Will we get out into space? - Like colonies and other sci-fi shit

[d12]

Hello everyone, d12 here with another question that I pondered. That is, will humanity branch out to the stars? With all this business regarding Ultima Thule I thought about how space isn't as lucrative as it once was. We're far from the heyday of the 60s and 70s, no more moon missions and the space shuttle turned out to be unfeasible as well. From my point of view I don't see anything happening regarding space for quite a while, NASA's Mars mission is awol and I'm not even sure if Elon is still doing his thing with SpaceX with all the hubbub at Tesla.

With that being said, what are your thoughts? Do you think we'll shed this mortal coil and once more touch the face of God? Or are we destined for an ignoble end on a dead world?

 

[Pickle Inspector]

There's no real point right now to get actual people up in space but science experiments are always interesting.

Eventually in the distant future though I think humanity will go into space if only for the necessity of not wanting to live on a dying planet.

This video brought up something I hadn't considered before but I'm sure they'll figure out how to stop it happening:

 

[Snuckening]

Eventually people will have to move out into space, because of the crazy rate Earths grows at. I doubt it'll be in the next few decades though- but maybe in a century or two there'll be proper, sustainable, permanent settlements in orbit or on the moon or Mars or wherever.

The problem that sank the mid-20th c space rush was the lack of a financial pay-off, and unless that changes and someone comes up with some shit where it pays off to mine or manufacture in space, we'll be waiting for the population issue to really put the pressure on. That 60s NASA stuff of "not because its easy but because its hard", and the "thirst for scientific knowledge" is a nice idea, but in the end it doesn't cut it.

But i thinl it will happen eventually. (At risk of sounding like some 'transhumanist' tool...) I read a thing that I liked talking about space as man's natural habitat, because we're the only species that can adapt our environment to suit us (and build our own portable mini-environment like a space station or space craft) while all other species just passively wait for evolution to adapt them to their environment.

It'll be slow and gradual, but i wouldn't be shocked to see a permanently-manned base on the moon within our lifetime. Shit, we already have a space station that's been continuously manned for over a decade and half straight.

 

[MasterDisaster]

Nigga we barely take care of this planet you think we can handle another one?

 

[RadicalCentrist]

There's no real point right now to get actual people up in space but science experiments are always interesting.

Other than finding solutions for every problem that plagues humanity, yeah. No real point.

That 60s NASA stuff of "not because its easy but because its hard", and the "thirst for scientific knowledge" is a nice idea, but in the end it doesn't cut it.

Yeah... it used to. Scientific progress has nearly halted in past fifty years except to refine already existing ideas.

 

[ES 148]

I don't think the average person will be out in space for many decades. You'D have to be very rich, very lucky or very competent. I think it might be possible during our lifetimes, though.

 

[Not an_ime g_irl]

Yeah, scientists are really interested on mars for some reason.
Expect some people being sent there for colonization in the next 10 to 15 years.
Real space exploration will take place when we manage to develop cryogenics that don't kill us.

 

[BScCollateral]

I'm pretty confident we're going to keep building on what we did before, but not as quickly as we originally hoped.

 

[Forever Train Engineer]

Space colonization will be a thing in the future.

That is until humanity can stop debating over whether or not they're two genders

 

[millais]

There's not much financially compelling impetus to expand the human presence beyond earth until they figure out how to make space elevator. It costs too much to boost people and material up the gravity well and into orbit with rockets. And we will never run out of space on earth to accommodate everyone. As the Third World is brought up to higher standard of development, their rate of population growth will naturally fall to resemble the near zero replacement of the First World.

 

[Jeb-sama]

Unless you can convince the masses that eating ass in space is somehow better than earth, you'll never fund any serious effort to expand past this dump

 

[DeadwastePrime]

Real space exploration will take place when we manage to develop cryogenics that don't kill us.

or when we dont need to be dead in the first place

 

[lowkey]

Funny I was just watching this today:

If anyone knows where this is from (it's a part of a documentary if you go by the youtube description, I can only imagine the full documentary is a 12 hour autism fest), let me know what the original is.

Some bad reasoning here and there, but definitely an interesting video about the difficulty of going into space again.

 

[Hellbound Hellhound]

Yeah... it used to. Scientific progress has nearly halted in past fifty years except to refine already existing ideas.

This isn't true at all. Biomedical science has advanced hugely in the last 50 years, as has computer science.

The real reason we aren't seeing new frontiers in human space travel is simply financial. It's not that we can no longer push the boundaries, it's that we can no longer justify the expense now that the Cold War is over.

The space race was all about power projection, not science.

 

[Slowboat to China]

I think we will. First there's the scientific aspect--if we can get data from the Insight mission about liquid water inside Mars and/or the state of Mars' core, it could spur a new interest in Mars colonization. And if we find bacteria there? "First alien life" is a pretty big headline, even if that life is just on a cellular level. People would be interested again. And once people start seeing the potential profit in going out there and claiming big chunks of unclaimed asteroid and shit like that, I think we'll see more corporations and governments pushing to get their own piece of New Terra.

It's not gonna be fast or easy, and I'm betting a lot of people are going to die doing it. But in two hundred years, yes, I think there could be moon and Mars colonies.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Computer and communications technology is advancing way too fast, but transportation technology is regressing. There's no more supersonic airliners, no manned missions beyond orbit since 1972, and the only way to get people into space anymore is on Soyuz spacecraft. Not to mention that even during the height of the space race, the only people who could even go into space were "the best of the best of the best". And to the average person, flying in the first place is still an expensive rigamarole.

There's political or economic arguments for all this, but it still kind of sucks most of us are stuck on the ground, and all of us are stuck on this less-than-ideal planet.

 

[RadicalCentrist]

This isn't true at all. Biomedical science has advanced hugely in the last 50 years, as has computer science.

Computer science? That's completely wrong. Everything that has happened with computers in the pasty 50 have merely been refinements; the theory and inventions happened long before. Wifi was conceptualized in the 20's IIRC. As for "bio-medicine," it's in a far better state but I would like to remind you that we used to CURE diseases, not develop symptom treatment drugs.

 

[TheCapybara]

I'm sure we'll get to space colonies eventually, provided we don't nuke ourselves back to the stone age over some inane shit. We're probably going to need to get off this rock eventually, unless we seriously ramp up the resource conservation.

 

[Hellbound Hellhound]

Computer science? That's completely wrong. Everything that has happened with computers in the pasty 50 have merely been refinements; the theory and inventions happened long before. Wifi was conceptualized in the 20's IIRC.

Just about every technological innovation is a refinement of what came before, but over the years these small refinements add up. I don't think anyone could look at the computers of today next to the computers of 50 years ago and conclude that we haven't made massive advances in the field. Granted, a lot of the theories that led to modern computing applications have been around for a long time, but when dealing with complex systems it is not uncommon for theory to precede application by several decades.

As for "bio-medicine," it's in a far better state but I would like to remind you that we used to CURE diseases, not develop symptom treatment drugs.

I would argue that it is starting to shift in the other direction. There are many diseases that we currently manage the symptoms of that could in the not too distant future be cured entirely by gene editing. CRISPR-Cas9 was a gene editing technique that was developed just 6 years ago, and in that time the costs associated with gene editing have been reduced by about a hundredfold, while the techniques themselves are far more accurate. That's a fairly major leap forward in just 6 years.

 

[RadicalCentrist]

I don't think anyone could look at the computers of today next to the computers of 50 years ago and conclude that we haven't made massive advances in the field.

We haven't. The only difference between the computers of the 50's are the amount of transistors. The Integrated Circuit was realized in Texas Instruments in 1958. An Nvidia TsunamiForce 9000+ is just a large integrated circuit. That's it.

Also lmao at "We can't cure a disease with regular chemistry so let's gene edit it." Let's take the best case scenario. 1% of the population have a genetic mutation that makes them "immune" to HIV. Assume someone "copied" this to "paste" it in "gene-editing." How do you test that this works? Monkeys and apes are generally used for HIV tests but rats can be too if they are implanted with a HUMAN protein. However, primates and rats have very different immune systems and blood when you are considering we are discussing receptors on the outside of white blood cells. The idea you can "edit" this to be both usable on both primates and humans is absurd, magical thinking.

What you would have to do is edit a human fetus then inject it with HIV. I shouldn't have to say why this is both unethical and impracticable. And I'm being as fair as possible in regards to gene editing, if you "edit" in cancer resistance, how would you even know it works? Our knowledge of how various cancers start is not complete. CRISPR is grant bait.