Is Space Exploration Worth the Cost? A Freakonomics Quorum

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Riddick124
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05 Feb 2008, 6:50 am

First of all, I love space, was previously obsessed with almost everything about it, but even so, I feel that the space program is currently a drain on resources. One day, it will be benificial or even essential, but currently the only really useful thing they are doing is constructing the ISS, which will hopefully lead to many discoveries only possible in microgravity.



Tensho
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05 Feb 2008, 5:15 pm

I am all for travelling to space but I dont think the space program is a good idea.

Instead of forcing develops in technology to get us to space at huge costs why not just be patient and wait till technology has reached the point where space travel dont cost much.

I think what should be focused on is development of our countrys and the things we need to survive and to protect the environment we live in.



lau
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05 Feb 2008, 5:41 pm

As explained before, sticking one's head in the sand, and hoping that there will be some amazingly lucky "new technology", is just naive.

I am wildly optimistic about the future - with nanotechnology playing a huge part in that. However, I also wish to "cover my bets". All the "good stuff" would be nice, but the cautious person has to ensure that we survive, even if none of it works out in time.

In the short term, attending to the environment may sound like a good idea, but if that results in us merely prolonging our existence here for a few decades...

The priority must be long term survival.

Hmm... I think I'm going to coin the three Ds:

Development
Diversification
Dispersal

Development: We're already doing this. Pushing the boundaries of science outward at a quite dizzying rate.

Diversification: I'm definitely into genetic modification, self improvement, cyborgs, alternate intelligence media.

Dispersal: We have to move off planet - as soon as possible. Here, we're sitting ducks for the first of any number of accidents, many of which can already be predicted with some accuracy.


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PaperCrusade
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06 Feb 2008, 9:45 am

I agree with nearly all of what you say, Iau, but I think you misinterpreted my post.

Obviously if there was a simple method of (safe) FTL 90% of the problem would be solved, but I think that more research is conducted into this on Earth than elsewhere. Especially in terms of colony ships, most of the research will have to be conducted on Earth (imagine the cost of experimenting to develop a sustainable food source on the space station as opposed to Earth - space should be a final testing ground after a strict earthly selection process). I'm not saying we should ignore space at all, but rather perfect the technology to allow us to travel safely within it (e.g. energy issues, air recycling, FTL (i wish))

Unfortunatley even at light speed it would take many years to reach Alpha Centauri on the off chance that there is a habitable planet, so probes would need to be sent first, or we would need to be able to accurately scan all nearby systems before a mission even got started, both of which also take time.

I agree that we don't have time to wait. I only wish the governments with the bucks to support space travel related research thought like us. Too bad they will only sit up and take notice when it becomes clear we have no time left.

We don't have the technology yet to immediately dispatch a colony off to the nearest system. Hence more research is needed, but focusing on this (it's either expand or die with the planet). I'm sorry if I wasn't clear about this before.


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lau
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06 Feb 2008, 10:48 am

Just a quicky, PaperCrusade...

I actually do believe that we already have the technology to immediately dispatch a colony off to the nearest system (not very prettily, I'd grant). We don't quite have the will, yet.

We do, hopefully, have some leeway for further refinement. It just worries me when people adopt the "it won't happen to me" approach.

E.g. "There's only one chance in 10,000 that a big asteroid will hit the Earth each year". But that means it could happen tomorrow. Well, maybe not tomorrow, because NEOs are pretty well known. However, move forward ten years...


BTW. I'm not gold (Iau), but just me (Lau).


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shaggydaddy
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06 Feb 2008, 12:08 pm

space exploration is absolutly the ONLY thing that really matters.

without multiple colonies on multiple planets, there are many KNOWN and many unknown ways in which humans could dissappear completly in an instant.

Energy scarcity is really the only thing standing in our way, and without solving scarcity we cannot hope to spend enough resources on space travel. The problem is that scarcity is a very solvable problem, and without scarcity there can be no Wealth. The existance of wealth means we cannot progress as a species. So what has to happen is the non-wealthy need to solve scarcity. At which point we can focus all of our efforts on space colonization, the only way to ensure the survival of the human race.


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twoshots
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06 Feb 2008, 11:43 pm

The_Q wrote:
FTL travel would do a lot to solve this problem.


twoshots, who is by no means an expert, regards practical FTL as a pipe dream. I have not heard anything well-founded that indicates it could be possible, just shameless speculation.

All else aside, given the cost, what would be the necessity of an interstellar colonization effort? There's plenty of space and resources in the solar system. And if memory serves, Alpha Centauri, though only a few light years away, is a trinary system (alpha, beta, and proxima centauris), so it does not seem likely that it will have any decent planets. Next best guess is Epsilon Eridani, which has one loopy gas giant which doesn't bode well...

All I'm saying, is that the interstellar neighborhood doesn't seem terribly profitable.


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The_Q
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07 Feb 2008, 7:30 am

twoshots wrote:
The_Q wrote:
FTL travel would do a lot to solve this problem.


twoshots, who is by no means an expert, regards practical FTL as a pipe dream. I have not heard anything well-founded that indicates it could be possible, just shameless speculation.

All else aside, given the cost, what would be the necessity of an interstellar colonization effort? There's plenty of space and resources in the solar system. And if memory serves, Alpha Centauri, though only a few light years away, is a trinary system (alpha, beta, and proxima centauris), so it does not seem likely that it will have any decent planets. Next best guess is Epsilon Eridani, which has one loopy gas giant which doesn't bode well...

All I'm saying, is that the interstellar neighborhood doesn't seem terribly profitable.


As has been discussed, there do seem to be ways for FTL travel to work according to the current laws of physics (which aren't necessarily correct) we just don't have the technical ability to make them a reality at this point. We also need to expand in order to achieve any truly long term survival, the Sun has a finite supply of hydrogen which will only last for the next 5 billion years or so (I know this is a long time by most standards, but in the big scheme it's not). The reason we haven't found any known habitable planets yet is because we don't have a means of detection sensitive enough to pick them up - this is going to change in the near future.


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ProziumAddict
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12 Feb 2008, 1:54 am

I'd just like to remind you that one of the technologies developed for Hubble has paid for the entire project's budget 7 times over, thanks to its application in mammograms... not to mention all the lives its saved.

Hypothetically speaking, what would happen if we cut National Defense by 1% (hint: occupations are costly), and gave the rest to NASA... I cant think of much harm, and can think of a ton of good.