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It's funny that with all this talk recently about the rise of AI and robots, we continue to just assume that space exploration and colonization has to be done w
by vtange 9y ago
It's funny that with all this talk recently about the rise of AI and robots, we continue to just assume that space exploration and colonization has to be done with human beings.. As if we've already exhausted the most robots could do with rovers and satellites.
From a economic and safety perspective, it would seem far more practical to establish a foothold in non-Earth environments with robots that do the initial habitat construction for humans. I fear we are hand-waving much of the risk the first batch of humans we send to Mars have to shoulder - think the Roanoke Colony of the 16th century
- nojvek 9y agoThis. Humans are a terrible space faring species. I'm sure in a 100 years we'll figure out how to upload our consciousness into robots and build better space faring bodies. I always think about Von Neumann probes. May be in a 100 years we'll figure out how to make them and we'll colonize the entire galaxy. But first we need to figure out how to get to space in frequent reliable cheap trips.
- vtange 9y agoI kinda blame it on our sci-fi fiction: so far we cannot imagine a space adventure where there are no humans at the frontier. Even the most recent space-themed games and movies fall to this trope. It's almost an ego sort of thing - the main characters have to be human, which comes with all the drama of first-alien-contact, life support, etc. With robots, all that risk is mitigated since there's no risk of loss of life. At the worst we have our bots self-destruct or something.