15 hours ago, charliearon said:

And who are we going to grind up?

Murderers and child rapists perhaps? Nah, I sure would NOT be eating any of it anyway. 😶

Edited September 29, 20223 yr by n4gix
Eeek! I left out "NOT" in this post!

48 minutes ago, birdguy said:

Martians!

How grisly. And possibly gristly.

17 hours ago, birdguy said:

Martin, all of this will happen long after I'm gone.

 

Landing the next man and first women on the Moon will be in 2025 if Artemis and SpaceX make that date. Mars will be 2029 earliest. Full scale permanent, sell sufficient Mars colony, you are talking about 2050. Terraforming is a frightfully difficult prospect taking thousands of years to complete, so nothing like that would be attempted until way way into the future. 

 

17 hours ago, birdguy said:

And I'm not one of those people who get a thrill out of watching a rocket shoot flame out the back.  I could care less if the countdown stops and they lose a launch window.

 

Its not about "thrill" its about understanding the profundity of we hairless apes achieving something that spectacular. Its about the human race being an example of the universe becoming conscious and aware of its own existence and then stepping out into the void, taking the first steps of exploration. New things to learn, new technologies developed to aid mankind. We will learn more about the universe and our place in it by going there, not by sitting at home contemplating our navels.  Its our very nature to explore, to learn new things, expand our horizons. 

 

17 hours ago, birdguy said:

But whoever is paying for it, and remember the money still comes from the people who buy their products, I think it would be better spend solving earth's problems first. 

 

Private companies are allowed to spend their profit how they like. You don't walk into a sweet shop and complain because the sweet shop owner spent his profit going on holiday to Majorca. Diverting a private companies profit elsewhere and rendering them unprofitable would obviously have a detrimental impact and result in the failure of said company and loss of employment. The modern world needs access to space, access to space to monitor the environment, to save lives by providing accurate satellite navigation, worldwide reliable communication. Space is the backbone of modern communication technologies. Many of the activates that make modern life possible are as a result of access to space. When we make that cheaper, cleaner, easier its beneficial. The new, helpful technologies that will result from regular trips to the Moon, and Mars will be quite profound and aid mankind immeasurably. Countless benefits came from the Apollo program for example. There are other reasons of course that make going back to the Moon and going to mars pretty much essential, but they are political and we cant debate them here. 

 

18 hours ago, birdguy said:

But hey, I'm just a cranky old man so have fun thinking about going to Mars and putting bases on the moon.  I'll have already said bye-bye to all of it.

 

Unless David Sinclair makes another breakthrough in his investigations into Sirtuins, and life spans are boosted by another 100 years. 😲 But that a discussion for another thread.