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

techeffect.substack.com

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

#221

Post by FlyMoreRockets »

zxcmx wrote: post #151
jschwartzi wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Th…

We could "spin" the anti-space side as a religion too I suppose. It involves a bit more ascetism and self-flagellation though. I already live in a "heavenly" future compared to most of my ancestors. I have hot and cold running water. My waste is whisked away. I can travel far and harness powerful energies with the flick of a switch. I can summon almost any food or item imaginable to my doorstep. I can open a portal t…

> We could "spin" the anti-space side as a religion too I suppose. It involves a bit more ascetism and self-flagellation though.

And a heavy dose of fatalism.

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

#222

Post by autokad »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #217

>the reality is that the GOP wouldn’t make these things a priority... The author seems to be mixing up a tweet with the actual party platform. You can't say that they're making it a priority until we start to see NASA budget increases of the magnitude we saw during the Apollo era. Until they put their money where their mouth is, the tweet is just marketing fluff >This myth not only allows the government to ignore the…

yeah, this bs article doesnt deserve to be on hn. and lastly, who the f cares what Seth Rogan thinks? besides being an actor, isnt he Canadian?

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

#223

Post by FlyMoreRockets »

bserge wrote: post #211
jschwartzi wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Th…

Why is it "either, or"? Tackle both problems. For climate change, space tech is invaluable - we already have the ability to build a solar shade in orbit, it's just extremely expensive. With better space technologies, the cost will go down massively. The bigger problem is that there's no political will. It will have to be an effort by all countries.

Move polluting heavy industry and manufacturing off planet, There are uncounted resources in the asteroid belt and 24/7 solar energy.

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

#224

Post by goatlover »

jschwartzi wrote: post #117
ButWhatFor wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Th…

Calling it a utopia is straw manning the arguments for expanding beyond Earth and continuing to explore the universe. Why should we stop doing something fundamental to life in the promise that this time we’ll fix all our problems if governments just funnel all their money that way? Why would anyone think NASA’s budget would actually be used any better elsewhere by politicians?

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

#225

Post by bmitc »

FeepingCreature wrote: post #205
bmitc wrote: post #199

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. 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.

No need to be so snappy.

And that isn't giving Mars a magnetic field in the implied sense. It's building an external structure to perform a protective field that would have similar effects. You may consider it semantics, but they're different.

It is an interesting idea, but this seems to simply be a proposal with a lot of "ifs" and "mights" and "possibles", with even the proposer calling it "fanciful". So indeed, I suppose we will wait. Even with this novel idea, it doesn't seem possible in 100 years. The articles I see came out three years ago from the conference it was presented at, and I didn't see any immediate results returned as to the progress of the idea.

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

#226

Post by nine_k »

FlyMoreRockets wrote: post #213
nine_k wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There can't be an economic incentive, only political ones. Much like pilgrims who founded Massachusetts, founders of space habitats will be groups of people who don't enjoy living on Earth badly enough (due to persecution, or because of desire of some grand reforms) to fund a move elsewhere. I bet the first Martian colony will quickly be recognized as a place not controllable by any Earth government, and that will be…

There are hundreds of asteroids that have more wealth than the entire US federal debt. Consider all the precious metals ever mined on the planet. Now consider this is litterally scratching the surface of the total contained within the planet. Note, these dense metals will be concentrated toward the planets core, due to gravity. The asteroid belt easily holds our planet's mass, but it is all spread thinly and relative…

Imagine that you deliver 100 thousand tons of gold, platinum, etc to Earth. How would the prices change?

Inside the asteroid belt there's nobody to trade in gold with, at least not yet.

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

#227

Post by bserge »

kstenerud wrote: post #10

> Indeed, the idea that technological developments will solve all of our problems —eventually allowing us to leave Earth — is instrumental to political mobilization on behalf of the powers that be. It helps to perpetuate the current socio-economic system that is designed for the one percent to stay in power and the working class to stay working. Sorry to say, but almost EVERYTHING big that happens on this planet help…

"Easier to sell American citizens... the $22.6 billion dollar budget"

That's hilarious. $23 billion is nothing. You can add to that all the other countries' budgets and all private investments, it's still nothing.

More money is spent on recreating the same consumer products every year, creating brain numbing entertainment, creating military equipment that will be retired before it's used, disseminating misinformation around the globe, keeping people in prisons.

The space exploration budgets are tiny, all around the world. Same goes for money allocated for climate change.

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

#228

Post by autokad »

bmitc wrote: post #190
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…

> 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 I don't think this is a strong supporting argument because it applies to any major technological development. Anytime you invest people, billions of dollars, etc. into major technological goals, you're going to get advances an…

life on earth or human life? because life is just fine. All we are doing is restoring the atmosphere changed by a devastating asteroid impact. An atmosphere that plunges the earth into ice for 10s if not 100s of thousands of years periodically. If we kept pumping out CO2 at present acceleration, it would take us 500 years to reach the levels preimpact. We wont get there, we will likely run out or find other alternatives, but that time frame puts things into perspective.

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

#230

Post by FlyMoreRockets »

Animats wrote: post #175
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…

Space exploration has already created many significant benefits for humanity on Earth, by advancing hundreds of new technologies with terrestrial applications Velcro! Tang! Teflon! Computers! NASA PR used to make a big thing of that. But those things didn't come from NASA's space program. The ISS was a huge disappointment. It's the best argument for not putting people in space. Hugely expensive, and not very useful.

Literally every new car sold today uses plasma coatings to extend the lifetime of the rotating assembly and efficiency of the combustion facing components. Every commercial airliner turbine uses this technology, not to mention GPS, communication and weather satellites...

https://spinoff.nasa.gov/spinoff2000/ip9.htm

https://spinoff.nasa.gov Yeah, that was another NASA spi

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