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I wouldnt worry about those who dont understand why we must immediately become spacefaring. They're obviously on the "wrong side" of history as environmental pr

I wouldnt worry about those who dont understand why we must immediately become spacefaring. They're obviously on the "wrong side" of history as environmental pressure will make unarguable.

DangitBobby 7y ago
I'm more in the "humans are much less competent than you seem to think" camp. No amount of needing to get off the planet is going to make us able to live on Mars (or a similarly unfriendly planet). It's entirely possible that you will find yourself on the wrong side of history, where any publicly funded endeavor that didn't go directly or indirectly towards saving our current planet will be retroactively seen as futile and a gigantic waste of resources and brain power.
tsimionescu 7y ago
This is obviously false. Any technology that could allow humans to live anywhere but on earth (the moon, Mars, space stations, generation ship, you name it) would be infinitely more applicable on an environmentally devastated earth up to any degree of devastation. Living on Mars would be much harder than living on the earth after an all-out nuclear war with the worse effects of global warming present, in the aftermath of a small asteroid strike. In fact, diverting much needed resources from saving what can be saved of the climate for the pie-in-the-sky (literally) goal of having a minuscule handful of human beings possibly live a scant few years off the Earth in 20 years time is lunacy.
- njarboe 7y ago
  We have more resources than we know what to do with. Negative to zero interest rates all over the place. The problems on Earth are not being solved or worked on due to political problems not resource limitations. Plus total current space related expenditures are probably 0.05% of global GDP. Global GDP is ~$85 trillion would mean a space spend of $42.5 billion. Sounds about right.
  - tsimionescu 7y ago
    It's not just about monetary resources. There are also engineering, research, PR and other kinds of resources spent on this. Not to mention, there are people who seem to honestly believe that moving to Mars is a viable strategy for humanity in the same te scale as global warming (perhaps even Elon Musk among them? Hopefully not, but definitely GP among them). That is such a silly idea, but with such potential to be used in the concentrated campaign of convincing people to ignore global warming, that it must be spoken against any time it comes up.

I wouldnt worry about those who dont understand why we must immediately become spacefaring. They're obviously on the "wrong side" of history as environmental pressure will make unarguable.

DangitBobby 7y ago

I'm more in the "humans are much less competent than you seem to think" camp. No amount of needing to get off the planet is going to make us able to live on Mars (or a similarly unfriendly planet). It's entirely possible that you will find yourself on the wrong side of history, where any publicly funded endeavor that didn't go directly or indirectly towards saving our current planet will be retroactively seen as futile and a gigantic waste of resources and brain power.

tsimionescu 7y ago

This is obviously false. Any technology that could allow humans to live anywhere but on earth (the moon, Mars, space stations, generation ship, you name it) would be infinitely more applicable on an environmentally devastated earth up to any degree of devastation. Living on Mars would be much harder than living on the earth after an all-out nuclear war with the worse effects of global warming present, in the aftermath of a small asteroid strike. In fact, diverting much needed resources from saving what can be saved of the climate for the pie-in-the-sky (literally) goal of having a minuscule handful of human beings possibly live a scant few years off the Earth in 20 years time is lunacy.

njarboe 7y ago
We have more resources than we know what to do with. Negative to zero interest rates all over the place. The problems on Earth are not being solved or worked on due to political problems not resource limitations. Plus total current space related expenditures are probably 0.05% of global GDP. Global GDP is ~$85 trillion would mean a space spend of $42.5 billion. Sounds about right.
- tsimionescu 7y ago
  It's not just about monetary resources. There are also engineering, research, PR and other kinds of resources spent on this. Not to mention, there are people who seem to honestly believe that moving to Mars is a viable strategy for humanity in the same te scale as global warming (perhaps even Elon Musk among them? Hopefully not, but definitely GP among them). That is such a silly idea, but with such potential to be used in the concentrated campaign of convincing people to ignore global warming, that it must be spoken against any time it comes up.