The Ethics of Space Tourism?

[Clinton Huxley]

sci-if

It still kind of works, despite the typo.

[pErvinalia]

There was a time when people believed that powered flight was impossible ...

Nearly 80 years on and we are still, basically, using V2s to get into orbit.

You're right. 80 years. There's no chance things will change in 2000 years of Moore's Law.

[Clinton Huxley]

There was a time when people believed that powered flight was impossible ...

Nearly 80 years on and we are still, basically, using V2s to get into orbit.

You're right. 80 years. There's no chance things will change in 2000 years of Moore's Law.

Cockroaches will be running this place in 2000 years.

[pErvinalia]

Your prophet abilities are expanding!

[Clinton Huxley]

Your prophet abilities are expanding!

Or maybe slugs. They are in it for the long haul.

I see a lot of techno-optimism but I'm pretty sanguine that no-one currently contributing to this forum will see a human land on Mars. If it ever happens, it will happen when we are all dead.

[pErvinalia]

Out of sight, out of mind.

[Coito ergo sum]

If Earth becomes uninhabitable, how would some other inhospitable rock .. or a space station ... be better able to support and sustain humans?

That is a good question.

And, the answer is that by learning to render an inhospitable place like Mars hospitable, we would be able to translate that technology to Earth. We can't do that kind of development on Earth very easily, because Earth is hospitable right now.

But, my main point is the finite nature of Earth. No matter how long you give Earth, it is finite. So is our solar system and galaxy, but they are much longer term scenarios. One day, we will go extinct. That extinction will be earlier if we stay on Earth, and later if we expand out. It may well be that by expanding out, further and further, in the distant future we will come to develop an ability to avoid extinction altogether. We are guaranteed not to be able to do that by staying on Earth and Earth alone. We have a speculative, dream-like chance of avoiding the seemingly inevitable if we expand outward.

[Coito ergo sum]

People would have to become far less wasteful .. and it would be enforced. Why not just enforce far less wastefulness here? Is our behaviour .. our gluttony, greed and apathy .. such that it is necessary to provide an extreme alternative in order to catalyse change? And would that really change such behaviour?

I would say that it would be great to curb wastefulness here, but that doesn't solve the overall problem, which is lots of eggs, one basket.

The dinosaurs went extinct because they did not have a space program.

[Coito ergo sum]

We are never getting off this rock. With immense effort we can send a human a couple of hundred miles up. Go to what almost amounts to a war-footing and we can get one to the moon (or used to be able to).

We still can. With Constellation, had that program been continued, we'd be having excited conversations right now about how close we were to launch and how close we were to the start of a Moon base at Clavius crater. We'd be just a few years away, and the buzz would be beginning in earnest.

We can get humans to the Moon and Mars.

We just have to do it.

[Coito ergo sum]

It's a matter of technology. To say the technology will never exist to make it reasonably cheap to get off the planet to another planet/moon is a bit ridiculous.

You got anything better than a chemical rocket that isn't just vapour-ware?

Space elevator into low Earth orbit. Small engines of various kinds, including chemical, to travel in the Earth Moon system. Ion drive, solar sails and nuclear propulsion to travel between planets.

[Coito ergo sum]

There was a time when people believed that powered flight was impossible ...

Nearly 80 years on and we are still, basically, using V2s to get into orbit.

That's a testament to the efficiency of that technology.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

There was a time when people believed that powered flight was impossible ...

Nearly 80 years on and we are still, basically, using V2s to get into orbit.

2,000 years ago we didn't even have those.

[Clinton Huxley]

We are never getting off this rock. With immense effort we can send a human a couple of hundred miles up. Go to what almost amounts to a war-footing and we can get one to the moon (or used to be able to).

We still can. With Constellation, had that program been continued, we'd be having excited conversations right now about how close we were to launch and how close we were to the start of a Moon base at Clavius crater. We'd be just a few years away, and the buzz would be beginning in earnest.

We can get humans to the Moon and Mars.

We just have to do it.

Aye. IF Constellaton still existed. And IF it had continued to be funded to completion. And if we all had a fish, we'd all have a fish.

Look at the ISS. Some science gets done there but the astronauts spend most of their time patching up the thing. A moon base would be the same.

[Clinton Huxley]

It's a matter of technology. To say the technology will never exist to make it reasonably cheap to get off the planet to another planet/moon is a bit ridiculous.

You got anything better than a chemical rocket that isn't just vapour-ware?

Space elevator into low Earth orbit. Small engines of various kinds, including chemical, to travel in the Earth Moon system. Ion drive, solar sails and nuclear propulsion to travel between planets.

Vapour-ware.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Vapour-ware.

We're using light sails and ion engines in space now. Try to keep up.