why the hell have we not gotten to mars yet

[Spaceception]

2 minutes ago, KerbalSaver said:

I saw your sig in another place, and that's what reminded me of the quote.

Ah

If you don't mind, where?

[panourgue]

40 minutes ago, KerbalSaver said:

“The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space - each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision.”
― Randall Munroe

I think that sums up why manned exploration and colonization is potentially useful in the long run.

I'm having a language barrier thing here. What does mr.Murnoe (whoever he is) mean by "one-planet graves of cultures"? That they became extinct? Um, why? Because at one point when it was too costly to go on colonizing space some unified planet-culture decided not to do that it decided to wait for technology to develop to a level when it would be feasible and profitable, but they didn't have time, so they all died? If he did meant that then he is full of crap

[Spaceception]

11 minutes ago, panourgue said:

I'm having a language barrier thing here. What does mr.Murnoe (whoever he is) mean by "one-planet graves of cultures"? That they became extinct? Um, why? Because at one point when it was too costly to go on colonizing space some unified planet-culture decided not to do that it decided to wait for technology to develop to a level when it would be feasible and profitable, but they didn't have time, so they all died? If he did meant that then he is full of crap

He means that there are likely civilizations out there who never go to space because they have no reason to do so, or don't figure out the technology fast enough, and hence die out.

Cosmic phenomena aren't the only way to go extinct

Some examples:

Nuclear war, and following nuclear winter,

Runaway global warming,

Overpopulation (Yes, dozens of billions of people can easily fit on Earth, but how do you give them food and water?),

Planet-wide pandemic,

Gray goo (Runaway nanobots),

Ice age,

Over religious society's who completely reject progress and are forever stuck with stone-age technology (Probably the most extreme, but it's possible)

Edited March 11, 2016 by Spaceception

[tater]

The stuff about the Space Race creating industries that are now "self-sufficient" is in fact nonsense. The contractors for Apollo were---and remain---defense contractors. They have one important customer, the US government. Their next most important customers? Other governments they are allowed to sell stuff to by the biggest customer. Space companies could be self-sufficient, BTW, but the major players are bloated with pork money, they'd be leaner, meaner businesses with just commercial launches to pay the bills---they'd have no choice).

As for the other stuff about debt, 2/3 of US federal spending (and a lot of State as well) is "programmatic" spending---the so-called "entitlements." Social programs and direct wealth transfers to any of you outside the US (Social Security (mostly old people retirement), Medicare (old people healthcare), and Medicaid (healthcare for the poor)). So the national debt is a function almost entirely of social programs, not discretionary spending (defense, NASA, etc). Note that the "programmatic" spending is automatic, and bears no relation at all to how much revenue the taxes that exist supposedly to pay for them provide (they would be called a ponzi-scheme if not run by government).

Space colonies have no possible net positive return on investment over any meaningful time horizon (if ever). Another rationale needs to be there if someone is gong to do it.

 

 

Edited March 11, 2016 by tater

[panourgue]

28 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

He means that there are likely civilizations out there who never go to space because they have no reason to do so, or don't figure out the technology fast enough, and hence die out.

Cosmic phenomena aren't the only way to go extinct

Then I have to disagree with him on couple of points. In fact I have to call him on (well used by populists) fallacy of confusing cause and effect.

I apologize if you feel strongly about that quote or it's author. Unfortunately it's practically impossible to have a polite argument about hypothetical stuff, so... Agree to disagree? Please?

[Spaceception]

1 minute ago, panourgue said:

Then I have to disagree with him on couple of points. In fact I have to call him on (well used by populists) fallacy of confusing cause and effect.

I apologize if you feel strongly about that quote or it's author. Unfortunately it's practically impossible to have a polite argument about hypothetical stuff, so... Agree to disagree? Please?

Sure

[tater]

Munroe is basically stating a proposed solution to the Fermi Paradox.

Another would be summed up by... "Don't answer! Don't answer! Don't answer!"

[fredinno]

11 hours ago, Darnok said:

Because every expansion creates "wild west" like places, where current governments have zero control over people.

Just look at history of British colonies, they were all profitable for some time, but after people get smarter they created local governments. And same thing is going to happen when we build self sufficient colony, it doesn't matter it will be on Moon, Mars or Venus.

That is why no government is interested in huge investments that are going to be independent competition in near future, they have learned their lesson 

 

EDIT: Sorry, made post before read entire thread

Colonies and imperialism today are the creation of allies, government influence/control, and economic pacts. British colonies that liberated themselves often kept in close relations and trade to their former mother country long after they lost their control.

5 hours ago, Hannu2 said:

I agree that colonization of Mars will not be business. As someone wrote, soon after colony would be self-sufficient it would declare itself independent and would not pay anything to governments or companies which established it. Only possibility to get space colonies is that it is made due to ideological reasons.

I agree also that colonization equipment manufacturing or transport services could be a good business for companies like SpaceX if governments of richest countries were interested in colonization. Unfortunately, it seems that such interest is negligible. Political interests change so slowly, that it is practically not good business for a rocket company. Therefore SpaceX launches telecommunication satellites and cargo to ISS. Raptors, larger rockets and other Mars technology waits or develops very slowly. There is not interest even to asteroid mining which could be business of thousands of billions of Dollars.

Not really, a colony can be dependent in some way to its host country, or it can instill nationalism to at least keep the country a loyal "neo-colony" (like in Canada and Australia). Politics also change very quickly.

5 hours ago, panourgue said:

How do you figure? We can improve plenty right here on earth. How is that going for you btw, if you really think about it, hmm?

And that's what I'm talking about: space agencies barely manage to convince everyone to let them send people in orbit, let alone go to Mars. Finding a good reason for that is tough. For The Science? Nope. For the betterment of humanity? What are you taking about? To improve our life on Earth? Okay, give me something concrete and I'll think of a way of doing it closer to home.

Anything else? 

Indeed, we need to figure out LEO and the Moon before we can start with everywhere else.

5 hours ago, Hannu2 said:

It is very simple. There are not any economically feasible reason to send humans to Mars. No colony and no expeditions. And there will not be in foreseeable future. There are nothing on Mars which can not be achieved from Earth.

Only possible reasons are more or less ideological. Scientific curiosity, political display of technology and economic power (this was main motivation of Apollo), some kind of backup population against natural disasters or humans natural urge to expand. None of them give economic profit to them who pays the bill. Also taking part of such project as an colonist will be extremely painful experience suitable only those who have extreme personality.

On the other hand, it is very difficult question why such ideology has not developed. There was some spirit during Apollo-project and cold war, but after that average spending to ideological space projects has been only few dollars per human per year. It is practically nothing. Or what should space enthusiasts do that large mass of people or politicians would get interested in space.

I believe that it is just natural fluctuation of human societies. Next generations will want to something more communal and larger than just more stupid electronic scrap and fashion clothes than neighbor. Maybe it creates interest to investigate and colonize space too. We probably will not see it but Mars and other planets will wait.

I would not be so optimistic. Generations seem to only have gotten more materialistic over time. Also, the Victorians were materialistic, and so are most of us. Over a century of progress has not changed that.

4 hours ago, Hannu2 said:

OK. I wrote sloppy. Of course business does not think so far. I thought that it is reason why governments does not see colonization as a productive operation unlike colonization of different continents couple of hundreds of years ago. But if government is not interested in space colonization of course it does not buy equipment from companies.

I think that we can discuss politics on general level without comparing countries or political ideologies (if not, moderator please notify). It is impossible to talk about ideological space projects, like colonization and exploration, without politics because politicians decide practically all of it. Maybe I am little cynical. It is better with politics. But I do not see that cold war begun suddenly in normal conditions. There was World War II in which USA and Soviet Union was allies and cold war developed after that. Developing of space race took 10 years and its main motivation was development of intercontinental ballistic missile. There is no such motivation on next cold wars. Even relatively poor countries can achieve ballistic missiles now and colonization equipment have not straight military applications.

There is also other thing. Apollo was short period project compared to any colonization projects. Even most primitive space colonies need huge investments over several decades. I think that it is very improbable that cold war like situation can stay stable so long. It ends or leads to actual war. It is also difficult project for democratic governments because it should stay over tens of election periods.

Well, colonization was not considered important in the early days of exploration until people found enough of a reason to build them (like gold).

-snip-

Edited March 11, 2016 by KasperVld

[fredinno]

2 hours ago, tater said:

The stuff about the Space Race creating industries that are now "self-sufficient" is in fact nonsense. The contractors for Apollo were---and remain---defense contractors. They have one important customer, the US government. Their next most important customers? Other governments they are allowed to sell stuff to by the biggest customer. Space companies could be self-sufficient, BTW, but the major players are bloated with pork money, they'd be leaner, meaner businesses with just commercial launches to pay the bills---they'd have no choice).

-snip-

Space colonies have no possible net positive return on investment over any meaningful time horizon (if ever). Another rationale needs to be there if someone is gong to do it.

 

 

Defense contractors also sell some stuff to private individuals who create their own private police, or want to protect themselves. But yeah, it's mostly government.

Also, Space companies would suffer tremendously, and a large amount of them would fold without government- a huge amount of space launches are government launches.

-snip-

Space colonies have no net positive return- if we start with areas as hard to get to as Mars. I would doubt that LEO tourism could not be useful once we can get rocketry cheap enough in 30 years.

[KasperVld]

Several politically charged posts have been removed. Please remember that discussing politics is a no-go in this forum.

[RuBisCO]

List of all that went wrong to cause the Space Dark Age of (1973-2015)

1. Congress Cutting funding for Apollo in 1968

2. Richard Nixon, Cancelling Apollo and approving of the Space Shuttle Program.

3. The utter failure of the Space Shuttle, costing orders of magnitude more then promised, less safe and twice as costly per lbs to orbit as Saturn. 

4. Inability for soviets to match the USA to the moon, and give up when the USA gave up to do the Space Shuttle instead.

 

Imagine for an Alternate History in which Kennedy had not been shot, had not escalated the Vietnam war, costing the US government far less, congress approving Apollo Extension Missions. Space Shuttle being put as back burner research for commercial development while Saturn V would continue in production with upgrades to this day perhaps. We would have likely been to mars by now, probably even by 2000.

 

Then again maybe Kennedy would have downgraded the Apollo program for joint exploration with the Soviets

Edited March 11, 2016 by RuBisCO
Trying not to be political

[tater]

Kennedy would not have gone joint on the Space Race, and the war was his creation. Honestly the proxy war via space is the whole Space Race in a nutshell. Lose that competition, and you lose that funding level. I think that in a real sense JFK's death might have been critical to the program going forward. The country was so shocked by his assassination that the legacy Apollo would provide in no small way helped it along (remember, too, that his assassin was a fellow traveller with the Soviets). As counterfactuals go, JFK not getting killed might actually result in the program ceasing sooner as war costs increase, and then the Apollo 1 fire... 

As for Shuttle during the Nixon Admin, wasn't it internal NASA pitching it for post-Apollo efforts? The real STS, of course included the nuclear ferry, and space tug, not just shuttle, it was after all supposed to be a system, not a single vehicle.

Had the whole thing been done, we might have a different take on what became the Shuttle program.

[panourgue]

Btw, now that I think about it the whole space race thingy was quite silly. Reminds me of other types of competitions of who's got bigger. Men...

[RuBisCO]

3 minutes ago, panourgue said:

Btw, now that I think about it the whole space race thingy was quite silly. Reminds me of other types of competitions of who's got bigger. Men...

... Rocket?

Humans are silly creatures, strange things motivate them.

[tater]

Interesting link. It mentions Nixon's 1971 budget cutting NASA 10%... did his budget even pass? I cannot recall a budget coming out of the WH passing in a long time, so what the WH wants, and what actually happens are not remotely the same. I tried to fond a site that listed Fed budgets by year and source (Congress vs WH) to no avail. While I disagree with the whole shuttle paradigm, I think the NASA budget was bound to be cut anyway.

[panourgue]

6 minutes ago, RuBisCO said:

Humans are silly creatures, strange things motivate them.

That's why I haven't lost all hope of seeing something grand transpire in space exploration department in my lifetime

Edited March 11, 2016 by panourgue

[tater]

8 minutes ago, panourgue said:

Btw, now that I think about it the whole space race thingy was quite silly. Reminds me of other types of competitions of who's got bigger. Men...

Minus that competition, no Space Race happens at all, though.

[panourgue]

1 minute ago, tater said:

Minus that competition, no Space Race happens at all, though.

Probably. It's just unfortunate that because of that competition other not so pleasant things happen all the time

[RuBisCO]

Well apparently that link was too "political." So I guess the actions of dead presidents as spoken off by the planetary society, can't be spoken off here.

Anyways I have posted this here on this forum repeatedly for years now: Mike Griffin former Administrator of Nasa, explaining his goals (on the failed constellation program) and rather slyly everything that is wrong with the Shuttle and why we should have stuck with Apollo.

http://aviationweek.typepad.com/space/2007/03/human_space_exp.html

 

 

 

 

[tater]

Anything involving government expenditure of money is by definition political. No exceptions. Functionally, that means that even space history must be off limits (wow).

In this particular place, we're at least all on the same side of the space at all, vs no space argument, so nitpicking over which particular plans we care for is sort of not a big deal (it's not like there is a vocal contingent of luddites here  ).

[Raven Industries]

8 hours ago, Spaceception said:

Ah

If you don't mind, where?

It was on one of your posts in what I believe was an announcement for something.

[jwenting]

On 3/10/2016 at 11:39 PM, KerbalSaver said:

That and to recruit a new generation of engineers and scientists.

yes, but what with the anti-science and anti-engineering attitude of much of the population (scientists and engineers are blamed for everything that's wrong with the world...) funding such a thing for that reason wouldn't be a good way to get mass voter support in the next elections.

And that brings us to the inevitable P word that's behind ALL space funding at any large scale, and thus to things that aren't allowed to be discussed on these forums. The P's decide the budgets, and who decides the budgets decides the mission.

 

I'm afraid that, for the first time in centuries, we live in an age where science and engineering are seen as black magic, their practitioners as agents of Evil.

[Vanamonde]

Guys, we've now removed political posts from this thread 3 times. If this happens again, we'll need to just shut the thread down. 

[RainDreamer]

Unless we have alien visitors, I doubt we are in any rush to develop more space tech.

 

Maybe we should create a sort of conspiracy theory that requires people funding effort to space. X com style?

[fredinno]

4 hours ago, RainDreamer said:

Unless we have alien visitors, I doubt we are in any rush to develop more space tech.

 

Maybe we should create a sort of conspiracy theory that requires people funding effort to space. X com style?

No, when people realize there are no aliens, they will distrust NASA even more.