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give away seats to their citizens? It seems like a good way to drum up support to me. Looking at the US as an example why not have an annual or biannual or something drawing of social security numbers. Maybe 5 or 10 or more. Those who get picked and don't decline the chance get a shot at astronaut training. Make it through, get certified mentally and physically, and then you're put in the astronaut rotation with at least 1 assured trip into space. So sure you might not play an important role, but surely there are some experiments that anyone of average intelligence can be trained to run. It seems like you could get a lot more support from folks who don't have anything against manned space flight if they had the chance to get a free trip to space out of it.
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Space isn't there just for tourists, if we want to get the best out of it we need our top scientists up there, you need fit/healthy people for long duration flight, best aircraft pilots, and these days there is a greater need for people schooled in medicine and science on spaceflight.
That's the way it works : it is not a popularity contest
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But that is the point to which we always seem to stop at and thus we have not colonized anything thus far.
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Space isn't there just for tourists, if we want to get the best out of it we need our top scientists up there, you need fit/healthy people for long duration flight, best aircraft pilots, and these days there is a greater need for people schooled in medicine and science on spaceflight.
That's the way it works : it is not a popularity contest
I'm not advocating the average joes go along just as tourists. Surely there are some jobs anyone can be trained to do, but end up only getting done by scientists and pilots because they're the only folks to get the chance. Like some of these experiments on plant or animal growth that have been run in the past. Pretty much anyone can be trained to dole out the appropriate amount of food and water, do weight/height measures, draw blood, and that sort of thing. Once they're up it's not like the scientist is going to radically alternate the experiement, and the information it gathers will be analyzed back on earth. I'll give you the need for trained career pilots nowadays, and I'll even give you doctors and engineers for a more long term voyage than anything that has been so far. However, doesn't it seem likely that the majority of jobs in space just like on earth can be filled with average people with a littlre training?
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It is an intresting point that until space is seemed as a real destination or workplace then it will never get the public support it needs. At the moment it truly appears to be the the domain of the Rocket Scientist and as such it is not open to people to work there or more significantly your children. It is the difference between all the 1950 and 60s films where people where working in space routinely compared to what we have now that has lost a lot of the support spaceflight once had.
As a place of learning and getting pretty pictures it is nice but until we have people employed there making profits it will not be a place for anyone except the blue sky dreamer.
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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I once offered to go up and scrub toilets on JP Aerospace's first full scale manned aerostatic platform. They haven't responded yet, but I have high hopes. 8)
"We go big, or we don't go." - GCNRevenger
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