/sci/ - Science & Math

You wanted to ride a bitching space ship.

Meet aliens.

And be a goddamn jedi (don't you dare try to lie and say you didn't want a lightsaber).

But instead you're here. Apologize to your five year old self right this instant!

>>4068683
Because, money.

I still want to explore space, but I'm waiting for commercial spaceflight while I work on other science goals.

Because we collectively allocate next to nothing for the exploration of space, the development of infrastructure to regularly explore space, or the research of necessary tech.

I never wanted to, because I knew the kind of bullshit physical training astronauts had to go through.

Because unfortunately space exploration isn't like that in real life. Our bitching spaceships are cramped capsules, we've found no aliens, the only planets within our reach are barren deserts and the one celestial body we CAN reach that likely does have life is an ice covered ocean world, requiring technologies best developed through exploration of our own ocean. At any rate for that mission it will be robots, not humans, making first contact.

If you want to go someplace exotic and hostile to humans but which is brimming with undiscovered life, someplace that doesn't disappoint the way space does, then you don't need a rocket. It's pointed in the wrong direction entirely.

>>4068744
Why would it be bullshit, given the current standard in space travel industry it's quite expected that you can endure some stress on your body if you want to travel in space. If you want to collapse 250km above the surface with nobody to help you, no thanks. Negative publicity isn't really welcome these days.

I hope that some positive changes happen in USA's politics. If they don't, we are pretty much screwed. Ocean exploration is in the same shithole, although they have some advantages, main one being that you don't have to launch your ass 200km above the surface.

I never cared about being an astronaut when I was a kid. It was only after learning more about space, as an adult, that I grew to love it. I would do anything to be one of those men in the cramped capsules and bulky suits, rocketing out into the great unknown. The most barren of worlds would be like paradise, for me.

Unfortunately, this dream is all but impossible. Only a handful of men have gone into space, and only a handful are likely to follow in the near future. Only the luckiest and most exceptional people will be able to go into space in my lifetime. Even if I devoted my life to it, I would never make the grade. If I worked hard and set myself towards it, I could get a job at some space agency - maybe. But I would forever be confined to the sidelines, as I am now.

It's the sad truth.

>>4068784
>Ocean exploration is in the same shithole

That's true. We can have some solidarity over that. The entire deep submergence program is run on 3 million, NOAA's total annual budget is 5.5 million.

Sometimes I like to imagine what the NOAA could do with NASA's budget. Pic related.

Fuck it, I never wanted to go to space. In fact, I had nightmares about having to go into space. I would be terrified as fuck, thousands of miles away from earth. stuck in a suit, floating in a cramped space, knowing if the slightest thing went wrong I could be stuck there forever, never to see my family again. Also

Now here's that same picture with the current budget.

Sad frog dot jay pee gee.

>>4068812
>>4068806
Looks much prettier as untouched nature.

Just kidding, I'd love you to have NASA's budget if you can promise me not to become as shitty as NASA. Bureaucracy is killing the agency and sucking up loads of that (now reduced, thanks Obama!) budget money.

Oh boy is the stupid fucker with is pressurized tubes

fuck your aquanaut bullshit.

>>4068822

I'd get private companies to pay for it by first performing a census of known hydrothermal vents, determining which are most common and therefore not scientifically valuable and granting those companies mining rights. Not to all of them, but a number agreed upon that would compensate them reasonably for the expense of the research station. The rest of the vents would be preserved for study, declared off limits for mining for the foreseeable future.

In this manner you get the oversight of a private corporation and thus the cost efficiency while *selectively* opening up seafloor resources for harvesting in a way that prevents scientifically valuable sites from being destroyed.

My thinking is that we can't deny them access to all the vents, so better to negotiate a deal that advances deep sea science while also clearing away some of the red tape for would-be vent miners.

>>4068831

>Derpa herp durr

I love you too.

10 reasons why we will never have what Mad Scientist wants

1.Its stupid
2.Its cold,dark and wet
3.No life down their to eat
4.Not romantic like space
5.Can't deploy nukes
6.Expensive and dangerous
7.Its really stupid
8.Risky investment for private industry
9.Screw Mad Scientist
10.Screw Mad Scientist

>>4068822

Actually Obama increased the NASA budget last year.

http://io9.com/5518187/obamas-plans-for-nasa-mars-by-2030-6-billion-budget-increase-today

The budget cuts occurred this year, and were the work of congress, not Obama.

http://blog.al.com/space-news/2011/07/bolden_tells_congress_looming.html

Somehow that dude finds a way to get blamed for everything the other guys do. It's like his super power.

>>4068846
That's the most uneducated opinion I've heard in here for a long time.

>>4068846
>4.Not romantic like space

My ass.

>>4068848
I actually didn't know that, thanks for sharing!

>>4068859
>knows that rest of list is unfalsifiable
>knows that underwater habitats are unreliable

That rhymes,and you know it,ADMIT IT!

>>4068872
>>knows that underwater habitats are unreliable

Name one that has ever flooded, imploded or otherwise failed. Even one.

Not romantic like space, he says.

Of all the fucking things to say about it. Not romantic?

I don't EVEN.

>>4068875
Byford Dolphin Diving Bell Disaster

unsafe,untested,un-needed:

>under water habitation

>>4068887

That wasn't an underwater habitat. It wasn't a diving bell, either. It was a decompression chamber, on the deck of a ship. No habitats were involved. It is the kind of accident that can happen any time a decompression chamber is used, which means literally every saturation dive, and it's an accident that to that point was unprecedented in saturation diving history.

>>4068894
tomato tomato

still untested and unsafe

look at all the dead scuba divers and submariners

risky as fuck

no thanks,I'll stick with surface work while you namby pamby "scientists" scuttle around on the sea floor like a bunch of crabs?!.

OP when i was 5 i wanted to be a doctor. later an egyptologist, then a paleontologist. at 11 i found marine geology and didn'tt look back.

living the dream man....been to the bottom of the ocean and it fucking rules.

>>4068900
>still untested and unsafe

We have fifty years of experience operating undersea habitats and none have ever had the kind of failure you're talking about.

>look at all the dead scuba divers and submariners

Scuba divers die because they do stupid shit sometimes if they're new to it and reckless. Submariners die when enemy subs fire torpedos at them. The technology itself is not unsafe.

>>4068901

Mahnigga.jpg

To even glimpse the very bottom is the realization of dreams dating back thousands of years. There were always fewer who looked inward than out, but their passion burned just as brightly, and for their descendants this is a wonderful time to be alive.

Pic extremely related.

Soon, we'll go back there. To that place that has been the Mars of oceanic exploration, which has frustrated every effort to reach it except one. They huddled in a tiny sphere with a cracked window, seeing almost nothing through a sediment cloud they had stirred up. Straight down, linger for twenty minutes and straight up. And that was all, for sixty years. More men went to the moon than went to the Deep.

But we're going back. Not huddled in that sphere, but strapped into the cockpit of magnificent winged machines that will not just timidly visit the Challenger Deep, but master it. Cruising ten miles along the bottom, swooping and spinning, blasting the trench walls with floodlights, recording it all in glorious high definition 3D.

THEN we can go to Europa.

>>4068683
>when you were five
Fuck you, it's still my dream. Not going to happen though. I thought for a long time to actually study engineering an sign up for one of the astronaut selections. Health problems and one sided deafness prevent me from doing so.

>>4068806
>going near a smoker
10/10

>>4068950
uh, you do realize that we can get right up next to them, right? we do all the time in the sub. the gradient between venting fluids and the bottomwater is compressed to less than 10cm. avg bottom temp around vents only goes up maybe a few tenths of a degree, unless you put your temp probe into a chimney. so long as you're not sticking the portholes (which are plastic) into venting fluid, you can safely be right up next to a high-temp chimney. how else do you think we get samples?

I think that madtripfag is a pretty cool guy. Eh explores sea and isn't afraid of anything.

>>4068806
>NOAA's total annual budget is 5.5 billion.

FTFY

I was barely self-aware at that age. I wasn't thinking about the future. The only things I cared for were picture books, legos and drawing.