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.
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.
@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 ...
@jwz ... I'm okay with that. I find it something compelling and poignant.
Maybe that's just me, though.
@WellsiteGeo @jwz Maybe that's the entire point to you, but lower gravity is practically necessary for human habitation of low gee environments such as the Moon or Mars.
And reduced spin gravity requirements is an advantage for orbital habitats also.
A spin gravity station that only needs to provide 1/6 gee and 1/3 gee on its ends would be much smaller and less expensive than one which is able to provide 1 gee, and 1 gee does NOT provide for useful scientific experiments.
jwz
Isaac Ji Kuo
WellsiteGeo