Manned exploration of our solar system

[Hammerfest]

Waste of resources.

You have no idea how correct you are...

[Ravenblade]

What's missing from such analogies is an understanding of what actually motivated things.

The colonization/conquest of the new world returned a profit in a time short compared how long the "Space Age" has already existed. It helped tremendously that huge quanties of precious metals were available for exploitation/theft.

Colonization programs that failed to be profitable struggled, or were unmitigated disasters.

The profit however came unexpected. For the most part they weren't even sure what to find. They took the risk and it occasionally paid off. Even unmanned space exploration occasionally ended up as disaster too but that hasn't stopped anyone from continuing so far. The bigger the risk, the bigger the cost but ultimately with profits on the horizon some people will always be willing to take that risk and invest if there is even a sliver of chance of succeeding eventually.

My point however was a fairly different one: Trying something while taking care of something old isn't a mutually exclusive choice.

Right now we see a revival of some dangerous old trends and habits which would ignore the real reasons why modern science would advocates a sustainable behaviour aimed at long-term progrees and I think that's because people simply lack new perspectives and new ideas. Some people believe that we have to fix ourselves first before moving on, I think this isn't going to work. We could try for the next millennia and still won't succeed because man is a terrible animal beset by greed, selfishness, ruthlessness and stubbornness. We could try to change that and never realize how futile that is or use these traits for something more productive and end up with the kind of progress we were seeking all the time.

[Unhinged]

As long as we can leave of the selfish capitalist scum behind.

[Kokolums]

We wouldn't be colonizing space because we ran out of room on Earth.

And what does colonizing space even mean exactly? We could force everyone to have 20 kids and the population wouldn't even make a dent in the vastness of the solar system. We could probably have a chain of space stations orbiting Earth that could meet our population needs for thousands of years.

[Skroe]

We can't afford to colonize other planets. Have you not looked at current technology and considered the vast distances.

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We absolutely can afford it. Especially with the development of unmanned rockets. However establishing it on an enduring basis will involve creating an economic rationale that perpetuates itself. Talking land rights now may seem like a silly thing, but land rights drove colonization of North and South America. It will do so on other planets.

What's the point of landing on the moon exactly?

There are many reasons, but one of the most pertinent is as a staging ground. If we can, over the next century, build up lunar industry, where fuel and one day even rockets and supplies, are fabricated on the Moon, and then sent to orbit at less cost thanks to lunar gravity, it will enable a massive expansion of solar system exploitation. To put it simply, the point of landing on the moon is that it is an ideal launch pad.

Similarly, another idea launchpad around mars, is Phobos. Phobos' orbit around Mars is so tight it will decay and impact the planet in 8 million years, but, as essentially a large asteroid, you could in principle "dock" with Phobos with a capsule (or rather, the capsule would dock with a lander sent ahead of timethat has a docking port on it). You don't need a dedicated lander every mission. Phobos is a great staging ground, again, due to its low orbit and low gravity. Conceviably, in the future, Astronauts could take the Mars Transit Vehicle to Mars, dock with Phobos, disembark from the ship and then move to a resuable Mars Landing / Ascent vehicle that ferries crews to and from the Martian surface and Phobos. This would allow Mars missions to not have to take landers along every time. In fact, one Mars architecture (the one I favor), does this, and requires a landing on Phobos before a landing on Mars.

[sethman75]

As long as we can leave of the selfish capitalist scum behind.

No selfish capitilists are what created the US.

Its exactly what would be needed to get private companies and rich people to fund colonisation.

Offer them the land and resources they find and watch them scramble across the solar system looking for riches

[Flarelaine]

Waste of resources. We need to fix the issues that our beautiful planet faces not spend billions sending a couple privileged people for a grand tour.

It would go a long way towards "fixing" Earth if all the shameless exploiters suddenly had a new playground with no environmental regulations.

[Osmeric]

The profit however came unexpected.

Profit motivated everything from the start. Shorter route to China, remember? And it became very clear very quickly that there was enormous wealth to be looted from the New World. There was never any point where economic payoff wasn't the driving motivation.

The situation was not analogous to the the current situation in space, unless something almost miraculously unexpected happens. Remember, at current costs, it wouldn't be profitable to go pick up already-cast platinum ingots on the lunar surface and return them to Earth. No colony in space with current tech could be remotely self sustaining, making its own structures, food, tools, etc. as colonies could be in the New World.

The problem of colonizing/conquering the New World, at then-current tech levels, was a much easier problem than colonizing the solar system is, at our current tech level.

My point however was a fairly different one: Trying something while taking care of something old isn't a mutually exclusive choice.

As I observed upthread, the dreams of space industries are not realistic even if everything on Earth were unicorns and rainbows. What is holding them back is not that their are problems here. It's that the dreams themselves aren't realistic unless costs are drastically reduced.

What we get in this situation are Potemkin Village space programs, where an illusion of forward movement is provided by mass infusion of taxpayers' money. Space fans bemoan the lack of follow-on after Apollo, but that is exactly what they should have expected, since there was no self-sustaining economic fire to be lit by such government spectacles. Apollo, The Sequel to Mars would have exactly the same outcome, for the exactly the same reason.

[Flarelaine]

My general rule is that "space is hard". Science fiction, when it deals with space, is really dealing with the human experience in the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, transposed to an exotic locale (for our times). Two hundred years ago, people wrote about adventures and happenings in uncharted lands off the map... Terra Incognita. How space is portrayed, and has been portrayed for 70 years, is exactly the same thing.

Ever read The Cold Equations?

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Ohh wow. I always had this misconception in my head that all astronauts had to have pilot experience but apparently they don't. O.o

I wonder if NASA would need soil microbe scientists? Maybe I'll hitch a ride to Mars one day.

It sounds like the prime field of study once they get to terraforming.

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As long as we can leave of the selfish capitalist scum behind.

Good luck building your rocket in a garage, then.

[cubby]

And what does colonizing space even mean exactly? We could force everyone to have 20 kids and the population wouldn't even make a dent in the vastness of the solar system. We could probably have a chain of space stations orbiting Earth that could meet our population needs for thousands of years.

It means exploring, learning, discovering, and preventing our species from being one-planet bound. At some point it puts us into other solar systems, and at that point, the universe is our oyster.

Human beings are by their very nature explorers.

Colonizing space has never been about helping with population control. It would take a couple of centuries to even get 1mm+ on Mars, which wouldn't even be a blip on the total human population - now or then.

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We absolutely can afford it. Especially with the development of unmanned rockets. However establishing it on an enduring basis will involve creating an economic rationale that perpetuates itself. Talking land rights now may seem like a silly thing, but land rights drove colonization of North and South America. It will do so on other planets.




There are many reasons, but one of the most pertinent is as a staging ground. If we can, over the next century, build up lunar industry, where fuel and one day even rockets and supplies, are fabricated on the Moon, and then sent to orbit at less cost thanks to lunar gravity, it will enable a massive expansion of solar system exploitation. To put it simply, the point of landing on the moon is that it is an ideal launch pad.

Similarly, another idea launchpad around mars, is Phobos. Phobos' orbit around Mars is so tight it will decay and impact the planet in 8 million years, but, as essentially a large asteroid, you could in principle "dock" with Phobos with a capsule (or rather, the capsule would dock with a lander sent ahead of timethat has a docking port on it). You don't need a dedicated lander every mission. Phobos is a great staging ground, again, due to its low orbit and low gravity. Conceviably, in the future, Astronauts could take the Mars Transit Vehicle to Mars, dock with Phobos, disembark from the ship and then move to a resuable Mars Landing / Ascent vehicle that ferries crews to and from the Martian surface and Phobos. This would allow Mars missions to not have to take landers along every time. In fact, one Mars architecture (the one I favor), does this, and requires a landing on Phobos before a landing on Mars.

The Phobos Plan for landing on Mars seems like a more economical system overall since you don't have to plan on a Mars Lander taking off from Earth that can both support humans in transit and then survive the relatively crazy atmospheric challenges of landing on Mars.

Between 3D printing and creating fuel from the material on Phobos (if those are both feasible), would that plan build a faster "colony" on Mars then just going directly to Mars in the first place? Would the Phobos architecture have any other benefits? Like easier accessibility to the Asteroid Belt?

[Puri]

I say manned space exploration is not in any way a goal in the next 100 years, except the obligatory Mars expedition but even there I think without any return (except scientific fame) it's rather unlikely the larger nations are going to spend much money on in the years to come.

But unmanned exploration is going to be the real thing in the next decades. The latest successes in that area have shown that probes are now fully capable of doing complex maneuvers by themselves, with increasing AI abilities it will even get better. It is significantly cheaper and practically risk free. A manned spacecraft heading for Mars that explodes at start will politically set back any endeavor for men to reach other planets for at least 50 years. Nobody cares if a probe gets destroyed.

Also unmanned mining might be a thing, but as long as we have no other way to get things into space except launching them from the Earth's surface (and getting the goods safely down to earth) it will not be in any way economically feasible for profit to do so. Something rather utopical like a space lift would be a game changer here.

[Tennis]

It would go a long way towards "fixing" Earth if all the shameless exploiters suddenly had a new playground with no environmental regulations.

Sure. But that ignores the distance and cost to even travel to these planets. It is IMMENSE.

[cubby]

Also unmanned mining might be a thing, but as long as we have no other way to get things into space except launching them from the Earth's surface (and getting the goods safely down to earth) it will not be in any way economically feasible for profit to do so. Something rather utopical like a space lift would be a game changer here.

The inbetween is a Moonbase that has the capability to craft items that are necessary for space launching platform construction. They already have a 3D printer that constructs space-grade items. The moon is full of basic (and complex) building materials. Lift enough material up to space to construct a basic and long term habitat, then start expanding with the material on the moon. Food and other essentials will have to be sent from Earth, of course, but it seems to me that 3D printing could solve some heavy lifting problems - and it already exists.