The Outer Space Thread

[Renegade7]

36 minutes ago, Larry said:

 

Might be wise to, you know, scout out the place. Before you plunk some people down and hope they can find the things they need. 

 

I mean, it's one thing if the plan is to go there, live off of the 24 hours worth of supplies that you brought with you, and leave. 

 

If you're planning on staying, it's more complicated. 

 

Does the plan even include them having a way to get home if they suddenly need to?  

 

This feels over thought.

 

Send people to scope out and come back as part of establishing permanent base until ready to start building it so people can stay.

 

We've landed people on the moon what like 5 times now, and that was 50 years ago?  this current path seems overly cautious.

[The 12th Commandment]

Went driving around out by the spaceport the other day and saw the Spin-Launch centrifugal launcher.  Pretty cool, thing is enormous. Slings satellites into orbit using electricity.  Couldn't get close enough for a proper picture. Exciting tech.

 

 

Edited February 24 by The 12th Commandment

[Metalhead]

What...I have never heard of a spin launcher, didn't know there was such tech or engineering even possible. I just searched it and see that there are already people asking if humans could survive it lol.

[PeterMP]

1 hour ago, Renegade7 said:

 

This feels over thought.

 

Send people to scope out and come back as part of establishing permanent base until ready to start building it so people can stay.

 

We've landed people on the moon what like 5 times now, and that was 50 years ago?  this current path seems overly cautious.

 

Sending people is expensive (and dangerous), even to the moon.

 

There's no reason to not essentially have a whole base already setup before you send the first people.  Robots can essentially build the whole environment for you, and then you send people.

 

(Realistically, as I've gotten older it is clear to me that we aren't ever going to get off this planet unless physics finds a way to make travel to other planets ridiculously easy, there are huge changes in the life expectancies in humans, or it becomes necessary from a defense/military perspective..  Population growth is declining and likely population will start to decline in the next 25 years (see the thread on declining fertility).  Countries like Japan already have issues with not having enough young people.  It isn't like there are likely easy to use natural resources out there on another planet that it makes sense sending people to that planet.  It isn't likely there are fossil fuels on Mars for people to live on.  Solar energy is even lower on most of the places we'd go so more inefficient and the energy cost of people living there is going to be outrageously more expensive.  It makes more sense to start populating Antarctica or building large underwater habitats than sending people to other planers or even the moon to live permanently.  Other planets and asteroids might have minerals that it makes sense to mine but sending people to mine them to send them back to Earth (or near Earth) is never going to make sense.  We'll send robots and then ship them back here.  And even for those, I suspect the ocean floor and Antarctica are going to make more sense over the next several generations.

 

As near as I can see the future unfolding, making any sense to actually send people to other planets is going to require physicsts to be able to do something like open a worm hole where you can literally step through a door and be on another planet.  There is no Star Trek like future for us.  We just aren't motivated enough.)

[Renegade7]

Changing the cost of space travel is already happening @PeterMP with reusable Rockets.

 

JpL jus had layoffs, sure it's safer to jus send probes, but space is dangerous AF, either we accept that or we don't.

 

The cost coming down and our general acceptance the only way to be perfectly safe in space is to not go will help take care of at least what we do in our solar system.

 

There may not be fossil fuels on Mars, but there's plenty of metal (Titan literally has lakes and rain of hydrocarbons). 

 

We're still explorers by nature, the cost changes will help that and finding what we need in space will be way easier then trying to bring it with us from Earth.  No matter how much liquid water is really in the outer moons like Europa there's gonna be water ice (like the south pole of the moon).

 

Leaving the solar system and what we do in the solar system are two completely different conversations, imo.

[The 12th Commandment]

43 minutes ago, Metalhead said:

What...I have never heard of a spin launcher, didn't know there was such tech or engineering even possible. I just searched it and see that there are already people asking if humans could survive it lol.

Seema like it'd be a pretty good Joker contraption.  Or a Bond villain.  10,000 miles an hour inside a circular vacuum chamber the size of the statue of Liberty.  Hell of a ride.

[Larry]

1 hour ago, PeterMP said:

It isn't like there are likely easy to use natural resources out there on another planet that it makes sense sending people to that planet.  It isn't likely there are fossil fuels on Mars for people to live on.  Solar energy is even lower on most of the places we'd go so more inefficient and the energy cost of people living there is going to be outrageously more expensive.  It makes more sense to start populating Antarctica or building large underwater habitats than sending people to other planers or even the moon to live permanently.  Other planets and asteroids might have minerals that it makes sense to mine but sending people to mine them to send them back to Earth (or near Earth) is never going to make sense.  We'll send robots and then ship them back here.  And even for those, I suspect the ocean floor and Antarctica are going to make more sense over the next several generations.

 

Y'know. There was this guy 40-50 years ago, came to the conclusion that colonizing space itself was more economically attractive than any planet in the solar system. Did a lot of research on the subject. 

[PeterMP]

4 hours ago, Renegade7 said:

Changing the cost of space travel is already happening @PeterMP with reusable Rockets.

 

JpL jus had layoffs, sure it's safer to jus send probes, but space is dangerous AF, either we accept that or we don't.

 

The cost coming down and our general acceptance the only way to be perfectly safe in space is to not go will help take care of at least what we do in our solar system.

 

There may not be fossil fuels on Mars, but there's plenty of metal (Titan literally has lakes and rain of hydrocarbons). 

 

We're still explorers by nature, the cost changes will help that and finding what we need in space will be way easier then trying to bring it with us from Earth.  No matter how much liquid water is really in the outer moons like Europa there's gonna be water ice (like the south pole of the moon).

 

Leaving the solar system and what we do in the solar system are two completely different conversations, imo.

 

 

I'm not talking about safety really.  I'm talking about economics.  Sending humans isn't just dangerous.  It is expensive.  And rockets being reusable just means it is cheaper for robots too.

 

Think about colonization of Americas from the Europeans.  It was expensive to get people here.  But once here, they could breathe the air, go outside, hunt, grow crops, and get energy (burn things).

 

Pretty much anywhere you send anybody, none of that's the case anywhere in the galaxy.  You're talking about not just sending people which is expensive, but then you need to essentially send everything to keep the alive which is a whole additional set of costs.  If the same thing was true for the Europeans and Americas, the Europeans would not have colonized the Americas at least not with the technology they had at the time.

 

We want metals from Titan we'll send robots.

 

The thing with if there is fossil fuels on Mars is at least there will be a relatively cheap and easy source of energy.  Unless there are the types of technology changes I talked about and opening up worm holes, I don't think it will ever make sense to mine fossil fuels here and send back to Mars.  But it will make living there cheaper for people that are living there.

 

Edited February 25 by PeterMP

[PeterMP]

3 hours ago, Larry said:

 

Y'know. There was this guy 40-50 years ago, came to the conclusion that colonizing space itself was more economically attractive than any planet in the solar system. Did a lot of research on the subject. 

 

I don't see where space really changes things, and it has the disadvantage that you'll probably have to generate gravity if people are going to liver there (people have evolved with and so seem to depend on gravity for proper development and growth) which is expensive.

 

Assuming land on Earth isn't an issue, what can you get from colonizing space that you can't get by sending a robot there?

 

(Going back to the 1970s, I think there was an assumption that with population increases we'd run out of land on Earth and so colonizing other planets etc. would make sense in the context of relieving crowding.  But that doesn't look like it is going to happen.  I also don't think people understood what would happen in terms of computers.)

[Renegade7]

12 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

 

 

I'm not talking about safety really.  I'm talking about economics.  Sending humans isn't just dangerous.  It is expensive, especially to send humans.  And rockets being reusable just means it is cheaper for robots too.

 

Think about colonization of Americas from the Europeans.  It was expensive to get people here.  But once here, they could breathe the air, go outside, hunt, grow crops, and get energy (burn things).

 

Pretty much anywhere you send anybody, none of that's the case anywhere in the galaxy.  You're talking about not just sending people which is expensive, but then you need to essentially send everything to keep the alive which is a whole additional set of costs.  If the same thing was true for the Europeans and Americas, the Europeans would not have colonized the Americas at least not with the technology they had at the time.

 

We want metals from Titan we'll send robots.

 

The thing with if there is fossil fuels on Mars is at least there will be a relatively cheap and easy source of energy.

 

 

Nah, as long as there's water or water ice we stand a chance at hydroponics.  Seeds don't weigh that much.

 

There's more then enough in space that the reason we keep sending these drones to moon is make sure what's there we can use so we don't have to bring it from earth.  Think 3d printing using the materials of the surface itself for starters.

 

Quote

The U.S. space agency will blast a 3-D printer up to the moon and then build structures, layer by additive layer, out of a specialized lunar concrete created from the rock chips, mineral fragments and dust that sits on the top layer of the moon’s cratered surface and billows in poisonous clouds whenever disturbed — a moonshot of a plan made possible through new technology and partnerships with universities and private companies.

 

Maybe in Your Lifetime, People Will Live on the Moon and Then Mars https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/01/realestate/nasa-homes-moon-3-d-printing.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

 

One of the biggest costs of doing anything in space is leaving earth to get to space.  Once in space using what's in space the goal would be to cut that down much as possible to save money.

 

Solar isn't so much weaker on Mars that we need to bring fossils fuels with us or hope it's already there (it could be if we believe the planet was habitable at some point in the past).  But nuclear power is still an option, fusion may always feel 10-15 years away, but does feels more inevitable then impossible.

Edited February 25 by Renegade7

[PeterMP]

54 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

 

Nah, as long as there's water or water ice we stand a chance at hydroponics.  Seeds don't weigh that much.

 

There's more then enough in space that the reason we keep sending these drones to moon is make sure what's there we can use so we don't have to bring it from earth.  Think 3d printing using the materials of the surface itself for starters.

 

 

Maybe in Your Lifetime, People Will Live on the Moon and Then Mars https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/01/realestate/nasa-homes-moon-3-d-printing.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

 

One of the biggest costs of doing anything in space is leaving earth to get to space.  Once in space using what's in space the goal would be to cut that down much as possible to save money.

 

Solar isn't so much weaker on Mars that we need to bring fossils fuels with us or hope it's already there (it could be if we believe the planet was habitable at some point in the past).  But nuclear power is still an option, fusion may always feel 10-15 years away, but does feels more inevitable then impossible.

 

Yes using things in space as much as possible will be key. The problem is that there doesn't appear to much that living things actually need.  And certainly not living things vs. robots and non-human systems.

 

You need more than seeds.  You need all the things that the plant need to grow.  Even on Earth to grow food crops, we give them a bunch of fertilizer.  You either have to send it with people or have a way to make it when you get there which is energetically expensive even on Earth.

 

Building structures is one thing.  Having air, food, water, etc. are something else.

 

I didn't say we would need to take fossil fuels with us.  I said if they were there it would make it more reasonable.  Even with solar, you have to ship all the things to get solar up and going and you'll need a ton of it to keep people living.

 

Maybe some people will live there like we keep research stations on Antarctica.  But other than the odd science/technology thing, I doubt it will ever make any sense.  The economics just aren't ever going to make sense, and it doesn't look like we are going to actually need the land.

Edited February 25 by PeterMP

[Renegade7]

4 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

 

Maybe some people will live there like we keep research stations on Antarctica.  But other than the odd science/technology thing, I doubt it will ever make any sense.  The economics just aren't ever going to make sense.

 

I agree this will probably be more common until private sector can help figure out how to make it profitable for themselves. The service sector will follow where people need services and a reasonable profit can be obtained, that's jus free market being free market.

 

I'm of the belief we should try to teraform Mars even if we have to continously maintain it because the magnetosphere is too weak. We  already know how to teraform because we're doing it to Earth (albeit in a near completely uncontrolled manner right now).

 

Having two habitable planets in the solar system won't jus be worthwhile investment, it's pragmatic from a survival and redundancy standpoint.  We haven't even found another habitable planet yet, let alone developed the technology to get there, so we may be stuck with jus making one for now.

 

You once told me be careful predicting future history based on the history of the past.  I'll admit to battling balancing my optimism with realism, but history shows we don't always do what makes sense.  And sometimes all it takes is a single technological advance or leap to change the course of history entirely.

 

Wright Brothers thought transatlantic flight was crazy, current technology at the time wouldn't allow it. 

 

https://www.rte.ie/centuryireland/index.php/articles/orville-wright-dismisses-prospect-of-transatlantic-flight

 

60 years later we put a man on the moon.

[Larry]

6 hours ago, PeterMP said:

Assuming land on Earth isn't an issue, what can you get from colonizing space that you can't get by sending a robot there?

 

Well, I was discussing colonizing space as opposed to colonizing other planets. Not colonizing space as opposed to not colonizing anything. 

 

And the reasoning was that space was a place with almost unlimited free energy (solar), and virtually free transportation costs. (As long as you're not going down to or up from a gravity well.)

 

[Larry]

6 hours ago, Renegade7 said:

Wright Brothers thought transatlantic flight was crazy, current technology at the time wouldn't allow it. 

 

Recall reading a column about the difficulty of predicting societal impact of technology. The example he used was Alexander Bell's telephone being demonstrated to the public at the world's fair. 

 

He observed that the vast majority of the people seeing it didn't pay attention to it at all. And that the ones that did, almost unanimously felt that it was simply a gimmick. A trivial change to the already-existing telegraph. 

 

He did find one reporter gushing about it. Predicting that he had just witnessed something that would transform society as we know it. Maybe not instantly. Maybe not even in our lifetime. But he was a believer that some day, there will be a time where every town will have one. 

[Califan007 The Constipated]

12 hours ago, Metalhead said:

What...I have never heard of a spin launcher, didn't know there was such tech or engineering even possible. I just searched it and see that there are already people asking if humans could survive it lol.

 

 

I'm imagining something like what was in "Contact" lol...

 

[Renegade7]

59 minutes ago, Larry said:

But he was a believer that some day, there will be a time where every town will have one. 

 

I doubt even that person predicted one day damn near one in every pocket.

[PeterMP]

54 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

 

I doubt even that person predicted one day damn near one in every pocket.

 

But they didn't not predict because of the economics.  They didn't predict it because they didn't see the changes in technology coming.

 

I'm saying if there are huge changes in technology that make space travel easier then we might settle on other planets.  If we can do something like open a worm hole on Earth so that I can do something like step through a door to another planet, then that'll happen.  That's a huge jump in technology that I don't see coming, but I'll admit it is possible.

 

The telephone is actually a pretty good example.  We haven't had a big jump in technology to send humans into space in my life time (and no reusing rockets isn't a big jump to being able to get people to live in space) and the people that invented that technology are all pretty much dead.  In Bell's life time telephone lines had been run across the country to make a call from NYC to San Francisco.  

 

Larry's World Fair takes place in 1876.  By 1915 there are lines that run across the country allowing the call from NYC to SF to take place.  It was clear in Bell's life time that telephones would be a success.  von Braun died in 1977.

 

To double down on that example, Orville Wright dies in 1948.  The first commercial transatlantic flight occurs in 1939.  Orville Wright would lived to see not just the first transatlantic flight but the first commercial transatlantic flight.

Edited February 25 by PeterMP

[Renegade7]

15 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

 

But they didn't not predict because of the economics.  They didn't predict it because they didn't see the changes in technology coming.

 

I'm saying if there are huge changes in technology that make space travel easier then we might settle on other planets.  If we can do something like open a worm hole on Earth so that I can do something like step through a door to another planet, then that'll happen.  

 

The telephone is actually a pretty good example.  We haven't had a big jump in technology to send humans into space in my life time (and no reusing rockets isn't a big jump to being able to get people to live in space) and the people that invented that technology are all pretty much dead.  In Bell's life time telephone lines had been run across the country to make a call from NYC to San Francisco.  

 

Larry's World Fair takes place in 1876.  By 1915 there are lines that run across the country allowing the call from NYC to SF to take place.  It was clear in Bell's life time that telephones would be a success.  von Braun did in 1977.

 

I still believe you're underestimating the impact of cutting the cost of getting into space because of how much cheaper it is to move around in space once in space.

 

Even a space elevator would be more practical then proving something like negative energy in order to create a wormhole.

 

Fusion Rockets and even Anti-Matter rockets are more realistic then a wormhole and another game changer for just travel within our own solar system.

[PeterMP]

27 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

 

I still believe you're underestimating the impact of cutting the cost of getting into space because of how much cheaper it is to move around in space once in space.

 

Even a space elevator would be more practical then proving something like negative energy in order to create a wormhole.

 

Fusion Rockets and even Anti-Matter rockets are more realistic then a wormhole and another game changer for just travel within our own solar system.

 

I'm using worm holes as an example.  Given that there is no commercially viable way to cause fusion to happen and that controlling fusion currently requires huge amounts of energy and supporting infrastructure that can't easily be moved having a rocket fueled by fusion is a huge jump in technology.  At that point in time, you are no longer using von Braun's technology.

 

If we can build pretty cheap fusion rockets, then yes that changes things because then you have the ability to transport cheap energy.  That is essentially equivalent to finding fossil fuels on Mars because if you can run a rocket on fusion then you should be able to land a fusion generator on Mars and then you have lots of energy on Mars.  But given we have a hard time controlling fusion in multi-billion dollar complexes built to make fusion happening the idea of putting it on a rocket is so far beyond where we are, talking about doing things now because that might be possible doesn't make sense. 

 

If we can easily and safely transport what is free and clean energy, that changes things.

 

Orville Wright lived to see the first commercial transatlantic flight.  The person that builds the first fusion rocket might live to see people start to really colonize space/other planets, but I doubt that person is alive now.  First we'd have to figure out how to get fusion to actually work on Earth.

Edited February 25 by PeterMP

[Renegade7]

36 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

 

Orville Wright lived to see the first commercial transatlantic flight.  The person that builds the first fusion rocket might live to see people start to really colonize space/other planets, but I doubt that person is alive now.  First we'd have to figure out how to get fusion to actually work on Earth.

 

This right here is fair.

 

I'm frankly suprised at your pessimism on us colonizing the solar system, never is a long damn time compared not our life time.

 

Having said that, recent advances in fusion rocket research has caught my in the conversation that it may be easier to jus force the propelwnr out the back and control the reaction in space then it would be control the reaction on earth and use the energy to create electricity for the grid.

 

That suggests a fork that may not be entirely dependent on each other.

[Corcaigh]

2 hours ago, Renegade7 said:

 

I doubt even that person predicted one day damn near one in every pocket.

It would take quite the genius to predict our dystopian present where everyone has a super computer in their pocket that gives immediate access to all the world’s information and can communicate with anyone anywhere. And its primary use is for distributing 30 second dance videos by talentless amateurs.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 25 by Corcaigh

[PeterMP]

1 hour ago, Renegade7 said:

 

This right here is fair.

 

I'm frankly suprised at your pessimism on us colonizing the solar system, never is a long damn time compared not our life time.

 

Having said that, recent advances in fusion rocket research has caught my in the conversation that it may be easier to jus force the propelwnr out the back and control the reaction in space then it would be control the reaction on earth and use the energy to create electricity for the grid.

 

That suggests a fork that may not be entirely dependent on each other.

 

Just to be clear, I'm not saying we won't get to the point that it is possible.  I'm saying I don't think it will ever make economic/practical sense (unless there are large changes in technology or the life of the human life span, or it becomes necessary for military/defense purposes) and so won't happen other than the odd outpost like what we run in Antartica.  Sending humans into the solar system to bring resources back to Earth is never going to make sense vs. sending robots into the solar system to bring resources back to Earth.

 

Going back to phones and planes, prephones people were sending people letters for personal communication.  Preplanes people were shipping things back and forth to Europe.  Better/quicker ways to do that were going to be successful.  There's nothing coming and going from space now where you say doing that better/quicker is going to make sense and certainly not to send people.  Land/space on Earth does not appear as if it is going to be an issue.

 

(Well, even that I'll back off some.  As we get close to the time our sun starts to cool and die it will make sense.  I think that is supposed to happen in about 5 billion years.  So if we are here in about 4.8 billion years maybe people will start to worry about it and you'll see some movement no matter what.)

Edited February 25 by PeterMP

[CousinsCowgirl84]

13 hours ago, PeterMP said:

  The economics just aren't ever going to make sense, 

Earth has finite resources. Assuming technology can be made to travel at a reasonable speed (no more than one lifetime) and there are planets with resources like earths, eventually it seems reasonable to me that it will make economic sense to go to alternative planets because the cost of space travel will go down and the cost of earths resources will go up.

 

but I imagine that we will just send AI versions of our selves rather than actually humans because that’s probably a much easier undertaking.

[TheGreatBuzz]

Personally, I think we will turn Earth into a dystopian hellscape before the kind of things you all are discussing will be able to happen.

[PeterMP]

Just now, TheGreatBuzz said:

Personally, I think we will turn Earth into a dystopian hellscape before the kind of things you all are discussing will be able to happen.

 

I'm not ruling that out either.  That's just another way that we don't colonize other planets is if we never achieve the level of technology to do it efficiently.