5 ms·

> Nobody wants to live forever on Mars (if you do, you may as well go live in a bunker and never go out, no need to go there). Nobody wants to live forever in a

> Nobody wants to live forever on Mars (if you do, you may as well go live in a bunker and never go out, no need to go there). Nobody wants to live forever in a spaceship (for the same reason). > What does that mean? The goal, what people actually want with the "space quest", is to find another planet. I highly disagree. After fighting our way out of one gravity well, we shouldn't be quick to jump straight down another (although Mars is certainly easier to get off than Earth).

palata 3y ago
I don't understand your point. So you want to live your whole life in a spaceship? Is there a reason that would be better than living in a bunker and never going out?
- chriswarbo 3y ago
  Sure, the whole point is that it's easier to go out! The spaceship we're currently on makes very inefficient use of material: its shape gives the least surface/livable area; and its density is the highest in the solar system. The resulting gravitational pull makes it very hard to leave: chemical rockets will just about work, but need multiple stages. In contrast, a more efficient design, like a spin-gravity cylinder inside a hollowed-out asteroid, is much easier to leave (in fact, we'd be flung away, if the floor weren't accelerating us inwards; say, by stepping over a trapdoor!). Whilst such a ship would certainly be more maneuverable than the Earth, it would probably be easier to leave in a convenient orbit (e.g. as a cycler), and use smaller, leaner ships for bespoke travel around the solar system (no point wasting fuel to keep accelerating/decelerating all the gardens, farms, factories, schools, etc. if they're not needed en-route!)
  - palata 3y ago
    If you can't realize that we won't make it to that kind of science-fiction idea before we manage to survive on Earth (if ever), then I don't know what to say :-).
    - chriswarbo 3y ago
      I assume you mean "survive sustainably on Earth"? That's certainly our most important issue; we'll all be long dead before any off-world settlement could be self-sustaining, either planetary or space-based. Those things aren't mutually-exclusive though.
      - palata 3y ago
        > Those things aren't mutually-exclusive though. Well space research is not a problem, as long as it is research. My problem is that it is becoming a business ("we want to launch a lot of rockets and make money out of it") behind the excuse of "saving the human species and making colonies on Mars". The space business is a problem for our objective of "surviving sustainably on Earth" (which at this point is synonymous with "surviving on Earth".
  - AeiumNE 3y ago
    This guy Dyson spheres

palata 3y ago

I don't understand your point. So you want to live your whole life in a spaceship? Is there a reason that would be better than living in a bunker and never going out?

chriswarbo 3y ago
Sure, the whole point is that it's easier to go out! The spaceship we're currently on makes very inefficient use of material: its shape gives the least surface/livable area; and its density is the highest in the solar system. The resulting gravitational pull makes it very hard to leave: chemical rockets will just about work, but need multiple stages. In contrast, a more efficient design, like a spin-gravity cylinder inside a hollowed-out asteroid, is much easier to leave (in fact, we'd be flung away, if the floor weren't accelerating us inwards; say, by stepping over a trapdoor!). Whilst such a ship would certainly be more maneuverable than the Earth, it would probably be easier to leave in a convenient orbit (e.g. as a cycler), and use smaller, leaner ships for bespoke travel around the solar system (no point wasting fuel to keep accelerating/decelerating all the gardens, farms, factories, schools, etc. if they're not needed en-route!)
- palata 3y ago
  If you can't realize that we won't make it to that kind of science-fiction idea before we manage to survive on Earth (if ever), then I don't know what to say :-).
  - chriswarbo 3y ago
    I assume you mean "survive sustainably on Earth"? That's certainly our most important issue; we'll all be long dead before any off-world settlement could be self-sustaining, either planetary or space-based. Those things aren't mutually-exclusive though.
    - palata 3y ago
      > Those things aren't mutually-exclusive though. Well space research is not a problem, as long as it is research. My problem is that it is becoming a business ("we want to launch a lot of rockets and make money out of it") behind the excuse of "saving the human species and making colonies on Mars". The space business is a problem for our objective of "surviving sustainably on Earth" (which at this point is synonymous with "surviving on Earth".
- AeiumNE 3y ago
  This guy Dyson spheres