The Real 7 Wonders Of The World (From raelianews.org)

[studiodekadent]

DISCLAIMER: Although I am not a Raelian and I do not agree with much of their philosophy, I do applaud their reverence for human genius and its products, their atheist and naturalist outlook, and their defense of science.

-ARTICLE BEGINS-

The real 7 Wonders of the World are not made of stones.

More than 100 million people chose to name The Great Wall of China, Rome's Colosseum and India's Taj Mahal among the seven new wonders of the world.

But are the wonders of our modern World really made of stones?

It is understandable that the ancient Greek observers who did the first Wonder’s list in the few centuries BC named buildings like The Great Pyramids of Giza as one of them. But twenty centuries later, the collective human genius has produced much more than these buildings but the public is more trained to admire the beauties of the past than the wonders of today.

Rael has asked Raelians to organize a new survey asking people to vote about the current 7 wonders of the world which should be about science and technology.

“The real 7 wonders of today's world are not at all old stones and ruins from disappeared civilizations... People need to wake up, we are in 2007 !

The real wonders of the world should be selected for example amongst things like the Space Station, the Petronas Tower, the residential artificial islands of Dubai, the Nile river or Three Gorges dam providing electricity to million of peoples, particle accelerators, etc...” declared Rael after reading the results of the vote.

The Raelian philosophy promotes science and the new technologies as they not only liberate mankind from the myth of god, and free us from our age old fears, from disease, death but they also free us from the sweat of labor. Should we elect a wonder for the amount of labor involved or for the ingeniousness?

Here are some food for thoughts...

1. International Space Station

Since 1961, more than 400 human beings have ventured into space. Now aboard the International Space Station, astronauts are working to improve life on Earth and extend life beyond our home planet.

2. Three Gorges Dam

The largest hydro-electric power station in the world

The Three Gorges Dam is a Chinese hydroelectric river dam which spans the Yangtze River in Sandouping, Yichang, Hubei province, China. As of 2007, it is the largest hydroelectric river dam in the world, more than five times the size of the Hoover Dam.

The dam is made of concrete and is about 2335 meters (7660 ft) long, and 185 meters (616 ft) high. For comparison purposes, the tower of Golden Gate Bridge is 227.4 meters. The dam is 115 meters wide on the bottom and 40 meters wide on top. The whole project moved about 134 million cubic meters of earth, used 28 million cubic meters of concrete and 463 thousand tons of steel which is enough to build 63 Eiffel Towers. The reservoir is over 600 km long and can hold 39.3 cubic kilometer of water. The total capacity will reach 22 500 MW and claim the title to being the largest hydro-electric power station in the world.

3. Taipei 101

Taipei 101 has been the world's tallest building since 2004. It is a 101-floor landmark skyscraper located in Taipei City, Republic of China (Taiwan)

4. Palm Islands

The Palm Islands in Dubai are the three largest artificial islands in the world.

The Palm Islands are located off the coast of The United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf and will add 520 km of beaches to the city of Dubai.

5. Internet

Global interconnection of information and services

6. Nanolithography

Fabrication of nanometer-scale structures

7. Google search

Organizing the world's information and making it universally

accessible and useful!

soon more details available on www.realwondersoftheworld.org

(photos at) http://raelianews.org/news.php?extend.231

[BaalChatzaf]

.....studiodekadent refers to a Raelian article .....

The Raelian philosophy promotes science and the new technologies as they not only liberate mankind from the myth of god, and free us from our age old fears, from disease, death but they also free us from the sweat of labor. Should we elect a wonder for the amount of labor involved or for the ingeniousness?

Here are some food for thoughts...

1. International Space Station

Since 1961, more than 400 human beings have ventured into space. Now aboard the International Space Station, astronauts are working to improve life on Earth and extend life beyond our home planet.

The ISS (or alpha shit can one, as I call it) is an overpriced and badly designed make work project. It is a criminal abuse of the taxpayers money. It was originally priced at $4,000,000,000 dollars. It has so far cost more than ten times as much, an amount far in excess of the inflation rate.

Why am I sour on ISS (alpha shit can one)? First of all it is a low orbit vessel and has to be frequently boosted to maintain its orbit. At its altitude it is seriously slowed by friction with the earth's atmosphere. So why is it so low? Because its construction was limited by another abomination, the space shuttle which is built (and badly at that) using 1970's technology. We have not had a heavy lifting high altitude manned vessel since the Apollo which had seven hundred tons free board lifting capacity. The "space shuttle" has thirty five ton's free board capacity. It takes twenty space shuttle lifts to get seven hundred tons into orbit, and the shuttle does not have enough energy to achieve an altitude greater than about four hundred miles.

So one bad piece of technology has crippled another bad piece of technology.

Now for my main gripe. The manned space program, dollar for dollar has not been scientifically productive. Most of the cutting edge empirical scientific advances has been achieved by the unmanned space programs (NASA, ESA and the Russian program). The various telescopes including Hubble, Chandra, SOHO, Spitzer have provided much more scientific data than all of the manned programs put together and have cost but a fraction of the manned projects. The GPS has earned its keep and more than earned its keep.

You want a Wonder? I propose GPS rather than Alpha Shit Can One.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[studiodekadent]

I agree that government space programs are innefficient, but the reason the ISS was listed was because of what it represents, just as Rand admired Apollo 11 even though I am sure that was a phenomenal taxpayer waste.

[BaalChatzaf]

I agree that government space programs are innefficient, but the reason the ISS was listed was because of what it represents, just as Rand admired Apollo 11 even though I am sure that was a phenomenal taxpayer waste.

What it represents is what is IS. Bad engineering. Poor design. Piece of shit. Do you know what a camel is? It is a horse designed by a government agency.

There is a biographical history you should read. It is entitled -Slide Rule- by Nevil Shute Norway who is the same Nevil Shute (nom de plume) who wrote -On the Beach- and -No Highway in the Sky-. it is the true story of the airships R100 and R101. R100 was designed and built by the -private- firm which became Vickers and R101 was built by the government. R100 flew successfully to Canada and back to England. R101 which was ill designed, underpowered and had a pitiful free board lifting capacity crashed and was destroyed on its maiden flight. Fortunately the minister of aviation was one of those killed.

R101 was the space shuttle of its day. Badly designed, poor cargo lifting capability, delivered late and way over budget. It had bells and whistles and whatever doodads the minister of aviation decided should be tacked on. What is represented was Sturgeon's Principle --- 85 percent of everything is either mediocre or shit.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Dragonfly]

Do you know what a camel is? It is a horse designed by a government agency.

That is a bad metaphor, as it suggests that a horse is somehow "superior" to a camel. That is comparing apples and oranges. Or comparing horses and camels.

[Brant Gaede]

I read years ago that all the blueprints and tech data for the Apollo program were destroyed so it can't be reconstituted in any form.

--Brant

Edited July 11, 2007 by Brant Gaede

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

For desert life, camels are vastly superior to horses.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

I read years ago that all the blueprints and tech data for the Apollo program were destroyed so it can't be reconstituted in any form.

--Brant

A new generation of engineers will have to be tax-financed to -recreate- a heavy lifter. However, the original Apollo design would have required massive modification to make use of new technologies and new materials. I expect advanced carbon fiber technology will have a place in new space craft. Btw, Boeing has come out with a new commercial airplane made primarily of high strength, low weight carbon fiber. Carbon fiber and filaments were not developed by government funded programs. They were developed (for profit, thank God) in the private sector.

Yet another Wonder. A man made fiber almost as strong as natural silk which has a hundred to a thousand times the tensile strength of steel threads.

I wish people would get out of the habit of glorifying the manned space program. It was started for the wrong reason, to wit, to prove that we have bigger dicks than the Commies. It was not developed for profit. Yup, we beat those Godless Commie Atheists to the Moon. So what? Laser reflectors (which are the only useful remnant of the moon landings could have been placed for a fraction of the cost by unmanned space vessels. That footprint on the Moon has cost us dearly. It prevented private development of manned space craft and diverted engineering talent from the private sector into government service. A totally bad outcome.

You want Wonders? Everyday the private sector produces them in grand abundance. This fixation on Pyramids (or their equivalents) is both stupid and resource diverting. The Pyramids were the government make work programs of their day. They were essentially burial plots. And for all the stone that was quarried the tombs of the pharo were quickly looted, by private, for profit, grave robbers. Capitalism triumphed over government service. The glorification Massive Projects reinforces the mistaken notion that Bigger is Better.

Ba'al Chat

Edited July 11, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I find the footprint of man on the moon to be priceless, especially at that time in history. It is an irreplaceable and unrepeatable image of the heroic, productive, rational spirit of man.

In my view of value, it came cheap.

Michael

[Matus1976]

I agree with BaalChatzaf's assessment of the ISS, but not on his assessment of the Apollo program.

The ISS is a spectacular waste, the SkyLab space station, which was essentially the feul tank for the Apollo Moon missions turned into a 3 story space station, had more space in it than the ISS is planned to have. Consider this excerpt from Robert Zubrin's "Entering Space"

"The need to increase the launch manifest to justify Shuttle economics played a central role in the decision to initiate the Space Station program. In the early 1980s, NASA Deputy Administrator Hans Mark saw clearly that achieving a shuttle launch rate of twenty-five per year would be impossible without the manifest created by the construction and supply needs of a permanently orbiting outpost, which he already supported as a facility for in space scientific research (Mark did not believe the forty launches per year touted by earlier shuttle advocates was feasible under any conditions). Based on this (probably accurate assessment), Mark convinced first NASA Administrator James Beggs and then the Reagan White House of the need for a space station program. The need to generate a large shuttle manifest also helps to explain the bizarre nature of the engineering designs that have guided the space station program since its inceptions.

The right way to build a Space Station is to build a heavy-lift launch vehicle and use it to launch the station in a single piece. The United States launched the Skylab space station in this manner in 1973. Skylab, which contained more living space than the currently planned International Space Station (ISS), was built in one piece and launched in a single day. As a result, the entire Skylab program, end to end from 1968 to 1974, including development, build, launch, and operation was conducted at a cost in today's money of about $4 Billion, roughly one-eighth of the anticipated cost of the ISS. In contrast, the Space Station has gone through numerous designs (of which the current ISS is the latest), all of which called for over thirty Shuttle Launches, each delivering an element that would be added into an extended ticky-tacky structure on orbit. Since no one really knows how to do this, such an approach has caused the program development cost and schedule to explode. In 1993, the recently appointed NASA Administrator Dan Goldin attempted to deal with this situation be ordering a total reassessment of the Space Station's design. Three teams, labeled A, B, and C, were assigned to develop complete designs for three distinct Space Station concepts. Teams A and B took two somewhat different approaches to the by then standard thirty-Shuttle-launch/orbit assembly concept, whereas team C developed a Skylab-type design that would be launched in a single throw of a heavy lift vehicle (a "Shuttle C" consisting of the Shuttle launch stack but without the reusable orbiter). The three approaches were then submitted to a blue ribbon panel organized by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for competitive judgment. The M.I.T. panel ruled decisively in favor of option C (a fact that demonstrated only their common sense, not their brilliance, as C was much cheaper, simpler, safer, more reliable, and more capable and would have given the nation a have-lift launcher as a bonus). However, based on the need to create Shuttle Launches as well as a desire to have the Space Station design that would allow modular additions by international partners, Vice President Al Gore and House Space Subcommittee chairman George Brown overruled the M.I.T. panel. By political fiat, these gentlemen forced NASA to accept option A, and the space agency has had to struggle with the task of building the Space Station on that basis ever since. The result has been a further set of cost and schedule overruns, the blame for which has been consistently placed on various NASA middle managers instead of those really responsible."

Robert Zubrin - Entering Space - page 28-29

[BaalChatzaf]

I find the footprint of man on the moon to be priceless, especially at that time in history. It is an irreplaceable and unrepeatable image of the heroic, productive, rational spirit of man.

In my view of value, it came cheap.

Michael

And it was paid for by stolen money. Every cent. Given how engineering talent was diverted from more productive ends I would say it cost us dearly.

In the days of ancient Egypt, Pyramid building diverted talent from damming the Nile to control the flooding. An earthen dam near the headwater of the Nile would have been a far greater monument and Wonder than the Pyramid of Kufu.

The Romans built aqueducts and water tunnels. These were Wonders and they were useful as well. The Roman roads were Wonders. They still last even to this day. They are better roads in some respects than modern highways. The Romans built more and better than the Egyptians but they do not register on the Wonder-Scale except for the Flavian Ampitheatre (Colloseum).

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

I find the footprint of man on the moon to be priceless, especially at that time in history. It is an irreplaceable and unrepeatable image of the heroic, productive, rational spirit of man.

In my view of value, it came cheap.

Michael

And it was paid for by stolen money. Every cent. Given how engineering talent was diverted from more productive ends I would say it cost us dearly.

In the days of ancient Egypt, Pyramid building diverted talent from damming the Nile to control the flooding. An earthen dam near the headwater of the Nile would have been a far greater monument and Wonder than the Pyramid of Kufu.

The Romans built aqueducts and water tunnels. These were Wonders and they were useful as well. The Roman roads were Wonders. They still last even to this day. They are better roads in some respects than modern highways. The Romans built more and better than the Egyptians but they do not register on the Wonder-Scale except for the Flavian Ampitheatre (Colloseum).

Ba'al Chatzaf

The war in Iraq. 12 billion dollars a month. Every penny stolen.

Could there be a lesson here?

--Brant

[Brant Gaede]

Landing men on the moon and returning them to earth was a great and glorious human achievement.

In the nature of things it was too soon, too expensive and a dead end.

I knew it at the time.

Let's not do the same and send men to Mars.

Send WOMEN!! :devil: :devil: :devil:

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

The war in Iraq. 12 billion dollars a month. Every penny stolen.

Could there be a lesson here?

--Brant

Yes. If we had nuked the country in 2003 we would have saved a lot of money (and American lives too!). We already paid for the planes, missiles and bombs. Never send a human to do a job which can be better done by a machine.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bob,

So, do I gather that your initial quibble about the cost/benefit of the moon landing was that it cost to much stolen money? According to your previous argument, you had much better uses for this stolen money. Now, you complain about stolen money.

Your criteria seem to be selectively applied and not consistent.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Bob,

So, do I gather that your initial quibble about the cost/benefit of the moon landing was that it cost to much stolen money? According to your previous argument, you had much better uses for this stolen money. Now, you complain about stolen money.

Your criteria seem to be selectively applied and not consistent.

Michael

The Apollo program regardless of how it was funded was bullshit ab initio. It was undertaken to prove that America had larger genitals than did Communist Russia. It was an unfortunate waste of resources, stolen or not. Every cent that went into the manned mission to the Moon which lacked any kind of future extension could have been better spent on computer technology and satellites, preferably built by private companies along with their rocket lifters.

There were no plans to build bases on the Moon which could have had some military use (think of taking the high ground) or building telescopes galore on the far side of the Moon where Earth glare would not interfere with seeing. No such plans were even contemplated. It was all about beating the Commies to the Moon. Boo Hiss I say.

Until there are some radical breakthroughs in propulsion manned missions are a waste of time. The current burn and coast modality means long missions in space with exposure to cosmic rays and charged particle emissions from the Sun. A six month voyage in free fall will leave the crews of a Mars bound vessel with twenty percent bone loss by the time they arrive. Exposure to solar and cosmic radiation will almost certainly doom them to cancer (there is no magnetic field Out There to protect the vessel). Until these problems are addressed manned missions are suicide missions taken for the Greater Patriotic and Political Glory. A very bad reason.

You want Wonders? How about an ion propulsion system that will permit accelerated travel all the way to destination instead of free fall. How about propulsion units so powerful we can build large ships with enough shielding to protect the crew from radiation? Is that a Wonder?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I find the footprint of man on the moon to be priceless, especially at that time in history. It is an irreplaceable and unrepeatable image of the heroic, productive, rational spirit of man.

In my view of value, it came cheap.

I stand by this.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Bob,

So, do I gather that your initial quibble about the cost/benefit of the moon landing was that it cost to much stolen money? According to your previous argument, you had much better uses for this stolen money. Now, you complain about stolen money.

Your criteria seem to be selectively applied and not consistent.

Michael

The Apollo program regardless of how it was funded was bullshit ab initio. It was undertaken to prove that America had larger genitals than did Communist Russia. It was an unfortunate waste of resources, stolen or not. Every cent that went into the manned mission to the Moon which lacked any kind of future extension could have been better spent on computer technology and satellites, preferably built by private companies along with their rocket lifters.

There were no plans to build bases on the Moon which could have had some military use (think of taking the high ground) or building telescopes galore on the far side of the Moon where Earth glare would not interfere with seeing. No such plans were even contemplated. It was all about beating the Commies to the Moon. Boo Hiss I say.

Until there are some radical breakthroughs in propulsion manned missions are a waste of time. The current burn and coast modality means long missions in space with exposure to cosmic rays and charged particle emissions from the Sun. A six month voyage in free fall will leave the crews of a Mars bound vessel with twenty percent bone loss by the time they arrive. Exposure to solar and cosmic radiation will almost certainly doom them to cancer (there is no magnetic field Out There to protect the vessel). Until these problems are addressed manned missions are suicide missions taken for the Greater Patriotic and Political Glory. A very bad reason.

You want Wonders? How about an ion propulsion system that will permit accelerated travel all the way to destination instead of free fall. How about propulsion units so powerful we can build large ships with enough shielding to protect the crew from radiation? Is that a Wonder?

Ba'al Chatzaf

I believe atomic propulsion is possible.

I suppose a spacecraft could be built that creates artificial gravity.

Cosmic rays can't be shielded?

It was all so easy on Star Trek, altho I never understood how they withstood all that acceleration/deceleration. They did bounce around a bit when under attack.

--Brant

Edited July 11, 2007 by Brant Gaede

[BaalChatzaf]

I suppose a spacecraft could be built that creates artificial gravity.

Cosmic rays can't be shielded?

It was all so easy on Star Trek, although I never understood how they withstood all that acceleration/deceleration. They did bounce around a bit when under attack.

--Brant

There is no artificial gravity. Gravitation is curvature of the spacetime manifold caused by mass or energy. The only artificial gravity (so called) is acceleration of the vessel or spinning part of the vessel to produce centrifugal acceleration.

Cosmic rays can be blocked, but it takes heavy shielding material which our current means of propulsion (rockets) cannot readily accommodate. Likewise we cannot build vessels large enough to have a wide diameter section to spin to produce the centrifugal force as a substitute for gravitation.

There was a lot of nonsense on Star Trek. Take as entertainment, no science.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Richard Uhler]

[.... Likewise we cannot build vessels large enough to have a wide diameter section to spin to produce the centrifugal force as a substitute for gravitation.

Why not? If the ship was assembled in orbit and a landing craft included for use at the end destination, couldn't it be built as large as was needed (given sufficient funding, of course)?

Edited July 12, 2007 by Richard Uhler

[BaalChatzaf]

[.... Likewise we cannot build vessels large enough to have a wide diameter section to spin to produce the centrifugal force as a substitute for gravitation.

Why not? If the ship was assembled in orbit and a landing craft included for use at the end destination, couldn't it be built as large as was needed (given sufficient funding, of course)?

Using the Space Shittle (the tiled abomination which kills crews) it would take many expensive flights to build a very large vessel with a big enough section to rotate for centrifugal force (i.e. artificial gravity). We can't afford it. Better to develop a new kind of propulsions system which would permit acceleration all the way to destination. Would would not need 1 g either. An acceleration of a half g or even a quarter g would prevent most of the bone loss associated with zero g flight. Our current propulsion technology is really not good for long flights (say to Mars). It is alright for flights to the Moon, which is only four days away. The gravity on the Moon (one sixth g) is sufficient for staying healthy and habitats can be built on the Moon to shield against solar mass emission and cosmic rays.

The real problem (besides zero g travel) is solar and cosmic radiation. One a vessel travels outside the magnetosphere it is exposed to heavy and (in the middle and long run) fatal radiation. Our species evolved on a planet with a strong magnetosphere and we are not biologically adapted to travel in open space for long periods of time.

As things stand, long term manned expeditions to Mars is out of the question. Not only do we not have the vessels to do it, but we have no assurance that once our people get to Mars they can "live off the land". The first requirement for long term encampment is water. Sufficient water has yet to be found on Mars. The same could be said of the Moon. Unless we can find water we have no way of establishing a lodgment on either Mars or the Moon.

That is why manned space travel is NOT like initial human travel from one continent to another. Humans were able to endure journeys lasting months upon the ocean (they could carry enough water). Once they got to their destinations they were still on the the same planet and their destinations were habitable.

Let's face it. We are Children of Earth biologically and physiologically. Unless we can carry Earth environment with us until we reach a destination we are stymied. And once there if we cannot "live off the land" we are also stymied. That is why space travel is NOT like earlier earth travels. If we cannot find habitation off planet then we are not going to be able to spread out.

The kind of technology we see portrayed in Star Trek with engines able to produce virtually unlimited amounts of energy simply does not exist and we don't even have a glimmer of getting to such technology using current physical theories. Producing gobs of energy by matter-anti matter annihilation is ... well its science fiction. Producing very small amounts of anti-matter is extremely expensive. It can only be done in very large and high energy particle accelerators. Building the equivalent of Fermi Lab in space just ain't going to happen with any science either known or contemplated. With the completion of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at C.E.R.N. we are at the engineering and economic limits of particle accelerators which means we are at the limits of producing anti-matter. All the natural anti-matter was annihilated billyuns and billyuns of years ago. Artificially produced anti-matter is very expensive to make. We cannot afford to make much of it.

Our technology and science is capable of producing unmanned vessels and machines. We have done so with rather good success. The most profitable use of unmanned vehicles is the launching of communication devices. We can and have constructed orbiting habitats but they must be inside the magnetosphere to protect the folks who live on them. If we make large enough habitats we can build them with rotating modules to provide centrifugal force as artificial gravity. Also they are close enough to home so that water can be brought up to replace any that is lost in recycling. Water replacement become infeasible even for establishing lodging on the Moon. If we don't find water there, then we cannot build permanent habitations there. We are Children of the Oceans. We evolved from water dwelling organisms and water we must have to live.

Let's face it. We are not biologically fit for extensive space travel. Unless we change biologically we aren't going anywhere on a long term basis. Perhaps the future of space travel is not only dependent on finding better propulsion systems but also on mutating ourselves biologically. That is how we moved from the seas to land. We would have to develop bodies that do not degrade physiologically in low gravity conditions and that would be able to stand cosmic rays and charged particle emissions from the Sun. We also have another problem for very long term space travel: We are too short lived. Given life spans of the order of a hundred or even two hundred years, we are not going to live near other stars. Even if we could build ships that could travel at a tenth the speed of light it would take forty years to get to the nearest star system (Alpha Centuri). and once we got there what would we do? We don't know that there are any planets there on which our kind can survive.

We can do some things in near space but long distance manned journeys are beyond our reach until we live for thousands of years. That would require mutating our biology. We would have to breed Methusalah. That might be doable. As it stands, given our biological nature and the resources we have, manned space colonization is not in our future. Short trips maybe. Or round trips of short enough duration maybe. But no habitations for us on other planets in this solar system. Mars is the only planet that might be terraformed and that is a stretch. If we don't find water there, then forget about it. Our long term future is on this planet to which we are properly adapted.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

We are obviously already on a spaceship, of course.

Even if we had the technology to go to the stars one'd have to be nuts to get on board.

We might someday send out unmanned spaceships with human DNA--or something--electronically recorded and have the spaceship mother it into human beings who then colonize the galaxy. Might take 3/4 of a billion years.

That's why we are the only intelligent, conceptual life in the galaxy: the aliens aren't here--or they are too smart to bother with such nonsense.

I think we will self-evolve into something none of us would recognize as human and perhaps something it would not care to recognize humans. Maybe this already happened; we just can't see them.

Just having fun.

--Brant

[Matus1976]

The Apollo program regardless of how it was funded was bullshit ab initio. It was undertaken to prove that America had larger genitals than did Communist Russia. It was an unfortunate waste of resources, stolen or not.

It also proved that America could and will dominate space, and that Russia could never compete economically. It was, ultimately, the proposed space based missile defense systems and the requisite costs to the Soviet Union that promulgated their economic collapse. It was not 'to prove america hard larger genatalia' but to prove that in every area the US could defeat the Soviet Union. It is the moral obligation of a government to deal the best blow against the enemy of it's people that it can, defeating the Soviet Union in space based technology was critical to precipitating it's economic collapse and subsequently removing them as an enemy threat. Perhaps you think those funds could have been used more wisely to combat this threat, but if you are pretending the that Soviet Communism and its 100+ million murdered this century was not a threat than you are severely mistaken.

Until there are some radical breakthroughs in propulsion manned missions are a waste of time. The current burn and coast modality means long missions in space with exposure to cosmic rays and charged particle emissions from the Sun

There are plenty of plans in the work to create magnetic fields on board in order to divert the paths of charged particles. This is not the show stopper it is made out to be.

A six month voyage in free fall will leave the crews of a Mars bound vessel with twenty percent bone loss by the time they arrive.

Osterperosis medication can be used to combat this, additionally you can use vibrating plates in order to induce bone growth. Bone is piezoelectric, when a stress is placed on it a charge acculumulates and this is where new bone material collects. By vibrating the human body, you perpetually accelerate and decellerate your bones, causing stresses and subsequent bone growth. You can read about Nasa's research into this here

Exposure to solar and cosmic radiation will almost certainly doom them to cancer (there is no magnetic field Out There to protect the vessel).

You can bring a magnetic field with you, you also get a 6 to 8 minute warning from any massive radiation burst (since the charged particles travel slower than they light burst associated with their release from the sum) small heavily shielded "bomb shelters" would be sufficient, as long as the astronauts could climb into them within 6 minutes

Until these problems are addressed manned missions are suicide missions taken for the Greater Patriotic and Political Glory. A very bad reason.

We can all ready address these issues.

You want Wonders? How about an ion propulsion system that will permit accelerated travel all the way to destination instead of free fall.

Though effecient, ion propulsion lacks the impulse required for jaunts around the inner solar system. I suggest reading Robert Zubrin's "The Case for Mars" and his "Mars Direct" plan. Scroll down to page 7

I agree with you that today's space program is attrocious and NASA and it's programs have been stifling development in space technology since Apollo.

Burt Rutan, and his Scaled Composities company of 20 employees, designed, built, tested, and flew to space IN 3 YEARS an entirely new kind of space craft. *that* is a wonder, and it is a wonder today how magnificently wastefull and incompetent NASA is. Ultimately the survival of the human species depends on us migrating out into space.

[Matus1976]

I believe atomic propulsion is possible.

Many phycisits dreamed of Nuclear powered space craft, designers of the Orion envisioned a 10 story tall building with payloads of thousands of tons which could get to Jupiter in a few months. The nuclear test ban treaty killed that. Today there are still a few nuclear engines in the works, the Nuclear Salt Water Rocket engine looks promising, using uranium fission to superheat a salt water propellent, it gets about 10 times the thrust and effeciency that L2H2 rockets get.

I suppose a spacecraft could be built that creates artificial gravity.

You can simulate gravity through acceleration or through rotating. One need not build elaborate ring spaced stations for that though, many plans are in the works to have a 'dumb bell' like module that rotates. An existing craft extends a boom or teather with a counterweight and begins turning.

Also though, you can create 'artificial' gravity through the use of magnetic fields. See examples here where the Nijmegen High Field magnet Labaratory levitated living frogs, crickets, and also strawberries and water in a magnetic field http://www.hfml.ru.nl/froglev.html Almost all mater is diamagnetic, which means it repels magnetic fields, including the matter humans are composed of. Very few things are actually ferro magnetic or para magnetic, which attract magnetic fields. It just the ferro magnetic effect is thousands of times stronger than the diamagnetic. As is demonstrated in this video, a strong magnetic field (16 tesla or more) is enough to counter the mass of this matter in earths magnetic field against the pull of gravity. The frogs and crickets literally 'float' the frog tries to swim in mid air. Astronauts would need to abandon large ferro magnetic objects, but when walking through a large solenoid the would indeed feel a repulsive force that is spread across the entire volume of their body, every molecule and atom, exactly like gravity. Cheap and plentiful power and superconductors would be needed to make such a system feasible, but the technology is promising.

[Richard Uhler]

[.... Likewise we cannot build vessels large enough to have a wide diameter section to spin to produce the centrifugal force as a substitute for gravitation.

Why not? If the ship was assembled in orbit and a landing craft included for use at the end destination, couldn't it be built as large as was needed (given sufficient funding, of course)?

Using the Space Shittle (the tiled abomination which kills crews) it would take many expensive flights to build a very large vessel with a big enough section to rotate for centrifugal force (i.e. artificial gravity). We can't afford it.

etc etc etc

Ba'al Chatzaf

Right. In general I agree with you, especially about the Shuttle; it's the AMC Gremlin of spaceships; it's an eight-track tape deck; it's a Commodore 64; it's bloody ugly. We'd be better off with unmanned cargo pods like the Russians have been using for decades. I don't have the figures but I'd be willing to bet that the cost and trouble of refitting the shuttle inch by inch and tile by tile in between missions and recovering the jettisoned rockets offsets any gain we achieve in using a "reusable" launch vehicle instead of an Atlas booster.

All I was getting at was, is there a specific technical or engineering reason we couldn't make a centrifugal-spin module on a spaceship work, all other things being equal?

My own layman's answer to all of this is ORION. Man oh man, would I love to see Orion fly in my lifetime! I'm not holding my breath, of course.