this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2023
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Going to space actually is important for a long list of reasons, has made humanity better and who knows, might even save it as we're on a crash course with this earth. I know, I know, saving it is easier and better, but interest in doing that can't be found
I feel like FFXIV Endwalker sort of mocked this; the idea that our future lies in the stars.
We won’t get a better chance than here. Most sci-fi books expect space colonization within this millennia, which is a bit of a pipe dream and glosses over issues of atmospheric livability.
Heh Sci-Fi talks a lot about atmospheric livibility, like if anything it talks way too much about it.
Oh I know that a "future in between the stars" is going to be extremely complicated and hard, if possible at all. Going to live on Mars is already close to a pipe dream yeah.
But that doesn't mean that space exploration and travel itself is bad. There are loads of reasons why it's good and necessary and we should invest more in it; take money from the military instead.
Is the long list written anywhere ? And are they practical right now to everybody kind of reasons, or are they "in this hypothetical far future" kind of reasons ?
I know it's cool and all, but we know how to shoot things into space already.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spinoff_technologies
It's really not a difficult thing to find my dude
Going to space now. I know nasa has contributed to humanity. They are even planing to make a radio telescope on the moon. Spacex is... putting internet into space. Internet.. into space. Instead of laying fiber and building radio towers, burning fuel to put a lot of satelites that need to be periodically replaced. They are even making the same mistakes that others have learned from. If that money went into proper research on just about anything.. If that money went into fiber.. If that money went to nasa, that is doing something actually useful. That money and work is going into burning fuel.
And yea, i get it, rockets are cool. Space is cool. But spacex is not about advancing humanity or anything.
That money IS going to NASA, and then NASA decided it was a worthwhile investment to work with SpaceX to transport astronauts to the space station, resupply the station, and be an important research partner in autonomous landing systems, full-flow staged combustion engines, and many many more.
The rest of the money is coming from commercial launch customers, government and private customers alike.
Also, fiber internet doesn't do you any good while you're in the air or on the sea.
There are already enough satelites for airplane and sea (and middle of rainforest) internet. Skylink, or whatever it's called, was made for price gauged, infrastructure money laundered, usaians. Actually idk what it's made for. I don't see the point of private rocket companies at all. Guy was talking like elon, how we need to escape earth or something. Like it's not our problem.
theres no actual reason more than curiosity. dont get me started on colonization of other planets
GPS? Weather satellites?
The massive return on investment of the ISS?
Oh, please do, I'm curious.
its basically impossible to sustain a reasonably sized population on mars. like antarctica, except it takes like 18 months or something to get there. i dont believe that anything as dramatic as terraforming is practical or even possible. who will be allowed to go to mars? most likely only the rich. why dont we invest more money and resources into fixing our current planet? overpopulation can be avoided if we plan cities better, advocate contraception, etc. certainly more believable than sending a large portion of people to another whole planet. even if we could: should we? it would create a massive social divide. and who is running this whole thing? so far it seems like elon musk is the most mainstream advocator of this idea. would you like if your entire planet was owned by him. good luck forming a union on sector 7 of the oxygen plantation.
Living on Mars would be miserable. If colonization ever happens, it'll be because there's money to be made, and it'll be poor people who are send to die in the Mars mines or whatever.
yeah true
And it has less than half of Earth's gravity and no magnetosphere. Anyone who lived there long time will have their muscles atrophy and be irradiated.
I'd also like to add that the amount you'd need to terraphorm Mars you could just... do to Earth. I think a lot of the points you made are valid, but some of those questions are pretty hypothetical.
Idk, I think it'd be neat for humanity to go off planet and extrasolar. Even if it's not a priority, you can't really do that unless you're working towards it. Doesn't really matter to me regardless, I'll be long dead before it happens.
exactly. but spacex d***riders who believe mars is the future are retarded
I have no disagreement beyond your description of them. I agree that they're sycophantic dipshits.
Like, Mars doesn't have a magnetosphere. How the fuck do you make one of those? How do you make the gravity stronger?
Right click on Mars and edit properties. Gosh it's like you've never played Universe Sandbox.
Asteroid mining would mean no more mining on our planet, which is one of the most polluting things on here right now.
what are they mining?
metals
wow that narrows it down to only 2/3 of elements
yes? that is the point?
Pretty sure that except for the ones that we have to make in a particle accelerator, we could get the full list.
They can mine whatever we need, one of the first targets is titanium because it's very abundant up there, scarce down here, and incredibly useful for all sorts of chemistry and manufacturing
what do you even live for if curiosity is not enough of a reason to do something
maybe bc there are more important things to worry about on earth
put your phone down and start working the fields. you do not deserve anything that came out of space programs.
Going to space can help us solve a lot of the problems we have on earth
You know there is a thing called division of labour right?
We can have people working on multiple problems at the same time and various efforts might overlap and have a larger effect.
You are now aware of this concept.
Colonization, if ever possible, definitely is a good reason
Other good reasons are simply science. There are too many advancements made that would not have happened without going to space. Having satellites is a requirement now to monitor the earth and -if still possible- save it.
Of course there are bullshit projects like star link, dumping hundreds, thousands of tiny shit satellites up on the sky even though it's completely unnecessary... but that is a rich asshole problem more than a space problem
Satellite imagery is incredibly useful, especially for those looking to help the planet.