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How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

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Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#171

Post by cousin_it »

redthrowaway wrote: post #92
colanderman wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the "wars" we're involved in now could be solved more cost-effectively by literally paying our enemies not to fight. Thereby creating a nation of people dependent on our aid, who, when we cease sending aid due to budget constraints, will likely decide to start a war anyway . cough North Korea cough Not saying that line of reasoning is totally invalid, but it's definitely not so clear-cut that you can use it in an ana…

The intervention in Libya cost about $2.7BB[1]. With things heating up in Syria, and the need to further isolate Iran, we could be looking at another "low-intensity" operation there in support of the pro-democracy dissidents. Now, what would be more cost-effective: a similar campaign in Syria, or paying Assad $1BB to fuck off to Venezuela and stay there, and a further $1BB distributed to military commanders to get th…

1) How do you convince Assad that the US won't just send some Marines to kill him after he agrees to go to Venezuela? Even if the US president gives some sort of personal guarantee, what stops the next president from violating it?

2) What if the national leader you're trying to pay off believes himself to be a true partiot and refuses to surrender his country to US interests?

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#172

Post by schiffern »

_dps wrote: post #89
VMG wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It amazes me that on a tech site you are getting downvotes for this. Human space travel is a waste of money from a scientific standpoint. Why a libertarian magazine like reason.com supports human space travel at all is a mystery to me.

I would ask: a waste of money over what time-scale? I agree that the ROI over the next decade or two seems low. But at some point, if we plan to ever get humans to other planets, we're going to have to do the low ROI slog of figuring out the basics. I don't think we will reach a point where getting people to other planets will suddenly become low-hanging fruit. So I think the only real options are: 1) do some low ROI…

>3) hope that somehow it will become much cheaper through windfall technology developments in other fields (not impossible, but certainly not one that I would bet on)

Brain uploading. I don't know if Kurzweil's "$1000 computer by 2035" prediction is right, but we'll certainly have it by the end of the century.

Accelerando features a good exploration of this. Your interstellar spaceship is a laser-propelled computer the size of a soda can, with everyone's brains simply uploaded into it.

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#173

Post by bhickey »

rbanffy wrote: post #167
drblast wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the point? It's not going to occur in a reasonable amount of time, and if you say, "Well, eventually it will..." then eventually everything that exists will cease to exist anyway. Why not focus on things that are problems now?

May I remind you the dinosaurs died because they had neither nukes nor rockets. Nor telescopes, but that's beyond the point. Mankind puts all its eggs in one basket. Our odds of survival against planetary catastrophes increase with the number of planets we colonize. The more spread we are, the bigger the chances. The timescales involved are huge but, just like someone wins the lottery every week, I'm willing to bet t…

Of what comfort would a daydream ark be for the rest of us? There are 6.8 billion of us. What good are my feelings of camaraderie if an impactor happens to snuff most of us out? "Oh boy, I've been blasted to ashes by an inbound comet, but it's all OK because someone else made it out alive."

I also dispute the utility calculus you're performing.

At what cost could we move a sustainable colony elsewhere? What is the probability that we'll all be expunged by a bit of rock zipping around the solar system? Is there another way we could allocate those resources to achieve a better expected outcome?

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#175

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

CamperBob wrote: post #156
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? I have never understood this argument. What's so special about "humanity" that it needs to be preserved? You're born, you live, you die. A species arises, it has its time on Earth, then it's extinct. Why are humans so special that we should bother about eventually going extinct in hundreds of thousands of years?

What's so special about "humanity" that it needs to be preserved? The frustrating thing about your nihilistic argument is that there's no practical way we can divide humanity into the grasshoppers who live only for today and the ants who live for the future. A consequence of the advance of democracy -- itself arguably a prerequisite for survival -- is that the grasshoppers will always be with us, and will always have…

Four paragraphs of annoyed text and yet you didn't answer the question!

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#176

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

CamperBob wrote: post #157
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I get that. That's my I included the "hundreds of thousands of years" modifier. I want my kids to grow up, be happy and have their own kids if they want to, but I really don't care about what happens 100 generations down the road. That's the perplexing part.

I want my kids to grow up, be happy and have their own kids if they want to, but I really don't care about what happens 100 generations down the road. Stop trying to think 100 generations ahead -- that's pointless, no one can do that. Instead, think 100 generations back. What if the people alive at the time had been happy with their lots in life, content where they were living, and/or too afraid to try anything new?…

As I said in my response to your other post, you're still not answering the question I posed. Sure, you're answering other (unasked) questions, but those answers I already understand.

So long ago that it seems almost like someone else's life, my constant lonely trips to the beach just to stare at the sea and wonder what lay over the horizon made me realize that I had to cross oceans. So I went to school to become a Merchant ships officer. In an earlier century I would have been one of those idiots hanging around the docks trying to get on a ship sailing into the regions "where there be dragons." In future centuries that version of me would be hanging around spaceports dreaming of venturing into the unknown regions where riches would be found.

I said the above to illustrate that I understand wanderlust and the joy of exploration for its own sake perfectly well. What I don't get is this need to "preserve the species."

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#177

Post by CamperBob »

jessriedel wrote: post #169
CamperBob wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fixing Hubble was really important. I'm not sure how much the shuttle's work was of the same magnitude, or couldn't have been done with automated gear. Although a staunch supporter of Zubrin and his Mars strategy, as well as a supporter of the HST maintenance effort, I think he shot down his own proposition in this particular article. He points out that Hubble cost $5 billion, while elsewhere, he casually mentions th…

You misunderstood. The total value of the physical Shuttle itself is $3 billion. The average cost per trip is $450 million. The marginal cost per trip isn't available, but it is undoubtably less. Probably around $200-300 million.

Re-reading, it looks like you're right; I withdraw the comment.

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#178

Post by CamperBob »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #175
CamperBob wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's so special about "humanity" that it needs to be preserved? The frustrating thing about your nihilistic argument is that there's no practical way we can divide humanity into the grasshoppers who live only for today and the ants who live for the future. A consequence of the advance of democracy -- itself arguably a prerequisite for survival -- is that the grasshoppers will always be with us, and will always have…

Four paragraphs of annoyed text and yet you didn't answer the question!

I answered it by pointing out that it's objectively unanswerable.

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#179

Post by CamperBob »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #176
CamperBob wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want my kids to grow up, be happy and have their own kids if they want to, but I really don't care about what happens 100 generations down the road. Stop trying to think 100 generations ahead -- that's pointless, no one can do that. Instead, think 100 generations back. What if the people alive at the time had been happy with their lots in life, content where they were living, and/or too afraid to try anything new?…

As I said in my response to your other post, you're still not answering the question I posed. Sure, you're answering other (unasked) questions, but those answers I already understand. So long ago that it seems almost like someone else's life, my constant lonely trips to the beach just to stare at the sea and wonder what lay over the horizon made me realize that I had to cross oceans. So I went to school to become a M…

What I don't get is this need to "preserve the species."

Read some Dawkins.

Re: How Much Is an Astronaut's Life Worth?

#180

Post by rbanffy »

bhickey wrote: post #173
rbanffy wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I remind you the dinosaurs died because they had neither nukes nor rockets. Nor telescopes, but that's beyond the point. Mankind puts all its eggs in one basket. Our odds of survival against planetary catastrophes increase with the number of planets we colonize. The more spread we are, the bigger the chances. The timescales involved are huge but, just like someone wins the lottery every week, I'm willing to bet t…

Of what comfort would a daydream ark be for the rest of us? There are 6.8 billion of us. What good are my feelings of camaraderie if an impactor happens to snuff most of us out? "Oh boy, I've been blasted to ashes by an inbound comet, but it's all OK because someone else made it out alive." I also dispute the utility calculus you're performing. At what cost could we move a sustainable colony elsewhere? What is the pr…

> I've been blasted to ashes by an inbound comet, but it's all OK because someone else made it out alive."

Don't be so selfish. Odds are a couple of the survivors are distant cousins, so, at least some of your genes are safe. And you can also record messages for the survivors to safeguard.

Or we can develop the technology to upload you to a simulation somewhere else.

> What is the probability that we'll all be expunged by a bit of rock zipping around the solar system?

Given time, if we stay limited to the Earth, 100%

> Is there another way we could allocate those resources to achieve a better expected outcome?

Again, it depends on the timeframe we are talking about. I think the first thing we have to do is to thoroughly understand the threats we face. The second step is to understand what Plan-B looks like. We really need to look into environmental risks (Yellowstone, climate change), political ones (Iran with nukes), economic ones and the risk of a floating rock with our name on it hitting us soon enough. If a rock or an erupting Yellowstone or a bunch of fanatics with high-tech WMDs don't kill us, we may get fried when the Milky Way and Andromeda collide (it'll happen in about a billion years, and while stars won't likely hit each other too frequently, gas clouds will light up). If that doesn't destroy the Earth, the Sun will eventually swallow it as it gets old, in, IIRC, 6 billion years.

The Earth is doomed. Every planet and star is doomed. Even the universe itself is doomed. Its only chance is if someone smart enough survives long enough to figure out how to avoid it.

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