theconversation.com/space-exploration-is-not-a-luxury-its-a-necessity-227140
Lots of important medical and consumer technology was developed because of the first space race which many people don’t realize.
Space exploration benefits us all back here on Earth!
https://now.northropgrumman.com/how-technology-from-the-space-race-changed-the-world#
Folks like this are staggeringly ignorant of the amount of technology that has been invented as a result of space exploration.
Even if you don't think making life multiplanetary is essential (even though on a long enough timescale it's objectively vital), curiousity about what's over the next hill and how the world and universe works is a massive part of the human experience and disregarding that is regressive, short sighted and lazy.
The quiet-not so quiet- part, is that government interest in space exploration has always been pushed in the interest of global competition.
I'm not saying the people doing the work have this motivation, but the people who control the purse strings certainly do.
It certainly is one of the uglier truths.
We never would have gotten this far without the unchecked ambition of politicians, the use of war criminals like Von Braun or the adaptation of nuclear weapons into early rockets like the Redstone.
But on the flip side it led to unprecedented cooperation from the international community in the form of the ISS. If you had told the average American in 1985 that just 15 years later the US and Russia would be the primary partners in a multicultural megaproject in space they'd probably laugh in your face.
Sometimes the right thing is done for the wrong reason but it's still a net positive for humanity.
I’m a big supporter of space exploration and developing space technologies.
However, if your goal is to raise living standards, then investing in technology development with that end goal is likely more efficient than investing in technologies for which that is not the end goal.
In other words, don’t justify investing in space by saying it’ll raise living standards. That’s a justification for anything.
Listen to how it sounds with other technologies: Invest in particle physics to raise living standards. Invest in paleontology to raise living standards. Invest in cereal that stays crispy in milk to raise living standards.
Tell me more about this hypothetical crispy cereal in milk thing.
Oh the Crunch enhancer? Yeah it's a non-nutritive cereal varnish. It's semi-permiable. It's not osmotic. What it does is it coats and seals the flake, prevents the milk from penetrating it.
If no one does basic science, eventually applied science is going to fall short.
I don’t disagree with that. But don’t say that the reason to invest in space is to raise living standards or to do basic science. Invest in those goals directly.
Investing in basic weather research and instrumentation as well as weather satellites and weather codes raises living standards.
This is a simplistic view of how technology progresses, plus satellites do have a direct impact on living standards globally.
What is your complex view of technology progression?
There is no shortage of basic science here on earth to do. The benefits of the first space race came from enormous and popular public funding of science. We could also do that for, say, climate change.
There is no shortage of basic science here on earth to do
Zero G research into lab grown tissue and organs can only happen in space. That's one of the most promising avenues to meet demand. On earth we're confined not just with gravity, but with the damage we can do to the environment and people. In space there's no such risk.
Okay but "why not both"? This is not a situation where we need to pick one or the other. Especially if one is being done largely in the private sector.
You cannot direct research like that. If you could make launch costs cheap enough it would make orbital solar the best power source. Solar is already very good, but put it in orbit and it provides uninterruptible supply so it's "base load" which removes the only complaint about terrestrial solar. That's one obvious application. But if you say "you can only focus on things that directly raise living standards" you are going to miss lots of intermediate tools that are required. And with launch costs it's easy to describe things like this. With a lot of things they sound useless but turn out to be incredibly useful once you invent them and play with them to find applications.
That is literally what every technology developed does.
Lower cost of access to space allows for things like Starlink to provide global internet access in a way that wasn't possible before. Lower costs also open up more opportunities for scientific research.
These are things that are perfectly aligned with raising living standards
Then invest in starlink. That’s not a justification for all space technologies.
You can't invest in a technology like starlink without investing in the launch vehicle first. But if you are only investing in technologies that have a direct impact then you would never have invested in the LV in the first place.
You need technologies to enable other technologies, and sometimes those enablers don't actually amount to much on their own
The reason that isn't true is 1) Its impossible to predict the benefits of fundamental research. You'll never find it unless you just invest in the fundamentals of physics, materials science, math, etc
and 2) Society is technologically mature and there are no more easy investments that will surely double or triple your investment in improving QOL. If there was a way to improve human conditions that would return your invested $1 many times over in terms of the benefit it would reap for humankind, then people would have already been doing it until it no longer returned a much bigger than just giving $1 to a person.
There isn't some generalized "help humanity" fund you can donate to. It's an ongoing problem figuring out how to best spend money on charitable projects or economic development. People research this for a living and it's not easy.
The things that will be genuine black swan event game changers CANNOT be predicted. The tech that will improve the human condition substantially, possibly even many times over, will come from some kind of fundamental, abstract, academic, research.... including endeavors like advancing human spaceflight and expanding into space.
So you can absolutely justify it that way if that's what you're interested in. It's a totally valid thing.
In fact there's a ton of reasons that charitable motivated investment projects are in general bad investments (not in a selfish way, as in charitable value added for 1$ invested) because they are fundamentally reliant on human direction instead of markets and therefore extra extra prone to human failings like corruption, greed, stagnation, etc.
Im not saying its not still worth doing. It is. But the statement "its better to specifically invest in things where charitable aims are the specific end goal" has a lot wrong with it.
The problem is it's not a great argument for space travel specifically because you can make that argument about literally any field.
Nascar research led to huge safety improvements for consumer cars. Therefore, it is necessary to invest more in Nascar races.
Space research does help people but we didn't go to the moon or send rovers to Mars because of its utilitarian economic benefit. We did it for the same reason we do art or sports or music; it was cool and we wanted to try it. It's better to be honest about that than hiding behind a justification that ends up being less compelling
Resources on earth are finite, that should be reason enough.
also:
the sun will burn out.
Humans could destroy themselves any day now.
Humans could destroy themselves even easier on another planet. Much more likely too.
Sure, but if we're a multi-planet species one being lost becomes a terrible tragedy rather than the end of human civilization.
Obligatory who said anything about planets.
We have like 4.5 billion years left in the sun, we can probably call that a nonissue for now.
In fact, the sun will make life on earth impossible much sooner
We can probably still call that a non-issue.
If humanity becomes extinct, there may not be enough time for the evolution of a new civilization
Resources are wastefully used. We have plenty of time before the sun kills us. Current rocket design worsens climate change. There's also the space debris issue. Seems to me rockets only ensure that we will kill the planet faster while fantasizing about how much greater the moon will be. The reality is that so far the plans are staying Inside an icy crater mining colony that sunlight has never touched.
We need to focus on keeping our home habitable for now as that's way more likely to kill us than any other thing such as asteroids or the sun expanding, especially in our lifetimes. There's also a clear connection between the planet's health and the amount of resources it has to begin with. Idk about you but I sure AF don't like the idea of eating moon paste in an icy dark crater that you need a spacesuit with oxygen supply just to be out in. Nevermind speculation on where oxygen is going to come from for potential workers/colonists. Why do we seem to be accelerating straight towards that fantasy like a pedal wedged cyber truck? This is a clown show.
The science of space and the science of climate are quite closely related. It's hard for us to study the climate without launching meteorological satellites.
Solar panel technology appeared thanks to the need to generate energy in space.
Space exploration will tell us more about the history of the Earth and how the climate has changed.
In fact, rockets are a drop in the ocean when it comes to emissions.
Regarding the climate, today's situation is actually an anomaly. For most of Earth's history, polar ice caps did not exist, and we are currently in a mini ice age.
On the Moon, oxygen can be extracted from the water present there.
Which rocket design is less polluting?
Reducing launch costs sure, space telescopes worth it, manned mission to mars is highly questionable.
Except you can replace space exploration with any technically difficult goal for the rest of what you said to be true.
Are you sure your reasoning isn't motivated by the fact that you think space exploration is really fucking cool? As a counterargument:
Technology is ultimately what raises living standards
Mostly, yes. But some technology raises living standards more than others (some lower them, like bombs). With finite resources, spending on space exploration carries an opportunity cost. You haven't answered why it should be preferred over other things.
It is basically impossible to predict the second order effects of new technology
If this is true, then any new technology would be a roll of the dice for those second order effects. Why should space exploration be what we roll the dice on rather than <insert cool thing>?
Obviously there will be some benefits, but that's not the argument. What you need to convince people (and ultimately policy makers) of is why space should be funded instead of something else. If your arguments could equally well be applied to the alternatives, you're not going to be very convincing to anyone other than those who are motivated by the fact that they too think space is cool.
Ultimately, I think that the only real argument we have is exactly why we are arguing for it in the first place - space is cool and inspiring. The pool of people who are capable of doing original research, and the random secondary effects of that research, are strategic assets for a country. And the way you get that pool is by having a wide range of problems for people to get inspired by. The person who gets enthusiastic about AGN X-ray time series probably isn't going to be as enthusiastic about whale excrement, and vice versa.
Not all technology raises living standards. Lots of it ends up wasted time and effort.
Are you sure your reasoning isn't motivated by the fact that you think space exploration is really fucking cool? As a counterargument:
I am positive. Technology is the only way we raise living standards because it allows you to do more with less. We can travel anywhere in the world because of planes and cars. We have heat and AC and shelter to protect us from the elements. Modern medicine is the result of laboratory equipment that didn't exist 500 years ago. Technology is how life gets better, and it compounds in ways that no one can predict. Heck even if all we do is launch the exact same number of rockets, but spend 90% less money doing it because of new rockets, isnt that still better? Wouldn't it be better if NASA did the exact same stuff but on 10% of the funding? That money could be directed elsewhere.
If this is true, then any new technology would be a roll of the dice for those second order effects. Why should space exploration be what we roll the dice on rather than <insert cool thing>?
This is an absolutely absurd argument. The idea that this needs to be justified because of some massive opportunity cost is ridiculous for a million reasons, the main one being literally nothing is preventing anyone working for SpaceX or any aerospace company from doing whatever they want. They are some of the most in demand engineers in the world. There are 10x as many engineers making video games, working for hedge funds or trying to get people to spend .1 seconds longer looking at an ad on Facebook - but rockets are the thing that has huge opportunity cost 🙄.
The transistor could set humanity free from the drudgery of work.
Or. It just might put humanity out of work and into the soup lines (while we're lucky enough to have them). Same thing with nuclear power.
And then you've got the whole "any engine powerful enough to travel to the stars is powerful enough to destroy the civ that created it".
Tech is not a golden ticket to paradise.
It's not a guarantee of paradise but it is a prerequisite.
I think the prerequisite to paradise is more philosophical than technological.
"Exercise is not a guarantee of health and a long life, therefore you should not exercise" is a pretty dumb line of thought.
The barriers to paradise on earth are political, not technical. Having knowledge to build a spaceship that can approach the speed of light is not going to result in a society where rich people influence politics less than they do now.
You are actually very wrong. Humanity went a long way because of technology.
Technology improved the lives of millions tremendously. People used to work the field dawn till dusk just to put bread on the table and if they were just unlucky enough and the year was bad they starved. Now food is pretty much a solved problem. You can grow calories everywhere. With industrial machines you need 10 people to grow food for 10,000. With GMO you can even make those calories have great nutritional value and vitamins. Even if you happen to become disabled or through some means lose income you still have options to get nutrition. Even in terrible warzones there is effort to bring nutrition. Back in the days before industrial revolution people would be starving to death.
Medicine has improved. It is also much cheaper now. We now also have much better understanding of curing things. You have access to medicine that only kings and royalties could've afforded in middle ages.
Transportation, sharing ideas, access to information - all have improved drastically.
Yes, the politics are holding us back in many ways, but as technology progresses we become much better off than we were before.
I don't know what that has to do with anything I have said.
The philosophy to create paradise has to incorporate fundamental research, which means doing difficult engineering things just to see what happens, not always setting out with a goal in mind.
We have most of the tech tools necessary to create a paradise right here, right now. Just not the necessary philosophy/what-have-you to do so...
Adding more tools without the philosophy to use them properly seems much likely to simply hasten the bad outcomes rather than save us from ourselves.
The distinction between philosophical tools and technical tools is not so great as you imagine. New technology can yield new philosophies. Direct democracy would not be practical without the Internet, which was developed for warfare. (actually, the Internet still isn't ready, but it could be with more study. We can't wait forever to look for new tools.)
I think that tech has infinite good and bad potential. But I do believe, particularly when the tech advances so amazingly fast, that it can quickly advance beyond your ability to safely wield it without stumbling into the proverbial sticking the fork in the outlet moment. The whole "I am become etc" thing.
You certainly can't stop it. But, maybe you don't necessarily rush headlong into it. Or. It probably just happens like it's gonna happen and not much anyone can do about any of it :(
The thing about "I am become death" is that 50-55 million people were killed in WWII. Yes, the atom bombs were the most deadly single weapons used in the war... but the upper estimate is only 226k for the number of people who died. I'm not saying nuclear weapons are good, but there's substantial evidence humans can use them safely. We used them once and we went back to committing mass murder with non-nuclear weapons. But better weapons have never really made us more or less likely to kill. Nuclear weapons in fact seem to make us less likely to kill as a rule.
Well that's the crazy thing though. What has kept the nukes in the silos?
Mutually Assured Destruction.
Which is, essentially, destruction of human civilization in large parts. That's the foundation of a nuclear "peace". The complete nuclear destruction of the Northern Hemisphere.
It's a civilizational sword of Damocles. That's a pretty messed up foundation to build your civ on.
I mean it's a logical thing. But, it is also absolutely insane and not necessarily the greatest position for humanity to have blundered into.
"Philosophy" is also the cause of basically all of the biggest atrocities in the 20th century. Stalin, Hitler, Mao, etc
Technology hasn't done anything other than make whatever we were doing more "efficient".
So yeah, no thanks to crazy extreme philosophies.
That's in the eye of the beholder.
Literally everything about modern society - medicine, nutrition, entertainment, whatever - is because of a technology that was invented.
I never said it wasn't. I said paradise is in the eye of the beholder, and many different people likely have different views of paradise.
Besides, I wouldn't be certain that modern society has actually made us any happier. And in my version of paradise, happiness is a prerequisite.
The single biggest predictor for happiness is GDP per capita: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-vs-happiness.
That graph could also be titled "Places that use wealth to wield power over places with less wealth are happier than the places with less wealth and less power."
Besides, I'm skeptical of a postulation that effectively boils down to "more money equals more happiness" when we know pretty certainly it's not.
Edit - I'll add "life satisfaction" does not equal "happiness."
You can feel however you want but just know that there is an enormous amount of evidence that being wealthier makes people happier, which should be the most obvious thing in the world but I guess it is not to some people.
I mean, maybe we're talking past each other, but I think it's definitely disputable that being wealthier makes you happier.
Besides, the wealth itself isn't actually what makes anybody happy. It's what the wealth can do for you - basic needs, time with family and friends, a stable environment. None of which we "need" wealth to have. It's just that modern society has been built on the premise of wealth.
All technology can be weaponized. This is not a significant observation.
Sure, but you need bad political systems/philosophies to cause that. Technology cannot be evil, it's the people who use it.
you’re in your echo chamber here so i’ll probably get downvoted but i would so much rather see public healthcare, education and wellbeing spending be ubiquitous and sufficient than rocketing into space more. yes, space exploration causes technological advancements. so does military spending. but so does increasing the total available public brainpower to invest across every aspect of human ingenuity and industry. the number of einsteins that lived and died in poverty across human history without getting to leave their mark is unforgivable. turn your eyes from the sky and give us a chance to stabilize our species on the ground before we throw billions or trillions into the sun.
If starship allows NASA to do the same amount of science but on $250 million instead of $25 billion, and the government then redirects $24.75 billion towards healthcare, how is that a negative? Productivity growth from new technology is literally the single best thing for improving human welfare, not because of the tech itself, but because the tech allows you to spend money elsewhere.
It's not an echo chamber to say that doing more with less makes life better. That is the only way life ever got better.
This is all just a massive misrepresentation of how funding and appropriations work and if that's your underpinning argument, you have failed to make a good one
Obviously NASA will not see its budget cut 99%, I was making an extreme example. The point I'm trying to illustrate is that doing more with less is how living standards are raised, and if you don't think the effects of a 100x reduction in launch costs will reverberate throughout the world you are being dense. Even if there aren't any actual benefits of going to space (which I don't agree with), spending less money is just a good thing on its own.
We are on the knife’s edge of extinction, and most people haven’t realized it or refuse to accept it. We have to colonize space or we are fucking done as a species.
You are also creating a false dichotomy of sorts. We can (and do) spend money on all of those things and we can (and do) spend money on space as well. So I’m not really sure what your point is, other than ignoring the very obvious truth that without eventually colonizing space we are assured of extinction on this planet. My only point is that could be much sooner than people realize, as we are on the verge of a catastrophic ecological disaster while simultaneously having enough nuclear ordnance to wipe out civilization several times over.
So yes, I will always support space exploration and colonization. It’s fucking foolish not to. And yes, I will always support health care (I am myself a doctor), education, addressing wealth inequality, etc. You can do all of that, simultaneously. And arguably, if you actually give a shit about humanity, you MUST support all of that simultaneously.
So your solution to extinction is to let billions die on earth while small colonies try to terraform mars?
Why is this more realistic than degrowth?
We are not on the edge of extinction, in the next hundred years at least
This logic isn't sound. You're saying that we should expend a huge amount of resources for the sake of unknowable gains.
I personally believe in space exploration but I wouldn't try to justify it as more than a luxury. Art, science and exploration are all luxuries aka expenditures beyond what is necessary for survival. They're also intrinsic to the human experience. There is some justification for viewing space exploration as an extravagance when there is a lack of social welfare. However this means that social welfare needs to be invested in, that that we should divest from science and exploration.
Bombs are merely a byproduct of aircraft and explosives technology, which have significantly improved human life more than bombs have worsened it
According to your logic, if resources are limited, almost any human activity incurs alternative costs, except perhaps if we return to caves and hunt game with spears and gather food... Although even then, we managed to drive entire species to extinction.
Climate science is a part Earth science, which NASA also engages in. The need to generate energy in space has already given us solar panels. Research in space science offers one of the highest returns on investment and provides us with many benefits (unless it’s SLS/Orion), and mastering orbit has greatly improved our lives - try living without GPS and see what it's like to use paper maps.
What kind of silly logic is that? Humanity studies many technologies simultaneously, and space exploration doesn't take away your <cool thing>. There are far more people who, according to your logic, engage in absolutely useless activities and only waste resources.
Investing directly into r&d will always give greater returns than accidentally discovering a generalizable technology from a very specialized (and expensive) use. I am not arguing against space exploration, I am arguing that you should not try to pigeon hole space exploration into a utilitarian framework.
There is some justification for viewing space exploration as an extravagance when there is a lack of social welfare
You have missed the point. Imagine the following scenarios:
- We don't spend any money on new rockets technology. NASA continues to get a budget of $25 billion/year to use existing technology.
- Starship cuts launch costs by a factor of 100. NASA now can do the exact same amount of science for $250 million, allowing the federal government to redirect the remaining $24.75 billion to other endeavors.
Which one is better for social welfare? This is literally why productivity growth is so vital. It allows you to do more with less.
So your argument is...
Something good might happen.
And you genuinely think it's the people that disagree with you that are "absolutely ridiculous" ?
I mean... I think space exploration is important too but I think it's better to give valid reasons and not the verbal version of a shrug.
It's not that 'something good might happen'. It's that literally every good thing that has ever happened is the result of technology, no matter how far back you go. The only difference between you and your ancestors who were subsistence farmers is technology. It takes you way less work to feed yourself than it did your great great grandparents, and not because you are better than them at anything. Because farming tech has allowed us to produce way more food with the same inputs.
It applies to space exploration too. If new rockets cost 10% as much to launch as existing rockets do,, that means we can do exactly what we are doing now but spend 90% of the money on something else. This is why productivity growth is so vital. It allows you to do more with less.
Why space technology specifically though? What if the same amount of money was placed into medical technology or biotech?
You can make that argument about literally anything. Why do we spend money on pro sports? The NFL makes ~$20 billion in revenue every year. Wouldn't it be better if that money were spent on researching medical technology and biotech? Are you telling me that sports are more important than healthcare?
Not only do all of these criticisms breakdown but they also fundamentally miss the importance of productivity gains.
I think you're overlooking one of most important unintended inventions due to space exploration ever, tang
Isn't Tang basically orange flavored koolaid?
Yea and it wasn't actually invented by NASA, they just sent it up with astronauts because it was convenient. But it's a myth I like to pretend to myself is true. Since engineer at NASA tediously mixing stuff until he screams, I've done it! I have perfected orange drink!
People think NASA invented it because it was invented in the late 50s and then just coincided with the Apollo missions
Yea...NASA has the highest ROI in the history of any agency in the history of the United States government, but its a "luxury". Just look at this, their economic output is 3x their budget:
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/27/nasa-annual-economic-output-is-triple-its-budget-study.html
NASA has the highest ROI in the history of any agency in the history of the United States government
Current Congressional Budget Office estimates are a 500-900% ROI on each additional dollar spent on the IRS. That's a tough nut to crack.
The IRS ROI is that low?
I've never understood people who thinks it's a waste of money. You want to sit around and not spend anything so that China or other nations like them can one day mine asteroids and start to have absolute control over certain markets, more than they already do?
I think it's going to take China having some real success to get the US government off of their asses and get serious about funding space exploration and not just gifting fat stacks of cash to certain contractors to keep people in their districts employed.
You are an optimist. I think, Congress will react to the Chinese space efforts by pouring even more money into the SLS/Orion boondoggle.
but how much do we have to let them win or can we just find another motive along the way e.g. as I've joked about both past space conflict with Russia and current/future space conflict with China should we just let them conquer the universe so we discover the multiverse?
NASA has the highest ROI in the history of any agency in the history of the United States government
Not saying you're wrong, but that's a pretty low standard
Boundless free resources and a place to generate power and manufacture goods (or at least refine them) that doesn't have pollution or climate issues? Lowering cost to orbit solves every problem we have except the fact that people are stupid and easily brainwashed to do evil or selfish things.
Damn, that's suuuch a good point. Refine things outside the earth and send in the finished products
A really good point considering a lot of stuff we need is wicked hazardous to make. And it won’t be less hazardous anytime soon, if ever in some cases. If we can bring those terrible, polluting processes to a barren planet with no chance of life or in space then we won’t be soiling the one fragile planet that we know has life, where we live and grow (good idea to keep clean). Hell, if you do it in space you could even send your junk/waste into the Sun and not pollute/fill up anywhere because at this point of advancement sending things to the Sun would be a cakewalk.
It's not boundless free resource at all. The startup costs to get there are multiples of yearly gdp for the planet.
Thanks for letting us know you haven't updated your numbers in 50 years.
The article makes zero case that space exploration is a necessity
History tells us the first overseas expeditions were massively expensive affairs that only the state could finance. Then over time sea travel became less expensive and the Age of Exploration began in earnest
They were expensive, but they did however have a return on investment. The reason why the countries paid up the huge amounts of money to do those early exploration missions was to find alternative trade routes for ludicrously expensive spices. And then they began investing in colonies because they returned boat loads of silver and sugar and cotton. Space travel currently doesn't have any kind of short term return on investment like the age of exploration did. There isn't any obvious profit motive to funding a Mars colony.
Yeah, but they didn't have to haul their air, water, food, and gravity on their ships. There really is a qualitative difference when it comes to humans exploring space.
I think past generations would say similar things about the difficulties of long distance oceanic travel compared to short distance close to shore travel that was prevalent in the classical era. Ultimately the more you do something, the more industry you build for things, the cheaper problems become to solve. Things can become so cheap that they’re considered trivial.
They have to haul water and food on their ships
They did have to haul water and food though
Ehhhh… having worked for a company that wants to build a space hotel for the ultra wealthy, and who’s main “product” is a 10 minute ballistic “launch” to the tune of $25 million a seat, I’d say that a good chunk of the commercial sector is luxury for people who’ve got way too much money.
I'm tired of this condescending argument being used to talk down to concerned people like "Max" who want to see a cause and effect as clear as other humanitarian and economic investments. They're posing a fair and concrete question, even if it isn't a fair comparison or always a polite conversation.
To those like Max, we can say that funding for space has as good or better benefits for humanity than most government programs. Even if we could cure world hunger by diverting space funding, there are beneficial government and corporate programs that should be streamlined first, and programs not net beneficial to humanity that should be defunded first.
However, it's wishful thinking to treat the piecemeal breakthroughs and stimulus funds as if they are cost-effective for improving human flourishing compared to high-impact programs expressly designed to immediately address human basic needs. Space is a good investment, but if we had a limited bonus budget that could be optimally spent to benefit humanity in the long term, with no inefficiency or downsides, space funding wouldn't be a current priority.
I think it’s not mutually exclusive to realize that yes, the ROI for tech is massive and we should absolutely have space programs — but at the same time, ANY civilization / outpost you build on Mars would be 1000x more effective on Earth.
It just seems ridiculous to me how people seem to constantly pretend that building a colony on Mars would actually be easier and more efficient than doing it even on Antarctica or somewhere totally inhospitable. No environment on Earth will ever be as inhospitable as Mars; any Mars colony will always be a byproduct of a flourishing and wealthy earth society, not the thing that saves a failing Earth.
Long story short, if shit hits the fan on Earth, Mars support and supply runs are gonna be one of the first things to go.
Honestly space is great to invest in because it’s investable, it’s a ‘solvable’ thing unlike say, world hunger, which is a bullshit logistical and could be fixed next week if everyone cared, but there’s no profit in it.
It’s easy to get people hyped about space, it’s not so easy to get people to make the actual change involved in something like world hunger, not advancement, change.
If we want to grow as a civilization, we have to explore space
The next stage of human development is emerging from our terrible infancy that conceives of getting stuff a sort of Hobbesian each against all nightmare. Adolescence will be an agreement for the common aims of mankind among the human family of nations. See my post for the outlines here: https://thingumbobesquire.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-only-basis-for-resolution-of-false.html
Why do we need to grow as a civilization? Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. Maybe we need to shrink as a civilization and learn to be actually sustainable in order to be able to continue living on the only habitable planet we know of in the universe, otherwise how will we be able to continue to explore space in the coming centuries? I’m not saying we shouldn’t explore space, but it just feels silly right now as we literally destroy our biosphere at lightning speed. Like cool launches to orbit are gonna be cheaper but then oops our civilization has collapsed because we didn’t fix dependence on fossil fuels and global warming. Good luck exploring space after all of our overly complex fossil fuel dependent systems fail and the world descends into chaos.
I've always thought that any space traveling civilization would not even have human psychology. We don't deserve to terraform Mars while some live in desperate poverty.
I honestly think any space faring species have a more vespid like psychology since I doubt a species as selfish as us is capable of organizing at that level.
We can both figure out ways to fight climate change AND explore space. Stunning, I know.
In fact, space exploration might open up doors to sustainability that we can only dream of right now. No matter how sustainable you try to be, Earth still has finite resources.
I literally said “I’m not saying we shouldn’t explore space”, so I’m not sure why you’re suggesting I said it’s one or the other. It always amazes me when people try to argue with something I didn’t even say
Those two are non sequitor. You’re merely putting those two things together to make it sound deep when it is not. We do not need grandiose reasons for space explorations. All of this just screams “i am 14 and this is deep”
There is never a situation in which Earth will become less hospitable than Mars
what about if it was possible for Earth to explode the way Krypton did (leaving it as vague as I am because depending on the continuity of Superman media you look at Krypton's explosion often had a different cause and even looking at ones that are even possible in this universe some would be more likely than others)
Space exploration is literally about life on Earth - the preservation of our species - the Human race.
Ok but Step 1 is to stop destroying this planet or we will never make it to Step 2.
Obviously those things can happen simultaneously. But we should really prioritize, if we must, the preservation of Earth and its climate.
I honestly didn't know we considered this a luxury
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| ETOV | Earth To Orbit Vehicle (common parlance: "rocket") |
| JWST | James Webb infra-red Space Telescope |
| LEO | Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km) |
| Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations) | |
| LV | Launch Vehicle (common parlance: "rocket"), see ETOV |
| RCS | Reaction Control System |
| SLS | Space Launch System heavy-lift |
| TVC | Thrust Vector Control |
| Jargon | Definition |
|---|---|
| Raptor | Methane-fueled rocket engine under development by SpaceX |
| Sabatier | Reaction between hydrogen and carbon dioxide at high temperature and pressure, with nickel as catalyst, yielding methane and water |
| Starlink | SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation |
| cryogenic | Very low temperature fluid; materials that would be gaseous at room temperature/pressure |
| (In re: rocket fuel) Often synonymous with hydrolox | |
| hydrolox | Portmanteau: liquid hydrogen fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer |
| kerolox | Portmanteau: kerosene fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer |
| methalox | Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer |
NOTE: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
12 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 22 acronyms.
[Thread #10064 for this sub, first seen 18th May 2024, 22:03]
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Article lists no practical necessities except GPS
Does people here really believe space colonies are the answer?
Tbh, I do not believe our species will reach this kind o civilization.
The world is literally burning and still we are adding to the flames.
I will never for the life of me understand why people don’t see the need to advance our capabilities as a space-faring civilization. The ENTIRE UNIVERSE is out there just waiting for us.
But but, there are problems on Earth! Until we create a perfect utopia we can’t spend a dime on space! /s
There's no such thing as a necessity unless you list a prerequisite.
Tell that to all the people who want to send us to bed without a space program because we fail to meet their arbitrary standard of what a “mature”species is.
Meh
These are just PR ideas and even people here who espouse a greater good really just want to see cool shit during their lifetimes.
The unpredictable second order benefits of space travel isn’t why anyone in that field even does it. They do it because it’s interesting and cool and exciting. You don’t have to dress it up with a fake layer of altruism. It’s so pathetically transparent
Ouch. Yes, but when you mention anything space-related some certain people always ask, "why are we going to space when we could feed people instead?", and "because it's cool" isn't really a good answer. It really does justify itself on merit alone, so of course we're going to try give an answer on that basis. $10 in productivity for every dollar spent usually makes them mumble something under their breath and leave the topic alone. They seem less swayed by crystal growth, medical advancements, and materials science and thoroughly disgusted at the idea of space mining and factories.
"Because it's cool" is a perfectly good answer. How much money do we spend on sports, music, and cinema? (over $50 billion is spent on sports in the US every year, according to this link). These things are worthwhile because they make people happy, and no one seems to question that. Space exploration also inspires millions of people. Why does it need further justification?
Refreshing to see this here and to see sane answers as well, even though we're on Reddit.
What can we expect to gain, realistically? It takes a massive effort to support even a few people in space, and I don't see that changing. Mars is the most realistic option, and there's not enough water or air there, not to mention the lack of a magnetosphere to ward off cosmic rays.
I could be wrong, so I'm all for giving it a shot, but it's long odds that Humans will ever live anywhere independent of Earth. This is all we've got, and we'd best take care of it.
There is abundant water and nitrogen. Oxygen will be a byproduct of other industrial activities. Most of it will be vented into the atmosphere
For water, there was an early calculation that there is enough to cover the whole of Mars 20m deep. Since then a lot more was found.
For nitrogen, the atmosphere contains ~360 billion ton. Not enough for terraforming, but plenty to supply the needs of habitats for millions of people.
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One thing that's for sure is that competing in space programs with other nations is much better than competing in military programs.
Often they are identical. The race to the moon was a race to dominate rocket technology
And GPS too is military technology. And so is Starlink/communication satellites. But it's still useful to a lot of people.
Billionaires’ space companies, however are a luxury. When you can afford to create a space company by paying your workers starvation wages, and evading taxes, in order to have your company subsidized by those workers actually paying their fair share, that’s not a necessity.
In future, only rich people will live on Earth. Everyone else will be working/living in the Moon, Mars, asteroid belt and beyond. Almost all stuff found on Earth will be manufactured in space and shipped down to Earth.
Governments think that spending billions of taxpayer dollars on a “ space program “ would resolve the planet’s problems, why don’t governments spend that money trying to solve Earth’s problems? Poverty, climate change, political instability, disease, overpopulation etc etc ..? What is there in finding new planets , touch down on asteroids? Finding “ Water “ on planets light years away from Earth? Taking pictures of planets, galaxies, Nebulas, those are good on a wall murals, magazines and as a phone screen saver, humans expend so much wealth on dreams they can’t reach , mean while they won’t reach for those in need on this planet, until “ we “ as a species learn to take care of the planet and its inhabitants? We will never be allowed to reach other worlds to do the same thing we are doing to ourselves and this planet.
if we wait until humanity is perfect-or-at-least-as-perfect-as-a-race-of-non-divine-beings-can-be before we go into space, we'll die waiting
We are “ already dying “ physically and Spiritually “ since having shown any interest or desire to evolve beyond our own capabilities? We will just be left alone to our own devices, ( the so called Watchers) are just waiting for the time when we destroy our selves in this planet alone with us .
Why exactly? I mean, I am with you, but the argument it is luxury while we still have problems to feed the world, is also valid. The exploration of space won't feed hungry people, so...
Still not gonna solve the climate issues tho.
Not trying to say it is useless, but it sure as hell ain't essential.
Also, not trying to blame space exploration for climate changes.
It is essential if you consider the fact that all truly self-sustainable technologies will inevitably come from the space industry. If we can find a way to live in a completely enclosed manner, with only marginal access to outside resources, then we are much better prepared to dial back our current rates of consumption.
Whatever it would take to survive in space, is exactly what we need to be mass producing here at home, as a solution to climate change.
US Govt to NASA:
Best I can do is more budget cuts
Today's luxury is tomorrow's necessity. And today is yesterday's tomorrow.
It's neither. But it's something that humanity should do.
Lobbied by billionaires, paid for by the poors.
Something I want to see more clearly reported is how much pollution is pumped out for each of these launches.
The supposed goal of launching up to 1000 deliveries to Mars to establish a viable population - what does that do to our planet? Is it really justifiable?
Something I want to see more clearly reported is how much pollution is pumped out for each of these launches.
It's a bit outdated but this is a decent article (and associated video) on it: https://everydayastronaut.com/rocket-pollution/
Here's the final summary though: https://everydayastronaut.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Airline-VS-Rockets-CO2.jpg
Basically it's a rounding error, and even if you grow it by 1000 times, you're still a small fraction of the airline industry.
Basically if you want Starship launches to equal the airline industry, you need to be watching 940 rockets per day. Even Elon in his wildest dreams doesn't predict that kind of rate. And remember the airline industry is still a pretty small portion of overall CO2 emissions.
I did a very rough BOTE calculation a while back. A full Mars settlement drive with thousands of ships leaving every launch window plus the refueling flights will put out about as much CO2 into the atmosphere as the planes leaving one of the major airport hubs during the 2 year period between windows.
It is a lot, but still a very small contribution compared to commercial aviation.
That's a relief; it would have been the height of irony if those rushing to settle a new world, away from the over-polluted old one, were the final cause of it's finally going beyond the point of no return.
Starship is the most environmentally friendly rocket ever built. It's entirely reusable, and use methane and water for fuel.
All the white stuff you see at a launch, is steam.
Is it perfect? Of course not, there's a little CO2 output as well but it's a lot less than other rockets.
Direct your angst at China instead, who don't give a rat's arse about the environment. They're launching with solid fuel boosters that are so toxic you can't touch the fuel.
Let's not forget complete disregard for where the stages are going to crash. Could be in the country side, or a village, or a school, or another country.
Not only don't they (the authorities) care, the scientists who could calculate the return trajectories, are not allowed to!
All the white stuff you see at a launch, is steam.
If it's burning methane, then there's more than a little CO2 put out. CH4 + 2 O2 → CO2 + 2 H2O + energy. For every two water molecules there's a molecule of CO2. The liquid hydrogen fuelled rockets of the Apollo era were the steam ones.
Saturn 5 used RP1 in the first stage, so in the atmosphere. That's a much dirtier fuel.
Saturn 5 used RP1 in the first stage, so in the atmosphere. That's a much dirtier fuel.
Yes. That occurred to me after I had posted.
Rockets powered solely by liquid hydrogen are impractical and expensive
Rockets powered solely by liquid hydrogen are impractical and expensive
But they are most friendly to a Class M environment (if you don't count nuclear-thermal engines).
LOL.
Isn't it roughly the same fuel efficiency as Apollo (at least in Elon numbers)?
And how many launches are you gonna need to refuel that thing so that it can do anything once it gets to orbit?
As a system, it's probably by far the least efficient once you talk about moving beyond LEO. Possibly even LEO. And almost certainly during the period you fly it in expendable mode.
I didn't say efficient. I said environmentally friendly. Not the same thing.
From Apollo 11 space.com
"kerolox (RP1 or kerosene and liquid oxygen) was used in the first stage as it is a dense fuel source that gives a lot of thrust. Thrust is very important in the first stage. You need to have more thrust than your mass to get off the ground. But Kerolox is a dirty fuel, with soot clogging up the turbines, pipes, and valves, which limits the burn time and ignition quantities.
When in space for a few hours, the kerosene essentially freezes, limiting operational time. Also, it is less efficient (lower specific impulse) than some other fuels. So RP1 has more power, but it clogs the rocket motor.
That is liquid methane and oxygen. It provides almost the best of both worlds. Relatively high efficiency and fairly high thrust. Also, it doesn’t produce the soot that kerosene does, as the carbon, once stripped of the hydrogen, is elemental rather than essentially small pieces of coal. This is one of the reasons that all the next-gen rockets are going methalox."
If you start counting the fuel spent per kilogram of payload, you will understand what nonsense you said
It's essential now. We need to gobble up all that Helium 3 on the moon
We need to gobble up all that Helium 3 on the moon
Even though we can't really do anything with it.
Only if we want to maintain our population growth.
Yeah, that ain't gonna happen soon that space colonization helps anything at all with population growth on earth. Unless you think we'll be able to ship up hundreds of thousands of people daily...
We have negative population growth.
To me, space should be our primary national priority: all other endeavors are improved or enabled by it. Agriculture, manufacturing, science, technology, military, housing, politics, and more are improved or helped by a strong presence in space.
To do otherwise will eventually seal our extinction with no successor. It’s not merely short sighted to ignore or reject space, it goes against everything that is in our better nature and interest to do.
Home is where you make it, and you can make so much more up there than here. As such, I want my children to enjoy the promise my grandfather will never get to see, even though he laid some of the foundational work for it.
This is a bit of a stretch. Let me ask the author, what can’t we learn in space that we already are not at the ISS? (At a considerable cost, btw) The cost of space exploration goes down dramatically when you take the human out of it. This is a job for the drones. The ugly truth is that humans are not built for space travel; look at Mark Kelly and bone density loss, how much work it took just to walk on Earth again (not to mention space radiation). Space is fascinating and worth study but this article doesn’t convince me a human needs to be part of it.
look at Mark Kelly and bone density loss, how much work it took just to walk on Earth again (not to mention space radiation).
The russian cosmonaut that holds the record for most consecutive days in space (nearly 500, enough to go to Mars and come back, with a month on the surface) didn't need assistance to walk after he landed.
Humans are different, and not everyone is going to have the same physiological issues.
You're also not considering the benefits of centrifugal force to simulate gravity, and the fact that we've yet to see how partial gravity affects people.
And Robots aren't efficient at everything, just as humans aren't. They should be used in tandem where they work best. Robots for monotonous and long term observations, especially in dangerous locations, and Humans for rapid, comprehensive surface exploration and in-situ processing.
especially in dangerous locations
Like, literally anywhere that is not earth.
No, not really, unless you somehow lose your spacecraft or space suit, in which case you have bigger problems.
That line is in reference to places like Io or hanging out in the Van Allen Belts. Places where a human wouldn't be any use with the excessive layers of protection required.
Okay, you're right — it's not risky, except for the parts that are risky. Thanks for that insight.
Also, lots of radiation — not super good for you!
And how are you doing "comprehensive surface exploration and in-situ processing" while sitting inside a spacecraft?
What do you think Mark Kelly was doing up there for so long? It's medical science. The astronauts go up there, and we're constantly trying out new exercise routines and drugs as the missions get longer and longer to preserve bone density and muscle function. That's the whole point of early tests like that.
Probsbly but I don't trust Musk to be the one to do it.
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My honest opinion on anyone that says space exploration and reducing launch cost is a luxury that doesn't have benefits is that it is just incredibly ignorant, for 2 reasons:
The transistor was invented by Bell Labs after a decade of work with the intention of making it easier to make long distance phone calls. Only after it was invented did others realize it can be used in semiconductors and basically everything today is downstream from that.
The idea that anyone on this planet can for sure say there will be no significant benefits from reducing launch to orbit is absolutely ridiculous.