Wich was the greatest feat: First man in space or first man on the moon?

[Knight-Dragon]

This is going off-topic but personally I think outer space will be colonised by the Chinese. Why? Cos I mean historically only ppl who want to seek a better life or seeking to escape fr their home countries emigrated to overseas settlements. So the ppl who are now living comfortably in Western countries and Japan would not likely to be emigrating en masse to the dangerous space colonies.

However in China's case, they got intense heavy population pressure at home. Once the Commies got replaced by a democratically-elected govt (it'll come eventually ), they will prob need to scrap the one-child policy (not very democratic). So they would prob have a population explosion again. And the only space they can expand to is ... outer space.

Why not other 3rd World countries? Well they're too poor to afford to send out a space colonizing expedition. China is somewhat of an aberrant mix betw a 3rd World and an industrialized country.

 

[pavelsu]

USA land in the moon only because they want to win Soviets in something (Nationalistic propaganda).
Land in the moon was not scientific interest, but first man in the space opened a new age in human history.

 

[knowltok]

Good thoughts Knight-Dragon. Could be, but I think China's population preasures may well come to a head long before space colinization is possible on a large enough scale to make a difference. What happens then is anybody's guess.

 

[CrayonX]

I found the link, about China and a planned moon landing.

http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/space/11/23/china.space/

 

[CornMaster]

Good point Knight Dragon!!

Maybe a little pre-mature....but China's situation is just an accelerated version of the Entire world. So eventually our needs will meet!

And China will have the huge head start! (Not saying that it's a bad thing)

To be on topic...I think the first Man in space was the biggest milestone.

 

[cataclysm]

Originally posted by knowltok
Good thoughts Knight-Dragon. Could be, but I think China's population preasures may well come to a head long before space colinization is possible on a large enough scale to make a difference. What happens then is anybody's guess.

How about India? Do you think they will have population pressure before everyone else if their population growth maintain the current rate? I remember reading somewhere that in the near future(2020?) China's population will decline.

How about a slight poll modification:
1) Man in space
2) Moon landing
3) Space colonization

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Originally posted by cataclysm
How about India? Do you think they will have population pressure before everyone else if their population growth maintain the current rate? I remember reading somewhere that in the near future(2020?) China's population will decline.

I think the Indians would be more worried bout the security situation in South Asia i.e. Pakistan, Central Asia, Kashmir, Assam etc. Besides their economy is now at a lacklustre pace whilst the Chinese one is speeding full speed ahead. You need money to colonize anything ... That's why Third World countries can't do it either and it's here you'll have all the population pressure. Money talks and makes the world go around ....
Plus Indians are made up of so many ethnic groups, religions etc. It'll difficult to argue who shld be going to the space colonies and who not. And it's distracting to have disunity when you're engaged in an ultra-major national effort.

 

[cataclysm]

Originally posted by Knight-Dragon
I think the Indians would be more worried bout the security situation in South Asia i.e. Pakistan, Central Asia, Kashmir, Assam etc. Besides their economy is now at a lacklustre pace whilst the Chinese one is speeding full speed ahead. You need money to colonize anything ... That's why Third World countries can't do it either and it's here you'll have all the population pressure. Money talks and makes the world go around ....
Plus Indians are made up of so many ethnic groups, religions etc. It'll difficult to argue who shld be going to the space colonies and who not. And it's distracting to have disunity when you're engaged in an ultra-major national effort.

Oh no I wasn't indicating about Indian space program(if such a thing will exist), I just want to discuss their population problem.

And although the Chinese ecomonic growth had been strong, it had been slowed down considerably for a few years. If I'm correct, they had like 12% growth a few years ago, but now they are down to 8%(which is still good), it will be interesting to see how WTO will work for them...

Also aren't they "opening up" the west(of China)? That will make some more room for them in the near future

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Originally posted by cataclysm
Oh no I wasn't indicating about Indian space program(if such a thing will exist), I just want to discuss their population problem.

And although the Chinese ecomonic growth had been strong, it had been slowed down considerably for a few years. If I'm correct, they had like 12% growth a few years ago, but now they are down to 8%(which is still good), it will be interesting to see how WTO will work for them...

Also aren't they "opening up" the west(of China)? That will make some more room for them in the near future

I don't think discussing India's population problem in this thread will be sound since it'll going way way off-topic. Also nothing really to contribute bout a discussion on population. Anyway India's population has already passed its billionth mark this yr so ... they've got a problem.

The Chinese govt is wanting to develop the inner regions (i.e. Western China) so that the inner provinces won't fall that behind behind the coastal provinces. It's a matter of stability and politics. There're already large populations inland, not much space for new immigrants. And Xinjiang and Tibet can't really support massive populations anyway, unlike coastal China.

Only empty space is the Russian Far East and Siberia but doubt the Russians will agree to a massive influx of Chinese settlers. In times past, China can probably invade the north for lebensraum (one of the Russians greatest fears since the Mongol invasion) but nowadays Russia is bristling with nukes ..... However, read somewhere there're already more Chinese than Russians living in Siberia and the Russian Far East nowadays, unofficially of coz ....

 

[Simon Darkshade]

IMO, the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin. Furthermore, Sputnik was a big feat, and caused a lot of surprise

 

[knowltok]

IMHO colinization will not be a viable solution for population preasure for a very long time. We may colonize mars someday, or the asteroid belt, or one of Jupiter's moons, but these will be miniscule numbers until technology allows changes we can only guess at now. We need several new orders of magnitude in cost reduction for lauching payloads into space to make it cost effective, and then there needs to be an economical means of living cheaply (i.e. no need for domes, high tech food growing, etc.)

I don't think I am being pessimistic about the rate of technilogical advance either. Imagine what a giant leap forward a colony of 100,000 living on Mars would be. Think how far off we are from it. Then remember that that would only be a drop in the bucket of any population problem.

This is why I think that population problems will come to a head long before we can solve them through space.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

You're probably right. I was just thinking that population pressure could at least pressurized the govts of the world (excl Western govts and Japan which actually had falling populations in some cases or at least stable ones) to expand into outer space colonies. Of these, only China might even remotely be capable of it.

The pressure for resources would probably be a greater factor.

 

[Sgt Zimm]

Have to crawl before you can walk.

My vote's for the 1st in man in space. Proved that the "impossible" was possible.

 

[VoodooAce]

Originally posted by Magnus
IMO - the most amazing thing is it only took 66 years to get from kittyhawk to the apollo landing.

This, imho, is incredible. I guess it's just the number of advances between the first flight and the first moon landing.....so much of which took place during that last decade.

We talk about what somebody 50 or 70 years ago would think about our advances now.

Imagine trying to tell someone in 1903 that within their lifetime we'd be on the moon.

You wouldn't hvae gotten out of the asylum in time for WWI....

 

[Le Petit Prince]

Guess which
<-------------------

i believe that US never walk on moon in 1969...see the thread on conspiracies...

 

[Suppersalmon]

ihat first man in space was the best has if this had not happend then there would be no moon landing

 

[The Rusty Gamer]

Originally posted by Le Petit Prince
Guess which
<-------------------

i believe that US never walk on moon in 1969...see the thread on conspiracies...

I completely agree with you, having studied it quite a bit myself in the last few months. Perhaps the biggest feat was that they could pull off what msut've been the hoax of the 20th century and fool so many people, including most the people on these forums.

BTW, where is the conspiracy thread?

 

[amadeus]

I think the greatest feat is the ICBM.

Landing on the moon really means we landed on the moon...which really didn't do much, other than the effect on American morale.

The ICBM brought us to the edge of extinction.

In 1979, NORAD was preparing to launch a strike against the Soviet Union after what appeared to be seven missiles heading over the North Pole -- turns out one of the men accidently loaded in a system test tape, and there was no real threat at all.

Yuri Andropov, in 1983, once spent an entire night sat down at a desk, ready to make a first strike against the U.S. because of tensions between the United States and Soviet Union.

Two instances where we were perhaps hours away from absolute destruction.

Makes landing on the moon about as spectacular as taking a poop.

EDIT: my mistake, I typed in 1977 when I should have typed in 1979...

 

[Knowltok 2]

You people with your moon conspiracy theory really make me laugh. I suppose they staged the whole Apollo 13 problem just to make things more interesting?

If the US was going to stage a hoax that beleivable, they should have told the world that a giant asteroid was heading towards earth and we all had to help them build a super gun in space to destroy it. Then they could have used the super gun to conquer the world.

I bet you people aren't even convinced that the Earth goes around the sun.

 

[Simon Darkshade]

"You people with your moon conspiracy theory really make me laugh. I suppose they staged the whole Apollo 13 problem just to make things more interesting?

If the US was going to stage a hoax that beleivable, they should have told the world that a giant asteroid was heading towards earth and we all had to help them build a super gun in space to destroy it. Then they could have used the super gun to conquer the world.

I bet you people aren't even convinced that the Earth goes around the sun."

Right on! Conspiracy theories in general make laugh, but this one takes the cake...

It reminds me of a quote from the film "Warlock":
"You know that the Sun doesn't go round the earth, right?"
"For several years now, yes!" (in exasperated tone of voice)