If we figure out how to efficiently extract resources from space, it seems likely that we can stop extracting resources from Earth
And there is also much much more resources that we have on Earth - space is big!
It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth
281–290 of 325 posts
Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth
#282Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
There's still the minor detail of transporting it back to Earth in a cost effective way…
Ideally you would use it for building up space infrastructure primarily. You might still ship some finished products back to Earth, that would be much more mass efficient.
BTW, once you can have your payload trajectory intersect with Earth, you will get braking for free thanks to the atmosphere, effectively shaving half of the needed delta-v. Same thing on Mars.
Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's absolutely not beyond our current level of technology. Unfortunately, there are not economic incentives yet. Now, this(1) it's beyond our current level, but one can dream. It's obvious to me that this is the most probable future and I would not be surprise if, at some point, most humanity is living in this kind of environment instead of planets. Planets have a lot of disadvantages. (1) - https://en.wikipedia.org…
Has anyone demonstrated manufacturing non-trivial centrifuges in space yet? Or mining and refining in space, given we can’t possibly afford to launch that much mass from the ground? Or fully modelled the lifecycle of that sort of megastructure to find out how, why, and when the chemistry of the occupants/internal farms/etc. causes fatal problems? I’m eager to live in one of these, but I don’t think we actually know e…
There is a FDM 3D printer on the ISS & there have been many material science experiments done. A centrifuge module was planned for the ISS but later cut on cost reasons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifuge_Accommodations_Modu...
Humble beginnings.
Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you think would prevent a self sufficient colony on Mars in a few hundred years? I don't see any fundamental obstacles to it.
Self sufficient requires a manufacturing base to include everything needed to sustain it’s self, including redundancies. Going from zero humans on mars to 100’s of millions is a massive bootstrap problem with minimal incentive for the the people involved or the multiple years worth of earth’s GDP to get to that point. It’s like the “self replicating” 3D printers where they can produce 98% of the structure by weight a…
Modern automated production techniques and additive manufacturing can help reduce this dependency a lot. You can also do some compromises - the stuff might be less elegant than cutting-edge Earth product, but it will work.
Also people now have much better mental picture of the manufacturing tech tree than ever before thanks to Factorio. ;-)
Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It took tens to hundreds of millions years for the atmosphere to disappear. If we can make a new one, we ca. Keep it replenished
Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth
#286I'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
I agree and it’s starting to feel like there’s an agenda behind it
The agenda is quite simple: the West should give up, and leave space exploration to China.
Or maybe it's the aliens who noticed Elon Musk and finally started taking the risk of space colonization by humans seriously.
Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The argument is that focusing on space exploration deflects from facing the realities of climate change on our planet. Does it? It's not an either/or proposition. Researching and developing technologies to allow humans to live in space in a sustainable way seems like it would almost certainly also create applications of such technology that can benefit us on Earth. Whether that's methods to scrub the atmosphere of a…
>As an aside, I'd point out that even if we start colonizing space habitats, other planets and/or even planets around other stars, there are no technologies available or imagined that could transport colonists from the Earth faster than birth rates would replace them and continue population growth. Yeah, you should avoid needing that but it is certainly not impossible given high enough tech level & in-space infrastru…
>Yeah, you should avoid needing that but it is certainly not impossible given high enough tech level & in-space infrastructure. Launch loops and orbital elevators should have more than enough capacity to enable that.
I think you're underestimating the effort, resources and logistics something like this would require.
In 2016, there were ~256 live births per minute[0]. That works out to ~369,000/day.
Even multiple space elevators couldn't hope to come anywhere close to that, but perhaps with launch loops as well we might be able to approach that.
But even if we could, how much of global production of, well everything, would need to be dedicated to getting even 350,000 people and the stuff they need off the earth every single day?
>Much bigger problem actually is where to put those billions once you have to move them in a hurry off a planet.
An excellent point. Even if you didn't need to hurry, the resources required just to stage such a migration are staggering and would likely exceed the production capabilities of the planet.
But as you point out, we don't really have any place to send all those "colonists" so the point is moot.
Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth
#288Earlier 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…
Let’s address this theology you’ve just created that you propose/project others believe. It would be more persuasive if you presented an “anti-space” (?) actually expressing this argument. Otherwise it could just be a fantasy you’ve concocted in your head...
A counter argument to your theology: I personally know of no one who has proposed banning space exploration. Banning space travel would follow your created theology, since banning is what morality normally does.
A more widely held theology might be that “anti-space” believes that human space exploration is a cowardly, and not a heroic, endeavor. One person’s exploration is another person’s escape. That is off-message for selling space tourism and tchotchkes, so there could be some pushback from those with “skin in the game”.
And it shows some unintended disrespect for those who gave their lives during early space missions.
PS: In fact, I know of nobody who, now and then, hasn’t wanted more human space travel.
They just want to choose who gets sent and whether they are permitted to come back alive. Two birds, one stone...
Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
| 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'…
Terraforming planets in a meaningful way anytime soon is a pipe dream, but someone in 200 years very much could get in their space car and go to a different space habitat. O'Neill cylinders have already been mentioned here. There's no scientific reason we are aware of that would make living in artificial habitats worse than living on a planet, and a lot of reasons that it would be better. It's just that those of us t…
> There's no scientific reason we are aware of that would make living in artificial habitats worse than living on a planet, and a lot of reasons that it would be better. It's just that those of us talking now live on a planet, and find the idea of continuing to live on a planet comforting.
But this is just so obviously backwards. Your assumption is that an artificial environment would be monotonically better to live in than the one in which we evolved? There's simply no evidence for it, and if you take a look at how the people on the ISS live, a strong argument against it. As for scientific caveats...well bone density and muscle mass loss in low-g (pretty much every target location for colonization) are fairly well substantiated, as well as the cosmic ray issue, which is even harder to deal with.
Re: It’s dangerous to think humans have a destiny outside Earth
#290My argument for colonizing other worlds has nothing to do with finding a "new utopia" and everything to do with not having all of our eggs in one basket. Earth is going to get annihilated at some point. It would be nice if our species didn't go with it.
“It would be nice if our species didn’t go with it?”
On a semi-facetious note, why would it be nice? If the species did the annihilation, isn’t that just good galactic hygiene? Or perhaps humans are just a beta version of a dodgy app. It goes down the “why is there something rather than nothing” rabbit hole, but the post started it...