Human Spaceflight: No Single Rationale Justifies it, NRC Report
- Thread starter Rhykker
- Start date
Given much of our economy depends on finite resources still left in the earth it would be economically stupid to not fund space exploration in the long term.
Speaking of a manned mission from the little I know it's supposed to be doable with current tech for the past 20 odd years? Despite the plan costing very little for a project of this nature NASA debunked it because it doesn't make use of all those expensive NASA pet projects as well as carrying a high degree of danger to the crew from solar winds.
I'm expecting China will be the first to put humans on Mars given their preference for cheap budget solutions and little regard towards the human risk.
Speaking of a manned mission from the little I know it's supposed to be doable with current tech for the past 20 odd years? Despite the plan costing very little for a project of this nature NASA debunked it because it doesn't make use of all those expensive NASA pet projects as well as carrying a high degree of danger to the crew from solar winds.
I'm expecting China will be the first to put humans on Mars given their preference for cheap budget solutions and little regard towards the human risk.
We're hardly in the desert- we've got plenty of time. I don't want this done tomorrow, I just want it to happen. It's more accurate to say we're CEO of DesertCo, and we keep open a little division for experimental research, or whatever.BigTuk said:
And, fine, we can take Jupiter with us as well. We'll probably have to use all of its moons anyway, to just make this increasingly large space ship.
Sorry kids, there won't be any more astronauts, at least in your lifetimes. Come up with another dream.
It would be nice if the major nations could pool their resources and come up with an international space program, but the world doesn't work like that until a major fucking disaster is imminent.
It would be nice if the major nations could pool their resources and come up with an international space program, but the world doesn't work like that until a major fucking disaster is imminent.
I can't imagine I'm the first to say this but this is how I read the conversation:
"Why do we do manned space flight?" - Morons
"12 Different Reasons!" - Almost Everyone
"Oh, you can't all give me just one reason? I guess we'll stop funding that." - Morons
What a ridiculous conclusion... My reason would be because I like Microwaves, Good Lubricant, Memory Foam, and a ton of other things: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies
Manned Space Flight leads to technological advances that benefit EVERYONE.
"Why do we do manned space flight?" - Morons
"12 Different Reasons!" - Almost Everyone
"Oh, you can't all give me just one reason? I guess we'll stop funding that." - Morons
What a ridiculous conclusion... My reason would be because I like Microwaves, Good Lubricant, Memory Foam, and a ton of other things: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies
Manned Space Flight leads to technological advances that benefit EVERYONE.
The misanthropist in me wants to say "anything that sharply reduces the number of living human beings is alright in my book."SourMilk said:
The part of me that's less of a dick says, "Well, of course there are some hurdles still left to overcome, but that what drives scientific advancement."
The only "positive" rationale is so that the most powerful people of the world can continue to live past the point at which life becomes unfeasible on earth. Spaceflight is a necessary prerequisite to planetary colonization.Rhykker said:
Given that the earth need not be destroyed, it's far better to scuttle all space exploration since any technological improvements will only encourage the further destruction of earth, as the understanding will then be "well, after earth is destroyed, we'll just move to another planet".
The only way to save earth is to make sure that if earth dies, we die. The business community calls this an "incentive".
Planetary colonization is the end-game desire of industrialization on earth - the possibility of nuclear annihilation following World War II is the single largest factor in the acceleration of the ability of the powerful to colonize outer space. As the condition of the earth worsens, there will be constantly increasing and eventually great impetus for humans who have the means to leave earth to do so. A secular technological Rapture, if you will, with the rest of us, 99% of current humanity, "left behind". Those humans left behind who have not yet died will have the privilege of looking up, but instead of seeing God like they used to they will see an orbiting space station, or a shuttle going to a distant planet. And the people looking down will see the whole world, and instead of merely *feeling* above it all they will literally be above it all. Their subjects, their humans. They who exist to worship the people above them.
Point of contention: no one of any education thought that. It is not true. The words you are posting are derived from A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_History_of_the_Life_and_Voyages_of_Christopher_Columbus], which contains as much myth as fact, one of the most glaring of which is the author's inclusion of the flat earth myth. The work isn't entirely consistent, as it does point out the actual problem that Columbus had: he had miscalculated the size of the earth(in part by accidentally substituting the Italian mile for the longer Arabic mile).RJ 17 said:
The reason that he had problem getting sponsorship was because Spanish scholars (correctly) believed the ships of the time incapable of making an open water trip around the world to Japan.
It's a terrible truth that I've come to realize that when too much is at stake our instincts tend to outweigh our ability to think things through rationally. Granted there are some few exceptions.[footnote]One seeming exception seems to be the use of nuclear (post-atomic) weapons. Even though there have been plenty of opportunities for cataclysm with such weapons falling into the hands of fanatics (albeit ones in unilateral military hierarchies), none still have ever been used in hostility. Thanks to the terrifyingly immense stakes the cold war was conducted with meticulous, measured, rational negotiations. Perhaps we need for the proverbial gun to our heads to be clear and present in order for human society to rise to its highest grace.[/footnote]Grenge Di Origin said:
On the short term, I'd note that we made $14 for every $1 spent on the Apollo moonshots, and much of the technology that we've come to rely on in the post-millennial era (e.g. microcircuitry) was pushed forward because we were determined to go to space and the moon. Our space program has always been a good investment with high returns.
And yeah, on the long term, if we stay here we're going to die, probably of ecology collapse but just as easily by way of a supergerm or a meteor strike (ultimately of the Sun broiling us until we're a toasty golden-brown, but that's a looooong time in the future). And the only way that humankind, or any terrestrial life, is going to survive beyond such an ELE is if we've established self-sustaining colonies off-world.
238U[footnote]As of this posting I have not received a US National Security Letter or any classified gag order from an agent of the United States.
This post does not contain an encrypted secret message.
Thursday, June 05, 2014 6:40:23 PM
cave injury saddle migraine typewriter prison joke stamina[/footnote]
The public, on the whole, absolutely is that basic.Grenge Di Origin said:
Consider the relatively easy step of just sending people to Mars. In order to do so, you would need a project of nearly unimaginable scope. The dangers to any human crew are mind boggling and many of those dangers are simply not possible to effectively mitigate given current technology. The cost associated with this endeavor would be absolutely staggering easily in the tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars.
The risks to the crew are enormous, the cost is literally astronomical and the technology to do it doesn't even exist yet. Each of these things can be overcome, yes, but the question remains why bother? Sure, there are lots of reasons you could point to but most of those are nebulous. Lots of neat technology would get created that we could take for granted decades later - that's a hard sell regardless of what kind of charisma you've got working in your marketing department. And the ultimate survival of the human race might depend upon it but that's an even more nebulous concept that one can accept as rational and logical and yet fail to be impacted by. And the oft cited "Because it's there" might be moderately stirring to many but given the costs associated you'll probably need something better.
To sell such a project where the payoff is impossible to imagine and where the risks of not going are all but unimaginable you need something easy to point to. We made it to the moon because the cold war gave us exactly that. To put it another way, it took an existential struggle, seen by many as a very real war for the literal soul of mankind to unite people to that task.
There's really so many things wrong with the 'no compelling reason' argument that it's hard to know where to start. But it tends to boil down to a perception of risk versus reward being all risk and no reward, that we'll just get a bunch of people killed to visit a pile of irradiated space rocks.
It's so easy to say no to something, in fact, it's about the easiest thing ever. That's part of our problem these days in general, the fear of saying yes to a risky idea that flops. Or even saying yes to a risky idea that doesn't succeed wildly when, if only they'd taken the road more traveled, if only they'd reprinted, reproduced and regurgitated what had come before, they would have been guaranteed to succeed!
Except of course when something new and different does succeed. But then everyone says, why, that was just so obvious, we were fools for not thinking about it before. And so everyone copies that.
I'd buy the risk versus reward argument a little more, too, if we weren't already so profoundly awash in resources in the first world (really, we are) that we don't already waste time, money and lives (figuratively and literally) on a whole slew of projects and agendas.
It's so easy to say no to something, in fact, it's about the easiest thing ever. That's part of our problem these days in general, the fear of saying yes to a risky idea that flops. Or even saying yes to a risky idea that doesn't succeed wildly when, if only they'd taken the road more traveled, if only they'd reprinted, reproduced and regurgitated what had come before, they would have been guaranteed to succeed!
Except of course when something new and different does succeed. But then everyone says, why, that was just so obvious, we were fools for not thinking about it before. And so everyone copies that.
I'd buy the risk versus reward argument a little more, too, if we weren't already so profoundly awash in resources in the first world (really, we are) that we don't already waste time, money and lives (figuratively and literally) on a whole slew of projects and agendas.
I never understood why people don't get that sometimes we do something because its awesome in the most literal sense of the word. When was it we went from being a country that did things because they are hard to a country that says, well, it sure would be nice to cut the budget by 0.01%?
Because when the super computer takes over, nukes everything and enslaves the last members of humanity the lunar base will be our last hope. That and space capitalism, can't wait for the StarBucks Nebula and off world mining.
There are 3 (group) ways to solve overpopulation.RJ Dalton said:
1. Space colonization.
2. Limiting population growth through forcible sterilization and laws banning multichildren families
3. Floods, hurricanes, epidemics, war and holocaust.
Take your pick, because one of the three will happen if humans want to survive. and they do. Id pick the first one, but looks like were going towards the third one now.
It is a good idea unless you prefer the alternatives.SourMilk said:
I dont. your point?Rawbeard said:
you mean like how Americas were not solving population problem by constantly shipping people from europe there.thaluikhain said:
but then we would have an underpopulation problem.TheMadJack said:
around 700 billion a year ever since the war started. you can do the math.Eve Charm said:
first people that can sucesfully mine an asteroid will be the first trillionaires on the planet. if thats not profit margin motivation enough for you i dont know what is.shadowstriker86 said:
Safety seems like a big reason for me honestly. I´d like to know that the entirity of our civilization would not be ended because a big piece of space rock decided to make earth its vacation destination. If we are to be reasonably sure we can deal with such a menace we would have to at least have some ability to with relative ease zip around at least our own planet.
Discovery is not a good enough rationale? If we'd all said "Its not proven profitable" at any other point in history when regarding the unknown, would we even be here today? Its not as if we live in a world of total ignorance. Oh nevermind, Hollywood called and said I was totally wrong, they're shooting Hangover IV now.
It was stupid - nay, reckless, for this irresponsible proto-fish to venture out and pretend it can walk on land. Why'd it do it, anyway? No fish to eat on land.
99,9% of all species that ever existed are extinct. Among those, the species that didn't seek to spread and expand.
99,9% of all species that ever existed are extinct. Among those, the species that didn't seek to spread and expand.