4 ms·

> We need near Earth asteroid mining to understand the complexities of resource extraction in space, we need lunar colonies to study the day to day realities/ps

by rtpg 4y ago

> We need near Earth asteroid mining to understand the complexities of resource extraction in space, we need lunar colonies to study the day to day realities/psychology/etc of space colonization We already know about the realities of space colonization: it’s not possible. People in space for a month already have permanent health defects. If you are up there you have to constantly be training your body to not disintegrate. Unlike other places where there are living beings, there is nothing in space for a reason!! People don’t want to accept that space science fiction is as real as Middle Earth or Hogwarts, but there is already an abundance of evidence that the human body is not capable of existing for years on end in space.

_joel 4y ago
People said just over 100 years ago that we'd never be able to fly, yet here we are. We're welll aware of the issues but there are solutions. I mean, we happen to exist in space, so it's not impossible, is it.
- otabdeveloper4 4y ago
  People said just over 100 years ago that magic wands are not real and wizards don't exist, yet here we are. (Magic still doesn't exist. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
  - _joel 4y ago
    "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
    - tsujamin 4y ago
      “When one begins to live by habit and by quotation, one has begun to stop living.”
  - m4rtink 4y ago
    I'm not so sure - I have this slab of crystal I can use to talk talk to people on the other side of the Earth, see things from above and make things do my bidding without touching them. And apparently it can transfer ideas in text form to your head. Also looks like I can fly if I book the right tickets.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    > magic wands are not real They could be though, at current tech level. It's the infrastructure that doesn't support it. Smartphones are as close as we got, but they reveal couple unfortunate things about the real world, such as: - In a competitive market economy, everything ends up sucking as much as it can get away with; - Magic wands would offer individuals more autonomy than the market, and possibly civilization, can sustain without self-destructing. > wizards don't exist Within constraints of the above, sure they do. > Magic still doesn't exist. _joel already provided the obligatory quote, but to expand on it, most of the magic in fantasy literature could be made possible with current technology, but would require supporting infrastructure to avoid breaking rules of thermodynamics. If you want to go less conspicuous, we'll have to wait for molecular nanotech ;).
TeMPOraL 4y ago
> We already know about the realities of space colonization: it’s not possible. Not with that attitude. ISS would like to differ, anyway. > People in space for a month already have permanent health defects. If you are up there you have to constantly be training your body to not disintegrate. Yes. But that's not because space is evil or haunted or a domain gods reserve themselves. It's because of weightlessness. We know how to solve this problem - it's precisely the kind of things GP is talking about: an engineering challenge we know how to solve on paper, but need to actually do it, to a) learn all the little peculiarities that always come with something new, b) actually have this working on some piece of space infrastructure. > Unlike other places where there are living beings, there is nothing in space for a reason!! There's lots of stuff in space. Within the distances past manned missions already covered, there's way more of everything than on Earth itself - except life. That one is on us to get there, you can view this as a natural process of life evolving to settle other niches :). And while space itself by volume is mostly empty, the reason you're talking about is just gravity. > People don’t want to accept that space science fiction is as real as Middle Earth or Hogwarts On the contrary, people treat these as equivalent and considering them just fantasy entertainment, instead of realizing that most aspects of sci-fi are somewhere between artist's concept (soft end of sci-fi) to engineering blueprints (hard end of sci-fi, which often literally describes real engineering blueprints in prose!). People used to take inspiration from softish sci-fi; for all my love of Star Trek, it's as soft a sci-fi as it gets, and it managed to drive a couple generations of people to STEM, and predict, inspire and/or pre-market plenty of new technologies. Would iPhone and iPad become so popular so quickly if not for a large part of US population, and Western culture itself, having been familiar with those concepts for two decades already, thanks to Star Trek: TNG? You got a whole generation there, growing to await stationary and portable touchscreens. Point being, people used to look up to sci-fi ideas, and stuff happened. Now they don't, stuff doesn't happen, and even sci-fi gets sadder and more boring year by year. It's like the whole culture advanced from energetic young adult stage into a depressed, bored middle-aged suburbanite stage. (Also, a lot of Middle Earth / Harry Potter stuff is doable too, you just need a sprinkle of molecular nanotechnology and a post-scarcity economy where people can afford spending an order of magnitude more effort on showing off than on utility aspects.) > but there is already an abundance of evidence that the human body is not capable of existing for years on end in space. There's an abundance of evidence that human body is not capable of existing for years anywhere but on specific terrain in a small latitude band on the planet. Everywhere else, we exist thanks to technology. That's literally the story of humanity: inhabiting the previously inhospitable areas by building tools we need to survive. Space is no different.
twelvedogs 4y ago
> there is nothing in space for a reason!! literally everything is in space
VilleOr 4y ago
You need a big centrifuge where you can live or at least sleep and do physical exercises. It should eliminate the health problems caused by low gravity.
- m4rtink 4y ago
  Not to mention enable a lot of industrial processes to run +- like on Earth, until we have microgravity equivalents, where available.

by rtpg 4y ago

_joel 4y ago

People said just over 100 years ago that we'd never be able to fly, yet here we are. We're welll aware of the issues but there are solutions. I mean, we happen to exist in space, so it's not impossible, is it.

otabdeveloper4 4y ago
People said just over 100 years ago that magic wands are not real and wizards don't exist, yet here we are. (Magic still doesn't exist. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
- _joel 4y ago
  "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
  - tsujamin 4y ago
    “When one begins to live by habit and by quotation, one has begun to stop living.”
- m4rtink 4y ago
  I'm not so sure - I have this slab of crystal I can use to talk talk to people on the other side of the Earth, see things from above and make things do my bidding without touching them. And apparently it can transfer ideas in text form to your head. Also looks like I can fly if I book the right tickets.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  > magic wands are not real They could be though, at current tech level. It's the infrastructure that doesn't support it. Smartphones are as close as we got, but they reveal couple unfortunate things about the real world, such as: - In a competitive market economy, everything ends up sucking as much as it can get away with; - Magic wands would offer individuals more autonomy than the market, and possibly civilization, can sustain without self-destructing. > wizards don't exist Within constraints of the above, sure they do. > Magic still doesn't exist. _joel already provided the obligatory quote, but to expand on it, most of the magic in fantasy literature could be made possible with current technology, but would require supporting infrastructure to avoid breaking rules of thermodynamics. If you want to go less conspicuous, we'll have to wait for molecular nanotech ;).

TeMPOraL 4y ago

> We already know about the realities of space colonization: it’s not possible. Not with that attitude. ISS would like to differ, anyway. > People in space for a month already have permanent health defects. If you are up there you have to constantly be training your body to not disintegrate. Yes. But that's not because space is evil or haunted or a domain gods reserve themselves. It's because of weightlessness. We know how to solve this problem - it's precisely the kind of things GP is talking about: an engineering challenge we know how to solve on paper, but need to actually do it, to a) learn all the little peculiarities that always come with something new, b) actually have this working on some piece of space infrastructure. > Unlike other places where there are living beings, there is nothing in space for a reason!! There's lots of stuff in space. Within the distances past manned missions already covered, there's way more of everything than on Earth itself - except life. That one is on us to get there, you can view this as a natural process of life evolving to settle other niches :). And while space itself by volume is mostly empty, the reason you're talking about is just gravity. > People don’t want to accept that space science fiction is as real as Middle Earth or Hogwarts On the contrary, people treat these as equivalent and considering them just fantasy entertainment, instead of realizing that most aspects of sci-fi are somewhere between artist's concept (soft end of sci-fi) to engineering blueprints (hard end of sci-fi, which often literally describes real engineering blueprints in prose!). People used to take inspiration from softish sci-fi; for all my love of Star Trek, it's as soft a sci-fi as it gets, and it managed to drive a couple generations of people to STEM, and predict, inspire and/or pre-market plenty of new technologies. Would iPhone and iPad become so popular so quickly if not for a large part of US population, and Western culture itself, having been familiar with those concepts for two decades already, thanks to Star Trek: TNG? You got a whole generation there, growing to await stationary and portable touchscreens. Point being, people used to look up to sci-fi ideas, and stuff happened. Now they don't, stuff doesn't happen, and even sci-fi gets sadder and more boring year by year. It's like the whole culture advanced from energetic young adult stage into a depressed, bored middle-aged suburbanite stage. (Also, a lot of Middle Earth / Harry Potter stuff is doable too, you just need a sprinkle of molecular nanotechnology and a post-scarcity economy where people can afford spending an order of magnitude more effort on showing off than on utility aspects.) > but there is already an abundance of evidence that the human body is not capable of existing for years on end in space. There's an abundance of evidence that human body is not capable of existing for years anywhere but on specific terrain in a small latitude band on the planet. Everywhere else, we exist thanks to technology. That's literally the story of humanity: inhabiting the previously inhospitable areas by building tools we need to survive. Space is no different.

twelvedogs 4y ago

> there is nothing in space for a reason!! literally everything is in space

VilleOr 4y ago

You need a big centrifuge where you can live or at least sleep and do physical exercises. It should eliminate the health problems caused by low gravity.

m4rtink 4y ago
Not to mention enable a lot of industrial processes to run +- like on Earth, until we have microgravity equivalents, where available.