The Astronomy Thread

Dandain

Dandain

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I'm all in for resource collection - that's a necessary technology without a doubt, but my perception of Tuco's argument is that we shouldn't do anything that isn't 100% sustainable before we do it. We need to get the clock ticking on how much living beyond Earth fucks up the human body.
 
Erronius

Erronius

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I dunno, when I read what Tuco has posted, it seems like he's questioning the wisdom of anACTUALcolony at this point, not a research base.

Tuco_sl said:
I know I'm belabouring this point, I just think the focus on 'colonizing' mars is short-sighted. You can't just drop ship a Mayflower's worth of tough dudes on Mars and life uhh... finds a way. At best you can conduct some experiments, see what surprises happen and get some cool tech from the project itself.

But why am I so against Mars colonization? Because asteroid mining has actual upside and a path to colonization off Earth. Yes, we're working on both, but the human conciousness is so tied to the idea of colonizing another planet that we'd rather spend billions on a massive Mars landing / colonization project for little gain and relegate asteroid mining to B-String status. That is, until the private industry finally does what NASA should be doing.
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Tuco

Tuco

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Dandain_sl said:
I don't understand your resistance to a research base on Mars Tuco, regardless of how self sufficient it is at the start or not. We didn't chose the solar system we inhabit. We only really have one in system candidate to chose from as a practical first step to engage in this. If its worth doing at all, its clearly worth doing on Mars. The "first" human settlement on another planet certainly isn't going to be 1 star system over. And we most certainly do need individuals to live substantial amounts of their lives on Mars in clear view of all the risks. We need to see human development in deep space. We need to see the necessity of things like artificial gravity, shielding, etc. The first people on Mars are there for a 2 year stay, we need to find out what kind of health consequence that has. The ISS cannot simulate Mars. I merely view every piece of data we can gather as valuable to the big picture, the data is a gateway to taking future steps.

I'd also suggest that we are much much much further away from an economic hub style space station, than a research colony on Mars.
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I think the primary disagreement between us is that you see planetary colonization as the primary method of off-earth colonization. I see it as a secondary colonization to colonizing large asteroids and space stations.

If we spent the 500 billion or whatever it'd take to colonize Mars with a 10 person team for 2 years, what would we get at the end of those two years? What would we get if we spent that money on asteroid mining?

The Cost of Living on Mars1.jpg
 
iannis

iannis

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Brought to you by: The Check Cashin place.

I just thought that was funny. The rest of it is interesting.
 
Dandain

Dandain

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How much cheaper do you imagine this large scale asteroid harvesting is? What would 500BN of asteroid infrastructure get us as a counter question? How exactly are we utilizing your harvested material? What and where are we building with it?

We'd certainly have 10 years of data with trained human scientists doing nothing but science. Including 10 years of what Martian gravity does to the body. That will answer countless questions. There are also reproductive, animal and plant questions. And various others that must be answered first. The clock will continue to tick in regards to this information. Until we have it, we still need it. The cost or profit are not the primary good here. A cost/benefit analysis with a Capitalism mindset doesn't exactly make Mars or any asteroid project look all that good of an investment. But its not about the return of profit its about the return of knowledge.

Asteroid mining is going to have some legit insurance premiums if they steer large rocks towards Earth (with the goal of barely missing) for processing, The ultimate Terrorist hijack. As an emotional plee at least at the end of 10 years on we won't have a mass extinction event from a Mars colony.
 
Palum

Palum

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Yea, I dunno. I think in general from a practical perspective in the near term:

Robotic exploration > Robotic resource gathering > Human exploration > Human colonialism.

That isn't to say the ultimate goal isn't colonizing other worlds but we'll clearly need at least rare Earth metals outside of Earth before we get to that stage and at this point there's no reason to abandon robotics in that pursuit.
 
LachiusTZ

LachiusTZ

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Tuco_sl said:
. You expecting people to stay on Mars for many years?
. What's the specific value of that? What will we learn that we don't know already?
. Is it really? Or is it a boondoggle where rushing it before there's merit just be an obstacle that will prevent us from going when there is a reason?
. What are we going to do with that 50% more land mass?
. IsSame as #3.
. So?
. Why is it an incentive?
. So?
. So?
. Does it?


Everytime it comes up and I ask the question I feel like the people who argue the point start from the position that space exploration is cool, and anything we do toward space exploration is a great idea and just work backward to find reasons to do it. It's like a highschooler trying to argue why Twilight is a great series because he thinks there's some nookie for him at the end of a movie with a gaggle of girls.

Much like how Mars will be a barren, inhospitable wasteland before and after we spend billions putting a colony there, those girls will have nothing but the friend zone for him.
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Well, it isnt exactly a day trip, now is it?

Boots on the ground allows for research that robots do not. It allows for the perfection of technology. I am not advocating Mars specifically, just moving people to a second rock in space.

Boondoggle? We will never be less prepared than we are now. With the current political and social atmospheres, yeah, its not a priority. It should be.

Do the google'ing yourself. The earth can only sustain so many ppl. We have a pretty good rock to live on now, so having a 2nd one to shit up / spread ppl out on / motivate exploration again is a good thing.

Anyone can just spam "So?" like a defeatist little bitch x 5.

I think the OBVIOUS answer is the moon. He3 there. Its pretty fucking close on a cosmological scale. Low gravity, so easy to jump off there. Should have decent mining etc potential. Then asteroid / Venus / Mars.

Keep your poo pooing out of a good thread.

And who the fuck cares how much it costs? Jesus. Fgt.
 
K

Kedwyn

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Long term benefits of a mars colony are dubious at this stage of the game. Save the human race? Over the next 200 years we will likely have both goals obtained and asteroid mining has other benefits than just throwing money at a flag planting goal just because we probably can.

Teraforming mars is fucking laughable. The atmosphere is virtually non existent for a reason and without a large, active core / magnetic field anything you do to the planet will get swept away into space. The cost to import green house gases or just dropping nukes as an option is also laughable.

Asteroid mining would certainly get more money in the areas needed to improve our launch and delivery systems which would hopefully get costs down significantly. We could also see an actual viable push for some sort of space elevator at some point and who knows once the money starts rolling in the possibilities of some major breakthrough would increase.

Asteroid mining provides a clear economic reason to do it now. Economics drives our lives and decisions. Economics also drives research and advances. Seems like the better route than just going all Apollo and throwing money at a flag planting ceremony and bringing back some rocks.
 
Big Phoenix

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Apollo was only a flag planting ceremony because we canceled it. Ending the Apollo program is quite possibly one of the dumbest things this country has ever done. It gave us the abortion that was the Space Shuttle and now for the past 10 years or so NASA has been trying to essentially reinvent the thing only with abysmal results.
 
Erronius

Erronius

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It's strange to criticize the ending of the Apollo program when in reality it was more a product of our Cold War competition against the Soviets, and in that sense it outlasted it's usefulness. The Soviets gave priority to their military missile program and the rest is history. In order for the Apollo program to have continued, we would have had to have kept the abnormally high funding up, and all for what? Just to keep putting people on the moon? The entire project was never sustainable...it was never meant to be.

Big Phoenix_sl said:
It gave us the abortion that was the Space Shuttle
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This is all hindsight-based criticism though, using knowledge we've only gained since. (and isn't even universally agreed upon)

You should also probably giveSOMEconsideration to the biggest driver behind the space shuttle program in the first place: cost. The funding levels of Apollo were going to dwindle and everyone knew it. Saying that we shouldn't have ended the Apollo program is ignorant, simply because there was no way that would have been a reality, with or with the space shuttle. You could make the argument that we should have stuck with traditional disposable modules, butEVEN THENit would have been a shadow of the Apollo program itself. We still would have found ourselves debating why we weren't still putting people on the moon, and the answer would have again been 'cost'.
 
Big Phoenix

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I don't see how the shuttle was any cheaper long term. When you factor in 2 to 3 month reprocessing time after each landing, the logistics of getting the SRBs from the ocean to the factory to be refilled and then back to ksc, having two 747s dedicated to transporting it. I just don't buy it was a cheaper system.

Shuttle just ended up being a bad design. Maybe when it was first envisioned it was more of a personal transport vice military cargo hauler it was more practical. But what we got? Something that couldn't even leave leo?
 
Fadaar

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We're pretty much fucked until we can field an orbiter that doesn't require (or at least requires minimal) external attachments to reach space
 
I

Itzena_sl

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Big Phoenix_sl said:
I don't see how the shuttle was any cheaper long term. When you factor in 2 to 3 month reprocessing time after each landing, the logistics of getting the SRBs from the ocean to the factory to be refilled and then back to ksc, having two 747s dedicated to transporting it. I just don't buy it was a cheaper system.

Shuttle just ended up being a bad design. Maybe when it was first envisioned it was more of a personal transport vice military cargo hauler it was more practical. But what we got? Something that couldn't even leave leo?
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Alotof the design flaws in the Shuttle can be traced back to (at the time) classified US Military demands for mission parameters which ended up never actually being used. "We want you to be able to go grab satellite X from geostationary orbit Y within two orbits from launch and then land immediately at site Z" sort of things.

Fadaar_sl said:
We're pretty much fucked until we can field an orbiter that doesn't require (or at least requires minimal) external attachments to reach space
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Nah, SSTO is just 'nice to have'. Reliably reusable first stages get you three-quarters of the functionality of a reusable SSTO vessel at a much reduced cost.
 
Erronius

Erronius

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Big Phoenix_sl said:
I don't see how the shuttle was any cheaper long term. When you factor in 2 to 3 month reprocessing time after each landing, the logistics of getting the SRBs from the ocean to the factory to be refilled and then back to ksc, having two 747s dedicated to transporting it. I just don't buy it was a cheaper system.

Shuttle just ended up being a bad design. Maybe when it was first envisioned it was more of a personal transport vice military cargo hauler it was more practical. But what we got? Something that couldn't even leave leo?
Click to expand...
I don't know why you think I said that the shuttle was cheaper, long term?
 
Siddar

Siddar

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The main issue with shuttle was there was no plans for a post shuttle launch system. NASA built the shuttle and then stopped working on any new launch systems while actively trying to kill off any existing systems. The fact that the shuttle would never be cost competitive was ignored by NASA. The shuttle wasn't the real problem NASA was. Had they had a replacement for the shuttle in the works due in mid nineties things would have worked out better.
 
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