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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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If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would
be a merrier world.
-- J.R.R. Tolkien
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday March 15 2022, @04:49PM (1 child)
What about seed ships? Nope, I don't mean ships filled with humans in suspended animation. Seed ships. Build a creche within a spaceship, large enough to nurture maybe 100 kids at a time. At launch, there are no people at all, just eggs and sperms, don't even fertilize any eggs. Keep them frozen until the ship arrives at it's destination. If/when the ship finds a likely habitat, then it fertilizes as many eggs as the ship can support. Everything all automated, it raises the kids, teaches them everything from language to farming, to mining, to construction, etc ad nauseum.
If all else fails, just send a few 3D printers to print out some human DNA if all the eggs and sperms die enroute.
Yeah, sure, maybe the first few batches of space-fertilized humans turn out a bit crazy. So what? We have plenty of crazies right here on earth, doing everything the old-fashioned way. The important thing, is the ship, which keeps the frail humans on track to building a new world colony.
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Tuesday March 15 2022, @05:22PM
Overkill for anything within the solar system, and probably doomed to fail for interstellar voyages, at least any time soon.
Problems:
- Radiation will destroy the "seeds" along the journey, since they will be unable to repair the damage since they're frozen - and synthesizing DNA is useless without a compatible living cell to inject it in. As of yet we have no idea how to create a living cell from raw materials.
- AI is nowhere near sophisticated enough to keep a ship repaired and running for centuries in the face of unforseen problems.
- Children raised by robots are unlikely to be remotely culturally human unless the robots themselves are practically human, at which point, what are the children for?
- And then the big one: There's no profit to be had. Generally speaking we only spend money on expensive projects if we expect to make back even more. For interstellar journeys the investors are likely to be dead before the ship even reaches their destination
I think it's far more likely we'll organically arrive at world-ships. First we work out the problems of living in space mining the Belt, etc. Then, eventually, once our habitats and recycling systems become mature enough that a cluster of them can keep each other alive for centuries without outside resources, some ambitious groups will decide to take their space-cities and head to the Oort cloud, and eventually some will head to other stars - most likely because they don't like the way things are being run here. That seems to be the primary reason behind exoduses where there's no easy money to be made at the destination - the colonists are the "investors", and the "profit" is the freedom to live as they wish. And if you're already living in a sustainable closed habitat the only thing you lose by leaving the solar system is the neighbors. And raw materials - which is why they'll likely aim for another star system - even the most sustainable sealed ecosystem will at least need fresh fuel for their reactors eventually.
(Score: 2) by Rich on Tuesday March 15 2022, @05:00PM (1 child)
I'm rather sure that an underwater station on Earth would be easier to maintain than a Mars or Moon base, and we've had the Biosphere experiments before. So try that out, first. Musk should know, btw, he owns PPW306R, because it was at the core of a film that had settling on the ocean floors as a topic.
Also, what is never mentioned, is what kind of governance such installations would have. It's got to be on the totalitarian side, where any kind of deviance is unconditionally brought into line or eliminated. (Cue the "Das Boot" scene where the machinist loses it ...)
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday March 15 2022, @09:42PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 15 2022, @05:23PM (2 children)
i still think the planet has a temporary condition called "human".
we think we're pinnacle ... well okay, history will tell.
i prefer to stay mediocre and belive we are step in the evolution of the planet.
as for outerspace... that shit is ginormous and deadly. both in the superclass.
the " human" is not ready for space unless we can "somehow" overcome general pettyness, mistrust, perceived shortcoming, GRRED, etc ...etc etc.etc. and we can strap a personal nuke to everbody and be sure they won't misuse it, since that is the amount of energy we will entrust to each "oustronot" to succeed "outthere".
mining will not be for profit " at home" but for further survival... good luck.
also, are prices for electric bikes real production costs or just 1 cent cheaper then oil-bikes?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 15 2022, @05:52PM (1 child)
"no, i don't think the app has a bug if it predicts the first sentient squid as "gluugsnergluugs son" on mars in 2'973'492" ...
s1e15
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 15 2022, @06:02PM
don't step on the baby borg or we'll never get warp ...
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 16 2022, @11:00AM (1 child)
They can make Oxygen or scrub carbon from Air, CHECK.
We can Breath!
They can make Water from Regolith, CHECK.
We can Drink!
They can make Food from alien soil, CHECK.
We can Eat!
They can NOT make gravity, A Big Red X
We are dissolving and our tissues are calcifying!
They can NOT shield from long term Radiation exposure, A Big Red X
We have cancer!
They can NOT be self sufficient initially. A Big Red X
World War III, sorry but we have a problem Huston, no way to deliver anything right now.
Maybe Matt Damon can be eternally chewing on food like we see him doing in the movie The Martian.
Hollywood...the go to industry for public Lobotomies of space venturing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 16 2022, @02:31PM
make bitcoins on earth and extract energy from them on the moon, that should make any moon elephant happy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 16 2022, @09:32PM
The problem with most plans for colonizing other worlds is that they try to solve the hard problems while ignoring the (relatively) easy problems. There is absolutely no reason to colonize mars or a planet in another solar system. If we can colonize mars, that means that either our terraforming technology or our arcology technology is good enough to use right here on earth. Therefore, clean up this planet instead of leaving. If we can build ships that can support human life in outer space for the thousands of years that it will take to travel, don't colonize another solar system. Colonize the asteroid belt.
Personally, I am partial to colonizing the asteroid belt. There are innumerable logistical challenges, but only two that might be considered intractable: The effects of radiation and zero gravity on living organisms. Both seem quite solvable to me. Radiation: Massive shields made out of rock, of which space has plenty. This is a dealbreaker if you need to send your ship to another solar system. But it is not a problem if your spaceship isn't trying to GO anywhere. Gravity: Build spinning sections for centrifugal force.