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It's refreshing to see a rare openly optimistic article about the world here first thing in the morning. I also like to occasionally appreciate how someone fro

It's refreshing to see a rare openly optimistic article about the world here first thing in the morning. I also like to occasionally appreciate how someone from even just the recent past would see our current world as one full of manmade wonders. Another one of these would be microwaves, although conceptually simple as a box that heats stuff, it'd be pretty mind bending that it does it essentially wirelessly. Adding on to the point about going to the Moon being universally mind blowing, I think it would be (and still is) even more mind blowing that we stopped doing that and didn't bother trying for 50 years, in large part because the people of the time lost interest...

lordgrenville 2y ago
Considering that it's staggeringly expensive and there's not much to see there, it seems like the right decision to hold off once we'd established it could be done.
- somenameforme 2y ago
  Except in a parallel world where we continued forward making advances in space we could already be a defacto post-scarcity species (as far as materials are concerned at least), exporting our heavy carbon producing industries to the Moon - simultaneously helping create an atmosphere there, while avoiding any climate impact here, have effectively infinite land to expand outward into, countless high paying jobs perpetuating all of this across the entire solar system if not beyond. And so on endlessly. Instead we're sending toy rovers to Mars, unable to solve climate change in any way that has any chance of actually moving forward, trending rapidly towards WW3 as nations' schemes invariably turn towards each other, with no grand outlet for expansion/growth to otherwise occupy themselves. And so on endlessly. I think it's quite a poor direction we've chosen. And I'd also add that this is assuming there are no revolutionary discoveries out there awaiting discovery. It's basically impossible to imagine something like electricity/electromagnetism before its discovery. As we live on a single planet in a virtually endless - and ever stranger - universe, one can only imagine how many other revolutionary discoveries, things we cannot even really imagine today, await our eventual discovery. It's hard to know what we don't know, but I think there is probably a rather tremendous amount. And it seems reasonable to expect that exploring the cosmos is one way of taking us closer to it.
  - at_compile_time 2y ago
    >exporting our heavy carbon producing industries to the Moon Never study rocketry, it wil ruin your whimsical innocence.
    - throwaway11460 2y ago
      It's very fortunate that rockets are not the only way to get stuff into space, and more importantly, that we don't need to literally bring a whole factory and the input materials up on a rocket but instead use resources available in space. Even if we actually had to bring everything from Earth, Starship is cheap and powerful enough to build an orbital ring which would make orbital lift nearly too cheap to meter.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - pfdietz 2y ago
        > It's very fortunate that rockets are not the only way to get stuff into space I don't see any of the alternatives ever being competitive.
        philistine 2y ago
        It's even worse than that. A space elevator, the only thing that could conceivably replace rockets, requires materials so strong that they don't exist in our universe. Space is like the internet. You can communicate through it, but sending matter is nigh impossible.
        throwaway11460 2y ago
        Not true - an orbital ring doesn't require any scifi materials, though the engineering is not yet there. And you can build magnetic accelerators, that's fully possible with current knowledge of science and engineering.
- dotnet00 2y ago
  While I can understand that as a reason for not sending crew there, we didn't even send uncrewed landers. The result being that now our technology has changed so much that we have to relearn how to autonomously land there. If we had been sending the occasional lander, we would've smoothly transitioned from the technology of then to the technology of now.
- Nevermark 2y ago
  It remained staggeringly expensive because the Space Shuttle was a disastrous design to follow up the lunar rockets. It held up the space program half a century in some ways. It reduced the manned program to Earth orbit, was supposed to be highly reusable to reduce launch costs, but didn't work out that way. And of course, it was supposed to be reliable and safer. If we had continued going to the moon, even infrequently, or aimed further, we would have had no choice but to actually achieve reusability, safety and reliability much sooner. (In the meantime, ... NASA's current manned program isn't better. Multi-billion dollar throw away rockers. Good thing someone validated reusable first stages and space craft, and is working to eliminate non-reusable second stages.)
  - paulryanrogers 2y ago
    It's also possible that materials science (and others) were too immature and could not be rushed without innovations in a million other areas. The tradeoffs needed across all fields may be worse for society, or just impossible until the global population could produce enough skilled workers.
    - philistine 2y ago
      Nope. The Shuttle was a catastrophic strategic blunder. Why do you think NASA is so adamant on chasing a second vehicle to go to the ISS when A) The ISS is nearly over; and B) Space X's vehicle is awesome? Because of the Shuttle. Initially, and they actually did it for a couple of years, EVERY satellite launched into orbit by the US was supposed to use the Shuttle. Inevitably, when the Shuttle proved inadequate at all its jobs, they had to revert back to rockets. That's not a failure of materials science. That's a strategic mistake that could have been avoided.
      - paulryanrogers 2y ago
        I wasn't defending the shuttle. I was taking issue with this point: > If we had continued going to the moon, even infrequently, or aimed further, we would have had no choice but to actually achieve reusability, safety and reliability much sooner.
- aftbit 2y ago
  Foolish short-sighted take. Imagine if the same opinion held during the age of sail. There's literally more resources than are currently controlled by our entire planet in the asteroid belt, and a lunar colony (at least a refueling station in space) would be a huge boon to anyone who wants to go explore further. If that's not good enough, how about outsourcing our shitty resource extraction and polluting manufacturing to space, where there's no life to care about the waste and disruption? Not to mention that if space flight were commonly available and cheap today (more feasible than you seem to think - remember computers were once phenomenally expensive and now they're so cheap as to be thrown away), more could experience the overview effect, the cognitive shift that comes when you see Earth hanging in the void of space. That would probably make humanity better to each other and our planet. Or what about the fact that the Apollo program basically launched our discipline of computer science? Surely there was more to be learned and discovered from striving to make spaceflight routine. If only we had a generation of scientists and engineers working on hard science problems rather than ad-tech, the world would be a much better today place.
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    The problem with arguments by analogy is they inherently assume the analogy is valid. It's a circular argument. The "cognitive shift" thing is just BS some space fans made up to sell their cult. And no, Apollo did not launch "our discipline of computer science". Talk about spinoff inflation!
    - philistine 2y ago
      Apollo did feature a bunch of interesting first in electronics. We would have gotten there, and we did, but the Apollo program had stuff like the first fly-by-wire vehicle. That's a great invention!
somenameforme 2y ago
Re: Moon landing - It had very little to do with people losing interest. In 1972 Nixon defacto completely cancelled the human space program, which he had been rapidly stripping away since Apollo 13. He was paranoid that a catastrophic failure was imminent and would negatively affect his 1972 election campaign. Interestingly when he signed off on the final stripping down in 1972, he remarked that we may never set foot on the Moon again this century. That would've sounded quite absurd at the time, but was ultimately completely correct. It's kind of ironic that the stereotypical context of the space race was it supposedly having been a proxy for an ideological battle between capitalism and communism. Yet the US space program existed solely and exclusively due to a large and heavily centralized governmental effort. It's only in very modern times that private companies can take to the stars, completely independent of governments, which is why we've been able to make vastly made more progress in the past 10 years than we did in the 40 prior. A good starting point off for going down this rabbit hole would probably be here. [1] [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canceled_Apollo_missions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canceled_Apollo_missions
- dotnet00 2y ago
  That covers the cancellation of Apollo, but the fact that we didn't even put an uncrewed lander on the Moon within the 50 years in between is indicative of a lack of general interest, since we've had several presidents in these 50 years. Still, this did lead me to the discovery that apparently the often made claim that viewership of the landings waned after Apollo 11 doesn't seem to have any clear evidence besides the point that Apollo 11 had the highest live viewer count until apparently the most recent Superbowl. The EVA camera was damaged in Apollo 12, and 13 was just poorly covered by the media until the crew encountered trouble.
  - somenameforme 2y ago
    I don't think what happens in politics is a great proxy for interest. Lots of things with high interest levels never happen - federal digital privacy laws or federal right to repair laws for instance. And, vice versa, lots that are exceptionally unpopular get passed with exceptional rapidity - spying laws and copyright lasting until the heat death of the universe laws are a couple of examples there. Most polls since the end of the Apollo program have shown strong and growing interest in space. Here's [1] the most recent I could find - a 2018 Pew poll. 72% consider it essential that the US continue to be a world leader in space exploration, 80% agree that the ISS has been a good investment for the country, 63% consider it important (45%) or top priority (18%) to send astronauts to Mars, and so on. [1] - https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2018/06/06/majority-of-americans-believe-it-is-essential-that-the-u-s-remain-a-global-leader-in-space/ https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2018/06/06/majority-of-a...

lordgrenville 2y ago

Considering that it's staggeringly expensive and there's not much to see there, it seems like the right decision to hold off once we'd established it could be done.

somenameforme 2y ago
Except in a parallel world where we continued forward making advances in space we could already be a defacto post-scarcity species (as far as materials are concerned at least), exporting our heavy carbon producing industries to the Moon - simultaneously helping create an atmosphere there, while avoiding any climate impact here, have effectively infinite land to expand outward into, countless high paying jobs perpetuating all of this across the entire solar system if not beyond. And so on endlessly. Instead we're sending toy rovers to Mars, unable to solve climate change in any way that has any chance of actually moving forward, trending rapidly towards WW3 as nations' schemes invariably turn towards each other, with no grand outlet for expansion/growth to otherwise occupy themselves. And so on endlessly. I think it's quite a poor direction we've chosen. And I'd also add that this is assuming there are no revolutionary discoveries out there awaiting discovery. It's basically impossible to imagine something like electricity/electromagnetism before its discovery. As we live on a single planet in a virtually endless - and ever stranger - universe, one can only imagine how many other revolutionary discoveries, things we cannot even really imagine today, await our eventual discovery. It's hard to know what we don't know, but I think there is probably a rather tremendous amount. And it seems reasonable to expect that exploring the cosmos is one way of taking us closer to it.
- at_compile_time 2y ago
  >exporting our heavy carbon producing industries to the Moon Never study rocketry, it wil ruin your whimsical innocence.
  - throwaway11460 2y ago
    It's very fortunate that rockets are not the only way to get stuff into space, and more importantly, that we don't need to literally bring a whole factory and the input materials up on a rocket but instead use resources available in space. Even if we actually had to bring everything from Earth, Starship is cheap and powerful enough to build an orbital ring which would make orbital lift nearly too cheap to meter.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - pfdietz 2y ago
      > It's very fortunate that rockets are not the only way to get stuff into space I don't see any of the alternatives ever being competitive.
      - philistine 2y ago
        It's even worse than that. A space elevator, the only thing that could conceivably replace rockets, requires materials so strong that they don't exist in our universe. Space is like the internet. You can communicate through it, but sending matter is nigh impossible.
        throwaway11460 2y ago
        Not true - an orbital ring doesn't require any scifi materials, though the engineering is not yet there. And you can build magnetic accelerators, that's fully possible with current knowledge of science and engineering.
dotnet00 2y ago
While I can understand that as a reason for not sending crew there, we didn't even send uncrewed landers. The result being that now our technology has changed so much that we have to relearn how to autonomously land there. If we had been sending the occasional lander, we would've smoothly transitioned from the technology of then to the technology of now.
Nevermark 2y ago
It remained staggeringly expensive because the Space Shuttle was a disastrous design to follow up the lunar rockets. It held up the space program half a century in some ways. It reduced the manned program to Earth orbit, was supposed to be highly reusable to reduce launch costs, but didn't work out that way. And of course, it was supposed to be reliable and safer. If we had continued going to the moon, even infrequently, or aimed further, we would have had no choice but to actually achieve reusability, safety and reliability much sooner. (In the meantime, ... NASA's current manned program isn't better. Multi-billion dollar throw away rockers. Good thing someone validated reusable first stages and space craft, and is working to eliminate non-reusable second stages.)
- paulryanrogers 2y ago
  It's also possible that materials science (and others) were too immature and could not be rushed without innovations in a million other areas. The tradeoffs needed across all fields may be worse for society, or just impossible until the global population could produce enough skilled workers.
  - philistine 2y ago
    Nope. The Shuttle was a catastrophic strategic blunder. Why do you think NASA is so adamant on chasing a second vehicle to go to the ISS when A) The ISS is nearly over; and B) Space X's vehicle is awesome? Because of the Shuttle. Initially, and they actually did it for a couple of years, EVERY satellite launched into orbit by the US was supposed to use the Shuttle. Inevitably, when the Shuttle proved inadequate at all its jobs, they had to revert back to rockets. That's not a failure of materials science. That's a strategic mistake that could have been avoided.
    - paulryanrogers 2y ago
      I wasn't defending the shuttle. I was taking issue with this point: > If we had continued going to the moon, even infrequently, or aimed further, we would have had no choice but to actually achieve reusability, safety and reliability much sooner.
aftbit 2y ago
Foolish short-sighted take. Imagine if the same opinion held during the age of sail. There's literally more resources than are currently controlled by our entire planet in the asteroid belt, and a lunar colony (at least a refueling station in space) would be a huge boon to anyone who wants to go explore further. If that's not good enough, how about outsourcing our shitty resource extraction and polluting manufacturing to space, where there's no life to care about the waste and disruption? Not to mention that if space flight were commonly available and cheap today (more feasible than you seem to think - remember computers were once phenomenally expensive and now they're so cheap as to be thrown away), more could experience the overview effect, the cognitive shift that comes when you see Earth hanging in the void of space. That would probably make humanity better to each other and our planet. Or what about the fact that the Apollo program basically launched our discipline of computer science? Surely there was more to be learned and discovered from striving to make spaceflight routine. If only we had a generation of scientists and engineers working on hard science problems rather than ad-tech, the world would be a much better today place.
- pfdietz 2y ago
  The problem with arguments by analogy is they inherently assume the analogy is valid. It's a circular argument. The "cognitive shift" thing is just BS some space fans made up to sell their cult. And no, Apollo did not launch "our discipline of computer science". Talk about spinoff inflation!
  - philistine 2y ago
    Apollo did feature a bunch of interesting first in electronics. We would have gotten there, and we did, but the Apollo program had stuff like the first fly-by-wire vehicle. That's a great invention!

somenameforme 2y ago

Re: Moon landing - It had very little to do with people losing interest. In 1972 Nixon defacto completely cancelled the human space program, which he had been rapidly stripping away since Apollo 13. He was paranoid that a catastrophic failure was imminent and would negatively affect his 1972 election campaign. Interestingly when he signed off on the final stripping down in 1972, he remarked that we may never set foot on the Moon again this century. That would've sounded quite absurd at the time, but was ultimately completely correct. It's kind of ironic that the stereotypical context of the space race was it supposedly having been a proxy for an ideological battle between capitalism and communism. Yet the US space program existed solely and exclusively due to a large and heavily centralized governmental effort. It's only in very modern times that private companies can take to the stars, completely independent of governments, which is why we've been able to make vastly made more progress in the past 10 years than we did in the 40 prior. A good starting point off for going down this rabbit hole would probably be here. [1] [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canceled_Apollo_missions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canceled_Apollo_missions

dotnet00 2y ago
That covers the cancellation of Apollo, but the fact that we didn't even put an uncrewed lander on the Moon within the 50 years in between is indicative of a lack of general interest, since we've had several presidents in these 50 years. Still, this did lead me to the discovery that apparently the often made claim that viewership of the landings waned after Apollo 11 doesn't seem to have any clear evidence besides the point that Apollo 11 had the highest live viewer count until apparently the most recent Superbowl. The EVA camera was damaged in Apollo 12, and 13 was just poorly covered by the media until the crew encountered trouble.
- somenameforme 2y ago
  I don't think what happens in politics is a great proxy for interest. Lots of things with high interest levels never happen - federal digital privacy laws or federal right to repair laws for instance. And, vice versa, lots that are exceptionally unpopular get passed with exceptional rapidity - spying laws and copyright lasting until the heat death of the universe laws are a couple of examples there. Most polls since the end of the Apollo program have shown strong and growing interest in space. Here's [1] the most recent I could find - a 2018 Pew poll. 72% consider it essential that the US continue to be a world leader in space exploration, 80% agree that the ISS has been a good investment for the country, 63% consider it important (45%) or top priority (18%) to send astronauts to Mars, and so on. [1] - https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2018/06/06/majority-of-americans-believe-it-is-essential-that-the-u-s-remain-a-global-leader-in-space/ https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2018/06/06/majority-of-a...