remember this?

Well, the new proclamation is to have people staring back at the Earth and Moon by 2030....

By Phobos and Deimos, we're being m(ar)ooned!

To be honest, it isn't a bad idea and this type of thing has many historical precidents. However, I think we tend to look upon space travel differently and I don't think the public is used to it enough for an idea like this to pass now (especially taking politically correctness and all that junk into consideration).

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Well said Carlo. I couldn't have put it better myself.

I can't help but imagining, that someone said much the same thing when Columbus wanted to travel West across the Atlantic. 

Your notions of exploring Earth's unknowns are noble, but ultimately owned by current corporate greed.
You want a cure for cancer here? Sorry, medical insurance people have that one on lock down,
as there is no profit in a cure for them.

Almost no one here on Earth who has lots of money, is willing to spend it on making the Earth "a better place". 
At least not right now, and not for the foreseeable future.
One or two rich philanthropists is a drop in the bucket compared to the thousands of millionaires & billionaires
in our world who would rather keep their wealth, and ensure that their short time on this planet is spent in the lap of luxury.

One day, this planet won't be fit to hold us,
and we're going to have to go somewhere in order to continue as a species.
I'd rather it be a planet, than a space station.
Granted, it may be a long way off, but at the rate we're going today,
it's almost a foregone conclusion, so it'd be nice to have some sort of back up plan.

The ISS doesn't really count as "space exploration", as it's in very near Earth orbit. 
The only "true" space exploration we've ever done was going to moon (or as Foz puts it, going to Hollywood.    )
There is only so much that you can learn from space probes and telescopes.
What if the Americas had only been  explored with a telescope? 

I see the whole concept of going to another planet,
much the same way that settlers in the US must have viewed traveling West into the wild unknown in search of a new life,
and a fresh start away from the hellish, mundane, and corrupt society that we currently occupy.
Granted, due to human nature, that same society will just spread like a virus and encompass anywhere that man goes,
but it would be nice to live out my days in the beginning of it all before it got there to ruin it.



Shane... space cowboy. 

Shane I agree with you that greed is blocking a lot of developments here on this tiny blue planet. I don't know how NASA (and organisations like them) are funded but I think it's taxmoney. Shouldn't taxmoney in one way or another come back to the people who paid for that? In the form of new and better roads, a cleaner climate, free healthcare and tons of other things? Governments spending billions on things that no one can ever use (like going to Mars and don't get me started on military systems) are kind of stupid. Mildly put. It's time for a change and it's about time people start to realize that. Then maybe we don't need to seek refuge on other planets. Which will eventually be for the very rich only because I can't even afford a return ticket to Italy with Ryanair...

Carlo 

PS. Doug and Paul, thanks for the support.

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Great minds think alike.

If the corporate world (the people with power and money) are willing to take huge risks in investments like this, they must know something we don't...

Carlo (conspiracy mode on)

The difference, as I see it, Planet Earth was already in a state to encourage the birth of Plants, Birds, and Animals, etc...

...but it took Millions of years to create the precise conditions that they could comfortably exist in.

A visit by an Earthling(s) to another barren Planet, and the whole process could take another Million, or so Years, to get where we are now...
...and we still wouldn't have any "Air"....or "Water".... ...!

Far too much digging and planting, for too long, for me... ...!

......off to Walmart for a sack of Spuds, and a Leg of Lamb... ...!

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