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That's a bit of a straw man argument. Nobody's claiming that we can't; rather that to accomplish many of our goals, having a human as the physical actuator is a

by erydo 12y ago

That's a bit of a straw man argument. Nobody's claiming that we can't; rather that to accomplish many of our goals, having a human as the physical actuator is a bad choice. Robots have the potential to perform nearly any given mission better than their human counterparts. That was not the case during the development of ships, automobiles, or flight. The alternatives to those were "don't fly/explore/travel fast", not "have a machine do it for us". It's a different question. Increasingly even on Earth, satellites and drones explore our planet, not explorers with hiking boots. The same analogy applies to many kinds of space exploration. On the other side of the coin: Sentiment is what drives resources to fund our exploratory efforts, and we like seeing humans do things. Additionally, the goal of colonization requires human presence nearly by definition. The longer-term question is whether we'll change that definition, or continue to require the presence of biological humans to consider a planet effectively colonized. That may not always be the case: if a given planet can protect our collective civilization from extinction, does it matter whether that's secured by human actuators versus robotic ones?

goodcanadian 12y ago
I did not intend to set up a straw man. You are correct, however, that no one is arguing that we can't. Rather, they are arguing that we shouldn't. I don't agree with that position. Remember, early motor cars were nothing more than an expensive hobby, and one that was heavily criticized because of the noise and danger. Early aviation was also nothing more than an expensive hobby. Because there were people who wanted to push forward despite there being no obvious return on investment is why we have the developments we do in these and other fields. I and many others feel similarly about human space exploration. We feel that there is intrinsic value in it that is not readily captured in the ROI calculations. I grant that we are talking about a different order of magnitude in required resources, but I don't feel that qualitatively changes the argument. I could also make some more technical arguments around the value of having a human on site to repair or refit instruments, to react to unexpected developments, and so on, but that is outside the scope of the argument I was trying to make.
- erydo 12y ago
  You make a very good point about ROI for non-obvious investments. I also agree with you that for many things like your general repair example, humans are better than robots for the time being. That's why I framed it as them having "the potential" to perform better. I think most would agree that our on-site manual superiority isn't going to last very much longer in the scheme of things; especially under scrutiny of cost/benefit. What I'm trying to get at is the question of where we see humans' roles over the coming centuries with respect to space travel, and whether the sci-fi trope of humans on ships and colonizing planets on foot makes sense or is really something to aspire to, and at what point that falls apart as a utilitarian approach. I agree it's not yet, but I agree with @lukifer that we'll outgrow ourselves as our technological grasp exceeds our biological one. And our reach has never known any bounds.

by erydo 12y ago

goodcanadian 12y ago

I did not intend to set up a straw man. You are correct, however, that no one is arguing that we can't. Rather, they are arguing that we shouldn't. I don't agree with that position. Remember, early motor cars were nothing more than an expensive hobby, and one that was heavily criticized because of the noise and danger. Early aviation was also nothing more than an expensive hobby. Because there were people who wanted to push forward despite there being no obvious return on investment is why we have the developments we do in these and other fields. I and many others feel similarly about human space exploration. We feel that there is intrinsic value in it that is not readily captured in the ROI calculations. I grant that we are talking about a different order of magnitude in required resources, but I don't feel that qualitatively changes the argument. I could also make some more technical arguments around the value of having a human on site to repair or refit instruments, to react to unexpected developments, and so on, but that is outside the scope of the argument I was trying to make.

erydo 12y ago
You make a very good point about ROI for non-obvious investments. I also agree with you that for many things like your general repair example, humans are better than robots for the time being. That's why I framed it as them having "the potential" to perform better. I think most would agree that our on-site manual superiority isn't going to last very much longer in the scheme of things; especially under scrutiny of cost/benefit. What I'm trying to get at is the question of where we see humans' roles over the coming centuries with respect to space travel, and whether the sci-fi trope of humans on ships and colonizing planets on foot makes sense or is really something to aspire to, and at what point that falls apart as a utilitarian approach. I agree it's not yet, but I agree with @lukifer that we'll outgrow ourselves as our technological grasp exceeds our biological one. And our reach has never known any bounds.