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I watched, “The Spirit of St. Louis” Tuesday night on TCM. I haven’t seen it in many years. It would have never have happened in today’s regulatory enviroment.
But, it’s guys like Rutan than might help make it possible again. We should make him “Aerospace Technolgy Czar.”
Looks interesting, but I think the guy needs a fashion consultant. He looks like Elvis’s evil twin.
“Entrepreneurs are the future of space flight” because..let me guess… Burt Rutan is an entrepeneur in space flight. Spoken like a true capitalist.
There’s no future in space exploration because there’s nothing out there. We’ve already seen pictures of what’s out on Mars. Do we really need to send astronauts so they can take pictures by hand?
The future of space exploration is making contact with alien beings who are more advanced than us. The limits of the speed of light will keep us from doing that.
In the mean time, why don’t they put their heads together and try to figure out a way to prevent children from starving to death. What about the courage to do that? What about a war on poverty that might have something a lot of people preach about called love as an outcome instead of a war on terror that breeds fear.
>>In the mean time, why don’t they put their heads together
>>and try to figure out a way to prevent children from starving
>>to death.
No money in that. You’re not going to find Martha Stewart’s boyfriend paying $20,000,000.00 to save starving children. Not when he can go for a space ride for the same amount.
Going on a space flight gives you bragging rights 😉
There’s nothing out there?
EVERYTHING is out there. Our future is out there. The first thing out there is likely raw ores and other inorganic raw materials for all sorts of production. Then probably zero-G manufacturing or perhaps hydroponic food production. Then teraforming followed by colonization. Probably not in our lifetime, but the survival of humanity in the long run is dependent on space exploration.
He’s right too. Entrepreneurs are the future of space flight, but the present should be publicly funded R&D at at least 10 times the current levels.
#6 – OFTLO – Right you are, 100% I saw this on the TED Talks podcast months ago and it’s still one of my favorites. The man is a deity (alongside Kelly Johnson, et al) to those of us who routinely find ourselves looking at the sky instead of the ground.
#2 – Who the hell cares what you think if that’s what you’re concerned about. Go back to finding out the latest about Paris Hilton and her ilk. Superficial waste of skin.
Rutan is one of the only true aerospace visionaries out there. He’s my newest hero.
He is right on. Without a real threat to overcome, government will not undertake this task. Bureaucrats gave us the shuttle, ISS, and the Hubble but all of those are have had extreme bureaucratic flaws and have never performed to their original potential.
Leave it to guys like Rutan with money from financiers like Branson. They will take humanity to the space and beyond. As soon as they manage to get there, I am sure the government will then spend untold billions to go there as well so as to control it (i.e. to be able to blow it up).
After all, Columbus was a businessman trying to make a buck. Leave it to free enterprise and the sky is no longer the limit. I just hope the government doesn’t regulate them out of existence before they get there.
Mr. Rutan is one of my heros in the company of Tesla, Da Vinci and a few others.
A true genius.
BTW #2 has GOT to be a total idiot to make such an ignorant remark.
I wonder about economics when people talk about money spent. The money goes from one savings account to another, with some loss to pay for workers in aerospace, who might have starving children. When you say to go ahead and pay the starving children direct, what do you get? Will they learn how to sustain themselves, by become aerospace workers, assuming they spend some on education?
#9: You’re right. You are an asshole. Thanks for verifying.
#7 & #9
Oooooh… Groupies, next time Rutan is nearby make sure you throw your undies at him.
Prediction is the essence of science. If we knew the future, we wouldn’t have to predict anything to test our ideas. Whole point being we don’t know the future. Rutan has one version in mind and as Elvis’s evil twin, he has a certain charisma, but he doesn’t know either.
And if we really knew what’s out there, evenin our own solar system, we wouldn’t have this urge to explore it. Point being, we don’t know – so how can we dismiss exploring it as money squandered?
Sheesh.
#12 – Angel H. Wong – Why don’t you tell us who or what impresses YOU?
What blows YOUR skirt up?
Wong, let me guess. You are a roadie for Rage Against the Machine.
OFTLO is right. Manned presence in space is THE #1 most important thing to spend research on. The true potential to solve man’s problems is not going to be found on this planet alone. The resources are out there.
Wong, I know. You can bet that the band members of RATM all arrive at their concerts in limos or helicopters and later jet back to their mansions.
They just found a way to get the kiddies excited and make gobs of dough. I am sure their outlook on life is a little different now that they are looking for loopholes in the tax code for their tax shelters.
#16 – OFTLO is right.
HA!
You said it! It’s recorded here for all posterity. You can’t take it back now!
“There’s no future in space exploration because there’s nothing out there” Comment by knights_templar700
And there was no future for Christopher Columbus, either.
Good Grief!!
The space between most people’s ears is the most important space we oughta be concerned with. It’s the 3-pound universe that will either make us or break us.
#3 – – -Excellent summary. How close is this pitch to the promotion of the Concorde? High tech is exciting to talk about. Wide body is what the market supports. You can always spot the truth, everyone disagrees.
It figures that BushCo annouced his manned mission to the Moon program. total flop for good reasons.
#6–Gee, I really think our future is right here on good old overheated, flooded out, over pollutied, species decimated, human ridden GOBME (Good Old Blue Marble Earth). I see the appeal for the future being “out there” but that abuses any sense of reality. Heinlein and others tell us the truth. Any self sustaining colony plus one generation will immediately declare independence from the requirements of their funding source. Thats human nature. So, even in an unrealistic best case scenario, any future in space is someone else’s future==not “ours.”
#9–You DONT think that is a spitting image of Evil Elvis? Dead ringer. Maybe you are confusing what the man looks like with the genius in aviation he represents? No disrespect to call an Evil Elvis when you see it.
#13–prediction? Yes its an element but someone with a quiji board can predict. The essence of science must be testing? I know you agree.
#16–Boy, that is so wrong. Renewable carbon neutral energy sources is the most important thing to spend research on, and that will be found on this planet alone. For a geek site, you folks sure seem to be ignoring the cost of lifting a pound of stuff into low earth orbit. GET REAL!!!
#19–Yea, except he’s wrong to say so. Kinda ironic. But I would log it in for future rebuttal as well.
#20–Now lets see. Can we identify any differences between Christopher Columbus’s situation and prospects and space exploration? “Basically” it comes down to the prohibitive cost and risk of going to and fro. Cost re Columbus was comparitively, zero. Big Difference. Again, Concorde is a recent example of whats wrong with “manned space flight.” Yes we can do it. Too expensive though.
#21–its probably more important to look at the amygdala rather than the whole brain, but yes, understanding our own nature is far more important than the fantasy of space travel much less interplanetary commerce.
Hey—reach for the stars, but keep your feet on the ground.
The Jetsons after all is just a cartoon you grew up on. Now grow out of it.
I have to disagree.
Columbus was State sponsored. He convinced others that he could get to the Orient simply by sailing West. The government put up the money and even supplied some of his crew. All his subsequent voyages and those that followed were government sponsored.
Other daring explorers were government sponsored as well. It wasn’t until the buccaneers and pirates such as Drake and Howard that the governments only sanctioned instead of supported the voyages. Even that though was a commercial enterprise, not exploration.
Governments have been the main driving force behind almost all exploration.
#17 – AHW – Bugs Bunny had you figured out, and to this day, nobody’s said it better, “What a ma-ROON!”
#22 – bobbo – The essence of science must be testing? I know you agree. Well, yes. I suppose I means “successful prediction,” which is what you determine by… testing. So tell me this – how do you test your predictions about the value of what we may find “out there” if we don’t go out there to look? The funding rulers of Spain, their power nicely concentrated by the Inquisition, hoped Columbus would find a route to spices. The cost, from their point of view, was far from trivial. What they got was very different from what they expected. But if they hadn’t at least funded an expedition to go looking, they would have found nothing.
Interesting point about the top priority being energy research, though. Exploration is great but dinner requires tending the garden at home.
#22, Bobbo, “Cost re Columbus was comparitively, zero.” Don’t tell King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, they spent the big bucks and reaped the rewards.
Only the shortsighted would protest against exploration — it’s what we do best, how we grow and increase knowledge ,ideas, resources, etc.
In 1999, the latest year for which I can find data, NASA’s total budget was 0.8% of total spending. This for the program that has given us the most technological bang for the tax buck in the history of GOUSA.
http://www.nasa.gov/about/budget/index.html
OK,
where do I sign up,
and Where do I get my Shares of the company.
Understand something….
WE WANT to explore…
We are like many animals, and IF we sit around, we end up DOING NOTHING, except getting FAT.
Many of us, have listened to the Debates, on HOW to save the planet, for many years…And we are seeing the effects of what is needed, and what has happened. THIS is a CHOICE. WE need to EXPLORe and get OFF this planet…OR Kill off 2/3 of the population to recover OR DIE with it(it will be here Longer then we will).
#25 – Interesting point about the top priority being energy research, though. Exploration is great but dinner requires tending the garden at home.
Good thing we have over 6 billion humans. There are enough to do both.
#22 – any future in space is someone else’s future==not “ours.”
I’m not as selfish as you. When I say “ours” I mean humanity’s…
And space is all there is. It’s the prize. It’s the Grail. It is salvation. Space is the difference between our doom as a species, and immortality. We don’t have a choice, and thus we will conquer space.
And any sense of reality that you think being a space faring people abuses is born of a narrow vision depleted of imagination. History is littered with voices declaring what can’t be done, but history never honored a single one of them. Instead, history bestows its accolades upon those who do what can’t be done.
#24
You’re actually giving credit to an antropomorphic rabbit with a penchant for crossdressing and who also has a fetish for short bald men with a lisp.
Boy, I’ve never seen a geek so fanatic since the last time I almost got linched at the movie theater for shouting “And just like that he became Darth Vader?!”