Is there a future in space travel?

When I was young in the sixties I was much enthused by the Russian and US space programmes. As I grew older I began to doubt that manned flight was more than a a vanity project by two superpowers.

Even assuming that the problems of the incredible hostile environment of space can be reduced to manageable levels - eg the lethal radiation once one moves away from the earth - a great question arises: where are we going to go? To the moon, yes. To Mars, probably. But then what? No other planet in the solar system apart possibly for Pluto would allow us to land. Mercury and Venus would destroy us with their great heat, the gas giants Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune with their gravity not long after we entered their atmospheres..

So, we are left with the moon and Mars, plus Pluto and some of the moons of gas giants. None of those will be habitable other than in enclosed space stations.

Then there is the question of distance. Even to travel to Pluto would take many years with present technology. But even if we could greatly improve on that, where would it leave us? Suppose we could travel at 90% of the speed of light, it would still take us around six years to travel to the nearest star. Assuming we could do that, what would we be likely to find? Planets unfit for human beings. To take just one perameter gravity. It is very improbable that a planet the size of earth would be found that was suitable for colonisation. Human beings are designed for earth and not elsewhere.

Is there anything else to come from manned space travel? Could we mine minerals for use on earth from the moon or Mars? Very doubtful, but even if we could robots could do it much more efficiently.

Space is a dead end except for those who believe that exploration is an end in itself, a representation of Man's psyche. Is that worthwhile? That can only be a matter of opinion. RH
--
Robert Henderson
Blair Scandal website: http://www.geocities.com/blairscandal/
Personal website: http://www.anywhere.demon.co.uk
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Relevant Pages

  • Re: SR paradox - help!
    ... > earth fires an omnidirectional radio pulse. ... > the moon one second later, it's twin beacon on the moon detects it and ... solution is actually that for the Earth-bound twin, ... directions of his travel due to time dilation. ...
    (sci.physics.relativity)
  • Re: SR paradox - help!
    ... >> earth fires an omnidirectional radio pulse. ... >> the moon one second later, it's twin beacon on the moon detects it and ... it is the clock which slows ... > directions of his travel due to time dilation. ...
    (sci.physics.relativity)
  • Re: Time Travel, my theories on it
    ... >> You can travel into the future but not into the past. ... If they were truly FTL, ... > It just took us 2 days to get to the Moon, not including the time it took ... >> moon take up 1.8 seconds on earth? ...
    (sci.astro)
  • Re: In the future?
    ... :>> arguing about the cost of space exploration, or in the near by star ... :> cons of space travel, but others will have left long ago. ... :> I think travel to other stars will be a bit like travel to the moon is ... Also, put another way, EOSs circle the Earth roughly every 100 minutes. ...
    (sci.space.policy)
  • Re: How many planets?
    ... definition they are using the Moon over Earth should be a planet ... are irked about pluto most, and iirc the earth's moon is bigger than ... earth, whereas Pluto ain't hauling Charon around. ...
    (rec.sport.football.college)
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