religion in the future

[Edric O]

In theory, there would be no reason why a capitalist government can't fund a good space program.

But in practice, the only time when anything like that ever happened was when the USA had to compete in the space race against the far more advanced Soviets.

[Acriku]

Using that reasoning, there would be no reason for the government to grant thousands of dollars to thousands of scientists wanting to research something, or funding NASA at all. And NASA doesn't have to be funded by the government only, there can be private funding.

[Edric O]

Errr, Acriku, in my previous post I've just admitted that you were right, and that in theory a capitalist government CAN fund a good space program.

In fact, any kind of government can do that. But the capitalist private sector will never make any serious progress in space, because there are no profits to be made within our lifetime.

[Acriku]

Well, you said in practice it would only happen when a competition was at hand, so I was challenging that with government funding already happening in practice without competition in mind.

And many people, like myself, figure the progress of science is benefit enough, even if my children's children would reap the benefits of it. Survival of the species, you could say.

[Edric O]

Unfortunetaly, not many people think the way you do... (as a side note, I completely and wholeheartedly agree with you on this, but like I said, not many other people do)

Good luck trying to convince the board of a big corporation to invest in something that will benefit their children's children...

[Acriku]

Maybe I'll have to become rich myself ;)

[ordos45]

More advanced Soviet Space Program? That's a big laugh. Look at recently declassified documents, the Soviets had as many, or more screw ups than we did, and lost far more people while doing so. They beat us at many things, but they lost far more people doing so.

[Edric O]

Hey, I never said they didn't have any screw-ups... Just that they were the ones leading the space race for a long time in its early years.

And speaking of losses, you can't expect to "boldly go where no one has gone before" without having any casualties. It's good to take time to increase the safety of your astronauts, but not to the point where the fear of losing people is paralyzing you.

[Dude_Doc]

Dude_Doc, I know that we're making some progress. The problem is that this progress is done at a snail's pace.

Would it go any fater otherwise? Wouldn't there still be problems around the world to be solved etc? If the world would be communistic now, would we really just take and launch right into space? Wouldn't we instead try to improve our countries, needs for the people etc? Even the Soviet Union had difficulties in food distribution. You get the idea.

And there's no such thing as artificial gravity. It's true that according to Einstein's General Relativity, the effects of gravity and acceleration are identical, and therefore we can simulate gravity in a spaceship by making it rotate around an axis. However, this only works for ships, not planetary settlements.

Yes, I am aware of this. And it was exactly what I said, we need artificial gravity to make it to Mars. And just like you mentioned, NASA is in research with artificial gravity, exactly the one that rotates around an axis. If you take a look on the movie "Mission to Mars", on the ship they use to get to Mars, they are doing research of a simillar thing.

NASA is planning a lot, but I'm waiting to see actual results, not plans.

Well, as with everything technological, it doesn't happen overnight. Even the Internet started 40 years ago as a military communications program (heard of ARPA?). Internet may be a never-ending product, but it is far from "complete".