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Modest Mao posted:I'll take that as a no It's not a no, but okay mister crazy "why don't we terraform the moon".
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Jun 17, 2015 16:44
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Terraforming the moon is easy all we need is Project Genesis and maybe an Indian superhuman.
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Jun 17, 2015 16:49
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Bip Roberts posted:GPS was built by DoD from the start and even if the nascent NASA space program never existed there were parallel military space agencies who would have built satellite networks without a civilian space program. Are you seriously telling us that GPS shouldn't count as a product of the space program because if there wasn't a space program a different space program would have built it? What kind of asinine shell game is that?
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Jun 17, 2015 16:52
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Modest Mao posted:Mars has pretty low gravity, and while it does have an atmosphere could it ever sustain an atmosphere that wasn't lethal to human beings? Yes it could. Not on geologic timescales (millions of years), since Mars has no magnetic field to prevent the solar wind from stripping the atmosphere away over time - that's what happened to its original atmosphere 2 billion years ago. But if we create an atmosphere, it'll be around for a long time. Low surface gravity isn't really a factor - Titan, Saturn's moon, has a lower surface gravity than our moon (which is substantially lower than Mars) and still has an atmospheric pressure at the surface thats 140% of Earth's.
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Jun 17, 2015 17:03
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I only mention the moon because it's an equally absurd notion , yet no one (not just in this thread) wants to talk about that idea because it hasn't been romanticized recently. Humans evolved on earth and we're great at living here, we can live 100 years in almost any part of the surface. We're absolute poo poo at living anywhere else. It would be better to develop advanced androids or cyborgs or other forms of human intelligence in a different package as those have immediate benefits on earth as well as making the idea of having human intelligence on other heavily bodies at least somewhat feasible
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Jun 17, 2015 17:05
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Jarmak posted:Are you seriously telling us that GPS shouldn't count as a product of the space program because if there wasn't a space program a different space program would have built it? What kind of asinine shell game is that? I don't want to speak for him, but I don't think that that's what he is saying. It is an amusing example of how people mistakenly credit technologies to NASA though.
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Jun 17, 2015 17:05
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Modest Mao posted:I only mention the moon because it's an equally absurd notion , yet no one (not just in this thread) wants to talk about that idea because it hasn't been romanticized recently. It's funny because from where I'm sitting it looks like we actually only do well in a pretty narrow range of environments, and we recreate that environment everywhere we go, and as technology has progressed, we've been able to take that environment into greater and greater extremes.
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Jun 17, 2015 17:32
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kaxman posted:It's funny because from where I'm sitting it looks like we actually only do well in a pretty narrow range of environments, and we recreate that environment everywhere we go, and as technology has progressed, we've been able to take that environment into greater and greater extremes. nah we're good just about everywhere that isn't desert or the ocean, and while we make shelters that's more of an extended phenotype type of thing. I've been in 35C and been fine and in -40C and been fine, sea level and high altitude, my body can cope with any of those for several hours at a time at minimum. Humans are omnivores too, and before civilization we settled most places on earth, and of the few places we didn't it was mostly just because we didn't find them yet or they were desert. The only places on earth I can think of where you would die from just being there (rather than starvation, preventable exposure / heatstroke, thirst) are extreme elevations like mount everest, antarctica, and under the sea. Modest Mao fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Jun 17, 2015 |
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Jun 17, 2015 17:40
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GlyphGryph posted:You can't spell GPS without NASA. Unfortunately, others are correct: This was entirely a DoD project. Now, NASA worked out a lot of the issues with Rockets blowing up, especially the ones that ended up carrying the GPS sats. So, yes NASA has a hand in getting them there. No, GPS is not their product.
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Jun 17, 2015 19:22
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CommieGIR posted:Again, you make too many assumption about the ability to produce a working remote device within a strict time period. What strict time period? We can build a drill robot any time we want. Why? Why bother? Space is far too big and far too lovely to be worth bothering with. Manned spaceflight isn't just a dead end, it's a waste of money and lives at a scale that makes polar exploration and tall mountain climbing look productive and useful by comparison. DrSunshine posted:Look, it's obvious that some people won't be convinced by utilitarian arguments for space research. So how about this: Because it's interesting and cool. Isn't there merit to space exploration just simply on the basis of it being inherently interesting? That the thought of human scientists someday visiting other planets in our solar system and discovering things is actually kind of neat, and wouldn't be impossible given present-day technology? I think that pure curiosity and wonder is a fine thing, and that it would be good to embark on missions -- with unmanned missions eventually leading the way to manned ones -- to other planets, just because it's an inherently neat thing to do. If "because it's interesting and cool" was a good reason to do anything, we wouldn't have to hunt for excuses to bomb Middle Eastern women and children with semi-autonomous drones. After all, missiles and bombs and fighter planes and robots are all things that are traditionally considered "cool" in modern American society. CommieGIR posted:Our species right now is dependent upon massive amounts of agriculture. Please tell me where we are getting that post strike. Where are we going to get agriculture on an asteroid or Mars or a giant tin can in the sky? I'd say that if we have the technological abilities necessary to put the entire human race on Mars, then we don't need to have a Mars colony, because we're also perfectly capable of supporting the human population on Earth through a nuclear winter for a hundredth of the cost. "Dealing with dust and cold" is a lot easier than "dealing with dust, cold, weaker sunlight, no liquid water, a thinner and much different atmosphere that doesn't block much radiation, no microorganisms, soil which lacks important nutrients and is also incredibly toxic to plant and animal life, and so on". I'm not saying it's impossible to colonize Mars, but if we are capable of doing it then we won't need to do it, because undoing or coping with a nuclear winter is much, much easier than colonizing another planet. And, more to the point, we don't need to be capable of dealing with such a profoundly hostile environment as another planet in order to geoengineer away a moderate climate disaster.
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Jun 17, 2015 21:21
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Main Paineframe posted:Why? Why bother? Space is far too big and far too lovely to be worth bothering with. Manned spaceflight isn't just a dead end, it's a waste of money and lives at a scale that makes polar exploration and tall mountain climbing look productive and useful by comparison.  "Guys, space is haaaaard, its to big and difficult, lets just stay home because its haaaaaaarddddd" Do you even know how many people were killed trying to cross the ocean in the early days of transcontinental oceanic voyages? Holy poo poo dude, your chances were pretty low of coming back alive. You had a better chance of surviving even the earliest space mission than you did coming back from early oceanic voyages, and we are not much more farther along than they were. Main Paineframe posted:Where are we going to get agriculture on an asteroid or Mars or a giant tin can in the sky? I'd say that if we have the technological abilities necessary to put the entire human race on Mars, then we don't need to have a Mars colony, because we're also perfectly capable of supporting the human population on Earth through a nuclear winter for a hundredth of the cost. "Dealing with dust and cold" is a lot easier than "dealing with dust, cold, weaker sunlight, no liquid water, a thinner and much different atmosphere that doesn't block much radiation, no microorganisms, soil which lacks important nutrients and is also incredibly toxic to plant and animal life, and so on". I'm not saying it's impossible to colonize Mars, but if we are capable of doing it then we won't need to do it, because undoing or coping with a nuclear winter is much, much easier than colonizing another planet. And, more to the point, we don't need to be capable of dealing with such a profoundly hostile environment as another planet in order to geoengineer away a moderate climate disaster. Look, we get it. You think space is too expensive and too hard while you are unable to find rationalities for the other MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE AND DIFFICULT THINGS. Go cry somewhere else, troll. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Jun 17, 2015 |
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Jun 17, 2015 21:26
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Nothing as butthurt and irrational as a nerd told they won't be sent to space.
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Jun 17, 2015 21:46
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Crossing the ocean who knows what you'll find, maybe riches or fertile land, foreign cultures to make trade with. Crossing the solar system we know exactly what you'll find and its not really worth the trip. Also there's no atmosphere.
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Jun 17, 2015 21:52
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considering the terrors unleashed on the world as a result of ocean travel i think it's p obvs that it was not a worthwhile use of human effort
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Jun 17, 2015 22:32
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You'd think people would avoid being seen as a comical misanthrope by writing that reaching the poles and climbing Everest were irresponsible wastes of money, yet here we are.
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Jun 17, 2015 23:07
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CommieGIR posted:Look, we get it. You think space is too expensive and too hard while you are unable to find rationalities for the other MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE AND DIFFICULT THINGS. Look, trying to justify science experiments in space on the basis that they will be important technologically is a really hard sell. When you propose new possible economical and technological applications for space travel and settlement, you fail to consider other better non-space alternatives which are cheaper and more practical. When you make comparisons to previous explorations on Earth, you are missing really big differences between space and earth that make your comparisons tenuous. If you want to justify science experiments in space, just say that they deserve to be funded on the basis of curiosity, exploration, and pure science alone. There's no need to make up a bunch of technology bullshit to try to justify it. Same goes with experimental high energy physics and their exorbitant particle colliders. silence_kit fucked around with this message at 23:33 on Jun 17, 2015 |
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Jun 17, 2015 23:30
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Effectronica posted:You'd think people would avoid being seen as a comical misanthrope by writing that reaching the poles and climbing Everest were irresponsible wastes of money, yet here we are. hahaha oh man you dont know about the gbs everest thread do you?
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Jun 17, 2015 23:38
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CommieGIR posted:
The only reason anyone bothered with transcontinental oceanic voyages was in search of tremendous wealth. That's why I compared space travel to the almost entirely pointless polar and mountain expeditions instead, which were done purely for dickwaving and glory after every place actually worth exploring had already been claimed.
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Jun 18, 2015 00:18
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Colonizing (let alone terraforming) Mars is a centuries long project. Currently anything but the tiniest of baby steps in that direction (robotic scouting, short manned visits) is way out of our reach. It's sort of silly to argue about whether it should happen or if it should be advocated for - it's too far out. Visiting Mars is very possible, and it should be done. Partly because it's exciting and cool, partly because learning more about Mars and what it takes to live there would be meaningful knowledge on its own, and partly because learning more about Mars and how it died can tell us more about Earth and how we might avoid killing it. The last reason is the most important. The Great Project in front of us, right now, is the saving of Earth. We've got a fuckton of people living in miserable conditions, we're wrecking ecologies left and right, global warming is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. This is the battle we're going to fight in our lifetimes. If you believe in the nobility of the human spirit, in our great collective destiny out in the universe, great - this is step zero. Clean up home. So count yourself lucky - you're (presumably) fairly young and the reality of this threat has only somewhat recently been realized. The problem has been set very neatly in our collective laps. Our grandchildren will either despise us for our inaction and hedging, or be blissfully ignorant of the shitstorm we saved them from. We have decades to solve this, but decades only. Part of that effort has to be learning more about the Earth as a whole - that's where NASA comes in. Earth Science needs to be ramped way the hell up. The other planets in our solar system need to be studied to find out more about how planets themselves change and are changed. Exoplanets can probably provide closer analogues to Earth than what we find around our sun. This is important and worthy work no matter what, but it helps give (at the very least) a fuller context for our Great Project. And maybe some surprising insights too. So, yes, send geologists to Mars. Drill down to Europa's ocean. Stare longer and harder at the worlds of other suns. Stare longer and harder at our own. Build particle accelerators. Sequence genomes. We need all the help we can get. And not just knowledge, but action. Bold action, visible action, like climbing mountains that are above two thirds of the atmosphere. But be relieved - all the obvious grand gestures have been made. All the physical mountains summited. You don't have to walk to the south pole or fly solo around the world. But there's still a lot of work left to do. Go photograph every single resident of Kiribati, an island nation in the Pacific - there's only ~100,000 of them across 34 islands and atolls. And their country is going to be one of the first to disappear in the rising ocean. Help develop the regulatory standards for self driving cars, the use of which will massively decrease greenhouse emissions. Build and repair bikes for poor people. poo poo, be like the guy I'm cribbing a lot of this from, and advocate for environmentalism and a strong focus on Earth by writing hard science fiction that incorporates those themes (Kim Stanley Robinson). There's something you can do. There's something we can all do.
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Jun 18, 2015 00:21
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Main Paineframe posted:The only reason anyone bothered with transcontinental oceanic voyages was in search of tremendous wealth. That's why I compared space travel to the almost entirely pointless polar and mountain expeditions instead, which were done purely for dickwaving and glory after every place actually worth exploring had already been claimed. And nearly every one of the initial groups died. So what is your point? Great endeavors are worth doing simply because they are great and challenging. If that isn't a good enough reason on its own to go, well then we might as well just stop pretending we care about keeping this civilization going.
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Jun 18, 2015 00:49
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Raskolnikov38 posted:hahaha oh man you dont know about the gbs everest thread do you? GBS posters aren't people.
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Jun 18, 2015 01:10
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Mars extra sucks because its core is dead. The lack of a magnetosphere will let the solar wind blast off any terraformed atmosphere. Skip Mars and aim high, Titan is the coolest thing in the solar system and is chock full of useful poo poo like hydrocarbons. Edit: and in a couple billion years when the sun balloons up and scours the biosphere from the Earth the spacefaring cephalopods of the far future can find the glorious wreckage of our civilization when they flee to the outer solar system. bij fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Jun 18, 2015 |
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Jun 18, 2015 01:19
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Potential BFF posted:Mars extra sucks because its core is dead. The lack of a magnetosphere will let the solar wind blast off any terraformed atmosphere. Skip Mars and aim high, Titan is the coolest thing in the solar system and is chock full of useful poo poo like hydrocarbons. I'm all for this. Mars is a nice stepping stone, but there are better targets. But getting to Mars will prove we can do it.
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Jun 18, 2015 01:37
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Spazzle posted:Nothing as butthurt and irrational as a nerd told they won't be sent to space. Main Paineframe posted:Why? Why bother? Space is far too big and far too lovely to be worth bothering with. Manned spaceflight isn't just a dead end, it's a waste of money and lives at a scale that makes polar exploration and tall mountain climbing look productive and useful by comparison.
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Jun 18, 2015 03:08
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rudatron posted:Do you only support a policy if it benefits you, personally? I have no expectations of being sent into space, yet I still think it's a project worth working towards. I don't think CommieGIR has ever expressed any similar personal expectations for themselves, so it seems like you're projecting your own selfish mindset on others. I never expected to be sent to space 
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Jun 18, 2015 03:17
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CommieGIR posted:I'm all for this. Mars is a nice stepping stone, but there are better targets. But getting to Mars will prove we can do it. Why Mars? Why not Titan? Why do we need a stepping stone?
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Jun 18, 2015 03:20
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clammy posted:Why Mars? Why not Titan? Why do we need a stepping stone? Because Mars is the next nearest planetary object, and is a good way to test long range transport systems and the viability of landing and POSSIBLY even returning from a deep space mission.
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Jun 18, 2015 03:27
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rudatron posted:Do you only support a policy if it benefits you, personally? I have no expectations of being sent into space, yet I still think it's a project worth working towards. I don't think CommieGIR has ever expressed any similar personal expectations for themselves, so it seems like you're projecting your own selfish mindset on others. Do you wear a spacesuit made out of straw?
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Jun 18, 2015 03:31
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Spazzle posted:Do you wear a spacesuit made out of straw? ......what?
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Jun 18, 2015 03:41
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clammy posted:Why Mars? Why not Titan? Why do we need a stepping stone? The further out ya got bases to launch from, and potentially raw materials to manufacture from, the cheaper and easier the whole thing gets.
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Jun 18, 2015 03:43
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Spazzle posted:Do you wear a spacesuit made out of straw?
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Jun 18, 2015 04:04
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rudatron posted:Do you own a house made out of glass? Slightly on topic: http://gizmodo.com/a-russian-offici...dium=socialflow quote:Calling for ‘international investigations’ into the ‘murky’ details surrounding the Apollo Moon missions is normally the preserve of 4chan and tinfoil hat-wearers. But now, you can add Russian Investigative Commission spokesperson Vladimir Markin to that illustrious list. Between this and Russia announcing growing their weapons stockpile, all is well in Mother Russia.
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Jun 18, 2015 04:16
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Effectronica posted:GBS posters aren't people. ...but they are funny. Sometimes.
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Jun 18, 2015 07:29
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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Prolonged Priapism posted:The Great Project in front of us, right now, is the saving of Earth. We've got a fuckton of people living in miserable conditions, we're wrecking ecologies left and right, global warming is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. This is the battle we're going to fight in our lifetimes. If you believe in the nobility of the human spirit, in our great collective destiny out in the universe, great - this is step zero. Clean up home. So count yourself lucky - you're (presumably) fairly young and the reality of this threat has only somewhat recently been realized. The problem has been set very neatly in our collective laps. Our grandchildren will either despise us for our inaction and hedging, or be blissfully ignorant of the shitstorm we saved them from. Saving the Earth is gonna be a lot harder than colonizing Mars though. Mars has the major benefit of not being full of people with a vested interested in insuring Mars is never colonized. The Earth is full of people with a vested interest in preventing things here from ever being good. One of the things that goes a long way towards making things good here on earth is to give a divided people a common external challenge they must work together to overcome. Maybe these goals aren't actually at odds, in the long run?
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Jun 18, 2015 14:48
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CommieGIR posted:And nearly every one of the initial groups died. Do you have any definition for "great endeavor" beyond "what I think is cool"? For bonus points, try coming up with one I can't just turn around and immediately Godwin with, because if your definition is just "it was a vast and difficult task that no white European or American had ever succeeded at before" then that doesn't just cover new places! Of course, it doesn't really matter anyway, because why should we do things just because they're "great" and challenging? What the hell does unwillingness to engage in incredibly dangerous and entirely pointless expensive boondoggles for absolutely no reason other than a positively Victorian flavor of idiocy have to do with the survival of civilization? Humanity isn't going to die out if we stop sending men on pointless glory-seeking missions to inhospitable, worthless shitholes. CommieGIR posted:......what? I assume he's accusing rudatron of strawmanning by equating "manned spaceflight is dumb and useless, let's not bother with it" to "all life is futile, why bother doing anything".
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Jun 18, 2015 16:44
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Main Paineframe posted:I assume he's accusing rudatron of strawmanning by equating "manned spaceflight is dumb and useless, let's not bother with it" to "all life is futile, why bother doing anything". Its not a strawman if that is what you guys are literally arguing. Including your post above. Main Paineframe posted:Do you have any definition for "great endeavor" beyond "what I think is cool"? For bonus points, try coming up with one I can't just turn around and immediately Godwin with, because if your definition is just "it was a vast and difficult task that no white European or American had ever succeeded at before" then that doesn't just cover new places! Again, life is sooooo difficult, we should stop doing all things great and challenging because lifffffeeeee You don't like it. Good for you. Doesn't matter. Don't go to space. Others think its a great challenge for humanity. I'm sorry you feel differently, but that does not justify arguing that we need to cut NASA funding ASAP because 'Its a waste and its stupid' when we still manage to do it with an insignificant 0.5% of every tax dollar. Seriously, are you Ted Cruz or David Inhofe?
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Jun 18, 2015 18:03
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I am literally Hitler, Stalin, and Dracula. This is why I oppose manned spaceflight.
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Jun 18, 2015 18:09
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In actual reality, comparing climbing Everest to the Holocaust would get you quietly ignored, possibly Baker Acted. On the Internet we tolerate obvious delusions more, and so that kind of statement receives considered responses. But this is a mistake- it detours from the central conflict, which is ultimately about aggrieved jackasses of all kinds wanting revenge against a boogeyman figure- the nerd. Meaningful conversation will not happen until this is recognized.
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Jun 18, 2015 18:34
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CommieGIR posted:
Who cares if it's a great challenge? Jumping off a bridge without a parachute and surviving is pretty challenging too, but I feel like it would be a waste of my time, a pointless risk, with no benefit gotten from trying it and succeeding other than having my name in the news for a few days. "It's hard" is not, by itself, a good reason to do anything, unless you're a glory-seeking Victorian with too much free time and delusions of grandeur. There are plenty of other things in this world that we do have good reason to do, and some of them are even hard - like, for example, using that precious space funding on sending up more communications satellites instead of wasting it on worthless glorified baby carriers for delusional fighter jockeys.
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Jun 18, 2015 18:36
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Main Paineframe posted:Who cares if it's a great challenge? Jumping off a bridge without a parachute and surviving is pretty challenging too, but I feel like it would be a waste of my time, a pointless risk, with no benefit gotten from trying it and succeeding other than having my name in the news for a few days. Okay. Stop here. You are comparing real engineering and scientific endeavors to jumping off a bridge. Regardless of how small the contribution each mission gives, it energizes children and adults to want to do more things that contribute to real world advances and missions. Well done. Thanks for contributing to the thread. Main Paineframe posted:There are plenty of other things in this world that we do have good reason to do, and some of them are even hard - like, for example, using that precious space funding on sending up more communications satellites instead of wasting it on worthless glorified baby carriers for delusional fighter jockeys. And we do them. You are pretending as if NASA, or the ESA, or the Russian Program's existence STOPS such things from happening. Again, you are pointing fingers at NASA and saying "What a waste, surely we can do better things with this money" when the money is already there to do those better things, but is stopped by morons with political god complexes that honestly treat social and sociological issues as their personal toys. You are attacking the wrong target, and frankly its really boring to argue with someone who is barely trying to hide their poor trolling record. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Jun 18, 2015 |
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Jun 18, 2015 18:41
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