----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Minette" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, November 02, 2000 11:26 PM
Subject: Re: The Space Station
> --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Peter Horton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >Dan M. wrote
> >>I think that going to the moon and mars is an exciting idea, and >>has
> >>great emotional value. But, from a scientific standpoint, I >>cannot
see
> >>much benefit in manned missions.
> >
> >
> >Also, if you have not gone there and seen what there is to see, how >do
you
> >KNOW that there is no good scientific knowledge we can gain >from space
> >exploration and colonization? Are you psychic? Gifted by the gods?
>
> No, I'm a trained scientist. I guess it might be an appropriate place to
> discuss open mindedness and science. In sci.physics, this has come up many
> times when the physicists are accused by the "alternate thinkers" of not
> being open minded. They suggest this experimental test or that
experimental
> test of relativity, or refutation of QM or something else. They took the
> lack of interest in mounting a massive study of their idea as an example
of
> "close mindedness" and neo-orthadoxy in the scientific community.
>
> The answer of Matt Meron and Jim Carr (and me to some extent) to those
> claims is worth considering. Scientists cannot be universally open
minded.
> The numbers of potential experiments is close to infinite. One cannot do
> them all. One has to make estimates of benefits of various experimental
> proposals. One has to be reluctant to spend time testing every assumption
> one makes in every experiment. If one doesn't do that, one gets caught up
in
> an infinite don't loop.
>
> As our Zimmy has mentioned in another post, I was discussing manned space
> exploration, not space exploration in general. Astrophysics has a great
> potential for adding out our scientific knowledge. I think that some of
the
> best chances to find something fundamentally new and exciting are in the
> area of astrophysics.
>
[Snip a lot of typically brilliant Dan stuff]
Everything Dan says is true and I agree with his premise as long as he is
limiting space exploration to science.
But I think there is another, perhaps more important reason for manned space
exploration. I think we need a broader frontier. I think that having that
frontier fulfills something in the human (soul)(psyche)(whatchamacallit).
Going out and getting dirty with the dust of a foriegn place has its
attractions.
I dont think this is going to happen anytime soon, and I dont think it will
be the gubbermnt doing most of it, but gubbermnt will lay the original
infrastructure for exploration and colonisation.
xponent
rob
