I don’t know if you are being sarcastic there (i think you kind are ). The first point that you made is probably true and I agree with you that more money should be put into the space program.
If you were being sarcastic with the second point, I’d like to just point out that I’m not saying that the rest of us aren’t heroes in some way, shape or form. That last part of my post before was not meant to be a justification of any of the other points i made within that post. I may not have worded it perfectly, but I meant every word i said.
And you guys on this forum that have been posting for who knows how long are heroes. I mean you zed have made somewhere around a 1,500 posts. If even 500 of those posts were helpful to others, imagine how many lives you have affected. I mean it may not seem like much to you when you help them. For example, because of help from this forum I was able to finish a small project for the CSCI department at my college. After completion of that project, I was offered a job as a research assistant. This is all during my freshman year.
I am not saying that the astronauts were more important than any one of us here. I just feel sad that they were killed in that tragic of an incident. I’m not saying everyone SHOULD feel sad about it…just that I do.
Halcyon
Edit: If you were just joking around with that remark and not being very sarcastic, I apologize if you are offended by any of my remarks above. I intended no offense to you or anyone else when i wrote them.
[This message has been edited by HalcyonBlaze (edited 02-03-2003).]
Main Entry: he·ro
Pronunciation: 'hir-(")O, 'hE-(")rO
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural heroes
Etymology: Latin heros, from Greek hErOs
Date: 14th century
1 a : a mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent endowed with great strength or ability b : an illustrious warrior c : a man admired for his achievements and noble qualities d : one that shows great courage
2 a : the principal male character in a literary or dramatic work b : the central figure in an event, period, or movement
3 plural usually heros : SUBMARINE 2
4 : an object of extreme admiration and devotion : IDOL
=====================================
What is your definition of hero, zed?
[This message has been edited by Coconut (edited 02-04-2003).]
its really tons of money that get spent to explore space, and i don’t see much use in it.
I tend to think that the continued-existence of life on Earth is a relatively noble goal.
The Dinosaurs all were killed due to the impact of a large meteor from space. An event which, them lacking intelligence and technology, was completely unavoidable for them.
In 100 years, assuming we continue to fund space exploration, such an event is not unavoidable for us. As such, I’d like to think that this is a noble goal.
And, even removing that specter (or any number of other potential specters of space-based killing of life), we happen to rely on our sun for the continued existence of our species. That sun isn’t going to be there forever. Not to say that it’s going away anytime soon, but it won’t be there in a few billion years.
Assuming we haven’t killed ourselves off, or evolved/devolved ourselves into a new species, we, as a species, should probably leave this solar system at some point before the sun decides to go Nova or otherwise die of (in a generally violent fashion).
So, yes, I see space exploration as important. Indeed, far more important than dealing with Iraq, North Korea, or any other nation. Our species’ long-term survival is at stake.
Of course, most members of our species are too caught up in minor squables and short-term thinking to look at the big picture and do what’s best for the survival of our species. Natural selection, on a galactic scale, still works the same, I guess.
lol The most disrespectfull thing you could do to those people is what you’re doing right now. Make their death a marketing event or matter of discution. I believe it is more tragical a fireman dying in a fire than this. If you want heroes, please look somewhere else.
And don’t be hypocritical. The only people that can have thoose type of feelings are their loved one’s. For God’s sake, you didn’t even knew them!! I think every death is tragic, but please… I think America likes to make a soap opera out of everything… By the way, who wants to start a thread about the upcoming war?!
By the way, who wants to start a thread about the upcoming war?!
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD NOOOO!!! I’ve heard (actually all of us prolly) enough about whether its right or wrong, how dumb bush is for starting this (which I do agree on that ) and this is one subject that has been done literally to death and doesn’t need redoing.
Also, can we go back to OpenGL already? Yes I feel bad for what happened, I really really wish it didn’t. This thread is turning really stupid, lets just go back to this thing they call OpenGL. It’s a much nicer place to be.
Originally posted by dorbie: Dave, your top quote is correct but the rest of your post is an irrational and outrageous lie. The things you claim I support, think or even say (you even have the gall to put some things in quotes) are false. (I think you’re confusing your posters from a thread on 9-11, which I never posted to). Your powers for mind reading and rational thought have failed you again.
hm okay, sorry then.
It is self evident that people care about the events close to their lives and that affected them. The Shuttle is internationally recognized, the astronauts are famous to millions. I’ve personally seen several shuttle launches at the Kenedy space center, undoubtedly one of the most awe inspiring experiences unimaginable. I’ve visited and worked with United Space Alliance and others on shuttle simulator issues in Houston (the ones used to train the Astronauts), and worked with other parts of NASA on other graphics issues. I take pride in my small contributions. There are millions like me, most even closer to the space program.
okay. still there are millions now crying that didn’t had even a clue columbia was currently in space. hm yes i remember, the one with the israeli. read that once in a newspaper. its like apollo 11, apollo 12, apollo 13. everyone remembers neil armstrong. everyone remembers tomhanks in apollo 13 (i’m very bad at names, but i remember the whole story). anyone remembering from head apollo 12 is interested in space flights. everyone else simply cries because it got such a tragecy thanks to the news (imho).
When Challenger blew up, almost every US schoolkid was assembled and watching live on TVs in assembly halls all over the country. It was a national education program promoted by NASA, there was the first school teacher astronaut on board. For them this brings back those memories of being ushered out of those halls in shock and silence.
so? as i stated yet, i support honouring them, and i support for example to take a minute of silence for them (wich i gave’m, too), and all. but even here, in europe, the last days it was about all that was to talk about in the news, in papers, etc. and all about the tragecy, seeing women crying “it is so a tragecy for the u.s.”, then they get asked some stuff about the flight and they had no clue at all. but it “hurts the u.s., all we believe in”. great to believe in stuff you have no clue about.
thats what we can see all the day around now, and it simply sucks. it makes a tragecy (wich it is) a rather boring joke… boulevard-press all around…
I have tried to explain why this resonates with people, why they are close and why they care. You chose not to listen, instead accusing me of the very things you are guilty of, and putting the words of others in my mouth.
sorry, yes can be i mixed you up with someone else… somehow i am currently irritated who you actually are. and your reasons are okay, you at least had to do with the nasa…
what i don’t understand is the ones “it was my dream and now the dream is dead” dudes, as well as the “its a big tragecy for the u.s. as a whole”. both is not really true. space flights will go on (and not only in the u.s.). and for sure, it is not a political event. its a problem of the nasa, and an accident.
Dave, I know you are an anti-american bogot from your rambling offline emails to me, incomprehensibly accusing America of things like “causing every war last century”.
e-mails? wtf? i’m very irritated…
i’m not anti-american. i’m against all countries that think they can solve problems with wars (espencially when there aren’t real problems, like, imho, now). and i think yes, the u.s. did quite some bad things the last century, i’ll support that.
still, the u.s. does have good parts as well, f.e. nasa is one of the good things imho. (while they sometimes simply have too much money for some stuff… remember the 6billion dollar pen story? )
Your bigotry does not give you a passport to accuse me of racism. If you’re looking for bigotry then look in the mirror.
i look in the mirror and there is nothing. all i see is a person who lives in a country without war, in a region without enemies, and without any personal enemies myself. then i can look around and see big countries on this world playing with weapons, killing people, or plan to. that isn’t needed anymore, most the time. i don’t believe in war, it has never solved anything yet.
i TOLD i use the wrong word btw. i TOLD its not racism. what i ment is that you (or not you actually, as you do have reasons, you are personally involved. others that cry currently arent, so the ‘you’ is more a general one, not dorbie) are sort of racistic (tell me the word if you know it, i honestly don’t know) in terms that you cry for those 7, but don’t bother about the 100ths that died the same day, even while you do know about it.
some do, because with those 7 their dream died. that is not true, dreams will always live, space flight will go on.
some do, because it hurt americas pride, and those are the ones i call racisistic in this term. if the train accident with 42 deaths would’ve happened in the u.s., those 42 would now be heroes, and everyone would have to cry, and it would’ve been a tragic accident. at least for those who cry “it hurt america”.
some do, because they are personally involved (like you, right?). those i understand.
and some cry, because it is in the news, and everyone does. they are just stupid.
i hope to be able to rightify (uh…) my position now a bit. uhm… rightify… i ment correct
[This message has been edited by davepermen (edited 02-04-2003).]
Whoa…this is getting waaay out of control. Look, reading through all the long posts, one thing has become apparent to me: Everyone has a different level of reaction to this incident. Some look at it in a global aspect and can say that it’s just a few people that died, while others take it very personally. Each of us will have a different opinion and view on the matter, but NONE of us are wrong here.
I mean you can render a scene in a perspective or orthogonal projections and the scene will look different. However, it’s still the same scene…just with a new view.
What happened was tragic in my opinion and I’m sadned by the event. When fritzlang posted on this forum, it was to express his opinion and feelings on the matter. But now it’s turned into a debate about how to look at this incident. The incident happened…that’s it. There is nothing more to it that that cold hard fact. How we feel about it as individuals is up to us. I bet that not a single person who has read or posted on this thread feels the exact same way about the event.
I think that we should just leave this thread at where it is. Like KRONOS said, this is starting to become disrespectful.
I like the Space Shuttle. I think the discussion about its development are interesting, but too complicated for me to fully appreciate. For example, I think its interesting that some people were opponents of the glider approach to landing; some argued that it’d be more economical for the Shuttle to splash down in the sea and though that Nasa’s insistance on landing on a runway as snubbing their nose at what Nasa perceived to be an “inelegant” method of landing. Like I say; I like the Shuttle, but further to the Nasa PDF about what Columnbia’s mission was, here is an anti-shuttle article: http://slate.msn.com/id/2078104/
I read the Space Shuttle launch costs (adjusted for today) were projected to be around $5 Million per trip with 1 launch a week, they ended up at $500 Million and 4 launches per year. The original design had a winged booster that would also glide back & land instead of twin SRBs. Feynman’s account of the Challenger inquiry are interesting, especially w.r.t. management’s estimations of the risk of failure per launch pre-Challenger (infinitesimal) vs the engineers of around 1/200. Their classification of SRB seal failure as safety margin was the most surprising thing, you don’t hear that mentioned much. This was one of many failures including serious flaws in the Shuttle engines like fractures in the turbine blades of pumps that were intended to fly 50 missions between services and ended up serviced every mission.
Recently I saw a former Shuttle commander put the risk at maybe 1/50 to 1/60 but that was after the recent event.
Even if they shoot for a different space vehicle claiming it’s safer, I can’t help thinking it’s going to be a similar story. Cost overruns and unrealistic estimates of the probability of catastrophic failure, and they’ll learn the hard way again.
[This message has been edited by dorbie (edited 02-05-2003).]
i don’t want to think about how often that thing would blow up if they would fly weekly… uh…
if there is one that can’t calculate, it looks like he works at the NASA, hehe… they convert wrong measurementformats and voilà, away is the mars sonde… they calculate wrong estimates, and voilà, 10000% of the original planed costs… and the u.s.gov continues to pay them… (and wants to pay them more now even) doesn’t sound that heroic…
Hey, I didn’t read all of the above posts (as I’ve just discovered, life is too short). But I would like to add my 2p.
Space exploration has three main goals. Firstly, the goal that the public hears about - its called “progress”, fullfilling our human destiny etc. Secondly, its called “government subsidy for high-tech industry” and there is nothing wrong with that. The money isn’t wasted. Thirdly, we should always be looking to push the boundaries of our technology (within reason), otherwise we will stagnate - become like the old USSR and just wither and die. Its part of the human condition.
Now, as to whether we should all be crying about “just 7 astronaughts” - well, remember that these guys were doing what most of us wanted to do when we were children (well I did anyway). Just remember that people need heroes and although millions of people die for lots of reasons every year (even natural causes), some people who die, die in the name of human progress.
Since when people care about how the dude living next door spending his owned money?
It is his money dude.
Of course we can say whatever we want about how stupid he spent more than $400 dollars on his brand new GeForce Fx graphics card to just play games, compared to smart ass like us who develop applications for the card. It doesn’t make you or him a better person by just talking trash.
Originally posted by dorbie: Dave, I know you are an anti-american bogot from your rambling offline emails to me, incomprehensibly accusing America of things like “causing every war last century”.
Dave, buddy… you mind explaining this to me? Put it in terms of WWII… I would love to hear your take it…
hm… what ever. most bigger wars after the world wars where with the u.s. involved. and while the u.s. finished the worldwars, it did it with a lot of blood, as far as i can remember… wich i don’t think is nice. the way is the goal, not the result.
anyways… i formulated once my agression against the u.s. like this, when they started to plan to attack afghanistan, or parts of it. i thought this millenium, humans got cleverer… “with great power comes great responsibility”, we know that phrase at least since last year, all of us. or most… if you learn to fight, first lesson is to learn to not fight at all.
so i simply find it primitive to see now stuff like the iraqi war, when ever it will start, or not. and the u.s. was involved in quite a lot of wars during the last centurie, at least the biggest ones.
anyways, dorbie there got a lot wrong into his eyes, and he’ll never forget as it looks like. i did, hehe… oops
learn one thing: never say never, right? so never say all, or nothing, or every, or all those absolute words. when ever i do, and that you can all remember from now on, when ever i use an absolute word, i don’t mean it absolute, but, in general. so when i say “causing every war last century” (he forgot to add the “after the ww’s”, i am absolute sure), i mean most bigger wars, so they are top if you would do statistics.
anyways, this is all for nothing (and i hope this time its not absolute as well…)
Originally posted by davepermen: hm… what ever. most bigger wars after the world wars where with the u.s. involved. and while the u.s. finished the worldwars, it did it with a lot of blood, as far as i can remember… wich i don’t think is nice. the way is the goal, not the result.
That’s gratitude for you… without that blood your ass would be living in northern germany right now…
). The first point that you made is probably true and I agree with you that more money should be put into the space program.