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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 d

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.
        pfdietz 2y ago
        I don't see that kind of macroengineering as plausible.
        throwaway11460 2y ago
  - aftbit 2y ago
    Someone needs to hurry up and build a von Neumann probe already.
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!

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.
        pfdietz 2y ago
        I don't see that kind of macroengineering as plausible.
        throwaway11460 2y ago
- aftbit 2y ago
  Someone needs to hurry up and build a von Neumann probe already.

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!