What happened to Nasa's childhood dreams?

Below is pictures drawn in a 1970s study project conducted by Nasa showing how humans can live in space. These have been taken from this link.

aboutarchitecture.wordpress.com...

Several years before this even there was 2001 space odysseys depiction of how a space station of the early 21st century may look like. See the spinning space wheel in second to last image.

Instead we have the International space station which is show in last OP picture.
My point being is what happened to Nasa's childhood dreams. Did they grow to become boring Adults?



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and in reality Nasa gives us this !





Who else feels dissappointed?]

reply to post by AthlonSavage


One of the reasons for the ISS's existence is to learn about the long term effects of living in space.'

The images from the 70's is the dream and the ISS is the current reality, we've got quite a long way to go still I think before people can safely live in space, dealing with weightlessness or creating gravity, dealing with radiation, solar flares, cosmic rays, debris, the list goes on.

reply to post by AthlonSavage

What happened to Nasa's childhood dreams?

Maybe the same thing that happened to many of our dreams. For me, I feel that so many dreams were hijacked my marketing efforts to consume and pursuit the individual's 'American' dream. The me-ness of the 80's shifted our perspectives, imo. I think this was a natural progression, but fueled to be top heavy by greed. Space exploration used to serve as a uniting factor, and since the 70's it seems there has been more dividing than uniting, rather intentional or not, both on an international and national level. The military may have soaked up much of Nasa's intentions as well.

I like Dr. Tyson's perspective on the space aspirations.



Peace and dreams
Space Colony Art From The 1970s

Finally got them link images to work in OP.

reply to post by AthlonSavage


I'll tell you what happened. Bureaucrats and lawyers. They have no imagination, and if it doesn't pay off immediately it's not worth it.

Unfortunately there also seems to be a large part of the general public who is pretty ignorant and unimaginative as well. It will probably take many decades for such space stations to actually be constructed, and in the end it will probably be the result of corporations not NASA. Which is sad.

Other than things like funding, there is a serious lack of "wonder" and drive in the world to go out into space. We just aren't pushing it anymore. Maybe people are just discouraged because we know or at least think that most of us won't have the chance to actually colonize planets like Mars, or even the Moon. It would also take way too long to reach other star systems. It's a bit of a downer, to put it lightly.

We live in a sedentary, consumer culture. It lacks the pioneering spirit that mankind has had for most of it's existence.

That, and... there aren't many left that still think like this:

One of my favourites.

"In modern Western society," writes the scholar Charles Lindholm, "the erosion of tradition and the collapse of accepted religious belief leaves us without a telos [an end to which we strive], a sanctified notion of humanity’s potential. Bereft of a sacred project, we have only a demystified image of a frail and fallible humanity no longer capable of becoming god-like."

I believe it is healthy—indeed, essential—to keep our frailty and fallibility firmly in mind. I worry about people who aspire to be "god-like." But as for a long-term goal and a sacred project, there is one before us. On it the very survival of our species depends. If we have been locked and bolted into a prison of the self, here is an escape hatch—something worthy, something vastly larger than ourselves, a crucial act on behalf of humanity. Peopling other worlds unifies nations and ethnic groups, binds the generations, and requires us both to be smart and wise. It liberates our nature and, in part, returns us to our beginnings. Even now, this new telos is within our grasp.

Did you seriously just try to make it seem like the ISS isn't much of an achievement??

Where is YOUR space station, dude?

reply to post by yourmaker


Mines right here parked around Mars.

Originally posted by AthlonSavage
My point being is what happened to Nasa's childhood dreams. Did they grow to become boring Adults?

As well as the reasons that others have mentioned, another big one is that it all turned out to be much much more difficult than everyone expected.
Its like the early days picked the low hanging fruit of getting into space, but after that, the rest of it was unexpectedly hard.

Even today, we still dont have the technology to have a fully self sustaining spacestation. Even today, the ISS needs regular supplies from the surface. 100 percent of all food is from the surface. And the air, that doesnt work either. Wikipedia has a telling quote...

In 2011, ... "For the past several months, the station crew has been using oxygen brought up aboard visiting Progress supply ships, a European cargo craft and the Russian Elektron oxygen generator while awaiting delivery of the OGA repair equipment.

So to have a colony on the moon? We arent anywhere near ready just to have the astronauts survive, let alone the difficulties of actually building it.

So really, we havnt actually come that far. Not a huge amount of progress has actually been made.
Certainly not enough leaps and bounds to get anywhere near those old dreams.

reply to post by speculativeoptimist


Beautiful, thank you.

I can remember being about 6 in 1974, picking up a set of books on space and deciding then and there I wanted to be an astronaut. I pursued science, math and college bound classes. As a senior in high school in 1986, I watched the repeated explosion of the Challenger in the school's AV room with some friends of mine. At the time, I declared if I had a chance the very next day to go to space I would take it - and I would have. I didn't give up that dream until I realized that my brain wasn't cut for the rigorous study needed to be an astronaut - sometime in college. (Ended up as an accountant with an MBA - go figure... )

It's been with much sadness that I've watched the decline of the United States' space program. I had always hoped that, if I couldn't go, one day my children or grandchildren would be able to. I have a 6th grader currently in 9th grade math (seems she got the brains I missed) - but I believe the solar system will be closed to future generations for a long time.

They "grew up", and started playing ball in the big leagues. They're original motives were muddled while their HQ was overtaken by people who wanted to push their agenda and theirs alone. And now, thanks to the hot-headed fools who rule the various portions of the world, we are even further from those dreams now that we have recycled the Space Shuttle invention. This is what happens to all sectors of human life -- think of all the people who wished that everyone had enough money to survive, now they are bankers. Those who wished that the world could be unified ? sold out presidents. It's a gruesome thing to think about but it happens and we allow it to because we are human, and it won't change anytime soon.

Like what was said already.
Us people today lack the drive to go to space.
Why go to space when we can make billions here?
why not wait till we drain this place dry first and leave the people with no other option but to go to space?
we still have lots of money to make here before we go out into the places we do not yet know?

Do you think thats not what our leaders are thinking? do you not think thats why we never went past the moon with a living person? think about it.
You want to go to space in our life start pushing for it, get friends to push for it.
Tell them war is not what we want.....

reply to post by AthlonSavage

Maybe some of the dreams died thanks to failures here on earth, in the Biosphere 2 missions:

Wikipedia Biosphere 2 information - see "Challenges" sections

Biosphere 2 Official Site

The missions were not 100% successful. Still, they have contributed a lot to our knowledge base. Biosphere 2 is a fascinating place to visit!

The US canceled space so we could have another war. Gotta have a few more bombs, and why waste a perfectly good missile when it doesn't go 'boom' at the end.

NASAs childhood dreams. You mean the complete control and domination of space by what amounts to a government sponsored Illuminati think tank! The tech to colonize low earth orbit, the Moon and Mars has been there since the 60s.

Privatised space exploration, now there is a dream i hope becomes a reality!

It's called progression.
First: Nothing.
Then: People zooming by in tin cans
Now: International Scientific Space Station
20-50 yrs from now: Who knows?

It's illogical to pretend things to just appear out of thin air, we're slowly getting there.

That doesn't deny the fact that other agendas that don't represent Humankind's best interests have influenced this development in a negative way.

But don't lose hope. We ARE going to get there, sooner or later.
Cheers.

Wasn't the space program really started to test weapons? Or weapon theory? The goal was never to create pretty space living but that idea was certainly sold to the American people to veil the truth...