A Toast in Remembrance of the Fallen...

[Tonka]

Agreed...but, to honor Neil Armstrong and the like, it's an interesting question: What do folks think will be the next 'First Man on the Moon' event? First man on Mars? AIDS vaccine? Some other achievement/discovery?

A man on Mars won't equal it, it will still be the 2nd in that category. It will have to be a new form of travel, energy, or porn.

[HeloDude]

25 May, 1961.

Wasn't 10-15 years ago, now was it. I was well aware of President Kennedy's speech, so I convientily went back as far as the mid 50's as the first person in space didn't happen until 1961. In 1989, George Bush Sr talked about putting a man on Mars by 2019...we'll see if that happens, it's already been 23 years.

https://www.space.com/11751-nasa-american-presidential-visions-space-exploration.html

Edited August 27, 2012 by HeloDude

[Majestik Møøse]

First guy to travel through a wormhole. Masshole, stay quiet.

[Guest]

Wasn't 10-15 years ago, now was it.

Sorry, I thought when you said...

I don't think many people were saying 10-15 years prior that it was 'bound to happen'.

...you meant 10-15 years prior to the event, like when JFK told Congress that we were going to make it happen on 25 May '61, 8.17 years prior.

[HuggyU2]

What do folks think will be the next 'First Man on the Moon' event? First man on Mars? AIDS vaccine? Some other achievement/discovery?

Who knows? But this is interesting in it's potential:

Edited August 27, 2012 by Huggyu2

[Napoleon_Tanerite]

Agreed...but, to honor Neil Armstrong and the like, it's an interesting question: What do folks think will be the next 'First Man on the Moon' event? First man on Mars? AIDS vaccine? Some other achievement/discovery?

Not sure if it would ever be equaled in the terms of "firsts". Humans have already set foot on a celestial body other than Earth, and unless Einstein is wrong it is unlikely that humans will ever leave the solar system.

[MKopack]

Walked my son in to his first day of 4th grade today and on the board the teacher had posted the article from the paper and written:

Rest in Peace Neil Armstrong

August 5, 1930 - August 25, 2012

The first American to orbit the Earth

My nine year old said, "Wait's that's not right, is it?"

With that "One small step", Neil Armstrong changed mankind forever - and I'm told that as an eight month old I was set down in front of the TV to watch.

[sky_king]

Close... First American to orbit the Earth while standing of the fucking moon!

[gmwalk]

To Neil. He never let his ego overwhelm his accomplishments. He stayed soft spoken and thanked everyone that helped him get to the moon.

From Wired: https://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/badass-spaceflight-history/

The late great Neil Armstrong, whose daring knew no bounds, makes it on our list not once, not twice, but with three counts of spaceflight badassness (and that’s not even counting his awesome role as first man on the moon).

[nsplayr]

...and unless Einstein is wrong it is unlikely that humans will ever leave the solar system.

Oh ye of little faith.

[Napoleon_Tanerite]

Oh ye of little faith.

Voyager 1 (fastest manmade object ever) is traveling at roughly 10 miles per second (.00006% the speed of light), and is JUST NOW leaving the solar system after 35 years of flight. In that time we have not developed a way to go any faster either. Even IF we were able to go even 1000x faster it would still take more than a lifetime for us to get to anywhere worth going outside the solar system, and forget ever coming back (or even really being able to report success back to earth). I'm a space nerd too, so don't get me wrong, but for as far as we've come with technology, everything we currently know about space, time, and travel points to us never being able to go anywhere outside of the "neighborhood".

[Danger41]

Voyager 1 (fastest manmade object ever) is traveling at roughly 10 miles per second (.00006% the speed of light), and is JUST NOW leaving the solar system after 35 years of flight. In that time we have not developed a way to go any faster either. Even IF we were able to go even 1000x faster it would still take more than a lifetime for us to get to anywhere worth going outside the solar system, and forget ever coming back (or even really being able to report success back to earth). I'm a space nerd too, so don't get me wrong, but for as far as we've come with technology, everything we currently know about space, time, and travel points to us never being able to go anywhere outside of the "neighborhood".

Sounds like those people standing around Spain around 1492.

[aquajam77]

Today at Purdue

[Napoleon_Tanerite]

Sounds like those people standing around Spain around 1492.

Point taken, and I also realize that not so long ago there were a lot of people saying it was impossible to fly faster than the speed of sound; however, I will say that Spain c1492 and US c1946 both had a LOT less evidence that they were correct. There was a lot of "round earth" evidence prior to Columbus, and we already knew of man made objects (projectiles) travelling faster than sound. We know of nothing in the universe that travels faster than light, and we have a lot of data to support the belief that it is a limit.

I would love nothing more than for human exploration of deep space to be possible; however there is another piece of evidence pointing to it being unlikely-- we haven't been visited by an alien race. This likely is because one of three reasons:

1. We are the most advanced civilization in the universe (or at least on par with everyone else)

2. We haven't been "discovered" yet

3. Einstein is right, and they can't go faster than light either.

[BitteEinBit]

So you're telling me I have no chance of becoming the Captain of the USSS Enterprise where I can explore deep space and f*ck green bitches? Way to crush my dreams man!

[spaceman]

So you're telling me I have no chance of becoming the Captain of the USSS Enterprise where I can explore deep space and f*ck green bitches? Way to crush my dreams man!

+1

What a downer. What do I have to look forward to now? This sucks.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

[jcj]

So you're telling me I have no chance of becoming the Captain of the USSS Enterprise where I can explore deep space and f*ck green bitches? Way to crush my dreams man!

You can probably find a green bitch or two here on earth if you know where to look...

[guineapigfury]

1. We are the most advanced civilization in the universe (or at least on par with everyone else)

2. We haven't been "discovered" yet

3. Einstein is right, and they can't go faster than light either.

4. They are out there, discovered we are a planet of douchebags, and avoid our solar system for that reason.

[Guest]

I would love nothing more than for human exploration of deep space to be possible; however there is another piece of evidence pointing to it being unlikely-- we haven't been visited by an alien race.

Says you.

Ancient Aliens. Check it out.

[Napoleon_Tanerite]

Says you.

Ancient Aliens. Check it out.

[spaceman]

[HercDude]

I would love nothing more than for human exploration of deep space to be possible; however there is another piece of evidence pointing to it being unlikely-- we haven't been visited by an alien race. This likely is because one of three reasons:

1. We are the most advanced civilization in the universe (or at least on par with everyone else)

Unlikely. Our solar system is pretty young. The reasons we haven't been visited are addressed in the Fermi Paradox.

I think eventually humans will explore huge expanses of our galaxy, but I don't see any reason to believe it will be via manned missions. Hell, we're already letting machines do most of our flying here on Earth, it only makes sense that machines will do our space exploration. Von Neumann probes are a theoretical self-replicating spacecraft that would be able to build other spacecraft as they explore. If each probe could reproduce once a year, at the end of 15 years there would be over 16,000 spacecraft doing our exploring for us. At the same rate, theoretically, after 30 years there would be half a billion.

Anyway, I think Armstrong's achievements will stand the test of time Sort of how we view the Wright brothers.

[GrndPndr]

I would love nothing more than for human exploration of deep space to be possible; however there is another piece of evidence pointing to it being unlikely-- we haven't been visited by an alien race. This likely is because one of three reasons:

1. We are the most advanced civilization in the universe (or at least on par with everyone else)

2. We haven't been "discovered" yet

3. Einstein is right, and they can't go faster than light either.

Sorry, but I think you are limited by your analytical imagination, or at least, the concept of what might be. It almost sounds like your view of the future is linear (unchanging). I also sounds like you think that where we are now is just about as far as we are going to get? That is really a very sad and limited view of the future. The future can take shape with more than a simple linear extrapolation - it just needs a little imagination.

FM

Edit: Retarded Grammar

Edited August 29, 2012 by GrndPndr

[spaceman]

Fermi Paradox

It is a slow day at work and you got me on a mind-boggling wikipedia tangent with that one. Well done sir!

[Tonka]

Point taken, and I also realize that not so long ago there were a lot of people saying it was impossible to fly faster than the speed of sound; however, I will say that Spain c1492 and US c1946 both had a LOT less evidence that they were correct. There was a lot of "round earth" evidence prior to Columbus, and we already knew of man made objects (projectiles) travelling faster than sound. We know of nothing in the universe that travels faster than light, and we have a lot of data to support the belief that it is a limit.

I guess that's a reasonable assertation: we eventually disproved these incorrect theories and looking back it is plainly obvious that they were not true? i.e. had we been around at that time with our vastly advanced knowledge, we would of easily been able to point out the elementary evidence to the smartest people in the world that exceeding Mach 1 won't kill us.

I propose the unreasonable assertation: we have barely scratched the physical understanding of the universe, and even though the evidence to that understanding is right in front of our face we lack the ability to understand...a hundred years from now they will scoff at our weak minds and our inability to build such "elementary" hypersonic vehicles.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him... The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself... All progress depends on the unreasonable man." -Shaw

Thanks Neil for being unreasonable.