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This House would explore the universe

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This House would explore the universe

idea
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This topic is for discussion about the debatabase debate 'This House would explore the universe'. Feel free to discuss whether you agree with the points in the debate or not, what changes you would make to the debate, whether there are any additions that are necessary etc.

47 weeks 5 days ago
leopoldx
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What is the whole point of going to the universe? To go to the universe requires a tremendous amount of effort and money. Economically, the costs of exploring the universe compared to the benefits of the information we gain is too high. Not only is the cost a problem, but also the harm to the enviroment. When we launch a spacecraft and it burns through the ozone layer, it damages the atmosphere. Rather than focusing on launching spacecraft, we should work on technolgies that explore the distant world without space travel.

47 weeks 5 days ago
KateDebate
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leopoldx wrote:
Economically, the costs of exploring the universe compared to the benefits of the information we gain is too high.

There have been many benefits, including many unintentional ones, to the space race between the US and USSR so it is likely that further exploration of the universe will bring other benefits; technologies adapted from space missions to consumer products.

We cant explore the universe without getting through the atmosphere - the answer is of course observatories but today all the biggest and best telescopes are ones that are in space so suffer from the same disadvantages of having to get through the atmosphere. Those that are on the ground suffer other disadvantages such as distortion from the atmosphere.

47 weeks 2 days ago
DerpyMcAwesomePants Lovely
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Hey, He has a point. So cuddles?

30 weeks 6 days ago
Alex Helling
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Thanks for pointing this out, we have now fixed the problem!

30 weeks 6 days ago
eldongirl59
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leopoldx wrote:
What is the whole point of going to the universe? To go to the universe requires a tremendous amount of effort and money. Economically, the costs of exploring the universe compared to the benefits of the information we gain is too high. Not only is the cost a problem, but also the harm to the enviroment. When we launch a spacecraft and it burns through the ozone layer, it damages the atmosphere. Rather than focusing on launching spacecraft, we should work on technolgies that explore the distant world without space travel.

The point is we can find quite a bit!

3 weeks 6 days ago
J Campos
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Exploration of the universe has been a hot topic since the Space Race. The conflict between the USSR and the USA lead to the time of the most active space exploration from Sputnik in 1957 to our first steps on out moon Luna in 1969. While there has still been progress in the area of space exploration it has definately slowed. If this trend of space exploration had continnued I do not doubt that we would have touched a man down by now, if not within five years. Our solar system aside, the exploration that has been done has been quite minimal. The five space craft en route to escape the solar system include Pioneer 10 and 11, Voyager 1 and 2, and New Horizons. There are no plans to release any other probes outside of our solar system. Our knowledge of the universe stems mostly from what we can observe electromagnetically. The inability to interact with other celestial bodies is something that can be changed if only we chaged our views towards space exploration. To explore space it would make the most sense to scatter probes made in bulk throughout the universe letting some fail but the ones that succeed report findings.

43 weeks 19 hours ago
Alex Helling
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J Campos wrote:

The inability to interact with other celestial bodies is something that can be changed if only we chaged our views towards space exploration. To explore space it would make the most sense to scatter probes made in bulk throughout the universe letting some fail but the ones that succeed report findings.

I am all for it, but I dont think it will happen because of the combination of time and money. Space exploration such as this is mostly government funded, with squeezes on budgets it is difficult to justify missions within the solar system let alone out of it. The problem is that governments work on election cycles (and often business works on even shorter cycles) but any probe to explore outside the solar system is going to take years to even get outside the solar system and decades to get to another star so there is no prospect of payback for those who authorise such a project.

30 weeks 6 days ago
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