Anything that industries have proven that they can’t be trusted to carry out here on Earth without wrecking things in the process. It’s not just financial costs but associated externalities as well.
And in the long term, assuming significant populations elsewhere in the solar system, economies of scale kick in and it becomes best to manufacture many things in space where you’re not fighting a gravity well on the way out and can sell to as many customers as possible.
> We are nowhere near any constraint on physical space on earth and we will not be near this constraint any time in the near, medium, or even far future.
We’re pretty close if we want to avoid even more environmental destruction than we’ve already caused. Even if we were to expand into deserts, we’d still be wreaking havoc on local and global ecosystems. There’s an argument for bumping up density in already-inhabited areas without sprawling outward, but that has limits and brings its own problems (like cities being concrete and asphalt heat islands that are exacerbated by everybody running their AC).
> Do you have any evidence for this claim?
It’s the natural result of spacefaring becoming commonplace. Prices on it all come down and access opens up, and unlike Earth, every square inch of space isn’t spoken for (and never will be). Sounds like a frontier to me.
> A cap that we are absolutely nowhere near hitting and that continues to get pushed further away with every dollar spent on technological investment on earth, which space-fetish dollars pull from.
But science and technology don’t work that way. The return on investment isn’t anywhere near linear, so it doesn’t make sense to pour more into already well-funded causes. You’ll just hit diminishing returns. The best results come from investing across as wide of a spread of fields as possible, leaving nothing ignored.
And we don’t need to pull from other kinds of research to fund crewed spaceflight anyway. There’s plenty to be had just by cleaning up the egregious waste that’s splashed around on a regular basis. Just imagine how much money has been lit on fire doing and undoing policies between political administrations for example, or how much has disappeared thanks to cronyism in government contracting.
> Anything that industries have proven that they can’t be trusted to carry out here on Earth without wrecking things in the process. It’s not just financial costs but associated externalities as well.
Again... like what? "Assume we have massive economies already inhabiting other planets" is... again... simply asserting your conclusion.
> We’re pretty close if...
You expect colonizing the Moon or Mars to be easier than solving heat islands and air conditioning?
I was asking for evidence that having frontiers to explore (besides the vast frontiers left on earth including the ocean) are some meaningful stabilizing force for society.
> The best results come from investing across as wide of a spread of fields as possible, leaving nothing ignored.
Okay then why wouldn't we take the vast sums spent on space travel and spread it to the thousands of far less-funded fields of scientific development?
Pick any of the industries that’ve repeatedly gotten headlines about being caught polluting.
> "Assume we have massive economies already inhabiting other planets" is... again... simply asserting your conclusion.
Well I mean if you focus on the transitionary phase of anything expensive, it looks difficult to justify and this is no exception.
> You expect colonizing the Moon or Mars to be easier than solving heat islands and air conditioning?
No, but I’m not posing one as an alternative or exclusive to the other.
> I was asking for evidence that having frontiers to explore (besides the vast frontiers left on earth including the ocean) are some meaningful stabilizing force for society.
Frontiers as in new places to settle, not just explore. While I guess it’s technically possible to settle the bottom of the ocean I don’t think very many groups or individuals would find the prospect all that appealing.
This kind of frontier is stabilizing because when people become dissatisfied or frustrated with the state of things where they live, they can band together with likeminded, stake a claim, and shape their own fate to a greater degree than would otherwise be possible. This hasn’t been possible for a long time now.
> Okay then why wouldn't we take the vast sums spent on space travel and spread it to the thousands of far less-funded fields of scientific development?
Because then you’d unnecessarily be letting an entire wing of science atrophy when those other less -funded fields could instead easily be funded by cleaning up waste.
100% of the industries that've repeatedly gotten headlines about being caught polluting continue to profitably operate on earth without spending billions of dollars to put infrastructure into space and adding hundreds of millions of dollars in costs to every production run.
It would obviously be far, far easier to hermetically seal all of these plants and scrub the output and, if you really want to (but don't need to, obviously) you can launch the exhaust into the sun. All would be several orders of magnitude cheaper than building factories in outer space.
> Well I mean if you focus on the transitionary phase of anything expensive, it looks difficult to justify and this is no exception.
No. The majority of things we end up actually doing, we do because there is clear value on the other side of the activation energy. We're both looking at a wall of activation energy, I'm asking you what's on the other side, and your answer is effectively "the other side."
> No, but I’m not posing one as an alternative or exclusive to the other.
... but markets do. If governments start caring about heat islands or air conditioning, the reasonable solution is not colonizing outer space. Obviously.
> This kind of frontier is stabilizing because...
I am once again asking for evidence of this claim.
> Because then you’d unnecessarily be letting an entire wing of science atrophy
The only reason you see it this way instead of right-sizing space investment and preventing other fields from atrophying is because, surprise, you've already concluded space travel is super important -- and for reasons that you cannot articulate.
> I am once again asking for evidence of this claim.
It’s a theory based on the effects frontiers have tended to have on society in the past. For frontiers beyond Earth’s orbit specifically, presenting evidence is impossible because it’s not something we’ve done. Either way, I think it’s a good thing to have somewhere for people who feel tired and defeated as well as those looking to build something for themselves to go.
> The only reason you see it this way instead of right-sizing space investment and preventing other fields from atrophying is because, surprise, you've already concluded space travel is super important -- and for reasons that you cannot articulate.
I’m not opposed to “right sizing” crewed space investments as long as it doesn’t mean sidelining it to the point of being stuck in a 90s-esque state of dinking around in low Earth orbit forever. I’m not saying to throw everything we have at it and make it all happen ASAP. I’m aware it’s something that will take a long time, and that’s exacerbated by cost. Start small and grow over time. That’s fine. Just keep it moving forward at a steady pace, that’s all I really want.
I don't need evidence from the frontier beyond earth, I need evidence that "having frontier" has any meaningful effect whatsoever on social stability. You presumably don't have any because, like the other arguments, it's a sci-fi vignette and not reality.
Agreed that progress on space exploration shouldn't stop. I really have never heard a good argument for manned space exploration, which is dramatically more expensive, complicated, and risky, though.
Anything that industries have proven that they can’t be trusted to carry out here on Earth without wrecking things in the process. It’s not just financial costs but associated externalities as well.
And in the long term, assuming significant populations elsewhere in the solar system, economies of scale kick in and it becomes best to manufacture many things in space where you’re not fighting a gravity well on the way out and can sell to as many customers as possible.
> We are nowhere near any constraint on physical space on earth and we will not be near this constraint any time in the near, medium, or even far future.
We’re pretty close if we want to avoid even more environmental destruction than we’ve already caused. Even if we were to expand into deserts, we’d still be wreaking havoc on local and global ecosystems. There’s an argument for bumping up density in already-inhabited areas without sprawling outward, but that has limits and brings its own problems (like cities being concrete and asphalt heat islands that are exacerbated by everybody running their AC).
> Do you have any evidence for this claim?
It’s the natural result of spacefaring becoming commonplace. Prices on it all come down and access opens up, and unlike Earth, every square inch of space isn’t spoken for (and never will be). Sounds like a frontier to me.
> A cap that we are absolutely nowhere near hitting and that continues to get pushed further away with every dollar spent on technological investment on earth, which space-fetish dollars pull from.
But science and technology don’t work that way. The return on investment isn’t anywhere near linear, so it doesn’t make sense to pour more into already well-funded causes. You’ll just hit diminishing returns. The best results come from investing across as wide of a spread of fields as possible, leaving nothing ignored.
And we don’t need to pull from other kinds of research to fund crewed spaceflight anyway. There’s plenty to be had just by cleaning up the egregious waste that’s splashed around on a regular basis. Just imagine how much money has been lit on fire doing and undoing policies between political administrations for example, or how much has disappeared thanks to cronyism in government contracting.