You asked what I had against spreading beyond earth. I answered you.

You come back with a post About a “… galactic civilization with say a billion of inhabited planets and countless free floating colonies …” ?

I ask you this… What have you been smoking? Wow, you really think big.

And how did you make that leap? How in the world can you suggest that “I” am saying ANYTHING about the GDP of such a civilization? Unbelievable!

But seriously, lets say you are right and there is such a thing as a galactic civilization.
In that case, please answer Enrico Fermi’s question… To wit … “where are they? …” They shou;d already be here!
So, T_U_T, WHERE ARE THEY?????

…John

I don’t understand you. What do you mean by saying “you see how this works?”
Are you referring to T_U_T’s post at #156?
Sorry man, I don’t get it.

@#156. T_U_T

Here is my response to you. And, BTW, I’m sorry that you are so upset.
“…You want to evaluate plausibility of ideas ? By what measure ?…” Known laws of Physics. And as you ask and I say by an ROI on my tax dollars. Just consider the ROI generated by communications satellites. Look at the usefulness of weather satellites, “environmental” (I’ll use this to mean all those satellites that look down and study the earth) Satellites. These machines are awesome and have contributed to our quality of life immensely. And not one of them needs a person up there to take care of them.

T_U_T, our resources are limited. Given all the problems that we face on earth, I find it irresponsible to continue to spend vast sums of money to push humans out into the solar system. Especially when we have better ways (i.e robotics) to glean the information we want.

It is my opinion that the purpose of space missions should be exploration rather than exploitation. I want knowledge, I want science, I want insight into how the universe works, etc. etc. and the best way to do that is to build instruments that act as our senses. I say again, we humans are the ultimate tool makers and in many respects the tools that we put out into space are far superior to our own senses. They can see better (e.g Hubble’s optics), hear better (e.g. radio), they can even “feel” better than we can.

As to your thoughts on ideas.
Every idea MUST go through a crucible, a trial by fire of sorts before it is implemented. Even plausible ideas, more often than not, fail for some reason or other. And even when they succeed technically, they may fail economically. The U.S. Pattent office is stuffed for patents for devices that are economic failures, that are obsolete before they hit the market and so forth.

If you want to coddle the idea of manned exploration, exploitation and even colonization of space then be my guest. Spend your nickel on doing so. I for one have evaluated the pros and cons and for me, the cons win out. In my view, manned missions have had their day in the sun. But that day is now drawing to a close. I was all for Apollo because, back then, putting “boots” on the lunar soil was the best way to get the science done. (Note that the Russians tried and failed with their robotic missions because of technical and sophistication problems). But now! Now we have computers. We have microprocessors, we have AI, we have remote control. All of this means that we do not need manned missions which cost a fortune and return precious little science. I want the biggest bang I can get for my space science dollar. I’ve had it with spending fortunes for environmental systems to keep humans in space. The money can be spent much more wisely to gain the knowledge we desire.

As for Robotics.
I never suggested that we “… should rely on huge fully automated, ( by necessity all self-repairing and autonomously thinking ) robotic probes to spread beyond earth. …”

I know that self-repairing robotics is beyond our capabilities. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the way you use the term “spread”, as in colonize, is not what I man at all. I have absolutely no wish to “spread” robots all over the solar system or the nearby star systems. What I want is the information that they can get for us by being out there. That they “happen” to “spread” to the various planets is incidental.

I don’t care that we do not have self-repairing robots. I never said anything about sentients either.
If they fail, as they must, then we crank up the assembly line, factory, or whatever to put a better system out there.
Please understand this and excuse me if it seems that I’m shouting but I want to make this point absolutely clear… ALL SYSTEMS FAIL … Our machines fail, our bodies fail, the earth will fail, the solar system will fail and, ultimately, the universe will fail.
Given that, I want to live now! Make hay while the sun shines, now! I want the knowledge, the science, etc. now!, or ASAP, and it is my contention that manned missions stand in the way of that and so I would like to consign them to the ash heap.

“… what is the ROI of Hubble pictures ? …” I’m glad you asked. The ROI is knowledge, information, and insight, not to mention the joy they bring to the eye. I’ve tried ignorance and I’ve tried knowledge. I choose knowledge. Hubble, Spitzer, WMAP, etc. All pull back the curtain of ignorance, they all inspire, and so I choose to support them.

As to “draconian demands”.
Space flight imposes “draconian demands “. If you think that my “demands” for plausibility, are draconian, then wait till you try them in the space environment. I’m just trying to raise your consciousness to them. I’m not imposing them on you.
I “dismiss” the idea, nay, the reality of manned missions, for the reasons sated above. I stand by them.

My true motivation for keeping humans off space are and have been revealed above and have remained consistent throughout this debate. But to refresh your memory:
Humans in space:
1) are too costly.
2) return precious little science
3) are the weakest link in the chain
4) puts crews needlessly at risk (key word needlessly because we have robotics)
5) kills people
6) has no well defined goal/purpose (i.e. in this day and age, why?)

I could go on but I think you catch my drift.

An aside for you T_U_T, concerning Materials Science.
Just to be clear, I’m all for materials science, space based or otherwise. You will note that even space based materials science has no use for humans. The materials Science labs are FULLY automated, no human intervention required. In fact, the materials guys don’t want humans anywhere near their experiments due to contamination concerns and concerns related to human error!

“… I am asking you thus again. Why don’t you like the idea of mankind spreading beyond earth ? ”

I think I’ve made myself clear, but, what the hell, lets summarize it again:

1) There is nowhere to spread. No habitable planets and exoplanets are waaaay too far away.

2) The earth, with all its faults, is the very best spacecraft we have.

3) We are custom built, by natural selection, as messy as that is, for this environment (i.e. we are earthlings.)

4) The end game is clear, we all die. But in the mean time, I want the knowledge we glean from the space program to make us wiser in the ways of keeping the earth habitable for us. You need only look around to see what ignorance and profligacy has done. We have fouled our nest and it’s high time we cleaned it up.

5) Expending our limited resources in an effort to abandon this ship by means of space faring colonies runs counter to the responsible stewardship of this “Blue Marble”.

QED!
(well, in my mind, anyway).

Your turn, fire away!

…John

That may be good for a bureaucrat, or a politician.
( is this going to succeed during my election term ? It is going to make me famous or rich ? If not, it is useless. )
But it is useless to positively destructive as a measure of plausibility of ideas,
because every new idea starts at square one. No research done on it, no money spent,
no budget, no timeline of deployment, no cost estimate, no way to tell whether it is even going to work.
And the time where you get an actual timeline of its deployment is a waaay in the future.
Even to estimate its feasibility, some serious work has yet to be done.
So, if you base your base you policy on measures like that, each and every new idea will be automatically rejected
before they actually can have a chance. And without new ideas, everything stops to a grinding halt.
This is, why measures like that are rarely used by someone else than actual bureaucrats and politicians.
And even when they are used, then only as supreficially plausible excuses for dismissing something that is in disfavor for other reasons.
Even you are hypocritical in its application.
You suggest we should rely on huge fully automated, ( by necessity all self-repairing and autonomously thinking ) robotic probes to spread beyond earth.
But is someone already building a sentient robot ? Are there any self-healing machines around ? What is the official timeline for human matching artificial intelligence ?
What is the research body on automatons capable of keeping themselves functional for thousands of years of continuous radiation barrage ?
Further more, you say you are all in for robotic exploration, but what is the ROI of Hubble pictures ? Exactly how much dollars is the tax payer getting back, givent that they are publicly available for free ?
You don’t seem to apply the same rigor to your own ideas.
So you are providing further evidence that those draconian demands you place on manned spaceflight are but an excuse for dismissing the idea without
revealing your true motivation for keeping humans off space.
I am asking you thus again. Why don’t you like the idea of mankind spreading beyond earth ?