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People who say this don't understand that Mars colonies aren't about pragmatic, resource-optimized decisions. Yes, it would be a better use of resources to set

People who say this don't understand that Mars colonies aren't about pragmatic, resource-optimized decisions. Yes, it would be a better use of resources to set up a colony on Antarctica first. But who cares about that? It's not that interesting or inspiring to anyone that doesn't already care about space travel. A human being landing on Mars would probably be the single most watched event in human history. It's exciting. That excitement is what inspires people to get involved (and governments to fund projects.) If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men and women to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. - Antoine de Saint Exupéry

robg 3y ago
Everything you say can be applied to the history of humans on the Earth’s moon. 50 years later you’ve been proven wrong. Robots are better and cheaper at space exploration and humans being in the loop have only made things more expensive and more risky. The failures of human space adventures have made things much harder on space budgets. See also the Shuttle program, after Apollo.
- keiferski 3y ago
  But nothing interesting has really happened on the moon since the initial landings, so it’s not surprising that interest has dried up. There’s no colony, no space casino resort, nothing that is a big leap from the initial achievement. The simple fact of the matter is that no one really cares about robots exploring the universe. Humans care about humans, not probes.
  - robg 3y ago
    That’s neither simple nor a fact. Space exploration has almost all been robots, telescopes, probes, etc. The interest has been self-sustaining with an endless stream of discoveries, discoveries including still Voyager.
    - keiferski 3y ago
      And the average person has almost no interest in it, except for world-history events like the first landing on the Moon. The first landing on Mars would be a similar event.
      - robg 3y ago
        Sustained funding for 60 years shows the continued interest in there, to use one of the “reasons” you cite for Apollo.
- fastball 3y ago
  You think there would've been more interest if the Apollo program had never happened, and we'd just done it all with robots?
  - robg 3y ago
    The last 60 years have shown the interest is there without humans AND having humans in the loop dying have deeply impaired progress based on limited resources and their allocation.
deelowe 3y ago
NDT* does an excellent job explaining this every time he gets a chance to do so. One of my favorite quotes is him saying something to the affect of "take a look at the pioneers of space exploration. Note down their age. Notice a trend? They all grew up during the apollo programs! Why? Because sending a human to the moon was exciting. How many people do you see today with posters of the rockets that carried Perseverance or the rover itself versus Apollo or even the Shuttle? We must put people in space, not because the science demands it, but because of the impact it will have on society." Sending humans to Mars isn't about exploring Mars. It's about the impact this would have on society as a whole. Suddenly, there's another planet out there that we care about and focus on. Perhaps wars on earth seem just that much more petty? At a minimum, it will likely inspire a whole new generation to explore the cosmos. * Neil has his flaws, I get it, but I've sort of come 360 on him. His exuberance is contagious and as ambassador for space exploration, his approach does have a certain "public resonance" to it that I've not seen from others even if he tends to embellish things...
- robg 3y ago
  He’s conflating all of the resources spent with the outcomes involved. Need to see the graph? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NASA-Budget-Federal.svg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NASA-Budget-Federal.svg Now imagine if those same resources were spent on fusion propulsion…
  - deelowe 3y ago
    Whataboutism. I don't think he's confusing anything. He's saying the only reason those funds were allocated were because: 1) The government wanted to do it (military reasons) and 2) The public found it exciting (we're putting a man on the moon) Without either of those, this wouldn't have happened.
    - robg 3y ago
      Those two “reasons” are no where in the same universe. Take away the Soviets and it wouldn’t have happened. See also the last 60 years.
kjkjadksj 3y ago
So we risk a human dying 40 days from help and severely overcomplicate the mission just for the public to not care even a tenth as much as they did during the apollo era. I wish we had a space program that didn’t rely so much on sacrificial heroics and building of a public myth.
tivert 3y ago
> A human being landing on Mars would probably be the single most watched event in human history. I'm actually skeptical about that. It certainly would be the "single most watched event in human history" among geeks interested in space, and probably among geeks in general and nationalists of the country that did the landing, but I suspect it's a biased projection to extend that attitude to all of humanity. Objectively, it's likely that stuff like the opening days of some war or the 9/11 attacks would be more watched than a Mars landing. Apropos: Gil Scott-Heron - Whitey On the Moon (Official Audio): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goh2x_G0ct4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goh2x_G0ct4
- keiferski 3y ago
  I think it would be comparable to the first moon landing. Even if it wasn’t as big, the population and access to video has drastically increased. It doesn’t seem crazy to me that a few billion people would watch it live/within 24 hours.
  - tivert 3y ago
    > I think it would be comparable to the first moon landing. Even if it wasn’t as big, the population and access to video has drastically increased. Though that introduces the problem that you're not really measuring what you're talking about, sort of like how lists of the "highest-grossing films of all time," are mostly about inflation and not popularity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films: > As the motion picture industry is highly oriented towards marketing currently released films, unadjusted figures are always used in marketing campaigns so that new blockbuster films can much more easily achieve a high sales ranking, and thus be promoted as a "top film of all time",[24][31] so there is little incentive to switch to a more robust analysis from a marketing or even newsworthy point of view.[30]
- wongarsu 3y ago
  The first human moon landing is among the top 5 most watched television events, topped mostly by sports events (and possibly the rescue of the rescue of Chilean miners). Of course "most watched event" is more complicated, but I'd still bet on the moon landing, soccer and the Olympic opening ceremonies making up the top, rather than war or terror attacks.
usrbinbash 3y ago
> But who cares about that? Everyone who actually has to make a mars colony work. Because, yes "yearning for the vast and endless sea" is certainly more poetic than figuring out how to make beams from tree trunks. But without lots of people who think alot about trees and carpentry figuring out how to reliably produce good quality beams and techniques that allow for them to be fitted together into a hull that won't break apart when hit by the first few waves, no amount of yearning will result in a working Carrack. > human being landing on Mars would probably be the single most watched event in human history. Probably. And now imagine the reaction of all those people watching, when the landing vehicle crashed and exploded, or the Astronauts died horribly from thirst or starvation. That's why there are people who care about building a sustainable colony in the arctic dry valleys.
polotics 3y ago
May I suggest that people who say what you say also do not understand one thing? To get excited about watching one man eking survival on Mars, you have yourself to be quite far away from any concern for your own survival here on earth. To say it differently, this is very high on Maslow's pyramid. For reference maybe check out Gilles Scott Heron's "Whitey on the moon"...
walleeee 3y ago
> People who say this don't understand that Mars colonies aren't about pragmatic, resource-optimized decisions. On the contrary, many of us agree very much with this. Mars is not a practical goal at the moment and it doesn't make sense from a resource perspective. What might be more exciting, I think, is to develop such a well-functioning, resilient terrestrial society, such an abundant, adaptable community of life, that we could realistically take ourselves and our companions to Mars and hope to persist there. But that takes a lot of know-how, a lot of materials and energy, and (most importantly) a lot of wisdom. Is a species steamrolling its paradise of a homeworld's living fabric really capable of planting a viable colony on a dead planet?

robg 3y ago

Everything you say can be applied to the history of humans on the Earth’s moon. 50 years later you’ve been proven wrong. Robots are better and cheaper at space exploration and humans being in the loop have only made things more expensive and more risky. The failures of human space adventures have made things much harder on space budgets. See also the Shuttle program, after Apollo.

keiferski 3y ago
But nothing interesting has really happened on the moon since the initial landings, so it’s not surprising that interest has dried up. There’s no colony, no space casino resort, nothing that is a big leap from the initial achievement. The simple fact of the matter is that no one really cares about robots exploring the universe. Humans care about humans, not probes.
- robg 3y ago
  That’s neither simple nor a fact. Space exploration has almost all been robots, telescopes, probes, etc. The interest has been self-sustaining with an endless stream of discoveries, discoveries including still Voyager.
  - keiferski 3y ago
    And the average person has almost no interest in it, except for world-history events like the first landing on the Moon. The first landing on Mars would be a similar event.
    - robg 3y ago
      Sustained funding for 60 years shows the continued interest in there, to use one of the “reasons” you cite for Apollo.
fastball 3y ago
You think there would've been more interest if the Apollo program had never happened, and we'd just done it all with robots?
- robg 3y ago
  The last 60 years have shown the interest is there without humans AND having humans in the loop dying have deeply impaired progress based on limited resources and their allocation.

deelowe 3y ago

NDT* does an excellent job explaining this every time he gets a chance to do so. One of my favorite quotes is him saying something to the affect of "take a look at the pioneers of space exploration. Note down their age. Notice a trend? They all grew up during the apollo programs! Why? Because sending a human to the moon was exciting. How many people do you see today with posters of the rockets that carried Perseverance or the rover itself versus Apollo or even the Shuttle? We must put people in space, not because the science demands it, but because of the impact it will have on society." Sending humans to Mars isn't about exploring Mars. It's about the impact this would have on society as a whole. Suddenly, there's another planet out there that we care about and focus on. Perhaps wars on earth seem just that much more petty? At a minimum, it will likely inspire a whole new generation to explore the cosmos. * Neil has his flaws, I get it, but I've sort of come 360 on him. His exuberance is contagious and as ambassador for space exploration, his approach does have a certain "public resonance" to it that I've not seen from others even if he tends to embellish things...

robg 3y ago
He’s conflating all of the resources spent with the outcomes involved. Need to see the graph? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NASA-Budget-Federal.svg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NASA-Budget-Federal.svg Now imagine if those same resources were spent on fusion propulsion…
- deelowe 3y ago
  Whataboutism. I don't think he's confusing anything. He's saying the only reason those funds were allocated were because: 1) The government wanted to do it (military reasons) and 2) The public found it exciting (we're putting a man on the moon) Without either of those, this wouldn't have happened.
  - robg 3y ago
    Those two “reasons” are no where in the same universe. Take away the Soviets and it wouldn’t have happened. See also the last 60 years.

kjkjadksj 3y ago

So we risk a human dying 40 days from help and severely overcomplicate the mission just for the public to not care even a tenth as much as they did during the apollo era. I wish we had a space program that didn’t rely so much on sacrificial heroics and building of a public myth.

tivert 3y ago

> A human being landing on Mars would probably be the single most watched event in human history. I'm actually skeptical about that. It certainly would be the "single most watched event in human history" among geeks interested in space, and probably among geeks in general and nationalists of the country that did the landing, but I suspect it's a biased projection to extend that attitude to all of humanity. Objectively, it's likely that stuff like the opening days of some war or the 9/11 attacks would be more watched than a Mars landing. Apropos: Gil Scott-Heron - Whitey On the Moon (Official Audio): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goh2x_G0ct4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goh2x_G0ct4

keiferski 3y ago
I think it would be comparable to the first moon landing. Even if it wasn’t as big, the population and access to video has drastically increased. It doesn’t seem crazy to me that a few billion people would watch it live/within 24 hours.
- tivert 3y ago
  > I think it would be comparable to the first moon landing. Even if it wasn’t as big, the population and access to video has drastically increased. Though that introduces the problem that you're not really measuring what you're talking about, sort of like how lists of the "highest-grossing films of all time," are mostly about inflation and not popularity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films: > As the motion picture industry is highly oriented towards marketing currently released films, unadjusted figures are always used in marketing campaigns so that new blockbuster films can much more easily achieve a high sales ranking, and thus be promoted as a "top film of all time",[24][31] so there is little incentive to switch to a more robust analysis from a marketing or even newsworthy point of view.[30]
wongarsu 3y ago
The first human moon landing is among the top 5 most watched television events, topped mostly by sports events (and possibly the rescue of the rescue of Chilean miners). Of course "most watched event" is more complicated, but I'd still bet on the moon landing, soccer and the Olympic opening ceremonies making up the top, rather than war or terror attacks.

usrbinbash 3y ago

> But who cares about that? Everyone who actually has to make a mars colony work. Because, yes "yearning for the vast and endless sea" is certainly more poetic than figuring out how to make beams from tree trunks. But without lots of people who think alot about trees and carpentry figuring out how to reliably produce good quality beams and techniques that allow for them to be fitted together into a hull that won't break apart when hit by the first few waves, no amount of yearning will result in a working Carrack. > human being landing on Mars would probably be the single most watched event in human history. Probably. And now imagine the reaction of all those people watching, when the landing vehicle crashed and exploded, or the Astronauts died horribly from thirst or starvation. That's why there are people who care about building a sustainable colony in the arctic dry valleys.

polotics 3y ago

May I suggest that people who say what you say also do not understand one thing? To get excited about watching one man eking survival on Mars, you have yourself to be quite far away from any concern for your own survival here on earth. To say it differently, this is very high on Maslow's pyramid. For reference maybe check out Gilles Scott Heron's "Whitey on the moon"...

walleeee 3y ago

> People who say this don't understand that Mars colonies aren't about pragmatic, resource-optimized decisions. On the contrary, many of us agree very much with this. Mars is not a practical goal at the moment and it doesn't make sense from a resource perspective. What might be more exciting, I think, is to develop such a well-functioning, resilient terrestrial society, such an abundant, adaptable community of life, that we could realistically take ourselves and our companions to Mars and hope to persist there. But that takes a lot of know-how, a lot of materials and energy, and (most importantly) a lot of wisdom. Is a species steamrolling its paradise of a homeworld's living fabric really capable of planting a viable colony on a dead planet?