Space Travel

[Deleted member 149562]

The space exploration project always was and always will be a collossal waste of money and lives.

Not just the lives of those destroyed in WW2 in the name of rocket technology....don't forget Von Braun kept all of his blueprints and notes from his V2 project as a bargaining chip for when he was caught. The US should have taken them and then tried him for war crimes with the rest of his cohorts, but as with Speer, they gave him a freebee ticket to a comfy life in the US.

The US still lost the space race against the Soviets, which was the main reason for giving Von Braun a freebee ticket.

The V2 project at White Sands was no more successful than it was at Peenemunde, the Von Braun technology was not as advanced as the US assumed that it would be. Yes the V2 was the forerunner to what are now called ICBM but that was all. Significant redesign of the V2 had to be made before it could carry a human into space...after the lives of many chimpanzees had been sacrificed in the process.

The Mercury & Gemini programmes were extremely limited in their success

The Apollo programme was fraught with accidents. Apollo 1 suffered a cabin fire that killed Chaffee, Grissom and White.

The Apollo 11 moon landing has always been subject to controversy. The images beamed down have been questioned for decades. The lighting and shadow effect often seen to be somewhat fake and staged. Was it real? I do not believe so.

The reason why I feel that it was faked was a simple case of oneupmanship.

The US went into the space race against the Soviets pretty much assuming they would win. They missed the first man into space challenge and to placate the US people and to rebuild the dented pride, it was almost certainly a case of to the moon or else. To prevent another expensive embarrassment, the moon landing had to happen....or be seen to happen...before the Soviets got there.

The moon landing was a sham to save face and to prevent funding being withdrawn from the space programme. The reason I have always thought this is Apollo 13. There was absolutely zero interest from the public about A13, viewing figures dropped massively for the launch. Afterall, why send another rocket to the moon when one had already been there, right? Now you might say that the ill fated explosion aboard A13 bounced the viewing numbers and public interest way up the charts again...we shall leave that potential conspiracy to another day, along with the false test results that caused a crew change at the last moment.

Space exploration in the 1950's was exciting.....it isn't nowadays. In the 1950's people were lured into space by wild ideas of living on new planets and in space stations, it was touted as the future....the dream.

That dream has cost lives...WW2....Apollo 1....Space Shuttle Columbia....Space Shuttle Challenger...Soyuz 11....Soyuz 1....and for what?

We are no closer to that dream of living on a new planet, we have had SkyLab and the ISS.....but at what cost in human and financial terms? The price has been far too high, its not worth it.

 

[itiwhetu]

The space exploration project always was and always will be a collossal waste of money and lives.

Not just the lives of those destroyed in WW2 in the name of rocket technology....don't forget Von Braun kept all of his blueprints and notes from his V2 project as a bargaining chip for when he was caught. The US should have taken them and then tried him for war crimes with the rest of his cohorts, but as with Speer, they gave him a freebee ticket to a comfy life in the US.

The US still lost the space race against the Soviets, which was the main reason for giving Von Braun a freebee ticket.

The V2 project at White Sands was no more successful than it was at Peenemunde, the Von Braun technology was not as advanced as the US assumed that it would be. Yes the V2 was the forerunner to what are now called ICBM but that was all. Significant redesign of the V2 had to be made before it could carry a human into space...after the lives of many chimpanzees had been sacrificed in the process.

The Mercury & Gemini programmes were extremely limited in their success

The Apollo programme was fraught with accidents. Apollo 1 suffered a cabin fire that killed Chaffee, Grissom and White.

The Apollo 11 moon landing has always been subject to controversy. The images beamed down have been questioned for decades. The lighting and shadow effect often seen to be somewhat fake and staged. Was it real? I do not believe so.

The reason why I feel that it was faked was a simple case of oneupmanship.

The US went into the space race against the Soviets pretty much assuming they would win. They missed the first man into space challenge and to placate the US people and to rebuild the dented pride, it was almost certainly a case of to the moon or else. To prevent another expensive embarrassment, the moon landing had to happen....or be seen to happen...before the Soviets got there.

The moon landing was a sham to save face and to prevent funding being withdrawn from the space programme. The reason I have always thought this is Apollo 13. There was absolutely zero interest from the public about A13, viewing figures dropped massively for the launch. Afterall, why send another rocket to the moon when one had already been there, right? Now you might say that the ill fated explosion aboard A13 bounced the viewing numbers and public interest way up the charts again...we shall leave that potential conspiracy to another day, along with the false test results that caused a crew change at the last moment.

Space exploration in the 1950's was exciting.....it isn't nowadays. In the 1950's people were lured into space by wild ideas of living on new planets and in space stations, it was touted as the future....the dream.

That dream has cost lives...WW2....Apollo 1....Space Shuttle Columbia....Space Shuttle Challenger...Soyuz 11....Soyuz 1....and for what?

We are no closer to that dream of living on a new planet, we have had SkyLab and the ISS.....but at what cost in human and financial terms? The price has been far too high, its not worth it.

My big question is why in fifty years why we haven't been back, drilling holes and finding out what the moon is really made of. All we ever did was scratch the surface. Surely someone must want to find out what is in the core of the moon.

 

[Deleted member 149562]

My big question is why in fifty years why we haven't been back, drilling holes and finding out what the moon is really made of. All we ever did was scratch the surface. Surely someone must want to find out what is in the core of the moon.

In the 1950's the moon captured the imagination....most of the sci-fi films of that era spoke of life on the moon, monsters and aliens

The moon no longer captures anything like the imaginative ideas and dreams now. Most see the space programmes as money wasted...and lets be brutally honest, it IS a massive waste of money and resources.

Mars exploration has taken the baton from the moon in the imagination race, but its still not a patch on the furore of the 1950's when the vast expense to reach the moon had to be dressed up as much as possible to hide the onupmanship against the Soviets that frankly would never have been so appealing to the public as casting the moon as some exotic place where we can live in years to come.

There are far more important things to spend that money on than going into space and leaving yet more debris up there and potentially costing more lives in the process

The dream has gone.....and in some respects the dream didn't really exist except in the imagination....space exploration was nothing more than a competition tween two superpowers and no cost was ever going to be too high.

Finally people have woken up to the fact that no amount of money or lives can ever justify chasing that impossible dream of the 1950's.

 

[itiwhetu]

In the 1950's the moon captured the imagination....most of the sci-fi films of that era spoke of life on the moon, monsters and aliens

The moon no longer captures anything like the imaginative ideas and dreams now. Most see the space programmes as money wasted...and lets be brutally honest, it IS a massive waste of money and resources.

Mars exploration has taken the baton from the moon in the imagination race, but its still not a patch on the furore of the 1950's when the vast expense to reach the moon had to be dressed up as much as possible to hide the onupmanship against the Soviets that frankly would never have been so appealing to the public as casting the moon as some exotic place where we can live in years to come.

There are far more important things to spend that money on than going into space and leaving yet more debris up there and potentially costing more lives in the process

The dream has gone.....and in some respects the dream didn't really exist except in the imagination....space exploration was nothing more than a competition tween two superpowers and no cost was ever going to be too high.

Finally people have woken up to the fact that no amount of money or lives can ever justify chasing that impossible dream of the 1950's.

Do you find it interesting that I received angry faces? I thought I could make a comment, and nobody would care. But people are still passionate about the 60's program.

 

[Deleted member 149562]

Do you find it interesting that I received angry faces? I thought I could make a comment, and nobody would care. But people are still passionate about the 60's program.

I guess that there will always be a sore spot....the US vs USSR (as Russia was back then) space race was always going to be a delicate area, a bone of contention and I doubt that will ever change.

There will always be anger and hurt over the USSR getting a man into space first

There will always be conspiracy theories over the alleged moon landing......and I say alleged cos it got the US space race smile back, the US were seen to have beaten the USSR.....one up for the US, the proverbial middle finger to the USSR

The Mercury, Gemini and Apollo years were a very intense time for the US. They simply had to win it at any cost, it has caused alot of resentment and alot of questions....so its like hitting a nerve when even now those nagging doubts and conspiracies keep popping up.

At the end of the day the moon landing whether real or faked was a face saving exercise. They had to justify all the expense and the hype and to beat the USSR to the moon come hell or high water. They did it. Whether it was fake or not will never ever be known or agreed upon but anyone who does question it will inevitably get the angry faces.

 

[itiwhetu]

I guess that there will always be a sore spot....the US vs USSR (as Russia was back then) space race was always going to be a delicate area, a bone of contention and I doubt that will ever change.

There will always be anger and hurt over the USSR getting a man into space first

There will always be conspiracy theories over the alleged moon landing......and I say alleged cos it got the US space race smile back, the US were seen to have beaten the USSR.....one up for the US, the proverbial middle finger to the USSR

The Mercury, Gemini and Apollo years were a very intense time for the US. They simply had to win it at any cost, it has caused alot of resentment and alot of questions....so its like hitting a nerve when even now those nagging doubts and conspiracies keep popping up.

At the end of the day the moon landing whether real or faked was a face saving exercise. They had to justify all the expense and the hype and to beat the USSR to the moon come hell or high water. They did it. Whether it was fake or not will never ever be known or agreed upon but anyone who does question it will inevitably get the angry faces.

Great reply thanks

 

[Obsessed with fish]

Do you find it interesting that I received angry faces? I thought I could make a comment, and nobody would care. But people are still passionate about the 60's program.

Planet on other side of the sun.

 

[itiwhetu]

Planet on other side of the sun.

My planet idea came way after the angry faces.

 

[Obsessed with fish]

My planet idea came way after the angry faces.

There could be a planet on the other side of the sun

 

[itiwhetu]

There could be a planet on the other side of the sun

Exactly, humans think they are a lot smarter than they are. We are learning all the time, and as we learn our perspective of life and our universe changes. We only have a tiny little bit of knowledge, what we don't know is greater than what we do know.

 

[Deleted member 149562]

Some might say "why go to live on another planet when we can't look after the one we already have properly"

There is a section of the community who blame humanity for the issues that we have on Earth.

They conveniently forget that Earth is a living, constantly moving planet...its been moving long before the continents split apart. The ultra hot liquid core frequently escapes to the surface to prove that it is a constantly evolving mass of molten rock with a crispy crust floating on top.

Humanity are not enough in numbers or powers to change anything about this planet...5 mass extinctions and countless volcanic eruptions and earthquakes later and there are still those who feel that we have ruined this planet....so how dare we even think of going off grid to ruin another planets out there in space...

Humanity has this failing....if there is something to explore...we MUST go and explore it...

There are swathes of ocean that have been explored less than space has been

 

[Obsessed with fish]

Useful

 

[itiwhetu]

Humans have only understood science for a few hundred years but live on a planet that is millions of years old. We are so arrogant that we think we know everything in that tiny period. It is beyond comprehension to why we would want to go anywhere else, when we don't even understand this planet.

 

[Deleted member 149562]

Space exploration has absolutely nothing to do with technological expertise or advancement

In the 1950's after Von Braun and his cohorts were given a free pass for their proven war crimes to work at White Sands and develop the V2 into a rocket that could carry a man into space and maybe to the moon and beyond...it was not for the exploration of space, it was to get there before the Soviets

It was a race tween the Soviets, British and US to find Von Braun and get his knowledge of rocket technology that had been used against Antwerp and London during the latter stages of WW2.

The space race was sparked by the knowledge and blueprints and notes made by Von Braun's team that documented the accidental firing of an early V2 that instead of heading over to Britain to kill people, it went straight up and was the first ever fully documented unmanned vehicle to enter space and to return from space unscathed until it hit the ground.

Whoever found him, his notes, his blueprints and his team would win the race to space.

That is all it was, it is what it has always been.....a race to gain the technology, a race to use the technology and a race to claim the ultimate prize...space, the moon and beyond.

It did not matter who died along the way or how many died trying to reach space...and it still doesn't matter. The whole premise of space exploration was the US vs the USSR and there was no price tag attached.

It was a game of oneupmanship...and it always will be and if a bit of faking was done along the way too, that was justfied as a way to win.

Domestication of space to the extent that was portrayed in films in the 1950's and 1960's was and always will be nothing more than a pipedream....a subject for science fiction. It won't happen, not in our lifetime or the lifetime of the Earth that we are tenants of.

 

[itiwhetu]

Space exploration has absolutely nothing to do with technological expertise or advancement

In the 1950's after Von Braun and his cohorts were given a free pass for their proven war crimes to work at White Sands and develop the V2 into a rocket that could carry a man into space and maybe to the moon and beyond...it was not for the exploration of space, it was to get there before the Soviets

It was a race tween the Soviets, British and US to find Von Braun and get his knowledge of rocket technology that had been used against Antwerp and London during the latter stages of WW2.

The space race was sparked by the knowledge and blueprints and notes made by Von Braun's team that documented the accidental firing of an early V2 that instead of heading over to Britain to kill people, it went straight up and was the first ever fully documented unmanned vehicle to enter space and to return from space unscathed until it hit the ground.

Whoever found him, his notes, his blueprints and his team would win the race to space.

That is all it was, it is what it has always been.....a race to gain the technology, a race to use the technology and a race to claim the ultimate prize...space, the moon and beyond.

It did not matter who died along the way or how many died trying to reach space...and it still doesn't matter. The whole premise of space exploration was the US vs the USSR and there was no price tag attached.

It was a game of oneupmanship...and it always will be and if a bit of faking was done along the way too, that was justfied as a way to win.

Domestication of space to the extent that was portrayed in films in the 1950's and 1960's was and always will be nothing more than a pipedream....a subject for science fiction. It won't happen, not in our lifetime or the lifetime of the Earth that we are tenants of.

Thank you,