However, he acknowledges that colonizing other worlds and interstellar travel present a number of nearly insurmountable challenges. “If we used chemical fuel rockets like the Apollo mission to the moon, the journey to the nearest star would take 50,000 years. This is obviously far too long to be practical.â€?
Successful manned space exploration will require not only a lot of money and technological expertise, but an advanced understanding of human psychology. Quite frankly, manned space exploration presents so many problems, that it downright sucks.
A trip to the moon would last only a few days, which is short enough to be bearable. But life on a lunar colony or a trip to Mars would present months of confinement, boredom and monotony.
In fact, the sense of isolation and cabin fever could become oppressive. A 110 day isolation experiment carried out on a mock space station in Moscow showed how badly things can become. One module housed four Russian men; the other, three international test subjects, from Austria, Canada and Japan.
During a New Year’s celebration, two of the Russian men engaged in a 10 minute fist fight that left blood on the walls before they were restrained by the other men. And the mission commander hauled the only female, a Canadian, out of sight of the experiment’s cameras and twice gave her a French kiss that she fought in vain to resist.
The Japanese participant was so traumatized by this episode that he quit the experiment altogether.
2. No emergency care. Ailments such as motion sickness and impaired coordination, to toothaches and appendicitis would be difficult to treat. There would be few supply flights, or quite possibly none at all. And the distances could become so great that it would require 45 minutes for people on Earth to receive a question from a crewmember, and another 45 minutes to receive a reply.
3. Radiation.High-speed particles in space can slice human DNA, increasing the risk of cancer, cataracts, neurological disorders, and other problems. Without proper shielding (limited by spacecraft weight and design and increasing costs), astronauts would be bombarded by so much cosmic radiation on a trip to Mars that 1 in 10 of them could die from cancer. We would also have to address the problem of shielding people while on other moons and planetary bodies that lack Earth-like atmospheres.
4. Muscular Atrophy. Traveling through space requires a strict exercise regime in order to overcome the loss of muscle tone due to zero gravity.
5. Bone Demineralization.Bones become more porous, and thus weaker, on long-duration space missions.
6. High cost. Because space is so hostile for humans, all our needs must be met by creating a hospitable environment in space. Missions in space must be meticulously planned in order to avoid stressing our fragile bodies. We need food, water and air, all of which requires complicated and heavy equipment. All this machinery needs to be monitored, reducing an astronaut’s available time to carry out experiments. And it substantially reduces the payloads spacecraft can carry.
Currently, it’s estimated that just the shuttle program average cost per flight has been about $1.3 billion over lifetime and about $750 million per launch over its most recent five years of operations. This total includes development costs and numerous safety modifications. That means each shuttle launch could pay for 2 to 3 unmanned missions.
7. It can be used to further nationalistic agendas. The race to the moon was a direct consequence of the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union. And now we can see the same thing happening with China’s manned space exploration programs. While competition can certainly be healthy, cooperation would more likely reduce conflicts.
8. Robots and telescopes may be more effective at increasing scientific knowledge. Most scientists agree that both the space shuttle and the International Space Station are an expensive and unproductive means to conduct space science.
However, the Mars Pathfinder and Mars Exploration Rovers have succeeded beyond the expectations of their designers and continue to deliver important data to earthbound scientists. Also, when the successful Deep Impact mission smashed into cometTemple, it released a cloud of debris that helps the understanding of comet formation and composition.
Such feats would be prohibitively more expensive and difficult if humans were involved.
9. Shuttle explosions put further flights on hold indefinitely. These tragic events have the unfortunate side effect of slowing the progress of space exploration.
It is precisely because manned space exploration presents more obstacles and challenges, that it forces us to hone our energies and skills and develop new technologies.
I can write a book here, but I’ll just say that I think manned space exploration is and will always prove to be, for the most part, a very bad idea. Therefore, a waste of time and energy. To H with all this high-and-mighty talk of great challenges; mankind has yet to succeed at a single great challenge on the long term as it were. That’s why I think some/many have turned to yet another “great challenge” in space exploration. Anyway… I think the feature is going to be a mastering of the understanding of matter to the point that travel of the cosmos is rendered irrelevent/obsolete. When/if that point is reached, then intelligent life will “simply”/simply direct the planet we have now to greater and greater mass, as a means of growing the habitat as well as defending it against the many dangers lurking out there. Size matters, I mean to say. Travel? Pffft! Go where we will as nomads, we’ll still be trapped in a universe of limits, going from one solar-burnout to the next all the while taking a high risk with the above mentioned dangers.
How exciting does that sound? Mmmhmm… Sounds like a ticket to nowhere if you ask me. Thus… BORRRRING!!!
While not in our lifetime but the future ahead the Earth will become inhabitable for humans in their present form. If our race is to survive we must travel beyond the Solar System. Therefore there is no choice we must persue manned space flight.
[…] … Successful manned space exploration will require not only a lot of money and technological …http://www.who-sucks.com/tech/9-reasons-why-manned-space-exploration-sucksThe lesson: space exploration - EducationGuardian.co.ukA lesson on new developments in space […]
Men think that they are wise, yet they are fools!!! If we really thought that Jehovah wanted mankind in space, then why did he confused mankind at the Tower of Babel, in biblical times. All space travel (any nation) is a form of wichtcraft, idoltry, and whathavu because it has man challenging Jehovah and his authority, it was Jehovah that put man on his created Earth, and this is permanent inheritance, I have NO FEAR of any workers of iniquity, for my God Jehovah will handle them the way he sees fit, so I WILL CONTNUE TO TRUST IN HIM EVEN UNTIL DEATH; I WILL TRUST HIM, FOR THE SON OF MAN WILL RULE ME AND MY PEOPLE AT HIS ASPPOINTED TIME!!!
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It is precisely because manned space exploration presents more obstacles and challenges, that it forces us to hone our energies and skills and develop new technologies.
Glamour Photography Agency…
hey great stuff…
I can write a book here, but I’ll just say that I think manned space exploration is and will always prove to be, for the most part, a very bad idea. Therefore, a waste of time and energy. To H with all this high-and-mighty talk of great challenges; mankind has yet to succeed at a single great challenge on the long term as it were. That’s why I think some/many have turned to yet another “great challenge” in space exploration. Anyway… I think the feature is going to be a mastering of the understanding of matter to the point that travel of the cosmos is rendered irrelevent/obsolete. When/if that point is reached, then intelligent life will “simply”/simply direct the planet we have now to greater and greater mass, as a means of growing the habitat as well as defending it against the many dangers lurking out there. Size matters, I mean to say. Travel? Pffft! Go where we will as nomads, we’ll still be trapped in a universe of limits, going from one solar-burnout to the next all the while taking a high risk with the above mentioned dangers.
How exciting does that sound? Mmmhmm… Sounds like a ticket to nowhere if you ask me. Thus… BORRRRING!!!
While not in our lifetime but the future ahead the Earth will become inhabitable for humans in their present form. If our race is to survive we must travel beyond the Solar System. Therefore there is no choice we must persue manned space flight.
[…] … Successful manned space exploration will require not only a lot of money and technological …http://www.who-sucks.com/tech/9-reasons-why-manned-space-exploration-sucksThe lesson: space exploration - EducationGuardian.co.ukA lesson on new developments in space […]
Men think that they are wise, yet they are fools!!! If we really thought that Jehovah wanted mankind in space, then why did he confused mankind at the Tower of Babel, in biblical times. All space travel (any nation) is a form of wichtcraft, idoltry, and whathavu because it has man challenging Jehovah and his authority, it was Jehovah that put man on his created Earth, and this is permanent inheritance, I have NO FEAR of any workers of iniquity, for my God Jehovah will handle them the way he sees fit, so I WILL CONTNUE TO TRUST IN HIM EVEN UNTIL DEATH; I WILL TRUST HIM, FOR THE SON OF MAN WILL RULE ME AND MY PEOPLE AT HIS ASPPOINTED TIME!!!
Heya…
Love that google, great site. Take care….