Why American NASA and Russian Roskosmos are so obsessed with safety , why are not such dashing space missions as in the 60's and 70's?
Why American NASA and Russian Roskosmos are so obsessed with safety , why are not such dashing and daring space missions as in the 60's and 70's? I was born 86, my mum watched landing in TV, Poland along, Czech, Hungary, and Romania was few than communist countries that decided to broadcast despite USSR...
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answers:
Ronald 7 say: I was able to watch the Apollo Missions myself
I am 59 now
Heady days seeing that they used 60's Technology with very little testing
Our present day Technology would seem like magic to them
But our Space programs are still going well with probes
When you take what Cassini, New Horizons and The Europa Clipper will do, there is still more excitement to come
Let the World come together and work at going to Mars
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ngc7331 say: sounds like you've answered your own question. good job, I think we got a Best Answer winner here within you question.
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Raymond say: In the USA, it is because the capitalist focus is on making space travel available to the public (the very rich public) and it will only happen if they maintain very high standards of safety. The same thing happened at the beginning of commercial aviation.
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W say: Why bother going to Mars? What will it bring? It's uninhabitable for humans. Waste of money. Technology is far enough advanced such that Mars could be explored without human presence. Besides, it wasn't for nothing that most of the astronauts were test pilots - accustomed to death risks.
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Clive say: Why are you unable to ask a question in grammatical English? None of this is a question.
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Tiburon say: Putin will handle it - trust him - meanwhile, THE EARTH IS FLAT - anything else is a communist plot.
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Starrysky say: Harder to get people into dangerous rockets, harder to get money to build killing devices. Those are for the military.
As to why no more trips to moon, it is a matter of technology and money. The very short trip there and back could just barely be successful with the 1960s designs. Going for a moon base or even a Mars visit, along with paying for wars that keep repeating for 40 of the past 50 years, and the "Star Wars" development that crushed the Soviets was just not possible.
Slow developments of long term space residency, better rockets, more planet information on water and other resources have been done for the last half century. We could build on those. Maybe in another decade or two there might be some good efforts for longer trips.
But I read the projections of Club of Rome--they say the good times are over, resources become tighter and more expensive, production will slow, populations will die off as climate change, pollution and plagues will do us in. By 2050, perhaps only 2 billion or less will survive. Then you think that number will pay for space exploration when starvation is everywhere?
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say: "Political will" -- they had it back then. No one has it now thanks to globalization.

WW2 ended in 1945 with the Americans beating everyone to the atomic bomb and actually using it against other (non-American) humans. Everyone knew the Germans were using rockets to bomb targets around Europe, and they were also working on a rocket that could reach the continental US. But again, the Americans beat everyone to atomic bombs and showed they had the political will to use it.

But then by stealing American technology, the Russians were able to detonate their own atomic bomb a few years later. Then in 1958 the Russians were able to put a satellite into orbit. Although it only went "beep beep beep", it demonstrated that they had a rocket that was capable of putting an atomic bomb in orbit and hence hit anyone they wanted, when they wanted. [and hence why North Korea is such a clear and present danger today.]

Having been beaten to the punch by the Russians, that put the fear of God (rocket launched atomic weapons) in the Americans, so they needed a program that would mobilize the country towards a high technology goal that would beat the Russians to the punch and outshine their Sputnik accomplishment. They'd turn the attention from a hot war into a "space race" - effectively transforming the nature of their relationship into the coldest of cold wars. Choosing putting men on the moon as the build target, that provided the motivation to dump all kinds of federal money into education, research, and technology that was easily dual-used into military applications. [Given even the dimmest of the dullards the grand idea of dual-using military technology into commercial application through the 1970s and 1980s - bringing you innovations like TV remotes, microwave ovens, and portable electronics.]

But look at today. Costs to go to space are so high that only self-made billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos can afford to play the game in public. [Major corporate stalwarts like Boeing and Lock-Mar are limiting their public efforts to "secret military launches" - but everyone knows what they're doing!] In the US, the country's infrastructure is crumbling and becoming as unsafe as Third World countries around the world. There's not even the political will to do the basic maintenance to ensure the free flow of goods within the country itself!

So where IS the political will? It's going into self-proclaimed "victims" groups, enabled by the social Marxism that has taken over the country and its leadership. This is exacerbated by "the silent majority" remaining silent - they don't want to risk losing their job by calling a kettle black. So the socially well connected and validated by popularity measured by social media are killing the will of the silent majority, and directing what's left into selfish pet projects - none of which benefits that silent majority.

That's why when the barbarians are at the gate, and the elite cry out for "the common defense", there will be no one to heed that call. When you take away any interest the silent majority has in the country, you can't depend on them to stand up and defend it when that is what must be done to survive.

And under those conditions, you expect leadership to generate the political will necessary to launch and win a new space race? That is to laugh ...

Regarding your question about "safety" - you need look no further than Benjamin Franklin: "Those that value safety or security above liberty and freedom are doomed to have neither."
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rick29148 say: not the Russians, look how many space flights killed the cosmonauts ................
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