Interplanetary Colonisation - Why are we not funding/focussing human efforts towards it?

[Hades]

I think the reason we have not started to colonise the solar system yet is because of one of the features of life that has made us successful; death. Knowing we have a short time on this earth means that each of us tries to make the best of the time we have. It has led to vast improvements over time as we each take baby steps and improve society for those that follow. We stand on the shoulders of the giants that stood before us on their forbears shoulders.

But it encourages short term thinking. While society does improve over time we don't tend to make giant steps unless there is a very short term benefit. For example politicians generally support policies which will get them elected and keep them there. So there is little incentive to make the big expensive leaps needed to branch out into space. Where humanity has done that it has been because of an immediate benefit. For example the US vs Soviet space race which took us to the moon and more recently the Chinese and Indian space programmes where they are striving to show how technologically advanced they are,

The problem now is that we are competing against technology. We have the technology to reach and live on Mars if we wanted to but instead we are sending probes because they are safer and, more importantly, cheaper. We have to start sending people soon otherwise we will never leave this planet and that will indeed mean we have a guillotine hanging over our heads.

 

[danlightbulb]

It can never happen whilst money / capitalism is how our world works.

Deep space exploration and scientific advancement needs to transcend money. People would need to be solely motivated by the advancement of the human race and nothing else. All things that we need money for currently (food, housing, hobbies) would need to be available to all equally and fairly.

We are doomed to extinction because we are greedy and short sighted.

 

[Ayahuasca]

But muh late stage capitalism bruh.

 

[Thekwango]

We have the technology to reach and live on Mars

genuine question, do we really?

 

[Hades]

genuine question, do we really?

Yes I believe we really do. But the risks are high and our acceptance of risk is far lower than it was during the Apollo programme. So we won't go there until we get the risks lower.

 

[Thekwango]

Yes I believe we really do.

ah wait, is this a case of you hoping/thinking/wishing we had the tech to reach and live on mars? or is there suppliable proof such tech exists?

 

[Hades]

ah wait, is this a case of you hoping/thinking/wishing we had the tech to reach and live on mars? or is there suppliable proof such tech exists?

Let's break the problem down into two parts:

1) Putting people on Mars.
2) Sustaining them on Mars.

Over 45 years ago we put two men on the moon and returned them safely, using little more than WW2 rocket technology, mechanical watches, pens, paper and people's brains and determination. Technology, computing power and materials have improved exponentially since then. I don't doubt that we could put people on Mars if the will was there. But as I mentioned the risks and costs are higher than we are prepared to take right now. Either there would need to be further advancements to reduce risk and cost or our appetite would need to change to accept them.

Similarly if we as a species wanted to put the effort and cost into sending food and supplies to a small colony on Mars then we could do so. This part is actually easy. But the cost would be extortionate and we won't do it; instead we will wait for new technology to make a colony more self sustainable.

The risk/reward is not currently there for us to spend so much in terms of cost and human risk.

 

[Thekwango]

Let's break the problem down into two parts:

1) Putting people on Mars.
2) Sustaining them on Mars.

Over 45 years ago we put two men on the moon and returned them safely, using little more than WW2 rocket technology, mechanical watches, pens, paper and people's brains and determination. Technology, computing power and materials have improved exponentially since then. I don't doubt that we could put people on Mars if the will was there. But as I mentioned the risks and costs are higher than we are prepared to take right now. Either there would need to be further advancements to reduce risk and cost or our appetite would need to change to accept them.

Similarly if we as a species wanted to put the effort and cost into sending food and supplies to a small colony on Mars then we could do so. This part is actually easy. But the cost would be extortionate and we won't do it; instead we will wait for new technology to make a colony more self sustainable.

The risk/reward is not currently there for us to spend so much in terms of cost and human risk.

that's a whole lot of words to say 'no, you don't have suppliable proof that the tech already exists that would allow us to reach and live on mars'

i get what your saying, but i was just curious if this tech already, demonstrably, existed. i didn't think it did but you seemed very certain so i thought perhaps i was misinformed.

 

[Hades]

that's a whole lot of words to say 'no, you don't have suppliable proof that the tech already exists that would allow us to reach and live on mars'

i get what your saying, but i was just curious if this tech already, demonstrably, existed. i didn't think it did but you seemed very certain so i thought perhaps i was misinformed.

Short of us having already put someone on Mars and sustaining them for months then you won't find the proof you are looking for.

 

[Brizzles]

Page 3 and no Uranus jokes.

I'm out

 

[Baron C]

Brian Cox on a recent podcast envisioned orbital and near earth industry with earth being fully residential.

I liked the thought of that, seems much more cost effective and profitable to start there. Then use those resources to foster colonies.
There is enough resources in surrounding solar system.

 

[Raymond Lin]

I always thought that if for example we can turn Mars habitable...why not just turn earth more habitable? There’s a whole Sahara desert there to play with?

 

[h4rm0ny]

Haven't seen that, sounds yuck. Reminds me of The Space Between Us https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3922818/

It's not as bad as I made it sound. I don't like gore much myself. It's mainly the shock of it when he unexpectedly undergoes rapid deceleration that really drives home what's happened. The TV show is surprisingly loyal to the books when most shows would immediately dispense with the difficulty of scenes where people are grappling in zero-mavity or there's a battle where there are ten minutes between a missile being fired and the target being hit. Someone on that show really loved hard sci-fi. Wish I could find a good pic of a belter and an Earther standing next to each other.

So this is kind of out there but I think the Beatles sang it best - All You Need Is Love

Before we can get to the point of putting in vast amounts of resources into improving the technology required/making breakthroughs, humans need to just all get along and focus on long term survival

If we wait until everybody gets along and prioritises long-term survival, that's potentially a risky approach. Who's to say we'll manage it before the need becomes critical. Besides, noble goals can unite people, improved technology and more living space can ease tensions. Maybe reaching for the stars will help bring about that unity you speak of. I believe it can. We need to look to the future to stop squabbling over the present.

It can never happen whilst money / capitalism is how our world works.

We seem to be making progress under capitalism. China and India have in fact overtaken us currently since adopting capitalism. So reality runs counter to your supposition.

Deep space exploration and scientific advancement needs to transcend money. People would need to be solely motivated by the advancement of the human race and nothing else. All things that we need money for currently (food, housing, hobbies) would need to be available to all equally and fairly.

Money is a tool to show what we place our faith in and to motivate people to work towards something. If we, as a society, believe that we can mine asteroids, colonise planets and that it's in our best interests to do so, then money will flow towards such projects and enable people to work on them. We're not going to build a space rocket by people turning up and ad hoc volunteering to do bits of it.

 

[h4rm0ny]

I always thought that if for example we can turn Mars habitable...why not just turn earth more habitable? There’s a whole Sahara desert there to play with?

There was a massive acquifer project in Libya which was going to transform the deserts in the central regions of that country. Many British engineers worked on it and it was extremely promising.

Then Obama and Hillary and Nicolas Sarkosy all decided that Libya should be destroyed and the acquifer project, along with the Libyan government and Libya's gold reserves suddenly weren't there anymore.​

 

[Combat squirrel]

As everyone said, its capitalism - it can only function if your shooting fish in a barrel, if you enter a stage of humanity where resources are for all intents and purposes unlimited - you have a problem and the super rich won't like that - so it's not been pursued. Once we have tech than can convert most elements in to useful things that can be mined from even just the solar system, were set as a species and will socially evolve... but that has to be away from capitalism which is the only thing keeping the powerful ...well.....powerful.

 

[Rroff]

I always thought that if for example we can turn Mars habitable...why not just turn earth more habitable? There’s a whole Sahara desert there to play with?

Without some serious modelling of the consequences we have to be careful changing the nature of large areas of the Earth - it can easily precipitate climate change in potentially unpredictable ways.

 

[Distracted]

Without some serious modelling of the consequences we have to be careful changing the nature of large areas of the Earth - it can easily precipitate climate change in potentially unpredictable ways.

As we are already finding out.

 

[Raymond Lin]

Without some serious modelling of the consequences we have to be careful changing the nature of large areas of the Earth - it can easily precipitate climate change in potentially unpredictable ways.

But the bar here is Mars, no atmosphere...what I’m saying is that if we have the tech to turn Mars to be habitable...just make Earth habitable, however bad it is, it can’t be worst than Mars right now? Can it? I mean if we let earth get that far and can survive up until that far...we would be mutants!

 

[Jumper118]

It can never happen whilst money / capitalism is how our world works.

Deep space exploration and scientific advancement needs to transcend money. People would need to be solely motivated by the advancement of the human race and nothing else. All things that we need money for currently (food, housing, hobbies) would need to be available to all equally and fairly.

We are doomed to extinction because we are greedy and short sighted.

Yes you are right we should be more like the ussr and have everyone equally staving to death while having a great space program.

 

[Jumper118]

Also I just thought, we have to rerecolonise the British empire before we think about space. Colonising the empire again can be good practice for foreign planets.