In a nuclear fusion reactor, one Helium3 atom fused with another Helium3 atom will give off great energy and virtually no radioactive waste whatsoever. We have no He3 on Earth, but it is ejected from the sun and the surface of the moon is the only place we can find it (It lands on the moon. Earth's magnetic field deflects it away from Earth). The highest concentration is at the lunar south pole. Can it be any coincidence that the new Constellation program will not explore various parts of the moon, but only set up a permenant base at the lunar south pole? The Chinese have not beaten around the bush about their intentions, their clearly stated objective is to mine He3 at the south pole of Luna (our moon's actual name is Luna and our star's actual name is Sol, ie. we live in the
Solar system). Intersesting also that the first race to the moon served as a substitute for war with our communist enemy the Soviet Union, yet the second race to the moon may spur us to war with our rising new communist nemesis China.
One of the biggest problems with the space program is meddling by politicians. When the shuttle was built, those with economic interests in their districts wanted to make wure we would not go bact to heavy lift rockets; they wanted us to be completely dependent on the shuttle. Therefore, all blueprints, templates, and dies for Saturn rockets were ordered destroyed. Well, the shuttle turned out not to be what was promised. All that R&D $ for Saturn was down the toilet. Now we're trying to make Aries 1, Aries 5, and possibly an Aries 4 from modified shuttle components. Just this past week, a report came out saying that the Aries 1 will probably vibrate so much that it will destroy the upper stage and the Constellation CEV atop it. Any technology, once paid for and developed, should never be thrown away for good. That is sheer folly. Shelve it when outdated, but lock the technical specs and blueprints up in an archive vault.
Another example is the cosmic ray detector that is going to be left off of the space station. Griffin will not bend from the 2010 date for shuttle retirement. A cosmic ray detector has been built for $1.5 billion. It is complete and was to be attached to the ISS. There aren't enough flights allocated to send it up. It has the ability to find dark matter, anti-matter sources in the universe, and to unlock equations that could leap-frog technologies into the future by the equivalent of several centuries. The thing is, the Europeans and Japanese want their labs attached to the ISS so they can be on equal footing with us & Russia in terms of "status", though almost no-one now expects much science to come out of those micro-gravity labs. So, they were chosen over the cosmic ray detector. Also, even though Hubble is about to fall apart (Don't get me wrong, I love what Hubble has given us, but truthfully, it is on its last leg), public outcry made a bunch of senators pester Griffin to the point that he committed a shuttle trip to attempt one last servicing of Hubble, even though sending a shuttle to Hubble will mean no "safe haven" at the ISS if another Columbia type debris strike compromises the thermal skin. This cosmic ray detector is paid for and has the potential to give us thousands of times the payback that those lab modules or Hubble could, but because of politics, it will just be laid to rest in an old missle silo. Griffin says it is too expensive to send it up via some other launch system.
As far as what we have gotten from the space program, well, a lot more than velcro and Tang: micro-circuitry for all our modern electronics, EKG/EEG monitors, endoscopic surgery tools, cell and satelite phone technology, satellite TV. GPS not only keeps you from getting lost in your car, it lands airplanes in fog and means our bombs strike directly on enemy targets, avoiding collateral casualties and damage as well as keeping our own troops from having to penetrate and destroy targets in person.
As far as VR games, I can't wait until Wii is replaced with Star Trek hollodeck technology. Forget transporters and replicators. When the day comes that we can all walk into our own hollodeck and be in St. Moritz one moment, then on a Tahitian beach with Hula girls the next..... Well, maybe that will pacify everyone so much that it actually brings peace on earth and goodwill among all mankind!!
