Philosophy Of Space Travel

>>8073976
I know I said cost doesn't have much to do with it but then said people didn't want to pay for Saturn V but what I mean is that if they had a good reason to pay they would have so cost wasn't the core reason.

>>8073976
>that ended in 1991

i dont care about meme travel but the wall fell in 89 m8o

>>8074032
Whatever /his/ still way after 1972.

What do we need space musking for right now? Why are we not trying to maximize our chances at relative godhood by working on the singularity?

>>8073976
>Not opening space to all. I don't think that the public not wanting to pay was the issue, I think that the public getting tired of paying to send just five guys into space after 30 years of paying is what caused them to lose interest. Imagine if after Christopher Columbus's first few trips he kept on asking for more and more money to send himself to America. No-one else can ever go, just him and his crew. People would stop supporting so what really happened is that explorers started taking more and more people and eventually colonizing. If your family is on Mars you can be damn sure that you will keep on paying for the super-heavies needed to keep them in contact. Luckily SpaceX is trying to do this.
This is a really big one. If spaceflight were cheap and relatively safe you can bet your ass we'd be seeing tens of times as much human spaceflight and hundreds of times as much robotic spaceflight. There are plenty of groups who'd love to go to space for one reason or another.

>>8074105
Room to grow. Here on earth, we're becoming too root-bound and culturally+politically encumbered for drastic leaps to occur.

The good news is that space is fucking huge, so if humanity can manage to reliably and safely inhabit it we won't have to transplant ourselves again for a very, very long time. It'll take thousands of years for us to fully colonize and populate even our own solar system, let alone those of neighboring stars.

>>8074395
Ah, so you identifiy with the abstract concept of "the human species" instead of with actual existing people, one of which is you?

Nobody of those will live to see this awesome colonization if we don't cure death. And since the human body seems to be too complicated for us monkeys I suggest we build a self-improving artificial intelligence to solve it for us instead of masturbating to star trek larp.

>>8074430
>cure death

I can already see "muh singularity".png coming.

>3) Not opening space to all

I think that is the main reason. Imagine how cool it would be if everyone could travel to the moon or just go out and look at Earth from space? The concept of only trained people going to space (astronauts) is really bad for our free society. We need a more democratic space, we need to bring freedom and equal rights to the rest of the universe.

>>8074470
Yes, let them joke. I too would if I could not handle the anxiety of it being far from certain but also not impossible. The anxiety of maybe being one of the last people to become worm fodder, and maybe it being my fault because I chose to play han solo instead of acting out of logical planning.

>>8073983
>know I said cost doesn't have much to do with it but then said people didn't want to pay for Saturn V but what I mean is that if they had a good reason to pay they would have so cost wasn't the core reason.

Costs are not so much of a problem in an economy when tere is big long run investment in the middle So its not really about rockets that costs millions of millios of dolar to launch and then be literally scrapped, bur rather abot why we need those rockets in the first place, because getting things into orbit require those things to have rather too much fuel, so a lot of deltaV is wasted on that mass instead of more usefull cargo.

So, the idea in space isnt how can we make the biggest rocket around but rather, about how can we avoid needing one in the first place. The most obvious answer is having that part of that ship in orbit in the first place, and since the only two important things in a space are the engines and propellant/fuel, having tha latter already there waiting for you when you get to Luna or Mars is what really matters. This is a humongous investment at first under high risks since the nature of a spaceship is quite fragile, but by creating that first; fragile and weak bridge you:

-Have created an aerospace industry on Earth efectively making everything cheaper. Even if the operation fails all the factories are already created, and can support more traditional space travel.

-Have created an interstellar network and attarcted other investors, that will add their own small ideas and devices to overall optimice and improve future launchs and missions.

-Have created the logistic network needed for future travels son the next ones can be about bringing other estructures not realted to fuel storage but communications/mining/investigation, therefore bringing even more spaceship equipment to space and further reducing the mass problem.

So costs are not really the problem if you can do the first investment, and even failing is beneficial.

>>8074430
Focusing only on what one able to do in his lifetime is depressing, hopelessly myopic, and potentially even damaging to progress if he happens to be someone in power.

Look to the horizon instead of staring at your feet.

>>8074430
>cure death
> implying this would be something close to good.

>>8074503
The fuel for a rocket isn't all that expensive. It's in the lower tens of thousands, which is manageable by practically any mid-sized company, university, research group, etc. Many individuals could afford it for that matter; it'd be like financing a new luxury car.

The real issue is needing to build brand new rockets every time. The rocket itself is the bulk of the expense. Eliminate or mitigate that and suddenly spaceflight is dramatically more accessible, bringing economy of scale to fuel production and dropping costs even further.

I agree that the need to launch huge rockets in the first place should be reduced, but to make that possible you're going to have to drop launch costs anyway so building infrastructure like lunar manufacturing and launch facilities is a more affordable proposition.

>>8074430
>"We shouldn't bother with space colonization because it won't be complete in my own lifetime"
That's very selfish of you. We can still get something out of it in our lifetime, we could see a city on Mars by 2050.
>>8074503
Even if you construct a space ship in orbit (which is a good idea) you still need a super-heavy to get the parts up. That's why Musk is building the Falcon Heavy. Falcon 9 can only put 22 tons into LEO, Cheaper to build a super-heavy and send up 2 to 5x that amount in one go.
>>8074479
>>8074384
Yes. As much as I prefer NASA and hate Musk fanboys I must admit if he does commercialize space then it will change everything.
>>8074483
You're gonna be worm fodder. Nothing you can do, the worms WILL get you.

Why is gorillaposter so clever?

>>8074532
if death is good then go kill yourself now and take your shitty meme with you.

>>8074560
But I don't give a shit about a city on mars, and to be selfish towards people who might not exist is not possible, and they will profit from not-dying technology either way. Not to mention that the singularity unlocks the whole techtree, not only lichdom, which includes space larping.

>>8074552
>The fuel for a rocket isn't all that expensive

When I was referring to fuel cost was actually the energy cost of moving that mass that can't use for almost anything else but to burn in the engines. Since in space deltaV is a logaritmic function and is totally affected by mass, fuel is the most useless and most needed one at the same time which gives you headaches when designing a mission.

Unless you have all that needed fuel out there, then you can even send more usefull mass in the first launch.

And of course building spaceships already in orbit is the true definition of space civilization, but I was talking about the starting steps.

>>8074105
>muh singularity
Humanity won't achieve godhood in our lifetime, deal with it.

>>8075738
Thanks to people like you.

>>8075742
Seconded.

>hurr accept nurgle as your lord and savior
>not seeing the glory of tzeench

>>8075420
>But I don't give a shit about a city on mars, and to be selfish towards people who might not exist is not possible,

Do you give a shit about elements? You know iridium, itrium, bismuth, titanium... because if space becomes the next step in human expansion you will have them.

Today if we wanted to make a supercomputer we would be limited to making it on Earth, with limited resources so any iniciatives are physically limited on what they can get here. But in space, you build in orbits, have access to the energy of the sun or gravity(gravity tethers) and the entire solar system. So projects can be much more bold and big since resources would be cheaper, it would be like the times when Britain invaded Africa or Spain did with america and ended flooded with money, money they could in return invest in huge projects that couldn't be done before.

So yes, what I'm saying is that getting access to space will mean a huge leap in human evolution in every single way you can imagine.

>>8075755
Ok, this I can accept, although I did not consider how realistic this prognosis really is.

>this coming from a singularityfag
yes I know. But while the singularity might or might not work, it seems to be the only realistic path towards immortality. Space might or might not help with the singularity and is therefore one more complication in THE PLAN.

I also fear that this hype comes from nerds who want to have more scifi in their lives (without the existential threat of ASI). But in showing me the chances for people who live now you have increased my emotional investment, something I enjoy. Thanks.