Richard Branson’s space flight

[Rabulias]

Or look at the almond industry. 80% of the world's almonds grow in California. And the latest multi-year drought is forcing growers to either fallow other crops to divert water to almond orchards or to start culling almond trees altogether.

Almonds are not a good example for your case. Almonds (along with a number of other tree nuts) are a very water-intensive crop. To grow one pound of almonds requires almost 2000 gallons of water.

 

[Deset Gled]

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I am sad to see the day when a post about space exploration on a BBS about role playing games (and a no politics rule) can get turned into wild rants about economics.

 

[slobster]

Dude! I freakin' LOVE space.

I just know enough about it to rankle when people act like the solution to climate change is to move on to the next planet. (Believe it or not there are people who actually think that it can be done! Drives me nuts.)

Yeah the whole "we need to settle Mars as a backup for Earth" is plainly silly. You could wait until global warming took its course for the next century, and even if it far exceeded the worst case projections, we continued to abuse the environment and annihilate habitats, and we had a few major nuclear exchanges in the meantime, it would still be many orders of magnitude easier to terraform Antarctica into a comfortable place for millions to live than it would be to make the slightest dent in the radioactive frigid atmosphereless hellscape of the Martian surface.

I'm not saying we should do any of those things to the Earth, nor am I saying it's not worth it to try to make a go of it on Mars, at some point, at some scale. Just agreeing that in no way does teraforming any other planet represent a comprehensible fallback plan for ruining our own planet, quite aside from that being a defeatist and morally repugnant thing to do in its own right.

First of all, let's clarify some things. Branson's flight was a Vomit Comet. That's all. Spaceship Two doesn't reach the Karman Line. It's the TWA plane from 2001.

I do agree with this, and in fact I expounded upon that myself at some length in my first post in this thread. So yes, we agree on this point specifically.

I'll answer other points that you make that seem salient, though a lot of them like "define the economy" seem a bit nitpicky, and would send us down an internet forum rabbit hole of definitions and off-topic discussion to respond. So if I don't answer a point it's not because I'm ignoring you, I just want to keep the focus of the discussion vaguely on-topic.

Four, is "the economy" more important than the ability of the planet to continue supporting 8 billion human beings?

I don't agree with the premise that it is a binary choice. I think it's possible for us to address the awful ramifications of our exploitation of the planet while simultaneously doing other things, like space research or fine arts education, to name 2 sectors of the global economy with approximately similar expenditures.

Five, what type of economy are you talking about? Are you talking about the continuation of a consumer economy predicated on the manufacture and sale of semi-disposable goods? Is "the economy" of which you speak sustainable for more than the next 50 years?

I'm not gonna really touch that, except to say that no, I'm not trying to promote space development as some kind of Trojan horse for expanding late stage capitalism in order to twirl my mustache evilly. I support space development for its own sake, irrespective of the social or economic or governmental system under which it develops.

I certainly have favorites and less-than-favorites in all those categories, but they aren't really germane to the topic of whether space investment is worhtwhile.

Six, is the benefit to "the economy" from reusable rocket technology a greater benefit than the benefit to "the economy" from climate mitigation and environmental research?

Even if I accept your premise that space development is of less value than climate change research (I'd actually argue the 2 are synergistic), I still think there are literally hundreds of industries from sports to jewelry mining and manufacture to wasteful spending on military might from which it makes more sense to redirect resources. Those industries cost way, WAY more than we spend on space, return less to the real economy, and are arguably an active bad as opposed to a lesser good for sustainable use of our planet. And they are just examples among hundreds of examples you can find.

So, inasmuch as I do not believe that space exploration represents a net economic positive over climate research and development, your basic premise fails.

And I do believe it is a massive net positive with a potential to be a history redefining positive in the next century or two, so we simply disagree here.

Seven, are either of these approaches moral where such would almost certainly come at the cost of millions, if not billions, of human lives and the extinction of countless species?

I don't accept this premise either. The idea that investing at our current or higher levels in space development will ipso facto lead to billions of deaths is... well the word "hyperbolic" comes to mind.

The cart, right now, is in front of the horse. Until we can learn how to continue to have life on Earth, I say that space races like this are wrong. They do not substantially advance the existing research while simultaneously promoting the wrong belief that the immediate dangers to life, and yes, the economy, are less important than some vague undefined idea of space colonization.

This is basically the thrust of my entire response, but I'll encapsulate it here. Humanity is capable of walking and chewing bubble gum at the same time. It is NOT the case that we live in a zero sum world in terms of research, where every dollar spent on one line of research could be diverted to another and provide a 1 for 1 improvement in research progress. You can increase investment in certain lines of research to improve progress, but at a certain point you reach a point of diminishing returns. You can't double investment to double progress ad infinitum, and in fact advancements in one area often fuel advancements in another out of proportion with the actual initial investment...as is the case with space development disproportionately benefitting climate science and earth sciences in general. So while I sympathize with the urgency with which we need to address climate change and other environmental catastrophes here on Earth, I simply don't find the argument that because we have problems there, we can't invest in anything else at all worthwhile to be very coherent or convincing.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I would also be of the opinion that the current investment in space is not really impacting on what we need to do about climate change. I think we know what to do and have most of the tech we need what we lack is the will to do something. We have known about the problem for over 30 years now but stubbornly refused to address it in a meaningful way.
What will it take for us to act on climate, well here I fear that some catastrophe will have to occur before action is taken.

 

[Bohandas]

I don't like how gentrified space is becoming

 

[Stalker0]

Umbran covered my key point: climate change is not a billionaire problem, it’s a trillionarie problem…aka a government problem. Getting the worlds billionaires to shift to climate change is just one link in the change, until governments wake up and get aggressive about it we won’t see true progress.

I’m fine with this new commercial space race. It’s gives incentives for competition which breeds innovation…and space will benefit.

 

[Imaculata]

I see two sides to this. On the one hand, I have a strong feeling that commercial spaceflight is the future of space exploration. While you still need a huge amount of wealth to be able to afford a trip like this, I see these spaceflights as the first steps to make it more affortable to everyone, and more reliable. If launching a rocket becomes as normal as stepping on an airplane, it allows us to focus on other more important aspects of space exploration. It makes it a bit more than just a billionaire's lavish hobby.

But on the other hand, the reason a guy like Bezos is this rich, is to put it bluntly: slave labor. His employees aren't paid a living wage, aren't even allowed to go to the toilet, and literally die on the workfloor. And that puts a bad taste in my mouth when it comes to this event. And sure, Amazon isn't the only US company to exploit its workers; it is pretty much the standard in the US. But that doesn't make it any better.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

Yeah, well, if you're going to put a stake in the ground while admitting your opinion is uneducated, maybe that's the moment you should take the stake out of the ground, hm?

this right here is why I need to stop trying to discuss anything in detail here. You’re taking a brief attempt at humility on my part and using it against me. But guess what, my dude? Read the rest of my post. I am vastly more educated about you on this topic. I worked for years as a science and tech journalist, talked to tons of sources for that story alone, including people who’d actually gone into orbit and done research in microgravity. But instead you intentionally mischaracterize my own words in order to, as usual, snipe from some distant hilltop. By the own standard you just referenced above you yourself should fly away from this discussion as soon as possible.

And best of all, you’re a mod! So your villain-of-the-debate-team tactics are unimpeachable here.

You should truly stop getting into these discussions the way you do if you’re going to all wield the modhammer. It’s unseemly for the site and just weird.

 

[Umbran]

But guess what, my dude? Read the rest of my post. I am vastly more educated about you on this topic. I worked for years as a science and tech journalist

Appeals to authority are not solid rhetoric. That's not going to get you very far here.

You should truly stop getting into these discussions the way you do if you’re going to all wield the modhammer. It’s unseemly for the site and just weird.

What in blue blazes are you talking about? There was no suggestion of moderation in my post.

Your approach now seems to be to try to impugn me, personally. Folks here generally understand that's not suitable. Insults and ad hominem are no better than the appeal to authority, and are unlikely to make folks think you are correct.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I see two sides to this. On the one hand, I have a strong feeling that commercial spaceflight is the future of space exploration. While you still need a huge amount of wealth to be able to afford a trip like this, I see these spaceflights as the first steps to make it more affortable to everyone, and more reliable. If launching a rocket becomes as normal as stepping on an airplane, it allows us to focus on other more important aspects of space exploration. It makes it a bit more than just a billionaire's lavish hobby.

But on the other hand, the reason a guy like Bezos is this rich, is to put it bluntly: slave labor. His employees aren't paid a living wage, aren't even allowed to go to the toilet, and literally die on the workfloor. And that puts a bad taste in my mouth when it comes to this event. And sure, Amazon isn't the only US company to exploit its workers; it is pretty much the standard in the US. But that doesn't make it any better.

I generally agree with this post. Bezos and Musk for that matter are a reflection of the culture that made them. Their employment conditions can be condemned but with out political action that is empty gesturing. That is even more so for climate change. Some of the policy to mitigate climate change requires spending but a lot of it is regulation and only governments can issue regulations and make them stick.