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If you don’t think robotic tech changes anything about the core of space flight, I just don’t know what to tell you.

mrtksn 6y ago
Okay, what it changes? I know the talking points(yes, it is cheaper but not in order of magnitude) but where's the substance here? If it's the cool videos, that could have been done in CGI too. What is the new things, the thing that is a leap forward? Sure, it is nice to end the reliance on Russia but that's a political advancement. If it's the wild stock market, you can do it with cryptocurrencies too(maybe rockets are more environmentally friendly?). If it is Mars, this is some CGI so far and kids in Eastern Europe can do it too. Re-do everything with the electronics and software of the 2020's is interesting of course but my understanding is that the reason the space age ended is because we need multiple orders of magnitude more energy to reach far distances in reasonable times and what we have in the distance that we can realistically reach isn't particularly important. The new space companies don't bring the orders of magnitude cost savings or energy into the play, they bring re-do of what was done in the Space age and I fail to see how this is changing the fundamentals. Please somebody stop repeating the talking point and explain this thing that everybody understand but nobody talks about. "Everybody knows what robotics will do to the space" Well, tell me please what robotics(which is not actually new in space) will do to revive the Space Age? I am not one of the everybody who knows, please explain.
- imtringued 6y ago
  The space age ended because there are few economical reasons to go to space. You can deploy satellites profitably and that's about it. Anything that goes beyond this has to be funded by a national space program and unless there is a nationalistic reason like a space race against the soviet union the national space program is going to be at the bottom of government priorities. The only way one could possibly change that is by reducing launch costs.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- marktangotango 6y ago
  IMO what all these commenters and mainstream narratives miss is: cheap launch cost enabling space based industry and development. Once you move resource extraction of space based resources and industrial production INTO space it’s game over. The solar systems vast riches are available. Mars and the moon value in the long term is their relative shallow gravity wells. I don’t know how robotics plays in here, that’s the innovation to come.

Okay, what it changes? I know the talking points(yes, it is cheaper but not in order of magnitude) but where's the substance here? If it's the cool videos, that could have been done in CGI too. What is the new things, the thing that is a leap forward? Sure, it is nice to end the reliance on Russia but that's a political advancement. If it's the wild stock market, you can do it with cryptocurrencies too(maybe rockets are more environmentally friendly?). If it is Mars, this is some CGI so far and kids in Eastern Europe can do it too. Re-do everything with the electronics and software of the 2020's is interesting of course but my understanding is that the reason the space age ended is because we need multiple orders of magnitude more energy to reach far distances in reasonable times and what we have in the distance that we can realistically reach isn't particularly important. The new space companies don't bring the orders of magnitude cost savings or energy into the play, they bring re-do of what was done in the Space age and I fail to see how this is changing the fundamentals. Please somebody stop repeating the talking point and explain this thing that everybody understand but nobody talks about. "Everybody knows what robotics will do to the space" Well, tell me please what robotics(which is not actually new in space) will do to revive the Space Age? I am not one of the everybody who knows, please explain.

imtringued 6y ago
The space age ended because there are few economical reasons to go to space. You can deploy satellites profitably and that's about it. Anything that goes beyond this has to be funded by a national space program and unless there is a nationalistic reason like a space race against the soviet union the national space program is going to be at the bottom of government priorities. The only way one could possibly change that is by reducing launch costs.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
marktangotango 6y ago
IMO what all these commenters and mainstream narratives miss is: cheap launch cost enabling space based industry and development. Once you move resource extraction of space based resources and industrial production INTO space it’s game over. The solar systems vast riches are available. Mars and the moon value in the long term is their relative shallow gravity wells. I don’t know how robotics plays in here, that’s the innovation to come.