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Why is it obvious? Starship, if it succeeds, could reduce launch costs per mass by two orders of magnitude over Falcon 9. For the cost of one SLS launch, Sta
by pfdietz 2y ago
Why is it obvious? Starship, if it succeeds, could reduce launch costs per mass by two orders of magnitude over Falcon 9. For the cost of one SLS launch, Starship, if it meets its cost targets, could launch the mass of a nuclear supercarrier into low earth orbit. The cost to LEO would become similar to the cost of transport to the South Pole.
You will notice we are not using robots at the South Pole.
- playingonline 2y agoIt could be that for the sort of work we want to do on the south pole a human in a jacket outperforms our current robots, but for the sort of work we want to do on the moon a robot, or our future robot, will outperform a human in a spacesuit.
- pfdietz 2y agoSure, it could be. All sorts of things could be. Making that observation is not an argument that something is.
- usrbinbash 2y agoYou mean like it could be that launch costs will become so low the differential will not matter any more?
- pfdietz 2y agoGood thing the argument wasn't that this will necessarily happen, just that the case can be made that it could happen, and therefore human spacelight is not necessarily a bad idea. Note that I'm not proposing abandoning robots in space. Your whataboutism assumes a symmetry that's not there.
- usrbinbash 2y ago> just that the case can be made that it could happen, and therefore human spacelight is not necessarily a bad idea Nuclear war could happen, that doesn't make waging nuclear war a good idea. > Your whataboutism Please explain how advocating for useful allocation of resources within a reference topic, without ever leaving said topic, constitutes "whataboutism". I want space exploration to happen. Right now, the most efficient, most promising, and most fruitful way, including in terms of developing future technology that can one day benefit human spaceflight, is to send robots. Trying to send people to do a robots work in space exploration right now, is a waste of resources that will, long term, hinder our efforts of becoming a spacefaring species. It doesn't make sense for a tribe that just recently invented small canoues to try and send them across the ocean. It is possible to do so in theory, aka. "it could happen", that doesn't make it a good idea. And every tribe member who drowns during these efforts, is one person less who could father the future inventor of the Galleon. Pointing out this reality isn't "whataboutism".