that can only be seen under a microscope) that “eat” oil.

 

Petrol Rem, Inc. of Pittsburgh, Penn. invented the idea. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Marshall Space Flight Center helped to design the tiny beeswax balls (microcapsules).

 

The beeswax microcapsules are designed so that water cannot get in, but oil can. When the oil seeps through the shell, the microorganisms inside release enzymes that digest the oil. When the balls get full of digested oil, they explode. They release enzymes, carbon dioxide and water, all environmentally safe. This mixture is even good fish food!

 

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" My choices in life were either to be a piano player in a whore house or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference!" - Harry Truman, 33rd US President

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