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Last Exit: Space is a new documentary on Discovery+ that explores the possibility of humans colonizing planets beyond Earth. Since it is produced and narrated by Werner Herzog (director of Grizzly Man, guest star on The Mandalorian) and written and directed by his son Rudolph, however, it goes in a different direction than your average space documentary. It's weird, beautiful, skeptical, and even a bit funny.
In light of the film's recent streaming launch, father and son Herzog spoke with Ars Technica from their respective homes about the film's otherworldly hopes, pessimistic conclusions, and that one part about space colonists having to drink their own urine.
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Why Werner Herzog Thinks Human Space Colonization “Will Inevitably Fail”
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Something's rotten in the state of Denmark.
-- Shakespeare
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday March 15 2022, @03:50PM (16 children)
>We think, expect, space endeavors to work on the first try
Who have you been talking to? Maybe that's the general public's assumption about... any major endeavor these days, really. But the general public is unlikely to be involved in any capacity. The people seriously looking at being part of the project recognize there's a high chance of failure, and success will likely be bought at the price of many lives lost. Just like European colonization of America, really, only without the genocide.
NASA is a government institution whose existence depends on public perception and political good will - which means their guiding philosophy has always been "failure is not an option", at least where human lives are involved. Any failure and the politicians are liable to cut off the money supply pending years or decades of political grandstanding.
What were seeing now though is a global movement towards private space development - and private enterprise is intimately familiar with the concept of acceptable losses. They're also largely immune to both political and public opinion, especially when operating outside their government's jurisdiction.
Now, I suspect early space colonization will actually be driven in earnest by the riches of the asteroid belt (and the moon as a way station) rather than Mars - because traditionally colonization is driven by profit, and Mars has no profit to offer. But once the technology is more mature Mars will be a juicy destination for the homesteaders.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 15 2022, @04:05PM (11 children)
Except for indirect control of the funding. The general public has been an absolutely horrible manager of space exploration development.
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(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday March 15 2022, @04:59PM (10 children)
How?
Joe Public is not going to be renting research space on private space stations, nor buying lunar resources to reach the outer system or develop orbital construction, nor the gold, platinum, etc. the asteroid miners send home. Even NASA et. al. are unlikely to be major customers.
Space is poised to grow far beyond cautious government programs, and as it does so public opinion stops mattering. All that matters is the opinions of the financiers and the workers. And there's plenty of people willing to face high risks for a big enough reward. Offer a maintenance technician at an asteroid mining facility a million bucks a year in pay - peanuts compared to the expected haul, and you'll have no shortage of people willing to face quite high risks of death.
Now, a Mars colony is a different beast - no real money to be made there, and I suspect progress will languish until costs fall enough that optimistic dreamers can afford to homestead.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 15 2022, @09:36PM (9 children)
Joe Public: "Yeah, it's great landing on the moon and all, but we've got problems need solving down here on Earth first."
Ever since about 1970, NASA's funding has been radically reduced, unreliable, and management has periodically whipsawed priorities from one goal to another. Public opinion drives decisions like towing booster rockets back through the ocean to "frugally reuse them" as well as a year of navel introspection after each fatal event in space. Nevermind how many NASA employees and contractors died on the road getting to/from work in the meantime, rocket goes boom, public is simultaneously sad and outraged and "things are gonna change around here" again.
Joe Public does, indirectly, control NASA's funding and priorities - even more than they control the distribution of pork to the lobbyists. Joe Public has also been voraciously using and monetarily benefiting from GPS non-stop for 20+ years, and satellite communications far longer than that. Joe Public pays for NASA the same way they pay for the roads they drive on, but you don't hear anyone shouting to shut down the roads because they're too expensive to maintain.
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(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday March 15 2022, @10:11PM (3 children)
Right - Joe Public indirectly funds NASA. However, NASA is mostly irrelevant to commercial space development, other than as a springboard customer to get things started.
NASA has nothing to do with communication satellites, and precious little to with the new Axiom and Orbital Reef space stations under development. They're one of many partners for the Artemis boondoggle, but show no interest in actually doing any serious development of the moon - that's being embraced by private enterprise as well.
NASA is great for funding research and proof-of-concept technology, but private enterprise has long been the leading force in commercial space development. And I don't see any realistic non-commercial way that we'll ever colonize space. Just like on Earth - if you want to actually get something done in space you've got to figure out a way that rich people can make money from it. And fortunately many people are doing just that.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 16 2022, @01:22AM (2 children)
The conspiracy theorist in me vaguely remembers something about grooming the private sector to look like they are doing the development while NASA spoon feeds the private sector what they need to succeed. That same nagging feeling believes that all sorts of tax breaks, incentives, and outright subsidies are quietly flowing to "private space industry" from government tax dollars because that's what it takes to make it happen in today's political climate.
NASA is what it is - there was greatness there, and there's still quite a bit of competence and experience, and a whole boatload of pork - but no worse than any other major industry. What's worse is the public microscope that NASA operates under. I applaud the transparency, but it's an anathema to making actual progress with public money paying the bills.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 16 2022, @05:46PM (1 child)
Who really believes humans are smart enough to develop Velcro and Tang? It's the Roswell crash site spin-offs for sure.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 16 2022, @07:28PM
Velcro and Tang, sure. Some of this nanoscale semiconductor Voodoo.... if I hadn't watched the evolutionary development over the past 40 years I'd have a hard time believing it.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 16 2022, @04:03AM (4 children)
Why in the world would anyone expect that NASA would be paid 2% of US GDP forever for Apollo program level theater?
Joe Public gets roads which are vastly more valuable infrastructure than what NASA produces.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 16 2022, @12:53PM (3 children)
>Joe Public gets roads which are vastly more valuable infrastructure than what NASA produces.
Are they, though? Compared on dollar cost?
The NASA programs pushed digital computing forward at least a decade, possibly more. Materials science, etc. The arguments are old, well worn, and all too true. What is the modern cellular communication network worth compared with 1980s land-lines? It costs less to maintain, and presents orders of magnitude greater value. The only thing that comes close to NASA ROI is military research when it eventually trickles into the public sector, and it's a distant second - in no small part due to the lack of transparency of military R&D programs.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday March 16 2022, @03:13PM (2 children)
Of course they are. That's an absurd question to ask. And even if you consider space theater a near infinite value activity, those roads (and other transportation networks like railroads and air flight) are immensely valuable to generating space activity. Meanwhile NASA's space activity itself has remarkably low value to generating future space activity. SLS for a glaring example will actually defund a lot of future space activity.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 16 2022, @04:55PM (1 child)
Seems to me that SLS was largely based on a (cleverly moronic) executive order from a lame duck that the ethnic minority incoming executive didn't have the political clout to correct, in the reality of the more near term shit shows he was given to clean up.
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 17 2022, @01:57AM
That's the space activity you're lauding. The highest goals are merely political theater.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 15 2022, @04:08PM (3 children)
Are they, though? What modern private enterprise kills their employees without repercussion?
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(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday March 15 2022, @04:45PM (2 children)
Coal mining. Oil rigs (especially at sea). Roofing. Underwater welding. Delivery drivers. Police are actually *way* down the list in terms of how dangerous their job is.
And virtually all of those jobs are done within US (or other major power) jurisdiction where modern safety regulations apply. No safety regulations in space except what the workers demand.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 15 2022, @05:52PM
Crab fishing in Alaska and logging are the two most dangerous professions. Farmers, landscapers, and garbage collectors are all in the top 10 as well.
NASA has very strict safety standards. They only ever hold SpaceX to them, but they do have them.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 15 2022, @09:29PM
Astronauts are the first to profess that they accept the risks.
While I lived in Houston, they killed a couple of tank cleaners with fumes, but everybody was o.k. with the news because it was "contractors" (read: Mexicans). Not saying it's right, just sayin' that's how it is. Plenty of locals had scary tales to tell about fighting invisible fires and such at the plants, but strangely I never met, nor even heard of, an oil worker who was maimed or killed during the two years I was there, other than those two contractors on the TV news. Of course, Deepwater Horizon made the news, but so did 9-11. Taking a slightly more data driven approach: "A total of 120 fatal work injuries occurred in the oil and gas extraction industry in 2008. The three most frequent fatal events in 2008 were transportation incidents (41 percent), contact with objects and equipment (25 percent), and fires and explosions (15 percent)." - this out of approximately 150,000 workers, so 80 per 100,000. Transportation, aka car wrecks topping that list.
Coal miners: "In 2020 there were five occupational fatalities in the United States coal mining industry, among 63,612 U.S. coal miners" so, yeah, that's 8 per 100,000, sounds kinda high until you consider the lowest annual death rate for US adult males is in the 15-24 year old bracket at 100 per 100,000: https://www.statista.com/statistics/241572/death-rate-by-age-and-sex-in-the-us/ [statista.com]
Underwater welding: aka the deathwish profession (my father in law did this for a few weeks until he met a 9' shark on the job). That's a baddie, and the pay reflects it. Just like Alaska crab fishermen but without the reality-tv show potential because the camera crews couldn't cut it on site.
Delivery drivers: yep, we're still killing it on the road. But is it the job that's killing you, or the commute? ;->
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm [cdc.gov]
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