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ArsTechnica has a great story about NASA's early space program and how the tragic fire during Apollo 1's testing was a turning point for the program.
As Gus Grissom said, "The conquest of space is worth the risk of life." He was one of the astronauts who died in the Apollo 1 fire.
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The Greatest Leap, Part 1: How the Apollo Fire Propelled NASA to the Moon
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Another good night not to sleep in a eucalyptus tree.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday December 09 2017, @02:32AM (17 children)
I would say, the greater risk of life is NOT going into space. A single catastrophic event, right now, can cause the death of 100% of humanity. With several colonies "out there", even small colonies, man may well survive that catastrophic event, with only 98 or 99% fatalities. 99.999% dead is at least slightly better than 100% dead. More, and larger bases, habitats, and colonies will improve that percentage. Even if we never reach the stars, we can move significant portions of our population off of this one rock.
Of course, there is some critical point at which it can all work after the apocalypse. A few hundred people in space probably won't work. Probably not even a couple thousand. Mankind's survival will probably depend on at least on "safe" place, housing several thousands, capable of helping to support many other smaller facilities.
And, for once, that diversity mantra will play a key part in survival. Yeah, we WANT as many different races, cultures, and ethnic backgrounds as possible. In this survival situation, that diversity may be more important than any other factors.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday December 09 2017, @02:43AM (2 children)
I'm skimming, and looking at photos. One of the things I notice is, the authors don't claim credit for "firsts", so much as "first US space walk" etc. There really is no point in robbing the Russians of their proper dues. They beat us to many firsts. In fact, we were pretty damned late to the game, so it's hard to claim very many firsts. First to the moon was a pretty big one, and that's good enough, from a historical perspective.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday December 09 2017, @03:37AM (1 child)
The distance between Earth and Mars ranges from 3 to 22.4 light minutes. SoylentNews should allow Martian IPs 6 to 45 minutes of early access to articles.
There are number of Martian firsts coming. First backflip on Mars. First people to have sex on Mars. First sandwich eaten on Mars. First murder mystery on Mars. Etc.
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(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Saturday December 09 2017, @03:51AM
First 69, while doing a backflip and eating a sandwich? OK, I guess that would be a furburger. Yeah, I'm up for that. But, it wouldn't be much of a murder mystery. I just broke my neck while attempting to get into the Guinness book of Solar System Records. ;^)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Saturday December 09 2017, @03:32AM (4 children)
Once we have the ability to "live off the land" on Mars or the Moon, those places become floating balls of money. As long as you don't go crazy living indoors or in a spacesuit 100% of the time, you could live there indefinitely. Mining and industry will mostly be automated, although you might have to do some setup or troubleshooting. There will simply be a point where an initial investment can build a self-sustaining colony on these rocks, which means someone (private/corporate) will do it. The Outer Space Treaty will be revised or ignored, perhaps with some agreement to look for life in underground oceans.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 09 2017, @04:06AM (3 children)
There is no "living off the land" on the Moon. Basically anything life needs like nitrogen and carbon are missing and will forever need to be imported from elsewhere. While there is some water frozen in craters at the poles, the amount is not large enough to support a sizable population/industries for any length of time, meaning that hydrogen and oxygen will need to be imported too.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday December 09 2017, @08:46AM
I don't know maybe carbon too.
Chasing a comet I expect would take less propellant than importing them from the Earth.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Saturday December 09 2017, @10:13AM
Moon elemental composition [wikipedia.org] - carbon, nitrogen in traces - no "living on the land" as such.
Hydrogen in the water at poles.
Oxygen - the largest proportion element in Moon's composition - bound in oxides, a mater of energy available to release.
Imported? Mmmm.... me things the correct expression would be "dropped".
Something like a carbonaceous asteroid/comet on collision course with Moon would do the trick - nudge Churyumov–Gerasimenko [esa.int] for instance, it has nitrogen and carbon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday December 09 2017, @03:35PM
https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2530 [nature.com]
https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/24/16020132/moon-water-rock-samples-mining-missions [theverge.com]
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X15005890 [sciencedirect.com]
http://www.lunarpedia.org/index.php?title=Nitrogen [lunarpedia.org]
Nitrogen is probably the worst but a few tanks can be brought and some of it can be found in the crust.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 09 2017, @04:10AM (1 child)
A small population struggling to survive in an inhospitable world will be far worse off if they hate each other. The attitude required is probably Japanese, but Texan might do OK.
Race influences culture, so probably not that one either. Don't be thinking we'll just evolve our way into living fine on a non-Earth planet with just that trivial extra bit of diversity; the level that would matter is down at the root of the tree of life: bring some cyanobacteria for diversity that matters.
Going to non-Earth planets would only help with asteroid impacts. The serious stuff, like blasts of particles/waves from explody extra-steller objects, easily take out the whole solar system.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Saturday December 09 2017, @04:35PM
I don't think you *really* understand how things are going to go. I truly love the series, and the books, 'The Expanse'. Populations among the semi-habitable rocks in the solar system aren't going to be huge. Mars may well grow pretty large over many years, but nothing like Earth. Most populations will remain in the hundreds, and thousands. Populations will grow together, and tend toward homogenization. There won't be "black" people, or "Chinese" people. Little clusters of people here and there will simply be Ganymedans, or Hoppers, or maybe Belters. Yeah, people will come an go between groups, but each group will tend to homogenize itself over time.
Religion may or may not divide people within groups, but I doubt it. People who are preoccupied with survival don't spend a lot of time arguing about really stupid shit. Ask most veterans.
The diversity I am talking about, is genetic. In one environment, maybe the Arabs will excel, and everyone else comes in a distant second. In another environment, we may find the Eskimo and Aleut establishing themselves, with no competition. And, somewhere else, black people have the advantage. And, in any given situation, that advantage may not really be related to the circumstances on earth that caused those people to select for their particular gene set.
And, that doesn't even touch on the idea that people are going to evolve. Some of our more serious weaknesses on earth may prove to be a strength elsewhere. Or, that weakness may be culled out of existence.
We are going to be living in many different environments - we need to take a full mix of genes if we really expect to survive, and thrive. No one knows who has "The Right Stuff".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 09 2017, @07:30AM
Of the woman survives, there's a chance.
If only the Man survives... well, stick it to the Man and be done with him, he's not worth of survival.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday December 09 2017, @08:53AM (1 child)
Not to long from now in the cosmological view of things the Sun will become a red giant that swallows the entire orbit of the Earth.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 09 2017, @07:05PM
Those colonies around Uranus are pubic lice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 09 2017, @10:12AM (2 children)
Except that there is a lot of reason at this point in time to assume humans living outside of earth, without major shifts in how we engineer equipment, craft, and facilities for space or non-terran orbital bodies, will not be able to adapt fast enough to the solar and interstellar radiation, as well as other issues like the imbalanced biomes that would develop in attempting to stabilize a non-earth colony without a fungal bloom, plant dieoff, or sweeping bacteria/viral pandemic decimating the population.
This is not to say I don't agree with the need both for diversity and off-world colonies, just that I think we need a lot more investment in near earth orbital facilities so that we can begin better judging the long term risks, rather than one or two overly expensive and non-representative space stations that are only capable of staying habitable due to regular resupply of expensive components from each, rather than a biosphere-esque self regulating ecology handling most of the atmospheric needs, while the technology is used minimizing radiation damage to the flora and fauna, and in supporting a temperature range, lighting, and electrical needs that can sustain the required crew and biome long term with minimal outside support needed, so that a generation or two of equipment and facilities past that will be sufficient to sustain unsupported colonies on other planets.
One of the largest factors that needs to be taken into consideration is the need for nuclear power supplies/reactors in orbit. Even if we can get away with solar panels and other equipment where the Earth is located, for colonies set up on Mars, the moons of Saturn, Jupiter, or planetoids out past Saturn's orbit (since there is Pluto, Charon, plus at least a few planetoids in orbits that cross Neptune's) we will need both a nuclear reactor with 5+ years of fuel and sufficient liquids to operate a cooling loop plus safety margin, in order to successfully operate beyond the confines of the Earth without ending up with a bunch of horror scifi-esque dead colonies.
And while we are on the topic of it: Do we really want the US, China, Russia, or any other pro-corporate entity running the facilities/claiming ownership of any of these extrasolar colonies? Because we already have a sci-fi dystopia forming on earth. We don't want the outer colonies ending up the same.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday December 09 2017, @02:35PM (1 child)
The idea of colonizing space as insurance against disasters on Earth strikes me as backwards. The Earth could unleash a supervolcanic eruption on us, or a big asteroid could smash into the Earth. But the greater danger is ourselves. The odds of nuclear war are frighteningly high. Most of us have spent our entire lives under the shadow of that possibility, first with the Cold War, and now with nuclear proliferation. The current situation makes the Cold War look pretty tame by comparison. Many crazy, senile, fanatic, blackmailing and possibly suicidal governments with nukes is a lot scarier than the Cold War days. Pakistan impresses me as one of the scariest nations in the world. I hope India regrets that they ever went nuclear, as that has to be the reason Pakistan decided to obtain nuclear capability. Sadly, the US is pretty high on the list of scary nations. The might of the US in the hands of a seriously self-delusional, corrupt, and downright stupid administration is our new "long national nightmare". That use of nuclear weapons has even been hinted at, over a nation as petty and little as North Korea, is insane. Whatever else Congress does pales into insignificance next to cooling the lust and ability to launch the nukes. "No First Use" is an excellent idea.
Ultimately, the Soviet Union did not elect to go out in a glorious blaze of nuclear war. That restraint is why we are still alive today. How they managed the breakup without ever reaching for the nukes is, I guess, not appreciated nearly enough throughout the world. No, instead, people keep talking up space, the "final frontier", as a place to run and hide from this problem. It smacks too much of wishfulness, individualism, and impracticality. We've been gradually understanding that people are not nearly self-contained enough to make it in space, and need the support of a fully functioning Earthly ecology. And that we are very far from figuring out how to set up outside the Earth. If we aren't able to survive a nuclear holocaust, we sure can't lean on hypothetical space colonies. Earth during a nuclear winter could still be an easier place to live than a space colony. But right now, we can't even colonize Antarctica!
We can't afford to count on eventual space colonization. We must figure out how to keep a tighter leash on our warmongering impulses. So far, the only nukes ever used in war are Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We haven't stopped warring, but at the least, nukes have never been used since the end of WWII, thanks mostly to the considerable effort expended to keep nukes away from the wars. But now it may be only a matter of time before someone in power stupid enough to use a nuclear bomb gets his hands on one.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday December 09 2017, @08:14PM
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/12/the-most-improvement-for-the-worlds-poor-ever-will-happen-over-the-next-12-years.html [nextbigfuture.com]
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/12/ever-cheaper-energy-advancing-technology-will-perpetually-drop-the-costs-for-space.html [nextbigfuture.com]
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 10 2017, @11:49AM
You forget one thing. People are not that smart - they would spend millions on an individual life, no matter what. But then 100,000 dead in some war? Well, who cares? These are just emotionally driven decisions that almost always lead to bad outcomes.