Space Is (Not) the Place, Says Professor 376
snoop.daub writes "A while back, we discussed UCSD professor Tom Murphy's post about the limits on growth in energy use and economies. Partly in reaction to Slashdot's response (and my own writeup!), he's back with a new post arguing that space is not a solution to enable continued growth. There's a lot of good stuff in here about public misconceptions regarding the difficulty of space travel and the like; again definitely worth the read."
Space is big (Score:5, Funny)
Space is dark
It's hard to find
A place to park
Burma Shave
Re:Big duh. (Score:5, Funny)
In fact, the entire enterprise of physics is inherently statist. It spends essentially all its time and resources imposing as many universal laws as possible. If only physics were deregulated, and the behavior of matter and energy left to the free market, those particles whose behavior is best adapted to the demands of the marketplace would outcompete less efficient matter and create a utopia.
And this is why you don't promote... (Score:2, Funny)
...the right thing with false reasoning.
There is no economic reason to colonize space. In fact, there is no economic reason for anything other than killing all people and let the last remaining person to live the remainder of his life as the supposed owner of the world. Here is your perfect solution, the whole Earth population (1 person) acquiring maximum possible amount of all possible resources and products per time (whatever he can lay his eyes on). But this is why economists should shut up and go back to whoring to the aristocracy. Hey, look, Austrian School is unpopular again, you have some work to do!
We're a bunch of goddamn wimps. (Score:3, Funny)
This is all ridiculous. The reason we aren't going to space is because we're a bunch of cowards--we insist that any mission have a ridiculously high safety expectation, complete with trip home.
We aren't going to even BEGIN to think about living anywhere outside our planet until someone driven enough to risk their life sits on top of a ton of explosives and fires themselves off to the stars with two middle fingers pointing back at the receding Earth.
This poor guys wife. (Score:2, Funny)
Can imagine the crap she gets when she suggests maybe they should go on a cruise or buy a new car?
Re:Do the math, indeed! (Score:4, Funny)
Sorry, I should have put a /facetiousness tag on that. ;^)
Of course, after thinking about it - no one in government reads anything other than dry reports. There's probably not a decision maker anywhere who knows who Heinlein was. And, I don't think Harsh Mistress made it to Hollywood, so we're probably safe if we suggest a catapult!