How can people in our society today be so aloof of the capabilities of the space program?

[tvguy]

If that is what they were to actually spend it on that would be a legit argument. Todays mindset would funnel it to the wealthy, not the needy. Technologically, it is mind boggling how much society has gained because of the space program,

Yup.
Our city found $255 million to help pay for a new arena for our NBA team, owned by a Billionaire and employing millionaires. But we can only find $12 million to help with the homeless.
Of course the sales pitch for the arena was it would be good for downtown businesses. Guess what, even before the pandemic, people were going straight to the arena for the games and straight home afterwards. No stopping for dinner or drinks. Of course the city should have known that because many of the bars and restaurants around the teams 20+ year old former arena closed because of the same reason.

 

[Lumpy1106]

Yup.
Our city found $255 million to help pay for a new arena for our NBA team, owned by a Billionaire and employing millionaires. But we can only find $12 million to help with the homeless.
Of course the sales pitch for the arena was it would be good for downtown businesses. Guess what, even before the pandemic, people were going straight to the arena for the games and straight home afterwards. No stopping for dinner or drinks. Of course the city should have known that because many of the bars and restaurants around the teams 20+ year old former arena closed because of the same reason.

Well, getting completely off-topic, but OK by me. I think that depends on where the arena is situated. The Raiders and the Golden Knights play IN Las Vegas, on the strip. Of course these games are going to be a boon for the nearby businesses as people were happily going to those places anyway. Now take the new stadium in Los Angeles where the Chargers and Rams play - BEAUTIFUL stadium in a horrible neighborhood. Nobody is going to go out of their way to be there if not for the stadium so of course people are not going to spend any extra time there outside of just getting to and from the stadium. YMMV, but all too often these types of projects get pushed through on promises to take land that was otherwise not going to good use anyway. That's neither a win nor a loss IMHO.

 

[Colleen27]

Yup.
Our city found $255 million to help pay for a new arena for our NBA team, owned by a Billionaire and employing millionaires. But we can only find $12 million to help with the homeless.
Of course the sales pitch for the arena was it would be good for downtown businesses. Guess what, even before the pandemic, people were going straight to the arena for the games and straight home afterwards. No stopping for dinner or drinks. Of course the city should have known that because many of the bars and restaurants around the teams 20+ year old former arena closed because of the same reason.

That's one of my biggest government pet peeves. Detroit - consistently among the poorest cities in America with infrastructure that has ended up the butt of more than one national joke - has now done that dance three times, twice with the SAME billionaire because he owns two of our major sport franchises. And this last time was the biggest fiasco of all, with historic buildings and community services displaced by a stadium that was supposed to be a whole "district" of development but which has only amounted to a stadium and a bunch of $40-per-car parking lots owned by that same billionaire. Aside from a few independent restaurants paying him rent to operate in the outward-facing restaurant slots in the stadium concourse, literally every dollar of business associated with the stadium has gone to one man/family. The first two stadiums are side-by-side on the fringe of what were already thriving business districts, so they did have some benefit for other business owners, but the third is just a mess - cut off from downtown by an eight-lane freeway, so nothing is close and people just come to the stadium and leave right afterwards rather than paying parking twice to eat elsewhere before/after the game, and made worse by the fact that it is a hockey& basketball arena so most of the season isn't exactly good walking weather in Michigan.

 

[goofyernmost]

I am stunned every single year when the Challenger explosion anniversary passes without notice IN OUR SCHOOLS. Christa McAuliffe was on that flight BECAUSE she was a kids' teacher. She was chosen because NASA thought she would make the best ambassador to teach our kids about space exploration. The accident was one of those "I can tell you exactly where I was when it happened" moments and it just gets brushed over, ever single year. I just don't get it.

Everyone is occupied by either worshiping a golden idol or preparing for impending disaster. We are not in normal times. We are completely engrossed in anger and/or fear. And right now we all have a reason for mindsets based on those two emotions. It will come back eventually, nothing lasts forever, but not without a lot of damage being done.

In the meantime, we are not forgetting we are just focusing on immediate problems for the moment.

 

[Lumpy1106]

Everyone is occupied by either worshiping a golden idol or preparing for impending disaster. We are not in normal times. We are completely engrossed in anger and/or fear. And right now we all have a reason for mindsets based on those two emotions. It will come back eventually, nothing lasts forever, but not without a lot of damage being done.

In the meantime, we are not forgetting we are just focusing on immediate problems for the moment.

I wish this was the case, but unfortunately the Challenger Disaster was glossed over in the schools long before COVID.

 

[Lumpy1106]

Question for the OP; How do you think the recent 'space tourism" affects our interest / understanding of or capabilities of Space Exploration? Does it forward the cause or do you think it's just a distraction?

 

[LYSE]

Well my 4 year old still talks about inspiration 4 and happily watches every launch she can (visible from our house/beach) the Falcon 9 is her favorite, she saw the shuttle at KSC and still talks about it, referring to it as mom and dad's rocket we grew up with but hers is falcon 9 and soon star ship.

She's also asked for a telescope for her birthday that's coming up.

So there's hope but it starts at home.

 

[goofyernmost]

I wish this was the case, but unfortunately the Challenger Disaster was glossed over in the schools long before COVID.

It isn't just Covid that is occupying peoples minds, but beyond that over time those things start to fade from memory. JFK assassination is almost never mentioned anymore. Why because it happened almost 60 years ago and even though there are plenty of us that lived it, we don't spend needed life constantly thinking about sad events of the past. If we did before long all of us would need a padded cell. The Challenger event was indeed sad, but if we don't move on from things like that we never get anyplace. On top or that we might remember an event but not when it happened so it comes and goes and we don't really think about it. It is a defense mechanism that humans are born with to keep anxiety down to a minimum.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Question for the OP; How do you think the recent 'space tourism" affects our interest / understanding of or capabilities of Space Exploration? Does it forward the cause or do you think it's just a distraction?

S/he dealt with this before, but no response/dialog.

https://www.disboards.com/threads/i-find-it-sad-that-we-live-in-a-world-where-only-the-super-rich-are-interested-in-space-and-sci-fi.3852199/

 

[ScottOKW2K]

I believe that society being aloof about the Space Program is a natural progression. At the beginning of the last century we had the Wright brothers doing the first documented flight and Henry Ford changing the automobile business by standardizing manufacturing. Fifty years after that both cars and flights were common and were only mentioned when something went wrong. Forty years ago we had the first personal computers and twenty years ago the first smart phones - each of which is a common commodity now.

Space is becoming that. It's gone from a wildly expensive and dangerous program that could only be funded by nations to something that is (relatively) cheap and reliable enough to be funded by private industry. This is the necessary and natural progression that happens to anything that is determined to have value. As far as the very wealthy that spend the money to send themselves into space - So Freaking What ! Would you rather have them spend it on another Super Yacht or a piece of art that will be seen by no one but themselves. Think of it this way - if they are paying for a ride into space they are actually funding the research to make this cheaper and more common in the future. Think about your car - every feature you now enjoy in your vehicle was at some time available in luxury models only and was only available in more affordable cars once it became reliable and more affordable. Perfect Example - the first Tesla Roadster was $100K, the Model S was $75K and the Model 3 started out in the $35K to $50K range.

Current space research is giving is reusable boosters and the Starlink system has the promise of reliable high speed internet access through a cloud of low earth orbit satellites. SpaceX has been able to send crewed missions to the ISS. And as access to space becomes cheaper you can only imaging what might be on the horizon in the future.

 

[TipsyTraveler]

I admit to being aloof about space travel. It is interesting and I often feel that I should be more impressed by it but I’m just… not. I agree with some of the points made earlier in the thread and I’ll add this: The technology that allows us to travel into space is over half a century old. It existed a couple of decades before I was born. While I can appreciate it, I don’t marvel at it just as I don’t marvel at the cassette tapes, touch-tone phones, and birth control pills that were other technological advancements of that era. I have never known a day in my life where those things weren’t a part of the world, so I never experienced them as something new and exciting. Which, I think, makes it a little harder for me to be “wowed” by things like space flight and shuttle launches because that’s a bit old hat by now, is it not?

I would like to get a lava lamp though. Those seem pretty groovy.

 

[Lumpy1106]

It isn't just Covid that is occupying peoples minds, but beyond that over time those things start to fade from memory. JFK assassination is almost never mentioned anymore. Why because it happened almost 60 years ago and even though there are plenty of us that lived it, we don't spend needed life constantly thinking about sad events of the past. If we did before long all of us would need a padded cell. The Challenger event was indeed sad, but if we don't move on from things like that we never get anyplace. On top or that we might remember an event but not when it happened so it comes and goes and we don't really think about it. It is a defense mechanism that humans are born with to keep anxiety down to a minimum.

Yeah, but I think that misses the point about why Christa was going in the first place. We all knew it was a risky endeavor. Her "Mission" was to educate kids about space exploration and she was to teach a couple of classes from space (LONG before ZOOM was a thing - it was a big deal). Upon returning she was likely going to do the full run of morning news, Oprah, all that rot, but also she was going to continue on to help other teachers develop space education programs that would live on - even if just as a figure head. The fact that there was an accident shouldn't have changed that (developing the programs that is).

 

[goofyernmost]

Yeah, but I think that misses the point about why Christa was going in the first place. We all knew it was a risky endeavor. Her "Mission" was to educate kids about space exploration and she was to teach a couple of classes from space (LONG before ZOOM was a thing - it was a big deal). Upon returning she was likely going to do the full run of morning news, Oprah, all that rot, but also she was going to continue on to help other teachers develop space education programs that would live on - even if just as a figure head. The fact that there was an accident shouldn't have changed that (developing the programs that is).

How unfeeling would it have been to continue, at least in the beginning to try and push the program after the accident, at least to that generation that are the parents of today. The space programs are important enough that the less mentioned about that incident and the more positive things that are discussed the more likely it is to capture the imagination again.