5 ms·

> do more as species Space exploration and exploitation is awesome, but shouldn't the first items on the "do more as species" todo list be about taking care of

by dmos62 6y ago

> do more as species Space exploration and exploitation is awesome, but shouldn't the first items on the "do more as species" todo list be about taking care of earth?

gpm 6y ago
First, yes (or similar terrestrial activities). Only, definitely not.
mrtksn 6y ago
These things don't have to be mutually exclusive. Unless you create an AI to build paperclips, of course.
- kitsunesoba 6y ago
  In fact, if they are mutually exclusive it’d be indicative of incredible mismanagement. There are enough people for us to be able to do both, and nobody benefits from reallocating rocket scientists to things that aren’t rocket science.
  - gowld 6y ago
    Why not? Rocket scientists can work on fuel efficient cars and airplanes. And rocket science is only one small part of the overal industrial effort of launching rockets.
    - Koshkin 6y ago
      > Rocket scientists can work on fuel efficient cars In all honesty, that's like saying that Jack the Ripper could work as a surgeon.
avmich 6y ago
We raise the question if the space deserves exploration fairly frequently here. For some reason, neither commercial advantages - certain things, like global communications, navigation, imaging can be conveniently done with satellites - not traditional expansion of species habitat reasons - though I'm sure for each Columbus crew there were some loudly wondering why sail at all - serve as a good enough explanation.
- lmilcin 6y ago
  Of course it is worth to explore space. It does not "deserve" to be explored, it just pays off. There is huge amount of knowledge and resources to be had. Of course robotic missions are better for exploration than manned mission. Manned missions costs so much we could do so many more robotic missions for the same cost. People are absolutely not required in space. We send people into space because we can and we want. Because we keep separate track of record of things achieved by actual human beings. That's why we list who beat 100m or marathon record even though we have machines to move as around much faster. Because standing a human on a mountain, sea bed, or a piece of rock in space is an important step for us to prove we can command nature around us.
  - avmich 6y ago
    > Of course robotic missions are better for exploration than manned mission. Manned missions costs so much we could do so many more robotic missions for the same cost. People are absolutely not required in space. Can you imagine being wrong on that? That people can and are cheaper than robots for certain important aspects? That accomplished space robot makers would disagree that robots are at least universally cheaper - or better in other aspects? > We send people into space because we can and we want. Because we keep separate track of record of things achieved by actual human beings. That's why we list who beat 100m or marathon record even though we have machines to move as around much faster. Because standing a human on a mountain, sea bed, or a piece of rock in space is an important step for us to prove we can command nature around us. I suspect you're mixing several significantly different things into one here. Token achievements, like current champion in sport X, are one thing. Genuinely advancing, say, science - like on ISS - is another.
    - lmilcin 6y ago
      People are not cheaper in space, by no means. Robotic things can be easily prepared well in advance, on planet Earth, where sitting a bunch of programmers by the computer is much cheaper than training and sending actual bag of mostly water into space. If you are still not convinced, we have sent a robotic missions to almost every larger body in solar system, yet we are excited today we can send two people to LEO. Just look at costs involved... Humans cannot do anything in space without tools and tools in space is a bunch of electronic signals that are either processed locally or sent to Earth. The things people do in space is either trivia (yeah, have fun with this ball of water in zero-G) or studying behavior of human body and mind in space to be able to send more humans to do the same. We have learned how to do very complicated things without humans involved. Hovering a craft in Mars atmosphere? Orienting craft with extreme precision? Running complicated manouvers at the ends of solar system? Look at missions which are only possible because we can send a craft on decades' long journey. If people were necessary we would not be able to do anything of that. Any human mission is limited to short hops from Earth to Moon, maybe Mars, until we advance our science and technology way, way past current level. Sending people to space isn't really advancing science (except studying how people fare in space). It is another token achievement. There isn't physics we are learning IN ORDER TO or BECAUSE we are sending people to space. Physics is advanced by physicists. There might be some technological advancement necessary to send humans that would not be necessary for robotic missions, that's all, really. Take a close look at what people in space are doing. Find anything that requires humans in space? Don't get me wrong. I am all for human presence in space. Just be realistic about why we are doing it.
galacticaactual 6y ago
Why is this question never raised whenever the latest web company raises X million dollars that could’ve funded green tech?
- jayd16 6y ago
  It never factors in to the conversation. No one brings up a species wide imperatives so its not countered with a question of priority.
- deegles 6y ago
  It's clear that the people writing the checks thought they would make more money with the web company. Either they're looking at the green projects and thinking "meh" or they're not seeing them at all.
  - bcrosby95 6y ago
    Or they're investing in both web and green tech.
simonh 6y ago
I think as a species, it should be possible for us to do more than one thing at a time.
KoftaBob 6y ago
Sure, that should be a higher priority. Is there a sentiment somewhere that space exploration is a higher or more urgent priority than green energy?
- DannyB2 6y ago
  Elon seems to be in favor of both space exploration and green energy and other ways to generally improve the planet and human life. Comcast vs Starlink, hmmm, I wonder which?
Symmetry 6y ago
All efforts have diminishing returns. If the tiny amount of resources our species spends on space exploration were re-directed towards taking care of Earth you wouldn't see any difference there. And also, efforts in space benefit the Earth a lot through things like comms and weather satellites and by learning more about our come by comparing it with other planets. Comparing the atmosphere of Earth with that of Venus and Mars, for instance, told us a lot about the importance of the ozone layer and we might have only just stopped the production of CFCs if it hadn't been for space exploration.
kempbellt 6y ago
There are over 7 billion people on the planet. We can do a few things at once.
LoSboccacc 6y ago
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-... in general, there's a lot of items on the urgent list, there's so much money to go around and you don't want to invest everything in endeavour X only for Y to be worse and catch you by surprise. so you allocate some budget to secondary research as well. NASA doesn't even burn that much in the grand scheme of things.
derekp7 6y ago
This is like parents telling their children "If you have time to goof off and play games, you should have time to study harder / do the dishes / mow the lawn". This isn't an either /or, also even if you stopped doing X completely, and did only Y, you still won't be done with Y. Because there is always more Y to do. So as long as Y isn't fully achievable, might as do some X also.

by dmos62 6y ago

> do more as species Space exploration and exploitation is awesome, but shouldn't the first items on the "do more as species" todo list be about taking care of earth?

gpm 6y ago

First, yes (or similar terrestrial activities). Only, definitely not.

mrtksn 6y ago

These things don't have to be mutually exclusive. Unless you create an AI to build paperclips, of course.

kitsunesoba 6y ago
In fact, if they are mutually exclusive it’d be indicative of incredible mismanagement. There are enough people for us to be able to do both, and nobody benefits from reallocating rocket scientists to things that aren’t rocket science.
- gowld 6y ago
  Why not? Rocket scientists can work on fuel efficient cars and airplanes. And rocket science is only one small part of the overal industrial effort of launching rockets.
  - Koshkin 6y ago
    > Rocket scientists can work on fuel efficient cars In all honesty, that's like saying that Jack the Ripper could work as a surgeon.

avmich 6y ago

We raise the question if the space deserves exploration fairly frequently here. For some reason, neither commercial advantages - certain things, like global communications, navigation, imaging can be conveniently done with satellites - not traditional expansion of species habitat reasons - though I'm sure for each Columbus crew there were some loudly wondering why sail at all - serve as a good enough explanation.

lmilcin 6y ago
Of course it is worth to explore space. It does not "deserve" to be explored, it just pays off. There is huge amount of knowledge and resources to be had. Of course robotic missions are better for exploration than manned mission. Manned missions costs so much we could do so many more robotic missions for the same cost. People are absolutely not required in space. We send people into space because we can and we want. Because we keep separate track of record of things achieved by actual human beings. That's why we list who beat 100m or marathon record even though we have machines to move as around much faster. Because standing a human on a mountain, sea bed, or a piece of rock in space is an important step for us to prove we can command nature around us.
- avmich 6y ago
  > Of course robotic missions are better for exploration than manned mission. Manned missions costs so much we could do so many more robotic missions for the same cost. People are absolutely not required in space. Can you imagine being wrong on that? That people can and are cheaper than robots for certain important aspects? That accomplished space robot makers would disagree that robots are at least universally cheaper - or better in other aspects? > We send people into space because we can and we want. Because we keep separate track of record of things achieved by actual human beings. That's why we list who beat 100m or marathon record even though we have machines to move as around much faster. Because standing a human on a mountain, sea bed, or a piece of rock in space is an important step for us to prove we can command nature around us. I suspect you're mixing several significantly different things into one here. Token achievements, like current champion in sport X, are one thing. Genuinely advancing, say, science - like on ISS - is another.
  - lmilcin 6y ago
    People are not cheaper in space, by no means. Robotic things can be easily prepared well in advance, on planet Earth, where sitting a bunch of programmers by the computer is much cheaper than training and sending actual bag of mostly water into space. If you are still not convinced, we have sent a robotic missions to almost every larger body in solar system, yet we are excited today we can send two people to LEO. Just look at costs involved... Humans cannot do anything in space without tools and tools in space is a bunch of electronic signals that are either processed locally or sent to Earth. The things people do in space is either trivia (yeah, have fun with this ball of water in zero-G) or studying behavior of human body and mind in space to be able to send more humans to do the same. We have learned how to do very complicated things without humans involved. Hovering a craft in Mars atmosphere? Orienting craft with extreme precision? Running complicated manouvers at the ends of solar system? Look at missions which are only possible because we can send a craft on decades' long journey. If people were necessary we would not be able to do anything of that. Any human mission is limited to short hops from Earth to Moon, maybe Mars, until we advance our science and technology way, way past current level. Sending people to space isn't really advancing science (except studying how people fare in space). It is another token achievement. There isn't physics we are learning IN ORDER TO or BECAUSE we are sending people to space. Physics is advanced by physicists. There might be some technological advancement necessary to send humans that would not be necessary for robotic missions, that's all, really. Take a close look at what people in space are doing. Find anything that requires humans in space? Don't get me wrong. I am all for human presence in space. Just be realistic about why we are doing it.

galacticaactual 6y ago

Why is this question never raised whenever the latest web company raises X million dollars that could’ve funded green tech?

jayd16 6y ago
It never factors in to the conversation. No one brings up a species wide imperatives so its not countered with a question of priority.
deegles 6y ago
It's clear that the people writing the checks thought they would make more money with the web company. Either they're looking at the green projects and thinking "meh" or they're not seeing them at all.
- bcrosby95 6y ago
  Or they're investing in both web and green tech.

simonh 6y ago

I think as a species, it should be possible for us to do more than one thing at a time.

KoftaBob 6y ago

Sure, that should be a higher priority. Is there a sentiment somewhere that space exploration is a higher or more urgent priority than green energy?

DannyB2 6y ago
Elon seems to be in favor of both space exploration and green energy and other ways to generally improve the planet and human life. Comcast vs Starlink, hmmm, I wonder which?

Symmetry 6y ago

All efforts have diminishing returns. If the tiny amount of resources our species spends on space exploration were re-directed towards taking care of Earth you wouldn't see any difference there. And also, efforts in space benefit the Earth a lot through things like comms and weather satellites and by learning more about our come by comparing it with other planets. Comparing the atmosphere of Earth with that of Venus and Mars, for instance, told us a lot about the importance of the ozone layer and we might have only just stopped the production of CFCs if it hadn't been for space exploration.

kempbellt 6y ago

There are over 7 billion people on the planet. We can do a few things at once.

LoSboccacc 6y ago

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-... in general, there's a lot of items on the urgent list, there's so much money to go around and you don't want to invest everything in endeavour X only for Y to be worse and catch you by surprise. so you allocate some budget to secondary research as well. NASA doesn't even burn that much in the grand scheme of things.

derekp7 6y ago

This is like parents telling their children "If you have time to goof off and play games, you should have time to study harder / do the dishes / mow the lawn". This isn't an either /or, also even if you stopped doing X completely, and did only Y, you still won't be done with Y. Because there is always more Y to do. So as long as Y isn't fully achievable, might as do some X also.