[ExI] What happens to US space programs after November?

[Giulio Prisco]

John, I am not talking of "a totally self-sufficient colony" on the
Moon or Mars, not yet. I am perfectly OK with letting these things
take the time they must take.

I am talking of a small lab on the Moon, permanently occupied by
astronauts. Like an ISS on the Moon. I am talking of the smallest and
least ambitious moonbase that we can build and operate with the money
and the technology we have. We CAN do this, and commercial space
companies are bringing the cost down.

I think re-igniting the human spirit is a top priority. As you say,
different people get this ignition from different things. All I can
say is that I and many others didn't get it from the ISS and the
ISS-centered Shuttle, but would get it from a moonbase. It is that you
look up at the Moon, think that there are people living and working
there, think that there will be many more in the future, feel like a
small part of a big cosmic wave, and draw positive energy from the
wave that you can use here and now. Simple as that.

My experience is that some people get my point immediately, and some
never. Different psychological makeups I guess. Therefore we (the
former) must find practical arguments (business, military, whatever)
to sell a moonbase to the latter. I personally couldn't give less of a
damn, I think we must do it because we must do it.


On Tue, Jun 16, 2020 at 12:45 PM John Clark via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Jun 16, 2020 at 3:02 AM Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> > John, we DO have the technological capability to do these things.
>
>
> It would be vastly easier to make a totally self-sufficient colony on Antarctica then on Mars or the Moon, and yet we don't even know how to do that. Prove me wrong and set up such a colony, and then we'll talk.
>
>>
>> > I think that, at this moment, re-igniting the human spirit with ambitious crewed space missions to the Moon and Mars is more important than astronomy.
>
>
> That's where we strongly disagree. I think getting from astronomy a better understanding of the relationship between us and the Cosmos and hints about the very nature of reality could ignite the human spirit much more profoundly than yet another non-scripted TV show, even one with blockbuster ratings. Apollo 11 was a worldwide sensation but when Apollo 12 came along people felt it was just a rerun; I remember my grandmother complaining about how all the special reports about it we're interfering with her soap operas. And people were only interested in Apollo 13 because something went wrong. The first Mars mission would be the talk of the town, but ask yourself how much igniting of the human spirit the SECOND two-way non-colonization manned mission to Mars will create. I think it would ignite a worldwide yawn, a yawn that would cost many trillions of dollars to create.
>
> And the space shuttle was an utter failure that didn't deliver on any of the economic or safety claims made about it before it actually flew; they said it would only take two weeks to turn around a shuttle and have it fly again, but two years turned out to be closer to the truth. It would've been cheaper to just keep the old Saturn-5 production line going, and 14 people would not be dead. And don't get me started on the International Space Station. the most expensive and most useless "scientific" project in history.
>
>>
>> > Are you sure you aren't letting your dislike for Trump dictate your opinions on space policy?
>
>
> Yes I'm sure. I've thought both the US and Russia have placed far too much emphasis on manned space flight from long before Trump Was president or was even a candidate for the presidency, and I have said so on this very list.
>
> John K Clark
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