jwzApr 6

I miss the olden days when I could manage to give even one fractional shit about human spaceflight.

When every news article didn't require navigating whether it was propaganda, or a grift, or both (because it's *never* science).

When I thought that humanity surviving beyond Earth was even *remotely* possible.

This timeline sucks.

https://jwz.org/b/yk51

Per LiedmanApr 7
Show threadjwz

Once there is:

• A luxury hotel atop Everest, or
• A settlement 500m below the surface of any ocean; or
• Any city getting 30% of its veggies/grains from subway hydroponics; or
• Vegas making all of its own water;

...then I will concede that we have solved the first 1% of the problems needed to be a spacefaring species.

Absent any of that, putting monkeys in a can is just a premature stunt.

This timeline sucks.

Apr 6 at 9:02pmWeb
Show threadgullevek ☢️ 🇯🇵Apr 6
@jwz I’d prefer if they put more monkeys into tin cans than monkeys carpet bombing countries
Show threadjwzApr 6
@gullevek Great news, you don't get to pick
Show threadgullevek ☢️ 🇯🇵Apr 6
@jwz Woohoo. Sounds like a bombastic party
Show threadmbpazApr 6

@jwz tbh, a luxury hotel atop mount Everest would be possible if not for politics. It's the sort of thing that is useless but lots of money can get built, and some insanely rich people would be willing to pay for.

On the other hand, a small functional village up there would be an immense challenge.

Show threadjwzApr 6

@mbpaz Everest is a paradise! An abundant embarrassment of oxygen, water ice and sunlight. Supply lines that are, relatively speaking, a rounding error. And yet.. no hotel.

And no native microbial life. After a billion years, the most rapacious, tenacious replicator in the known universe -- life -- has looked at Everest and said, "Nah, I'm good."

Life did not, "uh, find a way."

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2025/03/but-he-does-good-work/#comment-257392

But He Does Good Work

I was about to post this as a reply to someone on my "Make Nazis Sweat Again" post, which has derailed into car-brained windshield-view defenses of Musk, but it got long, sooooo.... The world is full of people who, in this, the Year of Our Basilisk, 2025, are willing to loudly admit, "Yeah, I knew Musk was -- [pick one or all] -- 1) a homophobe, 2) a racist, 3) a con man, 4) a eugenicist, 5) ...

Show threadSouvlaki Space StationApr 7
@jwz @mbpaz One might point out here that a luxury hotel atop Everest would be a sign that we're headed away from solving the world's problems, considering it's a sacred mountain to the people of the region.
Show threadWestern InfidelsApr 7

@jwz I've been framing this for myself as "a self-sufficient city in Antarctica," but I like the familiarity of the Vegas notion.

Nerds used to crow about the technologies that trickled down from Apollo. Well, imagine the agricultural, ecological, and nutritional technologies that could trickle down from a serious life-support R&D program.

There's no particular reason such programs couldn't be running, all over the world, full-tilt, right now. But instead we're building bigger and bigger rockets.

Show threaddr2chaseApr 7
@WesternInfidels @jwz or Phoenix, etc. Shouldn't need to import water, if we think we can live on Mars, we should use that same technology here to solve water problems in the southwest. Agriculture? Just do what we plan to do on Mars, it should be cheap and easy, right?
Show threadmathewApr 7

@WesternInfidels @jwz In “A City on Mars” @ZachWeinersmith suggests a self-sufficient settlement in Antarctica as a good first step towards demonstrating that we might be able to settle Mars.

The book in general is excellent, it demolishes any naive idea that we might colonize Mars within our lifetimes.

Show threadElectropictApr 7

@jwz

...the bulk of the remaining problems being in the fleshy component, and the most intractable of those being the psychology...

(Has it occurred to you that the experience of running a club may give you special insight into the problems and requirements for long-term deep space isolation of a small community of energetic humans?)

Show threadjwzApr 7
@electropict I just hope to best Quark's 830+ year run. https://jwz.org/b/yk2_
Future of the Ferry Building

I'm pretty sure that the Vaillancourt Fountain is still there in the year 3195. It's hard to tell because some palm trees are blocking it, but that looks like the East wall to me. It's directly below the Tulip statue. Proving that we are in the Terran Empire timeline, that means it will have lasted 1,169 years longer than it will in our universe. Not only is the Hyatt still there, but the ...

Show threadMidgePhotoApr 7
@jwz What is made in Vegas should stay in Vegas seems reasonable.
Show threadjwzApr 7
@Photo55 Especially if it's pee.
Show threadIsaac Ji KuoApr 7

@jwz I could nitpick about whether the next step should be a spin gravity station in LEO, because of the sheer amount of time required to do proper long term low gee exposure studies, but ...

I'll cut to the chase. Personally, my own "solution" to how we become a "spacefaring" civilization is to move my own personal goalposts on what "spacefaring" really means. I don't demand self sufficiency. I don't demand a manned presence either. If our legacy is robotic probes wandering the galaxy ...

Show threadIsaac Ji KuoApr 7

@jwz ... I'm okay with that. I find it something compelling and poignant.

Maybe that's just me, though.

Show threadGurre VildskäggApr 7
@jwz
I feel like point 3 will happen first. point 4, hopefully (and not only because Vegas shrinks), point 2? a long time away.
point 1: hopefully never.