Fuck Chuck Yeager in his decomposing eye sockets.

[Doktor Howl]

It occurs to me that my grandchildren will never believe that we were once a space-faring nation.  I am old enough to remember the last moon landing, and of course the advent of re-useable spacecraft.  I am old enough to remember Skylab and Mir.  My children have heard of these things, but it's not really real to them.

I think what actually killed the space program was a guy named Chuck Yeager.  He was a hero pilot in WWII, a test pilot, and the first man to break the sound barrier.  You have to remember that aeronautics were galloping ahead at this point, and we went from propeller planes to spacecraft in the blink of an eye...My great grandmother remembered the first flight at Kitty Hawk, and she lived to see the space shuttle flights become a routine thing.

So, anyway, Chuck Yeager was approached by the government to be the first man in space.  He publicly laughed at the idea, referring to astronauts as "Spam in a can."  While the public remained enthralled with the space race, the idea of astronauts went from "HOLY SHIT, WE'RE GOING TO THE STARS" to "We have to beat the Russians to the moon."  After we beat the Russians, everything else was an afterthought, a resented and continually shrinking line item on the annual budget.  Eventually, and recently, even that went away.

Little known fact:  We no longer have the capability to get to the moon, even if we wanted to (much less the asteroid belt or anything else that might be actually useful).  The plans and schematics for Apollo were thrown away under Reagan's "Clean Desk" rule...And we no longer have  the engineers with the nuts & bolts experience to reverse engineer it in any reasonable amount of time.

I am not pleased by the notion of living in an empire in decline, and I am not pleased by a population that threw away the stars so they could "spend the money more wisely" (translation:  We need 12 aircraft carriers, in case the ghost of Tojo attacks us while we're not looking).  Mostly, though, I am not pleased by Chuck Yeager, who chose to kill space travel as an adventure, and given the chance, I will shit on his grave.

Okay for now,
Dok

[Suu]

Excellent.



My father has blueprints for the Lunar Module that he got from his father. Take that, Reagan.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

The moment we stopped looking upwards and beyond we stopped developing as a people.  I mean we can put a world of information on the head of a fucking pin but we can no longer send men to the moon?  How fucked up is that?  

We were supposed to have time travel by now Dok.  Flying cars, teleportation devices, rocket backpacks, where are these things?  I know most are a bit beyond us, but damn, we aren't even trying anymore it seems.

Working so hard to make computers smaller so they could do more, but we never moved.  We are stagnant.  And it is a shame because it appears the rest of the stupid planet has followed out lead.

[Cramulus]

I had never heard it put that way

[Suu]

The moment we stopped looking upwards and beyond we stopped developing as a people.  I mean we can put a world of information on the head of a fucking pin but we can no longer send men to the moon?  How fucked up is that?  

We were supposed to have time travel by now Dok.  Flying cars, teleportation devices, rocket backpacks, where are these things?  I know most are a bit beyond us, but damn, we aren't even trying anymore it seems.

Working so hard to make computers smaller so they could do more, but we never moved.  We are stagnant.  And it is a shame because it appears the rest of the stupid planet has followed out lead.

WHERE THE FUCK IS MY GODDAMN HOVERBOARD?!

[Doktor Howl]

Excellent.



My father has blueprints for the Lunar Module that he got from his father. Take that, Reagan.

But the plans for the infrastructure required for launch, the rocket itself, and the CM are long, long gone.

Game over.  Reagan wins.

We went to the moon on 32K.  My cell phone has more computing power than that, and we can't even make an operating system that won't crash on computers with gigabytes or more on board.  But we can listen to Taylor Swift and Justin fucking Beiber for $0.99 a song on our Ipods.

[Disco Pickle]

I'm friends with a guy who was a programmer at NASA during Apollo.  He worked on the launch program code.  He's got some really great stories about it.  Some really scary ones too.

You sound just like him when he talks about NASA these days.

I wasn't previously aware that the plans had been lost.  That's a HUGE failure in document control and record keeping.  I'd tie the guy who did it to the next rocke..  oh.  never mind.

[Cain]

Yeah, I remember seeing on a BBC 4 documentary about how little computing power the Apollo program used to do the moon landings with.  I was putting it on in class, for a science lesson, and I had to stop the video and explain to the kids that every single one of their computers and mobile phones is thousands and thousands of times more powerful than that computer.

The only possible benefit of letting the Chinese lead the space race is that the dried food they send up with the astronauts may be better than normal (instead of chile con carne, it's chicken and black bean sauce! etc).  Also, we're going to need to escape this planet at some point.  I'd rather invest in it while we still have a planet where super-hurricanes are a rarity.

[Doktor Howl]

I'm friends with a guy who was a programmer at NASA during Apollo.  He worked on the launch program code.  He's got some really great stories about it.  Some really scary ones too.

You sound just like him when he talks about NASA these days.

I wasn't previously aware that the plans had been lost.  That's a HUGE failure in document control and record keeping.  I'd tie the guy who did it to the next rocke..  oh.  never mind.

It was deliberate.

[Doktor Howl]

Yeah, I remember seeing on a BBC 4 documentary about how little computing power the Apollo program used to do the moon landings with.  I was putting it on in class, for a science lesson, and I had to stop the video and explain to the kids that every single one of their computers and mobile phones is thousands and thousands of times more powerful than that computer.

The only possible benefit of letting the Chinese lead the space race is that the dried food they send up with the astronauts may be better than normal (instead of chile con carne, it's chicken and black bean sauce! etc).  Also, we're going to need to escape this planet at some point.  I'd rather invest in it while we still have a planet where super-hurricanes are a rarity.

The Chinese aren't doing anything, either.  At least not yet.

Frankly, I don't care who goes, as long as someone goes.  Not keeping all the eggs in one asteroid target basket, so to speak.

[Cain]

I just worry the Chinese will do it on the cheap and make the spaceship out of lead or something.  At least we know American spaceships don't poison people if they try and lick the walls.

But seriously, someone needs to set up a colony on Mars.  At least until we can sort out this cryogenics business and escape the solar system.  I know it's cliche and all, but with global warming etc, I'm not entirely convinced of this planet's long-term suitability.  Plus, its space!  Final Frontier and all that.  And we seem to learn tons of stuff every time we put something up into space.  That's a far worthier goal than so many things I could name.

If we wait until we sort out our problems down here, as certain opponents of the space program would like, before we go into space again, we'd never be going back.  Which is pretty much exactly what seems to be the case, right now.

[Doktor Howl]

I just worry the Chinese will do it on the cheap and make the spaceship out of lead or something.  At least we know American spaceships don't poison people if they try and lick the walls.

But seriously, someone needs to set up a colony on Mars.  At least until we can sort out this cryogenics business and escape the solar system.  I know it's cliche and all, but with global warming etc, I'm not entirely convinced of this planet's long-term suitability.  Plus, its space!  Final Frontier and all that.  And we seem to learn tons of stuff every time we put something up into space.  That's a far worthier goal than so many things I could name.

If we wait until we sort out our problems down here, as certain opponents of the space program would like, before we go into space again, we'd never be going back.  Which is pretty much exactly what seems to be the case, right now.

Mars is just another gravity trap, I think.  The real payoff is the asteroid belt.  We know there's water, and we know there's minerals out the ying yang.

There's no actual need for humans to live on a planet.

And yeah, you're right.  It will never be "the right time" to go back.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

It worries me that actually going to space will simply free up humanity to finish completely destroying habitability on this planet... and  if we can't keep AN ENTIRE FUCKING PLANET habitable, the odds that we'll be able to keep any asteroid outposts habitable are slim.

And then we were extinct.

[Doktor Howl]

It worries me that actually going to space will simply free up humanity to finish completely destroying habitability on this planet...

I'm convinced that's going to happen anyway.

and  if we can't keep AN ENTIRE FUCKING PLANET habitable, the odds that we'll be able to keep any asteroid outposts habitable are slim.

And then we were extinct.

Yeah, but at least we'd go out in style, instead of wallowing in our own poop.

[Elder Iptuous]

There's no actual need for humans to live on a planet.

I fully support spreading out into space as much as possible.
however, it was my understanding that we are not physically suited for living in zero, or even low, gravity for extended periods.  i guess we can do the spinning space station deal, though.

of course, an atmosphere and magnetosphere are really nice little things to have, too...
i think i would support others spreading out for the long term, while my line stays here and tries to clean things up a bit.

Dok, would you be an early adopter of the outbound crowd?

Also: Go Go, Space Elevator!