I thought that R. Kurzweil's book, The Singularity is Near, really had a compelling argument against space travel in the short term. There's nothing more ridiculous than sending biological life into space. Let's shed some of our biological baggage, merge a little more with technology, and then work on sending a much more versatile and durable human v3.0 into space.
Sounds like a case of featuritis brewing. It's very easy to get caught in an evil cycle of rising expectations that move the actual launch further and further away. Let's ship an MVP first, launching early and often.
I suppose I can't disagree with you. The technology around space exploration should continue to advance, however I think that we won't make any real progress on colonizing the universe, or even the solar system, until we are much less fragile.
I agree and I salute you for giving way for jest in face of serious argument. To follow up along your reasoning, I think the weakness of man sets it's own limitations without us having to make conscious decisions on how far we should strive in each phase of human development. Rather push the boundaries until they push back.
Kurzweil is a smart guy, but he's wrong on this point.
Space is just a place.
Taking a real long-term view, it's no more ridiculous to live in the Moon, or Mars, than it was for early man to move out of Africa and settle Europe, Australia, the Himalayas, California.
Every place man has lived has been radically different from an African savannah. We get along by adapting, improvising, inventing, using technology.
This is not to discount the hazards, dangers, and exceptionally different environment found outside our atmosphere.
But it's time for a real, actual Space Age. We'll make it up as we go along, same as we always have.
...we really need to get the hell out of here. In 1 billion years the Earth will be a dead planet, because the Sun keeps changing. And a dinosaur-killing boulder will probably hit us much sooner than that.
You underestimate just how unhospitable space is and how little we are adapted to living there. The health of astronauts coming back from the ISS has deteriorated. Their heart has grown weaker, their bones have grown weaker. Psychologically, they aren't topfit either.
You underestimate just how unhospitable space is and how little we are adapted to living there.
It may appear to be that way from one post. I don't.
The health of astronauts coming back from the ISS has deteriorated.
The short-term affects of micro-gravity appear to be un-good, I agree.
Please note I was speaking of settling places with gravity. About that we simply don't know, yet.
Psychologically, they aren't topfit either.
If you spent six months living in an industrial facility the size of a winnebago you'd be a little off, too.
My expectations of 'the future' are that people will live in bodies with gravity - the moon, Mars. Off-planet facilities will be what off-shore oil platforms are today: a place to work, and live short-term, for high pay. Then you go home to the wife and kids.
I think you underestimate the degree of technological infrastructure needed to support modern living. Our food, homes, water, sanitation, etc. are all produced through a world spanning industrial supply chain. Without that support structure civilization would collapse to a tiny fraction of the current population, especially in cities. The industrial infrastructure to support a Mars colony is cetainly different and in some aspects more modern than that necessary to support New York City, but that difference is much less extreme than the difference between what it takes to support NYC today and what it took to support human civilization a few centuries ago.
Once off Earth colonization takes off that distinction will seem less and less significant over time.
Eh. Wetware is cheap (hell, it makes more of itself even when we don't want it too), and does a fair job of mending itself. Hardware is expensive, though it has the advantage of being easier to power and is lighter.
I think if you recognize the advantages and disadvantages of both you could effectively use either of them. Of course doing that might not be considered "humane" by our current standards.
I think the real hope is waiting for hardware to master the "fixing itself" problem (preferably by conquering replication, which would also largely fix the expense problem). Little need to drag along the wetware at that point though.
Wetware has life-support requirements. Even minimal wetware, though in spore form it may travel well. Depending on your definition of wetware, so long as you've got an ambient solar flux, power isn't hard to arrange, and it's possible that thermal sources (similar to existing deep-space power units) might work as well given what we've learned about deep sea vents and subterranean microbes.
Sentient wetware tends to bring along baggage of requesting rights and such, which can be expensive to provision.
Hardware can both survive and function in a wide range of extreme environments.
Cheap? I guess you don't have kids. There is a huge time investment getting an 8 lbs eat-sleep-crap infant to something that can operate simple machines.
Cheap in the sense that we have lots of them that can be put to work for a pittance. I suspect there would be no shortage of fully developed humans willing to go on "one way" missions to Mars or further. I know I would do it myself.
(dredmorbius: I am in fact referring to humans. Using microbial life is an interesting idea in its own right however.)
