What do you think the medium term future of space exploration will be like?

[tater]

2 hours ago, DAL59 said:

Humans always are much, much more capable of science and creativity than robots.  

This is simply nonsense.

Humans do the science, which is designing the experiments and data collection, then reducing the data. So far, that is an exclusively human domain (not forever, however).

The robots are merely tools for doing specific tasks. They are always more cost-effective than sending people at present. A notional NASA crewed Mars mission is a few hundred billion dollars. With the exact same science goals (returning XXX kg samples, etc), any robot mission will either be vastly cheaper, or will do vastly more data collection. Or both. 

[Bill Phil]

41 minutes ago, tater said:

This is simply nonsense.

Humans do the science, which is designing the experiments and data collection, then reducing the data. So far, that is an exclusively human domain (not forever, however).

The robots are merely tools for doing specific tasks. They are always more cost-effective than sending people at present. A notional NASA crewed Mars mission is a few hundred billion dollars. With the exact same science goals (returning XXX kg samples, etc), any robot mission will either be vastly cheaper, or will do vastly more data collection. Or both. 

Yeah. People just aren't cost effective for science in space. But, in order to do a manned Mars mission, NASA would likely want to send more probes, and out of a total budget of over a few hundred billion...? A few billion for "reconnaissance" would be useful...

Essentially, in the process of figuring out how to send a crew to Mars and return them to Earth, we would inevitably find out a lot more about Mars as a side effect.

[tater]

Note that given the "medium term future" aspect of this thread, it's fair to posit that intelligent systems will only continue to become more intelligent, allowing them to not only collect more data as they do now, but to move faster (they can route-find themselves, without being micro-managed from long comm lag controllers).

The one bit that opens up humans as the robots is BFS. A 100% reusable craft, where getting to the Moon or Mars might literally cost little more than sending a couple astronauts up on Soyuz is a game changer.

[Pipcard]

3 hours ago, DAL59 said:

True, but it would accomplish nothing(plus we should save the deserts for solar arrays).  A mars colony would likely cause scientific innovations, ensure human survival, and just be interesting.  As Arthur C. Clarke said, space travel is the "moral equivalent of war".       

(by the way, the statement you had quoted was wrongly attributed to me for some reason)

 

Edited October 31, 2017 by Pipcard

[kerbiloid]

4 hours ago, DAL59 said:

No, space is not for cats

Cats are wiser than people. They ignore this goofy runaround with  primitive space barrels, awaiting for the artificial gravity.
O'Neil cylinders, Stanford toruses - all of them are designed to make the space cat-rated.

Btw, this is a criterion.
A place is "colonizable" when not only humans, but also cats can live there constantly.
Cat-rated > Human-rated.

Upd.
Possible solution, also making the orbital habitat comfy.
Pay attention: the cat tries to turn around only until it attaches to some substrate with claws.

Spoiler

 

7 hours ago, tater said:

I think tourism is actually a legit market, however, unlike most economic claims. Not for Mars, it's too far, too expensive. The Moon, OTOH? I think that could actually be a thing. Adventure tourism (not as safe as flying to Milano), but tourism.

+1, but much later.
P.S. Would be nice to look at the lunar roulette and swimming pools.

Edited October 31, 2017 by kerbiloid

[tater]

Tourism is at least an effectively "bottomless" market, unlike most everything else.

Take BFS claims at face value. Point to point for ~$1500-2000 each way for 800 on a ship or so (A380 all economy layout). That same vehicle can do orbit. 4-5 tanker trips and it can do the Moon. The Moon would be a longer trip, so the cost is at ~$12,000 for the travel, but because of the duration, 800 people is too many. Drop it to no more than 100. Now the cost is 12k*8, or $96,000. That's a lot of money, but really cheap for what it is, honestly. If a few cabins are nicer, and charge a lot more (airlines subsidize economy with 1st and Business Class), then it might be a thing, even in the medium term.

[magnemoe]

5 hours ago, tater said:

Tourism is at least an effectively "bottomless" market, unlike most everything else.

Take BFS claims at face value. Point to point for ~$1500-2000 each way for 800 on a ship or so (A380 all economy layout). That same vehicle can do orbit. 4-5 tanker trips and it can do the Moon. The Moon would be a longer trip, so the cost is at ~$12,000 for the travel, but because of the duration, 800 people is too many. Drop it to no more than 100. Now the cost is 12k*8, or $96,000. That's a lot of money, but really cheap for what it is, honestly. If a few cabins are nicer, and charge a lot more (airlines subsidize economy with 1st and Business Class), then it might be a thing, even in the medium term.

Is i the only one thinking of using the crew version of BFR for satellite launches especially in polar orbit launches.
You will not get much secondary payload for specific polar orbit and the BFR is overkill for most satellite missions. 
So you put the satellite in the cargo hold on the passenger version and combine it with an mini cruise. 
As an bonus polar orbit will give an better view of earth. 
Bonus is the paying passengers, downside is that the passenger version is more expensive and more expensive to run. 
They will also start with the cargo version and then qualify for passenger flight probably by using it for satellite missions. 
Yes you will need an payload adapter in cargo hold and it need to be large enough for the bird. 
 

[DAL59]

5 hours ago, tater said:

Point to point for ~$1500-2000 each way

The BFR will certainly put virgin galactic out of business.    

4 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

for satellite launches

It could also launch giant probes to the outer solar system.  Or giant telescopes.  

[tater]

56 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

The BFR will certainly put virgin galactic out of business.    

BFR/BFS with crew will not be flying for a while I think. Safety will not be established until they have a truly large number of flights under their belts.

I think that BO will put VG out of business, frankly, and much sooner.

 

 

[DAL59]

10 minutes ago, tater said:

I think that BO will put VG out of business, frankly, and much sooner.

True.  And VG has a bad reputation for not delivering.  They have literally been saying "6 months away" for 7 years now.  

[tater]

11 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

True.  And VG has a bad reputation for not delivering.  They have literally been saying "6 months away" for 7 years now.  

FH was supposed to fly when? Crew Dragon? Delays happen, I don't take that too seriously, they have to fix what they have to fix.

I just don't see the experimental aircraft as being safer than a capsule with better abort modes.

 

[DAL59]

 

[tater]

Watched 5 minutes. That video is nonsense.

[DAL59]

It gets better.  Also, why?  

[tater]

He's talking about raw materials from asteroids---which is fine, we'd drag them to Earth orbit. That's not trade. Possible colonies would be where, and what would they have to offer that could not be made cheaper on Earth, or around Earth? Nothing. Asteroid colony? I can't imaging any mining effort requiring a independent society level of population, and I think you'd move an asteroid to the only customer (Earth). Any real money used by people elsewhere would be Earth currency, and I'm unsure how they'd get it aside from doing work that doesn't actually require them to be at their colony (telecommuting). All this presumes that there are jobs, too, and intelligent machines are someplace in the future, it's just when.

Also, it presumes that there are colonies in the first place. 

There will be no colonies without an economic driver, and there is no possible economic driver to move people to a colony. Take Mars as the perennial example. What can Mars trade with Earth? Nothing at all. Information? Sure, because people on Mars are exactly as creative as people on Earth, but there is no driver to have those people move to Mars to do their intellectual work, since it's cheaper to do it here.

oh, and intellectual work will eventually be replaced by machine intelligence.

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, tater said:

He's talking about raw materials from asteroids---which is fine, we'd drag them to Earth orbit. That's not trade. Possible colonies would be where, and what would they have to offer that could not be made cheaper on Earth, or around Earth? Nothing. Asteroid colony? I can't imaging any mining effort requiring a independent society level of population, and I think you'd move an asteroid to the only customer (Earth). Any real money used by people elsewhere would be Earth currency, and I'm unsure how they'd get it aside from doing work that doesn't actually require them to be at their colony (telecommuting). All this presumes that there are jobs, too, and intelligent machines are someplace in the future, it's just when.

Also, it presumes that there are colonies in the first place. 

There will be no colonies without an economic driver, and there is no possible economic driver to move people to a colony. Take Mars as the perennial example. What can Mars trade with Earth? Nothing at all. Information? Sure, because people on Mars are exactly as creative as people on Earth, but there is no driver to have those people move to Mars to do their intellectual work, since it's cheaper to do it here.

oh, and intellectual work will eventually be replaced by machine intelligence.

If you mine stuff at an asteroid you would want to trade it in orbit. How is that not trade? Note that you might sell fuel to an space station who then sell it to ships. 
However he talks about an far later time period, today you would want an customer before doing asteroid mining. 
So the video is not about medium term space activity. 

And yes intelligent machines. AI has always been a bit further away than fusion
Yes we has done insane progress the last decade gone as smart as a brick to as smart as perhaps an frog if generous. 
An easy human level AI, how many clock cycles before they unionize  And they will ruing online gaming forever. 

Edited November 3, 2017 by magnemoe

[Bill Phil]

On 10/31/2017 at 2:53 PM, DAL59 said:

True.  And VG has a bad reputation for not delivering.  They have literally been saying "6 months away" for 7 years now.  

Well, fusion is worse... and that would be helpful for spacecraft, provided we can build a fusion engine.

[DAL59]

18 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

Well, fusion is worse.

Well, its been 30 years away, and has never been specific.  Saying that your company will be doing a specific thing in the next 6 months for years is worse.  

2 hours ago, tater said:

There will be no colonies without an economic driver,

Government contracts, then millionaires who want to leave Earth.  

[tater]

2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

If you mine stuff at an asteroid you would want to trade it in orbit. How is that not trade? Note that you might sell fuel to an space station who then sell it to ships. 
However he talks about an far later time period, today you would want an customer before doing asteroid mining. 
So the video is not about medium term space activity. 

And yes intelligent machines. AI has always been a bit further away than fusion
Yes we has done insane progress the last decade gone as smart as a brick to as smart as perhaps an frog if generous. 
An easy human level AI, how many clock cycles before they unionize  And they will ruing online gaming forever. 

It's not trade between planets. The Earth company that wants the stuff drags an asteroid to Earth. Why would they pay a markup on one dragged by someone who happens to live on Mars?

AI will explode as soon as AI is developed that can write code as well as a person.

1 hour ago, DAL59 said:

Government contracts, then millionaires who want to leave Earth.  

No government will pay for a colony. Bases, science, maybe. A colony? Never going to happen, it's wasted money. I'm a space geek, and I don't want a single penny of my tax dollars to pay for a colony. Anyone less rabid about space than me would surely agree.

Billionaires are not rich enough to colonize space. It needs to at least break even, which it won't.

[PakledHostage]

5 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Yes we has done insane progress the last decade gone as smart as a brick to as smart as perhaps an frog if generous. 

I don't know of too many frogs that can teach themselves how to play Goh well enough to beat Lee Sedol, teach themselves how to play Atari games, or even learn how to drive a car for that matter... Just sayin'.

[DDE]

12 hours ago, tater said:

but there is no driver to have those people move to Mars to do their intellectual work, since it's cheaper to do it here.

Except that people for some reason think that the unique challenges of surviving in hostile alien conditions would somehow produce a panoply of advances across all fields of applied science.

I have a cheaper idea. It’s called “working in a sharashka with a deferred sentence to execution for being an Enemy of the People”.

9 hours ago, DAL59 said:

then millionaires who want to leave Earth.  

Ah, those kryptoids otherwise known as “bigfoot”.

Whenever millionaires run away from civilization, they always do so to low-tax countries, and to within less than a half-day trip from major metropoli of a First World country. They never move to Antarctica, or even Spitsbergen.

Edited November 3, 2017 by DDE

[Urses]

DDE have a nice point here. To get the bigfoots to invest or buy something you need a full envelopped infrastructure. You don't only need the primary and secondary sectors to survive and establish selfsustainability, but tertiar and quartary sectors as well to provide luxury. I don't realy see a bigfoot run around with a spade to get feed on next day.

And as mentioned above for robots in science fields. We have to distinguish data gathering and processing. Datagathering will be able done by expert systems (robots) but for processing you need creativity. To find in the chunk collected by the expert systems this little genius bit to say "Heureka"

Edited November 3, 2017 by Urses

[tater]

Let me be clear. As I said above, I'm a rabid space geek. I'd like nothing better than to have seen the O'Neill future I read about in High School, and assumed was right around the corner (right before the Shuttle flew). 

As I grew older I realized that there was less and less rationale for large numbers of people to ever be in space. Even the computer systems we have right now obviate the need for huge quantities of work that would otherwise be done by people---both intellectual work, and the manual labor of things like mining asteroids or the Moon. The force-multiplier of even narrowly intelligent systems (already deployed in things we use every day, like Google) is huge.

Given this, even if you can come up with a business model that involves something other than satellites selling services to us Terrans, it doesn't need loads of non-terrestrial labor, if any at all. O'Neill envisioned thousands of workers mining on the Moon, then using those resources to build solar arrays and bootstrap housing. Even if the Solar was actually cost-effective (apparently it isn't), we wouldn't need 10s of thousands of construction workers to do it, more like 10s.

The Mars vision of Musk assumes self-exiling colonists. The trouble is that most colonial movements involve people leaving one place for a better life. Making Mars a better life would be a substantial, and very. very, very expensive challenge. The 3 very here I'm only using to refer tot he cost to make the place a place when're anyone could enjoy a better life, I'm not even talking about the cost of making life possible. 

[Kerbal7]

12 hours ago, tater said:

Possible colonies would be where, and what would they have to offer that could not be made cheaper on Earth, or around Earth? Nothing. Asteroid colony? 

Also, it presumes that there are colonies in the first place.

There will be no colonies, for a myriad of reasons. One being, humans evolved to live at earth's gravity. Humans living in low G and weightless environments is very, very, very bad, for human health. 

[tater]

4 minutes ago, Kerbal7 said:

There will be no colonies, for a myriad of reasons. One being, humans evolved to live at earth's gravity. Humans living in low G and weightless environments is very, very, very bad, for human health. 

There is likely a spot someplace between ) and 1g where humans would do just fine, but we have no idea where that point is. If it is above 0.38g, then any human colonies would be orbital, and spun to a healthy level of effective gravity (~1g).

That said, for anyone to want to live there, there would either need to be an economic reason, or it would have to offer a better life than on Earth. The kind of people who would be better off in space are exactly the kind of people we don't need in space (people who live in lousy places on Earth don't tend to be the sharpest knives in the drawer on average). Making a colony better than Earth would cost so much as to make the economics even more impossible.