/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.4864887]

Hey, /sci/. You guys seem to be fond of space exploration. Can you explain me if there's actually any practical purpose for it in the near future?

[Anonymous No.4864891]

surviving as a species?

[Anonymous No.4864894]

Asteroid mining.

[Anonymous No.4864895]

resource extraction

[Carl No.4864896]

No, there is no practical purpose. It only satisfies the delusional fantasies of some autistic manchildren. It's pretty much as useless as philosophy, only some billions of dollars more expensive.

[Carl No.4864902]

>>4864894
>>4864895
Economically retarded. There's no profit to make. It would only mean wasting lots of moneys.

>>4864891
Go back to school, kid. Underageb&s shouldn't be on /sci/.

[Anonymous No.4864905]

>>4864891
>surviving as a species?
I said practical.
I doubt that in the next fifty years if shit hits the fan we'd be able to evacuate a lot of people to off-Earth sustainable habitats.

[Anonymous No.4864909]

The earth one day will be inhabitable. We'll have to pack our shit and move, probably to another galaxy since we're going to collide and merge with Andromeda.

[Anonymous No.4864913]

>>4864902
>Economically retarded. There's no profit to make. It would only mean wasting lots of moneys.
this is when you look up the cost of putting a kilogram of mass into low earth orbit and then realise it's about as un-retarded as an economic argument gets. water might be as-good-as-worthless on earth, but in orbit it's worth at least $10,000/kg.

[Anonymous No.4864915]

>>4864905

Then how the fuck do you expect us to move a whole bunch of people in 200 years if we don't invest in it now?

[Anonymous No.4864920]

>>4864905
>I doubt that in the next fifty years if shit hits the fan we'd be able to evacuate a lot of people to off-Earth sustainable habitats.

we could do it now if we didn't mind bankrupting half the nations on earth

[Anonymous No.4864922]

The mining of asteroids and other near-Earth objects might become a necessity over the next 50-60 years, as we exhaust the Earth of precious metals needed for industry.

[Carl No.4864923]

>>4864915
I hope you realize that you're not immortal. You won't live anymoar in 200 years.

[Anonymous No.4864927]

>>4864896
Well, I've always been of this opinion. But I've may be I just have never been exposed to the good arguments from the other side.

Even when guys like Sagan and Tyson who seem pretty smart talk about necessity of space exploration they usually just equate it with INVENTION! IMAGINATION! DISCOVERY!

Either that or the weird survival of species argument Hawking likes.

[Anonymous No.4864928]

>>4864922
we won't exhaust the earth, at least not in any of our lifetimes, nor those of our great grandchildren, nor theirs in all probability. stop thinking in absolutes. think in terms of costs. there'll just come a point where it's not worth exploiting the earth any more.

[Anonymous No.4864939]

>>4864902
>>4864887

1/10 got me to read.

[Anonymous No.4864935]

>>4864928
seconding this. even then recycling becomes an attractive option. space exploitation has to be viable versus both extraction of new and recycling of old resources. in the long term we'll exploit space for materials to use in space, due to the aforementioned costs of leaving earth's gravity well.

[Anonymous No.4864936]

>>4864913
Huh. That makes sense. I doubt there's a large market for water in space, though...

[Anonymous No.4864945]

>>4864939
Can you just answer the fucking question?

[Anonymous No.4864942]

>>4864936
water, which is plentiful and easily extracted from any icy asteroid, is readily electrolysed into oxygen and hydrogen.

what do you think rocket fuel is made of?

[Anonymous No.4864955]

>>4864945
it's been answered. cheap(er) materials in space, bulk quantities of rare-earth metals (and anything else denser than iron*) for use on earth and space-based infrastructure for long term colonisation and deep space exploration.

these are all near-term, realistic goals.

*all of the rare shit on earth came from asteroid impacts, most of which hit when the earth was molten. as a result, anything denser than iron sank through the earth when it was liquid, leaving most of our heavy metallic resources stuck deep within the earth. asteroids will be much more abundant. It's possible a single modestly sized asteroid will contain as much gold, platinum, indium etc. as we've ever mined on earth in all of human history. It could trigger an industrial revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since the Hall-Heroult process made Aluminium cheap.

[Anonymous No.4864959]

>>4864920
Well. By lot of people I meant that I, a dude who pays taxes for that kind of shit, would get a fair chance to have a seat on the space life-boat.

"Hey, seven billion people will die but look on the bright side - there'll be like one hundred thousand people living on a sustainable colony on Mars" doesn't really cut it.

[Anonymous No.4864960]

>>4864955
>near-term, realistic goals

[Anonymous No.4864958]

>>4864928
http://www.science.org.au/nova/newscientist/027ns_005.htm

That particular article is a little alarmist, but you get the point. I understand that we must keep cost in mind, but what will the cost be when these resources have run out, and we're stuck with our heads in the sand? It's the same as climate-change deniers saying "Let's wait and see what happens before we try to change our habits".

[Anonymous No.4864965]

>>4864923
>You won't live anymoar in 200 years.
Haha, oh wow.

What are you? The chariman of Luddites International or just plain retarded?

[Carl No.4864970]

>>4864965
Are you telling me that you actually believe you are gonna live more than 200 years?
/x/ is that way ---->

[Anonymous No.4864972]

>>4864960
The first steps of resource use in space are already underway. Aside from the obvious Planetary Resources startup, the Pentagon has a project called Phoenix underway where instead of putting new satellites into orbit, they'll just launch parasitic, modular grapple/thruster modules to cannibalise parts of, or entire existing in-orbit satellites, particularly their antennae (antennae typically make up 1/4 of the dry mass of a satellite, about 1/8 its launch mass).

[Anonymous No.4864974]

>>4864942
Huh. That's sill not that a big of a market though. It turns the whole "We will get our resources from asteroids!" into "Asteroid mining will help us make ISS maintenance cheeper".

[Anonymous No.4864996]

>>4864974
that's a fucking massive market. about 1/10 of a typical sattellite's launch mass will be reserved for fuel to use in orbit, to control its path and to kick it into a graveyard orbit at the end of its life. having an in-orbit fuel depot would not only allow you to eliminate 1/10 (or more) of the launch mass (read:cost) of every single satellite launched, but it would allow satellites to have effectively unlimited lifetimes; as things stand theyre only limited by their fuel capacities. once their fuel is gone they either burn up or are kicked out beyond GEO.

Aside from the launch mass reduction, the lifespan extension potential is massive. Satellites only have 25 year lifespans. Getting even 5 more years out of them is an effective 20% cost saving on the whole project, savings up into the hundreds of millions per satellite.

Plus it enables proper deep space exploration, for the same reasons of fuel launch mass.

It's a bit of a chicken and egg thing. No one's done anything that requires in-orbit infrastructure because there's no in-orbit infrastructure. No one's built any in-orbit infrastructure because no one has any use for it yet. It's the kind of thing nation states would be doing.

Think of it like this. Who would build an airport if there were no aeroplanes? Who would build the aeroplanes if there were no airports? We know the uses for such a device, we just need someone to take the first step. Planetary Resources are potentially that first step.

[Anonymous No.4865017]

>>4864996
satellites already live to long, most of our satellites have terribly ancient shitty on board computers. Technology improves too fast to care about satellite lifetime.

[Anonymous No.4865031]

[Anonymous No.4865048]

>>4865017
alright, but imagine if you could just replace the electronics of a satellite, cannibalising its fuel tanks, rockets and antennae, refuelling it from an in-orbit fuel depot, which is itself supplied from asteroids at a fraction of the price of launching fuel from earth.

such things would make use of space so, so much cheaper for everyone.

[Anonymous No.4865051]

>>4864996
This whole satellite thing sounds pretty practical...

[Anonymous No.4865059]

>>4865031
Come on. Do you really care?

[Anonymous No.4865082]

I am just very fond of us having an spirit for exploration, specially if we can get some resources of it. Many of the great discoveries in human history come from unexpected turns of the origianl purpose, see the discovery of the americas.

[Anonymous No.4865079]

>>4864887

we should go into space if only because we must learn from our planet's history, we don't want to end up like the dinosaurs now, do we?

[Anonymous No.4865105]

What else are we going to do with our resources anyway?

Feed the poor?

[Anonymous No.4865133]

>we need to fix our problems on Earth before!

[Anonymous No.4865139]

>>4865105
Feed the hungry. Heal the sick. Why not? Almost anything would be more practical than putting d00dz on Mars...

[Anonymous No.4865144]

>>4865139

Jesus will take care of that, we just need something entertaining to do while we wait

[Anonymous No.4865148]

>>4865144
Why not have an orgy or something instead?

[Anonymous No.4865151]

>develop technology to mine water and minerals from asteroids
>this makes the development of colonies on other planets/asteroids/moons feasible

whoever gets in on the business side of this right now will have to dump in billions and billions of dollars and not expect a return for years, decades even. But when a return is seen it's going to be in the trillions. Who would even think of making such a crazy investment you ask? Well how about the billionaires like Bill Gates, James Cameron, and Richard Branson who are already working toward this.

[Anonymous No.4865155]

>>4865148

We've been having those since forever.

Are you telling me that handing out food stamps and dropping rice on Africa is cooler than visiting MOTHERFUCKING SPACE?!

[Anonymous No.4865154]

>>4865139
That's better than wasting resources to prolong the existence of a race whose greatest invention is a stick.

[Anonymous No.4865177]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvNX72kWODs

>>4865139
Yes it is the 0.6% of USA's tax dollars spent on space technology that keeps the world impoverished. Keep telling yourself that. Neil Degrasse Tyson explains it perfectly. The space program gives us hope for the future and is what propels progress.

[Anonymous No.4865203]

>>4865155
I'm not the kind of dude to be chosen for a space mission. Even if was, let's face is, space travel is cool now because it's a dangerous final frontier. If going to the near Earth orbit would become as save and cheep as flying coach is today, space travel would become as exiting as flying coach. May be less considering the travel times.

Also things like curing cancer, improving longevity and making function prosthetics for disabled seem pretty cool and practical to me.

[Anonymous No.4865207]

>>4864970
Mind uploading should be viable in the next 200 or so years, so I believe it's possible.

[Anonymous No.4865224]

Before you open your food holes to utter a single sentence about "practicality" remember who your audience is. A species called homo sapien who spends probably ten trillion dollars a year just on blowing each other to bits. Just to have a little more oil or a little more land on this blue dot we call Earth.
By default, any endeavor which aims to do something constructive is probably going to be more "practical" than our ridiculous efforts at self-destruction.

You could spend a trillion dollars on finding new ways to kill people like the military does (even when no nation threatens us) or the same trillion establishing colonies on multiple worlds in our solar system, not only ensuring our eggs in multiple baskets but bringing trillions more back into the economy with all the inventions that will arise out of necessity along the way.

anyone who can't understand the above is an idiot, a troll or both.

[Anonymous No.4865228]

We can't even get to the bottom of our oceans, we hardly know our own planet. We're a long ways off before surviving in space

[Anonymous No.4865237]

>>4865228
We're only a long ways off because the powers that be don't invest in the research and development. Which they should.

[Anonymous No.4865238]

>>4865237
Yea, because it's not practical at this point in time

[Anonymous No.4865250]

>>4865238
And it will never be practical if retards like you stay in charge of funding.

[Anonymous No.4865260]

>>4865238
Define "practical"
Because as far as I see it, the integrated circuit is very fucking practical (it's in every electronic device you can hold in your hand) and that only came about while NASA was designing for space flight.

[Anonymous No.4865263]

It always weirds me out that people can speak so glibly about spending more money on things that will have no returns for decades if not longer right now of all times.
Greece is getting foreclosed on, China owns most of America, Canada is surviving only because we sell oil to China, Mexico is running on bribes and drug money, and Europe general is still trying to keep Greece from dragging them down with it.
The duck is all this money coming from? China don't care about it, and the private section is already working on it at their own pace.

[Anonymous No.4865277]

>>4864887
GPS?

[Anonymous No.4865288]

>>4865263
Okay, we'll just wait until the governments of the world are being smart with their money before we invest in long-term projects.

[Anonymous No.4865294]

>>4865263
>It always weirds me out that people can speak so glibly about spending more money on things that will have no returns for decades if not longer right now of all times.

You know, it's pursuing short term gains without a thought to the big picture which got us into this mess. Yet you're using this to argue that we should continue to pursue short term gains and ignore the big picture.

[Anonymous No.4865298]

>>4865288
My point is more that we should wait for the world general to be slightly Less fucked before we ask governments to spend yet more money. The private sectors got this one anyway, its gonna fuck with some laws because of the water thing, but those guys are the ones with the time and money to do it

[Anonymous No.4865304]

>>4865298
>waiting for the world to be less fucked
>2012

[Anonymous No.4865317]

>>4865294
If the short term problem is stopping the world economy from killing itself I think it takes precedence over flying into space and trying to somehow wrangle resources back to earth without killing people.

I get the long term needs looking at, but you don't start planning a dinner date with a girl before you talk her off the ledge.

[Anonymous No.4865330]

>>4865317
>The world should only solve one problem at a time.

Because that's how the world works. We only ever have one big problem as a species, and then it takes the whole world doing nothing else to fix it. Since space exploration has long-term benefits, we should start ASAP instead of pushing them back even farther.

[Anonymous No.4865352]

>>4865330
The thing is though, this whole economy thing? Fixing it is kind of a prerequisite to fixing a shit ton of other problems, and doing things that push back fixing this first thing isn't helping anyone, especially when it isn't critical that they even happen.

The benefits that space travel and mining and all provide aren't going to change the persistent problems we already have. Beyond that, as I've already said, we don't need governments to worry about space travel at all, there are private industries working on it right now, and so far they've been blowing most government efforts out of the water in terms of cost and speed.

[Anonymous No.4865355]

Backup copy for the human race

[Anonymous No.4865369]

>>4865224
>Before you open your food holes to utter a single sentence about "practicality" remember who your audience is.
Well. I'm talking to you guys. I expect you to be at least a bit rational.
As for the general audience, I've heard Kennedy's "We must do it because it's hard" speech. I know people can be persuaded to believe pretty stupid things.

>By default, any endeavor which aims to do something constructive is probably going to be more "practical" than our ridiculous efforts at self-destruction.

You are not setting the plank very high, are you?

Let's compare space exploration with biomedical research and what not.

You may be right though. May be space technology with it's 0.6% is so underfunded you'll get huge marginal utility. How much does US government spend on biological and medical research?

[Anonymous No.4865370]

Because I shall purge the entire Earth in a righteous fire!

SO SAYETH THE BOOK OF RAGE!

Which means all of you are gonna need to find another place to live or be dead.

[Anonymous No.4865380]

Everyone against spending money on space exploration is too ignorant and stupid to understand the benefits, so basically you shouldn't be allowed to have a say.

[Anonymous No.4865382]

[Anonymous No.4865398]

It represents a pipe dream, a grand aspiration, an unknown frontier. All it offers by way of practicality is roughly the same that pursuing christian salvation does. It is a salve for the soul, a possibility of something grander than we have here on Earth.

One day it might be practical to mine asteroids, perhaps to visit mars, but legitimate colonization, taking the species beyond this planet much less the solar system is nothing but a beautiful fantasy as much as standing before the pearly gates of heaven.

[Anonymous No.4865427]

Enjoy being wiped out by a stray comet Earthlings

[Anonymous No.4865433]

>>4865427
that remains a possibility no matter where you go

[Anonymous No.4865445]

>>4865433
If we are on Mars and on Earth, we need to be struck by two comets in relatively rapid succession to be wiped out. If we are only on Earth, it takes one, whenever.

[Anonymous No.4865484]

>>4865398
I really love people like you. And that´s serious. You make me smile and sometimes even laugh.
It just reminds me of all the people who said that it was impossible to brake through the soundbarrier, or making somthing fly like an bird in the first place.
Probably even the invention of the wheel was disregarded by some as "total bullshit".

But yeah, go on, enjoy the fruits of those who dreamed and wanted to find solutions to their problems.

Oh and FYI we could colonize our solarsystem and explore other starsystems today.
Also "mine" asteroids... but enjoy the currently rising steel price. Inb4 "Hurr stupid could recycle" ever watched closely how good our society is in terms of recycling?
At work we throw away tons of plastics and even electronic parts each month, cause it would be too difficult to sort them out.... and I´m not even speaking from single persons, who refuse to get their electronic crap to the proper recycling station.

[Anonymous No.4865490]

>>4865382
is this a troll image? his argument is seriously unconvincing.

[Anonymous No.4865494]

>>4865484
We're never breaking the lightspeed barrier, buddy. It's not like the speed of sound where things were breaking it but we couldn't. NOTHING in the universe goes faster than light.

[Anonymous No.4865497]

>>4865427
I'm probably safer on earth than you are on mars.

[Anonymous No.4865499]

>>4865497
And you'd be even safer if you were on both.

[Anonymous No.4865509]

>>4865499
I seriously doubt it's possible for me to be at two planets at once.

[Anonymous No.4865515]

>>4865484
Not him, but two things really quickly.

One: no we could not do it today. Not even next year. Maybe next decade but that's pretty damn optimistic.

Two: if that's the attitude you support toward recycling them I wouldn't want you on a ship anyway, because chances are you would fuck everything up. The recycling that would bed to be done tokeep a colony or ship going would need to be insanely thorough.

[Anonymous No.4865520]

>>4865509
sure it is, until someone observe you actually being in one.

[Anonymous No.4865521]

[Anonymous No.4865523]

>>4865509
As a SPECIES.

>2012
>not being a hivemind

[Anonymous No.4865529]

>>4865494
>Implying I ever said that FTL travel is possible.
I´ve not even said anything about ways around the "lightspeed barrier" like wormholes, spacetime folding, slipstream, hyperspace, Warpdrive *insert other sci-fi FTL methods here*.
But on that account I think that we´ll find a way to travel vast distances in a short time. Whenever that day will come.

[Anonymous No.4865544]

Here's how progress works, it starts with nerds carry out"pure scientific research", this is essentially research for the sake of research, it has no real commercial benefit or application other than expanding our understanding of the world around us. You could say much of what is done by NASA falls into this category.

Once discoveries have been made, other more entrepreneurial people find practical and profitable applications for those discoveries.

Currently Virgin are hoping to make a good deal of money out of commercial space flights, if it turns out to be a successful venture then other companies will try and get in on it. A new business sector, and with it numerous jobs, will be created.

As these companies try to out-compete each other they will find ways to reduce the cost of space travel. As costs go down new business ventures, such as asteroid mining, will become more viable. Leading to more investment, more jobs and ultimately more wealth.

But without the pure research carried out by NASA and other space agencies then Virgins plans for commercial space travel would still be nothing more than a pipe dream. Because without pure scientific research, there is no progress.

There's plenty of more boring examples as well, research carried out by NASA has been utilised by companies producing everything from scratch resistant plastic to running shoes to thermometers.

Also Satellites, they're pretty useful.

[Anonymous No.4865549]

>>4865523
I am not a species though. I'm just one dude.

[Anonymous No.4865550]

>>4865515
>Implying I support this behaviour regarding recycling. It should be quite obvious that I condemn it... But I cant spend hours crawling through trash to get it correctly recycled and so I can just raise my opinnion about that with my boss and get the biggest/best stuff properly recycled.

Also I would really to hear why we could NOT do the stuff I posted today. And with today I mean "with a few years of fixing problems and preparing" which too should be obvious..... but it seems that the summerfaggotry not only invaded /k but also /sci, that or autism.

[Anonymous No.4865554]

So long as we remain in a single spot, we are vulnerable to extinction.
The only way to ensure our species, all of our accomplishments, don't simply die out, we must spread to new planets.
Meanwhile, the trip will be yielding many advancements that can easily be domesticated. NASA has an entire laundry list of innovations it has devised for it's various missions, many of which we use daily now. A decent example is memory foam.
THough we do have many problems here on Earth, and we are still a ways away from intergalactic travel, we still need to be advancing to the only sure way to save our species in the long run.

[Anonymous No.4865562]

>>4864909
>The earth one day will be inhabitable. We'll have to pack our shit and move

I agree with you here, unless we fix our shit and manage to take care of the planet.

>probably to another galaxy since we're going to collide and merge with Andromeda.

Y...You... sigh.

[Anonymous No.4865567]

>>4865494
>NOTHING in the universe goes faster than light
how's high school physics treating you?

[Anonymous No.4865588]

>>4865567
Don´t destroy his world.

[Anonymous No.4865590]

Space tourism.
Resource extraction.
Technological advance.
Eventual space colonization to safeguard humanity against global catastrophe.

[Anonymous No.4865605]

>>4865590
+Iimproving our knowlegde of the universe and things like "Why does stuff happen" which doesnt necessarely lead to technological advances.

[Anonymous No.4865602]

>>4865567

>Implying something in the universe does go faster than light?

[Anonymous No.4865604]

>>4865588
>>4865567

[Anonymous No.4865606]

>>4864887
2D and 3D ants.

[Anonymous No.4865626]

>>4865550
Okay, so two more quick things then.

One: this is an entirely text based discussion. I can't see you, and I can't hear your tone. Unless you directly state what you really mean it is absolutely not obvious what you meant. This is the internet, retard until proven innocent is the best rule to follow.

two: the primary things we lack "today" are self sufficient systems adequate for the length of missions required. Traveling to mars "today" would require years worth of food, oxygen recyclers and the ability to set up structures upon landing with yet more food, more recycling equipment, and something to extend the astronauts very finite patience. We might have the technology, but even your rather trite version of "today" would not be long enough to construct and test a vessel large enough to do all this for more than four people.

[Anonymous No.4865627]

>>4865602
>Implying the Universe doesn't go faster than light.

[Anonymous No.4865630]

>>4865588
but..but i thought that's what /sci/ was for.
>>4865602
in not theoretically impossible. nothing in our current understanding of physics says you can't. what you can't do is accelerate faster than light from a point slower than light. you can have particles that are always faster than light, though, called tachyonic particles. it's currently disputed whether or not neutrinos are tachyonic. but the point is that it's not some upper bound of speed. space will eventually expand faster than light too, but i guess something can't be within itself.

[Anonymous No.4865641]

Y Don't u gay as nerds go get laid. All this shit are dumb.

[Carl No.4865648]

>>4865641

+1

[Anonymous No.4865653]

>>4865606
You just made my day

[Anonymous No.4865670]

>>4865626
Point one taken. Thought it "sounded" obvious even in text form.

Point two: Traveling to Mars would take around 300-200 days oneway. If the orbits are close. Depending on velocitie, distance etc.etc.
We could send unmanned vessel with supplies and module like structures before sending the crewed mission.
And with enough manpower and money time can be cut down... also in regards of discussing space travel the first thing to have is patience.... but yeah I should have said "With todays technology"
As for their patience, have them work, do stuff, etc. what are our guys on the ISS doing? But yes, it would need a good functioning team of people, who know each other etc.

[Anonymous No.4865681]

>>4865630
And I thought /sci was to discuss science... how stupid of me. But get yourself in his shoes... maybe he just tried to troll /x and totally bogged it cause they liked his stories.

[Anonymous No.4865685]

>>4865133
>sometimes it's better to run away from our problems
it's what we do anyway

[Anonymous No.4865692]

>>4865203
and you're telling me that by developing technology for setting up a sustainable environment in a place like Mars, that we would not also get a lot closer to doing the things you are talking about?

[Anonymous No.4865697]

>>4865692
that's just the point though, why not just develop the things being talked about and let them bring us closer to colonizing mars than the other way around? "colonizing mars" as a goal is just needlessly grandiose, we have reason to develop that technology on our own we don't need the grand fantasies.

[Anonymous No.4865701]

>>4865630

>Implying that theoretical tachyonic particles exist

Offcourse theoretical things like tachyonic particles and alcubierre drives may allow faster than light travel, but those haven't been shown to exist as of yet.

Spacial expansion is obviously different from something traveling through space. Two points can expand away from each other due to spacial expansion faster than the speed of light, but this is not the same as a particle moving through space faster than the speed of light. Just like an alcubierre drive would be moving faster than the speed of light, but not really.

Are there theoretical possibilities that allow faster than light travel? Sure, but there theoretical.

As of right now, the speed if light is the upper bound speed limit of the universe.

[Anonymous No.4865704]

>>4865641
y don you go txt aboot it on ure smartphone, oh ya we made those thanks to science. you're fuckin lucky kiddo.

[Anonymous No.4865708]

Because why focus on fixing the planet we live on when the possibility of fucking up another planet exists?

[Anonymous No.4865711]

>>4865697
b-but pharmacies don't want us to heal people!!!
they want us to gib dem munny!!

[Anonymous No.4865714]

>>4865697
That´s a good point, but what if you found some mineral composition on mars which could prevent cancer? Just for the sake of discussion. Or long dead (or living) microbe?
Also we don´t have and wouldnt halt all development and research just because COLONIZE! We´re not talking about an turn-based RTS were you can only make 1 thing at a time.
The only thing stopping us is funding, which could get shifted, a bit away from the military and this bit to NASA.

Also there should be as many big nations involved as possible.... further reducing the cost and bringing these nation a bit together.

[Anonymous No.4865732]

What if we got to Mars, and, for the sake of discussion, found substantial evidence showing that the Tharsis bulge is responsible for life on earth? That at one time, Mars was habitable, perhaps just on a microbial level, and when Mars got hit, rock was sent everywhere into space from the Tharsis impact, and by chance it's rocks landed on a much more habitable and well-placed Earth, where the microbes ventured out and flourished into everything we have today?
We would be returning to life's original home.

[Anonymous No.4865735]

>>4864909
>the earth will one day be inhabitable
Yesterday? tuesday?

[Anonymous No.4865737]

>>4865732
dammit i may have the tharsis area mixed up with another area on Mars. Huge fucking impact zone, can't remember the name.

[Anonymous No.4865742]

>>4865714
>but what if you found some mineral composition on mars which could prevent cancer
a mineral composition... that could prevent cancer? Like just magically stop dna from becoming damaged from a myriad of different causes? If we found such a thing I would be VERY surprised

[Anonymous No.4865744]

>>4865732
>>4865714
we already have a dozen rovers, what good would colonizing do?

[Anonymous No.4865748]

>>4865714
Well it would be awesome if we found awesome things on mars, but it would be similarly awesome if we found awesome things in the expanses of unexplored rainforest and ocean, except gas would be cheaper.
If we found microbes? That might actually be bad. It would turn a lot of people against the space program, throw others into existential crises, and probably not help us in a very practical way.

[Anonymous No.4865754]

>>4865263

China is very interested in space operations. Especially setting up their own GPS and maybe lunar colonies to mine He-3

[Anonymous No.4865756]

>>4865714
Just for the sake of discussion, what if those microbes turned out to create zombies? what has your science wrought now?

[Anonymous No.4865760]

>>4865701
you're not getting my point..the fact that you can theorize about them and not look like a hack scientist is my point. fastest known =/= upper bound. is 258 mph the absolute fastest any production car can travel simply because the veyron is currently the fastest production car? it is wrong to think of the speed of light as some sort of absolute limit.
>Implying that theoretical tachyonic particles exist
neutrinos are not theoretical, but like i said, still needs more testing.

[Anonymous No.4865766]

>>4865760
there is no evidence that neutrinos are tachyonic and the basis for thinking the speed of light is an upper limit has nothing to do with "Lol well i never saw nothing go faster"

[Anonymous No.4865768]

>>4865742
Whatever you like. If you think that it´ll somehow stabilize DNA and decreases the rate at which mutations occur from w/e reasons... or do you say that minerals dont matter for organic life?

Well whatever it is just an element for an discussion. You just cant know what will be found directly or indirectly before we´ve been there for a time. Just saying that exactly the problems you said we should solve first could get solved through going there.

>>4865744
Colonists dont tend to get broken so readily as our rovers do. Also there´s much stuff an simple rover cant do.

[Anonymous No.4865771]

>>4865768
>Just saying that exactly the problems you said we should solve first could get solved through going there.
yes and I could happen to win the lottery by visiting a gas station in Detroit, Michigan. That's not a reason for me to visit that inhospitable place.

[Anonymous No.4865784]

>>4865748
The difference is that the jungles and oceans are being explored, could be better funded too though.
And if some religious crackheads decide to go even crazier.... well sorry for them (not really) but sooner or later they have to deal with it..... also if all the people in the past would have got down for these time we would have never left the dark ages.

>>4865756
>zombie microbes...... "your" science
It is much more likely that WE bring life to mars by accident then to find something like that.
Also smell troll science.

[Anonymous No.4865788]

Why climb Everest? It's just a mountain, nothing up there?
Why go to the South Pole, it's just ice.
Why study far off galaxies, that will never have a practical application to improve your life.

Just fucking go to space already, goddamn...

[Anonymous No.4865798]

>>4865788
but that's the point not everybody climbs Everest, not everybody cares. you aren't here bitching because we haven't funded enough moutain climbing expeditions. Just because you think something is neato isn't actually a reason to do it.

[Anonymous No.4865797]

>>4865771
An gas station in an presumably life less city, were money lies literally on the street and has an book shopping section with books you dont find anywhere else? I would visit it!
And even if not, I´d never argue with people to go there if they wanted to see what is there.

[Anonymous No.4865802]

>>4865788
Why travel out from the african continent to find other places.

[Anonymous No.4865803]

>>4865797
its not about if you want to go there bro. Its about if its the best investment we as a collective can make. If you want to visit Detroit, I won't stop you, but we're talking about government funded pilgrimages to Detroit and that just seems stupid.

[Anonymous No.4865804]

>>4865784
>It is much more likely that WE bring life to mars by accident then to find something like that.
I know, I was making a point about the absurdity of using these "just for the sake of discussion" arguments with implausible claims.

[Anonymous No.4865808]

>>4865802
This. The climate was already stabilizing to support widespread human populations by the time the first people left. There were already issues with predators, hunger and inefficient tools, so why waste resources traveling to the unknown?

[Anonymous No.4865810]

Technologies that have come from the space program:

>LED's
>Better tyre technology
>Freeze drying
>Baby food
>Shitloads of industrially applied software
>Advanced control systems designs
>New robotics design techniques
>CAT scans
>MRI scanners
>Improved car suspension designs
>Memory foam
>Those shock absorbing sneakers

The list goes on and on and on. When you innovate in one area, the implications in other areas can be widespread. The space program is proof of that.

[Anonymous No.4865831]

>>4865803
I dont care about some backwater countries messing their stuff up... why should I pay for the military?

So instead of spending billions of dollars for the military, we could spend a bit more for exploration and as already mentioned Helium-3, we know that the moon is covered with this stuff and it is an possible energy source.... a very good one at that too with a bit more research.

Getting a good and stable colony on Mars requieres some stuff beforehand, an offworld outpost for fuel, maintanance of supply ships, building the colony vessels etc. which could be build into the moon.
But some lame outpost on the moon doesnt get the attention of people so much as an colony on mars.

[Anonymous No.4865832]

>>4865766
last i remember some neutrinos were measured to be slightly faster than light but the results were disputed or something, i didn't keep up with it. either way, whether we have found FTL particles yet has nothing to do with my point. i will repeat it once again since you seem to be so thick headed...nothing prevents the existence of FTL particles, otherwise you couldn't even theorize about tachyonic particles. if nothing prevents it, it is not some sort of upper limit.

[Anonymous No.4865838]

>>4865804
>not knowing what discussion elements are....
Not sure if trolling.
You did understand the underlying meaning of mine did you?

[Anonymous No.4865841]

>>4865810
conceded, but that's hardly an argument for pursuing space research, "incidental" innovation can come from any line of development. The only reason to specifically fund space research is to go to space, you don't fund something because something else might pop up out of it.

[Anonymous No.4865845]

>>4865838
yes, and it was stupid, that was my point.

[Anonymous No.4865848]

>>4865832
the results were not just disputed they were disproved.

[Anonymous No.4865851]

>>4865832
They found an faulty cable connection which caused the 0,000002312 somewhat % difference which was enough that it appeared to have been FTL.

Which caused an shitstorm of "Hurrdurr what has science ever done for us, look at these idiots, everything false" to appear.... instead of appreciating the thorough methods of the involved scientist.

[Anonymous No.4865853]

>>4865848
Yup, OPERA admitted they had equipment problems and incorrectly measured, the people in charge resigned.

[Anonymous No.4865859]

>>4865841

You're right. We don't fund space programs because we think other things will spring from it and that's why it's such a good investment since not only do you get what you pay for (knowledge about the solar system, new satellites that unlock new capabilities etc.) but you get a whole host of other technologies and industries that create jobs and generate wealth for the nation that was bold enough to invest.

[Anonymous No.4865858]

>>4865845
Essentially saying "You dont know what you´ll find till you been there" is stupid.
Yeah sure, go back to your cave... I miss these times were only halfway educated people could enjoy the internet.

[Anonymous No.4865864]

>>4865784
my point was more that you could find neat stuff literally any where you look, so you may as well not cross space to go hunting a long as there are places left here, at least with regards to the type of discovery you mentioned.

To the dark ages thing... You know I think Frankenstein said something about ignorant villagers as they burnt his home and his work. People need to be eased into things.

[Anonymous No.4865876]

>>4865853
which was just stupid, the scientists said up front, "we don't think this actually means FTL, and we're looking into it." the media then went on a tear about how science had proved FTL.

[Anonymous No.4865878]

>>4865859
or you could put your money directly into the host of cool projects directly instead of waiting till some dude at NASA says, 'wait we need a way to shit in space!!'

[Anonymous No.4865885]

>>4865858
Yes, because 1, we've sent numerous unmanned missions, 2, its shitty reasoning, and 3, we have plenty of places to go where its actually reasonably plausible we might find something useful.

[Anonymous No.4865887]

>>4865848
>>4865851
which i admitted i hadn't kept up on, thanks for clearing it up though. but like i said, it doesn't really matter to my main point. my point is that nothing prohibits FTL particles from existing, so the claim "nothing can travel faster than light" is wrong. tell me if i'm wrong though.

[Anonymous No.4865899]

>>4865876
Well yes and no.

They *resigned* of their own free will after a vote of no confidence from their own team was called (failed, but close enough). And apparently there was a lot of internal strife, e.g. some of their team members had refused to have their names added to the report because they believed it was too early to announce the results.

On the other hand, I don't think anyone (who knows anything) has even hinted that they intentionally falsified data, or attempted to hide the mistakes once they were suspected and eventually confirmed. There was no scientific dishonesty.

The good things are that the scientific community gave them a legitimate shot, instead of dismissing them out of hand. And that they quickly found and admitted the errors. So science seems to be in ok shape.

[Anonymous No.4865898]

>>4865887
Nothing prohibits god from existing either, we haven't disproved that one yet. You cannot prove a negative. Ultimately theory must always bow to observation, so no matter what if we happened to observe an FTL particle we would have to change our theories, that being said, the theoretical framework that we currently have evidence for says no.

[Anonymous No.4865921]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvNX72kWODs

[Anonymous No.4865960]

>>4865898
you are misstating my argument. what i'm saying is that the claim that nothing can travel travel faster than light has no basis other than a misunderstanding of general relativity. my point is that finding a FTL particle wouldn't mean our theories are wrong, because nothing in them says they can't exist.
>the theoretical framework that we currently have evidence for says no
except it doesn't say no. that's been my point all along.

[Anonymous No.4865966]

>>4865960
then your point has been wrong all along.

[Anonymous No.4866003]

>>4865966
how so? relativity only prohibits acceleration to a speed faster than light, not something like tachyonic particles. i shouldn't have to repeat myself so much in a damn science board..

[Anonymous No.4866010]

>>4866003
but if tachyonic particles don't exist, which seems to be the state of things as far as we can tell, then FTL particles are impossible. You cannot accelerate above the speed of light, and if particles don't already exist above the speed of light then it is impossible to have faster than light particles.

You're assuming the existence of tachyonic particles to say its possible, when its only possible if tachyonic particles exist.

[Anonymous No.4866044]

>>4866010
i think we are getting into a semantics argument. my point is that saying they are the fastest thing in the universe does not have the same meaning as saying it is impossible for a particle to be faster. tachyonic particles are only a possibility, and they may very well not exist and light would indeed the fastest thing in the universe. but even if it was, it doesn't make the existence of a faster particle impossible, it just happens to not exist. saying it does not occur is different than saying it can't occur. possibility =/= occurrence.

[Anonymous No.4866148]

No practical applications beyond the existent ones like satellites.

Resource extraction requires large upfront sums to establish, and the product wouldn't necessarily competitive with terrestrial alternatives. There is no free extraction, processing and transport has costs.

There are no real in space markets for resources either.

Someone earlier mentioned sats as a market for space resources. Satellites use the wrong fuel types. The easiest ISRU propellant is lox/hydrogen from water, but sats dont use that fuel because it has operational drawbacks, and satellites are transitioning to solar electric propulsion which reduces fuel demand even more.

NASA HSF is corrupt. It has become a scam to send money to republican space states, and everything you think is good about NASA is probably propaganda that you gobble up. The money we are spending on NASA isn't leading to anything, other than sustaining a corrupt tyranny.

Space colonization requires up front sums that are beyond the wealth of a single wealthy individual. Ergo, it is the domain of national government, but governments have other necessary priorities and the world is drifting toward right wing libertarian rejection of the benefits of government and large government projects.

Space colonization requires tremendous sums of money to create habitable space for humans, which is a parasitic economic drain on any economy meaning you're too dirt poor to afford your expensive necessary systems.

Space tourism might have minor application, but it has to get down to a low price point to enable a sufficient market, in which case its cumulative total market is small. A tiny tiny fraction of the worlds population will be able to afford a jaunt in space. Big Fucking deal.

In short, 99% of people here are religious nutjobs thinking the second coming of christ will come, except their religion is space.

[Anonymous No.4866155]

Billionaires aren't fools, and the ones who are will be parted with their money.

Planetary Resources got a few pennies thrown at it; its a small telescope company and nothing more. The rest is ridiculous hype.

[Anonymous No.4866180]

>>4866155
your mother is a fool for not swallowing you

[Anonymous No.4866191]

>>4866044

You should probably read a book on special relativity, as it seems you don't quite understand the reasons behind why lightspeed is a cosmic speed limit.

[Anonymous No.4866195]

>>4866180

Great argument there buddy. Go walk into the office of a billionaire and ask them to transfer their entire wealth into a space mining venture. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

[Anonymous No.4866216]

>>4866191
my understanding is that the problem comes from any object with mass ACCELERATING to the speed of light, as its relativistic mass would continue to increase until it requires infinite energy to speed up. feel free to correct me.

[Anonymous No.4867128]

>>4865802
uH, cuz there's fucking lions hanging out there. back then, that was all the reason you needed. We just need giant lions to spread to every continent, impervious to conventional warfare except for nukes, so that we have to work together and escape the giant lion-infested planet.

[Anonymous No.4867141]

>>4866148
well then i guess we'll just sit here and do the same shit we've ever done. great, just great. great job humanity.

[Anonymous No.4867179]

To make money.

As money is defined an economicaly profitable activity, and economic activity as human activity.

You get more out of it than you put in.

[Anonymous No.4867184]

>>4865382
I'm fucking mad now.

[Anonymous No.4867190]

>>4864896

>Carl

[Anonymous No.4867213]

>>4866216

Offcourse its possible for scientists to theorize a particle with an imaginary mass that always travels faster than the speed of light and literally can not go slower than c, but as of right now that is simply a useful theoretical tool for probing certain loopholes and the implications of GR and the standard model.

Acceleration of mass is merely the physical portion of the problem. What your missing is the problem of causality. Faster than light speed particles would allow communication backwards in time, as Einstein noted.

The problem that your missing is the relativity of simultaneity. Different?inertial reference frames?will disagree on whether two events at different locations happened "at the same time" or not, and they can also disagree on the order of the two events.

Cont.

[Carl, head of Luddites International !!BV2m2egrv19 No.4867214]

I miss the days when trolls at least tried

[Anonymous No.4867218]

>>4867213

If one of the two events represents the sending of a signal from one location and the second event represents the reception of the same signal at another location, then as long as the signal is moving at the speed of light or slower, the mathematics of simultaneity ensures that all reference frames agree that the transmission-event happened before the reception-event. However, in the case of a hypothetical signal moving faster than light, there would always be some frames in which the signal was received before it was sent, so that the signal could be said to have moved backwards in time. Because one of the two fundamental?postulates of special relativitysays that the laws of physics should work the same way in every inertial frame, if it is possible for signals to move backwards in time in any one frame, it must be possible in all frames. This means that if observer A sends a signal to observer B which moves faster than light in A's frame but backwards in time in B's frame, and then B sends a reply which moves faster than light in B's frame but backwards in time in A's frame, it could work out that A receives the reply before sending the original signal, challenging causality in?every?frame and opening the door to severe logical paradoxes.

[Anonymous No.4867285]

Because of the huge ass meteor plummeting toward earth to annihilate all freaking life!

[Anonymous No.4867327]

Space expeditions pose alot of practicle problems to which often very innovative solutions are found which are later used IRL. A few of examples are memory foam, water filters, robotic arms, CAT scan, MRI and many more..

[Anonymous No.4869350]

>>4867218
Why is time violated by FTL information transmission? Instead of taking a light year to go a light year... It would take, say, .8. So .8 years have still passed on both ends, what's being violated besides something exceeding c?

[Anonymous No.4869602]

>>4869350

Ok so hypothetically we discover tachyons, the majority or signals in the universe will still be percieved by photons moving at c. If we have something that can move faster than c, we can violate the causality of every event that transfers information via photons.

This is the biggest roadblock to the theoretical tachyons, because if tachyons existed, and you could actually observe them, then you could telegraph into your past. Its called a tachyonic anti-telephone. And that's why things like the reinterpretation principle, and various other ideas are theorized so that tachyons wouldn't break causality principles.

[Anonymous No.4869606]

>>4869602
Why is it necessary, in causality, for there to be a speed limit? The MAJORITY of signals being limited is not something I have a problem with, but why is exceeding that limit violating time itself?

Time dilation's logical extension or inverse flow of time, perhaps?

[Anonymous No.4869611]

>>4869602

Also the mathematics used in the relativity of simultaneity only hold true for speeds at or under c. If you introduce something with speeds higher than c, the mathematics breaks down, and no one can agree on the simultaneity of two events even from a reference point.

[Anonymous No.4869631]

>>4869606

Simply because 99% of information of events in the universe are transmitted via electromagnetic radiation moving at c.

If 99% of the information in the universe was transmitted via tachyons at superluminal speed, then it wouldn't violate causality.

[Anonymous No.4869655]

>>4869606

Also to add, the speed limit comes from the physics behind a particle with 0 rest mass moving through spacetime with a time-like four-momentum.

[Anonymous No.4869680]

If only money wasn't an issue, and people made space exploration happen simply because they wanted to.

[Anonymous No.4869833]

>>4869611
>>4869631
So, to me, it seems like this basically boils down to "Because we don't understand it, and it isn't normal, it can't happen"?

Perhaps it's my lack of knowledge speaking, but that doesn't make sense.

[Anonymous No.4869849]

>>4869833
Same poster.

In fairness, I know why we can't accelerate mass to superluminal speeds given what we know/can do right now.

As speed increases energy requirements for acceleration go up, so we'd have to negate the mass somehow or influence the curvature of space or somehow alter time (which I'm not entirely convinced an happen).

I get almost all of it, but I don't understand the arguments against FTL... I envision photons as particles with infinitesimally small amounts of mass, such that even a tiny amount of energy accelerates them to .99 of c, and they are what we perceive as light.

>it's a total guess, I haven't taken physics since highschool, but it works intuitively and the math just about represents it.

>of course I'm not representing my view as "fact" without evidence, I'm just confused as to why we seem to revere c as some universal limit regardless of external factors

[Anonymous No.4869852]

>>4864887
-Population cap
-Resources
-Human Nature
People like new things, this is like asking the Spaniards why they would ever want to go to the New World. Resources and land of course, people like to own shit and we're running out of things to own.

[Anonymous No.4869878]

>>4869833

>>4869833

What....? Not at all.... We understand it perfectly. And I explained it.

The only way you can determine if an event has happened is through recieving information about that event. Information is transmitted through photons. Everything that we can observe in this universe, we do so through electromagnetic radiation being emitted from or reflected off of a source.

If there exists a means to transfer information faster than c then, like I said, for an event that we rely on photons to gather information about we could literally telegraph information back in time. Faster than light communication is special relativity is equivalent to time travel.

You don't understand this because you don't understand special relativity, inertial frames, the relativity of simultaneity, and how it is all tied together via the constancy of c and poincare transformations.

You need a upper bound speed limit of the universe in order to be able to agree on the simultaneity of two events.

And no, photons have 0 rest mass. Not a small amount, the acceleration of a body with any amount of rest mass required infinite energy to reach c. Photons travel at the universal speed limit because they have 0 rest mass. c is how fast a particle with 0 rest mass propagates through the universe.

I'd like to point out that tthere are indeed processes that travel faster than c, but these are none information carrying proccesses that don't break the causality of special relativity.

Pick up a special relativity book if you want to understand.