4 ms·

Much better than the hollow cynicism of your post, though...

by Eerie 10y ago

olivermarks 10y ago
"In the last 25 years we have seen the explosion of Musk's empire across the solar system. " - you have to admit that is pretty funny...
- cat199 10y ago
  you hollow cynic!
- Arizhel 10y ago
  Funny, but silly. Why would people want to live in other places in the solar system? Earth, the Moon, and Mars are the only places that really make any sense at all. Even Mars is iffy because the gravity is rather low, it's far from Earth, the atmosphere is barely there, it's cold, and there's no radiation protection without going underground. The Moon is even worse, but at least it's close to Earth so it'd be really useful for mining or offworld/low-g manufacturing, and it's close enough for quick trips back to Earth. Venus is far too hot to be useful for anything besides dirigible cities, and what are you going to do there except sightsee the yellow clouds? Maybe it could be terraformed to something livable, but that would take a long time. If that could be done though, it'd be a great place, since it's close to Earth's size and gravity. Mercury is too close to the Sun and too hot. You could put a city on the dark side, but the city would have to move constantly to stay on the dark side. The asteroid belt might be useful for mining, as would other places farther beyond, but anything that far out is going to be very cold, because it's so far from the Sun. Also, the Moons of Jupiter are bombarded with massive amounts of radiation from their planet. And all those places have horribly low gravity too, which probably won't work well with human biology, unless perhaps we genetically engineer ourselves to fix that. Space exploration is great for science and maybe resource extraction, but I just don't see the point of colonization except for a couple of somewhat-convenient places, at least not in this star system. I really can't imagine an "empire" across this solar system. Now it would be really cool if we could explore the TRAPPIST system and maybe find livable worlds there.
  - robbiep 10y ago
    Why leave town? why jump on a ship and sail to unknown horizons? why get out of bed in the morning? Some people like the idea of adventure and the unknown. Practical realities be damned
    - Arizhel 10y ago
      That's nice, but no one can afford to go establish a colony in orbit around Saturn by themselves; that money has to come from somewhere, and it's a huge amount. That means you need to justify that expenditure of resources, and get other people to fund it. Personally, I'm not willing to work my ass off to spend a bunch of my money funding such a project. An automated probe, sure; a mission to investigate the potential for asteroid mining, sure; a Moon base, maybe. Some silly project with nothing going for it besides a few people who want me to fund their fantasy? And they want me to work hard here so they can have fun with no practical benefit? Hell no. Even with your "jump on a ship" bit, European exploration of the "New World" was very expensive and required investment from wealthy patrons. It wasn't something a small group of adventurers could just do on their own.
      - robbiep 10y ago
        Well, good thing it looks like it's going to be largely private hands doing the work, and there'll be no shortage of volunteers. You and your lack of adventure can stay exactly where you are :)
        Arizhel 10y ago
        It's not a matter of willing workers, it's a matter of funding. The problem is if you start demanding money in the form of taxes. I find it highly dubious that one rich person could fund such an endeavor all by himself; this kind of thing is a project of enormous magnitude, and just as with the Apollo missions, normally require the funding only possible with a very large nation-state, which gets that funding from taxes and has to answer to its voters. If you can fund a Mars colonization mission all by yourself, then more power to you. But I just don't think it's possible, at least not any time soon. As a species, we haven't even managed to do any better than landing 3 men on our very nearby Moon for very short missions. We have zero experience in building and living in actual offworld habitats. It's never been done, not even in the one place where it's so close by that a rescue mission wouldn't be hard to do. The closest we've come is Biosphere II, a glass building in the Arizona desert, and that was a big failure.

Much better than the hollow cynicism of your post, though...

by Eerie 10y ago

Much better than the hollow cynicism of your post, though...

"In the last 25 years we have seen the explosion of Musk's empire across the solar system. " - you have to admit that is pretty funny...

cat199 10y ago
you hollow cynic!
Arizhel 10y ago
Funny, but silly. Why would people want to live in other places in the solar system? Earth, the Moon, and Mars are the only places that really make any sense at all. Even Mars is iffy because the gravity is rather low, it's far from Earth, the atmosphere is barely there, it's cold, and there's no radiation protection without going underground. The Moon is even worse, but at least it's close to Earth so it'd be really useful for mining or offworld/low-g manufacturing, and it's close enough for quick trips back to Earth. Venus is far too hot to be useful for anything besides dirigible cities, and what are you going to do there except sightsee the yellow clouds? Maybe it could be terraformed to something livable, but that would take a long time. If that could be done though, it'd be a great place, since it's close to Earth's size and gravity. Mercury is too close to the Sun and too hot. You could put a city on the dark side, but the city would have to move constantly to stay on the dark side. The asteroid belt might be useful for mining, as would other places farther beyond, but anything that far out is going to be very cold, because it's so far from the Sun. Also, the Moons of Jupiter are bombarded with massive amounts of radiation from their planet. And all those places have horribly low gravity too, which probably won't work well with human biology, unless perhaps we genetically engineer ourselves to fix that. Space exploration is great for science and maybe resource extraction, but I just don't see the point of colonization except for a couple of somewhat-convenient places, at least not in this star system. I really can't imagine an "empire" across this solar system. Now it would be really cool if we could explore the TRAPPIST system and maybe find livable worlds there.
- robbiep 10y ago
  Why leave town? why jump on a ship and sail to unknown horizons? why get out of bed in the morning? Some people like the idea of adventure and the unknown. Practical realities be damned
  - Arizhel 10y ago
    That's nice, but no one can afford to go establish a colony in orbit around Saturn by themselves; that money has to come from somewhere, and it's a huge amount. That means you need to justify that expenditure of resources, and get other people to fund it. Personally, I'm not willing to work my ass off to spend a bunch of my money funding such a project. An automated probe, sure; a mission to investigate the potential for asteroid mining, sure; a Moon base, maybe. Some silly project with nothing going for it besides a few people who want me to fund their fantasy? And they want me to work hard here so they can have fun with no practical benefit? Hell no. Even with your "jump on a ship" bit, European exploration of the "New World" was very expensive and required investment from wealthy patrons. It wasn't something a small group of adventurers could just do on their own.
    - robbiep 10y ago
      Well, good thing it looks like it's going to be largely private hands doing the work, and there'll be no shortage of volunteers. You and your lack of adventure can stay exactly where you are :)
      - Arizhel 10y ago
        It's not a matter of willing workers, it's a matter of funding. The problem is if you start demanding money in the form of taxes. I find it highly dubious that one rich person could fund such an endeavor all by himself; this kind of thing is a project of enormous magnitude, and just as with the Apollo missions, normally require the funding only possible with a very large nation-state, which gets that funding from taxes and has to answer to its voters. If you can fund a Mars colonization mission all by yourself, then more power to you. But I just don't think it's possible, at least not any time soon. As a species, we haven't even managed to do any better than landing 3 men on our very nearby Moon for very short missions. We have zero experience in building and living in actual offworld habitats. It's never been done, not even in the one place where it's so close by that a rescue mission wouldn't be hard to do. The closest we've come is Biosphere II, a glass building in the Arizona desert, and that was a big failure.