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> 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 acco

> 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.
- graycat 4y ago
  To cut the signal delays, have on the moon or Mars, right where the data is collected, robots, not humans. Humans in big, heavy, clumsy space suits -- not very productive. Such science is not just aimlessly fooling around, guessing, exploring, trying this and that, assembling experimental equipment with duct tape and bailing wire, adjusting a laser on an optical bench, boiling up something on a Bunsen burner, or anything like that. There's no room for anything ad hoc. Instead, each experiment is planned for, with the instruments designed, built, and tested, and everything done very carefully all in advance. The cost of sending 1 kilogram to the moon or Mars motivates really good planning. A robot? Maybe replace the batteries in a rover, knock the dust of some solar panels (a current need), unpack a supply drop, etc. Uh, we would design the supply drop and the robot so that the robot could easily unpack the supply drop. Construct a shelter, for whatever reason to have a shelter. Load samples onto a rocket returning to earth. Uh, humans in heavy space suits can't do much, and we should be able to build robots that can do as well, usually better, a lot better, for the experiments we plan. Low gravity doesn't hurt robots at all. Robots can be designed nearly immune to high energy cosmic rays. For colonizing outside of earth, f'get about it: Anything like that is way over the horizon. Energy to get there, way too high. Speed of light, way too low. Low gravity, high energy cosmic rays -- too dangerous. Right, we'd have some 1950s popular science style big, circular, rotating space city and use the centrifugal force of the rotating to provide artificial gravity. And the space city would be so big and have such thick walls that we could block the cosmic rays. Soooo, we're talking big as in a huge circular thing. Then that thing, to what end? To go to another planet would first have to go to another star, and that is, as I recall, 3+ light years away, that is, too darned far. The planet hunters might advise us that we should plan for 100+ light years away. Here's something much easier: Do well here on earth. There're lots of empty square kilometers in Alaska, Canada, South America, Australia, Russia, and Antarctica. Living even in Antarctica would be easy as pie compared with anything available out in space. First rule for the future of humanity: Stay on dry land, or solid ice, nearly at sea level. I'm not buying the claims that humans are so foolish, evil, destructive, etc. that they have to plan a future on other planets. Also I'm not talking some science fiction ideas that are way over the horizon. Gee, I too really like Forbidden Planet -- Ann Francis was a dream, sweetheart! And the Krell library and power plant, terrific. But all that for now is at least way over the horizon. Instead I'm talking current NASA, etc. policy, objectives, planning, etc. Sorry, within the current horizon, there's just no serious role for humans beyond low earth orbit -- the low gravity, high energy cosmic rays, etc. are just too dangerous. If we send a lot of humans out there, they will quickly die, and we will have a collection of frozen bodies that will last 1000+ years, all for next to nothing. Big embarrassment.

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.

graycat 4y ago
To cut the signal delays, have on the moon or Mars, right where the data is collected, robots, not humans. Humans in big, heavy, clumsy space suits -- not very productive. Such science is not just aimlessly fooling around, guessing, exploring, trying this and that, assembling experimental equipment with duct tape and bailing wire, adjusting a laser on an optical bench, boiling up something on a Bunsen burner, or anything like that. There's no room for anything ad hoc. Instead, each experiment is planned for, with the instruments designed, built, and tested, and everything done very carefully all in advance. The cost of sending 1 kilogram to the moon or Mars motivates really good planning. A robot? Maybe replace the batteries in a rover, knock the dust of some solar panels (a current need), unpack a supply drop, etc. Uh, we would design the supply drop and the robot so that the robot could easily unpack the supply drop. Construct a shelter, for whatever reason to have a shelter. Load samples onto a rocket returning to earth. Uh, humans in heavy space suits can't do much, and we should be able to build robots that can do as well, usually better, a lot better, for the experiments we plan. Low gravity doesn't hurt robots at all. Robots can be designed nearly immune to high energy cosmic rays. For colonizing outside of earth, f'get about it: Anything like that is way over the horizon. Energy to get there, way too high. Speed of light, way too low. Low gravity, high energy cosmic rays -- too dangerous. Right, we'd have some 1950s popular science style big, circular, rotating space city and use the centrifugal force of the rotating to provide artificial gravity. And the space city would be so big and have such thick walls that we could block the cosmic rays. Soooo, we're talking big as in a huge circular thing. Then that thing, to what end? To go to another planet would first have to go to another star, and that is, as I recall, 3+ light years away, that is, too darned far. The planet hunters might advise us that we should plan for 100+ light years away. Here's something much easier: Do well here on earth. There're lots of empty square kilometers in Alaska, Canada, South America, Australia, Russia, and Antarctica. Living even in Antarctica would be easy as pie compared with anything available out in space. First rule for the future of humanity: Stay on dry land, or solid ice, nearly at sea level. I'm not buying the claims that humans are so foolish, evil, destructive, etc. that they have to plan a future on other planets. Also I'm not talking some science fiction ideas that are way over the horizon. Gee, I too really like Forbidden Planet -- Ann Francis was a dream, sweetheart! And the Krell library and power plant, terrific. But all that for now is at least way over the horizon. Instead I'm talking current NASA, etc. policy, objectives, planning, etc. Sorry, within the current horizon, there's just no serious role for humans beyond low earth orbit -- the low gravity, high energy cosmic rays, etc. are just too dangerous. If we send a lot of humans out there, they will quickly die, and we will have a collection of frozen bodies that will last 1000+ years, all for next to nothing. Big embarrassment.