Multi-National Crew Reaches Space Station 70
An anonymous reader writes A Russian capsule carrying three astronauts from Russia, the United States and Italy has blasted off for the International Space Station. Aboard the capsule are Russian Anton Shkaplerov, Nasa's Terry Virts and European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, Italy's first female astronaut. "I think that 100 years from now, 500 years from now, people will look back on this as the initial baby steps that we took going into the solar system," Virts told a pre-launch press conference. "In the same way that we look back on Columbus and the other explorers 500 years ago, this is the way people will look at this time in history."
Same as Columbus (Score:2)
A clear sign that we are finally going to exploit the resources of our solar system.
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That depends on the destination for the final product. If you're building something for use off-Earth, using space-based resources from construction allows you to eliminate launch costs for the weight of that thing.
This of course presumes that the launch cost of your asteroid harvester is less than the launch cost of what you're building with the materials. Then again, if one Earth-launched asteroid harvester can get enough raw materials for more than one space-built asteroid harvester, you're on your way
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Figuring out how to robotically mine, refine, and construct machines serves no useful purpose?
It serves no useful purpose to do all of that in space given the insanely high cost.
How about getting all those polluting industries off earth?
How about figuring out how to mine stuff without pollution ?
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It serves no useful purpose to do all of that in space given the insanely high cost.
It's R&D, it costs a lot of money. It's not meant to replace efficient industries yet.
How about figuring out how to mine stuff without pollution ?
There are always toxic side effects to industry. What you're proposing can't be done.
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What you're proposing can't be done.
That's what they told Columbus. LOL. But seriously, mining with low pollution on Earth is much more realistic than an autonomous robotic mine on an asteroid.
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What exactly is unrealistic about an autonomous robot on an asteroid
Not just a "robot". Autonomous mining and refining equipment, plus all the infrastructure to build more. For instance, I assume your robot contains a CPU. That means you need a IC factory in space, plus a factory to build IC factories. Plus factories for all the materials you need. Basically, we're talking about launching a small to medium city. Now, how much rockets and fuel
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Since the stock market decided that quarterly numbers was the only meaningful metric and corporations stopped having any longer-term goals?
Seriously, for the last decade it seems like long-term thinking is out the window, because people who run corporations only give a damn about the next quarter.
And when the management team gets swapped out, they cancel anything which had been on-going in favor of new short-term measures.
Or, at least,
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We keep launching stuff into space, and launch cost is always a concern. This isn't new business, this is existing business. Even if only structural components could be space-source, and not the electronics or optics, it can still be a financial win.
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Right now, that's true. But as the cost of digging deeper escalates and the minerals get more scarce, there will inevitably be a time when the cost of resources from space will drop below the cost of terrestrial mining.
Long before that, we're going to see steadily increasing local use of space resources, such as habitats and solar arrays on the Moon made from lunar materials.
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we're going to see steadily increasing local use of space resources, such as habitats and solar arrays on the Moon made from lunar materials.
Why spend astronomical amounts of money to build habitats on the Moon ?
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You're advocating stealing tons of resources and energy from the Earth right here so you can build hypothetical comic book sci-fi impossibilities, but *that's* OK?
Yes. Stealing *tons* of resources from Earth to expand human habitat to space is fine by me. It's a drop of water compared to the *billions of tons* of resources and energy we put into killing each other. You guys keep trying to play this up like we're throwing away our future in order to finance space research...that is not so. It is nothing compared to our other (less worthy) expenses.
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But you claim that our nutty space religion ideas will bankrupt the world, yet all we want and more could be paid for many times over by the military budget of the United States.
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Expansion of the human habitat beyond earth.
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Why ? You suffer huge cost, just to end up in a covered dome on some barren rock where you will be one mechanical failure away from death.
How is this any different than being on Earth? There are huge costs to society here on Earth. Yes, parts of the Earth will sustain us for the foreseeable future without us expending any energy. But that's never been enough for us. We humans are always moving into new habitats. We develop new technologies to help us do it. When we left Africa we developed tools to help us hunt and kill animals for the skins so we could survive in colder climates. We developed agriculture and husbandry for the same re
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We'll have to make arrangements right here with real, actual solutions.
Bullshit. Nature has already solved this problem for us. We instinctively kill each other. This will NEVER change. Even if we have one world government, there will always be violent factions.
The population is increasing by 200000 people EVERY DAY. That's about SEVENTY THOUSAND SATURN V launches *EVERY DAY* just to BREAK EVEN!!!
I'm not talking about evacuating the existing population, that's impossible until something like a space elevator comes along. I never billed this as a cure for overpopulation. Stop putting words in my mouth.
Exactly, new technology that will be used by the SEVEN BILLION people here right now, not the ZERO people on Mars.
The same argument could have been used for staying in Africa.
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The same argument could have been used for staying in Africa.
Poor analogy. It didn't take much resources to leave Africa, and survive outside of it.
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They had to invent the technology to kill animals for food and to acquire pelts for warm themselves in cold climates. They had to learn to control fire. They had to learn language. It simply could not be done without the knowledge you and I take for granted. You're belittling what a huge undertaking all that was. Yes, we can look back from where we are now and say it was easy. But for them, it meant death, therefore it was impossible.
It's the same thing
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Primitive humans would probably disagree.
They were the ones that did it, using just the tools they made themselves. A little different than for instance the Apollo project that took a big chunk from an entire nation to put a few men on the moon. And that was easy, because they didn't attempt to stay there and try to live off the land.
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<quote>... until something like a space elevator comes along....</quote>
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How is this any different than being on Earth?
For starters, we can walk around outside, and find stuff that we can eat and drink just using our bare hands. So, if technology breaks down completely, humans will still be able to survive. That's a little different than anywhere else in the solar system, right ?
Multiplying on Earth can only continue for so long.
Even if all of Mars was habitable, it would only add one quarter additional Earth surface. But it isn't. And the rest of the solar system is even less hospitable than Mars.
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So, if technology breaks down completely, humans will still be able to survive. That's a little different than anywhere else in the solar system, right ?
We can still die at a moments notice.
Even if all of Mars was habitable, it would only add one quarter additional Earth surface. But it isn't. And the rest of the solar system is even less hospitable than Mars.
I never proposed it as a solution for overpopulation. I never proposed a mass migration. Why do people keep assuming that?
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Even if all of Mars was habitable, it would only add one quarter additional Earth surface. But it isn't. And the rest of the solar system is even less hospitable than Mars.
That's why in the long run, we've got to get out of the solar system and plant colonies somewhere else. Mars isn't an interesting end destination, but getting to Mars would help pave the way to start sending colonies out to all those exoplanets we keep discovering, and hoping one of them is habitable.
This may actually be impossible. I've been working up a novel whose premise was a completely believable last ditch survival shot at colonizing the stars with as little new technology as possible. What if som
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Humanity, possibly, but not humans.
Cramming 7 billion people onto this rock requires a huge amount of technology. If it fails then we are still screwed. How many rivers in the US (or the world) are under artificial management rather than their natural flows? What happens if the technology producing that fails? What about agriculture? How many of those 7 billion would survive if agriculture had to continue without technology (water managment, oil-driven labour)?
We are are still on a small cramped rock that w
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So your point is that it would be hard?
Gosh, what news, better give up on that then.
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The costs for digging things up on earth are going to be higher than anywhere else because it is our own habitat.
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"Same as Columbus"? Does that mean they are going to try and secure Samantha Cristoforetti's place in the history books as the first person to discover the International Space Station, in direct contradiction to evidence suggesting other people made it there first?
really? (Score:4, Insightful)
"I think that 100 years from now, 500 years from now, people will look back on this as the initial baby steps that we took going into the solar system," Virts told a pre-launch press conference. "In the same way that we look back on Columbus and the other explorers 500 years ago, this is the way people will look at this time in history."
More like the first time someone took a dugout log out to sea, paddled around within sight of shore, then came back again.
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I agree that the historical significance is over rated.
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Don't underestimate the difficulty of what we did back in the 50s and 60s. You don't need an airtight suit just to go out on your little dinghy, or millions of litres of rocket fuel igniting under you to get there. It's baby steps compared to what will one day be possible, but not exactly showing a lack of effort. That started in the mid 70s.
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So Russia should stop shuttling US astronauts to and from ISS?
A Russian, an American and an Italian all walk... (Score:2)
A Russian, an American and an Italian all walk into a space station.
As soon as the shuttle that dropped them off reenters the atmosphere they discover that a fire has started in the living quarters. They crawl into the module with the escape capsules but discover that there are only two of the one-man crafts available. The Russian immediately dives through a door shouting "for the motherland!" The brave American offers the last capsule to the Italian, but the Italian politely refuses. He says, "Nah, let
The 60's (Score:1)
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Pictures of astronauts will be as quaint as black and white pictures of Victorian men with handlebar mustaches and top hats.
I think what will happen is astronauts will become a mythical character of sorts like the pirate and the cowboy. Though pirates and cowboys did exist, they were nothing like what is portrayed by Johnny Depp and John Wayne. I believe in a hundred years many people will have mixture of fact and fiction of the spaceman. In fact I encounter people these days who get 1960s astronauts confused with fictional characters.
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Slacking, you say? During that time we have only been sending probes to every planet, plus Pluto, asteroids and now a comet. So far, manned programs have been a vestigial part of space exploration as a whole. Now that manned programs are going private, astronauts will be able to assume levels of personal risk that have not been possible since Apollo.
Multi-National Crew (Score:3)
Isn't that pretty much the rule for the ISS
It is after all the International Space Station
ISS is not forever (Score:2)
It's hard to believe these people are educated (Score:2)
Like Columbus? Does that mean they're planning genocide and exploitation of a race of people as slave labor?