It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth • Hacker News Board

Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth

#111

Post by aeturnum » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:17 PM UTC

freeqaz wrote: post #95

aeturnum wrote: post #88

I agree that for every resource we need, getting that resource on earth (if it exists on earth) will always make more sense than seeking it in space. Humanity should always seek to fulfill its needs from terrestrial sources. We shouldn't mistake space exploration for infrastructure building. At the same time - this doesn't mean we shouldn't explore space! Just that we should understand that exploration as low-to-no-r…

If we captured an asteroid we would immediately double or triple the world's supply of metals like platinum. They simply are not plentiful for us on the crust. I like to believe that we can achieve this within our lifetime. Having the price of certain rarer metals come down significantly would be amazing!

Are there projects that required more rare metals than exist on earth? I agree that it would be nice to have more things, but I'm skeptical of the numbers working out. The Apollo program brought back ~850lbs of moon rocks and cost ~$150bn. Obviously the primary purpose of the program wasn't mining, but I think what I said above applies.

It might work out and we might get a lot, but we should make investment choices with the assumption that it won't. If we are ever in a situation where civilization makes asteroid mining work or it falls apart it would be very bad because asteroid mining is hard! It's likely easier to use platinum more efficiently.

Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth

#112

Post by JoeAltmaier » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:20 PM UTC

phizy wrote: post #109

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like your way of thinking. But remember, even with sublight travel, to populate the entire galaxy would take only a few million years. Including say a thousand years to rebuild the capability in each new colony. It grows geometrically you see, and there's no beating that. So on a Galactic scale its certainly possible to overpopulate, and in the blink of a cosmic eye (a million years). In fact that's a powerful argu…

It's not a powerful argument for 'we must be alone', because it's an equally powerful argument for 'space colonization is nearly impossible.' You're saying things are "certainly possible" but you don't have a shred of evidence to support that belief. It's more likely that you're vastly underestimating the cost of maintaining a life-supporting ecosystem independent of the benefits of a billions of years of evolutionar…

That thinking is about a decade out of date. The number of expolanets that are in the habitable zone grows geometrically. Some think every star has some planets. Simple chance makes it possible to find agreeable destinations nearly everywhere.

And 'evolutionary adaptation' is irrelevant. We can change ourselves (are changing ourselves) genetically already. That will only increase. The result will be a species more adaptable than any in a billion years. If it has the will to colonize other planets, it certainly can.

'A shred of evidence' is really not hard to find, if we aren't needlessly negative and contrary.

Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth

#113

Post by aeturnum » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:22 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #99

aeturnum wrote: post #88

I agree that for every resource we need, getting that resource on earth (if it exists on earth) will always make more sense than seeking it in space. Humanity should always seek to fulfill its needs from terrestrial sources. We shouldn't mistake space exploration for infrastructure building. At the same time - this doesn't mean we shouldn't explore space! Just that we should understand that exploration as low-to-no-r…

Once the bulk of humanity is 'in space' (on planetary bodies or in stations outside of earth) then the goalposts change! Sending things back to sad ol earth becomes unsupportable.

I mean, that's true! Your scenario also places our investment in learning how to live in space in the past. If we're already living in space then, of course, investing in learning how to live in space worked out!

This is what I was saying at the end about investing resources we have now into futures we may never see. If you argue from the point of view that projects will always work out as you imagine they will, then your investing ideas will always make sense. I just don't think that's how things work in practice.

Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth

#114

Post by travisoneill1 » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:22 PM UTC

save_ferris wrote: post #12

GenerocUsername wrote: post #3

I've seen more anti-space rhetoric in the last few weeks than ever before in my life. What gives? Great advancements have cost. That doesn't make them not worth doing

It's not that great advancements have cost. The argument is that focusing on space exploration deflects from facing the realities of climate change on our planet. If people start to think that space exploration could yield a solution to an increasingly uninhabitable climate on Earth, it could create a scenario where we spend even more on space exploration and less on addressing Earth's climate.

Addressing global warming is not a cost in the long run, but the opposite. Technology that doesn't consume fossil fuel is inherently superior to what we have now and will generate enormous profits once the engineering is there. Don't believe me? Just look at Tesla's stock price.

Furthermore, cheap space travel does solve global warming because it makes the solution of orbital sun blocking feasible, which unlike currently available geoengineering tech, is instantly reversible.

Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth

#115

Post by macspoofing » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:22 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #110

macspoofing wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The future of humanity is not only on earth. Where are you going to go? Outside of Earth, there is no place for us in the entire Solar System. Sure we may build some research stations here and there, just as we did in inhospitable places on Earth (like Antarctica), but there's no long-term option anywhere. Interstellar travel is science fiction, but even if it wasn't, there is no place for us to go as well.

We can change Mars in large ways. Lots of stuff written about that. Heck, we could redirect an icy asteroid to collide, providing water, atmosphere and heat. On the order of decades from now.

>We can change Mars in large ways.

No we can't. The gravity of Mars is always going to be a problem. The lack of magnetic field is always going to be a problem. Most of its atmosphere was lost to space and there is not enough water on the planet to replenish.

>we could redirect an icy asteroid to collide, providing water, atmosphere and heat.

I read the Mars trilogy too.

>On the order of decades from now.

Sure.

Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth

#116

Post by aidenn0 » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:24 PM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #92

I don't know, I can't help but feel like nearly all of our solutions to contemporary problems involve space travel, specifically self-contained space travel (i.e., when spaceships become within an order of magnitude as affordable as houses or automobiles.) The universe is essentially limitless from a human point of view, so to be perpetually stuck on Earth seems like a failure of perspective. - Oppressive government…

You are really underestimating exponential growth in your assertion that there is no such thing as overpopulation on a universal scale. If human population is doubling say, every century, then the time it takes for us to go from populating the earth to the entire galaxy in less than 4000 years[1], and from there to the entire universe in less than another 4000.

[1]: There are a few trillion planets in our galaxy. If you asssume the mean population supported by a planet is within an order of magnitude of what Earth can support the math holds.

Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth

#117

Post by jschwartzi » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:25 PM UTC

ButWhatFor wrote: post #87

johnmorrison wrote: post #13

This is frankly a blatantly wrong and quite foolish argument. Space exploration has already created many significant benefits for humanity on Earth , by advancing hundreds of new technologies with terrestrial applications and launching satellite networks that support a safer, more peaceful world for humans, with improved agricultural efficiencies as well as advanced warning and a better understanding of extreme weath…

Came here to say this - this has been the difficulty with things like science and research since the dawn of time... you study one thing and then hopefully if you have a lot of people studying multiple things one hugely amazing thing eventually falls out when one person gets lucky. It leads to a very delayed gratification despite very real near term costs. So it’s easy to attack the costs and focus and prioritization…

It's also a tool to pacify people with empty promises of a better future. The way that it's being used as a distant future utopia is like the way promises of Heaven are used in Abrahamic religions to convince people to suffer in the here and now.

A lot of people would choose to suffer some now in order to go to some peaceful space colony where they don't have to live with any of the consequences for our biosphere. They'll just get to go live in a different one. The reality is that if we continue to ignore the very real problems on our planet we won't ever see the day that we're living on other planets.

It doesn't matter that there are real, quantifiable benefits to space exploration. Most people who believe it's important don't know anything about those benefits, and they don't think it's important because of that. It's all about the promise of a "heaven" in the sky in which they won't have to struggle anymore.

Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth

#118

Post by throwaway0a5e » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

happytoexplain wrote: post #74

tingol wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? The first thought they had was fuck NASA and they completely ignored the trillions being spent on the US military complex?

This is a false dichotomy.

I think he's using the false dichotomy to point out that there's a hell of a lot of other bigger, less popular things than NASA that jump to mind if one's goal is to free up resources for solving more local problems.

Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth

#119

Post by laverya » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

pizza234 wrote: post #91

laverya wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Evolution has geared us for this world. We might be able to cobble together a survival elsewhere, but I doubt we could ever thrive. People on Earth thrived in the Arctic, which is incredibly far from the savannas of Africa, and did this with the technology of 10,000 years ago. Saying that people with the technology of 1000 years from now can't possibly thrive on an airless rock is a little pessimistic to me. And th…

> People on Earth thrived in the Arctic Can you define "thrive"? Because according to my definitions, I wouldn't "thrive" if I lived there - I would actually "cobble together a survival" like the parent wrote, and think I'm not in a minority that thinks so.

Wouldn't it be the standards of the people that lived there that mattered? I'd certainly die if placed in such a situation, but cultural knowledge is a technology too.

Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth

#120

Post by zeristor » Thu, Oct 29, 2020, 5:28 PM UTC

freeqaz wrote: post #95

aeturnum wrote: post #88

I agree that for every resource we need, getting that resource on earth (if it exists on earth) will always make more sense than seeking it in space. Humanity should always seek to fulfill its needs from terrestrial sources. We shouldn't mistake space exploration for infrastructure building. At the same time - this doesn't mean we shouldn't explore space! Just that we should understand that exploration as low-to-no-r…

If we captured an asteroid we would immediately double or triple the world's supply of metals like platinum. They simply are not plentiful for us on the crust. I like to believe that we can achieve this within our lifetime. Having the price of certain rarer metals come down significantly would be amazing!

Come down siginificantly?

So much depends on demand, one of the more sophisticated analyses I've seen realised that Nickel (at the time) was a good bet since it was fairly expensive and in high demand.

Also people hold gold as a store of value, if it becomes cheap then they might as well sell that too. Sure we could start using gold as ship ballast...