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

[Hellbound Hellhound]

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.

It's not just the amount of transistors; it's a matter of how small we can engineer them in order to fit them all together. The fact remains that we didn't have the technology 50 years ago to make the computer chips we make today, otherwise, we would have.

Also lmao at "We can't cure a disease with regular chemistry so let's gene edit it."

In many cases gene editing could be the crucial difference between managing the symptoms of a disease and curing it. After all, why work to develop drugs that manage the symptoms of a defective gene when we could instead correct it? We already know the genes responsible for genetic disorders such as muscular dystrophy, and as the technology becomes more refined (and thus safer), it's not illogical to suggest that a genetic intervention might end up being the most effective way forward.

Of course, I use gene editing as just one example. The reality is that biomedical science on the whole is becoming increasingly holistic in it's focus the more we understand about how the human body works. Take for instance the current research that is being done in the development of senolytic drugs. It has been established since the 1990s that the accumulation of senescent cells as we get older leads to a whole host of age-related pathologies, and we are now developing the means to eliminate them with a single intervention. That's a big step forward from our current one disease, one treatment paradigm.

 

[Tranhuviya]

Maybe. But I don't think any average Joe will be able to, with the technology we have now or maybe even in the future. Spaceflight is complicated. There's a reason we send up all those highly achieved pilots and scientists. It's not something everyone can do.

I do think, however, that spaceflight will become a lot more frequent. Private ventures like SpaceX aren't beholden to government budgets and draconian acquisition rules. That's definitely going to make them, not government agencies like NASA, the conquerors of the stars.

 

[mindlessobserver]

The issue is having an actual economic reason for doing it. Going into space is very similar to what the Europeans did in the 16th century when they went to North and South America. The time it took for a ship to go to America and Back is, ironically, about the same amount of time it would take for a ship to go to Mars and Back at closest approach. 8 months. The key difference though is when the Europeans got to America they found GOLD, which incentivized further exploration. The efforts paid off. At least for the Spanish.

When the English, French, Dutch, and Swedes tried to get in on the action though, they discovered most of America was not a lucrative venture but was in fact a literal shit hole. All private ventures failed as consequence but the Governments of France and England in particular funded the effort to colonize North America anyway as a means to provide bases to attack the lucrative spanish colonies. You hear it here first folks. The United States exists because the royal navy needed somewhere to park its ships so they could raid Spanish galleons. But in doing so, infrastructure was built. Ports, roads, settlements. And from these came new industries. Fisheries, fur trapping, timber, etc. That became lucrative. It only took a CENTURY of government investment to make it that way.

Space is the same way. The problem is not the potential that is there. It is investing the hundreds of billions of dollars in sunk costs to build the orbital infrastructure to make space colonization a viable economic endeavor. And right now there is no country on earth willing to spend money for the next 100 years to build that infrastructure, even if it does mean a huge payoff in the subsequent centuries. Such long term thinking would require, among other things, being able to see not just past the next election, but past your own life and the life of your children. If you have any, which most western leaders do not.