6 ms·

Why not do both?

defterGoose 7y ago
Because limited resources are a thing that exists? I think if you were to take a poll, most people would agree that throwing all our economic might behind preserving the one bastion of life we know of in the universe is a better course of action than spending our time and money on what for the foreseeable future remains a pipe dream to be smoked by the very few. In all likelihood, we will need the technologies developed in a green revolution to even have a fighting chance of success at colonizing other worlds.
- austincheney 7y ago
  I wouldn’t leave that decision in the hands of an internet poll.
  - defterGoose 7y ago
    You have trillions to spend? I say go for it.
simonh 7y ago
If there is one thing I’ve learned, from many posters on HN in many different topic, it’s that human civilisation is apparently incapable of achieving more than one goal at a time.
- diegoperini 7y ago
  That's very cynical and definitely not true at all. Human civilization constantly achieves multiple goals at the same time on a daily basis. If you are not seeing that, you are probably reading the wrong newspaper.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - Tepix 7y ago
    I'm pretty sure he was being sarcastic.
    - diegoperini 7y ago
      Oh, sorry, I really couldn't see that (no sarcasm on my part).
- projektfu 7y ago
  It’s more that we can’t achieve a single civilization goal, but are always wishing we could solve a cooler problem than the ones at hand.
pyrale 7y ago
Mainly because right now, any significant endeavour is tied to using massive amounts of fossil fuel. As long as it will be the case, we won't be able to start new, large scale projects without jeopardizing our ability to live on earth.
- keiferski 7y ago
  > Mainly because right now, any significant endeavour is tied to using massive amounts of fossil fuel. But does that actually matter in space? I am asking out of genuine curiosity here: does using fossil fuels in space have any real downside? There is no atmosphere, ergo no greenhouse effect. The vastness of space would seem to swallow up any sort of pollution.
  - muzani 7y ago
    That's... a different question. Where would you find fossils on other planets? The article says Titan has seas of hydrocarbon, but otherwise Moon and Mars, it's just not an option. One reason why Musk has invested so much in non-fossil fuel tech is not so much to save this planet but to operate things on other planets.
    - keiferski 7y ago
      Sure, but my broad question was essentially: are there any negatives to using "dirty" forms of energy like nuclear, coal, or oil in space?
      - garmaine 7y ago
        > are there any negatives to using "dirty" forms of energy like nuclear, coal, or oil One of those is not like the others. Nuclear is the cleanest form of energy we have, cleaner than even wind or solar power.
        keiferski 7y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste
giantrobot 7y ago
Building an outpost in Earth orbit that requires constant maintenance and supplies from the ground is just barely achievable right now and cost billions of dollars. We call it the ISS. The horizon to a self-sufficient orbital settlement is still decades off. A self-sufficient colony on any other planet or moon is way beyond that capability. It's not about doing one thing or another, it's one thing is a fantasy in the short term and the other is a real practical concern. There's far more practical places on Earth to colonize before even thinking of bootstrapping an industrial civilization on another planet. Because that's what it would take. None of the technology needed to do the bootstrapping currently exists. You can't download MarsColony.stl from Thingiverse to load into a giant 3D printer.
- kitsunesoba 7y ago
  Keep in mind, though, that the costs of the ISS were inflated greatly by the pseudo-reusable Space Shuttle and cost-plus contracting, not to mention the added complication of being an international project. We now have something much closer true reusable rockets from two private, competing companies that are both squarely focused on dropping the cost of launches. If a single party were to utilize them to build an ISS equivalent today, it’d undoubtedly be much much cheaper, and that’s just today. These companies have rockets on the horizon that would make space stations cheaper to build than settlements in some places on Earth.
  - giantrobot 7y ago
    You're laboring under some misconceptions. The ISS was expensive to build for the same reasons many things are expensive to build, it used new technology in a new configuration and was essentially a one-off product. It is a functional prototype. There's also some in-space capabilities that have been lost with the retiring of the Shuttle. There's not really replacements for those capabilities on the horizon. For starters the Shuttle was designed as an orbital work platform. In its construction configuration it launched with the CanadaArm, an airlock, and whatever ISS module it was delivering in the cargo bay. This was all in addition to the OMS, power and life support, and the crew cabin. It could fly modules to the station and assemble them without using resources of the station itself. The Shuttle as a space truck facilitated one of the best aspects of the ISS design: the integrated truss structure. The truss structure of the ISS contains most of its base infrastructure. It mounts the solar and radiator panels, power and coolant distribution for same, and other support infrastructure. The individual crew modules on the non-Russian segment of the station don't need to use their mass or volume carrying these support elements. This leaves more of their interior envelope for astronauts, supplies, and scientific equipment. The Shuttle also facilitated dedicated crew modules. Because the Shuttle's engines delivered modules to the station and could be placed with the CanadaArm/Shuttle crew they did not need to be mated to an independent spacecraft bus. Compare the non-Russian modules of the ISS to the Russian segment. Because the Russian segment is essentially two docked independent spacecraft there's a lot of dead weight and needlessly redundant support systems. Each of the Russian modules have their own power and cooling since each needed those things before they were part of a larger station. The Mir and Salyut stations, from whom the Russian segment of the ISS are derived, had the same sort of redundancy. The Mir was crowded and had very limited space and power for experiments. The modules also did not have the ability to support each other. If the power or thermal systems broke in a module it was dead and needed to be sealed off from the rest of the station. Because the modules were independent spacecraft they didn't have exterior connections or serviceable parts that could be repaired with a space walk. Without the Shuttle or permanent orbital work platform like it, near term space stations have to be constructed out of docked independent spacecraft like Mir. A bunch of Dragon craft mated to a central docking module has far less capability as the ISS truss/module design. It would be possible to build an ISS-like station without the Shuttle. The SpaceX Starship could be given a cargo bay, remote arm, and integral airlock. It could do a pretty good job configured such but that is not currently something SpaceX has announced. It would also require a lot of development effort as cargo bay doors are a structural weak point in addition to who knows how many changes to the Starship's design. Even a couple mated Starships in a "wet workshop" configuration would make for good orbital stations. Assembling things in orbit is hard and unforgiving. Don't just assume that a reusable launch vehicle magically makes it cheap or easy. Launching shit into orbit is relatively easy, it's at least a solved problem. Docking that shit to other shit in orbit is much harder. Designing and building all that shit is expensive. Keep in mind, if your toilet breaks in space it could kill you if it can't be repaired or replaced quickly. So everything from the airlock to power distribution to toilet needs to be well designed, tested, and built or it is likely to kill you.

Why not do both?

Because limited resources are a thing that exists? I think if you were to take a poll, most people would agree that throwing all our economic might behind preserving the one bastion of life we know of in the universe is a better course of action than spending our time and money on what for the foreseeable future remains a pipe dream to be smoked by the very few. In all likelihood, we will need the technologies developed in a green revolution to even have a fighting chance of success at colonizing other worlds.

austincheney 7y ago
I wouldn’t leave that decision in the hands of an internet poll.
- defterGoose 7y ago
  You have trillions to spend? I say go for it.

simonh 7y ago

If there is one thing I’ve learned, from many posters on HN in many different topic, it’s that human civilisation is apparently incapable of achieving more than one goal at a time.

diegoperini 7y ago
That's very cynical and definitely not true at all. Human civilization constantly achieves multiple goals at the same time on a daily basis. If you are not seeing that, you are probably reading the wrong newspaper.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Tepix 7y ago
  I'm pretty sure he was being sarcastic.
  - diegoperini 7y ago
    Oh, sorry, I really couldn't see that (no sarcasm on my part).
projektfu 7y ago
It’s more that we can’t achieve a single civilization goal, but are always wishing we could solve a cooler problem than the ones at hand.

pyrale 7y ago

Mainly because right now, any significant endeavour is tied to using massive amounts of fossil fuel. As long as it will be the case, we won't be able to start new, large scale projects without jeopardizing our ability to live on earth.

keiferski 7y ago
> Mainly because right now, any significant endeavour is tied to using massive amounts of fossil fuel. But does that actually matter in space? I am asking out of genuine curiosity here: does using fossil fuels in space have any real downside? There is no atmosphere, ergo no greenhouse effect. The vastness of space would seem to swallow up any sort of pollution.
- muzani 7y ago
  That's... a different question. Where would you find fossils on other planets? The article says Titan has seas of hydrocarbon, but otherwise Moon and Mars, it's just not an option. One reason why Musk has invested so much in non-fossil fuel tech is not so much to save this planet but to operate things on other planets.
  - keiferski 7y ago
    Sure, but my broad question was essentially: are there any negatives to using "dirty" forms of energy like nuclear, coal, or oil in space?
    - garmaine 7y ago
      > are there any negatives to using "dirty" forms of energy like nuclear, coal, or oil One of those is not like the others. Nuclear is the cleanest form of energy we have, cleaner than even wind or solar power.
      - keiferski 7y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste

giantrobot 7y ago

Building an outpost in Earth orbit that requires constant maintenance and supplies from the ground is just barely achievable right now and cost billions of dollars. We call it the ISS. The horizon to a self-sufficient orbital settlement is still decades off. A self-sufficient colony on any other planet or moon is way beyond that capability. It's not about doing one thing or another, it's one thing is a fantasy in the short term and the other is a real practical concern. There's far more practical places on Earth to colonize before even thinking of bootstrapping an industrial civilization on another planet. Because that's what it would take. None of the technology needed to do the bootstrapping currently exists. You can't download MarsColony.stl from Thingiverse to load into a giant 3D printer.

kitsunesoba 7y ago
Keep in mind, though, that the costs of the ISS were inflated greatly by the pseudo-reusable Space Shuttle and cost-plus contracting, not to mention the added complication of being an international project. We now have something much closer true reusable rockets from two private, competing companies that are both squarely focused on dropping the cost of launches. If a single party were to utilize them to build an ISS equivalent today, it’d undoubtedly be much much cheaper, and that’s just today. These companies have rockets on the horizon that would make space stations cheaper to build than settlements in some places on Earth.
- giantrobot 7y ago
  You're laboring under some misconceptions. The ISS was expensive to build for the same reasons many things are expensive to build, it used new technology in a new configuration and was essentially a one-off product. It is a functional prototype. There's also some in-space capabilities that have been lost with the retiring of the Shuttle. There's not really replacements for those capabilities on the horizon. For starters the Shuttle was designed as an orbital work platform. In its construction configuration it launched with the CanadaArm, an airlock, and whatever ISS module it was delivering in the cargo bay. This was all in addition to the OMS, power and life support, and the crew cabin. It could fly modules to the station and assemble them without using resources of the station itself. The Shuttle as a space truck facilitated one of the best aspects of the ISS design: the integrated truss structure. The truss structure of the ISS contains most of its base infrastructure. It mounts the solar and radiator panels, power and coolant distribution for same, and other support infrastructure. The individual crew modules on the non-Russian segment of the station don't need to use their mass or volume carrying these support elements. This leaves more of their interior envelope for astronauts, supplies, and scientific equipment. The Shuttle also facilitated dedicated crew modules. Because the Shuttle's engines delivered modules to the station and could be placed with the CanadaArm/Shuttle crew they did not need to be mated to an independent spacecraft bus. Compare the non-Russian modules of the ISS to the Russian segment. Because the Russian segment is essentially two docked independent spacecraft there's a lot of dead weight and needlessly redundant support systems. Each of the Russian modules have their own power and cooling since each needed those things before they were part of a larger station. The Mir and Salyut stations, from whom the Russian segment of the ISS are derived, had the same sort of redundancy. The Mir was crowded and had very limited space and power for experiments. The modules also did not have the ability to support each other. If the power or thermal systems broke in a module it was dead and needed to be sealed off from the rest of the station. Because the modules were independent spacecraft they didn't have exterior connections or serviceable parts that could be repaired with a space walk. Without the Shuttle or permanent orbital work platform like it, near term space stations have to be constructed out of docked independent spacecraft like Mir. A bunch of Dragon craft mated to a central docking module has far less capability as the ISS truss/module design. It would be possible to build an ISS-like station without the Shuttle. The SpaceX Starship could be given a cargo bay, remote arm, and integral airlock. It could do a pretty good job configured such but that is not currently something SpaceX has announced. It would also require a lot of development effort as cargo bay doors are a structural weak point in addition to who knows how many changes to the Starship's design. Even a couple mated Starships in a "wet workshop" configuration would make for good orbital stations. Assembling things in orbit is hard and unforgiving. Don't just assume that a reusable launch vehicle magically makes it cheap or easy. Launching shit into orbit is relatively easy, it's at least a solved problem. Docking that shit to other shit in orbit is much harder. Designing and building all that shit is expensive. Keep in mind, if your toilet breaks in space it could kill you if it can't be repaired or replaced quickly. So everything from the airlock to power distribution to toilet needs to be well designed, tested, and built or it is likely to kill you.