/sci/ - Science & Math

>>7066448
The point? It's cooler /thread

>>7066448
A geologist on Mars could do more in one day than all rovers have done so far.

>>7066448
>What's the point of manned space flight? Is there any point other than nation dickwaving?
You've got it. It's all about propaganda and >MUH DICK.

>What's the point of putting men on mars when you can send robots?
Again, none. And men can't even survive for few days there.

>Sending men is more dangerous, costly, time consuming etc.
Correct.

Robot master race reporting.

>>7066448
Earth doesn't have enough resources forever.

>>7066448


as time goes on the probability of catastrophic compromising our environment approaches inevitability, expanding to other worlds and in time other star systems can buy us time by making even world compromising disasters amere nuisance and giving access to far more resources than we could possible acquire sitting in our home rock

>>7066448
>>7066516
>>7066503
>>7066448
>>7066448
Cuz our collective time on Earth is limited.

We're the first species to both be aware of this, and to be capable of doing something about it.

We know of a thousand different things that could wipe out this biosphere, many without any notice, and we find new ones every year... Hell, every once in awhile, we *invent* a new one.

We rose from the ashes of the last of four global extinction events, only to learn that the closest thing we have to a sign of the divine, is that there's only been four, and not four thousand.

...Yet, since 1972, we've done squat about it.


Really, the fact we haven't is the greatest collective failure of any higher species to respond to threat stimuli since, well, ever. It boggles the mind that people even go so far to argue against it. Granted, I suppose there's enough hippies out there thinking we should all just off ourselves to save the planet, ignoring the fact that we're probably the planet's last hope to extend the story of life beyond its inevitably doomed cradle.

If we fail in this endeavor, all our collective ancestors, both human and before, billions of generations of trillions of life forms struggly so that we could be, all the way back to the first proto-life single celled organisms are going to look at us and say:

DAMNIT! YOU HAD ONE JOB NANCY!

>>7066520
That's why we shouldn't waste our resources on useless mars missions.

>>7066538
>and to be capable of doing something about it.

There is nothing we can do about it and we do not have any responsibility or moral obligation to save future generations or life on earth in general. Your post sounds horribly underaged.

>>7066448
>>7066503
>>7066516
>>7066541
Cuz our collective time on Earth is limited.

We're the first species to both be aware of this, and to be capable of doing something about it.

We know of a thousand different things that could wipe out this biosphere, many without any notice, and we find new ones every year... Hell, every once in awhile, we even *invent* a new one.

We rose from the ashes of the last of four global extinction events, only to learn that the closest thing we have to a sign of the divine, is that there's only been four, and not four thousand.

...Yet, since 1972, we've done squat about it.


Really, the fact we haven't is the greatest collective failure of any higher species to respond to threat stimuli since, well, ever. It boggles the mind that people even go so far to argue against it. Granted, I suppose there's enough hippies out there thinking we should all just off ourselves to save the planet, ignoring the fact that we're probably the planet's last hope to extend the story of life beyond its inevitably doomed cradle.

If we fail in this endeavor, all our collective ancestors, both human and before, billions of generations of trillions of lives, who all struggled so violently against incredible environmental odds, in addition to one another,, in order that one day we could be, all the way back to the first proto-life single celled organisms are going to look at us and say:

DAMNIT! YOU HAD ONE JOB NANCY!

>>7066550
Response here: >>7066547

>>7066547
There's a million different things we can do about it, it just requires looking ahead more than one generation. Something, we apparently are barely capable of nowadays.

Granted, the last time we did something about it we did so under the threat of nuclear annihilation, so maybe we just need a good external threat again.

And if we don't have a "moral" responsibility to *survive* - we midas well just do what the hippies suggest and walk into the sea and die right now. Really, survival is the *only* purgative of successful life, everything else is open for debate, and icing on the cake.

>>7066550
Totally agree, however OP is also right, we need the path prepared for us, mars is incredidly toxic and its light atmosphere is difficult to land through.

I believe (cant be bothered too check) we have a 30% success rate of landing anything there, let alone sheeple.

So, scenario..the first 2 manned missions crash during landing, that would mean man wouldnt go back to mars for maybe 50 years.
Robots first please.

>>7066557
Our lives right now aren't threatened and even if they were, they wouldn't be saved by some retarded infantile fantasies about future generations travelling through space. Your post is asinine and you fail to provide any reasonable argument.

>>7066573
Our lives are threatened, right now. There's thousands of threats, both internal, and external, that could wipe us all out with little to no notice - and those are only among the ones we know about, we discover more all the time.

Yes, it wouldn't much matter if it happened *today*, but the longer we put it off, the more apt we are to regret it - if whichever inevitable cataclysmic event that wipes us out first gives us the chance to. We know this, yet we sit like deer transfixed by a truck's headlights.

I'm not saying we can expect to have colonies or seeds on mars or people flying to distant stars in my lifetime, and maybe not even yours, but we aren't even making the baby steps in that direction that we once did. We aren't even really thinking about our collective future, beyond what will improve our iPhone coverage. We aren't interested in reaching as a people anymore.

That future where we survive isn't something that's just going to magically happen as some sort of inevitability. For us to have any future at all, it'll require forward thinking pioneers working on tech that they will never see put to use in their lifetimes. People thinking beyond themselves. It'll at least take the sort of risky pioneering spirit we saw that brought Europeans to the new world, risking millions in investments, and hundreds of lives.

...and people sitting there and saying "Nope, can't be done - too expensive - no reason", flying in the face of all we've accomplished and all we've learned thus far, are likely going to be the death of us all.

>>7066599
And again: We do not have any moral obligation regarding future generations. Your post is nothing but a collection of underaged drivel.

>>7066448

Nobody wants to die, we don't know if there are other intelligent lifeforms elsewhere (we don't even know for certain yet if there are lifeforms anywhere else), so for all we know if earth gets scrubbed everything that ever lived in the history of ever is dead forever


Thinking about that we should probably send probes to contamine far away star system if not with humans at least with microbes to ensure life will have another shot at evolving smart shit somewhere else in case we fail miserably at making it work out.

>>7066609
Why should we care about the survival of organisms millions of years after our own death?

>>7066604
>We have no moral obligation to survive.
Then why did we bother coming this far?

Survival isn't about morality, it's a biological imperative, and so many previous generations following that rule, both before and after gaining the ability to question it, is the only reason we're here to argue about it today.

You're insisting we should just collectively sit on the train tracks, and claim it's too much trouble to get up, when we here the whistle blowing, simply because we have "no moral obligation".

>>7066599
>Tangpocoplypse
/a/ pls go

>>7066617
It would be better if humanity planned its on extinction, through successively smaller generation, through consensual limited reproduction. Less suffering that way. I'm a fan of Benatar's antinatalism.

>>7066617
>Then why did we bother coming this far?

We didn't make this decision. We just happen to evolve. You seem to hold some /x/ beliefs that there is a higher goal for humanity or something. There isn't. Please grow up, kid, and stop wasting time with magical bullshit fantasies.

>>7066618
Heh... Didn't notice that one. It's a fanciful list, to be sure, but it gets the point across, and really only covers a tiny minutia of known potential threats, let alone the Rumsfeld factor.

>>7066619
Okay, so you're one of the hippies that wants us to all walk into the ocean and drown. I'd just rather you didn't advocate it, and thus take the rest of us with you. I suppose it does say something about the power of mind over biology that such a thought can even cross your mind, however, I just wish such power would be put to a more constructive purpose.

>>7066621
So the last 10,000 years of history didn't happen, and we only gained the ability to make life and death decisions in this generation?

Interesting theory - and even if it were true, isn't really much of an argument to choose death, simply because you can.

>>7066623
I'm not a hippie, my concerns for the continued existence of humanity have no basis in environmental concerns, but in reducing total suffering. Also I don't think anyone should kill themselves, it would be achieve through planned successively smaller generations. The whole process could take thousands of years. I obviously don't think this will ever happen, but it would be preferable, seeing as our actual extinction will likely be far less civil.

>>7066623
Nice fallacy, retard. I'm not advocating suicide (although yours would certainly be a good thing). For our lives it makes no fucking difference how future generations will live.

>>7066614


The universe will run for trillions of years until heat death, and although it would be preferable to still be around for as long as possible to witness and understand as much as feasible, if we never manage to spread beyond our solar system nor locate any other sort of life anywhere else it is only reasonable to assume that life is incredibly rare - and even if we fail at getting out and spreading ourselves we can at least give life a chance to develop beings similar to us somewhere else by shooting microscopic life payloads at relativistic speeds anywhere that looks like a place where life as we know it could develop.
They would still share some DNA with us, like everything else currently alive on the planet, and second best to an universe where we exist is one where we don't exist but something that shares at least part of our genes still exists.

That all assumes that life is rare and that getting viable living people out the solar system (or out the galaxy) is intrinsically beyond our capabilities, and of course those assumptions may very well be false.

>>7066629

It's still advocating collective suicide - whether the reasons are about environment or suffering is irrelevant.

Yes, if life didn't exist, there would be no suffering. Good show, let's all die.

...Or we can accept that suffering is part of life, and if we're ever going to be around long enough to collectively rise above that, we're probably going to need to be around for longer than the womb that birthed us has left to give us.

>>7066448
The point of manned space flight is in the challenge and overcoming obstacles sooner than later. Because it's more difficult every success teaches us more. Also a significant number of people who actually matter in terms of decision making see a future for humans in space and want to make those leaps because they can.

>>7066625
Nobody is choosing death. Your straw men are childish and only underline your immaturity. We do not suddenly all die just because we don't care about what happens millions of years in the future.

>>7066634
>The universe will run for trillions of years until heat death
If we can reach beyond our boundaries, we can cross that bridge when we come to it, but yes, it would be nice to be around long enough to even see that bridge on the horizon, rather than be some forgotten flash in the pan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojEq-tTjcc0

>>7066634
You didn't answer the question. Why should we care what happens after our death?

>>7066642
Because if no one else before you had, this world would be a lot smaller, a lot more miserable, and much more inevitably doomed.

>>7066636
>and if we're ever going to be around long enough to collectively rise above that

We won't. This generation will collectively be dead in 100 years and there is no reason to care what happens afterwards.

>>7066642
Not him but that's just the way some people are wired. Why should people care about imaginary characters written by books and acted out by adults? Why should people waste time on resource consuming pets? Why should you care about anything?

>>7066650
And yet people still do care even without a reason to. I can imagine you eating your family the day you find out you have terminal cancer.

>>7066636
I don't think that's true. There is a difference between lives not wort starting and lives not worth continuing, not least that you can't adequately predict the former. It's also individually easier to have just one, or no, children than to convince yourself, unless your life is very awful, to kill yourself, even if it would be better for you to do so.

>>7066642
solipsistically there is no reason to care. but our ancestors cared what happened in the future to some degree and we have a place to live because of it.

>>7066651
This is a science board, obviously "a lot of people are retards and waste resources for no reason" is not an acceptable answer.

>>7066448
Whitey on the moon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtBy_ppG4hY

>>7066639
I don't think you're reading the same thread I am... And you're advocating for the collective death of your species as well, if not your own.

>>7066642
Because if the species does not survive, than anything you do, anything your ancestors have done, anything your children may do, will be forever rendered meaningless.

As it stands, all that came before you had a purpose, and that purpose is us. If we refuse to pass on that torch, and surrender that effort of survival, then the journey of a billion generations was all for not.

If survival doesn't matter, than you're in the ultimate nihilist trap, where nothing matters.

>>7066657
Appeal to emotion is not an argument. Argumentum ad populum is a fallacy. Try again.

>>7066649
So nothing would change? Okay, I don't see a problem here.

>>7066661
>but our ancestors cared what happened in the future to some degree and we have a place to live because of it.
They didn't give a fuck. They just didn't have the tools to cause greater damage. Or do you really think some king in the dark ages retardedly philosophized about "muh future generations"? Of course none did, because they all cared only about their own life. We are animals. Stop denying evolution and stop promoting idiotic /x/ tier "hurr durr there is a deeper goal for humanity" bullshit, you underaged moron.

>>7066663
Good thing I didn't give such a answer.
>"a lot of people are retards and waste resources for no reason"
>a lot of people are retards
For forming parasocial and real relationships with people and ideas?
>for no reason
It occurs for a reason.

>>7066665
Life and everything we do IS meaningless, irregardless of whether our species survives. The survival of our species is meaningless and there is no reason to believe that it matters. Grow the fuck up.

>>7066670
I am not appealing to your emotion and I am saying that it's human biology and that part about you was meant to point out that your biology may be flawed. You green blooded toaster.

>>7066684
You did not name any objective reason.

>>7066693
not everything is objective

>>7066689
>muh irrational beliefs are implied by human biology

Sure thing, /x/tard. Apparently biology is another thing you don't understand.

>>7066685
There is an important difference between recognizing that nothing matters objectively and asserting that subjective things are meaningless. The survival of the species matters to whatever degree it matters to a person and that persons belief can have consequences in the actual world.

>>7066697
"Muh feeligns" is not an argument. Go back to /pol/.

>>7066642


If by why you ask for the rationale, here it follows:

Nobody really wants to die, so life is desirable, and as such it is preferable that it goes on; as individuals we do that by producing viable offspring and doing our best to ensure they'll be able to survive even after our death. We can expand this idea further, and as a species do our best to ensure our descendents will be around for as long as we possibly can, even if none of us alive today will be around. We can expand this idea further still, and as living creatures in an universe where life is rare do our best to ensure life will be around for as long as possible, even if we end up not being able to ensure the survival of our own specie.


If by why you ask for justification of the premise that life is desirable and an universe where life exists is more desirable than one where life doesn't exist even if humans no longer exist then it's more of a philosophical sort of thing and I can't help you much on those grounds. You might as well take the opposite premise, that a universe without humans might be better off with no other lifeform as well, and from there come up with a rationale of why we should build several doomsday machines and send them to every corner of the universe where life could develop as a failsafe in case we get extinguished and in a sense it would be equally valid from a logical standpoint. I only argue in favor of life because I'm biased by the fact of being a living being and appreciating living things, even those that are non human, and thus I constructed the parallel between having descent as an individual with taking steps as a sentient race to ensure the continuation of life that could potentially develop sentience akin to human in the event humans cease existing.

>>7066700
Just because it matters to you, that doesn't mean it has to matter to everyone. Don't force your childish beliefs upon others.

>>7066693
>>7066699
>robots declare that their is no objective reason to care about the species.
>point out that humans do so in large numbers with no obvious recourse to logic.
>perhaps this is just a consequence of human evolution shaping biology.
Why do you robots care about your life now?

>>7066711
>Nobody really wants to die, so life is desirable

My own life is desirable. But why should I care what happens after I die? Give me one reason.

>>7066713
I never said it mattered to me and if your beliefs are so wide spread then why do we have NASA and space x? Why are there environmentalist and all sorts of people spending their life's trying to change the world in ways they will never live to see?

>>7066717
>My own life is desirable.
Why?
>why should I care what happens after I die?
There is no should. You either do or you don't.

>>7066680
>>7066680
Holy hell...

Do you really think everything you see around you came about in a single generation?

You bring up the dark ages - do you have any idea how long it took to build a cathedral? A university? How many people made one way journey's into BFE, never to return, only to send someone back in their stead, as part of the mechanism that ended them?

Just after that, how many people had to be invested into making a galleon to sail into the new world, most with no possibility of seeing a return in their lifetimes? How many resources and lives sank to the bottom of the ocean in that effort?

The pyramids, the great wall, really, any of the wonders of the world?

The aqueduct systems, the roads, the shit that tied it all together?

Rome wasn't built in a day, some of the more famous bits weren't even completed in a century.

We'd all be living in mud huts, scattered around like savages. Shit would be a hell of a lot different.

Is that the impression your education has left you with!? That all of this civilization and technological advancement was just the work of individuals looking after their own self interest with no thought to the future? Never once with a collective plan in their heads? Gods no wonder we're so fucked. That's about the most depressing thing I've ever read on here.

And if we didn't look at least one generation ahead, we wouldn't even be miserable - we'd all just be dead.

>>7066448
>What's the point of putting men on mars when you can send robots?
What's the point of hiring men when you can buy robots?

Here's the deal: launching stuff into space still costs hundreds of times what it has to. We could use expendable rockets as our only means of intercontinental air transport. They were cheaper to develop than airliners. They're faster than airliners. They're not really less fuel-efficient than airliners. But at some point, the investment in developing airliners was made, with a serious, pragmatic attitude. This simply hasn't happened with orbital launch vehicles.

We got one half-assed, politically-compromised first attempt at a reusable launch vehicle, and then 30 years of, "Fuck you! It does so work!" while they threw enough tax dollars at rebuilding the thing after every flight to develop half a dozen further generations of legitimately reusable launch vehicles.

Now, you can call our space probes and rovers "robots", but really, they're remote-control vehicles, which are managed with big, expensive staffs on Earth. Because robots are still really fucking stupid. If launch costs were closer to being sane, we'd just send dudes up, who can be genuinely aware of their environment and think for themselves.

Sending a remote control car with a robot arm to scrape up some dust samples doesn't give you anything like the information you can get from a team of prospectors.

>>7066448
To get a better understanding of how we can make people life on other planets. This asks for lots of technological innovations. Compare it to the invention of the microwave oven or the teflon cooking items in your kitchen. Maybe one day you will be able to grow all you food at home and generate your electricity there as well. And I ask you why send robots when we already know a lot about the geology of the place?

>>7066717


It's simply a matter of generalization. If you're able to identify yourself as part of a category (say humans, or sentient beings) it is simple to infer that certain atributes that apply to you (being alive, not wanting to die, regarding life as desirable) also apply to other that are part of the same category. Some people would also call this empathy.

As for you in particular caring or not about what happens after you die, it's really a byproduct of your life experiences, and really isn't something that can be imposed upon. The only compelling reasons to care about what happens after you die are those that spring from holding an identity that encompasses more than just you, understanding yourself as part of a collective that has similar needs and aspirations, and caring about these collective desires.
If one never identify with any group to the point of recognizing on others a reflection of one's own desires and said group doesn't seems to hold any direct impact on one's own life then from such a standpoint there's no reason to care about what happens with them.

>>7066717
If you don't, you're genetically defective, or psychologically damaged. The only reason you are here, and having this conversation through such technology, built upon thousands that came before it, and the civilizations that those who spawned it in turn, is because other people did think beyond themselves, and did think to the future.

You're a social creature, evolved over billions of years to develop social tendencies, such as empathy and bonds with your fellow men. Men, who in days past, developed the civilization you live in, by thinking to, and investing in, the future.

If you've lost that capacity, that's a tragedy. But so many posters here seem to have, that one can wonder if it's civilization itself that's become suicidal, and lost its collective will to reach towards its survival. That somehow, society is robbing people of their naturally evolved tendency to look towards the future, and we've somehow built John B. Calhoun's social rat trap and doomed ourselves.

It would explain, at least, why we haven't been back since 1972.

>>7066685
>"Irregardless"
>Calls other posters childish
>laughinggasgiants.jpeg

http://www.sei.aero/eng/papers/uploads/archive/NIAC-Torpor-Habitat-for-Human-Stasis-2-28-2014.pdf

immortality as side effect

>>7066567
your numbers are pulled down by a bunch of old failures at the start of the space age

I highly doubt any manned mission would fail, also mars is an incredibly good place with all of the resources that we need to establish a civilization

AND YES there is a fucking point to manned spaceflight, it's not about gathering better science than probes, it's about laying the groundwork for colonization

>>7066772
>tfw

>>7066772
>the world is suicidally depressed about the state of the world.

>>7066680
You seriously think that nobody in the past ever cared about their posterity? Nobody would try to have their memory preserved or do anything for their offspring in that case.

Damn, for a guy crying that others need to grow up, the selfish guy in this thead sure sounds like my own thought process back in fucking highschool.

>>7066713
Lol you sure like that word childish, is it because you like children or because you lack a sufficient vocabulary to properly argue against someone's point which, as of right now, you are doing very poorly.

Also let me point out that you accused your opponent of using a strawman argument, as you incessantly call them childish.

Best location for a Mars colony? I'm thinking the Valles Marineris area.

>geologically diverse & interesting
>near equator & high elevation for easier escape velocity
>not super far from volcanoes

>>7066448
The idea that meat sacks will be traveling the galaxy is retarded. Name a problem facing us in space colonization that isn't fixed by sending robots.
Honestly this stuff reeks of humanism to me. Humanity's best hope is to create the robots that will conquer the galaxy after murdering us. And that's the BEST hope.

>>7070325
Well there's always the transcendent idea - just copy our minds to immortal robots, rather than be killed off by them.

...and there's quite possibly biological solutions to immortality, or near immortality, or suspended animation, sufficient for such travels. So no need to cyborg.

That's all assuming that we can't figure a way to pull FTL travel, which we already have some working theories about - and we haven't even had the concept of the light speed limit, nor the reasons behind it, for very long, so, it may turn out, in the end, not to be necessary.

I only dream that someday, my great^x-grandchild lives his whole life in an alien environment, completely detached from anything his biology and instincts are suited for, and, like so many people in today's society, feels perpetually empty inside, forgoing all base needs for virtual counterparts and synthetic solutions so he can spend his life dedicating his brainpower to the massive chugging algorithm of maximization of human mass that has brought us this far.

>>7066448

I must take umbrage at the picture you selected. Constellation was garbage. It would not have landed on the moon. Upon assuming office, a review found this to be so and Obama selected a pro-human spaceflight policy that set NASA on the course of human spaceflight to Mars. Cancelling Constellation and replacing it with a different and better pro human spaceflight path was not anti-human spaceflight.

Idiot hyperpartisans slandered Obama for making the right moves.

>>7066448
Because there are too many nukes laying around for one of these assholes not to try and use them.

>>7066448
>men on mars
Women are a better choice, with smaller mass they need less oxygen, water, and food. A couple of Lesbian biologists on Mars would determine more about life there in a week than every effort in the past fifty years.

>>7071508
>Lesbian biologists on Mars
This movie must be made.

>>7066680
This post is the most concentrated teenage angst I think you could fit into a paragraph.

I don't think going to Mars will significantly increase humanity's chances for long term survival. Whatever wipes us out will likely wipe out a colony on Mars too.

And the majority of Earth is empty, and a paradise compared to mars. Antarctica is empty. The bottom of the sea is empty. Vast regions of the taiga are essentially empty. Desert areas, etc. Again, these are relative paradises compared to Mars.

Send robots.

>>7071508
Theyd be even lighter if they were midgets. Not that I have a thing for lesbian midgets, just thinking of efficiency here.

>>7071799
Colonization puts theory into practice. If you can colonize the moon you can colonize almost any airless body.

*sigh* another bait thread.

>>7071816
Yes but let's be realistic, finding a full crew of lesbian midgets who happen to have the scientific skills relevant to a Mars mission isn't gonna happen.

Finding a couple lesbian biologists willing to leave society behind for a few years is like finding a CS major willing to play videogames.

>>7071799
There's a LOT that can go wrong on Earth with no affect on Mars. More than half of the threats to the biosphere are terrestrial, and a good chunk of the non-terrestrial ones are only liable to knock off a single planet.

Granted, you need to have Mars established for a long time before it's self-sustaining, but it's also the first step on a much longer journey. But the sooner we make such steps the better, and the fact that we've not made such a step in a half-century, does not bode well for us not dieing from collective procrastination.

>>7071876
>the sooner we make such steps the better
It's not clear why. Any Mars colony will be dependent on Earth for the foreseeable future, and thus won't really increase the likelihood of species survival much. Waiting until technology advances may well be a sound alternative.

>>7071931
If ya can't see that far into the future, you ain't got much foresight.

More to the point, however, technology doesn't "magically advance" in that direction. Should we continue on the technological path we've been taking for the past half-century, more likely, we'll become less and less interested in space travel, and more interested in short term profit goals, creating increasingly short-lived devices for rapid re-sell, better iPhones, more expensive treatment regimens that avoid cures for the chronic illnesses they treat, essentially, more and more focus on the various financial games we've created for ourselves and ever-increasing focus on the short term exploitations of the individual, rather than the long term progression and survival of the collective.

Plus, should we continue to expand the orbital network in such efforts, eventually, we'll have a satellite death cascade, due to orbital war or terrorist act, and all be trapped inside a spinning sphere of razor debris - rendering us forever unable to leave the planet.

First baby step was getting to the moon. The fact that we've not even been able to repeat that process in nearly three generations, suggests we've no intent of ever doing so, and if the rest of this thread is any indication, that's a collectively suicidal cultural phenomenon that's only gaining strength over time.

Move it, or lose it.

> What's the point of manned space flight? Is there any point other than nation dickwaving?

Many people have the impression that there was a point. But they were wrong. Once enough time had passed that enough lies were exposed about the entire process, it became totally obvious that space exploration was just a means of funneling tax money into the pockets of the military-industrialists. There is no serious intention on the part of government to establish a permanent Human presence in space, inasmuch as such a presence would mean permanent habitation, hence a place for Humans to live, work and play.

All the current emphasis on robotics is just another indicator of how much we were lied to. You don't colonize with robots; you colonize with PEOPLE.

bump

>>7066448
>What's the point of manned space flight?
To find new life and new civilizations and fuck them.

>>7066448
>What's the point of manned space flight?
Because it's fucking awesome. Why do you think we even do science, because it's boring?

Why climb Everest?

Because it is there.

>>7066599
Not familar with these astronom

>>7066448
Ensuring we as a species aren't stuck orbiting a massive flaming radiating nuclear object at thousands of miles per hour while rotating thousands of miles per hour at the surface equipped with a gravity well that traps anything that doesn't release a fuckload of energy in its influence.
It'd be a pretty good idea to find an escape before this dire situation already gets fucked up.

>>7066599
>Yosemite Supervolcano

I know this is a troll thread, but I'll bite anyway.

>2 chief reasons for manned space flight and exploration

>1. Humans are adaptable as fuck.
Humans can perform scientific experiements and vary the conditions much faster than a robot probe can. Yes, a probe can perform its' programmed scientific functions very fast, and very well. But what happens when you get the data back and this raises more questions and need for experimentation? Got to wait another few years to send out a probe with new gear, since it's difficult for a probe to repurpose itself.

A human has the advantage that it is adaptable.

>2. It's a challenge
This sounds counter intuitive, why make something more difficult? That's because, in solving the challenge, you gain new technologies and insights you would not otherwise have, which can lead to more technologies and insights. Most of the semiconductor and computing technology we have today wouldn't be here without the push for manned space flight to the moon by the apollo program and the space race. By having a challenge, you get new solutions and technologies.

>>7066599
Didn't the massive pocket methane just happen?

>>7073969
I saw this on /pol/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msreNyb1mYQ

on the catalog

>>7073964
>A human has the advantage that it is adaptable

Not for economics. In economic terms, all Humans act pretty much the same: They are slavering greedbags that will fuck over everyone and everything just to get a better cellphone.

Economics is the physics of Human interaction. Like physics, economics has hard laws that brook little if any deviation. For example, pay a person to work, and he works; stop paying him, and he stops working. That's 100% hard law. It may as well be physics.

Here are a few more hard laws:

1. Tax something, and you suppress it.
2. Subsidize something, and you encourage it.

>>7074005
bro

really

that is not how economics works

i have a degree in economics, have you ever even taken classes past the intro level?

no economist would ever claim anything in economics is a hard law, even the most common sense shit like supply and demand inverts itself on occasion because people are irrational as fuck and not the rationally self-interested automatons we pretend they are for the sake of economic models being possible, half of people are women who are even more irrational than that

taxes on rising goods do not necessarily suppress the business, look at marijuana in colorado with 25% taxes and its making more than they ever thought possible, government subsidies are so wasteful that a lot of the time they do nothing to encourage an industry at all and just fund a bunch of wasteful rent-seeking, in fact they can discourage the industry actually developing by crowding out new innovative businesses actually seeking to expand instead of just soak up taxpayer money.

youre a fucking idiot dude, you dont know anything about economics and use it authoritatively like it supports your delusional rambling

>>7074005
not sure why money matters

>>7074005
>1. Tax something, and you suppress it.
>2. Subsidize something, and you encourage it.

Both wrong. Keep your oversimplified edgy teen misinterpretations of Adam Smith on reddit please.

>>7074005
>Baiting this hard

Why are you even talking about the laws of economics when I was saying humans are adaptable? Once a person is in space, he doesn't give a shit about economics because he has more pressing issues. Just please, anon, stop.

In 100 or 200 years from here, history books will have the dates of:
Discovery of America
The printing press
Antibiotics
First man on Moon
The Internet
First man on Mars

If you've seen the movie Troy with god-beautiful Brad Pitt Himself, then you could get a grasp at how the first man on Mars will feel.

This man will be remembered for ever and ever.

The president who gave the impulse to that space program will be remembered for ever. Some people would kill to be that guy.

>>7066512
>A geologist on Mars could do more in one day than all rovers have done so far.

True, but what YEAR would that day occur in? The robots gave us the data now at reasonable cost and no risk of death.

>>7074067
>Why are you even talking about the laws of economics when I was saying humans are adaptable? Once a person is in space, he doesn't give a shit about economics because he has more pressing issues. Just please, anon, stop.

You can't just make the laws of physics stop because you find them inconvenient. Equally so, you can't make the laws of Human interaction (i.e. economics) stop because you find them equally inconvenient.

Putting a person into space is an economic exercise. Like all Human endeavors, it is therefore ruled by the laws of economics. And that's why we've not provided for a permanent Human habitat in space... there's no acceptable economic model that permits it, just like chattel slavery is no longer permissible by economic model in the West.

But hey, keep it up with the tough talk and snarky responses, for all the good it will do. Economics doesn't care and you're only going to end up totally wrong.

>>7074046
>not sure why money matters

That's why you'll spend your life waiting for the glorious space future to happen, and you'll die while still waiting for it. It can't happen. There's no prevailing economic model that permits space colonization. There may be some hope if we dismiss the prevailing Western models of economics, but that also means we'd dismiss the prevailing Western social philosophies, which assign value to Human life, etc. You really don't want to live in that sort of future, were Humans are turned into soulless insects like the Chinese, churned into meat products almost literally by soulless industrial machines.

>>7074361
If someone is willing to risk their life for it even with a possible outcome of death, that factor really diminishes in its value.

>>7074438
>the laws of Human interaction (i.e. economics)
but thats wrong you fucking retard

>>7066547

>durr hurr Stephen Hawking is an under aged manchild and I'm totally in the position to make that claim

>>7067289
2012 figures are that more than 50% crash, and these are comparatively small packages.

>mars is an incredibly good place
1. Perchlorates in water and soil.
2. Silicates & gypsum fines.

Currently, agencies are thinking about the techniques used in handling uranium to deal with these problems in a habitat. ie HUGE FUCKING AIRLOCKS, WASHERS, SCRUBBERS AND DISPOSABLE CLOTHING AND FILTERS.

You are a fantasist, and i never said not to go, i SAID prepare the way with robots.

Incidently, the fine regolith on the moon is charged, this fine dust reacted with tools and equipment causing corrosion failures, on mars, with finer particles and storms, the materials design has to be well thought out.

>>7066516
>>7066448
dangerous?

jesus christ, i would sign up even if it was a suicide mission

you fucks dont have what it takes to sacrifice yourself for humanity

>>7075787
this

i mean fuck man, why not a little less ethical for the purpose of faster advancement...

>>7075788
thank you sir

and yes i am also aware that the government would use this human sacrifice for even more "dickwaving"

but still...

>>7075787
>>7075788
>to sacrifice yourself for humanity
I hate when people make out like they'd go to space as some noble champion of the human race. Fuck off. No you wouldn't.

You'd go to space because it would be fucking cool to go to space. That's fine. But don't try and tell everyone it's some noble sacrifice for "the cause".

>>7075795
so do you stand for ethical space exploration or more unethical space exploration?

>>7075800
I don't think there's an ethical concern around space exploration if the participants know explicitly what they're getting into.

It's almost like assisted suicide, I guess? Except really fucking cool and there's no debate over whether the participant is in a sane state of mind.

>>7075802
we're on the same page

have a great day and good luck in whatever you are doing mister

>>7075812
You too anon chan! upboated and a 4chan gold account is on it's way to you! :^)

Yksa

>>7066604
Fucking hedonists
Civilisation wasn't built for people like you

>>7066685
Biologically you are useless, and that is fine and I'm not insulting you. But you have to understand that despite there being no rational reason for wanting your children's children's children to have a good life other humans are going to want it and there is no amount of Palahniuk-tier defeatist bullshit you can say that will stop them.