Why don't we travel to the moon, planets, or stars?

Question

The private sector has not been able to achieve this feat. Their boldest accomplishment was spaceshipone which only dipped into the cosmic sea. Our ancestors braved the oceans for months at a time to reach the new world. How come we can't make the journey to the other heavenly bodies? Have we lost the frontier or pioneering spirit?

Answer 1

It's a lot cheaper to explore our planet, and the goal of most exploration was to find something of value, usually funded by royalty.

Royalty isn't what it used to be, and any government whose people believe that taxes are bad will never be able to sustain the costs of exploration of space. It's an expensive proposition.

Our equivalent of royalty, celebrities, tend to spend their money on themselves or on things they can see the immediate results of. No long-term no-return (emotional, financial or career) causes for them.

Answer 2

We are working on it. I believe in my lifetime we will see men stationed on a lunar base. When I was a kid, there were maybe 2 families that had color t.v. where I lived. Now you can get t.v. on your cell phone. Remember, we have made more technical advances in the last 3 decades than mankind has made in thousands of years, So I think we will see interplanetary travel in the next decade or two. Give the private sector a chance, they haven't been in the game very long and don't have the backing of the funds generated by an entire country's economy, like the Gemini and Apollo missions did. No, I think that the pioneering spirit is alive and well, and will continue as long as people like you keep questioning the status quo and pushing the envelope.

Answer 3

Strictly speaking, as quickly as we are saying that a planet orbits a celeb, what's relatively occurring is that the two the celeb and the planet are orbiting a factor between them called the barycenter. The barycenter is relatively the midsection of mass of the two products: examine out the link under for further information. the clarification we are saying that the planet orbits the celeb is using the fact generally speaking the celeb is many cases greater suitable in diameter and greater than a number of cases greater massive than the planet, so as that the barycenter is interior the celeb itself - yet there's a tiny little bit of gravitational pull on the celeb via the planet, so the celeb relatively does "wobble" somewhat in orbit. In any experience, the celeb remains a celeb, and not a moon.

Answer 4

In the 1960's NASA had successful moon missions, then just quit.. No good explanations why. Now, they want to return to the moon and build a base there, after over 40 years absence. There is no good reason for this, they could have begun many years ago.It apparently is the present political system; they would rather waste the money on war. I believe we have lost our pioneering spirit. As for traveling to stars.. the closest one is so far away that at the present technology level, even travel ling at maximum velocity (< 100,000 miles per hour) it would take so long that without radical measures like using advanced cryogenic techniques to freeze and revive (we're not too good at the latter!) the traveler, it would take generations of breeding and replacing the inhabitants of the space vehicle.
We can and will visit Mars, but unless we form a viable, useful, and self-sustaining colony there, what would be the purpose? There is, contrary to popular opinion "air" there, a thin layer of carbon dioxide that could be changed into breathable oxygen by use of plants or certain micro-organisms (photo-synthesis). The sci-fi idea of domed enclosures in not very practical; think about it; it would require HUGE amounts of raw materials to make the domes. There is hope for exploration, but its going to cost a LOT of money and scarce resources (including lots of capital [money]), and it may be quite difficult to convince people to part with them, when they are neccessary elsewhere, such as solving the problems of pollution and starvation here on earth.

Oh, btw, we HAVE taken baby steps into space. recently the X prize was won by a private american company. The name of the space vehicle was "Spaceship One" and it was launced from the desert. Here's are some websites, complete with video and text data about this exciting venture:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaled_Composites_SpaceShipOne

http://www.scaled.com/

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/10/04/spaceshipone.attempt.cnn/index.html

There is also a guy who is working on creating an inflatable hotel in space. Personally, I think this idea is looney; would you want to be up there when the thing sprang a leak?

Comment to "thylawyer". True to a large extent, but not always. Check out Jay-Z's question here on "answers" seeking ways for the world to conserve and more fully utilize its water supply. Jay-Z is a rapper, and yeah, they are generally pretty self-absorbed and VAIN individuals. My hat's off to this one, however (even though it exposes my baldspot - lol)

Answer 5

It didn't quite a billion dollars or the equivalent to construct a wooden craft to sail the seas. The issue now days of money is actually multi-pronged.
1. The common person. The 'common person' is a mixture of about 6 billion people who all want to see money that was taxed from them to go to something useful. I, for one, would LOVE to see more exploration, but John Doe across the street might not give a hoot about space & exploration.
2. The cost. It just does not cost as much to put something in the water & make it float as it does to get something in space that will not explode & will work correctly.
3. The results. The 'common man' along with everyone involved with, let us say, a shuttle launch, would like to see something come of it. Billions upon billions of dollars spent to see a spec of light we normaly did not even know existed yesterday is not a big enough result for some.

I want to see more exploration, but see it as much slower going than our travel over the oceans. Early sailors even thought they would fall into oblivion if they went too far, so what is our excuse? It's all about tha Benjimins.

Answer 6

It has a lot more to do with politics and economic factors than pioneering spirit.

When the pilgrims crossed the sea to colonize America it was to escape oppression and religious persecution.

When the west was settled it was for the gold rush as soon as we find a way to make space travel economically viable and people realize our survival depends on it, people will find ways to get there faster and cheaper

We have only been able to fly for 100 years, we are moving much faster than you realize.

Answer 7

Well you see it is a matter of energy, the amount of energy it would take would be to much with current technology. Its a law of energy conservation, the weight of the fuel would make it impossible...That said it would be easy but nobody understands a little crystal radio, You see SETI has a problem with naturally occurring radio waves in space interfering with any search for unnatural radio waves. We could use a crystal radio type circuit to gather this natural energy source to power space ships. One crystal radio only produces a small amount of energy but you can put thousands on an antenna to gather a huge amount of energy. Nasa will not listen to me.... Go figure I have more ideas to but I cannot give out all my secrets. But yea the sound you hear in the microphone of a crystal radio is energy which is the key.

Answer 8

Keep your shirt on, the next stage in space exploration is about to begin. Orion (the replacement of the shuttle) will be getting into full gear within the next 30 years or so.....i'm ready and willing.

Answer 9

our ancestors did not have the FAA or NASA to interfere with the journey of our dreams as we do now. there are people in the private sector attempting to do space travel for the mass - patience my friend, Rome was not built in a day nor were the pyramids in Egypt.

Answer 10

they are.. havent you read the news lately.. if you have a billion dollars handy, you can catch a flight to the space station or the moon now... a few billionaires already have been booked