[aflurry]

What happened to the funny signature here on peakoil.com "Earth first! We'll strip mine the other planets later"?

a friend of mine owns link if yer interested in the domain.

[Buggy]

What is the good of deep space exploration?
Wouldn't those billions of dollars be better spent inside US soil rather than Saturn and Mars?
I understand local space travel is essential for everday things like cell phones and tv but I can't figure out deep space travel.
How do they justify the cost?

Cell phones and TV are essential?

[TheDude]

List of molecules in interstellar space - Wikipedia

Molecules with up to 13 atoms have been detected in space. Who knows what resides on planetary bodies?

[Ferretlover]

Molecules with up to 13 atoms have been detected in space. Who knows what and who resides on planetary bodies?

There. Fixed that for ya, Dude

[nobodypanic]

OK we have it! Ethane from Titan, but.... but oxygen from where?

the same place. titan is 50% water by mass, which means you have the possibility of being able to produce the fuel for any return trip right on the surface of titan itself, negating the need to carry it to the planet.

[shortonoil]

nobodypanic

the same place. titan is 50% water by mass, which means you have the possibility of being able to produce the fuel for any return trip right on the surface of titan itself, negating the need to carry it to the planet.

Ethane is produced in Titan’s atmosphere from methane. Methane (as far as we know) is almost exclusively the by product of micro-organismal life. The Titans might not be as amiable to industrialization as the Chinese were?

[nobodypanic]

nobodypanic

the same place. titan is 50% water by mass, which means you have the possibility of being able to produce the fuel for any return trip right on the surface of titan itself, negating the need to carry it to the planet.

Ethane is produced in Titan’s atmosphere from methane. Methane (as far as we know) is almost exclusively the by product of micro-organismal life. The Titans might not be as amiable to industrialization as the Chinese were?

well that depends... do they have a flag?

all kidding aside, as far as i know the going assumption is that the methane isn't biological in origin and is venting from an interior reservoir trapped during the moon's formation. but you never know....

[mos6507]

What is the good of deep space exploration?

Wouldn't those billions of dollars be better spent inside US soil rather than Saturn and Mars?

I understand local space travel is essential for everday things like cell phones and tv but I can't figure out deep space travel.

It's not that expensive, really, for the amount of science returned. It's a fraction of the cost of a manned program or sustaining the Iraq war.

[Rod_Cloutier]

President Obama in a bid to quell the current financial turmoil has increased NASA funding rather than slashing its spending as he was intially forecast to do. Still NASA's focus relies heavily on space science and exploration only, and not on the commercial exploitation of space.

http://article.wn.com/view/2009/02/13/C ... 1_billion/

I heard of an actual experiment they did to see how flying insects would react to weighlessness when brought into space orbit. The insects (at great expense) were sent up on the space shuttle. After reaching orbit in a sealed transparent box, the insects were disorientated at first by the weightlessness but eventually just got used to the idea of walking along the surface of the container, rather than attempting to fly. Absurdity in itself! It's similar to taking hogs into space to see if pigs can really fly- no practical benefit whatsoever!

http://www.bio.net/bionet/mm/bionews/19 ... 02285.html
http://www.danwei.org/breaking_news/chi ... to_spa.php

Nothing other than a real and practical, self financing space endeavor will sustain America's long term space endeavors. NASA needs to become self-sustaining and self-funding if it is to survive over the long term. How can President Obama seriously continue to fund a vast and expensive space exploration program in the current state of America's financial crisis?

NASA should be reworked and remade into something like a practical 'space mining corporation'. The mining of Helium-3, and other rare elements from the moon would be a good place to start. Continuing on its present course of doing minor and largely pointless experiments on the international space station will only add to calls to cull the space budget.

Space holds vast potential outcomes that are being squandered by people doing wasteful, and aburdist projects.

[Serial_Worrier]

link

On February 13, 2008, scientists announced that, according to Cassini data, Titan hosts within its polar lakes "hundreds of times more natural gas and other liquid hydrocarbons than all the known oil and natural gas reserves on Earth." The desert sand dunes along the equator, while devoid of open liquid, nonetheless hold more organics than all of Earth's coal reserves.[17].

Yummy. If only we could get at all that wonderful hydrocarbons, Titan would solve our energy problems presto!

[coyote]

I think someday we will. A very far someday.

[bencole]

yay, untapped hydrocarbons, and only 1.3 billion kilometers away.


that's one long straw we're going to need!

[Serial_Worrier]

yay, untapped hydrocarbons, and only 1.3 billion kilometers away.


that's one long straw we're going to need!

Think magic straw!

[NickyBoy]

It would be amusing if our hydrocarbon addiction caused our species to embark on real space-based expansion.

I would then almost feel good about oil.

[Don35]

Hydrocarbons? Are they organic? Is there life on Titan now?

[TheAntiDoomer]

Hydrocarbons? Are they organic? Is there life on Titan now?

Yes! Life must be abundant on Titan! Abiotic hyrdocarbons do not exist!

[Daniel_Plainview]

It would be amusing if our hydrocarbon addiction caused our species to embark on real space-based expansion..

That would make a nifty sci-fi movie plot.

[PrestonSturges]

Well my arrows are made of desire
From far away as Jupiter's sulphur mines
Say my arrows are made of desire, desire
From far away as Jupiter's sulphur mines
Way down by the Methane Sea, yeah
I have a humming bird and it hums so loud,
You think you were losing your mind

-Voodoo Child
Jimi Hendrix

[copious.abundance]

You silly doomers. We don't need to go to the moons of Saturn to get our methane gases. We've got billowing fouts of them right here on earth.