I was watching a video in history class the other day and they mentioned that archeologists left part of an excavation burried because future equipment will be able to undig it better. Is it not the same with space travel? Right now, in order to send up a space ship, it takes a lot of fuel and burns a huge hole in the ozone layer. It is very expensive and extremley inefficient. I am 100% certain that in 500 years they will look back at the way we send up ships now like we look back at somethign like ... I dont know, lets pick sailing back 500 years ago. When Magellan set out, he had 5 ships and about 280 men with him. Only one ship and 18 men made it back. Now, if the funds for taht expedition were put into research for new ships, a lot more would have been acomplished. Sounds sort of stupid when I look at the last paragraph again, but even in 50 or 100 years, we will be able to use much less fuel and not damage the enviroment as much as we do now to do the same stuff in space. Why not just wait right now and pour money into research, not development. Just a thought. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! please feel free to respond: do you think sacraficing lives, money and the enviroment on trips that can be safer, more economic, and cleaner in the future is worth doing it now not later? after all, time is just another dimention.
Well, first off, most of the technology used to figure out what is going on with the enviroment are offshoots of space development and research. Next, What you are talking of is technological progression. The advance of knowledge leading to new ways to do the same thing. On the drawing board and under tests at present is the scram jet from the old X33 prototype. Should this come to realization you will be looking at the capability of using a space like shuttle in a runway to space configuration reducing the cost of lifting a pound to space considerability. And with a reduced fuel load in comparision. Followed by I was born and raised in Fla. not to far from the Cape. Everytime they launched a rocket it would rain the next day. Exhaust particles was always my guess. There has been evidence lately that we still don't understand exactly this Ozone depletion phenomena as well as we thought we did. For one, evidence now points to comsic rays activating the cfc's. For another, there is speculation that the ozone thinning may well be a long term cyclic property of the atmosphere and not something that is solely contributed to human intervention.
Woah! Even though I´ve always considered myself to be a environmentalist the thought of pollution in the spaceprogram has never crossed my mind... But travelling to the stars seems to be unevitable. It is a drive genetically imprinted in man. We must spawn. Always thought it was a shame spacetravel wasn´t possible 100-300 yrs ago. Back in the days when explorers didn´t care so much for safety measures Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
MuliBoy, Your post reminds me of a sci-fi short story I once read. I don't remember the title but the gist of it was that a Roman type civilization bent on conquest arrives in the solar system. The soldier from who's veiwpoint the story is being told is worried that the oxygen may not last long enough to complete the voyage. He goes to the pilot caste area and looks out the sole window of flawed glass in the craft to see the new promising colony to conquer. Light is supplied by a lantern of lightning fly type bugs. So they land and proceed to secure the area of the space craft. They see the new subjects that they are bent on conquering. As they form up and march with shields and swords they notice big metal vehices approaching. When an arrow is fired at the threating monster, the tank fires back, end of story.
Nice story. Tell me more please. How it began. What happened in between and so on. Til the probably happy end follows. No? There is a happy end isn't there? It always is like that with American movies. Happy ends...Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
It's understandible that people might think sitting back waiting for developments to occur will bring safer, cheaper and more ecological methods to travel into and through space. Of course this requires reasearch, which is pretty much done through the use of using systems that you class as un-ecological, costly and not so safe, but that's beause anything that is monitored can build an understanding of how to design things the next time round. From what I understand the whole process of leaving out atmosphere for space will probably go back to launching from high altitude aircraft or infact having a design that fly's up rather than forces itself against gravity, Of course the main problem is that at a certain altitue the air get's so thin that their isn't enough lift to continue up, so a craft would probably have to maintain a speed and sweep around the planet at that altitude to create a sling shot. Another method of course that has been looked into is balloons, of course I kind of look at a method where a balloon could lift something up to an altitude and then a rocket or something similars thrust could take over, of course that balloon has to carry the fuel and the rocket to that altitude, but it's far less fuel used. That of course might be handy for things like satellites, and perhaps 1 man craft. (Of course it does take longer to reach your destination) As for certain problems with CFC's as stated in Wet1's post, Is the fact that for molecules bonds to be borken and change it does take an amount of energy that is produced through radiation. This radiation can be that of the sun's rays, or the friction of solar winds whipping around the planet, but there is also the amount of radiation that us evolving creates (Television, Radio, Mobile Telephones, even systems that are used to check the densities of rain clouds through dopplers) Of course the gases in our atmosphere work in similar patterns to how life in a simulation would work, If there is an increase in CO (Carbon Monoxide) at one point in the year, a few months down the line it will have lessened and the CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) levels will be up, Of course this montored a bit further on could then show that O2 (Oxygen) levels are up through Trees taking in the Carbon Dioxide, and this cycle is endless. It's only on occasion that some natural or manmade disaster occurs that causes this cycle to have a chaotic instability. (Take for instance a Volcano outputting sulphur high into the atmosphere [This can cause Sulphuric Acid and Acid rain], the burning of animal carcasses or other events that output a high quantity of pollutants) To finish this post I think we have a good reason to continue space programs, I hope we will now try to make the programs worldly, and not worry too much about what experiments each country are carrying out onboard a space station. (Originally there was talk that certain people of other nationalities wouldn't be allowed to wonder other countries areas, which is really daft, as they are scientists that go up and shouldn't be governed by politics, and CERN proved that scientists can live together in a near harmony [Since they only debated theories]) I say though that the countries should fund the project, namely from a preportion of taxes and grants, because I think that if any company was to buy there way into space, then we are going to end up with real problems. My reasoning for continuing is to stay on one planet with an uncertain future not knowing if other life exists, proves to me that staying here could mean our extinction, while expanding defines our survival.
Stryderunknown, Good points. Space travel can be no more wrong than getting on a bicycle and going around the block. It is a matter of degree. (and technological ability) Perhaps I was a bit unclear in that the x33 uses a scam jet to get to the upper fringes. From then on its rocket or nothing, But the amount of fuel consumed by the rocket is nowhere near what a total lift off by rocket would be from ground level. I had mentioned in another post some time back that we are starting to see the depletion of certain raw materials. One of them is platinum. At present Canada is meeting a good percentage of the earth’s platinum demands. Canada is in the fortunate position of being the recipient of a deep crater impact by an asteroid consisting of platinum in prehistory. But that resource is now running out. The one place that we know has plenty of platinum, iron, gold, and other metals is the asteroids. If we do not get to them, within a few generations we will be hard pressed to do it. The population increases and the demand for giving that population the raw materials for modern life comforts globally will take what remains. After that the depletion will continue to the point that no one gets off this dirt ball and we will be stuck to stew in our own juices. Much the same as the Easter Island scenario on a global scale. Probably before that arrives there will be a war for resources that will be the end of us.
I agree with MuliBoy! It´s in our nature and we can´t stop it. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
