Today is the day man first set foot on the Moon

In 3 1/2 years we went from
to

Why'd we ever stop in the first place? We'd be on Mars now if we hadn't I imagine.

Either we will go again as a practice run for Mars or a BRICS nation will kick off a second space race by challenging US technological supremacy.

Most of our problems are related to energy production and inefficient use of resources, both of these need to be improved for colonization of another body so as always we would see the benefits of space research and development on earth.

It's high in our gravity well and contains fuel, this makes it very useful for further exploration.

We had neither the political or social will to continue.

What is there even to do on the moon, let alone all of space?
Collect rocks and baubles? Explore a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the possibly infinite empty nothingness? Die a horrible death?

Yep, just like when we first sailed over the horizon with no idea what was there.
This is inevitably happen sooner or later, I can only hope the public is still ok with others taking risks when it does.

this tbh

go to the moon if you want, just don't force other people to pay for it

Colonizing space. Until we do, all it'll take is a big rock to destroy the Earth and us with it.

that's what nukes are for

Nukes aren't magic, if a 10,000 ton rock is coming at us at ~20km/s we would need to exert force on it while it's still very far away so we could change it's course enough to save ourselves.
Currently we are unable to detect or intercept threats reliably as was shown a couple of years ago with the Russian impact.

True. I also see as a kind of potential "Antarctic Base" as well. One thing we could potentially do on the Moon is create YUGE deep space telescopes. Not only could these be much, much larger than either the Hubble or Webb telescopes, but like them would have a perfect view unobstructed by an atmosphere.

Plus as a 'training ground' for extraterrestrial settlements, it has the distinct advantage of still being close enough to Earth (3 days travel time) to be recoverable in the event of an emergency. On even just a flyby mission past Mars, the explorers will be over 6 months away from a possible return. Good way to get our feet wet first away from LEO.

Pretty much this. While we are still at least a century out from being able to devise anything like a self-sustaining colony away from the Earth, if we don't start sometime then we are infinitely far away from being able to do so.

Quit being dumb, of course we will. Ever see Iron Sky? (2012) I'm watching it now.

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Do you even into orbital mechanics bro? For say a mountain-sized asteroid (50km diameter) we would have to literally intercept it 20 years out with every.single.nuke. on earth to be able to deflect it enough to prevent a collision.

Much more likely to use an continuous ion-thruster based approach to work. We'd still need over a decade of notice even then.

we don't need to deflect it, just blow it into small enough chunks that they'll burn on entry

Impossible. Not with something that large, no tech on earth could do that.

if you could please kill yourself

butthurt NASAdrone detected

Shouldnt you be chewing hay or something?

Mining asteroids, putting solar panels next to the sun, I'm all for that shit.
Colonization not so much. We need to find a way to transcend currency based economic before we develop interstellar travel.
Something like star trek.

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The Apollo program was set to continue but NASA cancelled it after Apollo 17

Because, although we could reach the moon and put satellites into space, NASA realized that they needed to spend their budgets more wisely after having gone to the moon already. they put lunar landing missions on the backburner as the mission had officially completed its prime objective already

After the Apollo program ended NASA focused on R&D to make space travel more affordable, the result was the Space Shuttle and eventually the International Space Station. If NASA had continued the Apollo program they may never have finished either of these things

There is an idea to put a refuelling station there for rockets that are Mars-bound

Resources we can actually use, Iron, silver, possibly silicon, we can grow plants on Mars (as evident by experiments done on Earth) We also know there is water on Mars beneath the surface now, which will allow us to farm for Oxygen (which both people and plants also need) plant growth+oxygen and water farms will allow us to remain self-sustaining on Mars while mining its resources

Dubious claim. We have massive nuclear arsenals and the theory is still sound. If we reduce the asteroid into smaller pieces that will burn up it'll lesson damage on Earth. Furthermore, larger asteroids are naturally much easier to track

>Currently we are unable to detect or intercept threats reliably as was shown a couple of years ago with the Russian impact.
Wrong. Before the Russian impact world governments simply didn't put serious funding into asteroid tracking because they weren't perceived as an immediate threat, after the Russian incident we have been taking it much more seriously

People who say this inadvertently disconnect the Earth and humanity from space, as if they were too completely separate things. They are NOT. Problems with space travel ARE problems we have on Earth. Solving the issues related to space travel is very much solving "problems we have here" its something that should concern every human being on planet Earth

Its just a real shame people like you are the ones allocating budgets to fighting wars instead

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today is the day bruce lee died

Thanks for putting words in my mouth, faggot.
I don't think we're ready space exploration.
The fact that we're willing to kill one another by the millions over the dwindling resources of our planet is proof enough that.
We need to solve scarcity before we cast off into the void of space, because if we don't we going to go out there for no other reason then to exploit resources, and will lead to a level of war we can't imagine.

haha no.