Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

techeffect.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 325 posts

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

#201

Post by kulig »

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…

Bro, dont know if you noticed but our species has pretty much destroyed the planet.

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

#203

Post by kulig »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #159
macspoofing wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Blood pressure, bone growth are managed by genetics. Which we (will) have control over soon. So that's hardly a stumbling block.

Christ, our species is so arrogant.

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

#204

Post by worik »

ogre_codes wrote: post #200
worik wrote: post #195

The point of the article is that space exploration is a spectacle to distract people from hard problems. It is not about whether space colonisation is possible. Perhaps it is possible, perhaps not. Who cares? The Earth is dying, humans are responsible, stop it with being distracted! Surely it is time that we started to deal with the existential hard problems and stop the "pie in the sky"?

I don't see these two ideas being remotely related. The world is filled with distractions, space exploration is way down the list in terms of money and time spent by individuals. I don't see anyone suggesting we should focus on space exploration instead of fighting climate change.

That is exactly the point of the spectacle.

Exactly. Look over there at that, OMG it is soo interesting....

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

#205

Post by FeepingCreature »

bmitc wrote: post #199
mkaic wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could make an artificial magnetic field for it. Beyond current technology but seems like a viable option a hundred years from now. I agree low gravity would be a problem, but life finds a way, right? Current generations of humans wouldn’t do well in 1/4 G, but maybe we’ll see significant adaptations 100 generations down the line! Who knows?

> We could make an artificial magnetic field for it. Beyond current technology but seems like a viable option a hundred years from now. How? Because to me, that seems extremely far-fetched. My understanding as to why Earth has a magnetic field and why Mars does not (or has a weak one) is that Earth has a highly dynamic molten core surrounding a solid inner core, whereas Mars only has a molten core with not as much ac…

Literally google it, come on. "Mars artificial magnetic field." We'll wait.

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

#206

Post by goatlover »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #157
kwhitefoot wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it need hundreds of millions of people?

Elon's estimate is that 1 million people are needed for Mars to industrialize sufficiently to become self-sufficient. A good reference is Casey Handmer's blog or book. https://www.amazon.com/How-Industrialize-Mars-Strategy-Self-... https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2020/08/23/progression-of...

1 million in a few centuries seems feasible given the likely advances in technology. Hundreds of millions would require terraforming, which will likely take millennia. But those timescales are relatively short if human civilization persists. Even if Mars does not end up being ideal enough, Venus could be on a longer time scale. The article is short sighted.

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

#207

Post by root_axis »

Ugh. I hate this political framing. Forget about the president. Ultimately, why I find the substance of this argument compelling is because the masses, even on this website, very greatly underestimate the engineering challenges involved in colonizing another planet. This is a problem so far beyond our current capabilities that we can't even project a timeline on when such a thing might be possible. It's also very possible it may never be practical to achieve. For these reasons, it's foolish to propagate the idea that colonizing another planet is a realistic solution for any problems we're facing on this planet.

With all that stated, I still think it's worthwhile to try for a variety of reasons; we are natural explorers, we are curious, there are huge boons to research and technology as a side effect of this work and as far as Trump goes this is one of the least worthwhile aspects of his presidency to complain about.

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

#208

Post by frank2 »

ogre_codes wrote: post #198
save_ferris wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The argument is that focusing on space exploration deflects from facing the realities of climate change on our planet. In order to make this argument, you have to first figure out what percentage of NASA's budget is spent on space exploration versus things like GPS systems, weather satellites, climate monitoring, solar monitoring, physics experiments, etc etc, which have direct or indirect benefits to things happen…

Maybe the US should spend less on defense and should refrain from sending humans to Mars.

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

#210

Post by [deleted] »

defterGoose wrote: post #197
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…

| I don't know You certainly don't. You have a serious misunderstanding of the sheer scale involved in space travel. Its great to think that an individual will be able to pack up their space car in 200 years and move on out west to mars or something, but there literally wont be anything to do but crash land once you get there, or maybe if you're lucky, walk around for a few hours before suffocating. Im not saying it'…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN