Soon we'll have marketers pitching space-gapped machines, so even the acoustics are blocked.

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Content from www.sfdt.com, a known malware distributor, has been inserted into this web page. Visiting this page now is very likely to infect your computer with malware.
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Its by far the biggest, but by no means the only major one.

For example, links with malware can bring down any launch vehicle, including the one you linked to, according to google.

Exactly.

For every step of aviation history there was an economic or military justification. Sometimes advances were carried out for national ego justification (e.g. the Concorde), but without economic justification, it could not be sustained and technology reverted a step back.

Space is in the same position. There is economic justification for commercial satellites, but no economic justification for the manned space program (or for the unmanned science and exploration program, but don't tell anyone). That is why we haven't been to the moon again and that is why the ISS will eventually be deorbited.

The problems of space travel are real. It takes huge amount of energy and labour to get something into orbit, and even more to get a human there and keep him alive. And what do you get in return? NOTHING.

It happens to be an infeasible one. Colonizing the bottom of the bottom of the ocean is easier by far.

And the mammals did?

The dinosaurs are extinct because they didn't adapt to a changing environment. With technology and science, we're a lot more adaptable than any other animal. In fact you can find us everywhere on earth, as well as in space.

You're perfectly correct. And in fact cars and oil are cheaper (and do more) than horses. On the other hand terrestrial mining is cheaper than asteroid mining, which is why that is what we're doing.

If you think we'll make plastic gadgets out of hydrocarbons from Titan, you're wrong. No matter how much we improve space technology, it will always be insanely expensive compared to sucking oil out of a well, manufacturing a bit of plastic out of it, and loading it onto a ship for transport.

You're called DirtyLiar, so probably a troll. I'll make this short.

Computers were invented in WWII. Transistors were invented in 1947. Integrated circuits were invented in 1949, but not used on the Saturn V.

Available since 1947.

WWII tech. I'll stop now.

Sure, because that's generated a lot more technology than the space race. If you want something comparable to WWII, try the cold war.

Teflon and... ? and are you sure it wouldn't have come out of other research?

Doing something usually means not doing something else. The manned space program sucks enormous amounts of money that could have been much better spent elsewhere. Can you compare the science return from Hubble, the Voyagers, the various Mars probe up to Curiousity, the Jupiter and Saturn orbiters, the various earth and sun observers, to the ISS? Even to Apollo? Do you realize the cost difference between those programs?

They either did that on their own dime, or that of people who believed in them. That meant they did it not because it was cool, but because they thought they could make money out of it. They were right and they did. If a space station is worthwhile, found a company and build it.

No, they saw a business opportunity. No doubt they did it out of love as well, but if it was just that, they wouldn't have grown into such huge businesses.

It's lack of funding, mostly. If you can convince someone that you have the imagination and ability to build a space station they'll shower you in cash and wait patiently until the return you've foreseen appears.

Manned space _is_ waste and fraud. It will get nowhere except putting some astronaut somewhere and back. Why should taxpayers fund a handful of expensive tourists?

If you have trouble funding basic research, the real problem is lack of leadership.

Really? Integrated circuits, LCDs, MRIs, the Internet? Digital watches?

WWII did lay a lot of the foundations, but there was a lot of development since.

People have goals just fine. Apple, Intel, Microsoft, Boeing didn't become giants out of nothing. Setting artificial goals simply leads to money being wasted where it isn't most helpful.

Hire a good PR firm. This huge investment just to get people to give you money for spinoffs sounds like a scam.

Or you can have real leadership instead.

The ISS is as real as it gets. You only say it's a toy because we put it up and ... nothing happened. If you put a bigger station there, the same nothing will happen. There's no science to be done there that can't be done better by unmanned satellites and probes.

Routine travel where? Mars, where there's nothing, and you have a launch window every two years or so? Other planets, where it's even more impossible to go?

What would we do with even more Teflon?

It doesn't work that way. You borrow money to pay large salaries to talented people. They spent it, some of it on imports. You have less talented people in other fields, so you need to import products to fill the gap.

How much can you show vids of people floating in a tube? gets boring in 20 seconds. Even the moon landings became boring.

Maybe, but space is nothing like that. Only science fiction movies. Space is slow, boring, careful, empty.

manned space stations in L2 also introduce complexity. A lot more complexity, in fact.

Leave a full fuel tank where you wanted to keep your station.

Think how much it would cost to keep your L2 station supplied. Launches there are much more expensive per kilogram. Nor do you really need a station, assemble the spacecraft in space and then send everyone home. Voila - no maintenance costs.

A lunar slingshot isn't very worthwhile (and you could do it from LEO, too).

It's not like they have to duck every five minutes. That problem almost doesn't exist.

Yes, your panels are more efficient. But they're also a lot more expensive since you launched them higher. Easier to launch more panels.

So start the ship unmanned on its way and rendezvous with it later on. No need for a station.