5 ms·

Human spaceflight is wasteful, but were still going to spend money on it.

by ProAm 4y ago

jamesgreenleaf 4y ago
Short-term wasteful, long-term critical.
- barbazoo 4y ago
  Critical in which way in your opinion?
  - WarOnPrivacy 4y ago
    Exposure to things humans haven't ruined is uniquely inspirational.
  - jamesgreenleaf 4y ago
    It's critical that intelligent life on Earth learns to adapt and survive in the greater universe. Staying on this one planet is a virtual guarantee of extinction in the long-term.
    - evanlivingston 4y ago
      Why is it critical that intelligent life on earth survives?
      - trap_goes_hot 4y ago
        I agree - 'critical' is sorta meaningless in this context. But the general response is - because organisms adapt for their own survival and our genes are selfish.
      - OkayPhysicist 4y ago
        That's easy: because literally everything else is contingent on it. Either we survive and flourish allowing any of our other actions to matter, or we doom ourselves to extinction, in which case literally nothing we do matters.
        idlewords 4y ago
        We're already all individually doomed to extinction, yet this doesn't prevent most of us from finding meaning in our lives. And in the long run, any civilization, no matter how flourishing, is doomed. Conditioning whether anything we do matters on the existence of an infinite chain of future progeny is a losing game.
        natch 4y ago
        >infinite chain of future progeny is a losing game. There's no need to take it to infinite extremes. There are always plenty of values in the slider between short-medium-long term to choose from to find meaning in life… whatever floats someone's boat.
    - micromacrofoot 4y ago
      Critical for the species on the universal timescale maybe, humans as we know them have been fine without it for ~300,000 years. Horseshoe crabs have been around for over 400 million years. We might be better off spending the next couple hundred years focusing on making sure we don't destroy our own home before trying to move on to the next (or at least more comprehensive threat detection). There's a very good chance we'll off ourselves before we have to start worrying about anything at even a solar system scale, let alone galaxy or universe.
      - jamesgreenleaf 4y ago
        That's another good problem to solve. Humanity is large enough that we don't have to work on only one thing at a time.
      - spaceman0997 4y ago
        > There's a very good chance we'll off ourselves before we have to start worrying about anything at even a solar system scale, let alone galaxy or universe. That's precisely the reason why we will be better off by investing into space exploration now.
        micromacrofoot 4y ago
        I see the logic but don't agree. Even if Mars or another planet were to survive the destruction of Earth, a stand-alone colony or space station would be doomed. At best I think we're at least 100 years off for any long-term self-sustained space colony... and it's quite possible we'll be sidetracked significantly if the climate causes widespread migration and famine as expected. If we can't solve exponentially simpler earth-based problems, then I think we have no business in expanding, and would be unlikely to succeed regardless. I support space exploration and development, but putting more resources outward when we have so many inward problems feels like a fool's errand. We can work on both, but one's a much more imminent danger.
        spaceman0997 4y ago
        > At best I think we're at least 100 years off for any long-term self-sustained space colony We think alike - but IMHO that's going to happen only if we begin now. That's why we shouldn't hold off. > If we can't solve exponentially simpler earth-based problems, then I think we have no business in expanding, and would be unlikely to succeed regardless. It's not like there's a single "we" that can keep attention at one thing at a time only. There are a lot of great engineers excited about space stuff, who don't care about ecology/whatever else at all. It makes sense to use their skills and enthusiasm while other engineers excited about that work on solving our Earth-bound problems. Another point is - whatever helps us survive on Mars and the Moon will help us greatly to reduce harm done to Earth. > Even if Mars or another planet were to survive the destruction of Earth, a stand-alone colony or space station would be doomed. > We can work on both, but one's a much more imminent danger. For sure, but there are also dangers other than climate change - war, asteroid impact, pandemics, rogue AI takeover... It's not that either Earth gets destroyed and the Martian colony will die anyways or nothing has happened and we don't need the backup. Perhaps there will be another pandemic and the people on Earth will die off but the Martians survive. Perhaps asteroid impact will make Earth uninhabitable for 10-50 years but no more. Etc
    - Maursault 4y ago
      So does staying in this Universe.
  - goddtriffin 4y ago
    If we don't experiment with getting off of this rock, we're dooming the lives of all known living organisms in the known universe. An entire universe, void of all life, that doesn't get to experience itself deeply saddens me. Though that might just be the fitness-function within me talking.
    - idlewords 4y ago
      Thinking you have to infect the universe or otherwise perish is the mentality of a virus.
twawaaay 4y ago
I would like to point out that if United States won't do it then other countries and large companies will take the lead. And in fact they are already doing it. And while it might not be bringing a lot of tangible returns for US citizens right now, it is projected to overtake practically every single other industry including electronics at some point in the future. Even without returns, it is simple matter of security. With another country like China taking absolute control over space US would be quickly incapable to take care of its interest here on Earth. Just imagine China deciding to incapacitate all US satellites and US having no way to respond to it. So it is same old weapons race, it is just trying to score some extra side quests a bit outside of the main quest. Haven't you ever tried to do side quests to get some extra exp to help you with main quest line?
- adql 4y ago
  > it is projected to overtake practically every single other industry including electronics at some point in the future. projected by who and how many % of his guesses turned out to be right ?
  - kibwen 4y ago
    Presumably because somebody pointed to an asteroid somewhere and calculated that it contains a volume of platinum/gold/unobtanium that would be worth a hundred zillion kajillion trillion dollars, without taking into account that if you actually brought that much of a given precious metal into the market the price would crash to zero and we'd all be drinking Coke out of disposable platinum cans.
    - cwillu 4y ago
      On the one hand, this is technically true. On the other, this is effectively because the gains to such a large windfall cannot be captured by a single entity: Aluminium becoming so cheap as to become a nearly disposable material is a massively _good_ thing. It's not inconceivable that having platinum become plentiful might also be such a boon.

Human spaceflight is wasteful, but were still going to spend money on it.

by ProAm 4y ago

Human spaceflight is wasteful, but were still going to spend money on it.

jamesgreenleaf 4y ago

Short-term wasteful, long-term critical.

barbazoo 4y ago
Critical in which way in your opinion?
- WarOnPrivacy 4y ago
  Exposure to things humans haven't ruined is uniquely inspirational.
- jamesgreenleaf 4y ago
  It's critical that intelligent life on Earth learns to adapt and survive in the greater universe. Staying on this one planet is a virtual guarantee of extinction in the long-term.
  - evanlivingston 4y ago
    Why is it critical that intelligent life on earth survives?
    - trap_goes_hot 4y ago
      I agree - 'critical' is sorta meaningless in this context. But the general response is - because organisms adapt for their own survival and our genes are selfish.
    - OkayPhysicist 4y ago
      That's easy: because literally everything else is contingent on it. Either we survive and flourish allowing any of our other actions to matter, or we doom ourselves to extinction, in which case literally nothing we do matters.
      - idlewords 4y ago
        We're already all individually doomed to extinction, yet this doesn't prevent most of us from finding meaning in our lives. And in the long run, any civilization, no matter how flourishing, is doomed. Conditioning whether anything we do matters on the existence of an infinite chain of future progeny is a losing game.
        natch 4y ago
        >infinite chain of future progeny is a losing game. There's no need to take it to infinite extremes. There are always plenty of values in the slider between short-medium-long term to choose from to find meaning in life… whatever floats someone's boat.
  - micromacrofoot 4y ago
    Critical for the species on the universal timescale maybe, humans as we know them have been fine without it for ~300,000 years. Horseshoe crabs have been around for over 400 million years. We might be better off spending the next couple hundred years focusing on making sure we don't destroy our own home before trying to move on to the next (or at least more comprehensive threat detection). There's a very good chance we'll off ourselves before we have to start worrying about anything at even a solar system scale, let alone galaxy or universe.
    - jamesgreenleaf 4y ago
      That's another good problem to solve. Humanity is large enough that we don't have to work on only one thing at a time.
    - spaceman0997 4y ago
      > There's a very good chance we'll off ourselves before we have to start worrying about anything at even a solar system scale, let alone galaxy or universe. That's precisely the reason why we will be better off by investing into space exploration now.
      - micromacrofoot 4y ago
        I see the logic but don't agree. Even if Mars or another planet were to survive the destruction of Earth, a stand-alone colony or space station would be doomed. At best I think we're at least 100 years off for any long-term self-sustained space colony... and it's quite possible we'll be sidetracked significantly if the climate causes widespread migration and famine as expected. If we can't solve exponentially simpler earth-based problems, then I think we have no business in expanding, and would be unlikely to succeed regardless. I support space exploration and development, but putting more resources outward when we have so many inward problems feels like a fool's errand. We can work on both, but one's a much more imminent danger.
        spaceman0997 4y ago
        > At best I think we're at least 100 years off for any long-term self-sustained space colony We think alike - but IMHO that's going to happen only if we begin now. That's why we shouldn't hold off. > If we can't solve exponentially simpler earth-based problems, then I think we have no business in expanding, and would be unlikely to succeed regardless. It's not like there's a single "we" that can keep attention at one thing at a time only. There are a lot of great engineers excited about space stuff, who don't care about ecology/whatever else at all. It makes sense to use their skills and enthusiasm while other engineers excited about that work on solving our Earth-bound problems. Another point is - whatever helps us survive on Mars and the Moon will help us greatly to reduce harm done to Earth. > Even if Mars or another planet were to survive the destruction of Earth, a stand-alone colony or space station would be doomed. > We can work on both, but one's a much more imminent danger. For sure, but there are also dangers other than climate change - war, asteroid impact, pandemics, rogue AI takeover... It's not that either Earth gets destroyed and the Martian colony will die anyways or nothing has happened and we don't need the backup. Perhaps there will be another pandemic and the people on Earth will die off but the Martians survive. Perhaps asteroid impact will make Earth uninhabitable for 10-50 years but no more. Etc
  - Maursault 4y ago
    So does staying in this Universe.
- goddtriffin 4y ago
  If we don't experiment with getting off of this rock, we're dooming the lives of all known living organisms in the known universe. An entire universe, void of all life, that doesn't get to experience itself deeply saddens me. Though that might just be the fitness-function within me talking.
  - idlewords 4y ago
    Thinking you have to infect the universe or otherwise perish is the mentality of a virus.

twawaaay 4y ago

I would like to point out that if United States won't do it then other countries and large companies will take the lead. And in fact they are already doing it. And while it might not be bringing a lot of tangible returns for US citizens right now, it is projected to overtake practically every single other industry including electronics at some point in the future. Even without returns, it is simple matter of security. With another country like China taking absolute control over space US would be quickly incapable to take care of its interest here on Earth. Just imagine China deciding to incapacitate all US satellites and US having no way to respond to it. So it is same old weapons race, it is just trying to score some extra side quests a bit outside of the main quest. Haven't you ever tried to do side quests to get some extra exp to help you with main quest line?

adql 4y ago
> it is projected to overtake practically every single other industry including electronics at some point in the future. projected by who and how many % of his guesses turned out to be right ?
- kibwen 4y ago
  Presumably because somebody pointed to an asteroid somewhere and calculated that it contains a volume of platinum/gold/unobtanium that would be worth a hundred zillion kajillion trillion dollars, without taking into account that if you actually brought that much of a given precious metal into the market the price would crash to zero and we'd all be drinking Coke out of disposable platinum cans.
  - cwillu 4y ago
    On the one hand, this is technically true. On the other, this is effectively because the gains to such a large windfall cannot be captured by a single entity: Aluminium becoming so cheap as to become a nearly disposable material is a massively _good_ thing. It's not inconceivable that having platinum become plentiful might also be such a boon.