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"Space hostile and empty." This is a feature, not a bug. There is a small fraction of humanity that has the desire to do very hard and physically dangerous thi
by njarboe 9y ago
"Space hostile and empty."
This is a feature, not a bug. There is a small fraction of humanity that has the desire to do very hard and physically dangerous things. Another fraction who greatly enjoy empty spaces and prefer having great influence over the culture they live in. On Earth, very hard and dangerous can be found, but the activities are either recreational (mountaineering) or involve hurting other people (military, criminal life). Physical empty spaces are still around on Earth, but culturally empty spaces are gone. All land on Earth is either claimed by nation states or must remain unsettled by treaty (Antarctica). Have a small sub-set of humans desiring to leave the over-crowded tribe and cross that river, ocean, or desert for the chance to start their own tribe/civilization is probably necessary for evolutionary survival of the species.
Complaining about the waste in NASA's budget for human exploration, that I can understand, as they have not really advanced that cause since the moon shot. But to dismiss real human exploration all together ("drunk with nostalgia and romantic ideas of exploration"), when a certain fraction of people need it for a fulfilled life, seems closed minded. Maybe a crack will form if you read this. With a world GDP of about 80 trillion dollars/year a few billion/year of public funds for human space flight does not seem unreasonable.
- kitsunesoba 9y agoWell said. Humanity hasn't had a true new open frontier in quite some time, and the negative effects of such are beginning to surface. It's an important component of a healthy civilization that's simply absent right now. Our restless have nowhere to go. And yes, surely we have enough people and resources to swing large-scale space operations alongside what we already do.
- javajosh 9y agoMaybe Musk and Bezos can live in a biosphere bubble on the asteroid belt maintained by an army of their (wholly-owned) mining robots. But Mars is a bad joke. It's deep in a gravity well and is a gigantic, cold Sahara dessert without breathable air. If physicists and engineers can come up with a massless drive and potent, safe energy to drive it (e.g. EmDrive powered by fusion) we cold probably send missions back and forth to nearby stars - a worthy goal. But even then it will be expensive and time-dilation will ensure that whatever glory the explorers get will be amongst strangers. And it seems incredibly unlikely that we'll find any planet sufficiently close to Earth to be worth colonizing! Now, if someone invents a unique, valuable zero- or micro-gravity industrial process then look out! Space will get real sexy real fast.
- njarboe 9y agoMost inventions are serendipitous accidents. To find valuable things that can only happen in zero or micro gravity will probably require lots of people existing and experimenting in that environment.
- javajosh 9y agoOn it's face, that's not a terrible argument. But consider the "bet" you are making: spend like $1T on a habitable structure large enough for a good community, and then ~1B per year to operate it, in the hopes of "serendipity". How many materials scientists (and their families) would want to live in orbit, or on the moon, in harsh, cramped conditions, with limited tools and resources?
- EliRivers 9y agoculturally empty spaces are gone You've never been to my home town :p
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]