What is the deal with all the astronaut stuff we are getting?

[Rakaydos]

People in Bangladesh and on the Maldives are also entitled to a house and food. Our entertainment can't continue to come at the cost of their bare necessities.

{scrubbed}

After a certian point, (with "billionare" being considered a placeholder for that point, even if exact values may vary) "Trickle down" runs into problems where you're making so much money, you buy everything you could want, and still be making money with the remaining money. {scrubbed}.

One orbital tourisim flight pays the salaries of countless middle class engineers, out of the pocket of someone who literally has more money than they know what to do with. {scrubbed}

[Anonymouswizard]

Uh, we may want to tone it down.

Whatever the pros or cons of space tourism, the desire for it might lead to more efficient planetbound travel.

[Tyndmyr]

People in Bangladesh and on the Maldives are also entitled to a house and food. Our entertainment can't continue to come at the cost of their bare necessities.

Poverty is always a problem, and while it's a wonderful thing to work on, the idea that we shouldn't work on other things until then is a curious one. Science, learning and even entertainment can help people, even in an imperfect world with poverty. Rich and poor alike enjoy and benefit from things like knowledge and entertainment, and sometimes things learned in one area are applicable to another.

Space research has a whole list of things that have benefited folks at large.

Addtionally, people are inspired to do different things. Someone who is good at research or making entertainment maybe isn't good at building houses or farming food. We have a richer and better world when people pursue the things they enjoy. If helping the poor is your passion, go for it! But it's not reasonable to expect everyone to have the same skills or interests.

[Ramza00]

Poverty is always a problem, and while it's a wonderful thing to work on, the idea that we shouldn't work on other things until then is a curious one. Science, learning and even entertainment can help people, even in an imperfect world with poverty. Rich and poor alike enjoy and benefit from things like knowledge and entertainment, and sometimes things learned in one area are applicable to another.

Poverty is not an inherent problem of the human condition it is a technology and a distribution / logistical problem.

And the technology to solve growing enough food to feed everyone has been solved for a 100 years now, and especially been solved since the dwarf rice and dwarf wheat creation of the Green Revolution Dwarf Varieties of Wheat and Rice (more food per plant, less "useless" stalk for the plant, there were also other innovations such as some plants getting two harvest seasons per year, more resistant to pests and insects, etc) literally Norman Borlaug saved over a billion people with his work from the 1940s to 1960s.

Likewise we have the tech to do the distribution and the logistics, it is now just a problem of money and creating the infrastructure (aka taxes and government stuff.) There is no reason whatsoever to not be able to feed all 7.6 billion people, providing housing etc. It is a question of will and are we going to utilize the technology and logistics we are capable of and make that reality "emerge" from all our cool stuff? Or do we care more about other things?

-----

Fix those problems first, Space Tourism is a distraction. I am willing to have my mind change on this. Feed everyone and solve the problems of "deprivation" first (deprivation is not the same as scarcity) and then I will be more open to spending resources to make a person have an awesome 72 hour tourist trap in space.

[Rakaydos]

Feed everyone and solve the problems of "deprivation" first (deprivation is not the same as scarcity) and then I will be more open to spending resources to make a person have an awesome 72 hour tourist trap in space.

False premise. No tax dollars are going toward a tourist trap in space. All space tourisim groups are privately funded, believing they can milk rich people for all the costs and more to send those rich people to space. These private groups have no obligation to solve global hunger. That the goverment's job.

[Ramza00]

False premise. No tax dollars are going toward a tourist trap in space. All space tourisim groups are privately funded, believing they can milk rich people for all the costs and more to send those rich people to space. These private groups have no obligation to solve global hunger. That the goverment's job.

If the rich has no other place to put their money into besides Space Tourism then taxes are way too low on the billionaire rich.

It is our obligation as a people to care more about the millions of people starving than Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos to have a 72 hour joy ride in space that will cost 10 million dollars (500k if the goal is to simulate weightlessness for a few hours.)

How many people died in the US because they can not afford insulin and thus they are rationing it?

[Rakaydos]

If the rich has no other place to put their money into besides Space Tourism then taxes are way too low on the billionaire rich.

It is our obligation as a people to care more about the millions of people starving than Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos to have a 72 hour joy ride in space that will cost 10 million dollars (500k if the goal is to simulate weightlessness for a few hours.)

How many people died in the US because they can not afford insulin and thus they are rationing it?

The last time I agreed with that, the moderator came by and removed it.

[Tyndmyr]

Poverty is not an inherent problem of the human condition it is a technology and a distribution / logistical problem.

And both space research and entertainment have pushed technology forward. Sure, not every advance will directly help with poverty, but look at how vital, say, GPS is to logistics and distribution. Plus, being poor would suck a lot more without entertainment. Sometimes people enjoy getting their minds off the real world for a bit. Entertainment isn't bad.

I mean, you're literally on a forum based a wee bit around D&D, and where we're talking about media. Pretty much everyone here is getting at least some value from entertainment.

And the technology to solve growing enough food to feed everyone has been solved for a 100 years now, and especially been solved since the dwarf rice and dwarf wheat creation of the Green Revolution Dwarf Varieties of Wheat and Rice (more food per plant, less "useless" stalk for the plant, there were also other innovations such as some plants getting two harvest seasons per year, more resistant to pests and insects, etc) literally Norman Borlaug saved over a billion people with his work from the 1940s to 1960s.

That tech is wonderful, but rice and wheat alone, while they help, don't even entirely solve hunger(because humans are best served by a more diverse diet), let alone the many other problems of poverty.

It's fine to celebrate the progress that we've made, but it seems quite obvious that we cannot yet declare that we're done with the technology part.

Likewise we have the tech to do the distribution and the logistics, it is now just a problem of money and creating the infrastructure (aka taxes and government stuff.) There is no reason whatsoever to not be able to feed all 7.6 billion people, providing housing etc. It is a question of will and are we going to utilize the technology and logistics we are capable of and make that reality "emerge" from all our cool stuff? Or do we care more about other things?

Pursue that if you wish. However, saying "its just money" or what not is sort of trivializing it. Money is ultimately just a proxy for goods and labor. Im going to avoid the government portion, because that feels like it's going towards politics, and simply talk about morality/practicality.

At the end of the day, you want people to grow food, build houses, or transport goods instead of working on entertainment.

People are not interchangeable cogs, though. The guy who makes great movies is probably not a skilled carpenter or farmer. Even if it's something he can do, it may be something that he doesn't find inspiring. I grew up on a farm, but the idea of living on one now seems soul crushing.

Burning down one industry won't necessarily improve another one.

[Ramza00]

I repeat for you do not follow me saying this several times in earlier posts. Space is good, machine exploration is good, human space flight and exploration is not worth the expense under current tech, bring down the cost of tech first with cheaper rockets and learning how to create self sustaining environments here on earth. And space vacations will always be a waste of resources.

Literally you can not make the case for space vacations on a money / taxes front, nor on a good and services front. Space vacations is property destruction there is circular flow and then it ends, building roads to feed people is not property destructive, likewise planting food, cell phone towers, satellite* cellphone towers, etc.

*(like I said earlier Space is Good, man in Space is Bad with current tech.)

[Tyndmyr]

Humans in space can be useful. Even if it's tourism, for PR, etc. It's inherently going to involve some technical development, and it's going to give us more data about humans in space.

[Ramza00]

Humans in space can be useful. Even if it's tourism, for PR, etc. It's inherently going to involve some technical development, and it's going to give us more data about humans in space.

This is just blind optimism, which is a form of survivor bias. When I say turn your attention to the people suffering here, that they may not thrive, that they may die (and millions will since we are talking 7.6 billion.) You respond we should be optimistic that magically more space money will always produce usable and useful new tech that will pay for itself.

That is now how reality works, there are things called “dead ends” the species may survive but individuals and the possibility of those individuals having kids die due to bad ends. The future is a garden, it must be tend to, it is not an ever advancing spiral like a rocket.

[Rakaydos]

*(like I said earlier Space is Good, man in Space is Bad with current tech.)

Yet how is tech to improve, if there isnt a goal to work toward?

And the tech IS improving. SpaceX is laboring in Boca Chica, Texas on a new rocket that carries an order of magnatude more mass than most current rockets, for an order of magnatude less money per flight. (that's a hundred times cheaper on a per ton basis, for those at home) But the reason this rocket is being designed is because SpaceX has a goal- people, on mars- and you NEED that kind of capability for that low of a price, to make their goal a reality. And not just one rocket- no, they're designing a manufactuing line that can pop out a new super-rocket every month.

They still are working out the kinks in the design. But the next 5 years are going to be amazing.

[Caledonian]

How are they intending to get people on Mars and bring them back unharmed?

[Rakaydos]

How are they intending to get people on Mars and bring them back unharmed?

By throwing mass at the problem. Call it 450 tons of cargo in cargo rockets for every 20 people who go, when they start, and that doesnt count the crewed rockets themselves having extra supplies.

Edit: none of the rovers we've sent have even been 2 tons. This is a MASSIVE operation they're working on- not just the size, but the affordability.

[Tyndmyr]

How are they intending to get people on Mars and bring them back unharmed?

Primarily by making spaceflight cheaper. Reusable boosters, more efficiency overall, cheap launchpads that float at sea. They're basically trying to cut costs so they can launch more.

It is fairly difficult to imagine how any reasonable mars colony could be made otherwise. People and all the stuff they need to live, particularly that far from resupply, is going to weigh quite a lot. It's not going to happen without making spaceflight far cheaper, and a far larger industry capable of lifting a *lot*.

If you pursue a path of doing small budget rover missions only and avoid all the above, it isn't clear how that could ever possibly lead to colonization of other worlds.

[Rakaydos]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Opnk...ature=youtu.be

[Caledonian]

You are entitled a house. Everyone starving on Earth is entitled to food.

What, do you think food grows on trees?

[Rakaydos]

https://twitter.com/thesheetztweetz/...38436801761280

No NASA money is going to cheap space tourisim, nor is it going to commercial mars programs. There is no "beg the goverment for money with unrealistic goals" angle here. The goals may still be unrealistic, but they're internal, not dreamed up by marketing. (and from my reading, they got something like 3 years leeway in that 10 year schedual)

[Yora]

What, do you think food grows on trees?

"Wait, it does! Then why is it so damn expensive!"

[Rakaydos]

"Wait, it does! Then why is it so damn expensive!"

Because people confuse laissez faire with free markets. Unregulated markets isnt capitalism, it's despotism with extra steps.

Real capitalism believes that economies are too large and complicated to be run centrally, so a government should regulate such that corporations have to fight each other for the privilege of running their corner of the economy. The early/cheaper/better bird gets the worm.

But it falls apart in sectors "not worth fighting over." What's the margin in growing rice for africans when you can be growing almonds for the chineese, after all? If underdeveloped nations want to play, they need to pull themselves by their bootstraps and make something worth trading for! Without an outside organization to mandate or subsidize it, there are other places to compete, leaving those areas still underdeveloped, unable to join modern society.

[TommyJo]

The thread began with a discussion of how to show the spaceship in the show. And it grew into political and economic discussions.
If you answer what happened at the beginning, then there is something simple.
Tom Cruise with his team, SpaceX, and NASA are planning to shoot a film on the ISS. This will be a great option to see what happens.

[Peelee]

The Mod on the Silver Mountain: Astronauts that spend more than 45 days in space are at risk of death and subsequent necromancy, which is the stuff of horror movies.