Space pessimists

[PB666]

Well, my "realist" position (I assume every one of us thinks he's the realist, though!) is there simply isn't the economic motivation for the sort of space exploitation we'd like to see. It's just too expensive to go to space. But whenever a profitable market develops, we'll be there to take advantage. Look at communications satellites for an example. They're crazy expensive, too, but still cheaper than the alternative of covering the planet with fiber optics, so launching them is a thriving business.

All we have right now is ideas of where to look for great wealth in space. But verifying whether that wealth actually exists costs tens of billions, so isn't worth it right now. But one of these days, a pure science mission will find some evidence that'll make a commercial prospecting voyage worth the risk.

IMO, the best thing humanity can do right now to hurry that day is to lower the cost of getting to LEO. You can work the supply-demand curve from either direction, but there's no escaping it.

The distances to be covered and time to recover a reward is far far smaller for LEO. Anything for L1, L2, lunar, HEO, LEO is on a different scale (particularly with regard to time). The shortest distance between C67 and earth is not that great, but it to the Rosetta space craft 10 years to get there. The space budgets, of course, are a magnitude too small, but a magnitude more budget does not mean we can travel to jupiter and explore its moons. It means you might be able to do some more work on the moon, more planet hunters in L2, or a couple of trips to mars moon, or a bunch of unmanned missions.

[Duxwing]

@OP I agree. It's sad and frustrating to see people write that we never will explore space, safely handle nuclear technology, etc. The posts are not even well-sourced or well-put but rather smug put-downs of mankind and the figurative 'men-in-the-arena'. I suspect, like another poster has mentioned, that the people delivering these grim proclamations fear unconsciously confuse the fear, perhaps by trauma conditioned, of their hopes dashed for the jitters one naturally feels about anything significantly uncertain.

These posters I distinguish from working scientists and engineers applying their expertise to predictions or implementations of space travel without condemning the whole enterprise or hastily generalizing its impossibility from judgments beyond their expertise: wanting space travel does not justify any one method over another.

-Duxwing