What's the point in going into space, there's nothing there?

Question

Yawn, some people have flown around the moon. Once families gathered around the TV to watch the moon landing, now Artemis is a minor news item in the shadow of the Iran war. I doubt most people could name the astronauts without Google.

But what actually is the point these days? Back in the 60s it was rivalry between the USA and USSR who could piss the highest. But what's the point now? We've powerful telescopes and we know there's nothing out there, bar rocks and dust.

Some of you will point to things we've gained by going into space, like 6 pans and better ways to kill each other, but had the billions spent been directed elsewhere we'd have achieved so much more.

So what is the point of space travel?

abc3643 · Accepted Answer

The "Race to the Moon" was definitely part of the "Space Race" of the late 1950s through the Apollo 11 Moon landing of 1969.

The reason for such a race is essentially a "pissing contest", but pissing contests among nations can serve a point.

During the Cold War, this wasn't just an issue of the USA vs. the USSR, but more about a question of ideologies. Communism, in its theoretical form, is something of a cancerous ideology; for it to succeed, everyone needs to be a part of it. And it was spreading... Well, the democratic capitalist nations of the West didn't want that happening to them.

So, the Space Race was a way to illustrate to the other side of your technological prowess which could be used for dissuade the other side from attacking you.

(Note, also, the 1972 World Chess Championship between defending champion Boris Spassky from the USSR and the challenger Bobby Fischer from the USA. The Russians for famous for their dominance in chess; an illustration of their "superior intellect" and mental discipline. Fischer won. While this wasn't a direct pissing contest between national governments, Fischer and Spassky were avatars of their nations. The Olympics are the same thing; a giant international pissing contest.)

OK, well, the current adversary in the current space race is China.

China has made considerable progress in its space program in the past 20 or so years. If they felt that the USA was being complacent and not caring, then they will become more assertive. And they are smarter than the Russians were and have their shit together better. So, one reason for Artemis is to illustrate that we are on to them and we can match them or even better them.

In particular with the Moon, like it or not, the Moon is a potential target for military and economic development. In some ways, it is ideal real estate.

For example:

With no atmosphere, there are no optical distortions so your cameras work more effectively.
The Moon is far enough away to essentially be safe or defendable, but close enough to be accessible.
With the lower gravity, launching from the Moon is much cheaper to do than from Earth. So, if you were to do interplanetary voyages, it might be better to build your spacecraft and launch such missions from the Moon. Your space industry moves to the Moon and the only launching you do from Earth is maybe some people and food.

I could go on and on, but the Moon has definite potential just like the New World did 500 years ago.

OneViewpoint · Accepted Answer

Space travel, "conquering the heavens", is ingrained in the human psyche. We've been dreaming about it as long as there have been humans.

From a practical standpoint that dream has given us orbital launch capability. That gave us communications satellite networks and space telescopes. It also gave us intercontinental ballistic missiles and spy satellites. The space race also spawned computers and materials science advancements.

But... landing on the moon was a grandstand play. We got zero direct benefit from landing on that that lump of rock orbiting our planet. Mars is another pipe dream with our current chemical rocket technology. Why send humans to a dead planet? To do what? We already have the capability to send robotic systems there. Robotics don't need food or oxygen.

We are likely 100-200 years from any tech that could take us to the nearest neighboring star system in less than thousands of years. Meanwhile we have problems here at home with over population, cooking the planet, famine, nuclear weapons proliferation, competition for scarce resources, and we just unleashed artificial stupidity to fuck things up faster.

Research is fine. But spending scarce resources for billionaire joy rides to (barely) outer space is beyond stupid. Using scarce resources to send humans to empty lumps of empty barren rock is negligence.

Kelley1 · Accepted Answer

In the near term, the next 100 years, there is not much purpose. However, in time, spaceships will be able to travel one-tenth the speed of light. That is 30 years to the nearest star. There is a planet that may or may not be able to support life, even if not human life.

After that we can send intelligent spaceship probes to the 500 sun size stars out of a total of 15,000 stars within a 100 light year radius. The probes will explore the planets and send back information if any are suitable for human. The probes will be able to seed the planets with seeds, bacteria, and blue-green algae. After 200 to 1,000 years, our technology will have advanced so we can send larger space ships, with intelligent robots with zygotes sperms and eggs for thousands of species.

For mammals we will have artificial wombs and the robots will raise the infants until they are old enough to survive on their own. For the next 3 or 4 generations, when girls are old enough they will be inseminated for sperm from any of 50,000 men to provide sufficient genetic variability. Or else, we can continue to use artificial wombs and eggs and sperm to create the necessary population.

3,000 years later, they will have the technology to send out probes another 100 lights years. In as little a 200,000 years and less then one million years, we will colonize our galaxy. The we will have the technology to send super intelligent space ships at half the speed of light to other galaxies.

FreyaRed · Accepted Answer

We will rot on earth. Moon collected over billion o years Helium-3 Isotope from solar wind. It decays in atmosphere of earth. It's high energy fusion material. In little bit further future elements from asteroids could be mined and replace earth's swindling resources.

Likes2drive · Answer

To boldly go, where no man has gone before as Captain Kirk said , actually, I think they’re going to try to build a station on the moon so they can launch a rocket from there to go to Mars

Jersey2 · Answer

In the US we spend billions in fraud and waste. We get nothing for it except rich fraudsters. At least this is entertaining. We may not gather around the TV but some of us will watch NASA channel when we land on the moon next. I was at the Artemis II launch as I was already in the area. It was mobbed for many miles around.

The plans for the moon are to industrialize it in some ways. The solar power there will be cheap and abundant and there are useful minerals on the moon. They will manufacture specialized AI computers as solar panels and shoot them back to earth’s orbit using something called a Mass Driver. There the computers will serve as Data Centers cooled space as it acts as a huge heat sink which is a big benefit as heat dissipation on earth is a messy issue. But the big benefit is the unlimited solar power that is 5x more efficient than panels on earth and continuous in the right orbits.

Robots will assist on the moon and there will be a moon base which will serve as preparation for the much more difficult Mars base. That will be amazing and all this leads to what Elon Musk call abundance, meaning everything is so cheap people don’t have to work or need much money as robots and AI do most things.

Anyway, it will be fun to watch for those with an interest and maybe, just maybe, GaG can clear my queue quickly with AI and robots from an invitation that was sent and accepted but still showing up as to be accepted. Maybe.

Person901 · Answer

I personally like the idea of humanity not dying out in the next max extinction. by the way if you look into geological history you will see that mass extinction events have occurred many times. We cannot just hope and sit around for the next 40 million years. I also think that this particular is just one of many for humanity and isn't that important. I seriously doubt humanity will be wiped out (from meteors or some other mass extinction event that wipes out most species) unless its their own doing to each other. So assuming that doesn't happen becoming a multiplanet species in the next 1000 years shouldn't be that hard. There is no rush. I don't think any major events (even the ones that will kill most of us not all of us) will likely happen for another 200,000 years. Still we should be a Type 1 civilization long before even 200,000 years. So yes getting humans and life onto other planets or rotating space habitats is important in the long run. Those are very long timelines, and we could easily forget about space travel for the next 100 years and it wouldn't really matter. So if we have more important business for the next 30 years going on, say resisting tyrannical governments and trying to make a better world well then I'm sure we have plenty of time to not worry about space. So its important and at the same time we have plenty of time so we need not per say worry about it right now.

Tarifa · Answer

It could be they wanted to test out the latest toilet. It cost a million dollars and still didn't work properly.

It could be they wanted to see if the dark side of the moon really was that dark at all. Maybe the little creatures that live there permanently moved to the visible side while everyone was looking at the 'dark side', in a lunar hide and seek game.

Seriously though, I've heard the ultimate goal is to set up a permanent moon base, from where it would be possible to send missions into space, presumably towards Mars. So much energy is lost and so much fuel is burned just escaping the earth's gravity that it makes sense to take that factor out. Launching from the moon is much mote logical and saves literally tons of fuel.

AviatorTom · Answer

Humans have explored since the beginning of time. From our original ancestors who ventured from Africa to Europe, Asia and beyond. Across the oceans to the New World. Space is yet another frontier to explore.

Looing to the future, humans will eventually exhaust resources on Earth. Exploring space, establishing bases on the Moon and Mars, learning to mine asteroids, will allow humans to continue to survive on Earth.

And looking further into the future, the Earth will, at some future date, no longer be habitable. Unless humans venture into space and find new worlds to live on, the human species will cease to exist.

mstbooblover · Answer

Well Poppy, put as you do it, space travels seem pretty silly and useless indeed, even more when one thinks about that childish state of mind where nations make it kind of a race to be the first. Nevertheless, considering the human drive to migrate and explore new places, in a relative near future we will see the first settlements, probably first on the moon, and then on the planet mars. No doubt this will happen, be it early or late.

Sure there is something of a dream and the desire to conquer the heavens, but on the practical side, and new technologies helping, benefits of different nature may ultimately occur.

We probably do agree about the fact that space travels, set aside the astronomical costs, are not a real necessity considering all those far more urgent problems all around the world, but the human nature is involved with it's dreams and longings.

SeekerOfTruth007 · Answer

For once, I agree with you. I used to think a Mars colony was possible, then I did my own research, and without nuclear power and nuclear rockets it's impossible. It would cost 10 trillion dollars to make a Mars colony with just a crew of 7 people, and there would be no point in going to Mars.

Mining asteroids is not feasible. The only substances on Asteroids that can pay for themselves in weight when returned to Earth, theoretically, are Platinum, Gold, and Rhodium. Nothing else has a high enough real-world value to ever make mining an asteroid worth doing.

MrChinaski · Answer

NASA are like the Royal Family and the Kardashians. They do nothing at all useful in incredibly expensive ways and, for some reason, media have decided they ought report on it. Very strange.

Seriously. What's the point of having NASA when they mostly sit around reminiscing about 'the good old days' of the Apollo Program while Ketamine-fueled Elon Musk builds something useful like Starlink... isn't that precisely what NASA should be funded for, if at all? SpaceX can throw a kilogram into low earth orbit for like $2,000; it would cost NASA $40,000.

Iron_Man · Answer

They go for research and put up Satellites And they want to discover new things. But I can see your point. It’s extremely boring a big black hole. I would never want to vacation on any of those planets there’s nothing out there and you have to have your own oxygen and wear a space suit constantly went out in space out of the spaceship 🚀

RavVid · Answer

You can't see the dark side of the Moon from the earth.

Which is exactly why the Nazis went there when it was going bust in the last days of WW2.

You must have not seen the docu-drama on the Nazis on the dark side of the Moon. So I am thoughtfully providing a link below for you edification.

Well worth sending Artemis to have a looksee in case they are planning to attack New York again.

Fortunately the A10 Warthog saw them off back in 2018.

Kaneki05 · Answer

To improve our ability to do so, to then possibly in the future use it for more practical things. Not that I think humans will last that long but ya know to eventually get life on other planet's or use the moon for solar energy.

RandomGirl42 · Answer

I thought we were at war with the Klingons or something? Isn't that why we're there?

ohsheeT · Answer

Buzz light year is one of them miss piggy is another one and Elmer Fudd

Well since we have these powerful telescopes I hope somebody At least Videotapes it so I can launch it I want to see how long it takes them to come around the whole thing

Phoenix98 · Answer

what is the point of space travel? Scientific Discovery & Research Technological Advancement Survival & Future Expansion Inspiration & Education Economic Opportunity

nomomrnice · Answer

Survival — don't keep all our eggs in one planetary basket
Resources & knowledge — minerals, scientific discovery, understanding our universe
Human nature — we've always explored as far as we possibly can

WhitneySnow · Answer

Space travel is glorious and amazing once we get past the moon, but I agree, the moon itself isn’t that great

TonyMetal___86 · Answer

This ain't no actual space travel, it's called a little space trip, cause space travel starts when humans becomes capable to travel outside our solar system!

For example: voyager 1 became a space traveler...

exitseven · Answer

Eventually other planets will be colonized. There are minerals there and other things you cannot get on Earth.

NathanDavis · Answer

actually... NASA's budget is very very cheap...

Chazmatazz269 · Answer

Too easy! “To boldly go where no man has gone before.”

Shiprex · Answer

It's about finding out if there's Really nothing there.

Xawyx-2 · Answer

Maybe there is something, and we don't know it yet.

msc545 · Answer

We explore space because that is the only thing we have left to explore, other than the very deep ocean. People are curious.

Anonymous · Answer

I'll have you know the Milky Way 🌌😉 is a very tasty chocolate bar 🍫 or it was once sold lol 😅 as candy

Kelly6 · Answer

@purplepoppy To get more metal and rare elements to become trillionaires

Anonymous · Answer

They just normalizing it for the elites to move to their moon base and earth can then be wiped out

Grilo · Answer

It’s to explore the unexplored and extend the boundaries of human consciousness

jahaims · Answer

Mining h3 from the moon. China already is

CubaPirate · Answer

To escape the madness of our planet

Tomislav7 · Answer

Galactic Mining

What's the point in going into space, there's nothing there?

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