VERY true, which is why I applaud private aerospace companies like Armadillo Aerospace, who live outside the world of politics.

Ah, the old return trip. You know how much simpler things would be if we just sent some people to Mars permanently? "Here, there's everything you need to build a self-sustaining Martian colony. If you're still alive in a hundred years, you should have the resources to get back to Earth by then. Have fun!"

Even with the tech we have now it doesn't take that long to travel to other planets. With some good optimizations and technical innovations, a few decades of space travel could be cut down to less than one decade, and that's very reasonable.

And as I said, I firmly believe that given the right direction we could improve our technology by an order of magnitude in just a decade or two, and that could be a serious game changer. This is not wild speculation. There is a world of difference (heh heh) between interplanetary travel and interstellar travel.

I think you missed the point. And the internet was a natural consequence of a science we understood well up until that point, not a theory. Ever hear of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Superhighway? People predicted the rise of the internet long before it came about.

Now wormholes... that's purely theory. A good theory, but a theory nonetheless. And it's nothing to bet on for the future of space travel, especially not now when we're trying to innovate.

Thing is, matter starts to behave differently at such great speeds. To say we will be able to travel anywhere close to 1/1000 of the speed of light within the next few centuries is folly. And at a speed like that, it would still take quite some time to reach another planet where we could actually land our theoretical spaceship on solid ground, also our theoretical intrepid interplanetary explorers would no doubt experience some..interesting felings (Mars excluded, but going to Mars is lame ).

True but i'd rather see them spending money on actually helping the human race, like spending those billions on curing cancer rather than mining an asteriod. I am all for space exploration I would just like to see it be in the right direction. An attitude of 'it's okay cause once we mine every resource on the planet we can just mine every resource in space' does not seem good to me.

It's not necessarily the attitude of exhausting all the resources on one planet and moving along, but more so of potentially finding new undiscovered resources which could be put to good use back on Earth. Also, cancer research doesn't cost billions at all, far from it actually.

How is mining asteroids ruining the solar system?

In order for us to advance any further, we're going to need three things. Brilliant, forward thinking minds like the folks at PR, resources, and money. Ventures like this will provide the latter two.

The resources and money will help to develop us as race, and open doors for medical advances, further space exploration etc. Mining asteroids will help us, not hurt us. And for the record, space is a big place. We won't have mined it out for quite some time.

Space is so gigantic, I don't think it would be possible to mine it all out. 99.9999999%~ That our race is wiped out by a galaxy or universe sized cataclysmic event in the future.

Not trying to be inciteful here, but if it were all up to you the rest of us wouldn't have been able to invent the computer you wrote that post on.

Huh. That actually sounds kind of inciteful after all.

I don't really understand what you mean, I just meant spending money on worthwhile things could be a lot better than mining in space. If you really want to see profits and suchlike why not make another random mine on earth

EDIT: I'm sorry, that wasn't constructive. That's the point. It's becoming more and more difficult to find large caches on Earth - certainly nothing on the scale of what would come from an asteroid. This will see massive profits; certainly more than you'd get from a "random mine on Earth." Still, mining aside, can you not see how big of a step this is?

http://static.fjcdn.com/comments/FACEPALM+THREAD+_cc496a2cdb4d7b0e64d75bcfe5d85a3e.jpg

Well I can see trying to get my view across has failed and since all I get is hostility trying to have a discussion I won't bother.

I'm going to be a pessimist and say that I doubt that any of this will come to fruition, and if it does end up coming to fruition it will probably not end well.

Aw, don't worry about it. I'm not making fun of you for your point of view so much as I'm making fun of your lack of rational thinking here, and that's not nearly so personal. I'm serious.

I did have something else which I proceeded to forget so I just thought of something really quick.

But if there were ever such a crucial need for it, I think we would manage to figure out a way. Like America back in the 60's NASA was just sort of there for its space program part, but then Kennedy wanted to go to the moon, so with a determined mindset NASA was able to reach the moon in less than 10 years. Not saying that discovering worm hole traveling would be discovered in less than a decade once we wanted it, but its truths would be found and they would try and use it.

Right.

Yep.

Uh-huh.

This appears to be an excellent stopping point.

Dammit.

This is the same type conversation that goes on at NASA.

So you're saying that if we keep this up we'll eventually have a shuttle program of our own?

It's not this at all. I understand your point perfectly. Then again, you haven't been talking to me, so I'm just going to step in and offer this:

I think you underestimate the value of the resources that are available in space. For practical terms, they are unlimited. Materials on Earth are very limited.

Gold, Platinum, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_earth_element, Hydrogen, and even Water are all very scarce compared to how badly we like to use them.

For most of these, you can't just start a random mine on Earth in order to get some more. We've found the sources for just about all of them, and we're starting to realize that we will eventually run out. In space, though, these things exist in abundance. Infinite abundance. Most of the asteroids in the solar system contain more gold than humans have ever mined in their entire history.

All of it.Taking into account how useful gold is in making electronics, or how useful platinum is in engineering, we would love to double our supply of it.

So that's all my opinion is. You say we should spend our time and efforts on things that are worthwhile. I completely agree with you.
I think mining the solar system is very, very worthwhile. Not just to make some king pin filthy rich, mind you, but because I can see the very real benefits to industry, science, and technology here for the rest of us if someone gets out there and does it.

Well, no. But I am saying that if this thread were funded by the government, we could.

When I think about space I think of escaping into a larger meaning. As with the humanities of past you find hope and escape in the unknown.

Money from asteroids though. OMG. Just don't have the rest of us not mining doing dishes or something while you go space whoopidu[censored]ingdoooo.

Meh. Australia has already released Skynet (no, really).


I might chuck in a serious reply when I have more time.