Space exploration/settlement is too expensive... riiight?

[Winner]

Just found this article and I think I need to share this with CFC OT community. Nothing really surprising or new, but it helps to show how immensely idiotic the human "civilization" can be.

Space Settlement and War
By Al Globus

"War is not healthy for children and other living things" goes the 60's poster.

It's true -- and yet we still fight wars. Why? Because war serves several important functions. One of the most important is to gain or preserve control of resources, particularly territory. For example, the European desire to expand in the 15th through 20th centuries could only take place on Earth, and inevitably sparked a long series of wars both in and out of Europe, culminating with the vast trench-warfare slaughter of World War I. Today there is an entirely peaceful and far more powerful alternative, space settlement. Space settlement is to territorial and resource wars as computer word processing is to the quill pen. Sure, you can write a book with a quill and ink pot, but why bother when you've got a PC and MS Word?

Space settlement means people living and working beyond Earth, not only on the Moon and Mars, but also in giant rotating spacecraft -- orbital space settlements.

In the 1970's Princeton physicist Gerard O'Neill, with the help of NASA Ames Research Center and Stanford University, showed that we can build giant orbiting spaceships and live in them [reference]. These settlements can be wonderful places to live; about the size of a California beach town and endowed with weightless recreation, fantastic views, freedom, elbow-room in spades, great wealth and true independence. Territorial and resource wars can be made obsolete by space settlement because of one simple fact: the vast majority of the resources available to mankind are not on Earth, they are in space. While exploiting space resources will be monumentally expensive, this cost is minor compared to the cost of war. A really first-class space settlement program might cost $100 billion a year, whereas the U.S. military budget is about $600 billion. Moreover, space settlement can deliver far, far more resources than even the most successful imaginable Earth-bound military.

Consider:

• If the materials in the single largest asteroid, Ceres, were used for orbital space settlement construction, we could build territory equal to over 200 times surface area of the Earth (1). This is enough to provide every single nation as much territory as if they conquered the entire Earth. Furthermore, conquering Earth is probably impossible, whereas building space settlements is merely incredibly difficult.
• The total energy resources of this solar system are about 2.3 billion times the energy available on Earth. This is simply the Sun's energy output -- and the Sun is an enormous nuclear fusion reactor that works perfectly right now, today, and is perfectly safe -- or at least isn't going away. Furthermore, we know, more or less, how to exploit space solar power ([reference]).
• There are thousands of asteroids in orbits that cross Earth's, and just one of them, 3554 Amun, contains roughly $20 trillion dollars worth of precious metals.

Space settlement can make resource wars a thing of the past, something we only read about in history books, because space settlement can deliver far, far more resources at far, far less cost. Less money, less death, less destruction, and infinitely less stupidity.

Resources and territory are not the only reasons for war, but they cause a lot of them. The U.S. has spent far more defending oil access in the Mid-East than it would cost to build space settlements. Perhaps it's time to change direction. Perhaps it's time to make Earth a bit healthier for children and other living things. Perhaps it's time to choose life over war. Perhaps it's time to start building space settlements.

----
Footnotes

(1) This works because most of the mass of space settlements is in the hull, not filling three-dimensional space. The hull is very thin compared to a planet or large asteroid so uses far less mass for the same living area. Rotation is used to provide a feeling similar to gravity with far less mass.

Al Globus serves on the National Space Society Board of Directors and is a senior research associate for Human Factors Research and Technology at San Jose State University at NASA Ames Research Center.

Source

We're like a bunch of primitives fighting over palm trees on a small island, instead of building boats and colonizing a nearby continent

 

[RedRalph]

Except almost no one's military today exists to expand territory. I take the article's point, but we aren't spending money to get land anymore (a few exceptions).

 

[J-man]

The question just is "Is it profitable to fly out to an asteroid, extract ores and fly it back to earth?"
If the question is yes, I'd say do it! However, I doubt it is profitable. It's still very expensive to launch something to low earth orbit, let alone to an asteroid.

 

[Riffraff]

We still lack a few centuries of technological development for this to be an issue I'm afraid.

Also: for these huge project to actually be sucessful, we will need great stability down here on earth anyways.

 

[Harvin87]

I will not see it during my life...

 

[Gigaz]

Furthermore, conquering Earth is probably impossible, whereas building space settlements is merely incredibly difficult.

I'd rather try conquering the earth.

100 billion $ a year is not enough for even a thousand space residents.
Many problems are still to be solved: Radiaton, small asteroids, material, difficulties in engineering, and so on.
Remember the biosphere experiment? The biosphere in the capsule collapsed after two years.
By the time we can build space settlements we will probably be able to simply plug people into the matrix instead of creating a real environment.

 

[Joecoolyo]

Hmm... even if we do get tot he technological level in which we can launch ships into space for the purpose of extracting resources, there probably will be space pirates there to harass us (by then I expect civilian spacecraft also to have become popular). So just another need for the military .

 

[Yeekim]

The most important question is, how many people could this "first-class, 100-million-dollar space settlement program" really accommodate? 100? 1000? 10 000?
Without knowing it, this comparison is meaningless.

 

[fugazi]

We still lack a few centuries of technological development for this to be an issue I'm afraid.

Also: for these huge project to actually be sucessful, we will need great stability down here on earth anyways.

Yeah, we will because we rather pump the money into more guns and arms. For a race that adores brilliance, we oh so willingly discard it.

 

[Winner]

The most important question is, how many people could this "first-class, 100-mBillion-dollar space settlement program" really accommodate? 100? 1000? 10 000?
Without knowing it, this comparison is meaningless.

We're not talking about moving people to space en masse (that will not be possibly for a long time), we're talking about utilization of resources.

AFAIK, it is not THAT hard to capture an asteroid, place it on the orbit and extract useful resources. Yes, the initial investment would be huge (trillions of Euros), but the point is that we're already spending such money pointlessly here on Earth.

An investment in space exploration is an investment into the future. Compare the money wasted in military/bank bailouts/foreign "aid"/cosmetic industry/football (etc.) with the money spent on space-related activities.

Wiki says it's roughly $ 44 billion a year, only part of which is used for development of new technologies and real exploration. This sum is roughly comparable to the military budget of France. It's about 6.7% of the sum spent on defense by the United States.

Except almost no one's military today exists to expand territory. I take the article's point, but we aren't spending money to get land anymore (a few exceptions).

That only makes it more absurd.

 

[fugazi]

We rather waste money on new software and hardware to limit privacy, fight crime and terrorism and give more control to the powers that be. The bigger part of the money we'll use to arm up the country so that we can muscle our lesser partners around for economical gains. That's more lucrative than helping mankind out by taking the next big step.

 

[Lord Baal]

This article is pretty stupid. There are lots of resources which flat-out don't exist in space, such as that oil we're all fighting over, so we can't go to space to get them. Also, few nations are in the territory-conquering business anymore, as RRW said. Our technology is also currently not up to this.

With all that said, he does still make some good points. Space colonisation is the future of humanity, and we should be pouring money into it. I once read an article by an evolutionary theorist who said that humanity would double its chance of survival if we had a second planet (obvious really). That alone is reason enough to do this, and the article's point about resources isn't entirely wrong, adding another reason. Then there's overpopulation, pollution, famine, and many other reasons to encourage space colonisation. I really think we should explore it further.

 

[Winner]

This article is pretty stupid. There are lots of resources which flat-out don't exist in space, such as that oil we're all fighting over, so we can't go to space to get them. Also, few nations are in the territory-conquering business anymore, as RRW said. Our technology is also currently not up to this.

Oil is currently needed as a source of A) fuel and B) hydrocarbons for plastics. A) is an utter waste and an insult to human intelligence, B) can be obtained from comets which are pretty rich in all sorts of carbon-based substances.

Our technology needs development, that's obvious. So perhaaaaaaps we should invest more in this field, rather than waste the money in senseless arms race here on Earth. And yes, there still is an arms race going on. US military spending is so ridiculously high that it prompts all other potential competitors to spend higher and higher amounts of money to maintain at least partial balance of power.

Military can't be eliminated completely, that's clear - we need to be able to do peacekeeping, to maintain a minimal force necessary to defend ourselves and to deter potential adversaries. But this can be accomplished with much lower military spending, if resources are shared between allies and the whole structure is trans-nationalized.

With all that said, he does still make some good points. Space colonisation is the future of humanity, and we should be pouring money into it. I once read an article by an evolutionary theorist who said that humanity would double its chance of survival if we had a second planet (obvious really). That alone is reason enough to do this, and the article's point about resources isn't entirely wrong, adding another reason. Then there's overpopulation, pollution, famine, and many other reasons to encourage space colonisation. I really think we should explore it further.

Eh... space colonization isn't a solution to the problems caused by our collective stupidity. Earth needs to be fixed, or there will be no space colonization and most likely no humanity either. It is a way, however, to get all we need for long term survival without completely ruining our home planet.

Space should be our long-term priority. When I say long-term, I mean hundred(s) of years.

 

[Dachs]

Extremely high military budgets from a hegemon power do not always prompt arms races on the part of smaller powers - look at the Congress period - argument is flawed, basing the blame for an arms race on the United States' current military power is erroneous. Clearly there are other reasons behind the high military budgets of non-American states.

 

[Perfection]

Look, space goodies are cool, and it would be nicer to live in a world where we spent money on that instead of war. Space is also the future, there is a near unimaginable vastness of riches out there.

However, it's not the answer to our problems today. There are much cheaper and easier Earthbound solutions to these problems. There are plenty of resources here for everyone to live comfortably. So if we really decided to get our act together and solve these big problems we should mostly be spending outside of space research.

edit: most of this was addressed by winner while I was composing this post

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Pale Blue Dot. Pale Blue Dot. Pale Blue Dot.

Also, Winner, this is two in a row. Stop saying things I agree with!

 

[Winner]

Extremely high military budgets from a hegemon power do not always prompt arms races on the part of smaller powers - look at the Congress period - argument is flawed, basing the blame for an arms race on the United States' current military power is erroneous. Clearly there are other reasons behind the high military budgets of non-American states.

I didn't say it's the only reason, but it is an important contributing factor. Plus, the US militarily dominates in the international system much more than ANY great power in history (well, since Roman Empire if you want to bring regional politics into this).

In such environment, countries like China or Russia will naturally seek to expand their own military capabilities, if only to maintain their credibility.

 

[Dachs]

I didn't say it's the only reason, but it is an important contributing factor.

I should like it much better if you were to learn how to refrain from using unambiguous language when making an ambiguous point.

Plus, the US militarily dominates in the international system much more than ANY great power in history (well, since Roman Empire if you want to bring regional politics into this).

In such environment, countries like China or Russia will naturally seek to expand their own military capabilities, if only to maintain their credibility.

They wouldn't do that if their competitors were closer? Weren't the most well attested arms races in history between states that were extremely close in economic and/or military capability, hence the idea of calling it a race at all? If these states are racing against anybody, wouldn't it be each other? Or other regional powers that aren't the United States? Or for entirely non-external reasons altogether?

I would almost argue that if an arms race were occurring, it would be occurring because the United States is not powerful enough, as opposed to totally militarily dominant to a degree unseen in western history since the Roman Empire.

And don't you dare cite the balance of power as grounds for anything because the balance of power is always a justification, never a reason.

 

[Lord Baal]

Oil is currently needed as a source of A) fuel and B) hydrocarbons for plastics. A) is an utter waste and an insult to human intelligence, B) can be obtained from comets which are pretty rich in all sorts of carbon-based substances.

Our technology needs development, that's obvious. So perhaaaaaaps we should invest more in this field, rather than waste the money in senseless arms race here on Earth. And yes, there still is an arms race going on. US military spending is so ridiculously high that it prompts all other potential competitors to spend higher and higher amounts of money to maintain at least partial balance of power.

Military can't be eliminated completely, that's clear - we need to be able to do peacekeeping, to maintain a minimal force necessary to defend ourselves and to deter potential adversaries. But this can be accomplished with much lower military spending, if resources are shared between allies and the whole structure is trans-nationalized.



Eh... space colonization isn't a solution to the problems caused by our collective stupidity. Earth needs to be fixed, or there will be no space colonization and most likely no humanity either. It is a way, however, to get all we need for long term survival without completely ruining our home planet.

Space should be our long-term priority. When I say long-term, I mean hundred(s) of years.

I didn't say space exploration was a solution to our collective stupidity. Really, it's just exporting our stupidity to new climes. But that doesn't mean it can't act as an escape valve, to give us a little more time to pull our thumbs out of our backsides and fix the problems here. Not that we should need said escape valve, but let's face it, we humans are idiots.

 

[bhsup]

Space IS the future of humanity. It is in our very nature to explore. What's over that nextrange of mountains? What is just beyond that ocean horizon? Exploration is the history of man, and space will be no different.

It is tantamount, imho, to now turn our backs on the next two frontiers open to us, deep space and deep ocean. I would dearly love to see at least sincere plans for a generational ship to the Centauri star system in place before I die. Cost be damned, it's in our blood to do it.