Young And Old, Come one, come all... Options

[dvandorn]

It has occurred to me, over the past few months, as I see some of the most exciting planetary missions being planned for the 2010s, 2020s and even 2030s, that I may not be around to see some of them.

I just turned 50 years old last month. I was 13 going on 14 when we landed on the Moon, and I'm becoming worried that I may not live to see men walk on the Moon again.

I'm getting definitely concerned that some of these really interesting missions, like the Europa orbiter and the potential Neptune and Uranus orbiters, won't return results until I'm in my 60s, 70s, or even 80s. The target date for the new manned Moon landings, in 2017 (IIRC), will be when I'm 61 going on 62.

Now, I may very well still be around until 2025 or 2030 -- but I'm getting pretty certain that no manned Mars mission is going to be attempted by then. In fact, I'm almost thinking it might be a good idea to die *now* and get reincarnated in a hurry, so I would be about the right age to try and wrangle a seat on the first manned Mars expedition (which I'm beginning to think might not happen until 2035 or so, if it ever happens at all).

So, what do y'all think -- those of you who are young enough, what do you think you'll live to see? And those of you who are older, like me -- what do you think you might miss?

-the other Doug

[Toma B]

I was born on July 1st 1972...My moom says that she held my in hes arms as we watched together final Moon landing in December 1972 (Apollo 17)...I was 5-6 months then...

I would like to see MAN ON THE MOON one more time before I die, but sometimes it seams it does not matter that much anymore...
I would like to see all these things that "other Doug" mentioned before and a LOT MORE but there is this problem that I recently find out about...somebody could say it's not for this forum, but if it's TRUE than it will affect all of us...including maned or unmaned spaceflight just as well as everything else...

I strongly belive in humankinds capability to deal with any problem if it is given enough time to solve it....maybe we are running out of time here....
This is what I'm talking abut...
Somebody please tell me it is NOT TRUE....because I'm really afraid.....

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

With the same as than you, I could say the same things.

So it is with all the great achievements of mankind. The first atomist, the first democrats, had to wait 2000 years to see their intuition confirmed.

And in space, time is still worse. New Horizons (pluto probe) will need 15 years of travel. Would SETI obtain a signal today, we would have to wait tens or hundreds of years to have a reply.

So we just have to be patient and accept that we are only a link in a chain.

A brief glimpse of consciousness between two infinite unknown...

[Omega]

It has occurred to me, over the past few months, as I see some of the most exciting planetary missions being planned for the 2010s, 2020s and even 2030s, that I may not be around to see some of them.

I just turned 50 years old last month.  I was 13 going on 14 when we landed on the Moon, and I'm becoming worried that I may not live to see men walk on the Moon again.

I'm getting definitely concerned that some of these really interesting missions, like the Europa orbiter and the potential Neptune and Uranus orbiters, won't return results until I'm in my 60s, 70s, or even 80s.  The target date for the new manned Moon landings, in 2017 (IIRC), will be when I'm 61 going on 62.

Now, I may very well still be around until 2025 or 2030 -- but I'm getting pretty certain that no manned Mars mission is going to be attempted by then.  In fact, I'm almost thinking it might be a good idea to die *now* and get reincarnated in a hurry, so I would be about the right age to try and wrangle a seat on the first manned Mars expedition (which I'm beginning to think might not happen until 2035 or so, if it ever happens at all).

So, what do y'all think -- those of you who are young enough, what do you think you'll live to see?  And those of you who are older, like me -- what do you think you might miss?

-the other Doug

I was 4 years old during Apollo 11, and have a handful of memories of it. I also remember Apollo 13 (more clearly), and praying with my family for the safe return of the astronauts.

I figured, in my teens, that surely by 1990 there'd be a Moon colony (either completed or aggressively in the works) and the first manned landing on Mars would have occurred. Ha ha.

What do I expect to see? New Horizons/Pluto mission, yes. And a Europa orbiter and/or lander, and also a Neptune mission (orbiter and probes).

I expect [::knock wood::] to see humans on the Moon again, and likely a manned mission to Mars as well.

But of course...who knows (death)?

[Patteroast]

I was born in 1987. That puts me between the Uranus and Neptune Voyager flybys.

What have I seen? Well, not much compared to some people. I think the earliest current mission I remember was Magellan. Kept on on everything since then.. but all I have of the Apollo age are stories and TV shows.

I suppose it's some compensation that I'll probably be seeing more of the future developments than other people here. My hope is maybe I can be a part of some of the missions happening in the 2020s or 2030s. And I really hope to see people on the Moon and on Mars before I die.

[David]

I'm about the median age of users of this site; which means, old enough to remember (barely) the landings of the Vikings on Mars, but not old enough to remember Skylab or Apollo-Soyuz. After Viking, I had the childlike hope that people might land on Mars within a few years, and certainly by that (still) far-distant and magical Year 2000!

But my earliest real memories of manned spaceflight are of tiles falling off the Space Shuttle, endless delays, and Soviet launches that were mentioned (later), but never covered. The Space Shuttle never interested me much. The Voyagers were much better, and for years (through the '80s) there was nothing interesting going on but Voyager, until Voyager II passed Neptune in '89, by which time we finally had Magellan and then Galileo and a series of sometimes successful Mars probes. The last year has been unparallelled in my experience in terms of successful, long-lasting missions and quantity and depth of information available; and I intend to savour it as much as possible, fearing that a time like this may not come again soon.

Of manned spaceflight I have great dreams but low expectations; the reverse, I think, of NASA, which has small dreams and great expectations. I will judge myself lucky if we send a manned mission to some near-earth asteroid before 2060. More likely, the next 30 years will be spent patching up a space station that will be decrepit before it is ever finished; there might be a single flight to the Moon before funding is yanked; and there will be no manned mission to Mars.

Then, maybe circa 2070, people will look back on 100 years of wasted endeavour and say to themselves "what in the world were we thinking!" and sit down to make a thorough and comprehensive long-term plan for the manned exploration of the Solar System. Or so I hope.

[mike]

Once it becomes economically advantageous to fly into space (for mining, no-gravity/near-pure-vacuum manufacturing, and other things I can't imagine), the entire enterprise will grow exponentially and make all these robotic expeditions, pioneering though they are, seem rather quaint. Right now we're just in the 'King of Spain paying Columbus to sail for a long time' stage.

I think I'll live to see all sorts of amazing things, because otherwise life would be rather dull, and dullness is bad.

[RNeuhaus]

I seems that the evolution of engineering and science is like from the discovery of America in the year 1492 to the year 1992 (5 hundred years) can be related to as to the space evolution case from 1960 to 2160 (2 hundred years) but with faster growth rate. By that time there will be some colonies, probably in Moon for scientific mission, mining and tourism purposes, Mars for scientic mission and tourism purposes and maybe also in some Galiean moons such as Titan, and Europa for scientific mission only.

So it is impossible to see all very interesting future space evolution but I am enjoying much with actual every day space and discoveries news as in the future.

If not, you must pay for the services of hibernation (cryogenic) with the hope that someday in the future medical science will be able to rescusite to the aged cells.

Rodolfo

[Nix]

I hope I get to see Victoria. I hope not getting hit by a car before Oppy gets there

Seriously, at 28, I hope to see in my lifetime:

- Men walking on the Moon again
- Long-lasting robotic rovers on Mars
- A robotic airplane on Mars
- First human on Mars
- A mission (robotic or human) to Valles Marineris in Mer-style; with an open data policy and thousand of images from this canyon.
- Cherry coke being availabe everywhere

That's it.

Nico

[dvandorn]

- Cherry coke being availabe everywhere

What are you, some kind of wild-eyed, foolish optimist? Not in our lifetimes, I assure you!



-the other Doug

[Nix]

I should have known I was being naive on that one.

Nico

[edstrick]

I don't want cherry coke.

I want CANADA DRY GINGER BEER!

Haven't had any since about 1973.

[Bill Harris]

Fergit that ferrin stuff. I want a BillyBeer...

--Bill

[deglr6328]

I am 25 and I definitely hope to see a manned Mars mission in my lifetime but when it happens I think our intrepid explorers will have a lot more x's z's and J's in their names than one might expect today.

[tedstryk]

I am 26, born in 1979. My first memory of a mission is the Phobos 2 mission, followed by Voyager 2 at Neptune. Here is what I would like to see:

Mars rover landings in areas like Tharsis, Valles Marineris, and other areas of complex topography.

Venusian Rovers and landers, as well as a radar orbiter that can image the surface at MOC-like Resolution

Long Range Lunar Rovers

A dedicated Io mission, perhaps with a lander.

Further exploration of the Galileans

More exploration of Titan with an orbiter and landers.

A Neptune/Triton Mission.

Some KBO missions.

GOMAP

A Ceres lander may be in order, depending on what Dawn finds.

I had no idea that there were areas that did not have regular access to Cherry Coke