Memory effect now found in Lithium Ion batteries:

Originally posted by sonhouse
What do you think the Apollo mission was?

I already said that I do not dispute that science is done for war. What I dispute is that more is done because of war than would be done in peace time. I also dispute that it is the best use of funds. Sending a man to the moon was probably not the best thing to do with the money at the time, even in the area of space exploration. Notice how its never been done since? Notice how much more beneficial to science all the exploratory robot missions have been? Notice how much more useful space telescopes are?

Originally posted by twhitehead
I already said that I do not dispute that science is done for war. What I dispute is that more is done because of war than would be done in peace time. I also dispute that it is the best use of funds. Sending a man to the moon was probably not the best thing to do with the money at the time, even in the area of space exploration. Notice how its never been ...[text shortened]... all the exploratory robot missions have been? Notice how much more useful space telescopes are?

Sure, robots have made tremendous contributions to science, Curiosity on Mars shows that, the landing on Titan, Cassini, Voyagers, etc.

But it still will be better when men get to explore directly, landing on the moon not for just a day but to establish a real colony, now that we know there is a LOT of water trapped in the forever shadowed craters of the lunar poles. That can provide besides drinking water, it can give us oxygen to breath, and hydrogen for rocket fuel, all without bringing an ounce of the stuff from Earth.

The same thing will be proven at Mars.

Sending geology/bio probes to Mars is one thing but the real discoveries will wait till men get there and see that one very interesting rock or outcrop that a probe would miss.

We need desperately to get the hell off this planet and spread out at least in the Solar System and eventually to at least Alpha Centauri, the further from Earth the better. That way if the big one hits, a nearby supernova, if Earth gets blasted, humans still survive.

As it stands now, any rogue asteroid, any nearby supernova, a big burp from the sun in a coronal discharge, we can be set back a thousand years.

To say nothing of catastrophic climate change, either getting way too hot or turning to another ice age.

We would be back eating insects in caves.

The further we spread into space the bigger the catastrophe we will survive.

Right now it won't take much in the way of the nasties the universe can dispense like candy to knock us back a thousand years.

The engineering of propulsion is coming along pretty fast now, with ideas like the Vasimir super ion rocket or fusion rockets or even anti-matter rockets. Get a few megawatts in space and a Vasimir can get us to Mars in a month, which is what we really need since space is not friendly, too much radiation for people to live in little cans for 6 months at a stretch.

Humans are going into deep space in spite of everything. Whether those future pioneers speak Chinese or English will be the main question.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Whether those future pioneers speak Chinese or English will be the main question.

Why would that matter? Are you nationalist or racist? Why couldn't we send representatives of all countries? Why not do it as the whole World rather than insisting on going it alone all the time?

Originally posted by twhitehead
Why would that matter? Are you nationalist or racist? Why couldn't we send representatives of all countries? Why not do it as the whole World rather than insisting on going it alone all the time?

Well, let's kindly ask the Chinese to make a world wide run of space then. See how far that gets you. We already have an international presence in space if you forgot. It's called the ISS with emphasis on the I.