Is it really necessary to send humans to those places just to get the knock-on benefits? Couldn’t we do those things directly, without going there?
It seems to me that, today, those who have the money to spend on these endeavors would only do so if there were perceived short-term benefits to themselves. That means they plan to exploit the resources, or increase their own power somehow.
I know the good engineers that make this happen are doing it for the challenge and in the pursuit of knowledge, and I know that’s why we poors support it, but that doesn’t “pay the bills.” What is the motivation behind the money? Why are they really doing this?
Find the Ghosts Of Mars.
SCIENCE
I guess we could grow a bunch of wheat inside of it, then send it back to earth. If we’re not treated well we could swap wheat for rocks. At least, that what Heinlein suggested.
children, you have to be pernamently there to raise them
It’d be cool as fuck.
Science doesn’t really happen if we continually ask “Why do this?” Science happens when we ask “Why not do this?”
If we want to be a galactic civilization, we must first learn to live on worlds otherwise uninhabitable. The engineering challenges we must overcome to make that happen will give us the knowledge and experience we need to make it possible to expand past our solar system. This is a very long term advancent, and what we do today is what our offspring will do with ease.
Other than political roadblocks, the final roadblock to galactic expansion is FTL travel. We have theories on how to make it possible, but we are limited to the engineering and knowledge of our time now. Far future generations will be the ones to discover if and how to make it possible, but they need the foundational knowledge and experience of how to live in space.
Don’t worry. We’re making Earth pretty uninhabitable these days. We’ll get there without ever leaving the planet.
Unfortunately also true, and more likely than the Star Trek optimism answer.
The Bell Riots?
In reality there isn’t any real reason to have a permanent base on either… especially Mars.
Rocket fuel. The moon is like the local gas station you stop at to top off the tank and get snacks before you hit the open road.
The Moon is basically devoid of rocket fuel or its ingredients so it will need to be brought there. The question is, what kind of craft are you going to send and where to warrant Moon refueling as opposed to just another multi-stage rocket?
Even then, the tank can be designed for unmanned operation.
Are you joking?
Edit. Educate yourself. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/moon-water-ice-rocket-fuel
Pro tip: Not making the person feel like an idiot goes a long way into making your information reach more places.
I searched for some terms and you get your usual articles of “greatest energy source found” mixed in with plenty of slop. Its hard to take any of those at face value nowadays when news outlets tend to exaggerate everything science related. Not even mentioning the article you posted has a pay or login wall.
It takes a few eggs out of our current basket and puts it into other nearby baskets, so as to avoid complete species failure if our original basket falls or gets dropped.
Not the most ideal solution, as we should really step out of our stellar neighbourhood to achieve lasting civilizational redundancy, but it’s far better than not taking any eggs out of the current basket at all.
Plus, incremental efforts in achieving civilizational redundancy always have better results than great leaps, both in terms of consistency as well as resiliency. Figuring things out a bit at a time is nearly always more effective than trying to solve everything all at once.
On the moon, I am guessing some sort of railgun facility. Designate a specific spot on Earth, and you can launch mineral packets to crash there for terrestrial harvesting. Mind, I can see horrific consequences if something goes wrong.
In an old game called Stars!, I used to prepare worlds via mineral deposits to serve as industrial centers. The process also conveniently cleared out the previous inhabitants.
Any time anyone ever mentions extra-terrestrial rail guns, I immediately think of this NPC exchange in ME2:
Neither place is close enough or has enough resources for more than a research base, and remotely operating robots on Mars would be a lot easier and safer.
Google: Tescreal, Freedom Citys, Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos etc. Basically there are several projects where they try to do unregulated research. Main idea seems to be to “survive” the end of our civilisation by living in Space or in the deep sea, enhance themselves (eg neuralink) , create General Artificial intelligence etc. Thiels Palantir is thought as defense mechanism by surveilling everyone. It all sounds like a big conspiracy theory, unfortunately it is not. Musk being responsible for Dodge, deregulating the US Governement was exactly one of these things. It was never about saving money. This is all a big rabit hole and you will get in a very bad mood readinfg about it.
Exploration and discovery for humanitarian goals, different abundance of resources and lack of other resources usually gives opportunities for mining, production/refining/fabrication, and trade. And further, more metal resource rich regions like the asteroid belt will require developing the same tech needed to establish outposts, bases, and fueling stations far from earth.
The rest of creation: we have a perfect blue marble to live on in a void of deadly nothing. Humams: challenge accepted!
the colonies have a right to exist without OZ interference.
UESA has no governance over the colonies and must respect their sovereign will for independence.
