Is it really necessary to send humans to those places just to get the knock-on benefits? Couldn’t we do those things directly, without going there?
It seems to me that, today, those who have the money to spend on these endeavors would only do so if there were perceived short-term benefits to themselves. That means they plan to exploit the resources, or increase their own power somehow.
I know the good engineers that make this happen are doing it for the challenge and in the pursuit of knowledge, and I know that’s why we poors support it, but that doesn’t “pay the bills.” What is the motivation behind the money? Why are they really doing this?
The old “strip it of all resources and anything else of value” gambit will suffice for this and all others in the future.
Ask investors for more money
Next question
Realistically, building stuff. If you want to build large radiotelescooe or space observatory you can’t launch it in one piece.
Other use case would be to run refueling and launch station, given there’s a water ice on the moon, it makes possible to convert it into hydrogen + oxygen and refuel landing vehicles to launch them on a far missions
Realistically, the Moon would likely carry a mix of science, mining, and power installations.
Science - You can set up a large telescope on the far side of the Moon which won’t have an atmosphere to compete with. There are some concepts which would use existing craters to keep the cost low.
Mining - It is possible for there to be rare earth minerals on the Moon. There is also Helium-3 in the regolith. A country may choose to have a colony on the Moon address terrestrial shortages.
Power - The Moon makes an excellent site to collect solar power. That power could possibly be beamed/reflected to Earth, used to refine high electrical demand materials, or be a site for compute.
As this gets built out, the Moon will likely become a manufacturing hub, especially for missions beyond the Earth-Moon gravity well due to lower launch costs.
NASA spending has historically created more in return than is spent. It’s somewhat expensive (essentially a rounding error next to military spending though), but the science done gives a good return on investment. This isn’t just like on moon rocks or whatever, but developing technology that the missions need. Things like thermally reflective lightweight fabric, or a ton of other things. The science done on the Moon is worth a lot on its own, but it’s also not the only thing we’re getting out of it.
However, what are billionaires getting out of it? Hopefully it’s just the opportunity to profit from the contracts and not something more nefarious. We all know it is though eventually.
That’s just funding research with extra steps.
Science on the aggregate gives excellent return on investment. Unfortunately politicians want an extravagant excuse for funding it, but it would be much more efficient not to do the gimmicks, just do the science and not allow public sentiment to dictate what’s viable.
it would be much more efficient not to do the gimmicks, just do the science and not allow public sentiment to dictate what’s viable.
Probably, but sometimes having to meet real world challenges leads you down pathways that wouldn’t otherwise have been considered.
Sure. Let those goals be useful and reachable, not some narcissist’s fantasy about colonizing a dead planet.
Musk aside, colonizing Mars is absolutely achievable, and could be very useful. Having one point where humans exist is limiting, and creates a potential for one point of failure. Spreading out gives us many more opportunities for doing interesting things, and it also prevents Earth being wiped out (probably by us, but potentially something else) meaning the end of humanity.
I think you’re letting your hatred of billionaires make you hate everything they’re associated with, which isn’t correct or good. Make an actual argument for it being bad, not just saying billionaires support it.
There are about a hundred things that are more readily achiveable and useful than going to Mars or even the Moon. We have a climate crisis here on Earth, we’re facing severe challenges in agriculture, and almost a billion people live in abject poverty.
On that last point: what do you think unlocks more scientific potential - funneling trillions into research for a colony on the Moon, or making sure hundreds of millions of children get food, water, medicine and an education? My bet is on the latter, by a loooooooong fucking margin. You’ve got your Mozarts and Einsteins wasting away in squalor, and that’s just a bad use of our potential. Morality doesn’t even have to enter the equation.
I’m not hung up on the disgusting billionaires. They’re not the only narcissists around.
There are about a hundred things that are more readily achiveable and useful than going to Mars or even the Moon.
Luckily we’re doing billions of other things. We aren’t doing Luna/Mars missions and nothing else.
That’s a false dichotomy. We could very easily as a species support a space colony AND provide for the welfare of everybody if we collectively wanted to. One does not preclude the other, nor make it any more difficult to accomplish.
Start. By. Feeding. Children.
Then you can have as many space colonies as you want.
not some narcissist’s fantasy about colonizing a dead planet.
Fuck Elon. Humanity’s dream of colonising space existed long before he was even conceived.
It’s still a moronic goal to focus on at this point in our evolution. We’re trying to run before knowing how to walk.
Why so? Honestly, there’s nothing about our current tech level that makes it impossible. It’s solely an engineering project and required political will.
I don’t think we need to gatekeep funding research. You shouldn’t have to do it with no goal in mind for it to be good. The fact of the matter is its funding research and making people excited to fund research. That’s a huge win.
I didn’t say we can’t have goals. I just don’t think that going to Mars is a good goal, and I think that the argument that we need a stupid goal to achieve good science is, well, stupid.
Why do you think it’s not a good goal?
Do you think research into the origins of the universe is good (regardless of space technology)? What about the origins of life? what about the origins of Earth, life on Earth, and Humanity?
Do you think it’s good to increase our understanding and capability of supporting life on other planets?
Do you think it’d be a good idea to spread Humanity to multiple places (everyone living in one city or spread out, or everyone on one planet or spread out, are the same circumstances but a different scale)?
Do you think it’s a good idea to increase our capabilities to deal with potential asteroid threats?
If you answered yes to any of these, Mars is a fine goal, or Luna. This isn’t even mentioning stuff like farming technologies without soil that would be needed on Mars/Luna but also very useful on Earth. Also things like electricity generation (solar, wind, nuclear, and others we may not even consider yet) that need to be thought about in different ways that will inevitably lead to advancements.
Constraint is the mother of creativity, or however that saying goes. Creating problems to solve can frequently create solutions that just looking blindly without constraints would never find. Going to another body is a great way to impose these restraints.
The Moon and Mars are not interchangeable. They’re vastly different. The Moon is in Earth’s orbit. That’s why we went to the Moon in 1959 and haven’t even tried to go to Mars in 2026.
All interesting research can be done on Earth, the Moon or space telescopes. Mars is not interesting except for taking samples, and robots can do that.
Mars does not help with developing farming technologies without soil. You’re thinking of low-gravity environments I take it?
You’re describing Mars being a barren wasteland as a good challenge to try to solve. Fuck that. Start by solving the challenges we have on Earth. Show me you can fix a broken arm before insisting that you’re going to do brain surgery. Hence why you should terraform the Sahara before talking about building a civilization on a dusty hellscape that is a six month journey away from everything we need to live.
The Moon and Mars are not interchangeable. They’re vastly different. The Moon is in Earth’s orbit. That’s why we went to the Moon in 1959 and haven’t even tried to go to Mars in 2026.
All interesting research can be done on Earth, the Moon or space telescopes. Mars is not interesting except for taking samples, and robots can do that.
Obviously Luna and Mars aren’t interchangeable! They’re very different. However, you both agree they’re different, but also think there’s nothing that can’t be done exclusively there? What?
Mars does not help with developing farming technologies without soil. You’re thinking of low-gravity environments I take it?
No. I mean growing food without soil. There is no soil on Mars. We either need to make it (which is useful to learn how), or we need to do without, such as with aquaponics and aeroponics. These all would still help life on Earth too (they already do).
You’re describing Mars being a barren wasteland as a good challenge to try to solve. Fuck that. Start by solving the challenges we have on Earth. Show me you can fix a broken arm before insisting that you’re going to do brain surgery. Hence why you should terraform the Sahara before talking about building a civilization on a dusty hellscape that is a six month journey away from everything we need to live.
Why can’t we do both? I hate the idea we have to only do one thing. That’s not how this works. Developing technology to live on Luna and Mars would help us tackle the issues on Earth. It also doesn’t exclude focusing on Earth. We are currently terraforming the Sahara. Since we are working on that, do you agree we are now fine to work on other things?
You are severely underestimating the effort that it takes to send people to Mars, unless you want them to expire there quickly. So yes, sending people to Mars really does compete with other efforts. Therefore we have to weigh the utility of such an undertaking against its benefits. It is true that sometimes “crazy” projects like this does reveal findings that you weren’t actively looking for. But that is the best argument for this crazy idea - that maybe it will turn up something unexpectedly cool! And I don’t see why we would divert a significant amount of resources to something like that when we have so many other fields that desperately need attention, where we know that we will find good and useful stuff without endangering the lives of people.
You mentioned soil research as one avenue for why going to Mars might help. Why do we need Mars to practice growing food without soil? What is it about Mars that provides a significant advantage for that type of research? None, you say? Then I say, let’s do it on Earth or in orbit.
I am also confused as why you keep referring to Earth’s moon as “Luna”. In my experience that’s mostly practiced when we’re comparing solar systems to each other, and in that context the Earth would be named “Tellus”. Although I think it’s rare to call them anything except “Earth” and “the Moon” in practice, at least it was when I did my physics degree.
Resources that are minimally available on Earth.
Example: The moon has Helium-3 and is close (in comparison to other celestial bodies).
Is it economically viable? Is it ethical? Ehhhhhhhh. I would say no, but Elon “Head Up His Own Ass” Musk would disagree.
Epstein planet
There are resources on the moon. Like helium which the sources on Earth are slowly depleting because helium that gets released in to the air is basically gone, it floats up to the upper layers of the atmosphere and some atoms will eventually get knocked into space and leave Earth’s gravity. Also some scientific experiments require low gravity. Currently they are doing them on the ISS or in a reduced-gravity aircraft. In a moon base you can do a lot more science with more people.
Also some people that are researching lab grown organs think that in order to grow an entire organ that it has to be done in low gravity. So imagine in the future we could have a moon base that grows organs for thousands of people at a time.
But without all the helium the earth will fall down.
Wake up, sheeple! The government is trying to bring down the moon!
If organs can’t grow in Earth gravity then what the fuck am I
You didn’t build your full grown adult organs cell by cell in a vat. Like if they ever able to make organs they are more like constructing them cell by cell then growing them naturally. Growing them would be probably too slow anyway. Not everyone can wait 15 years for a new heart.
They were grown cell by cell in a fleshy vat
A fleshy fucking marvel, bitch
An organ that can type?
he extration does nor make sense. He-3 extraction might.
So imagine in the future we could have a moon base that grows organs for thousands of people at a time.
Read: thousands of billionaires at a time
helium which the sources on Earth are slowly depleting because helium that gets released in to the air is basically gone
so we fill kids balloons with it.
Born to late to explore the world
Born to early for space organs
Why even try
It is a really good “proving ground” for longer term human habitation of something like a settlement on a foreign body, without being so far away that some kind of rescue is basically impossible should something go wrong.
Also, going from Earth > Moon > Mars, or where ever, is probably less complex from a total at one time payload perspective than trying to move everything you would need for that longer term destination all at once.
Plus as you alluded to, you can’t really put a price on the political good will that comes from doing something like that. The Moon is a cheaper way to get that good will and some experience from point one as a starting point.
Science doesn’t really happen if we continually ask “Why do this?” Science happens when we ask “Why not do this?”
If we want to be a galactic civilization, we must first learn to live on worlds otherwise uninhabitable. The engineering challenges we must overcome to make that happen will give us the knowledge and experience we need to make it possible to expand past our solar system. This is a very long term advancent, and what we do today is what our offspring will do with ease.
Other than political roadblocks, the final roadblock to galactic expansion is FTL travel. We have theories on how to make it possible, but we are limited to the engineering and knowledge of our time now. Far future generations will be the ones to discover if and how to make it possible, but they need the foundational knowledge and experience of how to live in space.
Google: Tescreal, Freedom Citys, Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos etc. Basically there are several projects where they try to do unregulated research. Main idea seems to be to “survive” the end of our civilisation by living in Space or in the deep sea, enhance themselves (eg neuralink) , create General Artificial intelligence etc. Thiels Palantir is thought as defense mechanism by surveilling everyone. It all sounds like a big conspiracy theory, unfortunately it is not. Musk being responsible for Dodge, deregulating the US Governement was exactly one of these things. It was never about saving money. This is all a big rabit hole and you will get in a very bad mood readinfg about it.
-1. The moon has HUGE reserves of Helium 3. Earth has almost none and is quickly running out. This is due to the fact that much of those reserves come from the solar wind and Earth’s magnetic field deflects that. https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Preparing_for_the_Future/Space_for_Earth/Energy/Helium-3_mining_on_the_lunar_surface
-2. It’s fairly easy to launch rockets from the lunar surface, and comparatively easy to launch things to the Moon vs. Directly from Earth to Deep space. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWhqNmJiufc
-3a. The moon blocks much of the radio chatter from Earth (on it’s far side) meaning radio telemetry and astronomy have a MUCH easier time doing research
-b. By using such methods in concert with Terrestrial installations/telescopes, it makes for a FINE “natural” interferometer for literal logarithmic fractions of the price over Conventional Lagrange point based systems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_interferometer
-4. The moon is ideal for biological “life boating” (google the “Svalbard Seed Bank” to get what I’m talking about)
-5. Earth’s gravity can sometimes skew the results of VERY sensitive nuclear particle experiments. A particle collider on the moon might lead to exciting discoveries in quantum physics. Also such colliders require lots of liquid helium for cooling. (see point 1) The moon gets INCREDIBLY cold on it’s night side, which saves on energy costs to boot, and night on the moon lasts for 2 weeks.
-6. The Lunar crusts’ composition is almost identical to Earth’s which means it probably has huge reserves of lithium, gold, platinum, titanium, and palladium. The fact that it gets seeded by meteorites frequently also increases these odds.
(edit) Added some sources
uhh. dude, that’s a source?
the ESA link is in no way proof that there’s significant helium 3 reserves on the moon.
“The Apollo programme’s own geologist, Harrison Schmidt, has repeatedly made the argument for Helium-3 mining, whilst Gerald Kulcinski at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is another leading proponent.” ---- this in no way asserts that there’s actually significant amounts of helium 3 recoverable from moon mining, it’s simply stating it’s worth looking into, worth exploring.
we have no idea how much helium 3 has been deposited by solar wind onto the moon’s surface; it could be HUGE. it could be a tiny fraction of a fraction of a percentage. We won’t know until we go look.
Please, when you post links that are supposed to buttress your argument, post something that actually supports what you’re proposing. your premise:
The moon has HUGE reserves of Helium 3
in no way is supported by that link.
If the ESA (AKA Actual Scientists) thinks it’s worth our time, and you are still not convinced then I literally don’t know what to tell you. Lunar regolith is lose, and lunar crust is generally porous. The moon lacks a magnetosphere and so absorbs the solar wind rather than deflecting it. The Solar wind is mostly charges particles but it’s also filled with Hydrogen fusion byproducts which is mostly HELIUM.
Science is not 100% observable facts, but also a good chunk of it is learning to INFER THINGS FROM AVAILABLE DATA SETS.
INFER THINGS FROM AVAILABLE DATA SETS.
what fuckin data sets? is there a link to actual data on that page?
you should have better standards. here are some articles that may support your premise beyond speculation:
https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/70021905
https://fti.neep.wisc.edu/fti.neep.wisc.edu/pdf/wcsar9204-1.pdf
https://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2007/pdf/2175.pdf
here’s a good overview of the actual mining process proposed:
https://space-mining.com/a-closer-look-at-helium-3/
I hate, genuinely despise linking to reddit but here’s a fairly sane discussion on the proposed mining processes and how maybe actually mining isn’t the best extraction option -
https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/pmbquj/we_cant_mine_for_he3_on_the_moon_but_we_can/
when people ask for evidence, don’t get tired and cranky like a little baby, put in some time actually searching. who knows, you might be right!
What’s up with particle physics? Is there a real possibility that we’ve just gone as far as we can go and are back where the greeks were, having philosophical debates about unfalsifiable theories?
hehe
yeah man we solved particle physics and now we wanna know what’s inside the quarks and electrons
we’re falsifying everything about dark matter so far and then we’re back to plucking the 11th dimension cosmic guitar
. The moon has HUGE reserves of Helium 3. Earth has almost none and is quickly running out. This is due to the fact that much of those reserves come from the solar wind and Earth’s magnetic field deflects that.
start with speculation and work your way up. we assume it does, but this has not been proven. please, if I’m wrong, let me know.
Added a source :)
I replied to your original post, that link is not supporting your premise at all.
Earth has almost none and is quickly running out.
Earth has 40 billion cubic metres, that we know of. We won’t run out if we don’t waste it on stupid shit like toy balloons.
To your point 5, one of the biggest problem in space is cooling heat producing systems. There are 3 ways of heat transfer:
- Conduction - through contact of heat conducting systems like metals.
- Convection - through movement of heat transfer fluids like water or air.
- Radiation - through infrared radiation.
In space there is only radiative method available which is very inefficient. The moon getting cold on the dark side is due to it lacking atmosphere to hold the heat. One of the reason convection method of heat transfer not available.
Particle collider uses liquid helium to keep superconducting magnets on. Also to cool the collider.
Cooling would absolutely not work on moon. Low gravity may give different results of particle experiment and might be helpful.
In space there is only radiative method available
But on the moon you’d also have conductive, and be able to connect directly to a massive heat sink
This, but you can also build a traditional heat sink (panels) and let the fact that it’s very cold do the work for you. Yes, it would be radiative and that’s slow, but again, two weeks of night. You’d have the time for it to hit optimal temps.
I was referring to that being a supplemental benefit. LiHe cooling would still be the main method, just that having that extra radiative “boost” would help do so with increased efficiency/speed. (even if it’s a small boost)
Cooling would absolutely not work on moon.
Why not? You’ve got the entire moon as a heat sink.
The ground on moon doesn’t work as a heat sink just like on earth. It can however act as an insulator.
Are you saying we can’t use the ground as a heat sink on earth? You’re aware this is a perfectly routine technology in use in a lot of places?
also a heat source. It hits 250F. Belief in moon bases and mining is inversely proportional to STEM education. This is Elmo’s base of Stans.
We are supposed to carry about human endeavors in temperature extreme 2X earth where there is no possible human activity.
Much more practical to start mining the poles of the Earth.
The dark side of the moon hits 250F? Wtf you going on about?
The sunny side hits 250°F
Yes, but I’m responding to a comment that was discussing cooling on the dark side.
we’re already in space bro
Long term, the reason to expand into space is to expand into space. The point of going to Mars is not to make money. The point is to find a way for people to live there.
Let go of your sci fi visions of the future. Space colonization does not look like humans getting on a rocket ship on Earth’s surface, blasting off between stars, and landing on a second Eden around another star, a world where you can take your helmet off, breathe the local air, eat the food, and drink the water. What we’ve learned from our exoplanet studies is that the cosmos has exercised infinite creativity in generating new Hells, worlds uninhabitable and lethal to us in ways we never even dreamed of.
Real space colonization is going to take a whole lot of engineering and building. Mars is actually quite habitable compared to the vast majority of worlds in the universe. If you have some basic self-replicating machines, making Mars habitable is quite doable. Cover as much of the surface as you want in vast greenhouses. Live under domes potentially spanning the entire world. Long term, Mars has great potential for human settlement.
As for why? Well I would say it’s a moral responsibility. We know if we stay on just one planet, just one star, then it’s only a matter of time before some natural or artificial disaster wipes us out, and possibly the rest of life along with it. Earth has the type of biosphere you probably have to scour multiples galaxies to find one of comparable complexity. That’s a jewel worth protecting.
We tend to be too hard on ourselves as as species, viewing ourselves as some sort of cancer on the world. At the same time, we are the only hope for life on this planet to survive past a certain point. We are the children of Gaia. It’s our duty and moral obligation to spread life as far and wide as possible. Life itself has intrinsic value. And it’s our job to spread it.
Staging area for interplanetary exploration. It takes a lot of energy to leave the earth, making the rest of the journey to Mars or Jupiter quite difficult. It doesn’t take nearly as much energy to launch from the moon though.
The practical universe ends where the solar wind meets the interstellar medium. Baring scifi plot contrivance extra-luminality, this is it for us.
70 years ago people said we’d never go to the moon. 100 years ago people said we’d never fly across the Atlantic. 600 years ago people said we’d never circumnavigate the globe. 1,000 years ago we couldn’t travel to China. 10,000 years ago we’d never see past that far mountain.
Explore. Who cares? Where’s your wanderlust?
It sort of dies out before the first 1.58-5 of a lightyear. But be my guest, consign your offspring’s offspring’s offspring to the consequences of your wanderlust.
Moreover, there’s a humongous range of possible radiations, temperatures, elemental combinations, gravitys, pressures. The range necessary to keep a human alive is a one dimensional sliver on the pie chart.
No one will survive a trip to Jupiter. They would learn nothing a probe would not learn.
The idea is to make and launch probes on the moon using lunar materials as much as possible. People would be staying on the moon and launching probes, not going out with them.
have awesome space sex
