Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
Uh, no.
Even as we speak, engineers are working on solar sails to be flown into space this year, ion drives are powering deep space probes, a full-on plasma drive is set to be tested on the ISS next year.
Scientists and *engineers* in the US, UK, Russia, and China are looking into a reactionless space drive, space elevators and lunar mining bases are being scoped out, and the physics of warped space for drives is being *tested*.
Deep space travel might have been slowed and stalled by idiot politicians but it is nowhere near being fantasy. Real meaningful work on manned exploration of space continues, luddites notwithstanding.
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All the off-planet work seems to involve sending robots out there, not people. People are heavy, fragile, and need food and water and warmth. They also need exercise, and are going to be bombarded with radiation out there. There are just so many hard problems with manned space travel. It's just so much easier with light robots. You don't have to be a luddite to think that us rocketing around the solar system, let alone the galaxy, is a pipe dream. Maybe in the future, people will view our manned space exploration fiction the way we view Heinlein's early novel about the space ship with the math savant doing all the navigational calculations in his head?