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ArsTechnica has a great story about NASA's early space program and how the tragic fire during Apollo 1's testing was a turning point for the program.
As Gus Grissom said, "The conquest of space is worth the risk of life." He was one of the astronauts who died in the Apollo 1 fire.
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The Greatest Leap, Part 1: How the Apollo Fire Propelled NASA to the Moon
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F.S. Fitzgerald to Hemingway:
"Ernest, the rich are different from us."
Hemingway:
"Yes. They have more money."
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday December 09 2017, @02:35PM (1 child)
The idea of colonizing space as insurance against disasters on Earth strikes me as backwards. The Earth could unleash a supervolcanic eruption on us, or a big asteroid could smash into the Earth. But the greater danger is ourselves. The odds of nuclear war are frighteningly high. Most of us have spent our entire lives under the shadow of that possibility, first with the Cold War, and now with nuclear proliferation. The current situation makes the Cold War look pretty tame by comparison. Many crazy, senile, fanatic, blackmailing and possibly suicidal governments with nukes is a lot scarier than the Cold War days. Pakistan impresses me as one of the scariest nations in the world. I hope India regrets that they ever went nuclear, as that has to be the reason Pakistan decided to obtain nuclear capability. Sadly, the US is pretty high on the list of scary nations. The might of the US in the hands of a seriously self-delusional, corrupt, and downright stupid administration is our new "long national nightmare". That use of nuclear weapons has even been hinted at, over a nation as petty and little as North Korea, is insane. Whatever else Congress does pales into insignificance next to cooling the lust and ability to launch the nukes. "No First Use" is an excellent idea.
Ultimately, the Soviet Union did not elect to go out in a glorious blaze of nuclear war. That restraint is why we are still alive today. How they managed the breakup without ever reaching for the nukes is, I guess, not appreciated nearly enough throughout the world. No, instead, people keep talking up space, the "final frontier", as a place to run and hide from this problem. It smacks too much of wishfulness, individualism, and impracticality. We've been gradually understanding that people are not nearly self-contained enough to make it in space, and need the support of a fully functioning Earthly ecology. And that we are very far from figuring out how to set up outside the Earth. If we aren't able to survive a nuclear holocaust, we sure can't lean on hypothetical space colonies. Earth during a nuclear winter could still be an easier place to live than a space colony. But right now, we can't even colonize Antarctica!
We can't afford to count on eventual space colonization. We must figure out how to keep a tighter leash on our warmongering impulses. So far, the only nukes ever used in war are Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We haven't stopped warring, but at the least, nukes have never been used since the end of WWII, thanks mostly to the considerable effort expended to keep nukes away from the wars. But now it may be only a matter of time before someone in power stupid enough to use a nuclear bomb gets his hands on one.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday December 09 2017, @08:14PM
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/12/the-most-improvement-for-the-worlds-poor-ever-will-happen-over-the-next-12-years.html [nextbigfuture.com]
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/12/ever-cheaper-energy-advancing-technology-will-perpetually-drop-the-costs-for-space.html [nextbigfuture.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]