3 ms·

Human space flight - what a waste of resources. Send robots for the next 100 years.

cuboidGoat 8y ago
By the end of this century I suspect there will be more than a million people living off earth, with the majority in orbitals. In about 200 years or so, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were more people off earth than on it.
- chr1 8y ago
  What would be the incentive for living off earth for such a large number of people? I really wish for you to be right, but with population growth slowing down, and possibility of building floating cities or terraforming Sahara, building large orbital stations or going to mars in large numbers may be economically not viable, unless we invent something radically new.
  - cuboidGoat 8y ago
    I think there will be two things. One is economics, fetching asteroids could be very big business, and the other is political, space will be viewed as freedom of a sort, given the kind of restrictions that may be in place on Earth by then, with the climate transforming alongside having a lot more people than we do today, even if growth slows down, which is far from certain. We could easily be in the age of what Bruce Sterling refers to as the Khaki Greens, aka, militarised enforcement of ecological protection.
  - Kim_Bruning 8y ago
    Same incentive as everywhere. They get paid. ;-) Even the most automated of robotic factories on earth still have a number of humans in an oversight role, where they make themselves quite useful. The same would be true of any space industry. People would be hired on for a tour in space, and they'd be paid sufficient salary to make it worth their while.
    - cuboidGoat 8y ago
      And when you are up there, you will want to stay up if you can, as each dip into the well costs you a ton of money.
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Kim_Bruning 8y ago
Human beings with their millennia of evolution still have quite the edge over any robot ;) But launching a human is still more expensive than launching several robots. Right now, launching humans is getting cheaper every year. Space missions are projected to become more profitable over time as people start space mining and later space fabrication. So I agree with you that launching robots right now has a higher ROI than launching robots. I think we also agree there's a crossover point. Where I think we disagree on is when that crossover point might. You say 100 years; I think with current trends it could be under 50 years, maybe under 25 years. Why do you think it'll take 100 years to hit crossover?

By the end of this century I suspect there will be more than a million people living off earth, with the majority in orbitals. In about 200 years or so, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were more people off earth than on it.

chr1 8y ago
What would be the incentive for living off earth for such a large number of people? I really wish for you to be right, but with population growth slowing down, and possibility of building floating cities or terraforming Sahara, building large orbital stations or going to mars in large numbers may be economically not viable, unless we invent something radically new.
- cuboidGoat 8y ago
  I think there will be two things. One is economics, fetching asteroids could be very big business, and the other is political, space will be viewed as freedom of a sort, given the kind of restrictions that may be in place on Earth by then, with the climate transforming alongside having a lot more people than we do today, even if growth slows down, which is far from certain. We could easily be in the age of what Bruce Sterling refers to as the Khaki Greens, aka, militarised enforcement of ecological protection.
- Kim_Bruning 8y ago
  Same incentive as everywhere. They get paid. ;-) Even the most automated of robotic factories on earth still have a number of humans in an oversight role, where they make themselves quite useful. The same would be true of any space industry. People would be hired on for a tour in space, and they'd be paid sufficient salary to make it worth their while.
  - cuboidGoat 8y ago
    And when you are up there, you will want to stay up if you can, as each dip into the well costs you a ton of money.

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Kim_Bruning 8y ago

Human beings with their millennia of evolution still have quite the edge over any robot ;) But launching a human is still more expensive than launching several robots. Right now, launching humans is getting cheaper every year. Space missions are projected to become more profitable over time as people start space mining and later space fabrication. So I agree with you that launching robots right now has a higher ROI than launching robots. I think we also agree there's a crossover point. Where I think we disagree on is when that crossover point might. You say 100 years; I think with current trends it could be under 50 years, maybe under 25 years. Why do you think it'll take 100 years to hit crossover?