Space Exploration - Should We or Not?

[WickedFog]

I watch a lot of science stuff from documentaries to movies and YouTube vids, particularly Mark Rober and Learn Something New Every Day. And I remember seeing this Hubble telescope image from years ago, but I just saw something that explained how big this image actually is in our sky if we were to look up at it. Any guesses? Oh, and all but 3 of these things in this image are galaxies, with billions of stars in each. Can you find the 3 single stars in this?

I am fascinated by all this stuff, and hope we get someone walking on Mars in my lifetime. I have seen somewhere in the 2030's they hope to make that happen. In fact, they are working on the way to get there right now. Breydon and I have our names going to Mars in 2026, which is pretty cool. You can put your name up there too here...
https://mars.nasa.gov/participate/send-your-name/

But despite all the cool things out there to discover, there are also a lot of people that feel we are wasting money trying to get to the next rock up there. I mean, just to get to the next solar system is ridiculously far in our future. And there aren't many options in our solar system to step foot on, so some feel "why bother"? What are your thoughts? Any other science nerds here?

Oh, the answer to how big the image is in our sky above, if you held a dime out at arms length, it would fit inside this red dot.

 

[tntpoof]

yah a one way journey to mars. send the high 1 ..lol thats a direct jab,

 

[pahiker]

The earth won't support human life forever, but that end time is a long way off. The long term survival of the species means we need to be able to not just travel off planet to explore, but to create permanent and self sustaining settlements on other planets/moons/asteroids. The big wildcard is whether we kill ourselves off before that happens.

 

[Doom!]

I love space exploration, We have so much technology because of it, but I don't think Mars is feasible for long term, the radiation is pretty harsh.

 

[Xraycer]

The earth won't support human life forever, but that end time is a long way off. The long term survival of the species means we need to be able to not just travel off planet to explore, but to create permanent and self sustaining settlements on other planets/moons/asteroids. The big wildcard is whether we kill ourselves off before that happens.

Or we get struck by a big ass meteor, which could potentially happen at any point in time. End game!

 

[Doom!]

Or we get struck by a big ass meteor, which could potentially happen at any point in time. End game!

See ya, puny earthlings, it's an ugly planet, a bug planet!

 

[tntpoof]

humans can not survive anywhere but earth simple fact.. ..but best wishes to all..lol..it would take 100;s and 100's of years of gene splicing to achieve the live on another world thing.. we could bio change a world but then there's the gravity and orbit to contend with

 

[Tunedfrog]

Other worlds would be impossible, there are no hobby shops.

 

[Iowa crawler]

Rocket ships make noise and have fire coming out the back. Girls are impressed with guys that drive rocket ships that make noise and have fire coming out the back.

Nuff said.