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This sounds mind-blowing, except that current public sentiment seems strongly against space exploration and that may catch up with budgets. Even though SpaceX

by dvh1990 5y ago

This sounds mind-blowing, except that current public sentiment seems strongly against space exploration and that may catch up with budgets. Even though SpaceX does the launches, it is government agencies that deal with launching missions, and government budgets are influenced by public opinion.

Causality1 5y ago
It's hard to blame the public for feeling that way when space projects run two decades behind schedule and two thousand percent over budget.
mdorazio 5y ago
I’m not sure why you think current public opinion is opposed to space exploration? It’s definitely opposed to space tourism for the rich, but that’s a separate thing.
- dvh1990 5y ago
  There's a strong anti Mars settlement sentiment going on, not just anti "space tourism". The idea, which I don't really subscribe to in this context, that we should utilize whatever resources we assign to space towards fighting climate change and fixing problems here on Earth.
  - ruph123 5y ago
    It is one thing to be against a Mars settlement and another to be against space exploration. E.g. it would serve the latter better if we would explore Venus, Europa, Titan, etc. than trying to live underground on a dead poisonous planet.
    - bdamm 5y ago
      Trying to live underground on a dead planet might just prove that we need Earth. Lots of people say space tourism is silly and then go gas up their car while complaining that Teslas are how the coastal elites will take their retirement.
      - kitsunesoba 5y ago
        To add on, I think there’s a lot of value to be had in the various science that can only be done with boots on the ground on Mars. The rovers have been great don’t get me wrong, but a team of scientists with a Starship full of equipment can do volumes more research in a couple of weeks than a rover can during its entire mission, including things that weren’t originally planned. What we learn there can be helpful for understanding the history of the solar system as well as planetary dynamics (remember that in terms of well-studied planets, we’re currently at sample size = 1).
        runarberg 5y ago
        How fast do we actually need to learn about Mars? How far are we willing to go, how much are we willing to spend just to speed things up there? We don’t live in the 1950s or the 1890s any more. We are not willing to sacrifice the lives of our explorers like we did when we went to the moon or Antarctica in the 1960s and 1900s respectively. We are not engaging in juvenile races to “get there first” which is both expensive and dangerous. The space exploration of today is more collaborative and careful then the explorations of the past. So we don’t risk the lives of our explorers nor the unnecessary expenses of getting things done 20 years when we can do it in 50 for far less money and with infinity more safety.
        soperj 5y ago
        The 2 Rovers from the last 2000s cost about a billion dollars. If we can get someone to moon for $2.9 billion (contract that spacex just won), I think that's worth it.
        kitsunesoba 5y ago
        It’s difficult to answer that question with any level of certainty. That said, there’s a line of thinking that we should do these things while we still can, because there’s no guarantee that we’ll continue to be able to do them. I tend to agree with that. So it’s not about trying to race and and get there first, but rather making sure that the opportunity doesn’t pass us by. As far as cost goes… these sorts of missions are expensive relative to the amounts of money most of us work with in a regular basis, but compared to the vast sums that get put toward far more questionable and frivolous uses it’s a drop in the bucket. If saving money or rerouting funds to more deserving causes is a goal, there’s several tens of bushels of lower hanging fruit elsewhere that should be looked at first — anything with scientific purpose should be trimmed last.
  - JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
    Anyone that has seen Blade Runner and the news should see that as a concern. The rich would spoil Earth and defile it and then move off to the ultimate gated community of Mars, leaving us to deal with the consequences of their actions.
    - pixl97 5y ago
      This has always been a bad idea based of unrealistic science fiction. Mars is the spoiled planet, and will be until some point technology is a lot further along. The rich are not going to run away to some wonderland. Earth is the garden, and nothing else is like it in space.
      - handrous 5y ago
        Yep. The list of things that could make Earth a worse place to live than Mars is very short. A big enough asteroid to liquefy the entire crust would do it, for a while. A "mere" dinosaur-killer wouldn't be enough. Nor would nuclear war. Most of the rest of the options are still sci-fi, like Grey Goo events, or a very contagious very deadly infectious disease (and that would have to have some way of sticking around for a long time, for an orbital habitat or sealed earthbound habitat not to still be better than Mars, since you could get back more easily once it was gone or we had a way to fight it). Otherwise you've gotta start stacking disasters to get close, and even then it's pretty difficult. Mars is really bad.
      - wonderwonder 5y ago
        Agreed, I think another thing missed by so many is that if we can settle mars that same technology can be used here on earth to make inhospitable parts of the planet usable again should we mess it up badly enough.
      - JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
        Yes I know that. But do THEY know that? I’m not so sure. Elon/Bezos seem to think you can hand wave/buy the radiation away like they do their problems on earth. Maybe with absolutely massive amounts of money they could find a way. And we would be the ones footing the bill for that.
  - handrous 5y ago
    I, for one, think permanent Mars settlement is a dumb idea, but I look forward to watching someone try it.
  - adfgergaehg 5y ago
    There's a strong "Mars settlement is impossible" sentiment going on, which is different. I am all for exploring space. I just loathe the fact that we have billionaires with no technical training calling the shots. (Well, maybe not "exploring". There isn't much to see! I'm very much for using space.)
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - systemvoltage 5y ago
    There were always people that opposed space exploration. They’ve been wrong every time.
    - ncmncm 5y ago
      Having been wrong changes few people's minds. Even about whether they were wrong.
  - twobitshifter 5y ago
    I think mars settlement is an eventuality, someone will be there. I also think that settlement of mars has a huge first mover advantage, maybe unlike anything else in human history. It may even come before that with the first permanent lunar base and launch platform.
    - Ekaros 5y ago
      I actually doubt that. Unless they also ship massive number of very specialized and power weapon systems. Planets are big, like absolutely massive. You can easily catch up, specially if you get intel on inevitable failures of first movers.
- ArtWomb 5y ago
  >>> public opinion is opposed to space exploration It's always been true ;) If you put it to a vote, majority of americans will allocate public funds towards terrestrial concerns over a new space lab. Even though provable, tech transfer in aerospace innovation proves most abundant. In today's dollars, what was nasa's highest yearly budget: maybe $30B? Let's see what 5% of US GDP devoted to Space R&D and Peaceful Expansion by mid century looks like!
  - virgilp 5y ago
    If you put it to a vote, majority of Americans will allocate public funds towards stimulus cheques and not the military.... what majority of Americans would allocate funds towards is not necessarily the thing that gets done.
  - mdorazio 5y ago
    I don’t really think that’s the case - it’s more nuanced. Most Americans are pro space exploration [1], but against manned missions and colonization efforts [2]. I have a strong feeling most people are probably also against boondoggle projects like SLS and seemingly-constant massive cost overruns on things like JWST. This makes sense if you think about it - flying humans around the solar system just doesn’t make much sense until we have actual orbital industry at some point in the future to bring the costs down to a reasonable level. And I personally have to agree with the camp opposed to Mars colonization, but for different reasons than most. Mars is kind of a crappy place to try and live by most metrics. It seems like colonization efforts would be better allocated to large asteroids or water-rich moons. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2018/06/06/majority-of-americans-believe-it-is-essential-that-the-u-s-remain-a-global-leader-in-space/ https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2018/06/06/majority-of-a... [2] https://morningconsult.com/2021/02/25/space-force-travel-exploration-poll/ https://morningconsult.com/2021/02/25/space-force-travel-exp...
  - bnralt 5y ago
    > Even though provable, tech transfer in aerospace innovation proves most abundant. When someone (usually NASA or NASA fanboys) does a Gish gallop and drops of huge list of things supposedly created by NASA, it's worth picking a couple to take a deep dive into. When you look at the details, the amount of tech transfer is often not anywhere close to the amount claimed. Still, there is good science and technology that comes out of NASA. But it's likely we'd have a lot better results if a large chunk of the NASA budget wasn't spent throwing people up into space for no reason.
wffurr 5y ago
But doesn't Starship dramatically reduce budget needs for exploration? The whole point of the essay series is to try to get institutions and researchers thinking about the economics of exploration with a steady cadence of reusable Starship launches.
- dvh1990 5y ago
  Oh I get the purpose of the article and it got ME excited. However, I'm concerned about other voices which may speak out against it in the context of my original reply. It'd be interesting to follow this thread and see if this sentiment can be heard here.
cblconfederate 5y ago
TBF most of the places where starship will go have already been explored. I think spaceX's plan is more about exploitation
- cnlevy 5y ago
  A human in ONE day can explore more than a rover in a year. There's no comparing the amount of research which can be done by a teleoperated rover to what can be done by a real human on-site. As a comparison, Opportunity rover covered 45.16 km in 15 years. The Apollo 17 crew covered 35.74 kilometers in 3 days.
  - cryptonector 5y ago
    A human can also mine and bring back valuable stuff. Initially rock samples for testing. Eventually minerals (asteroid mining comes to mind). Space exploration does not pay for itself commercially at this point. Maybe that's one more thing Musk can change.
    - GuB-42 5y ago
      A rover can do that too. In fact, Perseverance already has the ability to collect samples and prepare them for a future pick-up mission. It is just that we are not found of sending people and letting them die there, so a human mission implies a return mission, and if there is a return mission, of course you want to bring back souvenirs. In fact, a sample return mission can be seen as a step towards a manned mission. First you try to bring back a pile of rocks, then you consider bringing back humans. And yes, humans are far more efficient than robots at space exploration today, but robots keep improving, and I think it will take many years before we put people on Mars, so by the time we are ready for a manned Mars mission, we will probably have much better robots. Not as good as humans, but digging lots of rocks and moving faster than a snail will probably be well within their abilities.
      - ncmncm 5y ago
        Will anybody really ever come by to pick up Perseverence's samples? That has struck me as really implausible. If it could carry the sample containers to wherever it fills them, it could carry them to wherever it ends up, too, and whatever is supposed to fetch them could make a single stop. Sending another lander just to sweep up after it seems massively wasteful. Clue?
wonderwonder 5y ago
I would caution against giving to much credit to social media / leftist politicians railing against spending money on space when we can use the money on earth. These people have a loud platform but I don't think most people agree with them. Similar to how so many loud 'woke' people make you think democrats are all focused on forcing workspace equality no matter the cost or anti cop. Social media and indeed traditional media (both for and against) looking for clicks has spotlighted these people but their influence is limited amongst the majority. I think most people are excited about space and mars and all for it, understanding that creating a base on mars or the moon is a completely unrelated thing to fixing global warming here on earth. I say this as someone that votes democrat.
rozab 5y ago
It seems to me that Bezos and Branson have done irreparable damage to public perceptions of space exploration. Flying up billionaires does not inspire people.
- SyzygistSix 5y ago
  I think it depends on how it is done. The Inspiration 4 series was well-received on Netflix and they had a billionaire on board who paid for the mission. I think the dearMoon mission could also go very well and inspire people.

Causality1 5y ago

It's hard to blame the public for feeling that way when space projects run two decades behind schedule and two thousand percent over budget.

mdorazio 5y ago

I’m not sure why you think current public opinion is opposed to space exploration? It’s definitely opposed to space tourism for the rich, but that’s a separate thing.

dvh1990 5y ago
There's a strong anti Mars settlement sentiment going on, not just anti "space tourism". The idea, which I don't really subscribe to in this context, that we should utilize whatever resources we assign to space towards fighting climate change and fixing problems here on Earth.
- ruph123 5y ago
  It is one thing to be against a Mars settlement and another to be against space exploration. E.g. it would serve the latter better if we would explore Venus, Europa, Titan, etc. than trying to live underground on a dead poisonous planet.
  - bdamm 5y ago
    Trying to live underground on a dead planet might just prove that we need Earth. Lots of people say space tourism is silly and then go gas up their car while complaining that Teslas are how the coastal elites will take their retirement.
    - kitsunesoba 5y ago
      To add on, I think there’s a lot of value to be had in the various science that can only be done with boots on the ground on Mars. The rovers have been great don’t get me wrong, but a team of scientists with a Starship full of equipment can do volumes more research in a couple of weeks than a rover can during its entire mission, including things that weren’t originally planned. What we learn there can be helpful for understanding the history of the solar system as well as planetary dynamics (remember that in terms of well-studied planets, we’re currently at sample size = 1).
      - runarberg 5y ago
        How fast do we actually need to learn about Mars? How far are we willing to go, how much are we willing to spend just to speed things up there? We don’t live in the 1950s or the 1890s any more. We are not willing to sacrifice the lives of our explorers like we did when we went to the moon or Antarctica in the 1960s and 1900s respectively. We are not engaging in juvenile races to “get there first” which is both expensive and dangerous. The space exploration of today is more collaborative and careful then the explorations of the past. So we don’t risk the lives of our explorers nor the unnecessary expenses of getting things done 20 years when we can do it in 50 for far less money and with infinity more safety.
        soperj 5y ago
        The 2 Rovers from the last 2000s cost about a billion dollars. If we can get someone to moon for $2.9 billion (contract that spacex just won), I think that's worth it.
        kitsunesoba 5y ago
        It’s difficult to answer that question with any level of certainty. That said, there’s a line of thinking that we should do these things while we still can, because there’s no guarantee that we’ll continue to be able to do them. I tend to agree with that. So it’s not about trying to race and and get there first, but rather making sure that the opportunity doesn’t pass us by. As far as cost goes… these sorts of missions are expensive relative to the amounts of money most of us work with in a regular basis, but compared to the vast sums that get put toward far more questionable and frivolous uses it’s a drop in the bucket. If saving money or rerouting funds to more deserving causes is a goal, there’s several tens of bushels of lower hanging fruit elsewhere that should be looked at first — anything with scientific purpose should be trimmed last.
- JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
  Anyone that has seen Blade Runner and the news should see that as a concern. The rich would spoil Earth and defile it and then move off to the ultimate gated community of Mars, leaving us to deal with the consequences of their actions.
  - pixl97 5y ago
    This has always been a bad idea based of unrealistic science fiction. Mars is the spoiled planet, and will be until some point technology is a lot further along. The rich are not going to run away to some wonderland. Earth is the garden, and nothing else is like it in space.
    - handrous 5y ago
      Yep. The list of things that could make Earth a worse place to live than Mars is very short. A big enough asteroid to liquefy the entire crust would do it, for a while. A "mere" dinosaur-killer wouldn't be enough. Nor would nuclear war. Most of the rest of the options are still sci-fi, like Grey Goo events, or a very contagious very deadly infectious disease (and that would have to have some way of sticking around for a long time, for an orbital habitat or sealed earthbound habitat not to still be better than Mars, since you could get back more easily once it was gone or we had a way to fight it). Otherwise you've gotta start stacking disasters to get close, and even then it's pretty difficult. Mars is really bad.
    - wonderwonder 5y ago
      Agreed, I think another thing missed by so many is that if we can settle mars that same technology can be used here on earth to make inhospitable parts of the planet usable again should we mess it up badly enough.
    - JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
      Yes I know that. But do THEY know that? I’m not so sure. Elon/Bezos seem to think you can hand wave/buy the radiation away like they do their problems on earth. Maybe with absolutely massive amounts of money they could find a way. And we would be the ones footing the bill for that.
- handrous 5y ago
  I, for one, think permanent Mars settlement is a dumb idea, but I look forward to watching someone try it.
- adfgergaehg 5y ago
  There's a strong "Mars settlement is impossible" sentiment going on, which is different. I am all for exploring space. I just loathe the fact that we have billionaires with no technical training calling the shots. (Well, maybe not "exploring". There isn't much to see! I'm very much for using space.)
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  There were always people that opposed space exploration. They’ve been wrong every time.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    Having been wrong changes few people's minds. Even about whether they were wrong.
- twobitshifter 5y ago
  I think mars settlement is an eventuality, someone will be there. I also think that settlement of mars has a huge first mover advantage, maybe unlike anything else in human history. It may even come before that with the first permanent lunar base and launch platform.
  - Ekaros 5y ago
    I actually doubt that. Unless they also ship massive number of very specialized and power weapon systems. Planets are big, like absolutely massive. You can easily catch up, specially if you get intel on inevitable failures of first movers.
ArtWomb 5y ago
>>> public opinion is opposed to space exploration It's always been true ;) If you put it to a vote, majority of americans will allocate public funds towards terrestrial concerns over a new space lab. Even though provable, tech transfer in aerospace innovation proves most abundant. In today's dollars, what was nasa's highest yearly budget: maybe $30B? Let's see what 5% of US GDP devoted to Space R&D and Peaceful Expansion by mid century looks like!
- virgilp 5y ago
  If you put it to a vote, majority of Americans will allocate public funds towards stimulus cheques and not the military.... what majority of Americans would allocate funds towards is not necessarily the thing that gets done.
- mdorazio 5y ago
  I don’t really think that’s the case - it’s more nuanced. Most Americans are pro space exploration [1], but against manned missions and colonization efforts [2]. I have a strong feeling most people are probably also against boondoggle projects like SLS and seemingly-constant massive cost overruns on things like JWST. This makes sense if you think about it - flying humans around the solar system just doesn’t make much sense until we have actual orbital industry at some point in the future to bring the costs down to a reasonable level. And I personally have to agree with the camp opposed to Mars colonization, but for different reasons than most. Mars is kind of a crappy place to try and live by most metrics. It seems like colonization efforts would be better allocated to large asteroids or water-rich moons. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2018/06/06/majority-of-americans-believe-it-is-essential-that-the-u-s-remain-a-global-leader-in-space/ https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2018/06/06/majority-of-a... [2] https://morningconsult.com/2021/02/25/space-force-travel-exploration-poll/ https://morningconsult.com/2021/02/25/space-force-travel-exp...
- bnralt 5y ago
  > Even though provable, tech transfer in aerospace innovation proves most abundant. When someone (usually NASA or NASA fanboys) does a Gish gallop and drops of huge list of things supposedly created by NASA, it's worth picking a couple to take a deep dive into. When you look at the details, the amount of tech transfer is often not anywhere close to the amount claimed. Still, there is good science and technology that comes out of NASA. But it's likely we'd have a lot better results if a large chunk of the NASA budget wasn't spent throwing people up into space for no reason.

wffurr 5y ago

But doesn't Starship dramatically reduce budget needs for exploration? The whole point of the essay series is to try to get institutions and researchers thinking about the economics of exploration with a steady cadence of reusable Starship launches.

dvh1990 5y ago
Oh I get the purpose of the article and it got ME excited. However, I'm concerned about other voices which may speak out against it in the context of my original reply. It'd be interesting to follow this thread and see if this sentiment can be heard here.

cblconfederate 5y ago

TBF most of the places where starship will go have already been explored. I think spaceX's plan is more about exploitation

cnlevy 5y ago
A human in ONE day can explore more than a rover in a year. There's no comparing the amount of research which can be done by a teleoperated rover to what can be done by a real human on-site. As a comparison, Opportunity rover covered 45.16 km in 15 years. The Apollo 17 crew covered 35.74 kilometers in 3 days.
- cryptonector 5y ago
  A human can also mine and bring back valuable stuff. Initially rock samples for testing. Eventually minerals (asteroid mining comes to mind). Space exploration does not pay for itself commercially at this point. Maybe that's one more thing Musk can change.
  - GuB-42 5y ago
    A rover can do that too. In fact, Perseverance already has the ability to collect samples and prepare them for a future pick-up mission. It is just that we are not found of sending people and letting them die there, so a human mission implies a return mission, and if there is a return mission, of course you want to bring back souvenirs. In fact, a sample return mission can be seen as a step towards a manned mission. First you try to bring back a pile of rocks, then you consider bringing back humans. And yes, humans are far more efficient than robots at space exploration today, but robots keep improving, and I think it will take many years before we put people on Mars, so by the time we are ready for a manned Mars mission, we will probably have much better robots. Not as good as humans, but digging lots of rocks and moving faster than a snail will probably be well within their abilities.
    - ncmncm 5y ago
      Will anybody really ever come by to pick up Perseverence's samples? That has struck me as really implausible. If it could carry the sample containers to wherever it fills them, it could carry them to wherever it ends up, too, and whatever is supposed to fetch them could make a single stop. Sending another lander just to sweep up after it seems massively wasteful. Clue?

wonderwonder 5y ago

I would caution against giving to much credit to social media / leftist politicians railing against spending money on space when we can use the money on earth. These people have a loud platform but I don't think most people agree with them. Similar to how so many loud 'woke' people make you think democrats are all focused on forcing workspace equality no matter the cost or anti cop. Social media and indeed traditional media (both for and against) looking for clicks has spotlighted these people but their influence is limited amongst the majority. I think most people are excited about space and mars and all for it, understanding that creating a base on mars or the moon is a completely unrelated thing to fixing global warming here on earth. I say this as someone that votes democrat.

rozab 5y ago

It seems to me that Bezos and Branson have done irreparable damage to public perceptions of space exploration. Flying up billionaires does not inspire people.

SyzygistSix 5y ago
I think it depends on how it is done. The Inspiration 4 series was well-received on Netflix and they had a billionaire on board who paid for the mission. I think the dearMoon mission could also go very well and inspire people.