I was just going to moderate this, but I figured I had to comment. The chief argument used in discussions like this by the person taking your position is essentially:
"Oh, it's really hard for people to do things outside of Earth, therefore let's just send a machine."
So rather than address the argument I actually made, you choose to generalise all discussion into a single one, and completely missed the point of what I said. Next time, just moderate.
There are distinct advantages to putting humans on other worlds; advantages directly related to what humans do easily but machines have to be carefully engineered just to fail spectacularly while doing.
Machines already do the complex and difficult tasks in space. The composition of comets and asteroids, detail of the heliopause, landing on Titan and Venus, the best ever pictures of jupiter, mars, saturn, uranus and their satellites. All the useful and interesting stuff is done by machines. Even on human missions, the machines do the hard stuff, the humans are there to be molly coddled, nursing at the teat of the machines.
Human beings are exceptional at making machines. We aren't good in a vacuum.
The mars rovers may be able to take samples of rock, but can they repair each other?
The rovers are disposable. That's their beauty- they don't need repair. A human being, on the other hand, would only need a small puncture in her atmosphere suit to become beyond repair in a matter of moments. And human beings aren't disposable.
We have quite a few pieces of defunct robotics and electronics sitting right square on the Martian and Lunar surfaces which are of no further use to anybody without major modification and resupply. What would otherwise be junk just sitting on the moon uselessly could be retrofitted with a new antenna, a pair of batteries, and a solar panel and used as a radio repeater for future missions - or as a monitor of radio noise and radioactivity for studying solar weather on the lunar surface.
If it made sense to do so (it doesn't) we could do that. Without humans. Robots can build cars without help from humans,I'm sure that whipping a few parts off a smashed probe and replacing them with others would be as easy for a robot as it would be for a human in a spacesuit w/ negligible gravity to assist them. Of course it doesn't make sense to do so, because comparative to the cost of launching the probe, the cost of building the probe is negligible. Just another human skill that's not really needed in space.
We could engineer a three hundred million dollar autonomous robot to make these modifications and expect a reasonably high chance of failure - or we could spend that same three hundred million dollars putting 4 guys on the moon and have them make the conversion on everything up there, and dig up some more soil samples, take more pictures, and flub more lines while they're at it.
You're enarmoured by the romance of putting men on the surface of the moon. I know other people who are enamoured by other romantic views of the past: Historical re-enactors, 19th century dressmaking, classic tractors. I myself love WWII aircraft. These things have beauty and are worthy of preservation. But they aren't the future. Advocating a return to 'manned' spaceflight and 'manned' exploration of space makes the same amount of sense as advocating a return to Spitfires and Lancasters for air defence. Romantic, but utterly unrealistic.
The fact is that the abilities of the machines which humans produce pale in comparison to the abilities of a reasonably healthy human being. We can alternate between running quickly and walking on all but the roughest terrain more easily than any machine yet engineered by mankind.
If there was a need to run or walk in space, I'm sure we could find a design allowing a robot to do it much better than a human in a spacesuit with the wrong gravity. A robot with four or more legs is inherently more s
I'm just pointing out an implication of your argument. If humans are useless outside of Earth's gravity, then it is because they are useless. There is no such implication. If I were to say that fish are useless on land I would
be right
be implying nothing about the performance of fish in water
There's nothing special about a Earth gravity environment that's going to make a human inherently useful. You don't think being able to breath has certain advantages? You don't think that for a human freedom of movement and action is more useful than having your every move constrained by machines, being confined within a machine, depending on machines for your every need?
For any task in space of complexity x there is a function h(x) representing the cost/effort of having a human perform the task, and a function m(x) representing the cost/effort of having a machine do it. Further:
h(x) = h + m(h) where h is the human cost and m(x) is the cost/effort of having machines support the humans (instead of machines doing the task directly).
Further: m(h) > m(x) for all known values of x and so h(x) > m(x) also.
You have to learn to walk before you can run. The moon presents a place where we can learn to create a self-sufficient habitat in a real situation. Alternatively we could use the earth to do that - real enough for most of us.
Before we try and establish ourselves on Mars or even interstellar, we need to prove we can live in space by camping in our own backyard, so to speak. That's like arguing that you need to learn to drink small amounts of methylated spirits before you can drink a whole bottle. If drinking a whole bottle is not a worthwhile or healthy exercise, then neither is drinking a small amount. Since nobody has yet demonstrated why living on Mars is desirable, using Mars as an endpoint is non-sequitur. Even more so for inter-stellar travel, becuase at least for Mars, you can come back if you don't like it.
The moon is a great place for a few things - like a telescope. Telescopes don't need humans nearby.
Also, if you have a place to stay anyway, long-term low gravity experiments. We know you get screwed up in microgravity, we know you do fine in full gravity. But what about a little gravity? We don't really know. Thanks to automation, the usefulness of living at any gravity apart from Earths is quickly approaching zero. Any missing information can be gained via modelling and simulation, for those interested from a theoretical perspective.
Also, geology. Study the moon itself. In preparation, perhaps, for later mining. Goleogical studies of the moon don't need humans to be present on the moon itself. Mining of the moon for resources won't require any humans to be present on the moon itself.
Is that a label which cultists apply to those who refuse to join their cult? I think you'll find it's a label that certain cultists apply to themselves.
So it is safe to assume that you also believe in Frosty The Snow Man? At what point did I make a remark pertaining to what I believed?
Like God, Frosty will not come into your house and shake your hand. He has better things to do.
Or does your "skepticism"/silly frameworks for measuring existence deny poor Frosty the right to exist? So - after I debunked the whole "coming into my house and shaking my hand" as an invalid test for existence, you are attempting to re-invalidate it. Seems a little redundant.
Science and the question of the existence of/nature of Frosty are orthogonal. I think not. I'm confident that Frosty does not exist, not because there is no evidence that he does, but because of the evidence that he does not.
Frosty loves you.
Our existence is proof that magical beings like Frosty must exist. Are you on drugs?
> science and the question of the existence of/nature of God are orthagonal
No. No, they are not. Religion has forever been used to explain why things are the way they are. Hold it right there. we aren't talking about religion, but God. It's true that atheists like to treat these concepts as one and the same: others do not. The idea that they are the same flows from the pre-supposition that religions invented God - it's self referring, and there is no evidence for the assertion outside the dogmatic pretext of atheism.
Religious people generally feel that their deities will intervene on their behalf (particularly where weather is concerned) if they pray enough. Can you identify a religion which actually believes this? The closest I can think of is Tibetan Buddhism, but they don't believe in a Deity per se, which hardly qualifies to make your point.
Scientists look at things like atmospheric pressure, water vapor, etc., and see patterns that suggest that weather is the result of a chaotic system that, while beyond our current capabilities to fully predict, shows no evidence of being controlled by some deity. If a Deity 'intervenes' in the workings of the 'natural' world, what makes you think it would be detectable as intervention?
If deity-belief and science were actually orthogonal, then the deities would have ZERO control over what we observe, in which case their existence would be moot. A Deity that is required to be measurable/detectable doesn't qualify as a Deity. That's just a rule you made up to give support to you own beliefs.
Not so good with metatags, I'll try that last paragraph again:
the parent poster in question didn't say that. He/She said that believing in God was wishful thinking. Which is still true, as we have no evidence that a deity exists, and significant evidence that no God, as described by major religions, exists. You clipped my answer in half because it suited you to create a different impression of what I said: That's disappointing. Secondly if you have significant evidence to back your assertion that no God exists (regardless of what other religions might or might not believe), then why not come forward with this evidence?
So it is safe to assume that you are also skeptical about Nelson Mandela. Because it is pretty unlikely that Nelson Mandela will ever walk into your living room and shake your hand - there's no reason for him to do so. Nelson Mandela, we actually have photographic evidence of. So, interestingly, you implicitly acknowledge that (a) Nobody really has an obligation to prove their existence to you (b) That a testable framework is required to demonstrate the rationality of claims.
Except, apparently, when it contradicts with Atheistic dogma: that no Deity can exist, no matter what, and no proof is required for that statement.
the deity has no obligation toward you, and you haven't demonstrated a basis whereby the deity ought to act in the fashion you describe. In that case, I certainly have no obligation to believe in the deity. Which of course, leaves you at the begin state: You have no idea whether or not a Deity exists. Much like an alternate history in which Nelson Mandela lived his life in obscurity - and someone asked you: "Does Nelson Mandela exist?" With no evidence of his existence, and no reason to expect such evidence, and no knowledge or personal experience to give you confidence, your only rational answer would be to say: "I don't know".
The parent poster in question didn't say that. He/She said that believing in God was wishful thinking. Which is still true, as we have no evidence that a deity exists, and significant evidence that no God, as described by major religions, exists. You clipped my answer in half because it suited you to create a different impression of what I said: That's disappointing. Secondly if you have significant evidence to back your assertion that no God exists (regardless of what other religions might or might not believe), then why not come forward with this evidence?
Nor can it be proven. Until such time as the big guy walks into my living room and shakes my hand, I'll be skeptical, thank you very much. So it is safe to assume that you are also skeptical about Nelson Mandela. Because it is pretty unlikely that Nelson Mandela will ever walk into your living room and shake your hand - there's no reason for him to do so. Mandela is under no obligation to conform to the rules YOU decide will allow him to exist, he can continue on quite satisfactorily without reference to you, or your "skepticism"/silly frameworks for measuring existence. The same principle applies for a theoretical deity - the deity has no obligation toward you, and you haven't demonstrated a basis whereby the deity ought to act in the fashion you describe. Therefore, what you describe as skepticism amounts to belief.
You have faith in "God". The parent poster has faith in what he/she can scientifically determine. The parent poster in question didn't say that. He/She said that believing in God was wishful thinking. He/She didn't mention science - science and the question of the existence of/nature of God are orthagonal.
Well, you can call it that if it makes you feel better, but the rest of us just call that "wishful thinking". And undoubtedly, people who disagree with you would consider your beliefs to be "wishful thinking" as well. Guess you're at an impasse there.
I have little doubt your faith makes you feel good inside, but then again, so does a hit to a heroin addict. The same thing could be said about YOUR beliefs - but it would still be baseless speculation. which (just in case it isn't clear) is what you comment amounts to.
I'm guessing one way of discouraging students from taking Math is to not offer it. Schools in Australia have never taught math - they have, however, taught maths for time immemorial...
I suspect the primary reason people feel discouraged from taking Maths as an entry into Uni is that the Uni courses requiring Maths are now so expensive that the expense itself prevents people from entering the Uni course they want - hence, they don't bother with the pre-requisite. Want to take Medicine? Good luck if you don't have 200K lying around somewhere. Ironic that there is so much muttering about the shortage of doctors in this country.
In other words, he represented an organization that believes that women should not be educated, cannot be seen outside of the house without a male relative, would rather let little girls burn to death in a school fire than to have them be seen without proper attire, and all kinds of other vile crap. Wait. He's a Republican??
It can be reconciled when you take the view that atheism is "an absence of belief in deities." Therefore one who says "I believe there is no God" and one who says "I cannot disprove God but I don't believe one exists" are quite different views, but both atheism. You are correct in saying there are 2 distinct doctrines under the umbrella of atheism (the so called "strong" and "weak" versions of atheism) however, that is not the contradiction I was referring to:
There is really strong evidence that God does not exist. Which seems to contradict what the second poster said:
I'm doubtful. At least in my experience, most modern atheists do not assert the non-existence of God, Although the contradiction may be easily explained if the second poster had not much experience in posting on slashdot - where the notion of an evidentiary basis for asserting the non-existence of God is expounded on every possible occasion.
A person who merely rejected theistic world views is open to the possibility of there being a deity, just not one resembling that worshiped by deistic religions. In other words, God can exist, as long as no-one believes in him. Somewhat ridiculous. I'd say that depends entirely on your interpretation of "does not accept theistic world views" or "rejects theistic world views." I argue the latter is held by one whose belief precludes the existence of god, whereas the former is held by one who accepts the possibility, but doesn't currently believe. (The difference can be clarified by comparing "does not currently accept" with "will never accept.") That is to say there is a logical difference between not accepting and rejecting. Yes but the latter group (not accepting) are agnostics not atheists at all. And I'm aware that some atheists like to graft in the agnostic position under atheism, or pair "weak" atheism with agnosticism - but that behaviour is offensive to agnostics. There is a vast gap between "no belief (ie no knowledge) about God" and "no belief in, therefore no existence of God". When addressing the question of the existence of God, the person of no belief would say "I don't know", recognising that without a valid evidentiary baseline, it's not rational to make a statement one way or the other. The "weak" atheist however would say "There is no God" but word it in such a way as to imply that this position represents the default one for people of no belief - or in other cases, suggest that the question of Gods actual/objective existence narrows down to a question of what an individual believes.
Your assumption is that your position doesn't demand belief from you - demonstrably false. No, my contention is that atheism of the form "I do not believe god exists" doesn't require faith because you're not asserting a position on the existence or non-existence of god. In contrast, the atheistic view "I believe God does not exist" I accept does require faith. In which case. you will also recognise that answering the question "Does God exist" without saying "Yes", "No" or "I don't know" is not answering the question at all.
I'm doubtful. At least in my experience, most modern atheists do not assert the non-existence of God, Obviously a point of some dispute amongst atheists, given the above posters comment:
There's some really strong evidence that God isn't real. How do we reconcile this apparent contradiction?
but merely do not accept theistic world views. This position ( or more correctly, semantic manipulation) is indefensible - because it completely ignores the question of the actual existence of a deity. A person who merely rejected theistic world views is open to the possibility of there being a deity, just not one resembling that worshiped by deistic religions. In other words, God can exist, as long as no-one believes in him. Somewhat ridiculous.
Absence of belief does not require faith. Your assumption is that your position doesn't demand belief from you - demonstrably false.
There's some really strong evidence that God isn't real. I'm guessing your strong evidence for the non-existence of God is based on flawed assumptions, in the manner of proof of perpetual motion.
There's a finite amount of coal, oil, and precious metals on this planet, not to mention land you can use for growing food. As they say, they're not making any more of it. So, what to do? Well, for starters, I wouldn't be looking to space to solve that problem because none of the things we are running out of can be found in space
There's no coal in space. Even if there were, we shouldn't be going there to get it - the better plan by far is to stop burning it.
There's no oil in space. Even if there were, we shouldn't be going there to get it - the better plan by far is to stop burning it.
There might be precious metals in space, but the thing with metal is, there are few if any processes that actually consume metal. Currently we dig metal out of the ground because it's cheaper to buy from miners than to recycle. But of course, recycling is cheaper again by several hundred orders of magnitude than having robots mine it from the moon or a nearby asteroid, making such plans look pretty laughable
There's no arable land in space.
Our only real constraints for resources in terms of a growing population are energy and soil nutrient. There are far cheaper and more practical means of solving the first one than space based solutions (eg orbital solar platforms w/ microwave links), and space travel is of no use at all in solving the latter.
You grossly underestimate both the problems encountered in such missions and humanity's ingenuity. I don't think so. Robots have already been to Mars several times, lately with remarkable success. That suggests that the complexities/problems are mostly understood. The only additional complexity is the desire to have the robots carry humans as well. What does human intelligence tell us to do in this circumstance? Leave the humans behind. Ingenious!
Unless you have robots that possess the reasoning of humans, said robots can never achieve a fraction of what a team of humans could do. Except I notice that robots have recently completed a detailed map of the entire surface of mars. Remind us how long it would have taken a human to do that.
All these reasons would seem as much a justification for sending elephants as a justification for sending humans.
A Planet with a high percentage of Carbon Dioxide - What can we learn from that, maybe links to global warming? The effects of carbon dioxide on elephants is well established - we could send elephants for comparative analysis.
Finding ways to store mass amounts of energy to shuttle astronots back and forth from earth to mars, in a small place, perhaps will help with out energy consumption problems? Given the comparative differences in mass between humans and elephants, we would obviously learn more by sending elephants.
Ligher Weight, easer to move, rugged space suits. This can help create far better materials for many applications. Given that elephants, on the whole, will need more material and will be harder on their spacesuits than would humans, we can easily deduce it would be better to send elephants than humans.
Number of americans employed for such a project helping the economy. Kinda hard to see why the bulk of us should give a peanut for that. However, the need for training the elephants should employ quite a few Thai people, given their affinity for elephants and long experience and skill in such matters. And Thais need jobs and a boost to their economy more than americans do - the elephant wins again!
Working with other nations of such a project, better tolerance for other cultures.... Working with elephant cosmonauts instead of humans will help us to gain a closer CROSS-SPECIES tolerance - double the benefit. Pachyderms have entered the home stretch with a simply unapproachable lead!
One project of this scale has many side efects that a lot of supid winy people just don't want to grasp their minds around to understand. What a pity then, that you blokes can't come up with one that's worthy of more than satire. Just remember this one basic rule: The right tool for the job. I'll repeat: The right tool for the job. And again: The right tool for the job.
When we want to bang in a nail, we don't use our hand. We use a hammer. Why? It's the right tool for the job
When we want to rebate a door, we don't use our teeth, we use a router. Why? It's the right tool for the job
When we want to go to Morocco, we don't set off on foot, we take a plane. Why? It's the right tool for the job
When we want to get close up pictures of another notably airless planet and do some chemical composition to understand it better, we don't send something that can't breath the air, can barely walk in the gravity, needs many times it's weight in battery power, has significant waste disposal problems, is irretrievably covered in contaminants, has a high likelihood of at least partial failure through sickness or stress, and needs to be shipped back off the remote planet. Instead we send a robot bristling with scientific instruments to do the job we want. Why?
It's the right tool for the job
Only ego make us imagine we are better at exploring a hostile environment like outer space or Mars than probes or robots. That ego is irrational - as irrational as objecting to the notion that hammers are superior to human flesh for hitting nails. This is the very reason why we have tools.
Look at it this way. Imagine that we're some European nation in the 15th or 16th century, and we want to plant a colony on the New World. The Mars project that's on the drawing board now is like sponsoring a long-distance swimming contest. It seems like it's going in the right direction, but really it's not that helpful. The Mars project is more analagous to a C16 European power attempting to establish a colony on the seabed. Yes, the technical impediments are huge. But it is also pointless. The reasons given by the advocates of the plan are flawed:
The Bold Plan to establish a colony on the seabed will make other Powers jealous of our technological prowess and moral superiority (in reality, other powers are scratching their heads)
The Bold Plan to establish a colony on the seabed will teach us many things about our future plan to Establish A Colony In the Clouds (in reality the technologies are completely different)
The Bold Plan will enable us to survive in the event of a surprise attack by Malta (in reality, an attack by Malta is of little or no concern, and were it of concern, we would be better off spending money on THAT problem, not making another)
Sending humans to Mars makes as much sense as sending elephants. Anything we could want to achieve on Mars can be done by robots.
Re:The best source of information.
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ISS Goes Solar
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Your tax dollars pay for it, you should use it. Actually I don't think they do. If the space shuttle were funded by the Australian government:
The Space Shuttle Atlantis would be called the Space Shuttle Steve
The Space Shuttle Steve would be painted green and red and sponsored by Bunnings. At frequent intervals during the televised launch, the sponsor would remind us that the Steve was built entirely of parts bought at Bunnings
The Space Shuttle Steve would be refurbished between each mission by Jamie Drury and the crew from Backyard Blitz. The crew of the Space Shuttle Steve would be led onboard blindfolded by Jamie, and would have to feign surprise and delight at the wonderful job done.
The Steve would be towed to the launch pad by the new model Holden Crewman.
Look, I'm not against gathering more evidence, but I'm just pointing out that just one photo (satellite or not) can be massaged into meaning anything you want it to mean. You might need to be a little clearer on what you are implying here - are you proposing that there is some vast international conspiracy to wrongly blame the jangaweed for the genocide in Darfur? Or else, what is it precisely you mean to imply - I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt here.
E.g., do you even know which side was inhabiting that area, if not for being spoon fed that it's an atrocity against the Sudanese? The mutilated sudanese bodies are somewhat of a giveaway. Also the locals fleeing to 'safe' refugee camps, reports from locals of attacks by the jangaweed. Detailed military and observers reports by independent observers. The fact that these reports can be garnered directly from the independent observers on the scene (the UN, the AU, various aid groups), and don't just come to us via the media.
Humans needed some tens of thousands of years to get shocked by the horrors of soldiers dying of all sorts of diseases in the Crimean war, or by the brutal realities of WW1 and WW2, and start getting ideas that maybe we should all act a bit nicer. Whole areas of the globe just didn't get there. Hate to break it to ya, but 'we' never learnt any lessons from those experiences at all. For example, I see no evidence of Western civilisation (presuming by 'we' you mean westerners) progressing beyond the mindset that led to those conflicts in the first place. If we had learnt the lesson of arbitrary border drawing in WWI, why was the same mistake made after WWII, and again attempted after the Iraq war? Why does the Project for a New American Century say, in short, that attempts by the US to dominate financially should be underpinned by the active exercising of military might?
And yes, it would be nice if we somehow dragged them into the 21'st century. But it also helps if you realize that neither side there got in the 21'st century, and it's usually not just one side massacring the others. Of course, the genocide in Darfur is not the half of it. I've heard stories that make me sick to even recall. Nevertheless, don't pretend that we are more civilised than they. We aren't, we are just better at disguising our brutality, and conveniently a step further away from the consequences of our cheap West African Oil, Diamonds, Coffee.
Slashdot Mirror
I was just going to moderate this, but I figured I had to comment. The chief argument used in discussions like this by the person taking your position is essentially: "Oh, it's really hard for people to do things outside of Earth, therefore let's just send a machine."
So rather than address the argument I actually made, you choose to generalise all discussion into a single one, and completely missed the point of what I said. Next time, just moderate.
There are distinct advantages to putting humans on other worlds; advantages directly related to what humans do easily but machines have to be carefully engineered just to fail spectacularly while doing.
Machines already do the complex and difficult tasks in space. The composition of comets and asteroids, detail of the heliopause, landing on Titan and Venus, the best ever pictures of jupiter, mars, saturn, uranus and their satellites. All the useful and interesting stuff is done by machines. Even on human missions, the machines do the hard stuff, the humans are there to be molly coddled, nursing at the teat of the machines. Human beings are exceptional at making machines. We aren't good in a vacuum.
The mars rovers may be able to take samples of rock, but can they repair each other?
The rovers are disposable. That's their beauty- they don't need repair. A human being, on the other hand, would only need a small puncture in her atmosphere suit to become beyond repair in a matter of moments. And human beings aren't disposable.
We have quite a few pieces of defunct robotics and electronics sitting right square on the Martian and Lunar surfaces which are of no further use to anybody without major modification and resupply. What would otherwise be junk just sitting on the moon uselessly could be retrofitted with a new antenna, a pair of batteries, and a solar panel and used as a radio repeater for future missions - or as a monitor of radio noise and radioactivity for studying solar weather on the lunar surface.
If it made sense to do so (it doesn't) we could do that. Without humans. Robots can build cars without help from humans,I'm sure that whipping a few parts off a smashed probe and replacing them with others would be as easy for a robot as it would be for a human in a spacesuit w/ negligible gravity to assist them. Of course it doesn't make sense to do so, because comparative to the cost of launching the probe, the cost of building the probe is negligible. Just another human skill that's not really needed in space.
We could engineer a three hundred million dollar autonomous robot to make these modifications and expect a reasonably high chance of failure - or we could spend that same three hundred million dollars putting 4 guys on the moon and have them make the conversion on everything up there, and dig up some more soil samples, take more pictures, and flub more lines while they're at it.
You're enarmoured by the romance of putting men on the surface of the moon. I know other people who are enamoured by other romantic views of the past: Historical re-enactors, 19th century dressmaking, classic tractors. I myself love WWII aircraft. These things have beauty and are worthy of preservation. But they aren't the future. Advocating a return to 'manned' spaceflight and 'manned' exploration of space makes the same amount of sense as advocating a return to Spitfires and Lancasters for air defence. Romantic, but utterly unrealistic.
The fact is that the abilities of the machines which humans produce pale in comparison to the abilities of a reasonably healthy human being. We can alternate between running quickly and walking on all but the roughest terrain more easily than any machine yet engineered by mankind.
If there was a need to run or walk in space, I'm sure we could find a design allowing a robot to do it much better than a human in a spacesuit with the wrong gravity. A robot with four or more legs is inherently more s
- be right
- be implying nothing about the performance of fish in water
There's nothing special about a Earth gravity environment that's going to make a human inherently useful. You don't think being able to breath has certain advantages? You don't think that for a human freedom of movement and action is more useful than having your every move constrained by machines, being confined within a machine, depending on machines for your every need?For any task in space of complexity x there is a function h(x) representing the cost/effort of having a human perform the task, and a function m(x) representing the cost/effort of having a machine do it. Further:
h(x) = h + m(h) where h is the human cost and m(x) is the cost/effort of having machines support the humans (instead of machines doing the task directly).
Further: m(h) > m(x) for all known values of x and so h(x) > m(x) also.
Smells like burning strawman to me. Shall I get the fire extinguisher, or will you?
- There's no coal in space. Even if there were, we shouldn't be going there to get it - the better plan by far is to stop burning it.
- There's no oil in space. Even if there were, we shouldn't be going there to get it - the better plan by far is to stop burning it.
- There might be precious metals in space, but the thing with metal is, there are few if any processes that actually consume metal. Currently we dig metal out of the ground because it's cheaper to buy from miners than to recycle. But of course, recycling is cheaper again by several hundred orders of magnitude than having robots mine it from the moon or a nearby asteroid, making such plans look pretty laughable
- There's no arable land in space.
Our only real constraints for resources in terms of a growing population are energy and soil nutrient. There are far cheaper and more practical means of solving the first one than space based solutions (eg orbital solar platforms w/ microwave links), and space travel is of no use at all in solving the latter.- When we want to bang in a nail, we don't use our hand. We use a hammer. Why? It's the right tool for the job
- When we want to rebate a door, we don't use our teeth, we use a router. Why? It's the right tool for the job
- When we want to go to Morocco, we don't set off on foot, we take a plane. Why? It's the right tool for the job
- When we want to get close up pictures of another notably airless planet and do some chemical composition to understand it better, we don't send something that can't breath the air, can barely walk in the gravity, needs many times it's weight in battery power, has significant waste disposal problems, is irretrievably covered in contaminants, has a high likelihood of at least partial failure through sickness or stress, and needs to be shipped back off the remote planet. Instead we send a robot bristling with scientific instruments to do the job we want. Why?
It's the right tool for the job
Only ego make us imagine we are better at exploring a hostile environment like outer space or Mars than probes or robots. That ego is irrational - as irrational as objecting to the notion that hammers are superior to human flesh for hitting nails. This is the very reason why we have tools.Sending humans to Mars makes as much sense as sending elephants. Anything we could want to achieve on Mars can be done by robots.
That's the dumbest f*king idea I have heard since I've been reading /.