In honor of Challenger

[Anarky]

Originally Posted by Fledermaus

Well... they did die... in the pursuit of knowledge. That's why we explore space. Because we don't know what's out there, and we want to learn. Not live isolated in ignorance of reality around us.

Correct, but (and that's a huge but by the way) I think we should clean up the mess in our rooms before we leave the house. I am not saying that we're not suppposed to shoot men to the moon, but what I'm saying is, that we could cut space programs in order to "clean up the room". Knowledge and everything is fine, but what good does knowing that a rock fell on the moon 150 million years ago do when you have asthma because of smog? Smog will be around for a while, but we have the tools and the knowledge to prevent and fight it. But what it lacks is money. So if we said "No, that robot to Mars is not necessary, Mars will still be around in five years" and wanted the money to go to funding of anti-smog campaigns and technologies, I say that this is something useful compared identifying a rock which will still be around in five years.

But were it not for their idiocy and risk-taking, doing things that, at the moment, seemed to have no practical purpose... We'd all still be in caves. Or even extinct. Someone's gotta sacrifice so the rest of us get to mooch off the benefits.

So in your eyes, getting blown to bits inside a spaceshuttle is "taking one for the team"? Sure, people have learned that there needs to be more security checks on space shuttles before they launch, but aside from that, those shredded people have done nothing for us.

But, snobbery is the trend. Respect? Pfft! Just some silly device made for the controlling of the masses, of course.

Not respect, but the masses are indeed controlled by overdone respect, such as parades and silly T-Shirts. Creating media events, live feeds from some silly parade honouring some media-proclaimed hero is nothing but crowd control. Besides, TV wastes precious airtime where they could actually tell you where help would be needed and what's wrong in front of your own doorstep. Sure, nobody wants to hear that the own country is rotten or that the people are without any common sense and/or morals, but a flashy parade which shows three hours of happy-pappy-wonderland is something everybody must see. It is not respect that is the device, it's the media abusing respect to control the masses.

Some believe we would have been better off if we never learned how to use fire, the wheel, or other technologies... I dunno. We'd be living in a world without space blankets, shoes that protect your feet, freeze-dried and preserved food to feed people, the freakin internet... and animation. Dang.

On the other side, if we were still be living in caves, we wouldn't know animation and all that to miss it. So that's a weak argument. We can't miss what we don't know.

And may I add that I love this thread?