NASA have done very little over the last few years if you think about it.Going to the Moon was probably the greatest achievement in human history and after that it's been all down hill. The first man in space was Yuri Gagarin in 1952 then 12 years later the Americans landed on the Moon after that there's been little activity.
There Joe. If you pay some attention to your offspring they will reward you a hundredfold. I am quite interested in the philosophy of measurement of both time and space which started once I began to think about you black hole post. Our understanding of time is based upon concepts within our experience but as we are rapidly learning our experience is very limited. We think of time in terms of the motion of the earth or the atomic clock or evn in terms of rates of change but what if these times when measured against parameters we are unaware of turn out to be either incredibly long or short. What if our life time is in fact only a fraction of the time measured by some greater galactic measure. We talk about another planet being light years away but suppose our year is a ridiculously small period of time and when we use a meaure as yet unknown it turns out that these distances are actually quite small. For me time has strange effects. When I watch a match and we are trying to come back from a goal down time seems to faster the nearer we get to the end of the match while when we are hanging on for a win time goes slower. I have also noticed that days and years go faster the older I get. Does all of this mean that time is not a constant unit and that it varies in different places and is experienced differently for different people. Is time and also distance therefore subjective. When I was a boy my walk to school seemed very long but when I walk it now it seems no distance at all. Could this be linked to the universe shrinking? Joe you have opened a can of worms (I am not sure I can say how long they are for certain nor can I say with any certainty how long they have been out of the tin) and this whole issue of space and time deserves some thoughtful and carefully considered posts.
How do you mean little activity? If you mean big old groundbreaking trips then little but what's the point? If you mean little in general terms then you're very wrong, with constant probes and satellites and the space station in constant use.
Very little activity.Yes they sent space shuttles,satellites and built the ISS,but not much has come out with this...some nice pictures of other planets and stars. When you look back at the space race and what was achieved in a relatively short space of time and you look at what NASA have been doing over the last 40 years you'll see how we've stagnated. 43 years since man walked on the Moon and NASA haven't sent someone to Mars yet it's a bit sad if you ask me.
Otherwise known as idiots. It's been done more than once. We have a remote-controlled robot roaming around on Mars as we speak, and some people still can't believe that we can put men on the Moon.
NASA are currently allocated 0.5% of the US annual budget, and there is a petition to increase that to 1%. Just imagine the wonderful things they could achieve if the US government wasn't wasting so much money on defence, the "war on terror" and "war on drugs". Still, there has been great scientific progress made with the ISS, Hubble, Voyager I and II and various other projects. To me, this is far more interesting and important than that ongoing media circus in the Middle East.
Problem is Discovery channel makes programmes which ask lot of questions about the landings and puts doubts in peoples minds..........even the Americans made a film called Capricorn one which only fuelled the doubters they even tried to ban it. (i belive they did land BTW)
It's a shame that the US government is wasting it's money on wars and not investing it in important areas such as space exploration.In my opinion curiosity (space travel) is an intrinsic part of human nature and something that the US and other states should be investing in and pushing on with. We need to see if there are any intelligent life forms out there,that is the ultimate goal.It would be great if they found another flag next to the USA flag on the Moon.
Discovery also made a documentary about the non believers and showed them the facts about the landings and the doubters were proved wrong.
Yes,that's true.Luckily I'll be dead before that happens (I hope) Could we live on Mars in the near future?
Mars bars have too many calories and not enough protein and you would soon be obese. Stick to living on fruit and vegetables with a little meat, calcium and vitamins chucked in.
Always been fascinated by astronomy and the idea of space travel. The first communication satellites (Early Bird, Telstar) were launched in my childhood, so everyone was fascinated with the idea of space travel. Star Trek and other similar shows reflected this interest.At the time, we expected progress to be faster with people living on the moon, but on the other hand no one forecast the massive progress in personal computers.
Anyone seen Prometheus. I was dissapointed. Dialogue crap, not a patch on the original Allien, went for to much special effects over substance. Could of been so much better. I shake my head.
Yeah astronomy is awesome, although I've never watched Star Trek but I imagine if I did it would be something I would probably like maybe. Also like those programmes presented by Brian Cox, he makes physics cool. I remember back in those days of year 8 reading Patrick Moore's Atlas of the Universe at school which is an awesome book. Although I did chuckle at the section entitled "Missions to Uranus" (I was like 12!).
Always had a bit of a fascination with Astronomy myself. Got a permanently setup refracting telescope on the SE side of the house. My interest has generally been planetary, although I always give Orion's Nebula a good look during the winter, and the Pleiades too. I look out for meteor showers, satellites and such too, What really sold the subject to me, apart from dear old Patrick Moore, was after reading an excerpt from Galileo's Starry Messenger, where he drew a picture of Jupiter and its four visible [to him] moons, as he was writing. When I first looked through a telescope at Jupiter I saw exactly same line-up, and it was if I was reaching back through the centuries to Galileo's drawing.
