4 ms·

A lot of the justification for human space exploration seems to be circular and rest entirely on the quasi-religious belief that sending people into space is in

by throwaway052020 6y ago

A lot of the justification for human space exploration seems to be circular and rest entirely on the quasi-religious belief that sending people into space is inherently good. Once you take away that belief, there's not much reason to do things like building factories or habitats on the moon.

avmich 6y ago
> A lot of the justification for human space exploration seems to be circular and rest entirely on the quasi-religious belief that sending people into space is inherently good. It's just a short summary of the reasoning. Here - https://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore-space-a-1970-letter-to-a-nun-in-africa/ https://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore-space-... - some arguments for space exploration in general. Human exploration in particular becomes more clear when one realizes that modern robotics can't fit a lot of exploration requirements as well as humans can. Aside from commercial goals - like resources, tourism, support of space equipment - we have natural, if strategic, curiosity of environment around us. We're just at the point when that "around" starts getting bigger than the planet.
- throwaway052020 6y ago
  > Here - https://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore-space-.. https://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore-space-.... - some arguments for space exploration in general. I don't think anyone is against using space, but that's quite a different thing from human space exploration. The only specific example he gives of the direct use for space - using artificial satellites - don't require human space exploration. Neither do the more indirect benefits he mentions - international cooperation and having high level challenges. There are plenty of high challenges (even if we just look at space), many that would also have much more tangible benefits in addition to being a high level challenge. Talking about our natural curiosity isn't a great reason either - we're already doing much more robotic exploration of space than most cultures historically did of their surroundings. And this exploration doesn't necessitate humans.
  - avmich 6y ago
    A good example of benefits of human presence in space is science obtained on orbital stations. We don't have much more examples of actually being in space for humans - Apollo flights were short and few, so most other examples are either space stations or solo flights. Yet we have advancements of science even from that. Particularly Apollo flights still represent the best overall scientific review of the Moon - and in general other non-Earth celestial bodies - so from science point of view advantage of robots is unclear. That advantage comes largely from being more economical to send a robot to space than to send a human, but things change with time, and flying to the same place becomes cheaper with time, so this advantage of robots may decrease. Will it be offset by increased robotic abilities is also unclear. So Stuhlinger's arguments are not the only ones - and rather old by now, so newer ones are better seen. As for natural curiosity, yes, we did often survey the other side of the river before going there - even before deciding if it makes sense to go, over millennia. Yet by now all rivers on Earth are crossed. So saying that exploration doesn't necessitate humans doesn't seem to generalize - it's the status quo for today, not the necessary law of nature.
narag 6y ago
...quasi-religious belief that sending people into space is inherently good. Once you take away that belief... Why would you want to do that? Not sure about the religious part, but sending people into space is inherently good, indeed. Exactly the same as traveling the world instead of sending a drone to photograph the pyramids. But not everybody can appreciate the difference. Personal preferences aside, it's difficult to argue against your position unless you define what you think are the goals of space exploration, human or not. Maybe there's also different goals for different persons.
xwdv 6y ago
Society grows great when old men build space ships they’ll never get to ride.

avmich 6y ago

> A lot of the justification for human space exploration seems to be circular and rest entirely on the quasi-religious belief that sending people into space is inherently good. It's just a short summary of the reasoning. Here - https://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore-space-a-1970-letter-to-a-nun-in-africa/ https://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore-space-... - some arguments for space exploration in general. Human exploration in particular becomes more clear when one realizes that modern robotics can't fit a lot of exploration requirements as well as humans can. Aside from commercial goals - like resources, tourism, support of space equipment - we have natural, if strategic, curiosity of environment around us. We're just at the point when that "around" starts getting bigger than the planet.

throwaway052020 6y ago
> Here - https://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore-space-.. https://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/why-explore-space-.... - some arguments for space exploration in general. I don't think anyone is against using space, but that's quite a different thing from human space exploration. The only specific example he gives of the direct use for space - using artificial satellites - don't require human space exploration. Neither do the more indirect benefits he mentions - international cooperation and having high level challenges. There are plenty of high challenges (even if we just look at space), many that would also have much more tangible benefits in addition to being a high level challenge. Talking about our natural curiosity isn't a great reason either - we're already doing much more robotic exploration of space than most cultures historically did of their surroundings. And this exploration doesn't necessitate humans.
- avmich 6y ago
  A good example of benefits of human presence in space is science obtained on orbital stations. We don't have much more examples of actually being in space for humans - Apollo flights were short and few, so most other examples are either space stations or solo flights. Yet we have advancements of science even from that. Particularly Apollo flights still represent the best overall scientific review of the Moon - and in general other non-Earth celestial bodies - so from science point of view advantage of robots is unclear. That advantage comes largely from being more economical to send a robot to space than to send a human, but things change with time, and flying to the same place becomes cheaper with time, so this advantage of robots may decrease. Will it be offset by increased robotic abilities is also unclear. So Stuhlinger's arguments are not the only ones - and rather old by now, so newer ones are better seen. As for natural curiosity, yes, we did often survey the other side of the river before going there - even before deciding if it makes sense to go, over millennia. Yet by now all rivers on Earth are crossed. So saying that exploration doesn't necessitate humans doesn't seem to generalize - it's the status quo for today, not the necessary law of nature.

narag 6y ago

...quasi-religious belief that sending people into space is inherently good. Once you take away that belief... Why would you want to do that? Not sure about the religious part, but sending people into space is inherently good, indeed. Exactly the same as traveling the world instead of sending a drone to photograph the pyramids. But not everybody can appreciate the difference. Personal preferences aside, it's difficult to argue against your position unless you define what you think are the goals of space exploration, human or not. Maybe there's also different goals for different persons.

xwdv 6y ago

Society grows great when old men build space ships they’ll never get to ride.