[ExI] Spaceflight: The only valid case for waiting

[Dan TheBookMan]

On Mon, Sep 28, 2020 at 6:11 PM Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> On 2020. Sep 28., Mon at 19:54, Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>> On Mon, Sep 28, 2020 at 7:30 AM Giulio Prisco via extropy-chat
>> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>> > Spaceflight: The only valid case for waiting
>> > I'm not that pessimistic, but perhaps we must solve our problems down
>> > here before moving up there. If so, we must promise ourselves great
>> > adventures in space as soon as we have solved our urgent problems here
>> > on Earth.
>>
>> > https://turingchurch.net/spaceflight-the-only-valid-case-for-waiting-586e932da831
>>
>> Knee-jerk response: That's never really governed anything else. No one
>> has said, for instance, we should put AI, nanotech research, or life
>> extension research on hold until we solve more pressing problems. In
>> fact, the usual way it works is people do research along many lines
>> and innovations and progress happen in many areas, sometimes only
>> distantly related. In our current situation, there's war, civil
>> unrest, a burgeoning police state, but still SpaceX and other ventures
>> are moving forward on the spaceflight front. Would you say all space
>> stuff has to stop until those other problems are dealt with?
>
> Dan, I totally agree! I’m saying that some people don’t, and wondering what to do if they get their way.

For a long time there's been a segment that's adamantly against human
spaceflight. Sometimes they get their way, but it would seem now with
Dragon II poised to lower human spaceflight costs, they're going to
have less of an argument here. The argument relies mainly on the
costliness. If the cost drops dramatically, that argument goes away.
And then there'll be a shift toward the dangers and the like. (There's
already that not with the whinging about radiation loads in deep space
or on Mars. I wouldn't underplay these problems, but they do seem to
me to be engineering problems AND one can always argue that people
with options and informed consent should be able to take those risks.)

There's also a strong valid case against waiting. Yeah, technology
advances and stuff, but a long setback means the techniques have to be
reinvented and skills reacquired. Look at the Saturn V. Now one can
argue no one should want to rebuild it -- just like if we're going to
have reusable spacecraft, trying to redo the STS (Space Shuttle) would
be idiotic -- but one reason it took time to redo this approach (a
powerful rocket with a capsule on top -- outside the RSA) is the
experience and tech were mostly lost between the last Saturn V flight
and our time.

Regards,

Dan
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