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Author Topic:   Human life in Space (possible? if not, why bother about it?)
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5820 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 1 of 9 (78933)
01-16-2004 6:37 PM


In the Bush wants Mars thread I asked if people thought it was worthwhile to have manned space missions. From the nature of the negative reactions I believe a more fundamental issue should be addressed.
Space exploration by humans will be costly. Permanent settlement of humans off of earth (particularly to other planets) will be even more costly. Certainly colonization will result in little to no tangible benefits for those back on earth.
From what I understand most people feel the first is cost prohibitive enough, that the second becomes a no starter... that goes double if there is little the taxpayers will see from such an effort.
And in the end, the such colonies will need quite a bit of maintenance from earth, for what... centuries?
1) Does anyone foresee a time where manned space programs will ever be economically or socially practical (outside of a comet about to destroy the earth)?
2) If not, what is the point of space exploration of any kind? Why should anyone care what is out there and how the universe is put together if we aren't going past our atmosphere anyway?
IMO the point of exploration has the background assumption humans are going to go there. I am excited by those prospects and so why I am behind space research (including probes).
But if that is an impossible dream (technically or economically) I think it would be better to stop wasting money now (end all research outside of telescopic) and put it toward research that will have actual results humans will use.
What's the court of EVC opinion on this?

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Replies to this message:
 Message 2 by Loudmouth, posted 01-16-2004 8:10 PM Silent H has replied
 Message 4 by TechnoCore, posted 01-16-2004 10:17 PM Silent H has not replied
 Message 8 by sidelined, posted 01-26-2004 8:40 AM Silent H has replied

  
Loudmouth
Inactive Member


Message 2 of 9 (78953)
01-16-2004 8:10 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Silent H
01-16-2004 6:37 PM


Well, if you take an extremely long view, we will have to leave this planet at some point, as you alluded to with the "comet about to hit earth". However, this rationale is a very thin guise for the romantic pioneer in all of us. The reason to go to Mars is the same for going to the top of Mt. Everest: Because its there. The moon is the best first start. If we can effeciently run a colony on the moon it should be that much easier to run one on Mars. Going for both at the same time makes no sense, unless you factor in the Mt. Everest mentality.
Just a crazy idea. What if we first search Mars, via probes, and look for the signs of life. If there are none, Mars is ours to do with how we see fit ("we" as in the human race, relax non-Americans ). At this point, terraforming seems the best ticket. The colony can then be self sustaining. Of course, then we would have to wait until we have the know how to terraform a planet. Terraform through gaseous comets, icy comets, chemical reactions with surface rock resulting in oxygen and greenhouse gases? I don't know the answer, but my guess is that someone in the future may come up with the scheme.
Colony on the moon in the short term? Not a bad idea. Low gravity may be great for refining nanotechnology, and possibly other spin offs that we haven't thought of yet. Colony on Mars in the short term? Too much risk for not enough return. I can't think of anything humans can do on Mars that can't be done with probes or done in a lab here on Earth. Geology and Astronomy are probably the only fields that would be helped, I can't see biology being improved unless life was found on Mars.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Silent H, posted 01-16-2004 6:37 PM Silent H has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 3 by Silent H, posted 01-16-2004 9:40 PM Loudmouth has not replied

  
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5820 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 3 of 9 (78964)
01-16-2004 9:40 PM
Reply to: Message 2 by Loudmouth
01-16-2004 8:10 PM


Whoops. I actually agree with most of your post. I shouldn't have assumed everyone in this thread would have read my other thread first.
Personally I am for working on the moon, and using probes on mars for the short term... though I believe there could be more benefit to a manned mission to mars than most think, if experiments are conducted throughout the trip there and back. I guess that would make it more an open space/mars mission.
But I was getting the impression from responses in the other thread that even a moon base was not only unfeasible now, but that the reasons which make it unfeasible will always make it unfeasible (unless we invent cheap transporters or artificial gravity). Thus man will always (and should) stick to the earth and not venture forth.
My question then becomes, if man is going to stay here forever, what is the point of collecting data on space (other than near space phenomona) at all?

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 2 by Loudmouth, posted 01-16-2004 8:10 PM Loudmouth has not replied

  
TechnoCore
Inactive Member


Message 4 of 9 (78970)
01-16-2004 10:17 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Silent H
01-16-2004 6:37 PM


Spaceprogrammes will be economically practical pretty soon i belive.
Ever heard of the xprize ? (XPRIZE Foundation) I guess you have...
They want to jumpstart the space-tourism by giving 10million$ to the company that first manages to put three people into space (100km above earth) and do the same with the same spaceship 2weeks later.
10million$ doesn't sound much when you hear NASA's budget. But the whole idea is that NASA grew too large during the 60'th and whatever endeavor they try to take on, they will spend 100 times more $ than is nessesary.
I know I would easily pay 20.000$ or more for a trip up, if I had the opportunity. So would millions of other people. Thats a buttload of cash for a space-tourism industry.
Going to space in order to save earth... I dont know about that. That is too far away in the future to speculate about.. imho.
Thats my 2 cents.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Silent H, posted 01-16-2004 6:37 PM Silent H has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 7 by Peter, posted 01-26-2004 7:32 AM TechnoCore has not replied

  
Verzem
Inactive Member


Message 5 of 9 (78993)
01-17-2004 1:02 AM


Colonizing Space
Visualize this: The comet that has been alluded to is finally hurdling toward earth. As it strikes and causes worldwide havoc we people try to escape its wrath by climbing up on the piles of money we have saved by refusing to fund space exploration and colonization. It doesn't work. All of humanity is destroyed.
I look at the colonization of space as our insurance that we can survive as a species. We know that over the ages our planet has survived several major impacts. A couple have been very devastating to most life on the planet at the time. It is probable that we will have a few more. By spreading out and colonizing other planets throughout our galaxy, we will insure that a planetary disaster on one planet will not be our demise.
Personally, I am very grateful that explorers like Columbus, John Cabot, Henry Hudson, et al, were able to get their exploratory voyages funded. And I feel that you, who are against these types of funding, are perhaps being selfish and short-sighted. You've got yours and you want to keep it. But would you change your mind if you knew that your selfishness now means the total elimination of humanity in the future? I wonder.
And before anyone nails me about my opinion of selfishness, I am not talking about personal selfishness. You may want to spend the monies instead on funding new community centers, or feeding the poor, or saving the speckled fleebiedoo; all noble causes for sure. Rather, I'm talking about selfishness to present day humanity.
Verzem

Replies to this message:
 Message 6 by Abshalom, posted 01-17-2004 1:33 AM Verzem has not replied

  
Abshalom
Inactive Member


Message 6 of 9 (79003)
01-17-2004 1:33 AM
Reply to: Message 5 by Verzem
01-17-2004 1:02 AM


Re: Colonizing Space
Verzem: "You may want to spend the monies instead on funding new community centers, or feeding the poor, or saving the speckled fleebiedoo; all noble causes for sure."
Yes they are "noble causes." But more to the point, they are all attainable goals through the appropriate application of existing resources.
Verzem: "I feel that you, who are against [space exploration] funding, are perhaps being selfish and short-sighted."
Mostly just short-sighted and dense.
Verzem: "And before anyone nails me about my opinion of selfishness, I am not talking about personal selfishness ... Rather, I'm talking about selfishness to present day humanity."
Not really selfishness at all, Verzem. The funding of NASA to date has resulted in an unbelievable array of benefits to humanity. Everything from those little green scrubby pads, microbiotic air and liquid filters, brain and breast imaging technology, infra-red earth imaging and aerial photography advances related to climatology and ecology, GIS/GPS for security, hazmat, and all kinds of life-promoting technologies, plus many other medical and technological advances that promotes quality life worldwide.
And again, the fact is, with the appropriate exploitation and application of existing human, natural, technological, and economic resources, humankind can enjoy and share with other species an improved quality of life both on this planet and others; and a whole lot of that is due to what we've learned from the space program.
So, promote your views, Verzem, they are right on!

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 Message 5 by Verzem, posted 01-17-2004 1:02 AM Verzem has not replied

  
Peter
Member (Idle past 1479 days)
Posts: 2161
From: Cambridgeshire, UK.
Joined: 02-05-2002


Message 7 of 9 (80815)
01-26-2004 7:32 AM
Reply to: Message 4 by TechnoCore
01-16-2004 10:17 PM


quote:
Going to space in order to save earth... I dont know about that. That is too far away in the future to speculate about.. imho.
That's what the dinosaurs said!

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 Message 4 by TechnoCore, posted 01-16-2004 10:17 PM TechnoCore has not replied

  
sidelined
Member (Idle past 5908 days)
Posts: 3435
From: Edmonton Alberta Canada
Joined: 08-30-2003


Message 8 of 9 (80821)
01-26-2004 8:40 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Silent H
01-16-2004 6:37 PM


Holmes
I am curious if anyone has an idea of how much it would cost to efficiently send one person to a moon base and maintain them for a period of,say,40 years. This would of course be one man of many that would be required to live on the moon for this great length of time in order to assure that the operation of a moon base was cost efficient. This is not like sending people to remote regions of earth to work. You simply cannot have a large force of people commuting back and forth even on a yearly basis since,initially,any return to earth would have to carry return fuel.
Does anyone have any idea of how many people would be required in order to build a moon base? Take a look at one of the major offshore oilrigs and see the cost of maintaining surroundings for its crew and then tell us how much more exponential would be the cost of assuring a large crew of men and equipment and power sources would be capable of doing the work required in an airless enviroment 250,000 miles away.
And everything else not withstanding how do we respond to a catastrophic emergency. In the long course of building what would be the most complex equipment and spacecraft ever built how do you economically withstand,say, a shipment of supplies to the colony?
I am not trying to dampen the idea of space exploration but until we can minimize the attitudes prevalent within large organizations like NASA concerning pressure to perform because of the extraordinary amount of investment such an undertaking would require
in the face of obvious signs of danger {a la challenger} then perhaps exploration on that scale should be curtailed.

'Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts.'
(Daniel Patrick Moynihan)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Silent H, posted 01-16-2004 6:37 PM Silent H has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 9 by Silent H, posted 01-26-2004 11:53 AM sidelined has not replied

  
Silent H
Member (Idle past 5820 days)
Posts: 7405
From: satellite of love
Joined: 12-11-2002


Message 9 of 9 (80852)
01-26-2004 11:53 AM
Reply to: Message 8 by sidelined
01-26-2004 8:40 AM


quote:
I am curious if anyone has an idea of how much it would cost to efficiently send one person to a moon base and maintain them for a period of,say,40 years.
I should get this out of the way now and state that if all we are going to put on the moon is one person, let's not do anything. As it is things like this are cheaper by the dozen.
With that in mind, there are no real estimates as to how much this would cost.
quote:
This is not like sending people to remote regions of earth to work. You simply cannot have a large force of people commuting back and forth even on a yearly basis since,initially,any return to earth would have to carry return fuel.
The highest fuel consumption will be earth to moon, not moon to earth. In fact there is no reason why an electric "cannon" could not be made on the moon to throw capsules back to the earth, and then all they would need is small amounts of fuel for rotations/minor course corrections. Such a cannon would be easy to power (solar) and maintain (no weather to damage it). And the power requirements would not be too heavy as the gravity is a small fraction of earth's.
Again, this is why the moon as a probe manufacture/launching platform is so much more practical than doing it from earth.
quote:
Does anyone have any idea of how many people would be required in order to build a moon base? Take a look at one of the major offshore oilrigs...
Again, no. Though I would be willing to wager the costs will be higher for engineering designs, rather than materials and labor. Building on the moon would be much easier than building an oilrig. Those are massive structures that require intensive structural supports to survive atmospheric and oceanic conditions. The most a moon base has to deal with is temperature, radiation, gravity, and internal/external air pressure. And thankfully temperature and gravity are generally constants.
It has already been shown that most of the moonbase buildings can be constructed from filling bags with moondust and piling them into igloo like structures. Yeah, its really not THAT hard. With time the makeshift igloos can be replaced with structures carved into the moon itself.
The hardest part IMO, will be creating good airlocks, an aesthetically livable environment, and a self-sustaining ecosphere. We cannot keep shipping up food and water and air. It has to be recycled to some degree.
quote:
work required in an airless enviroment 250,000 miles away.
Submarines have stayed underwater for more than three months. I believe even for longer than 6 months. In addition you mentioned oil rigs. How many divers were used to construct those rigs, and spend almost their entire professional life in an airless environment.
Airlessness and distance is not the issue.
quote:
And everything else not withstanding how do we respond to a catastrophic emergency. In the long course of building what would be the most complex equipment and spacecraft ever built how do you economically withstand,say, a shipment of supplies to the colony?
We deal with emergencies how we always have. We try to find ways out of them, and when we can't we mourn the loss and move on. I think this paragraph shows an exteremely self-defeating attitude.
As far as how super-advanced this has to be... we made it to the moon using 1960's technology. With that we could have set up a moon base. How super-technological do we really have to get?
And supply ships do not have to be sophisticated at all. If they are unmanned can also be much less expensive.
quote:
I am not trying to dampen the idea of space exploration but until we can minimize the attitudes prevalent within large organizations like NASA concerning pressure to perform because of the extraordinary amount of investment such an undertaking would require in the face of obvious signs of danger {a la challenger} then perhaps exploration on that scale should be curtailed.
And how exactly will this ever change? You are talking about humans doing human things. Emergencies will continue to happen. Some for unseen reasons (apollo 13), some for human reasons (challenger). Some emergencies will be tragedies. We just have to keep trying for the best and learn from our mistakes.
Your suggestion sounds curiously like telling NASA to go to their bedroom to think about what they did, and not to come out until they are ready to never do it again. I see that working as well as it does for any other kid sent to their room... not at all.
If you have a problem with bureacracy then I am totally with you. Having worked at a major "science based" government agency, both in house and then as a contractor, I know how bad bureacracy is and the dangers it poses.
But I am not prepared to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 8 by sidelined, posted 01-26-2004 8:40 AM sidelined has not replied

  
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