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Manned spaceflight and stations are unnecessary in the near term. Autonomous drones and machines can bootstrap colonization. A mining refinery can be bootstrapp

Manned spaceflight and stations are unnecessary in the near term. Autonomous drones and machines can bootstrap colonization. A mining refinery can be bootstrapped easily, all remotely. Then asteroid mining droids will drop their payloads there for refinement and processing.

ceejayoz 6y ago
How near is your "near term" here? We still pay hefty amounts of money to oil rig workers and underwater welders, even here on Earth. Robot telepresence has a long way to go before we can build an entire refinery in zero-G.
- derekp7 6y ago
  Agreed. The benchmark I use is I'll believe that robotic missions make human missions irrelevant, when the day comes that I can get a roomba that works across multiple floors, climbing stairs (and cleaning stairs), empties itself in the trash can, and avoids pet messes instead of dragging poop all over the floor. Or a laundry system that grabs the basket of dirty laundry (or better yet, picks the close off the floor), washes, then transfers to the dryer, then irons and hangs up the clothes. If machines can do all that effectively, then they can probably explore other planetary bodies as good as people.
  - prewett 6y ago
    If you were going to make a 100% robotic factory/refinery/etc. you would design it for robots. The problem with the Roomba is that houses are designed for people, not robots. A robotic factory could avoid a lot of problems by not needing to design for people. While I disagree with your benchmark, I don't think we're going to be putting robotic factories in space in 3-4 years. Have we even built a 100% robotic factory on earth yet? Plus, I don't think that anyone has built an autonomous robot for zero-g yet (I'm not counting satellites and Canada-arm).
    - avmich 6y ago
      > Plus, I don't think that anyone has built an autonomous robot for zero-g yet (I'm not counting satellites and Canada-arm). https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/17/15981250/japan-space-camera-drone-iss-int-ball https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/17/15981250/japan-space-came... "Japan’s space agency has for the first time released photos and videos taken on the International Space Station by its resident robot drone..."
    - derekp7 6y ago
      But that factory won't do any good unless it gets input, and can put its output somewhere. The input would supposedly be from the local regolith which has a lot of the same problems that the example roomba would face. Now a factory on Mars that takes in sunlight and atmosphere, and fills a tank with rocket fuel, could be possible. But in that case I would call it a specialized machine, not a factory or a robot.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    I don't think we have to go that far, though. Humans operating a remote robot on the Moon is a feasible concept, but there's a lot of remaining work on telepresence to be done. Haptic feedback, VR, robotic finger dexterity. Full autonomy isn't necessary with the Moon's time lag. It'll be required if you want to do the robotic factory approach on Mars or the asteroid belt or something.
  - kyuudou 6y ago
    A Roomba is consumer-grade technology, though. There's a whole different paradigm of manufacturing and production used for i.e. defence, space/aerospace, high-level particle physics at LLNL and so forth. Not really a good metric. Ever read about the National Reconnaissance Office?
    - derekp7 6y ago
      I was using "Roomba" as an illustration device. I necessarily wouldn't expect that the technology I described would be available at a consumer price point, but many of those items on my list should be doable with the same technological (AI) advances needed to make off-planet robotics work well (especially ones that are more distance such as on Mars, which need to work more autonomously). For example, the rovers on Mars, as much as they have accomplished, really haven't done much more in all the time they were there than humans did physically on the Moon 50 years ago.
avmich 6y ago
> https://www.wired.com/2012/04/space-humans-vs-robots/ https://www.wired.com/2012/04/space-humans-vs-robots/ > If space exploration continues to focus on sending robots to other planets, "we will learn less about the solar system in the next 100 years than we will if we engage in an ambitious program of human exploration," In other words, sending humans could be more efficient use of funds. This is an old topic which was rehashed many times; some conclude that robot's advantage here is not real.
em-bee 6y ago
manned space missions are necessary in order to advance manned spaceflight. we need the experience from sending 5, 10, etc people there before we can send hundred or more. we need much more data on the effects of longterm space travel. this kind of experience can not be bootstrapped. bootstrapping colonization would be worthwhile if we were ready to build a viable colony in the next few decades. but i do not believe we are. i believe we do not yet have enough data to know if long term space missions are even possible. getting machines to mars is easy. but getting the experience necessary for human colonization alone will take several decades more before we are ready. we don't need that bootstrapping as much as we need the experience of human spaceflight in order to build a colony.
deleted 6y ago
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dwaltrip 6y ago
Unfortunately, robots aren't even close to being smart enough and dexterous enough to carry out complex projects in entirety without the help of humans. We need massive, paradigm-shifting advancements before that can happen.
dntbnmpls 6y ago
Private space companies see space tourism as a major source of revenue in the near term. So manned spaceflight and/or stations are necessities in the near term. Mining and colonization will follow, but we need to get the private sector up and running first.

ceejayoz 6y ago

How near is your "near term" here? We still pay hefty amounts of money to oil rig workers and underwater welders, even here on Earth. Robot telepresence has a long way to go before we can build an entire refinery in zero-G.

derekp7 6y ago
Agreed. The benchmark I use is I'll believe that robotic missions make human missions irrelevant, when the day comes that I can get a roomba that works across multiple floors, climbing stairs (and cleaning stairs), empties itself in the trash can, and avoids pet messes instead of dragging poop all over the floor. Or a laundry system that grabs the basket of dirty laundry (or better yet, picks the close off the floor), washes, then transfers to the dryer, then irons and hangs up the clothes. If machines can do all that effectively, then they can probably explore other planetary bodies as good as people.
- prewett 6y ago
  If you were going to make a 100% robotic factory/refinery/etc. you would design it for robots. The problem with the Roomba is that houses are designed for people, not robots. A robotic factory could avoid a lot of problems by not needing to design for people. While I disagree with your benchmark, I don't think we're going to be putting robotic factories in space in 3-4 years. Have we even built a 100% robotic factory on earth yet? Plus, I don't think that anyone has built an autonomous robot for zero-g yet (I'm not counting satellites and Canada-arm).
  - avmich 6y ago
    > Plus, I don't think that anyone has built an autonomous robot for zero-g yet (I'm not counting satellites and Canada-arm). https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/17/15981250/japan-space-camera-drone-iss-int-ball https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/17/15981250/japan-space-came... "Japan’s space agency has for the first time released photos and videos taken on the International Space Station by its resident robot drone..."
  - derekp7 6y ago
    But that factory won't do any good unless it gets input, and can put its output somewhere. The input would supposedly be from the local regolith which has a lot of the same problems that the example roomba would face. Now a factory on Mars that takes in sunlight and atmosphere, and fills a tank with rocket fuel, could be possible. But in that case I would call it a specialized machine, not a factory or a robot.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  I don't think we have to go that far, though. Humans operating a remote robot on the Moon is a feasible concept, but there's a lot of remaining work on telepresence to be done. Haptic feedback, VR, robotic finger dexterity. Full autonomy isn't necessary with the Moon's time lag. It'll be required if you want to do the robotic factory approach on Mars or the asteroid belt or something.
- kyuudou 6y ago
  A Roomba is consumer-grade technology, though. There's a whole different paradigm of manufacturing and production used for i.e. defence, space/aerospace, high-level particle physics at LLNL and so forth. Not really a good metric. Ever read about the National Reconnaissance Office?
  - derekp7 6y ago
    I was using "Roomba" as an illustration device. I necessarily wouldn't expect that the technology I described would be available at a consumer price point, but many of those items on my list should be doable with the same technological (AI) advances needed to make off-planet robotics work well (especially ones that are more distance such as on Mars, which need to work more autonomously). For example, the rovers on Mars, as much as they have accomplished, really haven't done much more in all the time they were there than humans did physically on the Moon 50 years ago.

avmich 6y ago

> https://www.wired.com/2012/04/space-humans-vs-robots/ https://www.wired.com/2012/04/space-humans-vs-robots/ > If space exploration continues to focus on sending robots to other planets, "we will learn less about the solar system in the next 100 years than we will if we engage in an ambitious program of human exploration," In other words, sending humans could be more efficient use of funds. This is an old topic which was rehashed many times; some conclude that robot's advantage here is not real.

em-bee 6y ago

manned space missions are necessary in order to advance manned spaceflight. we need the experience from sending 5, 10, etc people there before we can send hundred or more. we need much more data on the effects of longterm space travel. this kind of experience can not be bootstrapped. bootstrapping colonization would be worthwhile if we were ready to build a viable colony in the next few decades. but i do not believe we are. i believe we do not yet have enough data to know if long term space missions are even possible. getting machines to mars is easy. but getting the experience necessary for human colonization alone will take several decades more before we are ready. we don't need that bootstrapping as much as we need the experience of human spaceflight in order to build a colony.

deleted 6y ago

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dwaltrip 6y ago

Unfortunately, robots aren't even close to being smart enough and dexterous enough to carry out complex projects in entirety without the help of humans. We need massive, paradigm-shifting advancements before that can happen.

dntbnmpls 6y ago

Private space companies see space tourism as a major source of revenue in the near term. So manned spaceflight and/or stations are necessities in the near term. Mining and colonization will follow, but we need to get the private sector up and running first.