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> People begin from the premise that there should be lots of primates living away from earth, and then work backwards from there. No, people begin with interes

by avmich 1y ago

> People begin from the premise that there should be lots of primates living away from earth, and then work backwards from there. No, people begin with interest in all things around them and from that conclude that being closer to them would be more convenient. This idea is perhaps as old as the human race itself. Modern robots aren't as capable as humans, so if the project is big enough, human involvement is reasonable.

dan-robertson 1y ago
I don’t think ‘closer to thing’ is a legitimate goal to spend enormous amounts of public money on. (I’m more ambivalent about private funding except for the contamination problem) I’m not aware of any serious research questions about the solar system which could be answered sooner or more cost effectively by sending people to investigate (except for questions about eg how well primates survive in various extraterrestrial situations, which are only interesting insofar as there are legitimate reasons to put primates in such situations).
- avmich 1y ago
  The Moon research was significantly advanced with the data collected from the rocks Apollo astronauts brought from the Moon. Your skepticism is widely shared and also widely debunked. I don't think we'll move the state of the debate ahead with short messages, it needs more detailed and prolonged discussion. There are reasons defending the space exploration, and there are reasons defending human flights. You can personally disagree, but your arguments are based only on opinions, which aren't better than opinions of the other side.
  - dan-robertson 1y ago
    In the 1960s it would be hard to retrieve samples from the moon without humans. I don’t think that’s true today. For mars, isn’t it obviously much more difficult to try to get a big enough rocket to return a load of heavy meatbags than to just return the rocks and leave the robots behind?

by avmich 1y ago

dan-robertson 1y ago

I don’t think ‘closer to thing’ is a legitimate goal to spend enormous amounts of public money on. (I’m more ambivalent about private funding except for the contamination problem) I’m not aware of any serious research questions about the solar system which could be answered sooner or more cost effectively by sending people to investigate (except for questions about eg how well primates survive in various extraterrestrial situations, which are only interesting insofar as there are legitimate reasons to put primates in such situations).

avmich 1y ago
The Moon research was significantly advanced with the data collected from the rocks Apollo astronauts brought from the Moon. Your skepticism is widely shared and also widely debunked. I don't think we'll move the state of the debate ahead with short messages, it needs more detailed and prolonged discussion. There are reasons defending the space exploration, and there are reasons defending human flights. You can personally disagree, but your arguments are based only on opinions, which aren't better than opinions of the other side.
- dan-robertson 1y ago
  In the 1960s it would be hard to retrieve samples from the moon without humans. I don’t think that’s true today. For mars, isn’t it obviously much more difficult to try to get a big enough rocket to return a load of heavy meatbags than to just return the rocks and leave the robots behind?