4 ms·

Following your argument to its logical conclusion, we should cease human activities on Earth too (otherwise, humans will die there - and we can't have that!).

graycat 4y ago
Nope. Doesn't follow. Instead, we get to bury our dead, and they quickly decompose and can be forgotten about. In strong contrast, on the moon or Mars, burial would be wildly expensive, and the bodies would remain frozen and last for thousands of years. Shipping the bodies back to earth for burial or sending them to the sun, very expensive. In practice, we would just let the bodies pile up. That would be a massive embarrassment. Look, we're not in line to create societies with nice neighborhoods with couples, families, kids, etc. on the moon or Mars, in bubbles, tunnels, or anything. We're not in line to colonize them. Instead, our interests that are at all feasible will be science or military. For the science, we don't really want or need humans and their eyes, hands, or brains -- instead we need instruments, e.g., like we already have doing well on Mars. For what we can use from human eyes, hands, and brains, with some development, we can get that from robots. For the military, as we are now moving quickly just here on earth, even more so on the moon or Mars, we will want robots operating the rockets, weapons, etc. Besides, humans in the necessary bulky space suits are just not very effective at anything, not even just staying alive.
- abduhl 4y ago
  Many bodies remain on or on the way to mountain summits like K2 and Everest. Retrieving them is prohibitively expensive. The conditions ensure that they will remain there in decomposed for centuries. Should we stop going into the mountains? It’s not an embarrassment to try to achieve an amazing task and fail. The embarrassment is giving up because you’re scared you’ll be embarrassed.
  - graycat 4y ago
    > K2 and Everest Sport for a few people. Otherwise no gain. > amazing task The moon and Mars, all pain, no gain. There is no gain, utility, worthwhile accomplishment for humans in space except for just a few humans in low earth orbit. There is nothing "amazing" that we know how to do sending humans beyond low earth orbit: Yes, we can build the rockets and put people on them, but there is essentially nothing they can do out there. Instruments, robots, yes. Humans, no. The US had some men walking on the moon. While they were there, they accomplished next to nothing. In simple terms, the whole effort was a publicity stunt for US presidential politics. And, all these decades later, no human has returned -- there is a big reason for that, there is no reason for a human up there. A human needs a space suit, huge, so clumsy the human can do next to nothing productive. Else the human needs a big, complicated space ship (station, bubble, tunnel) where, again, there is not much they can do, amazing or otherwise. Gee, they could take a lot of PDF files along and read about literature, science, ..., whatever. What we want out there is instruments. If we need more, would want humans to do, we should just develop suitable robots. Otherwise what we want out there is military, where again there is no real utility for having humans there. Humans just have no real role out there. Sorry 'bout that. Robots? Yes. Humans? No. Simple. If we send humans, the main result will be collections of frozen dead bodies that will still be there 1000 years from now. That will be a big embarrassment, and all for no good reason.
    - yellowapple 4y ago
      > There is no gain, utility, worthwhile accomplishment for humans in space except for just a few humans in low earth orbit. Hard disagree. Current space science, as phenomenal as it is, currently faces rather severe limitations due to the need to deal with latencies between experiments v. scientists on the order of anywhere from multiple seconds to multiple hours, not to mention the bandwidth limitations. Having actual human scientists in close proximity to those experiments would be a massive boon, slashing turnaround times and multiplying output. Further, Earth can only support us for so long. We need to figure out how to survive beyond it, or else we'll die with it - and I can think of no greater embarassment as a species than not bothering to even try to expand beyond our single planet.
      - 4y ago
- bigbillheck 4y ago
  How familiar are you with the concept of 'cremation'?
  - graycat 4y ago
    It needs oxygen and there's none as gas on the moon and little or none as gas on Mars.
    - bigbillheck 4y ago
      Yeah but get this: we'd bring some with us because we'd need it for other stuff.

graycat 4y ago

Nope. Doesn't follow. Instead, we get to bury our dead, and they quickly decompose and can be forgotten about. In strong contrast, on the moon or Mars, burial would be wildly expensive, and the bodies would remain frozen and last for thousands of years. Shipping the bodies back to earth for burial or sending them to the sun, very expensive. In practice, we would just let the bodies pile up. That would be a massive embarrassment. Look, we're not in line to create societies with nice neighborhoods with couples, families, kids, etc. on the moon or Mars, in bubbles, tunnels, or anything. We're not in line to colonize them. Instead, our interests that are at all feasible will be science or military. For the science, we don't really want or need humans and their eyes, hands, or brains -- instead we need instruments, e.g., like we already have doing well on Mars. For what we can use from human eyes, hands, and brains, with some development, we can get that from robots. For the military, as we are now moving quickly just here on earth, even more so on the moon or Mars, we will want robots operating the rockets, weapons, etc. Besides, humans in the necessary bulky space suits are just not very effective at anything, not even just staying alive.

abduhl 4y ago
Many bodies remain on or on the way to mountain summits like K2 and Everest. Retrieving them is prohibitively expensive. The conditions ensure that they will remain there in decomposed for centuries. Should we stop going into the mountains? It’s not an embarrassment to try to achieve an amazing task and fail. The embarrassment is giving up because you’re scared you’ll be embarrassed.
- graycat 4y ago
  > K2 and Everest Sport for a few people. Otherwise no gain. > amazing task The moon and Mars, all pain, no gain. There is no gain, utility, worthwhile accomplishment for humans in space except for just a few humans in low earth orbit. There is nothing "amazing" that we know how to do sending humans beyond low earth orbit: Yes, we can build the rockets and put people on them, but there is essentially nothing they can do out there. Instruments, robots, yes. Humans, no. The US had some men walking on the moon. While they were there, they accomplished next to nothing. In simple terms, the whole effort was a publicity stunt for US presidential politics. And, all these decades later, no human has returned -- there is a big reason for that, there is no reason for a human up there. A human needs a space suit, huge, so clumsy the human can do next to nothing productive. Else the human needs a big, complicated space ship (station, bubble, tunnel) where, again, there is not much they can do, amazing or otherwise. Gee, they could take a lot of PDF files along and read about literature, science, ..., whatever. What we want out there is instruments. If we need more, would want humans to do, we should just develop suitable robots. Otherwise what we want out there is military, where again there is no real utility for having humans there. Humans just have no real role out there. Sorry 'bout that. Robots? Yes. Humans? No. Simple. If we send humans, the main result will be collections of frozen dead bodies that will still be there 1000 years from now. That will be a big embarrassment, and all for no good reason.
  - yellowapple 4y ago
    > There is no gain, utility, worthwhile accomplishment for humans in space except for just a few humans in low earth orbit. Hard disagree. Current space science, as phenomenal as it is, currently faces rather severe limitations due to the need to deal with latencies between experiments v. scientists on the order of anywhere from multiple seconds to multiple hours, not to mention the bandwidth limitations. Having actual human scientists in close proximity to those experiments would be a massive boon, slashing turnaround times and multiplying output. Further, Earth can only support us for so long. We need to figure out how to survive beyond it, or else we'll die with it - and I can think of no greater embarassment as a species than not bothering to even try to expand beyond our single planet.
    - 4y ago
bigbillheck 4y ago
How familiar are you with the concept of 'cremation'?
- graycat 4y ago
  It needs oxygen and there's none as gas on the moon and little or none as gas on Mars.
  - bigbillheck 4y ago
    Yeah but get this: we'd bring some with us because we'd need it for other stuff.