

Too Few Astronauts Have Died - hartleybrody
http://toph.me/2013/01/29/too-few-astronauts-have-died/

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richardjordan
I think the author is articulating (perhaps not as clearly as they could) a
simple concern that many feel. We had on this planet a one time gift of crazy
amounts of resources in terms of things like fossil fuels, but also things
like high percentage metal ores that could be extracted at low energy costs.
At some point humanity must become a multi planetary species or be doomed to
extinction. The best time to go this would be when we had the resources to do
so and the complex societal structures necessary to undertake this highly
complicated and resource intensive endeavor.

However we are running - increasingly rapidly - into significant barriers of
resource depletion. This is compounded by the fact that resource depletion
itself can interfere with the capacity if society to solve big challenges.

Therefore if we don't get focused on getting a sustainable space presence now
we may find we never do, having squandered our one time bounty of resources
and society having peaked on its ability to deliver on grand programs.

It is an argument I have a lot of sympathy with. There are utopians out there
who mistake technology for energy and believe smarts will necessarily overcome
the coming energy crunch and its allied problems of resource depletion and
overpopulation, as well as the relevant but slightly tangential issue if
global climate change. I am not convinced.

~~~
smsm42
I think concerns of resource depletion are - and were proven numerous times in
the past - very premature. We've had all kinds of Erlich-like extrapolations
by which by now the society should have been disintegrated and we should be
scavenging rotting ruins of our civilization looking for scraps of food.
Instead, we spend our time liking pictures of cats on facebook, more resource-
rich than ever, and that includes not only the golden billion but more remote
locations too. Obviously, naive extrapolations don't work and haven't worked
ever. Resource depletion is not a thing that is on immediate agenda. Of
course, "sooner or later" our sun would explode or implode or whatever should
happen to it and we'd better get off this planet by then. But given we're
talking about timeframe much bigger than any experience of any civilization,
we have no slightest idea what "we" would mean by then, if anything, so
concerning about it seems useless now. While all these finiteness arguments
are correct in principle, their practicality as for immediate agenda is not
obvious, and rarely proven - usually it goes as "resources are limited,
population is growing, so we'll be out of resources eventually, so we better
start making laws right now that do whatever my political persuasion instructs
me to do". It seems to me, the transition from theoretical limit to practical
urgency needs to be proven first.

That doesn't mean simple efficiency of using resources - doing more with the
same or less - shouldn't be on the agenda. On the contrary, this is the
primary way of staying ahead of the game. But let's not panic and get into
"our golden age has passed, we're all screwed now". We're not and we did not
offend our Mother Nature and it has not doomed us to eternal Hell of
resourcelessness. We just need to keep being smart and inventive and work hard
at using available resources with maximal efficiency.

~~~
richardjordan
I think this argument, with respect, falls into the fallacy of we've got by so
far so we always will.

Look at the population crunch arguments - saved by the Green Revolution right?
Well that was just pouring fossil fuels on fields... we've burned through a
lot of those and topsoil since. The sustainable carrying capacity of the
planet is nothing like 7 billion by most sensible studies I've seen.

95% of the world's food production is dependent on fossil fuel inputs. As we
pass peak flow - and we are clearly at peak oil flow rates right now (I feel
confident saying as someone who worked in the oil industry and studies this
stuff) pressures on those inputs will rise.

We used to mine 70% ores we now mine 5% ores of many key metals. We can do
this, it's just more energy intensive. But eventually we've used all of the
easy to access natural state resources and we are in a very different world.

Smarts don't replace atoms. Nor do they replace joules.

Most of the alternatives that folks have in the backs of their minds as "don't
worry we have X" are net energy return on energy investment negative.

Then don't get me started on NPK inputs - cast an eye over Potash or Phosphate
stocks recently? Nope most people haven't. But there's a reason the Russians
are using their oil wealth to corner the market there.

Just because we have overcome serious problems before doesn't mean we always
must. After the Great Depression we had vast stores of oil and most of these
resources were barely touched. We don't have that get-out-of-jail-free card
again. Just more mouths to feed and a world where climate change is increasing
conflict and dislocation of populations.

Economic growth which gives us confidence in buying our way out of problems
(which is a very utopian view given that you cannee change the laws of Physics
as a great Scotsman once said) is not a given either. For all the economic
theories out there, none have been tested in sustained periods of declining
resource availability. Indeed nothing correlates more closely with economic
growth than energy resource access - it's almost one to one if you plot them
together over the centuries. So it's highly likely there's a causal
relationship there that will have negative consequences as we slide down the
other side of the energy resource curve.

~~~
smsm42
>>>> Smarts don't replace atoms. Nor do they replace joules.

Again, platitudes and proof are very different things. So far I've seen
"sensible studies", and I can't see how they are different from the equally
"sensible studies" in 70s that predicted worldwide resource exhaustion and
mass hunger by 2000s.

>>>> After the Great Depression we had vast stores of oil and most of these
resources were barely touched

We still have vast stores of oil and other hydrocarbons, many of which aren't
even touched for ecological/political reasons. And there are also
biotechnologies that allow conversion of solar energy, which are not very
economically viable now, but if we start running out of stored hydrocarbons -
can serve as one of the replacements. Of course, Sun will go out too sometime,
but let's not worry about it just yet.

>>>> So it's highly likely there's a causal relationship there that will have
negative consequences as we slide down the other side of the energy resource
curve.

That's like saying since winning the lottery positively correlates with income
increase, the only way to have sustainable income is to play a lot of lottery,
and if one gets rid of lotteries, economic collapse is sure to follow. Of
course having tons of oil is useful to whatever little petro-monarchies that
have it. But it does not make Venezuela world's most advanced country and it
does not make countries which do not have it less advanced.

------
Petrushka
Looking at it through the economic lens that the author does, I think what he
fails to recognize is the payoffs. War has immediate and substantial payoffs.
Whether that is material gain, new energy or food sources, pillage, prestige,
etc., or moral gain, in the destruction of a regime that commits heinous acts,
war has benefits which can be easily seen in the short term, and so it is
easier for the governors and governed of a state which chooses to undertake
war to make that decision.

Space exploration is significantly more long-term. You're spending billions of
dollars (not just lives) for what in the short-term does not seem like much
benefit. Although landing on the moon and other such projects are incredible
achievements, and although the development of the technologies that have
allowed such achievements has dramatically impacted daily life, it's much
harder to make clear to people the benefits of exploration in both a human or
a economic cost.

If the benefit is defeating Nazi Germany, or Assad's Syria, or Osama Bin
Laden, we're able to accept the costs. If the benefit is Tupperware, GPS, and
some cool pictures of the lunar surface, then we will most likely not (not
that I agree with that, it's just how most people see it).

------
zem

        As a people and a nation we have paid a price to learn  
        That in any exploration, there are some who don't return.  
        We are neither fools nor cowards, to be shaken now to know  
        What our founders could have told us, twice a hundred years ago.
    
        -- Echo's Children, "Columbia"

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mturmon
The author has failed to say what we would have achieved by sending more
people into risky space missions. For example, if our next goal is to get to
Mars, we learn a lot about how to get the risks down by sending unmanned craft
there.

The excited group of engineers when MSL touched down last year is testament to
the fact that this landing is still very hard. (And the difficulty is not
entirely due to not having a pilot in the craft.)

------
snowwrestler
If the point is to address the subject rationally and dispassionately, then
this language is out of place:

> But how much harder will it be to spare the resources when our cities are
> sinking, crops dying, population stagnating? It is cheaper now than it will
> ever again be. Debt, healthcare, war — these problems won’t be solved,
> leaving us free to tackle space, any time soon. They’ll probably get worse.
> And the best thing we can do for the Earth is get off of it.

An objective look at the data shows that the global state of human society is
better now than it has ever been in history. There is no evidence that human
civilization is at its peak.

Faking a sense of urgency is not a sustainable way to make the case for space
exploration.

