Bill Nye helped me learn about the wonder that is science when I was a child. Now, it seems he's just another tired political hack, repeating the same anti-space arguments we've heard for half a century. Mondale was wrong when he said them in 1968, and they don't become any more right in the mouth of the former host of a kids' show.
@mikey I just think that it is unlikely that we will be colonizing Mars. That's all. I agree that he is saying things contrary to the mission though.
@MOTT That's fair. I'm a space nut, but I'm not pushy about it. It's the whole "we can't go into space until we fix every problem on Earth" mindset that annoys me, for many reasons.
@mikey Yes. I absolutely love space, and the idea of colonizing other planets is very interesting, but I do not think we will be able to do so any time soon.
I agree that the "we can't go to space until we fix every problem on Earth" mindset doesn't make much sense. It annoys me too. But a the end of the day, this is the planet we have. Right?
@MOTT Right, but I do believe that investing in space will pay dividends on Earth. If nothing else, finding a way to move the heaviest polluters out of the atmosphere should be enough to placate the Bill Nye types.
IMO, it boils down to this: the biggest hurdles in space exploration right now are political and economic, not technical. Yes, the technical problems exist, but aren't solving them because we waste all our time convincing everybody that they're worth solving.
@mikey Yes. But there really is no way we will get out of our solar system. I think Mars is the furthest people can really explore realistically. It just takes so much time.
@MOTT That would be one of the technical problems. Short of new physics, the distances/times involved really don't work out. There's ideas, but they may not be doable.
One story idea I had a while back would be set on a generation ship near the end of its voyage, involving a faction of the final shipboard generation that maybe didn't want to give up their lifestyle for the unknowns of an alien planet.
Thanks for the friendly debate. It's always good to find one of those.
I do not see any way at all that we can ever go that far because of that time problem. Even if we can go really fast, there is the problem of hitting a speck of dust. It would destroy the spaceship at that speed.
That is a great idea for a story. I had a story once about some guy that was the first to make a nuclear spaceship, and was on a mission to the outskirts of the solar system, and when they get there some terrible accident happens and the old guy that invented the technology was the only one left on the ship. He also discovers that an asteroid is headed for Earth, and there is no way for him to warn anyone.
That was the story I did for NaNoWriMo two years ago. I got a few chapters in, and then gave up I guess. I don't really remember.
It is not much of a debate. I mostly agree with you. :P
@MOTT Ah, the relativistic interstellar dust problem. I wish I could remember how the posters on rec.arts.sf.science settled that all those years ago. :)
I'm not saying there aren't huge, maybe even insurmountable problems. For a story, I assume somebody else takes care of them. In real life, I just want to get to the point where they're all that stands in our way.
And that story actually sounds pretty good. Reminds me of something from The Outer Limits.
@mikey
Here is a useful link: https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2009/02/09/dust-up-between-the-stars/
We would need a ton of energy to deflect the particles though.
Not to mention the whole speeding up that fast thing. Antimatter reactors have amazing potential, but are science fiction.
I really like the movie Alien Intrusion. They have a whole section on that subject.
@MOTT @mikey This is an interesting thread. Yea the distance problems are huge. Space in very big and very deadly. This is why in almost every Sci-Fi you have to invent some kind of jumping/space bending technology and FTL communication to make things realistic. (or do the long deep sleep thing in Passenger/Alien movies .. which is not very realistic but gives enough suspension of disbelief for the rest of the story).
@MOTT @mikey But I do totally believe we should be working on space and Mars settlement, to avoid extinction. I disagree that the problems are all political. Rockets are expensive and dangerous. It is still very technically difficult to escape our gravity well. SpaceX is in some ways advances (self-landing rockets) but they're decades behind Saturn V in terms of payload capacity. We still don't have any material that can be used for a theoretical space elevator cable either.
@djsumdog @MOTT I say the problem is political because politics (public or private) sometimes stands in the way of technical progress. Space exploration is a long-term endeavor. It can't work if you only think about quarterly profits or reelection.
I don't believe Elon Musk's timeline is anywhere near realistic, no matter how much money you throw at the problem. (I had the same problem with Zubrin's Mars Direct.) But he's at least making people think about it, which we desperately need, IMO.
@MOTT Let's just say I disagree with the "probably right" part. The rest is spot on.
The Planetary Society's mission is "to empower the world's citizens to advance space science and exploration". At this point, Nye is actively fighting *against* that, IMO.