Comments by "Itinerant Patriot" (@itinerantpatriot1196) on "The Space Race" channel.

  1. I'm a child of Apollo. Those were rocking times. Just about every flight was a first for something and we were going up against the Soviets so we had that added element of competition. But then we stopped. The eggheads prevailed at NASA and the exploration people lost out. Nixon had no use for the space program and threw the manned-flight program a bone with the Shuttle but looking back at it honestly that program never really delivered on its promises. We were assured in the 60s that Mars was next and we would keep on trucking but it costs a lot of money to pull something like that off and between the war on poverty, the war in Vietnam, and the whole stagflation issue there just wasn't enough cash to go around. Once you stop the momentum it's really hard to get that mojo back. I wish the program all the best, I really do, but I just don't see the public clamoring for it. The young people I have spoken with about space don't have the same fire we did. We stopped doing great things, maybe that has fed into the self-loathing kick we've been on for the past few decades. If there isn't public interest there won't be public dollars and as the man said in the movie The Right Stuff "No bucks, no Buck Rogers." Elon Musk has made some pretty pie in the sky promises about a Mars shot but when the rubber meets the road, and he finds out the government won't back his play, I think he'll question the need to spend his personal fortune. It's a shame, but it's who we've become. If we were going to go, we needed to keep moving in the 70s. We didn't. Going to the Moon is fun and all but spending all that cash just to fly around a place we've already been? Outside of checking off the equity boxes like this video pointed out, what's the point? But that's me, and I loved the space program growing up. But as I say, we are not who we were then, not by a long shot. Kids these days would much rather be internet influencers than scientists and space explorer's. Our technology is grown up, but we haven't. Oh well, they promised us jetpacks and they bailed on that. I'm really not trying to be Debbie Downer, but don't expect this to amount to a whole lot. Wanna spend your money more wisely? Robots to mine asteroids. You don't have to feed em and nobody gives a damn what color or gender they are.
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  2. This idea spread with such certainty, that people are going to Mars and will settle there is based on what? No really, what? Elon Musk's vision? There are more problems associated with this than this video touches, on, problems we haven't even thought to consider. The biggest question is why anyone would want to live on a dead planet? For the adventure? Look, I grew up during the real space race. I was sold the whole program. To me it was almost a given that by 1980 we would have planted our flag on Mars. But it didn't happen for a host of reasons, reasons that still exist in the real world, not the world the futurists seem to inhabit. Call me a luddite but until we figure out how to share this place peacefully, the notion that somehow we will have a kumbaya moment and unite behind a colony on Mars is a pipedream at best. It's true, we are wired for exploration, but we're also wired for a lot of stuff, stuff that runs contrary to altruistic notions of extending the human consciousness beyond Earth. I hate being the skeptic because I was a true-believer in this stuff growing up, but we came to a crossroad and chose another path. The explorers at NASA lost the funding race to the research gang, and as they say in The Right Stuff, no bucks, no Buck Rogers. The momentum was there, but now it's gone. I just don't see people getting behind it, not like Apollo. Oh well. I'll be long gone by the time someone can prove me wrong. Live long and prosper. 🖖
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  3. You kinda hit on one of the problems that I believe to be insurmountable, the whole international cooperation angle. If you could point to one instance where that has ever worked, and please, spare me any UN nonsense, I'd give it maybe a 1,000,000,000-1 shot. And what about bringing the stuff back? You touched on getting to it and obliquely about getting the ores/minerals out, but how does bringing it back work? That's a lot of weight. You thought there was a fireball around the Apollo capsule? I get the feeling that much mass crashing through the atmosphere is going to be a tad bit warmer. And it will take one helluva propulsion system to take off of whatever body we land on. Maybe, just maybe, if we had stuck with exploration after the Apollo program we would be half a century away. Now? The entire infrastructure has to be built from the ground up. Technologies we don't have will have to be created to overcome hurdles we haven't even thought of. And we are 32-trillion and counting in debt. No bucks, no Buck Rogers. But hey, I like the optimism. It's why I tune in from time-to-time. Maybe your great, great, great, grandchildren will see it, provided we are still around and something hasn't happened to, as George Carlin once delicately put it" "Kick us off this rock like a bad case of the fleas."
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  4. Dude, I dig your enthusiasm. And I certainly enjoy videos like this over the one I just watched about habitable zones around stars that are just a tad warmer than my broiler. But before you go beaming anyone up, who's going to bankroll all this? I've said it before, the line from The Right Stuff is applicable to any generation: "No bucks, no Buck Rogers." Space exploration is all based on political will. We went to the Moon because the will was there and the people rallied behind the cause in overwhelming numbers. All this stuff about building permanent settlements on the Moon and nuclear powered rockets, man, I love it. But do you realize how many trillion's, with a T, it's going to cost to pull off a play like that? Don't get me wrong, I love the idea. I grew up on this stuff and when I was a kid, I figured we would be on our way to Jupiter by this time, that the Mars landing would already be well in the rearview mirror. But we stopped after the Moon. And we stopped for a very simple reason, the will just wasn't there. Momentum is something you have to feed, we stopped feeding it. The eggheads beat the explorers at NASA and we got telescopes and probes instead of starships and intrepid space travelers. I love the idea of going to Mars, but honestly, if you asked me to quantify the ROI on a project like that I wouldn't be able to. In my opinion, the only way to pull off an undertaking like you are describing would be to make it a worldwide thing. Get everyone involved. Share the cost and the brainpower. It might do us some good. Maybe we'd figure out that at a basic level we aren't the enemies the powers that be want us to believe we are, and I'm not just talking about differences between nations. But that's a conversation for another day. For now, keep dreaming big dreams big guy, and know that I'm in your corner, even of I put the odds at 100,000,000 to 1. But as Jim Carey put it: "So you're telling me I've got a chance."
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  5. "Jagged sharp and abrasive"...🤔sounds a lot like my ex-wife. 🤣Sorry honey, it's their fault. They left me wide open just beyond the three-point line. How could I not take the shot?
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  6. "We should probably know what's going on there." Okay, I'll bite. Why? Don't get me wrong, I'm not against knowledge for knowledge sake in every instance. I did take courses about mythology and English literature which outside of providing some enjoyable reading and teaching me a bit about formulating an argument based in antiquity didn't really come in handy in my day-to-day job. But it was part of the whole person concept back then so I got it. But that experience only cost a few bucks. Sending probes to Venus is a tad more expensive, meaning the ROI should matter. Are there plans to colonize the atmosphere? I've actually heard a case for that one. Are we going to mine the surface? I actually like the idea of space exploration, being a child of the age of Apollo, but I just don't see the value in checking out that place. I think our general knowledge of how that place functions is enough for the time being. In case anyone is interested, we are beyond broke. Spending cash on a joy ride to Venus to measure temperature, pressure, and the like doesn't really move the needle. It's a nice to have, not a got to have, and right now we need to focus more on got to have. This whole thing sounds like a money grab by NASA. If Elon Musk or some other uber-rich guy wants to float a probe in the friendly skies of Venus, by all means, have at it dude. Just don't ask me or my fellow taxpayers to pick up the check. I know we waste 99 cents out of every dollar as it is so I won't dispute anyone who makes that claim. Venus just doesn't do much for me. Knowledge about Mars may come in handy when we need to run from the expanding Sun in a billion years or so but Venus? It's beyond Africa hot and outside of a few oohs and ahhs from some geek in a lab some place going there is waste of time and money. But that's me.
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  7. Well that explanation beats the congresswoman from Texas who said we wouldn't be able to land on the Moon because it is made up primarily of gas. I think she went to the same school as the other congressman who was concerned about Guam tipping over if everyone stood on one side of the island. But here's why we aren't going to the Moon. It costs a sh*tpot ton of money and people don't give a damn if we go or not. I lived through Apollo. We were battling the Ruskies. We were going to Mars. We were the Star Trek generation, live long and prosper and all that stuff. Then we made it to the Moon and people said, hey, all we're getting for our money is a bunch of rocks. Tax the rich, feed the poor, all that stuff. The science crew at NASA were A-Okay with that reasoning since they wanted to send probes out into space. They won the argument. Nixon tossed the explorer types a bone with the Shuttle but that thing never had a real mission, no end goal, and it was dangerous as f*ck. It's amazing more people didn't die in that deathtrap. Even after Challenger NASA knew there were other problems that they just chalked up to the cost of doing business. The crew of Columbia paid the ultimate price for that. Space travel is hard, really hard. Musk was all enthused about Mars until he found out there wasn't going to be enough government cheese to make a buck off of that little cosmic adventure. He'd have to pony up a lot of the cost and well, it's all fun and games until you lose your fortune for, wait for it, a bunch of rocks. What exactly is on Mars that would make it worth the trip? As someone put it, it's like Utah without the state parks or Mormons. And who the hell would want to live there for any length of time. This is coming from someone who was all-in for this stuff as a kid. Now? No bucks, no Buck Rogers as they said in The Right Stuff. The public could give two sh*ts. Therefore the politicians could give less than two sh*ts. Sorry world, if this thing is gonna get done it'll have to get done either through international cooperation, good luck there, or through the altruistic nature of Elon Musk, that makes the first option seem likely. No, we'll stay right here and eventually we'll have so much crap circling the planet we won't be able to leave orbit if we wanted to, not without smashing into some piece of leftover space trash. But hey, somewhere in the Oort Cloud is a big old chunk of rock and ice with our name on it anyway. So we got that going for us. Maybe Elon can work on a plan for that, one that doesn't require Billy Bob or Bruce. Those guys are a bit long in the tooth anyway.
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  8. Of course the cost is going to increase. Scope creep is a given, but when you couple that with the ludicrous inflation you get when you print trillion of dollars because you think the real world is just like the Monopoly game; what do you expect? This moon-doggle shows just how much we have regressed at all levels. With the debt headed toward 40 trillion, with a T, we ain't goin nowhere, except out to the fields to scrounge for food like the white collar workers in Venezuela were forced by the government to do a couple years back. Ya can't have, whatever system of government it is we have right now, and get some big vanity project off the ground. No problem. The planet is going to be covered in so much space debris in a few years the whole point will be moot. Yeah, we have done a bang-up job since the 60s. Way to go team.
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  9. Couple quick points of order. First, Elon is a visionary, when he can get governments to foot the bill. Musk is great at sniffing out the government cheese. Prior to getting into pissing contests with the left after he bought Twitter, Musk was one of the prime targets for obama greenie backs. Tesla was built with government funds and the private investors who bought into his B.S. ended up having their money slid over to Space-X without being told. If Musk is behind something, check the funding. Second point, who the hell wants to live on Mars? The best description of the place I heard was it was a lot like Utah without the state parks and Mormons. No offense Utah, but I've traveled the western part of your state, there ain't a lot there appealing. Mars has no minerals or ores we can mine, meaning the ROI for a project costing trillions of dollars would be squat. That dog don't hunt. And Musk knows this. He's out there spewing that bullshit about how he'll go first to set it up because he knows it is all garbage. No, he's not going anywhere that doesn't have a five-star hotel, no, he's not going to build any ship able to take people on some magical mystery tour of the Oort Cloud. What he will do is bilk the taxpayer out of a boatload of money while his crappy car company goes kaput and his gigantic Moon rocket crashes and burns. Sorry, if you get taken in by that huckster, you may get to live long, but you certainly won't prosper.
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  10. I grew up in Detroit, so I guess I could get by on the Moon. But why? What's the ROI? It's not like it's chock-full-of gold or diamonds. It's a big dead rock for the most part. Outside of just hanging out what would you mine for? Or would it be a tourist thing? Working as a bartender for a bunch of people with too much money and time on their hands doesn't sound that attractive. I moved away from Detroit. So why the hell would I want to move to the Moon? But that's me.
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  11. If the thing starts spinning out of control Elon can count on Clint Eastwood and Tommy Lee Jones to straighten it up. I saw that movie. Yeah, they're a bit long in the tooth but Clint is still Clint. Seriously though, this thing is a boondoggle. Elon is a big idea guy and he likes making his big ideas work if there is enough government cheese. He's a venture socialist extraordinaire. Here's the thing though, as the old line from the Right Stuff put it; "No bucks, no Buck Rogers." Call me Irish but I don't see the public support like we had during Apollo. Maybe they'll just print out a few extra billion. At this stage, when you're playing with monopoly money, what's that between friends. But the crash that is not too far away will probably s-can this faster than you can say EV and Tesla. I'll give ya credit though Elon. If anyone can talk the US into spending money they don't have on technology that might work for a program no one is really that keen on, it's you buddy. Ya got chutzpa. I'll give you that. Live long and prosper dude. 🖖
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  12.  @HighDraDWG  Six years? Tell ya what. If that turns out to be the case, revisit my comment and I will eat a humble-pie soufflé, ala-mode, with a glass of grassy-knoll wine.
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