posted
I was just cruising around on cnn and read a short article on if Congress will spend the money to have the hubble telescope repaired. IN the article as well was a little blurb on how NASA did not think it was worth the risk of its astronauts lives to fix Hubble. Now I'm not saying as a whole that NASA is wrong on this issue, they should probably just replace the hubble telescope as a whole as its been needing constant repairs since we set it up. The thing is what kind of a pioneering spirit do we have anymore. People freak out, and yes in ways its justified, when a shuttle explodes. When anything experimental goes awry. Its as if everything in the world must be perfect. It is odd to think that so many people in our past have died in research, experimentation, and explortion, and yet it is just horrible if it happens today. Not that we should just throw lives away and all, but when is cautious too cautious.
I personally think society is far too hard on research as a whole. If something fails once they tend to think that its worthless and try another thing. I am honest in saying that I'm happy those that came before us were not like that, as we might not be in the world we have today.
Posts: 1753 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
I don't know that we can value life too much, but we can value it inaccurately, in the sense of being penny-wise and pound-foolish. We can spend a lot of effort protecting people only to lose them to problems we missed seeing due to all that individual effort.
AKA would have told us that space exploration is one of those situations. We need to know what's going on out there, and we need to establish off-world colonies so that all our eggs aren't in one basket.
Part of the problem is that our risk-averse governments insist on trying to keep space to themselves. Much of our exploration of Earth, back in the Age of Sail, was carried out by profiteering companies (albeit often ones working for their governments). There were plenty of problems caused, but most of them had to do with natives (who we are pretty sure by now aren't out there in our system). I'm not one of those who thinks the free market will solve everything , but we need to be open to its real advantages.
Posts: 1114 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
I agree with you there Mabus ( Just thought I'd put that out there). That and if it weren't for Tang think of all the unhappy children out there.. and we know what that would mean.
That and it seems most modern day democracys are rather risk averse due to our methods of reporting. People can really get enraged and mobilized about some rather silly things.
Posts: 1753 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
Mabus! Long time no see. I was wondering what you were up to!
I know many scientists who would probably gladly risk their own lives to fix the Hubble if they could do it. They have a different sense of the worth of it than NASA but NASA has to deal with the public perception of death as well.
Maybe as a society, regardless of what you believe about the afterlife, we fear death too much and no longer accept it as a necessary part of life, one that sweetens the savor of being alive.
posted
I have often heard quotes from astronauts saying that they know that space flight is risky, but that the adventure is worth the risk.
To put it simply, I think we should believe them.
And further, it's awfully hypocritical to fight a war to arrest one guy, and then deny a few astronauts the chance to further our understnding of the universe because it *might* be risky.
In general, I think that as long as there is something to be gained despite the risk, then we should let people make such decisions about their own lives.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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I dropped off the internet for a while due to emotional exhaustion...I left a thread about it a few months ago, but evidently not many people spotted it. I've been slowly filtering back in the last couple of weeks.
Posts: 1114 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Part of the reason why I don't quite buy the "too risky" argument is that no one is forced to be an astronaut. It's not as if they're drafted, and if they're assigned to a mission they don't like, presumably they can just leave the astronaut corps.
There are many, many people (myself included, probably) who would go up in one of the remaining space shuttles right now if given the opportunity. It's not as if it's any dangerous after the Columbia disaster than it was before. If anything, it will be safer due to new precautions. So anyone who's in favor of scrapping manned spaceflight because of the dangers should ask the ones actually taking the risk how they feel.
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Mabus! Long time no see. I was wondering what you were up to!
