Something I have trouble explaining about space travel.
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Something I have trouble explaining about space travel. Like, if you've read my book, you know I think human space faring is probably not economically valuable. It's not a good use of science dollars compared to other areas. I'm even skeptical of the case for inspiration (it doesn't seem to causally related to more aerospace degrees).
But it's also just really cool. Why don't I feel this way about Antarctica or Seabed exploration?
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Something I have trouble explaining about space travel. Like, if you've read my book, you know I think human space faring is probably not economically valuable. It's not a good use of science dollars compared to other areas. I'm even skeptical of the case for inspiration (it doesn't seem to causally related to more aerospace degrees).
But it's also just really cool. Why don't I feel this way about Antarctica or Seabed exploration?
@ZachWeinersmith 2 reasons: big numbers, and science fiction
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Something I have trouble explaining about space travel. Like, if you've read my book, you know I think human space faring is probably not economically valuable. It's not a good use of science dollars compared to other areas. I'm even skeptical of the case for inspiration (it doesn't seem to causally related to more aerospace degrees).
But it's also just really cool. Why don't I feel this way about Antarctica or Seabed exploration?
@ZachWeinersmith part of it for me is that exploration of Earth stuff always comes with a side of “oh no, now that we can get there, how are we going to fuck it up”
Though I’ve started to have that feeling about sending humans to the moon and Mars and such. Like if it was economically viable I’d be kind of pre-grieving the strip mining and the introductions of weird microbes that would mislead us when we tried to understand the history of those places or if there is any kind of life at all already out there that we’d contaminate and harm those ecosystems.
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Something I have trouble explaining about space travel. Like, if you've read my book, you know I think human space faring is probably not economically valuable. It's not a good use of science dollars compared to other areas. I'm even skeptical of the case for inspiration (it doesn't seem to causally related to more aerospace degrees).
But it's also just really cool. Why don't I feel this way about Antarctica or Seabed exploration?
@ZachWeinersmith because not many of us stare towards Antarctica at home and wish we could go there. But the sky and stars are _right there_ and are calling to our imagination every day and every night. This is why flight is so much cooler than any other transportation.
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Something I have trouble explaining about space travel. Like, if you've read my book, you know I think human space faring is probably not economically valuable. It's not a good use of science dollars compared to other areas. I'm even skeptical of the case for inspiration (it doesn't seem to causally related to more aerospace degrees).
But it's also just really cool. Why don't I feel this way about Antarctica or Seabed exploration?
I suspect they’re closely related. The simple fact that sending someone into space and bringing them back alive (let alone keeping them alive and healthy for more than a short period) is so monumentally difficult is the root cause of both the coolness and the lack of viable economics.
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Something I have trouble explaining about space travel. Like, if you've read my book, you know I think human space faring is probably not economically valuable. It's not a good use of science dollars compared to other areas. I'm even skeptical of the case for inspiration (it doesn't seem to causally related to more aerospace degrees).
But it's also just really cool. Why don't I feel this way about Antarctica or Seabed exploration?
@ZachWeinersmith Antarctica is the number one place to find meteorites (you find a rock on the ice sheet, where else can it come from but space?). It is a source of knowledge about space that is substantially cheaper than going out there!
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Something I have trouble explaining about space travel. Like, if you've read my book, you know I think human space faring is probably not economically valuable. It's not a good use of science dollars compared to other areas. I'm even skeptical of the case for inspiration (it doesn't seem to causally related to more aerospace degrees).
But it's also just really cool. Why don't I feel this way about Antarctica or Seabed exploration?
@ZachWeinersmith Antarctica is cool enough.
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@ZachWeinersmith Antarctica is cool enough.
@dtl @ZachWeinersmith It’s the rarity value though: I’ve been to Antarctica four times, including spending the winter there. That makes me unusual, but not astronaut-level unusual. Go to the right university department and you’ll meet other people like me, but astronauts? Yeah, rarer than hen’s teeth.
(Unsurprisingly many Antarctic people, myself included, applied for the job Tim Peake eventually got. Some even got interviewed. But ultimately at the time they wanted a test pilot.)
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Something I have trouble explaining about space travel. Like, if you've read my book, you know I think human space faring is probably not economically valuable. It's not a good use of science dollars compared to other areas. I'm even skeptical of the case for inspiration (it doesn't seem to causally related to more aerospace degrees).
But it's also just really cool. Why don't I feel this way about Antarctica or Seabed exploration?
@ZachWeinersmith
Familiarity. If you look at Victorian materials, fiction & non-fiction, they did have that kind of attitude to exploring the unknown parts of the world. Now that they are explored, space is the new frontier.(Also BTW economic value is not a great metric for "what humans should be doing", as the environment can currently testify)
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Something I have trouble explaining about space travel. Like, if you've read my book, you know I think human space faring is probably not economically valuable. It's not a good use of science dollars compared to other areas. I'm even skeptical of the case for inspiration (it doesn't seem to causally related to more aerospace degrees).
But it's also just really cool. Why don't I feel this way about Antarctica or Seabed exploration?
@ZachWeinersmith Antarctic exploration *was* sexy 100-150 years ago, though! We kind of remember Captain Scott's ill-fated South polar expedition, but less so the ferocious international rivalry that drove it (or Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen who got there first and survived).
In contrast, now we have Antarctic bases, familiarity breeds … boredom?
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Something I have trouble explaining about space travel. Like, if you've read my book, you know I think human space faring is probably not economically valuable. It's not a good use of science dollars compared to other areas. I'm even skeptical of the case for inspiration (it doesn't seem to causally related to more aerospace degrees).
But it's also just really cool. Why don't I feel this way about Antarctica or Seabed exploration?
@ZachWeinersmith
Space travel certainly has those downsides.But consider: do we want humans to be permanently confined to Earth?
Some would say 'yes', but anyone who says 'no' should consider that today impacts tomorrow.
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@ZachWeinersmith Antarctica is the number one place to find meteorites (you find a rock on the ice sheet, where else can it come from but space?). It is a source of knowledge about space that is substantially cheaper than going out there!
@DrEvanGowan @ZachWeinersmith going to Antarctica isn't cheap either...
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@ZachWeinersmith Antarctic exploration *was* sexy 100-150 years ago, though! We kind of remember Captain Scott's ill-fated South polar expedition, but less so the ferocious international rivalry that drove it (or Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen who got there first and survived).
In contrast, now we have Antarctic bases, familiarity breeds … boredom?
@cstross @ZachWeinersmith
Amundsen–Scott Was the original “Heated Rivalry” on ice. -
@ZachWeinersmith Antarctic exploration *was* sexy 100-150 years ago, though! We kind of remember Captain Scott's ill-fated South polar expedition, but less so the ferocious international rivalry that drove it (or Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen who got there first and survived).
In contrast, now we have Antarctic bases, familiarity breeds … boredom?
@cstross @ZachWeinersmith Off topic, but a podcast on the Scott expedition was how I found out just how bad scurvy was and what *specifically* it did. I still have occasional trauma flashbacks to “and then the scar from when he was sixteen opened up”….
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Something I have trouble explaining about space travel. Like, if you've read my book, you know I think human space faring is probably not economically valuable. It's not a good use of science dollars compared to other areas. I'm even skeptical of the case for inspiration (it doesn't seem to causally related to more aerospace degrees).
But it's also just really cool. Why don't I feel this way about Antarctica or Seabed exploration?
@ZachWeinersmith I think the attraction is basically big freaking rockets. All that fire and drama that submersibles or snowmobiles lack. More action movie, less Attenborough documentary.
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@DrEvanGowan @ZachWeinersmith going to Antarctica isn't cheap either...
@bartjan @DrEvanGowan @ZachWeinersmith I have to money to go to Antarctica. From the 60 million it cost to go to space, I'm short a "little" over 59 million.
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@ZachWeinersmith Antarctic exploration *was* sexy 100-150 years ago, though! We kind of remember Captain Scott's ill-fated South polar expedition, but less so the ferocious international rivalry that drove it (or Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen who got there first and survived).
In contrast, now we have Antarctic bases, familiarity breeds … boredom?
@cstross @ZachWeinersmith Exactly. Similar for undersea exploration in the 1940s to 1960s (roughly). What makes space special is its enduring and outsize role in popular culture. "Antarctic opera" or "Undersea opera" don't have the same draw as their space equivalent.
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@ZachWeinersmith Antarctic exploration *was* sexy 100-150 years ago, though! We kind of remember Captain Scott's ill-fated South polar expedition, but less so the ferocious international rivalry that drove it (or Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen who got there first and survived).
In contrast, now we have Antarctic bases, familiarity breeds … boredom?
@cstross @ZachWeinersmith I feel compelled to mention the number of 1900s and 1910s science fiction boys novels about arctic or antarctic exploration.
I just finished "through the air to the north pole" a not especially noteworthy entrant in the genre.
This kind of thing was absolutely the stuff of dreams and ambition prior to the age of commercial flight.
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@ZachWeinersmith Antarctic exploration *was* sexy 100-150 years ago, though! We kind of remember Captain Scott's ill-fated South polar expedition, but less so the ferocious international rivalry that drove it (or Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen who got there first and survived).
In contrast, now we have Antarctic bases, familiarity breeds … boredom?
@cstross @ZachWeinersmith Perhaps unsurprisingly, here in Denmark we *do* remember Roald Amundsen. There are streets named after him and the like.
(But we have little if any cultural memory of Scott.)
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@cstross @ZachWeinersmith Perhaps unsurprisingly, here in Denmark we *do* remember Roald Amundsen. There are streets named after him and the like.
(But we have little if any cultural memory of Scott.)
@datarama @cstross @ZachWeinersmith
TBF, Scott didn't make it.
