jwz2d ago

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

Show threadjwz2d ago

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.

Show threadWestern Infidels2d ago

@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 threaddr2chase
@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?
Apr 7 at 8:55amWeb
Show threadWellsiteGeo2d ago
@dr2chase @WesternInfidels @jwz
I have never heard of *any* coherent plan for Martian agriculture. All the planning I've heard is for the insanity of humans trying to live there long term. Just building an atmosphere is a 600yr (Martian) project, *if* you can find the materials.