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When will humans return to the moon?
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 19 2023, @06:52PM (22 children)
We won't get back to Luna before World War III (which has already begun) knocks most of the world's nations back down the civilizational slope a peg or two. It will take another thousand years to climb back up it to where humans again have the knowledge and technology to travel to the moon. And then it will again be a stunt to glorify whichever group makes it, rather than part of a sustained settlement effort.
It's simply too difficult and too expensive to send humans into space, because you have to create bubbles of Earth's environment to take with them, in order to survive. Much easier to send the machine "intelligences" (be they sentient or not) which can be designed for the existing conditions in space. We might be able to use the machines to create small bases on Luna and/or Mars for humans, and then send humans there to live in the prebuilt bases, but the idea that large numbers of humans will be able to move out from the Solar system will most likely just be a pipe dream.
(Score: 4, Funny) by zocalo on Sunday November 19 2023, @08:44PM (5 children)
More seriously, I think it'll be a toss up between the US (using a SpaceX launch vehicle) and China sometime around 2030, and for exactly the same reasons as last time; two superpowers engaged in a dick-measuring contest purely for the kudos of seeing who can get there first. It's not like there's much of anything other than kudos that boots on the ground can achieve that robots can't at this point, unless you're seriously laying the foundations of a permanent lunar base for things like mining Helium-3, building telescopes on the far side, and the like.
Hopefully, the rest of us will at least get some side benefits from the technological advances developed to make it happen though.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Freeman on Monday November 20 2023, @10:46PM (2 children)
Without SpaceX, I doubt we'd have any hope for returning to the Moon in the next decade or two. Certainly not more than one or two trips and done. With SpaceX, reusable rockets, and Starship (assuming they're successful) we could see humans on the Moon by 2030 or maybe a bit later. It would be epic to see humans going to the Moon and maybe even Mars in my life time.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by turgid on Thursday November 23 2023, @10:05PM (1 child)
Elon Musk is unhinged, and he is not a nice man to work for. But to give him his due, he has put a large boot up the backsides of many industries. He has taken the last 70 years of space technology, for example, and refined it, with some government subsidies, to make it more of a commercial operation.
On his own, I don't think he'll see us to the Moon or Mars. He's making quite a mess of Starship and he hasn't got a proper solution to the problem of radiation on a Mars trip.
He is motivated, and he is showing everyone else what you can achieve if you cast off the old cobwebs, which is good. I think he's going to run out of money before he gets anywhere near boots on Mars, though.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Monday November 27 2023, @02:38PM
I figure a couple more X/Twitters and that should do it.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday November 21 2023, @03:39PM
<no-sarcasm>
It is a land rush. They aren't making any more of that land. Defending your territory may require actually being there.
</no-sarcasm>
So grab it while you can. Grab 'em by the 0 G's. They'll let you if you can see the stars.
Such a contest is important, but measuring it can be hard.
Police can legally stop you for having too much tent on your window.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday December 06 2023, @07:33PM
>unless you're seriously laying the foundations of a permanent lunar base for things like mining Helium-3, building telescopes on the far side, and the like.
We've maintained the ISS for quite a while... a Lunar base could run a similar (yes, more expensive) program serving a very similar agenda, tritium exports and dust plagued telescopes not really required. Note that, while it has grown, the ISS is nothing like the big, empty orbiting wheels of the 2001 movie(s), and I would expect a lunar base to be similarly cramped and crowded - operated as much for "political cooperation" as any science being performed.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday November 21 2023, @12:34PM (12 children)
> It will take another thousand years to climb back up it to where humans again have the knowledge and technology to travel to the moon
May be challenging without good access to fossil fuels.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday November 23 2023, @06:30AM (10 children)
Biofuels ftw.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday November 23 2023, @12:34PM (9 children)
Nope. PiMuNu is right. The easy fuels and the easy metals are gone. Civilization gets knocked back that far and there won't be another industrial civilization capable of space travel until the continents turn over.
Pockets of knowledge might survive, but it takes massive amounts of easily accessible fuel and metal ores to drive an industrial revolution.
A sustainable society built on biofuels and renewables just won't have the spare capacity.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 25 2023, @06:13PM
Bullshit, humanity wasted way more material filling landfills than it would take to start a space program. Pair with proper recycling and you don't need to excavate a continent.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 30 2023, @01:40AM (7 children)
There's still wood. It's the obvious easy fuel here. As to the easy metals, humanity has spent enormous resources to dig up those metals, refine them to astounding purity, and place them throughout cities and dumps. Those metals will be easier to get at than when they were in the ground as raw ore. Aluminum is a particularly obvious example. Not only is it in a form that ancient humans never could achieve, it can be used to melt steel.
Also, solar, wind, and water will still be here. It'll be different, but it won't be that challenging.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday November 30 2023, @11:44PM (6 children)
EROEI is what counts for energy, and fossils fuels had an extremely high one. Even then society killed a lot of miners getting that coal out. You can't do that now.
As for metals, if the dumps are so superior why are we still mining raw ores? It's because the dumps are better for piecemeal recovery and use. You can't drive the industry needed to get to space on that sort of distributed re-use.
Getting a civilization to space requires a concentrated effort that won't be achievable again if we become a society living on recycled metals and sustainable solar energy. We will probably still launch satellites, but we won't be mining the asteroids and setting up colonies.
I bet you could find groups now that would favour taxing SpaceX into oblivion and using the money to "help the poor". They will get louder and more influential if things get tougher.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 01 2023, @02:06AM (5 children)
They're typically in populated areas. That means little space for things like tailings or leach ponds. It also means significant restrictions on pollution and noise.
SpaceX shows it doesn't require a civilization to colonize space.
Sure. Already we see people angsting over the threat to the pristine "environment" of the Moon or the danger that someone somewhere might make money in space. This is balanced by these people having zero ability to do anything in space. So anyone who manages to get up there will be playing a different ball game.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 01 2023, @05:37AM (2 children)
I am quite assured that khallow will never make any money from space. In fact, not sure he is making much from emptying the vending machines at Jellystone. Booboo! Get the Pikinic basket!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 01 2023, @05:13PM (1 child)
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 02 2023, @10:54AM
I find it interesting that many mock khallow, when khallow does not endeavor to be mocked! Mod points for low effort! Excellent!!!
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Saturday December 02 2023, @01:42PM (1 child)
SpaceX is one company driven by a guy with a dream. He got the money to pursue that dream by being one of the first in an expanding new industry.
That won't happen again if we move to a steady-state sustainable civilisation. Look at what happened to Thomas Jerome Newton and D.D. Harriman for an idea at what is going to happen to any future visionaries looking to travel to space in a "sustainable" crab-bucket future.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 03 2023, @09:42AM
So many things wrong with your post.
Really? Are you this ignorant? Let me tell you about generational wealth, colonialism, and gem mines in South Africa.
Who? And you are appealing to a science fiction past to make some point about a libertarian dystopican future? The "crab-bucket" cinches it. Yes, the crabs pull down any crab trying to elevate themselves over the other crabs, but you miss a crucial thing: Then they rip them apart and eat them. Eat the rich! And the libertarians, despite the smell and gag-reflex. Desperate futures call for desperate measures.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday December 19 2023, @08:15PM
For space travel, that's not a problem. If you've got the energy, you can synthesize them. (But splitting water is easier. Methane has pretty much won out for now, but if you have to synthesize it, the economics change.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday November 30 2023, @02:08AM
Yet. It was for most of humanity's history too difficult and expensive to even discover aluminum. Now, it's all over the place and will be all over the place even if/when World War III happens. Technology and infrastructure improves. It's pointless to lecture us on what is too difficult and expensive, when it's merely an engineering and economic challenge.
(Score: 2) by GlennC on Monday December 11 2023, @03:20PM (1 child)
I was going to make a similar reply.
However you forgot to mention the upcoming U.S. Second Civil War.
Between the two, we are heading towards another Dark Ages and I'm not entirely sure that there will be another Renaissance.
I'd be very happy to be proven wrong, though.
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Wednesday December 13 2023, @09:18PM
WW2 and to a lesser extent, the Civil War actually spurred the development of new technology. The US space program was full of German rocket scientists who developed the V2 ballistic missile for the nazis. Most famously Werner Von Braun, but many others who deliberately headed towards American lines because boy-howdy does Russia ever suck!
The most noteworthy tech development of WW3 so far is cheaper military drones. That might ultimately result in more capable, cheaper drones for exploration and preparation of other planetary surfaces. I maintain that if we're serious about Mars, there should be a robot-built habitat there waiting for us. 20 years from now, Ukrainians will build the bots that build the habs on Mars and the Moon, and they will come with us to establish an outpost.
Rome and China had their days and stalled, creating 1000-year stagnation periods. It can't be pinned down to a single conflict. China's shut-down of its budding trade/exploitation via the Treasure Fleet was due to internal political divisions. Rome fell apart gradually. What global trade that continued brought plagues, for which they didn't know the cure. The Black Death took out a lot more people than any war, and there were also climate upheavals, with a severe cold period hitting Europe. Aside from that, the "Dark Ages" were not as dark as often portrayed; although the lack of literacy is stark. The point being, it took more than war to hold Europe back--it was a long running head-wind of climate, politics, war, and epidemics.
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