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Louis Friedman Says Humans Will Never Venture Beyond Mars (scientificamerican.com)
MarkWhittington writes: Dr. Louis Friedman, one of the co-founders of the Planetary Society, is coming out with a new book, "Human Spaceflight: From Mars to the Stars," an excerpt of which was published in Scientific America. Friedman revives and revises a version of the humans vs. robots controversy that has roiled through aerospace circles for decades. Unlike previous advocates of restricting space travel to robots, such as Robert Park and the late James Van Allen, Friedman admits that humans are going to Mars to settle. But there, human space travel will end. Only robots will ever venture further.
“Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it.”
Robert A. Heinlein
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
"Never" is a very long time.
I don't think it is likely that humans will go beyond Mars in my lifetime (say the next 50 years or so), but never? Claiming that is just hubris. There is no way to state this with any degree of surety.
It is not a stretch beyond credibility to assume that humanity may be around for a few thousand years yet. Given all we've done in just the last 200 years, almost anything is possible given another 2000 years.
Riiight... ever heard about Mongolfier brothers?
I think even Dr. Friedman wouldn't argue that his thesis necessarily stays valid after some combinations of multiple breakthroughs, be it in physics, AI / neurobiology, cheap energy, physiology... It's still useful to consider the situation without these breakthroughs because they are fairly unpredictable and planning them will probably.fail.
It's not the fall that kills you. It's the sudden stop at the end. -Douglas Adams
There's another option. Some kind of device which spawns new humans when the ship gets to its destination.
His position is very sensible, and I honestly don't understand all the massive backlash against it.
I guess I can understand some resentment from people who've grown up on Star Trek, at being told it isn't going to play out that way. But seriously now. . . Star Trek was never even hard SF. It was a 1930s pulp sci-fi concept resurrected into a 1960s TV show, and it was fantasy from the beginning. Slashdot is supposed to be news for nerds. Nerds should know this. We should be smarter.
I also wonder how many of you read TFA? Let me help you out: "Some find this to be negative—an absolute statement of limits and thus of giving up. My job here is to prove the opposite: humans exploring the universe with nanotechnology robotics, bio-molecular engineering, and artificial intelligence is something that is exciting and positive, and is based on an optimistic view of the future."
He's not saying we can't explore space with human crews and colonies. He's saying it won't make sense to, because we'll have much better options. Human beings are very costly to keep alive in space, much more than machines -- so we'll send the machines. With uploading, we may *be* the machines.
In fact, I'll go further. I think we should *explore* Mars with manned missions -- because today's robotics technology is too limited, it would take centuries to explore Mars with robots at the pace we're going. But I think we should *settle* Mars with robots. In this case Futurama is probably a better guide than Star Trek. . .
Fry: So let me get this straight. This planet is completely uninhabited?
Bender: No, it's inhabited by robots.
Fry: Oh, kinda like how a warehouse is inhabited by boxes.
Yes. That's Mars.
I'd like to be wrong but I don't think humanity will venture as far as Mars, or even back to the Moon. Our adventurous spirit is largely extinguished and replaced with navel-gazing solipsism. We prefer weaponry to spacecraft in any case.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Over the not to distant future, socialism will shut down the western producing companies (leaving no production) and space travel will stop.
Socialism will be the end of space travel ?
I'm sorry, but what will kill human space travel will be the fanatics who decry that having taxes pay for such things as NASA when such expenditures do not return immediate benefit. Politicians now (in the US at least) consider the next presidential election cycle as being long-term planning. This ongoing unblinking focus on short term gain for long term pain, will be what stops humanity from space travel.
Consider this: Some of the groups that are doing the most in advancing space exploration include the Chinese and a partnership between European countries. Hardly anti-socialists (from an American perspective). Russia Japan India also have space programs, as well.
The only way human beings may move past Mars is through long term, negative profit,science-based programs. The kind of programs that are shut down by dollar focused, shareholder driven, anti-science political leaders we seem to be stuck with these days.
At least in the depths of the Cold War, the one-upmanship lead to positive gains in human space travel.
If only we could fall into a woman's arms without falling into her hands
As a parent, I make a lot of choices for my kids. Some of these choices will shape the lives of my grandchildren. For example, I choose to live in the US right now. If I and my wife had decided to move to another country, our kids' lives would have been vastly different. I don't see "making that choice for your children and grandchildren" to be that huge. It's what parents do every day. You don't sit back and ask your baby where he'd like to grow up. You pick a place and that's where your child will live. If that place happened to be a generational ship, then the child will grow up knowing that as home.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.