I've been searching for quality criticism of the project of space settlement for some time, and found mostly uninformed snark. Could this book be different?
Thanks for the warning. I'd developed some wariness about the book from some of the author's comments. Looks like I'll have to look elsewhere for the serious book on settling space I want.
My thoughts after watching the authors discuss some of their arguments on Fraser Cain's show: a list of challenges to be overcome isn’t an argument for not taking them on.
Honestly I was disappointed by the book - I'm not by any means a booster of space exploration, but in many cases proposals seemed to be dismissed with a singke sentence, rather than a sharp summary of the obstacles facing them. There's a big difference between popular science and flippant.
Thanks for taking the time to read and review this. A reader shared this book a few months ago on my forum, and I glanced at the Amazon and sort of rolled my eyes, but didn't look deeper. From the rather disingenuous way they appear to be arguing so far, it seems I was right to do so.
"This is not necessarily a left wing thing - I know liberals, socialists and even communists who are enthusiastic about space settlement - but it is something peculiar to a part of the western left that, in my view, sees confinement of humans on Earth in perpetuity as a way to force zero-sum competition and thus reach their goal of perfect equality."
This nails it. I've encountered this sentiment from the social justicey types many times in the past. "We have too many problems down here, space is a distraction", or "We can go to space when we've achieved social justice".
Frankly, I suspect this sentiment is shared by a great many at the very top of our society. Manned space exploration stalled out after Apollo, largely due to a combination of resource starvation, and bureaucratization and the resulting risk aversion. This might just be a result of the sort of soulless managerialists and dematerialized financiers that have seized control of society.
Applying a bit more paranoia, however, it seems there's a concerted push to build out an airtight, unchallengeable global control system using surveillance, censorship, AI, CBDCs, etc. The intent of such a system would be to ensure perpetual rule for those on top - even if the society decays, with no inhabited external frontiers, no barbarian challengers arise. Obviously, such a program would be undermined by settling the high frontier, which would inevitably lead to the formation of new nations outside the control architecture. Assuming the elite are smart enough to work this out for themselves, this may be the real reason space exploration has been deprioritized, and space colonization and industrialization more or less completely ruled in.
In such a cultural context - where political decisions have led to 50 years of stagnation - it isn't surprising that you start to see expressions of pessimism ("Space is too hard, we'll never be able to do it") and even disbelief ("Space is too hard, Apollo was a hoax").
Fair enough, though the culture difference is rather small, IMO.
Let's try a different approach. What is a reasonable bandwidth for laser comms between Earth and Mars? Note that, say, 2m telescopes are cheap and light. Both ends may need to be in high orbit to reduce the time the planets get in the way. Use radio for the short hops at each end. There will also be downtime when the Sun gets in the way, but this can be alleviated at greater expense.
I will see whether I can answer the first question.
Andrew Tanenbaum said in 1981: "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway".
I do not have a Netflix subscription. I do have a significant collection of DVDs and music CDs.
I see absolutely no reason why some petabytes of entertainment could not be shipped from Earth on each trip. Presumably some terabytes would take the return leg.
Storage costs, in terms of money, mass and volume are negligible even with today's technology. 1 TiB microSD cards are widely available commercial products. Each drive is 15x11x1mm and has a mass of 250mg. 1 EiB fits in 0.17 m^3 and masses 262 kg. Packaging may take that up to a cubic metre and a tonne. Those numbers should fall substantially in the next decade or so.
I wonder if those who make that argument are members of the Instant Gratification Generation?
Throwing a chemical plant and a metal smelting machinery to outer space is just a small part of the problem. You´ll need volumes of chemical source material and energy to produce anything of importance there.
If done right and somewhat cost effective, it would bring lots of benefits down to earth in the form of less resource usage (water comes to mind!), I guess that it may attract lots of venture capital to those endeavors, but I doubt it would be economically viable.
On the energy question, solar won´t cut it. It is too energy intense to produce an efficient panel, and the fact that being farther from the Sun, means less available energy to harvest. Nuclear energy is the only viable option, be it for electricity or thermal source.
But scaling an outer space settlement may become a inter-generational endeavour and creating a functional society, albeit small, means a staggering amount of disposable energy to make it work.
Thanks for the warning. I'd developed some wariness about the book from some of the author's comments. Looks like I'll have to look elsewhere for the serious book on settling space I want.
My thoughts after watching the authors discuss some of their arguments on Fraser Cain's show: a list of challenges to be overcome isn’t an argument for not taking them on.
Honestly I was disappointed by the book - I'm not by any means a booster of space exploration, but in many cases proposals seemed to be dismissed with a singke sentence, rather than a sharp summary of the obstacles facing them. There's a big difference between popular science and flippant.
Thanks for taking the time to read and review this. A reader shared this book a few months ago on my forum, and I glanced at the Amazon and sort of rolled my eyes, but didn't look deeper. From the rather disingenuous way they appear to be arguing so far, it seems I was right to do so.
"This is not necessarily a left wing thing - I know liberals, socialists and even communists who are enthusiastic about space settlement - but it is something peculiar to a part of the western left that, in my view, sees confinement of humans on Earth in perpetuity as a way to force zero-sum competition and thus reach their goal of perfect equality."
This nails it. I've encountered this sentiment from the social justicey types many times in the past. "We have too many problems down here, space is a distraction", or "We can go to space when we've achieved social justice".
Frankly, I suspect this sentiment is shared by a great many at the very top of our society. Manned space exploration stalled out after Apollo, largely due to a combination of resource starvation, and bureaucratization and the resulting risk aversion. This might just be a result of the sort of soulless managerialists and dematerialized financiers that have seized control of society.
Applying a bit more paranoia, however, it seems there's a concerted push to build out an airtight, unchallengeable global control system using surveillance, censorship, AI, CBDCs, etc. The intent of such a system would be to ensure perpetual rule for those on top - even if the society decays, with no inhabited external frontiers, no barbarian challengers arise. Obviously, such a program would be undermined by settling the high frontier, which would inevitably lead to the formation of new nations outside the control architecture. Assuming the elite are smart enough to work this out for themselves, this may be the real reason space exploration has been deprioritized, and space colonization and industrialization more or less completely ruled in.
In such a cultural context - where political decisions have led to 50 years of stagnation - it isn't surprising that you start to see expressions of pessimism ("Space is too hard, we'll never be able to do it") and even disbelief ("Space is too hard, Apollo was a hoax").
For Mars<->Earth communication, consider lasers. See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_communication_in_space .
Fair enough, though the culture difference is rather small, IMO.
Let's try a different approach. What is a reasonable bandwidth for laser comms between Earth and Mars? Note that, say, 2m telescopes are cheap and light. Both ends may need to be in high orbit to reduce the time the planets get in the way. Use radio for the short hops at each end. There will also be downtime when the Sun gets in the way, but this can be alleviated at greater expense.
I will see whether I can answer the first question.
A brief note about the "Netflix problem" on Mars.
Andrew Tanenbaum said in 1981: "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway".
I do not have a Netflix subscription. I do have a significant collection of DVDs and music CDs.
I see absolutely no reason why some petabytes of entertainment could not be shipped from Earth on each trip. Presumably some terabytes would take the return leg.
Storage costs, in terms of money, mass and volume are negligible even with today's technology. 1 TiB microSD cards are widely available commercial products. Each drive is 15x11x1mm and has a mass of 250mg. 1 EiB fits in 0.17 m^3 and masses 262 kg. Packaging may take that up to a cubic metre and a tonne. Those numbers should fall substantially in the next decade or so.
I wonder if those who make that argument are members of the Instant Gratification Generation?
Throwing a chemical plant and a metal smelting machinery to outer space is just a small part of the problem. You´ll need volumes of chemical source material and energy to produce anything of importance there.
If done right and somewhat cost effective, it would bring lots of benefits down to earth in the form of less resource usage (water comes to mind!), I guess that it may attract lots of venture capital to those endeavors, but I doubt it would be economically viable.
On the energy question, solar won´t cut it. It is too energy intense to produce an efficient panel, and the fact that being farther from the Sun, means less available energy to harvest. Nuclear energy is the only viable option, be it for electricity or thermal source.
But scaling an outer space settlement may become a inter-generational endeavour and creating a functional society, albeit small, means a staggering amount of disposable energy to make it work.