4 ms·

> access in any meaningful amount of time I agree about space constraints, but if we really wanted to, we 'd work to create humans that live long enough to go

> access in any meaningful amount of time I agree about space constraints, but if we really wanted to, we 'd work to create humans that live long enough to go there , or somehow else send human hybrids frozen in a ship. Biotechnology is amazing but so constrained by premature regulation it's not seeing a lot of progress. I have the feeling that scientists were secretly wishing some rogue scientist would try to apply crispr on humans. I think it's true that the public's imagination is not much gripped by grand visions anymore but rather numbed and distracted with mindless trivialities

scottLobster 7y ago
I'm not sure the public's imagination is ever gripped by grand visions for very long. Just look at how quickly Apollo ended once we made it to the moon, and how controversial its budget was at the time. Going further back, remember that most of the Western settlers we romanticize as "pioneers" with "the spirit of exploration" today were in fact looking for economic profit and an escape from bad working conditions in settled country. Sure some minority cares about noble action, grand perspectives and super-long-term consequences, but most people just want to drink, watch TV and die with hopefully a few friends and family around. They aren't directly included in the vision, so why should they care? Necessity is the mother of invention, and sadly there is currently no necessity to birth human space exploration. We'd likely need a bad asteroid hit (bad enough to kill millions but not bad enough to collapse society) or a second cold war where establishing, say, a moon base would be strategically beneficial. Until then, well I guess we have Elon, and eventually Bezos. Independently wealthy businessmen have been behind more than a few major inventions.
- buboard 7y ago
  > most people just want to drink, watch TV and die Religion is a counterexample to this. it has driven people to change their lives
  - scottLobster 7y ago
    I'd argue it's the other way around, that those seeking to change their lives for the better are a relatively self-driven minority and likely would have succeeded with or without religion, religion was just a convenient vehicle due to widespread availability and approach-ability. It's anecdotal, but I was raised Baptist and married into a Catholic family (although neither my wife nor I are particularly religious). The people I've met in church over the years are no more or less driven than any other segment of the population I've encountered.
- pfdietz 7y ago
  Defense against asteroids is a bad justification for space exploitation. The first thing that would have to be done is telescopic search, and with very high probability nothing really dangerous would be found, and so no further space activity could be justified on the basis of defending against that threat. Defense against long period comets might be a better bet, as they are harder to rule out.
  - scottLobster 7y ago
    That's the thing with public opinion, you don't need a good justification to get things done, only a sufficient one. If a devastating asteroid did hit and NASA/ESA/etc got all the funding they ever wanted to catalog the sky, and announced they'd finished 2 years later, a large slice of Joe Public would respond "you said the chances were 1 in a million last time. Why should we trust you now?" With the right resources that could be leveraged into a Mars colony with actual sustainability in mind. I think you'd find the threat of asteroids to be a much more relatable and palatable threat than Climate Change. It's an purely external force of nature that no human can claim responsibility for or point fingers over. An asteriod strike would also be the single, short-term-but-devastating situations humans have a evolved to deal with, as opposed to the long-term creeping rot of Climate Change. Likely much easier to get action over asteriods. Hell, asteroids are already #2 on the list of things NASA should focus on according to a recent PEW survey. https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/06/nasas-priorities-appear-to-be-out-of-whack-with-what-the-public-wants/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/06/nasas-priorities-app...

scottLobster 7y ago

I'm not sure the public's imagination is ever gripped by grand visions for very long. Just look at how quickly Apollo ended once we made it to the moon, and how controversial its budget was at the time. Going further back, remember that most of the Western settlers we romanticize as "pioneers" with "the spirit of exploration" today were in fact looking for economic profit and an escape from bad working conditions in settled country. Sure some minority cares about noble action, grand perspectives and super-long-term consequences, but most people just want to drink, watch TV and die with hopefully a few friends and family around. They aren't directly included in the vision, so why should they care? Necessity is the mother of invention, and sadly there is currently no necessity to birth human space exploration. We'd likely need a bad asteroid hit (bad enough to kill millions but not bad enough to collapse society) or a second cold war where establishing, say, a moon base would be strategically beneficial. Until then, well I guess we have Elon, and eventually Bezos. Independently wealthy businessmen have been behind more than a few major inventions.

buboard 7y ago
> most people just want to drink, watch TV and die Religion is a counterexample to this. it has driven people to change their lives
- scottLobster 7y ago
  I'd argue it's the other way around, that those seeking to change their lives for the better are a relatively self-driven minority and likely would have succeeded with or without religion, religion was just a convenient vehicle due to widespread availability and approach-ability. It's anecdotal, but I was raised Baptist and married into a Catholic family (although neither my wife nor I are particularly religious). The people I've met in church over the years are no more or less driven than any other segment of the population I've encountered.
pfdietz 7y ago
Defense against asteroids is a bad justification for space exploitation. The first thing that would have to be done is telescopic search, and with very high probability nothing really dangerous would be found, and so no further space activity could be justified on the basis of defending against that threat. Defense against long period comets might be a better bet, as they are harder to rule out.
- scottLobster 7y ago
  That's the thing with public opinion, you don't need a good justification to get things done, only a sufficient one. If a devastating asteroid did hit and NASA/ESA/etc got all the funding they ever wanted to catalog the sky, and announced they'd finished 2 years later, a large slice of Joe Public would respond "you said the chances were 1 in a million last time. Why should we trust you now?" With the right resources that could be leveraged into a Mars colony with actual sustainability in mind. I think you'd find the threat of asteroids to be a much more relatable and palatable threat than Climate Change. It's an purely external force of nature that no human can claim responsibility for or point fingers over. An asteriod strike would also be the single, short-term-but-devastating situations humans have a evolved to deal with, as opposed to the long-term creeping rot of Climate Change. Likely much easier to get action over asteriods. Hell, asteroids are already #2 on the list of things NASA should focus on according to a recent PEW survey. https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/06/nasas-priorities-appear-to-be-out-of-whack-with-what-the-public-wants/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/06/nasas-priorities-app...