No Right Answer: Is Going to Space Worth It?

[Cerebrawl]

Aside from mars one...

We already know how to solve the oxygen issue on the moon, it can be extracted from the moondust, there's a functional machine built that can make enough oxygen for a few people for a day with just a small amount of moon dust(like 10-20kg oxygen out of every 100kg moon dust). You could basically send an astronaut out with a shovel and they could collect enough for 10 people to breath for a week. Automate it and you could do much better.

 

[Firefilm]

Wow. Neither of you could do even a little research about this beyond watching scifi movies?

Kyle has done extensive research into the Privatization of space travel. Chris ate a sandwich. Such was the deabate, the archetype of well-researched pundit vs loud noises pundit.

 

[Tawnis]

Aside from mars one...

We already know how to solve the oxygen issue on the moon, it can be extracted from the moondust, there's a functional machine built that can make enough oxygen for a few people for a day with just a small amount of moon dust(like 10-20kg oxygen out of every 100kg moon dust). You could basically send an astronaut out with a shovel and they could collect enough for 10 people to breath for a week. Automate it and you could do much better.

That's really neat, I didn't know that one.

There is a ton of research that is going on into space travel, it's just not as prominent as it used to be.

 

[Firefilm]

this was the worst no right answer episode i've ever seen. i've never seen less informed arguments than this. for a moment i thought i was watching fox news. it was just cringinly bad to watch. my science heart still aches...

i also agree that this episode has the wrong name. they're not debating if it's worth it but if it's feasable...

If it makes you feel better, Chris was going for the "Fox News silly". Kyle has actually written a novel on the privatization of space exploration and in doing so has an extensive library of knowlege on it.

Also, we play for the giggles.

 

[Firefilm]

Is it just me, or was this the angriest debate on No Right Answer? Admittedly, it is a more important debate than Ninja Turtles V. Power Rangers.

Kyle was passionate due to this being his thing. He wrote a novel on it!

 

[Firefilm]

You just made a blood enemy of Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

But I'm his Twitter follower!

 

[Firefilm]

I'm REALLY trying to understand why I am such a huge fan of this show. I feel like I shouldnt be, or there is not a big enough reason to be such a fan, but I think you guys are simply that likable. I just love watching you guys banter, your mood is extremely contagious.

We love you too. smooch

 

[ecoho]

Mars doesn't have a magnetic field.

We'll never create a sustainable anything out of that place.

Like it or not, we're not a self sustaining species - We exist because the planet we inhabit allows us to exist. The reason we are what we are is because the Earth shaped us over millions of years. And if the Earth goes, we'll likely go with it.

Not that it isn't nice to dream.

actually mars does, its just about as strong as most refrigerator magnets. I also believe your wrong about us not being a self sustaining species as we are they very definition of one, the earth didn't shape us we shaped it to suit us. I mean think about how many things on our planet can kill us? a lot and that's not even counting weather.

OT: we can and will colonize space it just wont be for a long time, not a thousand years but at least several hundred.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Mars doesn't have a magnetic field.

We'll never create a sustainable anything out of that place.

Like it or not, we're not a self sustaining species - We exist because the planet we inhabit allows us to exist. The reason we are what we are is because the Earth shaped us over millions of years. And if the Earth goes, we'll likely go with it.

Not that it isn't nice to dream.

actually mars does, its just about as strong as most refrigerator magnets. I also believe your wrong about us not being a self sustaining species as we are they very definition of one, the earth didn't shape us we shaped it to suit us. I mean think about how many things on our planet can kill us? a lot and that's not even counting weather.

It has a few very small pockets which are remnants of the field it once had. That's nothing worth mentioning.

We're more self sustaining than any other animal on this planet - That doesn't mean the Earth couldn't easily wipe us out if certain systems dropped out. Without a magnetic field we'd be fucked. The gravity of this planet gives us the bodies we have. If somehow we could put a colony on Mars (and not have them subjected to space radiation), they'd all too quickly turn into pathetic masses of deseased tissue. Our bodies can only function when subjected to this gravity - anything more or less and it'll start to collapse.

Even if by some miracle we'd find a planet that is equally sized and suitable for sustaining life, we'd still be foreign bodies in that environment. Just introducing animals to different continents on this planet can have extreme consequences.

 

[Darth_Payn]

I laughed at the screenshot of Total Recall, and the whole argument about whether or not colonizing space is worth it. Which other movies had screenshots made from them to take pot shots at them?

 

[Firefilm]

I laughed at the screenshot of Total Recall, and the whole argument about whether or not colonizing space is worth it. Which other movies had screenshots made from them to take pot shots at them?

I used one from "Mission to Mars"

 

[The_Darkness]

Three letters:

G. P. S.

We have SatNavs. Sat-Phones. Satellite-Internet. Oh, sure, we also have Spy-Sats allowing the USA to read number plates in London, but the main point is that satellites have completely changed modern communication. And they are just a by-product of getting into space. And I'm pretty sure the Satellite network, by itself has paid back the investment of getting into space.

So, yes, it is worth it. Just to find out what we can do once we're up there.

(And because I'd like to live in the future please...)

 

[DRTJR]

Earth is such a rich planet, just fit for sustaining higher life forms such as ours. Yet mankind's primitive, egocentric and greedy economical organization has pillaged and sullied Earth's very rare and delicate life support equilibrium. With no concern for other species', nor our own, survival. Do we really want to spread out this venomous, cannibalistic society through the universe? Is it not a development plan always meant to fail? To cause disparity, injustice and poverty? To end in territorial war?

The exploration of space needs a more socially evolved mankind to have any kind of success.

Our greed as you put it is our great engine of greatness. The drive to do and see more than anybody else is a central tenant of human existence. We should leave this God forsaken rock to do what we as a species where meant to, to conquer the galaxy.

 

[BoogieManFL]

The level of ignorance on the subject (on one side more than the other) was just downright painful to watch. It's probably mindsets like that which stand in the way of solid progress.

You can't really effectively debate something you have virtually no knowledge of.

 

[ecoho]

Mars doesn't have a magnetic field.

We'll never create a sustainable anything out of that place.

Like it or not, we're not a self sustaining species - We exist because the planet we inhabit allows us to exist. The reason we are what we are is because the Earth shaped us over millions of years. And if the Earth goes, we'll likely go with it.

Not that it isn't nice to dream.

actually mars does, its just about as strong as most refrigerator magnets. I also believe your wrong about us not being a self sustaining species as we are they very definition of one, the earth didn't shape us we shaped it to suit us. I mean think about how many things on our planet can kill us? a lot and that's not even counting weather.

It has a few very small pockets which are remnants of the field it once had. That's nothing worth mentioning.

We're more self sustaining than any other animal on this planet - That doesn't mean the Earth couldn't easily wipe us out if certain systems dropped out. Without a magnetic field we'd be fucked. The gravity of this planet gives us the bodies we have. If somehow we could put a colony on Mars (and not have them subjected to space radiation), they'd all too quickly turn into pathetic masses of deseased tissue. Our bodies can only function when subjected to this gravity - anything more or less and it'll start to collapse.

Even if by some miracle we'd find a planet that is equally sized and suitable for sustaining life, we'd still be foreign bodies in that environment. Just introducing animals to different continents on this planet can have extreme consequences.

I don't even know were to start with were your wrong. we can live in lower gravity we just have to work harder in it to keep ourselves healthy. Yes if we lost the magnetic field around us without warning wed all die, but we have structures and suits that block the radiation in space (suits less so). Humans as a species are the very definition of adaptability that is how we function, we don't rely on our environment we make our environment.

I guess what im trying to get across to you is that humans as a species are not that easy to kill off, even the earth which has tried many time to kill us off cant do it as well as you think.

 

[shirkbot]

-snip-

Our greed as you put it is our great engine of greatness. The drive to do and see more than anybody else is a central tenant of human existence. We should leave this God forsaken rock to do what we as a species where meant to, to conquer the galaxy.

All I can hear when I read that is "Greed is good" and "Manifest Destiny". We weren't meant for anything, least of all living on not-Earth, as evidenced by the lethality of the endeavor. We are unique, not great, not destined, but the end result of a very, very long natural process. The only "central tenant of human existence" is the drive to reproduce and possess more stuff than anybody else. What can be seen or done with it is secondary.

OT: I've already said this today, but I'll rehash: I like robotic space flight because it gives us a wonderful reason to develop advanced robotics, and prevents the risking of human lives while we develop more advanced rockets and research planets. I like Earth, but I'm not going to tell other people not to go out into space if that's really their dream, I'm just not interested in dedicating resources to it. I'd personally rather my money go to bio-tech, renewable energy and other such terrestrial affairs. Who knows, maybe we'll even discover something that makes space travel and colonization more viable. I'm pretty sure radiation-scrubbing bacteria could have some interesting applications for space travel.

 

[coheedswicked]

Ya.. sorry Chris... Kyle totally won

 

[EvilRoy]

snip

I don't even know were to start with were your wrong. we can live in lower gravity we just have to work harder in it to keep ourselves healthy.

Unfortunately, no amount of extra exercise can help deal with a number of the health issues caused by low gravity environments.

The big one is bone loss, where astronauts slowly lose bone density over a long period in space. Presumably living on Mars would decrease the rate of bone density loss when compared to open space, but since Mars only has 40% of Earths gravity, the density loss would likely only stop once equilibrium is reached. Unfortunately this loss of bone density is apparently irreversible, and we aren't sure what mechanism is causing it.

Fluid redistribution, poor circulation and a weakened immune system compound the bone density loss problem further as we now have a person highly susceptible to injury, simultaneously lacking the normal circulation and immunities that would speed the healing process.

 

[Roganzar]

I'm siding with Kyle on this.
TO SPACE!!!

 

[AstaresPanda]

When we fuck up hard enough and die off.The Earth will be fine, better without us assholes fucking shit up. BUT the human race is pretty badass when it fucking wants to be, but we have been goose stepped by greed and selfishness. The amount we spend of killing each other is far far FAR more then what we spend bettering ourselves as a race. We still hold onto petty shit like skin colour and what "god" one worship's, when its FACT we all are the dam same, we all came from the same chunk of land. Its not that there is not enough food in the world its that there is not enough MONEY for poor places to PAY.

"We create, we fashion, we mold, we make. That is the essence of our race"
Look at the past we have done what was once thought impossible, a space station ffs tell that to somone 50 years ago they would have thought you mad.

It will happen but not until shit changes and we grow up and stop bickering over greedy bullshit.