111–120 of 284 posts
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Of course you can, it just takes a few orders of magnitude longer.
If the one specialist in your mission dies and it takes 8 years to send a new one, that's not called an effective replacement.
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It's important for the exact same reason you're able to ask that question. Without humanity, who asks why? Humanity is, to the best of our knowledge, the best and possibly only chance of increasing understanding of the universe. I care about that, as well as about our species generally in what is likely an evolved and chemically reinforced way. At some point that may be less true, and I would care less (but would sti…
Survival of humanity isn't important universally. The universe doesn't care. But it's the most important thing for humans.
And that's exactly why it's important.
> Survival of humanity isn't important universally.
Unless there is something there that cares about it, there is little reason for the universe to exist - nothing would know the difference.
Which is why it actually is important universally.
> But it's the most important thing for humans.
No, it's more important for the universe to have humans, than it is for humans to have a universe.
If the universe did not have humans (or another sentients) then it might as well not exist. AKA: Humans super important to the universe.
If humans did not have a universe, then humans would not exist. If humans did not exist then nothing is important to them.
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I just got a new laptop and hadn't got around to installing uBlock yet. I'm comfortable saying the mainstream web is literally unusable without ad blocking. I watched the download notifications in the status bar iterate through dozens of ad servers, for 1-2 minutes, per page. I could barely scroll at all. I couldn't tell where the actual content was. All 3 columns full of ads. You have to hunt for isolated paragraphs…
> a festering petri dish of promiscuous cookie-sharing Shouldn't that be impossible? What browser lets one site access another's cookies?
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People way underestimate how far away Mars is. To give you a sense of scale, the settlers of Jamestown came from London. As the crow flies, that's about 3,790 miles. If we treat that as equivalent to settling on Mars, then for them to settle on "the moon" would have been a mere 26 miles from London. Perhaps Canvey Island on the River Thames. If we can't manage settlements that close, we really aren't ready yet for th…
In terms of distance, sure. In terms of delta-v, the budget for the moon is upwards of 50% that for Mars. EDIT: The 50% figure is from memory, and upon further reflection is probably not quite right, so take it with a grain of salt. I just wanted to point out that distance is not the only relevant metric.
https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/2046/delta-v-chart...
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In terms of distance, sure. In terms of delta-v, the budget for the moon is upwards of 50% that for Mars. EDIT: The 50% figure is from memory, and upon further reflection is probably not quite right, so take it with a grain of salt. I just wanted to point out that distance is not the only relevant metric.
>The 50% figure is from memory, and upon further reflection is probably not quite right, so take it with a grain of salt. You're actually underestimating. Mars has an atmosphere, so spacecraft can use aerobraking to significantly reduce the delta-v required to get there. The moon has no such benefit — propulsion is required all the way to the surface. The advantage of the moon, of course, is that it's not limited to…
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It's important for the exact same reason you're able to ask that question. Without humanity, who asks why? Humanity is, to the best of our knowledge, the best and possibly only chance of increasing understanding of the universe. I care about that, as well as about our species generally in what is likely an evolved and chemically reinforced way. At some point that may be less true, and I would care less (but would sti…
Survival of humanity isn't important universally. The universe doesn't care. But it's the most important thing for humans.
So at lest partially universe care about humanity.
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It wouldn't really be relevant. For why, read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. TLDR: The moon colony will be able to make its own rules and keep earth at bay.
I'm sorry but this is just silly. Just because something happened in a novel published more than 50 years ago does not at all make it likely to happen in real life. The Moon is much less habitable than we thought it would be in the 60s, meaning any moon colony will be very dependent on the Earth for the foreseeable future and the rock launcher wouldn't be bulidable with the kind of infrastructure in the novel.
I've always been more excited about a Moon colony than a Mars one. I mean, compared to Mars, the Moon is ridiculously close. Many of the same benefits Musk seeks (backup for Civilization, excitement) for a fraction of the cost. Low gravity and atmosphere on a dome would be more complicated, but again, compared to Mars, it's right there . It would be a more humble and realistic first step, IMO.
Although the Moon is much closer and "right there" for us, it's subject to numerous meteoric incidents, some of which are disastrous enough to wipe out any settlement we set up there. Moreover, only half of the Moon sees the light of the Sun. This fact alone reduces available surface for settlements to only half of the Moon. While the Moon could be a temporary backup plan, in the long-term, you're going to need to te…
I've always been more excited about a Moon colony than a Mars one. I mean, compared to Mars, the Moon is ridiculously close. Many of the same benefits Musk seeks (backup for Civilization, excitement) for a fraction of the cost. Low gravity and atmosphere on a dome would be more complicated, but again, compared to Mars, it's right there . It would be a more humble and realistic first step, IMO.
Although the Moon is much closer and "right there" for us, it's subject to numerous meteoric incidents, some of which are disastrous enough to wipe out any settlement we set up there. Moreover, only half of the Moon sees the light of the Sun. This fact alone reduces available surface for settlements to only half of the Moon. While the Moon could be a temporary backup plan, in the long-term, you're going to need to te…
Because four billion wordwide population - all living - have a Computer God Containment Policy Brain Bank Brain, a real brain, in the Brain Bank Cities on the far side of the moon we never see.
I've always been more excited about a Moon colony than a Mars one. I mean, compared to Mars, the Moon is ridiculously close. Many of the same benefits Musk seeks (backup for Civilization, excitement) for a fraction of the cost. Low gravity and atmosphere on a dome would be more complicated, but again, compared to Mars, it's right there . It would be a more humble and realistic first step, IMO.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plTRdGF-ycs
When he says the real science is on Mars, though, I'd raise the challenge and say it's on Europa, Enceladus, Io, Ganymede and Callisto. I mean hot oceans protected from radiation through tick ice. What else do you need?
We may find fossil and even bacterial life on Mars (and that would possibly be the greatest human discovery yet), but I bet we can find a thriving ecosystem full of complex multicelular life on one of those Moons.