Space Travel.

[Oryx]

"The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which
made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into
space--each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the
irrational decision." -xkcd
​

The above comic made me think semi-seriously about space travel and what it means to us as a culture/species. In 1966, obviously near the height of space travel fervor, NASA had up to 4.41% of the federal budget. Since then, with the exception of a ~5 year rise, the percentage has been steadily dropping to where it sits at ~0.6% of the budget (source). Is this a problem, or how it should be? Is it even important?

Discuss:
-Is space travel essential to humans, either as a culture or as a species?
-Is the lack of space travel a severe loss to society, or a waste of money?
-Are there better things we could be spending money on, or do we spend more money on worse things now?

Obviously don't answer those word for word, just use those as a jumping off point and go wherever with the topic. xP

 

[Legobricks]

I advocate space travel, or even space living; it does not do to keep all our eggs in one basket. Science has it that the Sun will eventually 'die' and if we're still only in the Solar System by then, well... It'd be a great shame, a waste of billions of years spent developing to whatever point we get by then. Of course, the Sun dying is a distant future, yet, but the other perhaps more immediate concern I have is that the Earth will not remain useful to us forever; we're already apparently low on oil; if we wait until we must leave, we may find we have nothing to build any spacecraft with. If we want to last as a race then we should do what we can in order to... but do we? I guess that's the question. I can understand the general lack of concern at least, most people simply don't care about things beyond the scope of their own lives. Of course the monetary cost of anything pertaining to space is obscene, and money is sadly relevant to the average person's life. For now we may be better spending money on wordly ventures; but whenever we do, unless we're willing to spend to advance space-related technology, how ever will it become cheaper and/or better?

 

[Esper]

Space travel won't do us any good if we can't solve our problems here on Earth. We'd just be bringing them with us wherever we go. We'd be delaying the inevitable, and maybe there's something to be said for that, but I think we ought to learn from our mistakes instead of just running away from them.

Having said that I think it is invaluable that we reach out to the stars and learn more about what's out there, go to other planets (aiming for Mars is great and all, but don't shy away from Venus just because it's an uncomfortable reminder of what the greenhouse effect can do), and generally improve on and create new technology that can help us do this.

 

[aruchan]

Space travel isn't a luxury, it's a necessity. We need to expand the space program and get our people back on the Moon and beyond. If we don't, there is no chance we will survive the next 100 years, 1000 years, 100,000, or even million years...

 

[Charizard★]

As others have said, we need to fix our own problems here before we migrate somewhere else. It's not necessary for us space travel. We just want to do that. Humans rightful place is on earth and no where else. But, if we do happen to go to a different place, we'll just create a mess there like we did on earth. In my view we'd be sucking the life out of the planet as we're doing here, which would just make us similar to leeches. But yea, I'm betting on we wouldn't be able to migrate to another planet because there not another one similar to earth that has been found yet.

 

[twocows]

Space travel won't do us any good if we can't solve our problems here on Earth. We'd just be bringing them with us wherever we go. We'd be delaying the inevitable, and maybe there's something to be said for that, but I think we ought to learn from our mistakes instead of just running away from them.

Having said that I think it is invaluable that we reach out to the stars and learn more about what's out there, go to other planets (aiming for Mars is great and all, but don't shy away from Venus just because it's an uncomfortable reminder of what the greenhouse effect can do), and generally improve on and create new technology that can help us do this.

As others have said, we need to fix our own problems here before we migrate somewhere else. It's not necessary for us space travel. We just want to do that. Humans rightful place is on earth and no where else. But, if we do happen to go to a different place, we'll just create a mess there like we did on earth. In my view we'd be sucking the life out of the planet as we're doing here, which would just make us similar to leeches. But yea, I'm betting on we wouldn't be able to migrate to another planet because there not another one similar to earth that has been found yet.

This is silly. There are six billion people on the planet, and the people who choose to research space travel wouldn't magically be reassigned to fixing the world's problems if we suddenly stopped funding the space program. Researching the world outside ours doesn't create some deficit in people working to make things better.

I hope I live to see the day we colonize Mars. I'd even volunteer to go up.

 

[Shining Raichu]

I'm all for space travel and colonising other planets, however we'd need to get an internet connection that is a hell of a lot stronger first.

 

[Steven]

-Is space travel essential to humans, either as a culture or as a species?
Both. Earth's resources are limited and nearly out. Space travel could bring space mining.

-Is the lack of space travel a severe loss to society, or a waste of money?
Lack of space travel is a severe loss to society because of the mention I already stated.

Also, what if by some off chance we do meet an advanced alien culture? Think of what we could learn!

-Are there better things we could be spending money on, or do we spend more money on worse things now?
We spend more money on worse things. NASA is important.

 

[aruchan]

-Is space travel essential to humans, either as a culture or as a species?
Both. Earth's resources are limited and nearly out. Space travel could bring space mining.

-Is the lack of space travel a severe loss to society, or a waste of money?
Lack of space travel is a severe loss to society because of the mention I already stated.

Also, what if by some off chance we do meet an advanced alien culture? Think of what we could learn!

-Are there better things we could be spending money on, or do we spend more money on worse things now?
We spend more money on worse things. NASA is important.

It's a fallacious assumption to believe that alien life we find would be peaceful, or even care about our existence. In all known life forms aggression is the modus operandi to thrive and survive, existing in creatures from the lowly insect to the high and mighty humans. It is quite unlikely that this trait is DNA specific, because it seems like natural selection is a universal phenomenon; in my opinion, it is more likely that, unless doing so would be an expensive or unimportant (i.e. they don't need our resources or have other motives, including economic) that they would attack us than give us their technological secrets.

NASA is important as humanity needs a failsafe in case we irreparably destroy or incapacitate our planet. While the Earth will eventually heal, space travel should be accomplished for at least selfish motives.

 

[ZeviL]

Let me put it this way, can you imagine an alien species full of internal conflicts and killing one another because of a difference in race or religion and other differences? Sounds absurd? That's us, humans, we can't even live in peace with our own kind here.

We need to advance as one united civilsation without all the discrimination before we can finally roam the universe.

 

[lx_theo]

Humanity is growing, constantly, with a nature to put shame is the greatest our our kind's eyes, and beyond the control of any government or authority.

Humanity needs to expand, we need to move forward. Do we need it now? No, definitely not. But the future is just around the doorstep, and I'd prefer we'd be prepared.

 

[Brane]

I think the possibility of Space travel has been around for a while, and I think it is a possibility today. But I do believe we don't have the resources or the technology at the present time to undergo such a straining task.

I also do think in the future we might have to undergo space travel as a means of survival because of the resources we keep drying on our planet.

But for the moment, I think more money should go towards consistent problems in the world; Poverty, Natural Disasters, Disease etc.