8 ms·
How Many People Are In Space Right Now?
- savrajsingh 15y ago(that civilians know about :))
- zyb09 15y agoyea pretty sure there are another couple hundred people on the secret CIA space ship, conspiring in space about their evil plan to take over the world.
- spicyj 15y agoI think the grandparent was referring to extraterrestrial life that we haven't discovered.
- iamdave 15y agoExtraterrestrial life = people? Then who was soylent green?
- savrajsingh 15y agoThe SR71 was a secret for a long time. Now it's in museums. What secret aircraft/spacecraft do we have now? Beyond the x37? The military budget is orders of mag greater than NASAs. That's what I meant.
- tesseract 15y agoI would guess that the secret aircraft of today, likely as not don't have people in them.
- horseshoes 15y agoIsn't it closer to 4 billion? Probably more, that we don't know about yet? Edit: Sorry, 6 billion. Didn't mean to make you think 2 bil. people died.
- mtogo 15y agoWhy is horseshoes being downvoted? He's exactly right, there are about 6.79 billion[1] people in space[2] right now. There are 10 in outer space, but the domain isn't howmanypeopleareinouterspacerightnow.com [1] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+of+earth http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+of+earth [2] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Space https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Space
- Sacrificiality 15y agoAnd this is why geeks are considered 'retarded'. Do you really miss the point? No. Pedantic bullshit trolls. Wave to the camera!
- jamesaguilar 15y agoI just got shivers as I pictured the changes that would occur on this site over the next three or four centuries were it kept up to date for all that time.
- lmarinho 15y agoHope the real change in that value doesn't disappoints us. If I travelled in time from 1970 to today and looked at this site I surely would be disappointed.
- a3_nm 15y agoAccording to an unsourced claim on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human), the largest value ever reached for this number was 13 (which is surprisingly low).
- sehugg 15y agoHere's a citation (http://www.universetoday.com/27924/soyuz-rockets-to-space-13-humans-now-in-orbit/ http://www.universetoday.com/27924/soyuz-rockets-to-space-13...) it last happened in 2009. Three ISS, seven shuttle, and three Soyuz. It also happened in 1995 (Mir) and 1997.
- a3_nm 15y agoAwesome, thanks! Wikipedia article updated.
- dlokshin 15y agoMore specifically, this is the number of live people in space. I'd be curious to know how many dead people are in space as well (the ones who had their body's launched upon passing).
- sjs 15y agoThat's a really cool thought, that some of us "star dust" creatures went back out into the stars. They are 5 billion years ahead of the rest of us :)
- alanfalcon 15y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_burial http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_burial Note that some of them only have sub-orbital "burials" and end up back home. Personally I'd be cool with being buried on the moon. Preferably in a giant monolith. Perhaps through http://www.ironicsans.com/2011/01/idea_crowdfund_a_mission_to_pu.html http://www.ironicsans.com/2011/01/idea_crowdfund_a_mission_t...
- tripplesix 15y agoThe number may be larger than we know because of the undocumented disappearances of early Soviet cosmonauts. Although Yuri Gagarin is widely believed to be the first man in space, it is highly probable that he was only the first man to survive space travel.
- InclinedPlane 15y agoThis is a conspiracy theory with absolutely no solid evidence behind it.
- shii 15y agoThey make you autofollow once you visit the page and are signed into Tumblr, not cool.
- sjs 15y agoNot for me. (Chrome, OS X)
- jcnnghm 15y agoI think it's kind of surprising how low the number is. Almost certainly because space exploration is underfunded. Over the last few weeks, there has been a lot of talk about the NASA budget, and there are a couple of things I think many people don't know. The total 2010 US Space budget was $64.6B. The entire rest of the world combined spent only $22.5B. NASA's 2010 budget was $18.7B, 83% of the spending for the rest of the world. It's more than a little ironic when those outside the United States criticize cuts to US space spending. Europeans, in particular, may want to consider the paltry $4.6B ESA budget before they criticize the United States. Space spending does need to increase; the rest of the worlds needs to start contributing.
- davidhollander 15y ago>Almost certainly because space exploration is underfunded. Or because there is currently no benefit in conducting exploration using humans instead of robots.
- jcnnghm 15y agoBecause we can is almost always a poor reason to do something, but this may be an edge case.
- davidhollander 15y agoI understand the desire for action, but we need to invent another task besides exploration to engage in. I.e. resource exploitation. Purely observational exploration of outer space is a task for which we are extremely maladapted (vacuum, long distances, etc.) that robots will probably always be better at.
- jcnnghm 15y agoI definitely agree with what you're saying at the beginning, but I'm not so sure about the end. I think there is some value in putting humans in space. It certainly seems many scientific discoveries are made by a scientist observing or experiencing something, noticing that it is strange, then investigating. A perfect example of this is the development of microwaves, which came about because an engineer working on radar noticed that a candy bar started to melt when near the radar. Robots are certainly superior by almost every metric once you know what you're looking for, but I wouldn't be so sure that we actually know what we are looking for. Boots on the ground, so to speak, can offer insights that a robot simply cannot.
- idlewords 15y agoNot enough.
- jackfoxy 15y agoThis is a testament to how damned expensive it is to get into space. There is no subverting the laws of physics.
- nazgulnarsil 15y agoget out of earth's gravity well and you're halfway to anywhere in the solar system, energy wise.
- btilly 15y agoOn NPR this morning I heard that the total number who have ever been in space is about 550. That was a lot more than I thought it was.
- arihant 15y agoI think they mean 'Not on Earth'. Being on Earth is same as being in Space. Earth is in Space.
- ryanklee 15y agoNo, they mean "in Space". Why attempt to subvert the obviously standard usage of the word? It's just silly.
- jgroome 15y agoThis site may actually bankrupt NASA if they keep hotlinking that 1.7mb background image.
- prtk 15y agoToo many satellites. Too few people. Seems like space is infested with robots. Gentlemen machines are winning! And it will be my 1001th(in decimal) birthday before I go where no man has gone before. :(