The Top Three Reasons for Humans in Space 732
An anonymous reader writes "Why humans in space? The Space Review has the top three reasons: 3. To work. 2. To live. 1. To survive. 'To work' means doing stuff in space: research, explore, visit, etc. 'To live' means to have humans/life beyond Earth in colonies/settlements. 'To survive' means that putting humans/life beyond Earth is a very Good Thing in case a very Bad Thing happens to humans/life on Earth."
Regarding the article: (Score:5, Insightful)
Rather interesting order this article puts the reasons in...
'to work' is not a real reason to go to space, instead, the article really shold have focused on a) the abundant energy and raw materials available in space, and b) the nearly infinitely-customizable work environments abailable in space. At any rate, this is only a secondary reason.
'to live'? Exactly what sort of reason is this? Sure, life is important (of course I think that...I'm a living being...I can't help it), but does that mean it's our manifest destiny to spread life throughout the universe, merely for the sake of spreading life? Again, this reason, although important, is purely secondary.
'to survive'. Finally we come to the heart of the matter...the reason that should have been number one, with the two reasons listed above in support of it. Humankind must colonize space, and do it soon. Between the dwindling rescources available to us while we remain shackled to a gravity well, and the impending mass-extinction events (asteroid, pandemic, super-volcano...take your pick), we are left with very little time in which to secure our species' future. Establishing a viable space-community should be the primary goal of the human race.
(BTW, more interesting information regarding our continued survival can be found here [thepreparation.com].)
same reasons (Score:3, Insightful)
Another reason... (Score:5, Insightful)
I/we want to know what's out there.
Survive? (Score:3, Insightful)
NASA's Missing the Mark (Score:5, Insightful)
Mission costs would be lower, and I really believe the payoff would be much, much greater!
Re:What Bad Things? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What Bad Things? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Regarding the article: (Score:5, Insightful)
It is.
Althought space colonization is a good thing IMO, we're currently bogged down in crap down here. It's time for humans to just get more intelligent about things, from war to drugs to hunger, instead of listening to one person, taking that opinion as their own, and sticking to it for all eternity. The last thing we need is another colony that works the same as Earth, it'd be a little self-defeating after awhile.
Re:What Bad Things? (Score:5, Insightful)
Redundant (Score:2, Insightful)
Because.
Because I can, possibly the greatest reason known.
Re:Regarding the article: (Score:5, Insightful)
The article was not about why crap in general should be in space.
It was in fact about the top reasons for humans in space.
In fact, having humans in space is not a necessary condition for gathering "abundant energy and raw materials" of other planets. The article just makes the arguments that humans would be better suited than robots to work in space.
Re:Survive? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because it is there (Score:5, Insightful)
"oh, we can get to India faster" or "oh, we can fly mail to South America in 3 days" or "oh, we can throw explosives further", all this comes later as part of the speech aimed at the venture capitalists, etc. The foundation, the basic desire is always just because it is there. The practical needs come later.
Re:NASA's Missing the Mark (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, come on, mods! (Score:5, Insightful)
Whichever way you look at it, whichever way it works, finding the mysterious #2 in this case IS our best case to getting into space. Space tourism is risky and expensive, but it's only a start. If we could come up with some good, financial, bottom-line-friendly reasons to get into space, we could get some serious money - and effort - behind it.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Redundant (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course, "because we can't, yet" is an even better than "because we can". It's why we created computers
Re:What Bad Things? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Regarding the article: (Score:4, Insightful)
So, you've decided to miss the point.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not the least of which is self-annihilation by nuclear or biological weapons (which have proven that they are ready and capable of killing many of us very quickly). The article also mentions natural disasters, which (once again) have proven themselves able to wipe out huge portions of the earth.
We are also aware of certain natural disasters that might be able to wipe out ALL LIFE on this planet pretty much within a day. I won't bother naming any because most educated people should be able to come up with at least 3 good ones, including as least one inevitability.
a better answer (Score:2, Insightful)
3. Insight/Inspiration 2. To Learn, 1. Resources
There are no "other planets" (Score:3, Insightful)
No, there is no easy answer for our abuse and pollution of the only place we can be. We're just going to have to clean this place up.
Re:Another reason... (Score:3, Insightful)
Because we're curious.
In fact IMHO this is the only reason. All other reasons are ridiculous. To work there ? Oh come on, who likes to work ? To live there ? Why, the air is bad and it's rather boring up there. To survive ? The dumbest reason ever.
What's so bad with admitting that we humans are just f***ing curious ? :-)
Re:Regarding the article: (Score:2, Insightful)
Why?
Man has already shown that he can make large portions of it uninhabitable, so why is it so hard to make the leap that they can do the same on a much wider scale.
And more to the point it might not be 'uninhabitable', but uninhabitable to mankind. A good portion of Russia is uninhabitable to man, but the flora and fauna seem to be dealing with it just fine. Some people seem to deal with it alright as well, but the majority couldn't.
I personally think mankind will go as it came, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to stave off destiny just a little bit longer. I know because of some genetic problems, I have an expected lifetime of less than most 'average' persons, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to try to live to be 120. Its human nature to try to outlive the reaper.
Re:Regarding the article: (Score:5, Insightful)
Mars is just like Antarctica, except there's pretty much no water, less sunlight, and you can't breathe the air.
Until the Sahara desert and both of the Arctic Circles are completely populated with big cities, things are not so crowded here that we need to move to Martian suburbs.
Re:Regarding the article: (Score:5, Insightful)
We may not be able to make the earth unfit for life in general, but we sure can make it unfit for ourselves.
The earth can handle humans. We're insignificant on planetary timelines. Question is, can humans handle themselves? I don't want to go political, but give Dubya or Kim Jong enough reason, and they'll blow us off the planet in a second. Other life will go on though.Comforting thought in a very odd way.
beware (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, there is the distinct possibility that the decision for humans to travel to space would actually act as a catalyst for innovation. After all, necessity is the mother of invention.
Re:What Bad Things? (Score:5, Insightful)
I must disagree.
When Europeans moved to North America, they did solve some real problems. Granted, we still have problems, but they are different than the ones Europeans had circa 1000 A.D. It's a fairly trivial exercise to show things are much better now.
OK, what can moving into space do for humanity? First, there is the not putting all our eggs in one basket factor. Secondly, we can try new things. Some of our experiments will succeed; some will fail. Successful experiments can be emulated. Our failures can teach us what not to do.
Starting back in the 17th century, the part of North America governed by first England and now the United States and Canada tried doing some new things with regard to government and society. These experiments proved so successful that parent societies in Europe adopted many of the new ideas first tried in North America.
We haven't acheived any sort of utopia, but we have made significant progress.
Re:USA #1 (Score:2, Insightful)
Really.... I could have sworn it was because it was an excuse to develop a rocket capable of delivering a warhead to Russia. There was this little "cold war" thing going on back then.
Then there's reason 4: (Score:3, Insightful)
KFG
Re:beware (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Regarding the article: (Score:5, Insightful)
Establishing a viable space-community should be the primary goal of the human race
Interesting point you make, but alas, it may be life that people say is precious. However, the one singulare reason why we as humans are not making space colonisation a top priority is money and greed. If one looks into the past for an answer as to why we are not colonizing space at this point it is simple.. We have not been given the old 'kick in the pants yet'
Re:We cannot deal with either case (Score:5, Insightful)
We did it because we had to.
But is it cost effective? (Score:3, Insightful)
Still, the author does put a nice economic sounding spin to his argument.
Risk management catchphrases:
Supply and demand:
This all sounds well and good but I think the author might give "cost-effectiveness" a look.
Cost-effectiveness [wikipedia.org] is "a comparison between the relative expenditure (costs) and outcome (effects) associated with two or more courses of outcome."
The US administration contends that the Koyoto agreement is too costly to implement. How about increasing the value of our current investment (earth) by decreasing the probability that something might go wrong (global warming).
Surely it is more cost-effective to limit Co2 emissions that to burn away and aim for Mars in 2030?
Also, if life is so valuble due to its rarity, why jump the gun and send astronauts out to do what robots can do just as well (and they can for now)? Investing in artificial intelligence has a higher probability of returning an eventual profit that investing in life support. We're more likely to be able to use AI in various indurstries than we are of making earth inhabitable in the near future.
When we've got the AI technology right, we'll send robots out to colonize and will therefore have to do less research into life support.
Re:So, you've decided to miss the point.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Assuming you could, somebody else could build better weapons that would defy the diffusing process. If history has taught us anything, it's that weapons technology has always scaled against weapons protection technology.
And I hope you're not talking about the sun dying - that'll take billions of years and we'd have to be a lot farther away then Mars to be safe.
Now that you mention it, it is an inevitability. Clearly, you seem to be assuming that the article content has something to do with Mars. I don't think it does. It's just a brief justification for humans in space. While we're at it, when it talks about survival, it doesn't enforce a time cap. So, if we want to survive as a species for longer than a few billion years, it would be reasonable assume that we ought to colonize another solar system.
Re:What Bad Things? (Score:1, Insightful)
On my whiteboard at work... (Score:5, Insightful)
Slight oversimplification, but the idea is there.
Oh and by the way, IAARS (I am a rocket scientist).
Re:Got it Backwards (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Three reasons not to put people in space (Score:3, Insightful)
Is it? let's see:
Gravity. Earth has the strongest surface gravity of any accessible real estate in the system. This means that just moving around puts more strain on your system than anywheer else you're likely to be able to live.
Atmosphere. The thick atmosphere means that you can save a little on radiation shielding: you can get away with a few inches of brick or wood instead of a few meters of stone. Still, stone is pretty cheap on any large-body surfaces.
Life support. Most places on earth you need less complex life-support systems than in space, but you can't get away with them altogether except in fairly narrow temperate bands. Plus, you need to be prepared for unexpected and unpredictable changes in temperature, pressure, and humidity... so even your industrial plant and other secondary life-support systems need radiation and chemical sheilding.
No, there's really only one sense in which Earth's surface is more hospitable... the oxygen is too cheap to meter! Other resources, though, are comparably difficult or MUCH more difficult to acquire. You wouldn't believe what Earthlings have to do to get electricity, for example, with that heavy atmosphere blocking most of the radiation from the sun.
Ove the very short term, until there's an ongoing space-based economy, life support will be a big problem. Long term, though, it's a minor issue.
Need to make it pay (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't interpret this as a cynical comment about capitalism or human greed: this is a basic economic reality. What if we spend trillions just to bring back a few moon rocks or stick some NASA jockeys in a white tent on Mars? Unless there are phenomenal payoffs (in the form knowledge) to such ventures, such scenarios are "failure".
On the other hand, if we are able to mine asteroids for extradorinary materials or terraform Mars, than we might be looking at a scenario called "success".
Personally, I would really like to see humans make it into space, but I'm pessimisitic about the opportunities. I suspect that the next frontiers for humankind lie more along the lines of biology, medicine, and AI: let's engineer immortality and hyper-extend consciousness before we colonize space (unless there's a definite payoff to the latter).
Re:Survive? (Score:3, Insightful)
I disagree with your statement that there is very little of interest in space. Both asteroids and comets are of great interest. Why, you ask? Many comets are made of ice -- frozen water, which will be quite useful if we're going to create colonies either in space or on the surface of other worlds. In addition, if we keep on pumping crap into Earth's rivers, lakes, and oceans we may need some of that water ourselves in the not-too-distant future.
As for asteroids [wikipedia.org], the C-type [wikipedia.org], S-type [wikipedia.org], and M-type [wikipedia.org] asteroids could provide us with valuable resources for manufacturing, either for products to be used to explore other planets or for products to ship back to Earth.
Colonizing the ocean floor would be much more difficult than colonizing space. In space, the pressure difference between inside the space capsule (1 atmosphere) and outside (0 atmosphere) is 1 atmosphere, so the space capsule doesn't have to withstand _that_ much pressure. I believe that in the ocean, the outside pressure increases by 1 atmosphere every 10 meters or so -- meaning that if you want to go down 1000 meters, your ocean capsule has to withstand a pressure differential of 99 atmospheres pressing in. Now true, you'd have to travel farther to get to orbit than you would to get to the ocean floor, but the conditions at your destination are actually better in space in terms of pressure.
Your final comment was On this survival front, no scientist could possibly prove that life is safier anywhere else than on the Earth, where it has been happily plodding along for a few billion years, and so far been unobserved anywhere else.. Think of it as an insurance policy. Right now, if something were to happen, humanity is an uninsured "liver" (one who lives) and we'd be screwed. If we had the insurance policy of a self-sustaining colony off-planet, then even if something were to happen to Earth that kills off humanity, we can fall back on our insurance policy.
It's not a matter of whether or not anyplace else is safer than Earth -- I wouldn't exactly say Earth is all that safe right now. Read the current concerns [wikipedia.org] about nuclear warfare. Add to that biological [wikipedia.org] and chemical [wikipedia.org] weapons and I think you'll see we could do a pretty damn good job killing off either all life or just all human life on the planet. If that were to happen, I wouldn't want that to be the end of humanity.
Re:Regarding the article: (Score:5, Insightful)
Malthusian Dilemma (Score:3, Insightful)
OK, maybe my thoughts on this matter are a bit simplistic, but if you consider the Malthusian Catastrophe [wikipedia.org] (sometimes known as the Malthusian Dilemma), it boils down to two things:
While, in theory, some would argue we should adopt economies based upon sustainability rather than growth, I think it's more realistic to say that this will only happen when we have no choice. In the meantime, in our never-ending quest for resources, we can look at those two bullet points and notice that the real limiting factor isn't "resources", but "our planet."
I certainly don't believe we can solve our population problems via space exploration, nor do I think it's likely we're soon going to be in a position to utilize enough space-based resources to make a difference at the bottom of our gravity well. However, we can still spread the human race further and increase our chances of survival (as mentioned in the article) by ensuring that some humans are not dependent on our planet's resources.
But as a last ditch effort to sway those Harvard business school types who really don't understand the long-term benefits we get from space exploration, here's a short list of technologies have been directly a direct result or space research or greatly enhanced by said research:
I've ranted a bit more about this in one of my journals [livejournal.com].
Re:Survive? (Score:5, Insightful)
The counterargument is as follows: what could anybody or anything possibly do to our planet to make it as hostile an environment as, say, Mars?
Even nuclear war or an asteroid strike would be unlikely to eliminate the oxygen from the atmosphere or change the mean surface temperature by more than, say, 20 or 30 degrees Celsius. Still quite hospitable in the grand scheme of things.
Rather than shipping a self sufficient colony of humans to Mars, at extraordinary difficulty, expense, and risk, why not just build the same colony in a physically and environmentally isolated place on Earth, like some mine shaft somewhere? Heck, build two for redundancy. The engineering and political risk to such a project would be vastly reduced by avoiding the need to shlep everything between gravity wells. Space travel is extraordinary difficult, and as a result, space engineering projects have a remarkably poor success rate. The survival of the species hardly seems like an area where we should choose to take on vast and unnecessary risks.
If our goal were truly to protect the survival of the species, we would start with that premise and consider the technical merits of all the possible solutions. Yet we seem to be entering this debate with a preconception that space colonization is the answer. I believe that the answer is preordained simply because survival of the species never was a goal, and never will be; it is simply a rationalization for our desire to explore a new frontier!
I think nothing illustrates this better than the political absurdity of actually implementing a realistic human survival plan here on Earth. Can you imagine getting Congress to spend a few billion dollars for a self sufficient colony on Earth? It would be laughed out of committee. Even at the height of the Cold War, we were telling schoolchildren to hide under their desks instead of seriously trying to protect our future. And just writing these words, I am starting to sound like a survivalist crackpot!
Why is it so much easier for us to justify an enormously difficult, expensive, and failure prone attempt at survivalism in space when we do it so much better, faster, and cheaper here on Earth?
Martin
Re:We cannot deal with either case (Score:3, Insightful)
You are absolutely right, if there is a species threatening event in the next century, we are not prepared to deal with it. That is precicely why we have to go into space now. In that way we can deal with species threatening events when they arrive.
The problem with the species threatening events is that we do not know when they may happen, but we know that some of them will happen. Major impacts being a minor such threat. Some of them we will have warnings about a long time in advance, such as the inevitable fact that the Sun is going to run out of energy and inflate past the orbit of the earth. Others we will not have much of a warning about at all, such as a significant gamma ray burst in our neighborhood (within a few hundred lights).
With events where we have a warning, there will be (when they approach) a strong demand for evacuation, so we need to be prepared for that. Developing such technology will take millennia (or centuries at least). With the events where we will have no real warning, life on earth will be wiped out. Our safety net in that case is the fact that we have already colonized areas where the burst does not wipe out life.
Both scenarios requires we go into space big time as soon as possible.
Re:Missing the Point (Score:2, Insightful)
The development cycle needs to be composed of lab work and real world usage. We need to do a lot of developing, but hand-in-hand must go actual usage. Waiting around is not the answer.
No help for population problems. (Score:2, Insightful)
Second, unless you are contemplating involuntary migration, I don't think you would find the millions of volunteers needed every year.
Re:Regarding the article: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Missing the Point (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, survival is not PC (Score:1, Insightful)
Oh, and because it might allow a few "narrow minded" people to escape.
-Anonymous Phil
Re:Regarding the article: (Score:3, Insightful)
-matthew
Re:Regarding the article: (Score:4, Insightful)
Your unsupported "flame" doesn't really change that fact at all.
Re:Regarding the article: (Score:3, Insightful)
Frankly I think this is idiotic. Simply putting a couple people on Mars would cost a couple hundred billion dollars; establishing a viable, self-sustaining outpost would cost orders of magnitude more. Meanwhile, half the world lives in abject poverty and the environment and climate are going to hell. Hasn't it occurred to anyone that funding a multi-trillion dollar effort to colonize space, with its massive consumption of energy and resources, might push us over the edge and to the very extinction which space fanboys claim to be staving off?
Re:Regarding the article: (Score:4, Insightful)
The funny part of this is that people often think we'll escape what they don't like about society here, by just leaving.
If your opinions aren't properly represented on earth, what makes you think it will be any different just because you're in space? I think we ought to work on making earth a nice place, THEN worry about how well we can manage ourselves in space colonies.
Living in space won't make you happy and free. Learning to make a difference here will.
Reasons for robots in space (Score:2, Insightful)
Humans are expensive. Humans need food, water, air, protection from solar radiation, exercise, and a healthy social environment. Robots just need batteries. A manned mission to Mars would cost many billions of dollars. For that money, we could send multiple robotic probes to every planet in the solar system and learn far more.
Human life is precious. Spaceflight is dangerous, and some missions will fail. When this happens to robots it's unfortunate, but when it happens to humans it's tragic. One space shuttle full of astronauts is lost and we stop our main space missions for more than two years. Even successful missions can be one-way tickets to a cold grave. Could we have done the Voyager missions with humans aboard? I'm sure some citizens would volunteer for one-way trips, but our society would not allow it.
Sending humans to space is unnecessary for preservation of the species. One frequently cited reason for manned spaceflight is preservation of the species in case something bad (war, disease, or asteroid strike) happens on Earth. But we could preserve seeds of humanity without space travel. Build self-sufficient colonies on the bottom of the ocean or in a deep mine. Sustain them with geothermal or nuclear power. Such colonies could survive any of these disasters. Living below the surface might be hard, but it's still far more hospitable and cheaper than space.
Sending humans to space is ineffective for avoiding overpopulation. The number of humans on Earth has increased by one billion in the past ten years. To maintain a constant population on Earth, we would need to send away 100 million people per year. That is a spacecraft carrying 200 passengers launched every minute of every day.
Robots are tools of the human spirit. Some might complain that robots can't think or feel, so they can never really explore. But that argument is similar to saying that I should walk rather than drive on my summer vacation since cars can't appreciate vacations anyway. Robots are our tools, and it is humans that decide how they should explore and it is humans that reap the knowledge and it is humans that enjoy the wealth and comfort of robotic labor.
I hope that our nations' space programs will spend resources wisely and make good use of robotic exploration.
AlpineR
No mention of... (Score:3, Insightful)
2. Unlimited raw materials
That seems to me to be such a greater proposition than "to work" or "to live". Imagine tne entire world entering an economic prosperity that doesn't end for fifty thousand years... That's think kind of thing you get by utilizing the resources of our solar systel, let alone outer space.
How funny (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Reasons for robots in space (Score:2, Insightful)
That's why humans need to take risks and explore. Not sit behind a joystick. Life is too precious to waste playing it safe. If that's what you want then fine, but don't destroy the dreams of everyone else who actually wants to risk and experience.
Re:Regarding the article: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sex isn't about gratifying yourself (well, not completely). It's about satisfying your partner. If I only wanted to satisfy myself, I could do that with my hand much faster and easier.
Of course, they don't teach you this in Catholic school because they want you to breed more little Catholics that they can brainwash so they'll "tithe" 10% or more of their income to the Church.
The fact that the Catholic Church is now thumbing its nose at all the victims of Priestly molestation by allowing Cardinal Law to enjoy a position of large significance at the Vatican alone should be a good reason for anyone who claims to believe in Christ's teachings to abandon that thoroughly corrupt organization.
Re:So, you've decided to miss the point.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Getting there: an idea (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no reasonable cryogenic method to take a human form and shut it down for millions of years. But it's feasible with frozen embryos.
How we grow them from there, I don't know. We'd some way to create test tube babies without implanting them in a host.
The adam and eve of the new solar system are created. If it turns out there is habitable planet in that system - they win. If there isn't, the humans can nuke themselves or something.
I don't know - seems the only way. The distances are just so huge and the time scales so vast, that transporting organic material that far seems impractical.
Re:Regarding the article: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not just for the fun of it. You don't go and colonize a planet because you feel like it. The idea is to create a human outpost, so if something happens on Earth, then some of our civilization will remain elsewhere.
If the planet collapses, neither Sahara nor the Arctic Circles will be spared.
Re:beware (Score:3, Insightful)
The quote that we couldn't land on the moon in 20 years now is similarly unbelievable. All that stands in our way is the will to do it. That could change pretty fast when, for example, the Chinese start launching lunar missions. Other countries will follow suit, or be left behind.