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Originally Posted by KillerGremlin
Pretty shallow (and sad...damn you public education!) that a lot of you think nothing has been accomplished with the trips to the moon or space travel in the past 30 years. There has been a lot of medical research that has moved forward as well as progress made in the fields of physics.
The pro of this is we can see space move into the commercial sphere which means more funding which may ultimately be a good thing since commercial space means you'll have competition....Richard Branson and Virgin are already working on their thing. As I understand it, NASA is severely underfunded as is. Perhaps commercial space travel will give way to new innovation or different solutions.
On the other hand, going commercial means you might lose out on a wealth of valuable scholarly research. And yeah, colonizing the moon is hugely important since it is the first step to sending astronauts to other locations in our galaxy. Living in space for long periods of time may have consequences that we cannot yet surmise just from the astronauts who spend extensive time in low-orbit in the space station.
So much research to be done....this is a real shame. The real shame is humanity needs to fund several wars instead of making some real progress for the future of our species.
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The last manned trip to the moon was in 1972. The trips to the moon were wonderfully effective, but the fact is that we've wasted a lot of funds on trying to get someone to the moon since with no results. Also, I think most of the scientific study and real breakthroughs have come from unmanned space exploration, and if not, they could be with how technology has advanced.
No one is saying to eliminate space exploration, simply adjust it to fit the times, and open more of it up to commercial enterprise. NASA hasn't been to the moon in 37 years. We're still using ancient technology and shuttles to travel to space.
I think Virgin, or someone of that ilk, can do better. Say whatever you will about reasons why NASA has failed, and my answer will always be
"1972". NASA's sin a failure of imagination. It's time we put away idealistic nonsense and allow new ideas and methodologies to compete with government control (funding is control) and waste.