What part of space travel excites/intrigues you most?

[fury]

I'm not talking like space travel as in 2-3 people get trained for a year and fly a space ship up into space and back, I mean the potential for anyone to be able to go out into space some day. What part of that potential excites you the most?

For me, I'm most intrigued by the vast, almost endless list of options for exploration, expansion of the human race (in knowledge and in space to live), and contact with other species.

 

[Gonz]

watch the first 3 or so minutes of "First Contact". That explains everything.

 

[unclehobart]

I'm just tickled to think that there is somewhere out there where the Moral Majoriy can't find me and tell me what not to do.

 

[Luis G]

i'd like to go to the Orion nebula (horsehead ? ).

 

[Professur]

Zero gravity getting it on.

Was there ever any doubt?

 

[Aunty Em]

Zero gravity getting it on.

An interesting notion.

But if they really plan long spaceflights in the future they will have to invent some form of artificial gravitation or the calcium depletion from human bones suffered under prolonged weightless conditions may make it impossible for the crew to return to earth, or set foot on any other planet for that matter.

Rather limits your options for exploration don't you think?

 

[Shadowfax]

Yeah, when you look at the excersize the Mir crew had to do when on "just" 1 year missions to stay fit
TWO hours of hard workout, just to keep those bones and muscles in shape...

They are working on some ideas to develop a spacecraft that rotates around its own axe, to ensure gravitational forces onboard the spacecraft
But those ideas already existed a LONG time ago, Wernher von Braun developed a concept for a space station which would do that, back in the 1960's
Less advanced than current plans, but the basic idea was created back then

 

[HeXp£Øi±]

Yes if the human race makes it that far i'm sure centripetal force is the key to bodies staying healthy. However were looking at a very very very long time before we make any type of journey. When you go, you're not going to be prepared to go to just one star but to tens of thouseands. Unless we actually picked up a signal from another planet and knew precisely where they lived.

 

[fury]

Shadowfax, a good portion of the space station would be unusable, unless nobody planned on moving to the other half of the station very much. Firstly, at the very center of the station, there'd be no gravity because that's the axis, so you'd be afloat while the space station rotates around you. Secondly, the human body likely can't handle very well the constant change of gravitational forces as you move around to different parts of the station. Your equilibrium would be on the fritz, you'd most likely puke all the time. There's no guarantee of the gravitational forces remaining the same even if you never move out of one spot, because of stuff like friction from space dust, space station getting shattered by a piece of flying junk, etc...

 

[Aunty Em]

space station getting shattered by a piece of flying junk, etc...

Yeah - it's one hell of a junkyard up there, there's always the possibility of being hit by something "dropped" by someone on a previous mission - you would've thought we'd have learnt not to litter by now...

 

[fury]

No kidding... It's not enough that we have to mindlessly pollute our own planet, but now we have to pollute the space around it.

How retarded is that?