December 30, 2020

"I’ve been against the space program.... After all, we knew there were no resources we could economically bring back from [the moon], and we knew there was no atmosphere."

"Even if the whole thing were paved with diamonds, that wouldn’t help us much. So it seems like a vaudeville stunt. A lot of scientists felt it was money that might be spent in other areas of research. What it was was money spent on engineering. It might as well have been an enormous skyscraper or a huge bridge or something like that. It was publicity and show business, not science. John F. Kennedy was largely responsible for it. He was competitive. He was a tough, joyful athlete and he loved to win. And it wasn’t a bad guess, really, that this might cheer Americans up and make us more energetic. It didn’t quite work out that way, but Kennedy, in his enthusiasm for this thing, was really wishing the best for the American people. He thought it might excite us tremendously.... It seemed childish. It seemed childish even to children. My children simply weren’t interested. There was nothing they wanted on the moon. A third grader knows there’s no atmosphere there. There’s nothing to eat or drink, nobody to talk to. They already know that. There’s more that they want in the Sahara or on the polar icecap.... They picked colorless men to make the trip, because colorless men were the only sort who could stand to make it. In science-fiction stories, people on spaceships are arguing all the time. Well, people who are going to argue shouldn’t go on spaceships in the first place."

Said Kurt Vonnegut in a 1973 interview with Playboy.
Playboy: You said it was sexual. 

 

Vonnegut: It’s a tremendous space fuck, and there’s some kind of conspiracy to suppress that fact. That’s why all the stories about launches are so low-key. They never give a hint of what a visceral experience it is to watch a launch. How would the taxpayers feel if they found out they were buying orgasms for a few thousand freaks within a mile of the launch pad? And it’s an extremely satisfactory orgasm. I mean, you are shaking and you do take leave of your senses. And there’s something about the sound that comes shuddering across the water. I understand that there are certain frequencies with which you can make a person involuntarily shit with sound. So it does get you in the guts. 
Playboy: How long does that last? 
Vonnegut: Maybe a full minute. It was a night flight, so we were able to keep the thing in sight in a way that wouldn’t have been possible in the daytime. So the sound seemed longer. But who knows? It’s like describing an automobile accident; you can’t trust your memory. The light was tremendous and left afterimages in your eyes; we probably shouldn’t have looked at it. 
Playboy: How did the people around you react? 
Vonnegut: They were gaga. They were scrogging the universe. And they were sheepish and sort of smug afterward. You could see a message in their eyes, too: Nobody was to tell the outside world that NASA was running the goddamnedest massage parlor in history. 

129 comments:

Kevin said...

Kurt Vonnegut doesn’t know the first thing about Kurt Vonnegut.

tds said...

very on-brand rambling by Vonnegut

tim maguire said...

In Back to School, Rodney Dangerfield hires Kurt Vonnegut to write his book report on Kurt Vonnegut. The teacher gives it an F saying whoever he paid to write it doesn’t know the first thing about Kurt Vonnegut.

Every time I read an interview or quote from Vonnegut, I’m reminded of how sublimely (accidentally?) brilliant that line was.

tim maguire said...

Dammit, Kevin!

Big Mike said...

528 years ago there no doubt were people saying the same thing about sailing west from Spain, and later sailing from France and England.

Tina Trent said...

The one time I had to cope with Kurt Vonnegut, he was so drunk he fell off the stage while failing to give a speech for which he was paid a great deal of taxpayer money.

It was only about five feet from the stage to the grass. As far as I could tell, there was neither time nor velocity for an orgasm. But who am I to say?

It does put his criticism of the space program in perspective.

Amazing how intellectuals are the dumbest people.

Shouting Thomas said...

Turns out Vonnegut was completely wrong.

We’re about to embark on the colonization of space and mining in space.

Starlink is constructing a blanket of 42,000 low orbit satellites that will deliver high speed internet (better than what you have) to a tiny village in sub-Saharan Africa with no previous infrastructure. Every human will have access to incredibly fast internet.

Roger Sweeny said...

No, Big Mike, they weren't saying "there’s no atmosphere there. There’s nothing to eat or drink" because, of course, all those things do exist on earth. But not on the moon--or Mars for that matter.

David Begley said...

We got Tang.

The Space Program was totally worth it.

iowan2 said...

Vonnegut, could have learned from our National Intellectual.

“It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
Yogi Berra

mezzrow said...

Accurately predicting the future is a large burden for a novelist. So, it appears, is sobriety.

Hi Ho.

Greg Hlatky said...

John F. Kennedy... was competitive. He was a tough, joyful athlete...

John F. Kennedy was a sick man with Addison's disease, kept going with cortisone and injections from Dr. Feelgood.

It's like the falsehood that JFK was an arts-loving intellectual and family man, instead of a poon hound who loved country music and Broadway shows and whose books were written for him.

Danno said...

tim maguire said...Dammit, Kevin!

Brilliant minds think alike.

Ann Althouse said...

I graduated from college in 1973, and I can tell you that the ideas expressed in that ramble are basically exactly what I and everyone I knew thought about the space program at the time.

Big Mike said...

@Roger, ya got me. I should have written “we’re saying comparable things.”

Ann Althouse said...

I looked up this interview because I was listening to another interview with Kurt Vonnegut, and he was talking about being a TV network commentator at the time of the first (I think) moon landing. Also on the show -- if I'm getting this right -- were Robert Heinlein and Arther C. Clarke. H & C exclaimed "The beginning!" and Vonnegut retorted "The ending" (meaning that's as far as we'll ever get).

Ann Althouse said...

It's 50 years later and no one has gotten any farther.

Shouting Thomas said...

The fact that male ejaculation probably served as the model for the invention of a gun...

Doesn’t make the gun any less a magnificent invention.

Temujin said...

Interesting that you and everyone you knew thought the space program was BS at that time. I and everyone I knew were still very into it. And we were also very into Kurt Vonnegut, but knew from his interviews and personal writings, that the more you learned about him, the more you wanted to separate the author from his books.

To say it was not science is mind-boggling. The very essence of human endeavor is captured in the quest to go to the moon, and now beyond. I know some think we should be spending our time and money on creating particles to deliver into space to 'reflect' the suns rays and cool the planet (right, Mr. Gates?). But for me, actual science is figuring out how to train men and women to travel in space, over great distances, over great spans of time, to find other life, other environments for humans to live.

To say the likes of Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, Gordon Cooper, and Chuck Yeager were 'colorless men' is such hyperbole, and wrong, it cheapens anything Vonnegut ever said. Makes me think everything he said was bullshit. And maybe it was.

We went to the moon to learn how to do such travel. We did it with the expectation of going beyond. But then people who think like you do about this, Ann, got into office in the person of Barack Obama and his crew. They dismantled NASA and gave as their mission 'Muslim outreach'- whatever that was supposed to mean.

My wife and I live in Sarasota, on the Gulf Coast. Two weeks ago we stood out on our driveway, looking at clear skies at about 10:20 at night. SpaceX was launching a new satellite for SiriusXM over at Cape Canaveral, on the other coast of Florida. We had the launch on a laptop, and about 6 or so minutes into the launch, we saw the rocket, from across the state, moving up, across the sky, up into space until we could no longer see it. It was...even from our vantage point across the state- bright and amazing. We will be going to the Cape to watch live launches because there are still a lot of us who think its more than a cheap orgasm (?) of some sort. Some of us still get excited when humans do things beyond our own world, beyond the simpleton, crass things like tearing down statues, braying at people who don't use the proper pronouns, or putting up demented old fools to be President. Some of us still feel that humans are mostly wasting their time in this life and it's encouraging to see that some- albeit a small handful- still feel the need to quest beyond our stupid daily bullshit.

Wilbur said...

I was always very skeptical about the value of the space program, including back in 1973. My views are stronger now; I believe the idea we will successfully colonize space is ridiculous. I'm open to having my mind changed.

We should be reticent to engage in further space travel.

mezzrow said...

I graduated from college in 1973, and I can tell you that the ideas expressed in that ramble are basically exactly what I and everyone I knew thought about the space program at the time.

I graduated from college in 1974, and I can tell you that the ideas expressed in that ramble reflected the thoughts of many of my fellow music/arts major cohort. I was coming from the "military band" side of things, though. With a solid background from Civil Air Patrol in my youth and several trips to the Space Center and places like MacDill and McCoy AFB to go along with it in my experience, I was firmly on the other side of that debate.

We don't lack the money or the technology to go further, even though it's a really big ask. Private enterprise will make the advances we will see in the future. Only individuals will show that kind of daring, courage and yes, recklessness - not governments. They'll be busy spending their money trying to see if the keys got dropped under the lamppost.

Eleanor said...

I graduated from engineering school in 1973, and virtually everyone I knew there got their interest in engineering because of the space program. Without the space program, we'd still be laying transatlantic cables to communicate. Going to the Moom was a natural progression. The crime is that we stopped, not that we started.

hawkeyedjb said...

Back when I was starting college (just after the moon landing) some fellow put out his list of 10 amendments to the Constitution, all of which he assured us would make life better. Mostly they were about imposing socialism instead of making life better, but one in particular I remember: no more space launches until we have eradicated poverty on earth. But of course, his other amendments would guarantee the continuation and spread of poverty, so we wouldn't be able to afford to go to Alaska any more, let alone the moon. It takes wild-eyed dreamers to overcome such antipathy to human striving.

Howard said...

I was between 3rd and 4th grade for Apollo 11. He's right, as a kid I knew the Moon shot was a Moon shot. No atmosphere no gold, no life. The sexual aspect was cemented earlier in Dr Strangelove's scene between Bucky and Miss Scott:

Miss Scott:
It's 3 o'clock in the morning!

General "Buck" Turgidson:
Weh-heh-heh-ll, the Air Force never sleeps.

Miss Scott:
Buck, honey, I'm not sleepy either...

General "Buck" Turgidson:
I know how it is, baby. Tell you what you do: you just start your countdown, and old Bucky'll be back here before you can say "Blast off!"


rhhardin said...

Challenger was a condom failure.

Tina Trent said...

One might also say that Johnson’s War on Poverty was a giant orgasm that produced nothing good while wasting billions of dollars.

Fernandinande said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Fernandinande said...

Without the space program, we'd still be laying transatlantic cables to communicate.

Many people consider the manned space program to be showboating which sucks up money that could be better spent on useful research or technology, in space or otherwise.

Personally I don't think there's any chance of useful space colonization absent some major physics tricks ("warping the space time continuum"); at the fastest speed (relative to earth) that any person has traveled, it would take 160,000 years to make a round trip to the nearest star.

tcrosse said...

"Between Time and Timbuktu" (1974) was a TV movie based on some of Vonnegut's works. An astronaut is launched into the Chrono-Synclastic Infundibulum, and hilarity ensues. The best part was Bob and Ray at the anchor desk doing commentary.

Lloyd W. Robertson said...

So far it could be argued that the space program is technology for its own sake. Welfare for engineers. There was a political rationale during the Cold War: there had to be something really "modern" in which "we" could beat the Communists, otherwise it might seem they were the most progressive political movement on Earth. Gorbachev's career suggests that every arms race that was won by the U.S. helped to destroy the Soviet Union--and this was a good thing. Now? How is any human being even conceivably going to benefit from the Mars effort? There must be some idea that the space people will leave racism and war behind, and/or have a tyranny in space that doesn't allow racism or war. Astronauts often turn out to be either bland or crazy/pathetic. Apollo XI left almost 100 bags of excrement on the moon, and Asimov has confirmed that we won't get far in space unless we "recycle" (euphemistically speaking) our waste.

The Gipper Lives said...

We are the moon's greatest resource.

Kevin said...

If humanity is to have a future, we need to get some of us off this rock.

The question then becomes whether you think humanity should have a future.

And if you don't, why on Earth would you be allowed a position of power?

Lurker21 said...

I was a mere child then, but I do remember that "Why are we going to the moon when we have all these problems on earth" was a common refrain. Things changed, though. In 1969, everybody was glued to their television set watching the first moon landing.

Later on, space shots and moon landings became routinized and banal and it was the fashion to express disgust or puzzlement about them. Maybe we blame Nixon or Alan Shepard, who brought along a golf club to go along with the glorified golf cart moon rover and turned the whole thing into a tired businessman's country club vacation.

My brother was very big on SF and had all Vonnegut's books. I don't know what he would have thought of this interview, but he did come to think that dreams of intergalactic travel were probably unrealistic. Vonnegut may have been using SF as Voltaire did, to tell pointedly satiric tales, rather than to project the future -- or he may just have been playing the contrarian here.

Clyde said...

Exploration and exploitation of resources has always been part of the human DNA. It goes hand in hand with invention. Some people will always do it, and they will reap the benefits of their discoveries. By contrast, sometimes a people turns away from exploration. A notable case is the seven voyages of the Chinese admiral Zheng He during the Ming dynasty, between 1405-1433. Then China turned inward:

The Ming court was divided into many factions, most sharply into the pro-expansionist voices led by the powerful eunuch factions that had been responsible for the policies supporting Zheng Ho's voyages, and more traditional conservative Confucian court advisers who argued for frugality. When another seafaring voyage was suggested to the court in 1477, the vice president of the Ministry of War confiscated all of Zheng He's records in the archives, damning them as "deceitful exaggerations of bizarre things far removed from the testimony of people's eyes and ears." He argued that "the expeditions of San Bao [meaning "Three Jewels," as Zheng He was called] to the West Ocean wasted tens of myriads of money and grain and moreover the people who met their deaths may be counted in the myriads. Although he returned with wonderful precious things, what benefit was it to the state?"

Linked to eunuch politics and wasteful policies, the voyages were over. By the century's end, ships could not be built with more than two masts, and in 1525 the government ordered the destruction of all oceangoing ships. The greatest navy in history, which once had 3,500 ships (the U.S. Navy today has only 324), was gone.


There were, however, European nations who were ready at that point to explore, invent and exploit. If China had kept a powerful naval tradition, would the Europeans (and later the Japanese) have been able to humiliate China? If you choose not to take part in the competition of nations, you will lose.

Churchy LaFemme: said...

Vonnegut somewhat elaborated on this in his short story for Harlan Ellison's Danagerous Visions:

The Big Space Fuck

Kate said...

I live down the road from the Marine Corps Air Station. Every time the boys break the sound barrier, or even jet-scream overhead, I lift my arms and shout, "Go!"

What's wrong with a science orgasm?

rcocean said...

Of course people were bored by the Moon landings in 1973. we'd first gone in 1969, and after the 4th or 5th moon-landing the whole thing was dull. But, from what I've read, what really torked the liberals off, especially people like Mailer and Gore Vidal, was that the Astronauts were all military men from average backgrounds. And worst of all, Nixon was President and they planted an American flag.

Notice: Vonnegut's comment about "Colorless men". If only we could have shot a few atheist fiction writers up to the Moon, now that would've made all the billions worth while!

Fernandinande said...

"warping the space time continuum"

Oops, I meant the chrono-synclastic infundibulum.

rcocean said...

Its funny that the whole "Lets not wasted money on the military/NASA" has gone completely away. when the last time Schumer or Pelosi said that? They're now pushing a $700 Billion defense budget. So, it was never about "Spending too much on Space" it was just "where's money for US?"

rcocean said...

I re-read slaughter-house five and was disappointed. There's some good stuff, but the book is incredibly thin, with no characterization, and no richness of detail. Its really a padded out movie script. That was probably Vonnegut's intention in the first place, write a novel to sell it to Hollywood.

Doug said...

I graduated from college in 1973, and I can tell you that the ideas expressed in that ramble are basically exactly what I and everyone I knew thought about the space program at the time.

And you admit it?

TickTock said...

Thinking that there are no economically viable resources on the moon probably represents a failure of imagination. Fact is, we don't know.

Two possibilities. Meteor belt generally acknowledges to have a few rich canidates for mining. Where are there a bunch of meteors much close than beyond a Mars? All those pot holes an the moon each represent one.

Second, dirty manufacturing on the Moon ha a lot less externalities than on Earth. No need for environmental controls!

Michael said...

Ann Althouse said...
It's 50 years later and no one has gotten any farther.


Yet.

Temujin said...

Like I said in my earlier comment, there's a handful of people that quest beyond our stupid daily bullshit. Or as Robert Heinlein more clearly put it:

"Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as “bad luck.”"

Chuck said...

Ann Althouse said...
I graduated from college in 1973, and I can tell you that the ideas expressed in that ramble are basically exactly what I and everyone I knew thought about the space program at the time.


Fascinating, beautiful blog post, Althouse.

And don’t forget the raging civil rights aspect to the moon-landing debate. In 1973, we were barely as far from the spasms of urban rioting in ‘66 (Watts), ‘67 (Detroit) and ‘68 (King assassination riots all over); and every civil rights discussion thereafter featured the question of why we were putting Americans on the Moon while cities were in poverty. We were at that point only as far removed from major riots as we are right now removed from the Trump election campaign of 2015-16.

I know you have blogged the famous “Earthrise” photo; the lesson there being that almost as soon as man reached the Moon, what was striking was how beautiful and fragile the Earth appeared in the void of space. An ironic note, for the first manned orbit of the Moon.

And really, the question now is not whether we explore space. Of course we should. But we can send robots to do it. At a tiny fraction of the cost. And removing much of the “sex” aspect that Vonnegut described.

Krumhorn said...

I live down the road from the Marine Corps Air Station. Every time the boys break the sound barrier, or even jet-scream overhead, I lift my arms and shout, "Go!"

What's wrong with a science orgasm?


My kinda girl!

As a former Marine fighter pilot, I can say with some authority that nobody should be breaking the sound barrier within your immediate hearing unless they are far out to sea in the restricted air space, but the jet screaming from an overhead formation pass into the break to the downwind turn....well, that’s pure joy. I guess that’s why they call it the cockpit. Although, my first carrier landing instructor was a Navy (non-trans) woman Lt who seemed to enjoy it as much as anyone.

The moon landings were spectacular achievements by extraordinary people both in space and on the ground.

- Krumhorn

Amexpat said...

Many people consider the manned space program to be showboating which sucks up money that could be better spent on useful research or technology, in space or otherwise.

I agree with missions to the Moon and Mars. You get a lot more bang for the buck with non-manned flights. I think the there is some sense in having a manned space station.

SensibleCitizen said...

Vonnegut's comments seemed to be limited to manned space flight. No one would argue the utility of satellites, but it's not clear to me that sending men to the moon advanced satellite technology in a way that an unmanned flight wouldn't.

Comparing manned space flight to masturbation seems about right to me. I'm not against either, but the marginal utility to mankind is questionable.

Michael K said...

Ann Althouse said... [hush]​[hide comment]
It's 50 years later and no one has gotten any farther.


Voyager 1 and 2 beg to differ. Both are now beyond the heliopause.

There was an argument about human space flight and, since NASA changed its mission to "Muslim outreach," further progress will be made by non-government entities.

Amexpat said...

Vonnegut's sophomoric musings on the Space Program reminds me of one Bob Dylan's worst lyrics from the Dylan song I dislike the most:

Man thinks 'cause he rules the earth he can do with it as he please
And if things don't change soon, he will
Oh, man has invented his doom,
First step was touching the moon

glam1931 said...

The older I get the less I care about what Vonnegut had to say. The difference between him and men like Bradbury and Azimov and Heinlein: his imagination was sadly limited.

I'm Not Sure said...

"No need for environmental controls!"

I wouldn't be so sure about that. Well before a manufacturing plant on the moon ever started up, there'd be howls of outrage about damage to the lunar environment. Luddites gonna luddite.

Fernandinande said...

We got Tang.

The guy who invented Tang also invented Pop Rocks and Cool Whip.

Original Mike said...

Blogger Ann Althouse said..."I graduated from college in 1973, and I can tell you that the ideas expressed in that ramble are basically exactly what I and everyone I knew thought about the space program at the time."

You made the right choice not going into STEM.

mikee said...

Vonnegut is a vile person and his writings are depressing to read, especially for their target audience of young adults. He wrote in an era of depressing authors, such as John Cheever. Reading him again years later, he hates people.

tcrosse said...

One baleful effect of the manned space program was the "If they can put a man on the moon why can't they X" meme.

Rusty said...

Blogger Clyde said...
"Exploration and exploitation of resources has always been part of the human DNA."
There it is.
I'm often asked," Rusty. Why did you spend all that time and money making that? It would have been cheaper and faster just to buy it."
Yes it would. But then I'd never learn anything.
Book recommendation; Boorstien, " The Discoverers"

chuck said...

Norman Mailer said it first, but I think he was just jealous.

Roger Sweeny said...

@Big Mike. But it's not really comparable. People who said don't sail east or west because it wouldn't be worth it were making a lot of assumptions about what would be there. But they knew that there would still be air and water and life.

People who say that there is no air or water or food on the moon are stating a fact. It really is a barren, inhospitable place that requires being in a voluntary prison in order to live there.

Big Mike said...

@Roger Sweeny, so what?

Original Mike said...

"Book recommendation; Boorstien, " The Discoverers""

I've hade that book on my bookshelf for decades and I've never gotten around to reading it. I'm looking for a new book to start. Think I'll get it down.

PJ said...

When the wrong guy gets the keys to the Large Hadron Collider and turns Earth and its organic inhabitants into chunks of ice-nine, human-colonized space will be the only place to experience the Vonnegut-approved sort of orgasm.

Carol said...

there no doubt were people saying the same thing about sailing west from Spain

Notice they didn't sail south. What if all they'd found was Antarctica? Though at least they could breathe there.

I watch old Star Trek shows with the husband, and just can't believe anyone would sign on for years of voyaging like that IRL. Long sea cruises in the Pacific are bad enough.

Does that really excite young people?

Roger Sweeny said...

@Temujin NASA's woes go way back before Obama. As Apollo was winding down, they convinced a credulous Agnew (head of the Space Task Group) to recommend a ridiculously large expansion of the Agency and its mission. Most of that bureaucratic wish list never got past Congress. The one part that did, the Space Shuttle, was billed as a "space truck". It would be reusable and "cheap, safe, and reliable". It was none of the three. And it was only reusable after long, expensive refurbishment. Shockingly, NASA had been less than honest in it's lobbying.

No agency in Washington ever dies. So NASA continues to limp along. Let's be honest. People supported Apollo because the idea of actually setting foot on the moon was cool and it was important to beat the Russians. But people have now walked on the moon (in bulky suits since there is no air) and the Cold War is over. NASA has never articulated a post-Apollo goal that large numbers of people are excited about.

I'm Not Sure said...

"I graduated from college in 1973, and I can tell you that the ideas expressed in that ramble are basically exactly what I and everyone I knew thought about the space program at the time."

Here's the problem... once one supports the idea that the government should "do things" outside what it's specifically delegated to do, it'll eventually get around to doing things one doesn't want done. But at this point, one doesn't have standing to complain, having already accepted that constraints on the government aren't *really* binding if something is important enough. Because, depending on who you ask, everything is.

Roger Sweeny said...

@Big Mike. So it's not comparable. There are big, big differences.

daskol said...

Vonnegut was my entree into "literary fiction." I found some of his books on my parents' bookshelf, and away I went, getting maybe a third of the non-linear narratives and satire, although I could tell it was deep. I eventually realized what a miserable man he was, and how much he hated most people and things, facts confirmed to me by my grandmother. She'd never read anything by him, and wondered why anyone would: she worked as a bookkeeper for his accountancy, and would visit his Manhattan home monthly. Her take: he's a miserable drunk who chain smokes, and a difficult client consumed with anxiety and insecurity despite his wealth. At my request, asked if she could bring me along once, as I was a big fan, and he said no, although he did sign a book for me: something to the effect of "read good books at your age, instead of wasting your time on my dreck."

daskol said...

For many years, I had dreams inspired by Slaughterhouse 5, specifically the scenes where Pilgrim is trapped in that zoo bubble hurtling through space with Montana whatshername. For some reason that seemed comforting.

Big Mike said...

@Roger, you're wrong. Deal with it.

MikeR said...

"I can tell you that the ideas expressed in that ramble are basically exactly what I and everyone I knew thought about the space program at the time." Reality: Satellite weather prediction. GPS - currently used on farms to water plants precisely, and in a thousand other ways. Satellites bringing internet anywhere on earth, and soon SpaceX Starlink bringing very fast internet anywhere on earth.
And - Once we have cheap access (Starship this year or next?): Manufacturing on the moon or in space, which allows building solar power satellites cheaply, which work 24-7 with no clouds and don't take up space on earth. Asteroid mining, which makes any rare metal on earth suddenly plentiful, which allows thousands of new uses for gold or molybdenum or ruthenium which we can't even imagine trying today.
There are incredible resources out there, if we can get there cheaply. Some of us thought that would happen fifty years ago - but it is starting to happen now.

Leland said...

I worked on the International Space Station and Space Shuttle program. I think rocean nails the issue in 1973 at 8:05am. But as Roger Sweeny notes at 9:53am; NASA hasn't done a good job since then of articulating its purpose. The Space Shuttle flew for an extra decade longer than it should to build the ISS. Now that ISS has been complete for almost a decade, can anyone here state the purpose of that facility?

It is a microgravity laboratory, sometimes (it often needs to be boosted back to orbit or oriented for visiting vehicles). It is providing knowledge of long term effects of living in space, but when in the safe confines of the Van Allen belt and a one hour emergency flight home. I'd love to say NASA keeps engineers busy and pushes boundaries, but few of those engineers care about anything other than the space program, and procedures have become so rote that boundaries are rarely pushed.

The real push is by SpaceX, Blue Origin, and other companies that, as Vonnegut suggests, look for the value in space rather than "exploration" with no reason why to explore. Except, Vonnegut doesn't understand the value of a bridge or skyscraper, so maybe he doesn't really suggest anything.

Kentucky Packrat said...

NASA was always a cover for the US military, just like the USSR's space program was to cover for their military. The first manned rockets were test designs for ICBMs, and the moon mission was tests for heavy rockets needed to get satellites and eventually weapons systems into orbit. Practically all of the shuttle design decisions were driven by the need to launch spy satellites (and originally capture them and bring them back, just before the satellites went digital). Even Hubble was just a spy satellite on steroids without the filters needed to handle the light coming back from the Earth.

Tourism and private exploration will become drivers of space soon, as well as the possibilities of profit (could asteroid mining eventually be profitable?). The British exploration of the Americas was driven almost entirely by private companies, few of which did anything but go bankrupt.

Mary Beth said...

And don’t forget the raging civil rights aspect to the moon-landing debate.

The man jus' upped my rent las' night.
('cause Whitey's on the moon)
No hot water, no toilets, no lights.
(but Whitey's on the moon)

Gahrie said...

People who say that there is no air or water or food on the moon are stating a fact.

No they aren't. There is water on the moon, and that water can be broken down to create air. There isn't any food in Antarctica either, and people live there just fine.

Gahrie said...

Apollo XI left almost 100 bags of excrement on the moon, and Asimov has confirmed that we won't get far in space unless we "recycle" (euphemistically speaking) our waste.

This time around we'll be using it to make rocket fuel, and probably compost the leftovers.

Gahrie said...

It's 50 years later and no one has gotten any farther.

That's because up to now, only government was involved.

JLScott said...

Perhaps part of this woman’s attitude towards Vonnegut vs. Bradbury.

chuck said...

Notice they didn't sail south.

They did, actually. The Portuguese navigators explored the western coast of Africa and Bartolomeu Diasca reached the Indian ocean in 1488 and Vasco de Gama made it to India by that route in 1498.

Joe Smith said...

"They picked colorless men to make the trip, because colorless men were the only sort who could stand to make it."

I love this quote.

When I was a young lad my father took me to my first 'real' movie, '2001.'

It was on a huge, wide screen in a domed theater and it was the greatest thing I'd ever seen up until that point. I was enthralled by the music and the technology, and even had a decent grasp of the story.

But I was also struck by how goddamned dull the astronauts were. They had technical knowledge and ability, but zero personality and near-zero emotions.

My assumption was, that men like this were the only ones who would be able to endure months or maybe years of monotony and tedium. The ship, run by HAL, really didn't need them there except as backups in case of an emergency. If there were mobile robots on the ship they wouldn't be needed at all.

Big Mike said...

In the 1970s I was using the GI Bill to attend graduate school. I was aware that many non-STEM majors felt the way that the crowd inhabiting the same bubble as Althouse did. I was also aware that many futurists felt that we reached the moon about fifty years before predicted. Thus it is no surprise -- disappointment, but not a surprise -- that it's been fifty years since we've been back.

Observations.

(1) The entire notion that "money spent on the space program could be better spent on eradicating poverty is absurd. It is absurd because (1a) the standard Democrat solution of "just throw enough money at it" has never worked and will never work. It will never work because programs to alleviate make "poverty" more attractive than working at low-wage jobs. In Fairfax County, VA, an analysis demonstrated that for a family of four it was financially advantageous to make zero dollars of reported income as long as your reported after tax income is below $67,000 annually. That study was done a few years ago; today the threshold is probably higher. It is also absurd (1b) because every few years an office in DHHS redefines the threshold for poverty ever higher, so that a fixed percentage of American citizens are officially poverty-stricken. You will never get below that threshold percentage because it is in the interest of federal bureaucrats to define the poverty line upward to maintain that percentage and, incidentally, keep their department in business.

(2) NASA cannot get back to the moon because the way we got there was the same way we accomplished the Manhattan Project -- put its leadership in the hands of a genius and give him (both times it was a "him") a free hand in picking people for the project according to what they could contribute and not worry about gender balance or "diversity" or bullshit like that. But these days non-government corporations are pursuing space based on the good old profit motive. If it makes sense financially then they will do it. No sense debating harsh lunar conditions, if it makes sense financially then it will happen despite NASA. (Cue Warren and Obama and other meatheads saying "You didn't build that.")

I want to point out that the Space Shuttle "Columbia" disaster happened in part because a female "safety officer" refused to approve the use of an earth-observation satellite to look over the shuttle for damage. But despite her sex, it was the wrong decision, which killed seven highly-trained astronauts and destroyed a multi-billion shuttle.

John henry said...

I got really big into bonnet in the 60s & 70s. I've probably read 80-90 percent of everything he published.

He wrote a couple of s-f books. Cats Cradle, perhaps slaughterhouse 5. Not even sure if I would call slaughterhouse 5 sf, but wouldn't argue with those who would.

Most of what he wrote was pretty straightforward fiction. Most of it was pretty good. When I read it, most holds up pretty well.

It is not sf though.

My very favorite book of his is "Mother Night" which I think is brilliant. The movie with Nick Nolte as "Howard w Campbell, the last true American" is one of very few sheer the movie is as good as the book.

YouTube has a dramatization of his short story "Who am i this time?" from the 70s starting a very young Christopher Walken and Susan Sarandon that is well worth 45 minutes of your time.

https://youtu.be/2455YfwT8gw

In the 70s Vonnegut narrated a PBS production of Twains Life on the Mississippi. I used to have it on vcr but it does not seem to be available anywhere.

John Henry

William said...

Given Vonnegut's life experience, it's fair to say that he came by his misanthropy honestly.....Back in 1973, we weren't that far away from WWI and WWII. All the big technological breakthroughs had been adapted to kill people more efficiently. People of Vonnegut's generation had every reason to be suspicious of big, noisy combustions......I think the present generation is more accepting of technology. It has brought them video games, mobile phones, and internet porn. What's not to like in technological advances?....The jury is still out. If the end product of Galileo's enquiries is a thermonuclear war, then one could point to a downside in science and its wonders. But so far, so good.

Lurker21 said...

Kurt's second marriage to Jill Krementz was supposed to have been ghastly horrible.

But most writers' marriages seem to be that way.

The astronauts being dull techno-drones is a plot point in The Crown's treatment of the moon landing, as well as something Norman Mailer liked to talk about. It seems pretty obvious now. There was only room for three in the capsule and a poet or philosopher wouldn't be able to hold up his end of the mission.

Mikey NTH said...

"I graduated from college in 1973, and I can tell you that the ideas expressed in that ramble are basically exactly what I and everyone I knew thought about the space program at the time."


I, too, was once an undergraduate and thought I knew everything. I've gotten somewhat over myself since then.

Ann Althouse said...

"It's 50 years later and no one has gotten any farther."/"Voyager 1 and 2 beg to differ. Both are now beyond the heliopause."

I said "no one" and I am correct.

The idea that we're going to travel to places other than Earth and live there is still a fantasy.

Vonnegut said it's not science because he meant that science doesn't support going there. We've done it for earthly emotional reasons. That's how I saw it at the time — as human arrogance — theater — showing off. Men using tax money to fulfill their exciting boyish dreams.

PM said...

chuck: "The Portuguese navigators explored the western coast of Africa and Bartolomeu Diasca reached the Indian ocean in 1488 and Vasco de Gama made it to India by that route in 1498."

A prescient effort since, when Colon found the West Indies, the Portuguese knew where to find a cheap labor source who, for the next 400 years, supplied Europeans with what they desired most: sugar.

John henry said...

In the book "the right stuff" Wolfe quotes someone who used to fly with Grissom saying

"if Grissom exchanged 10 non flight related words on an 8 hour he considered it a deep and meaningful conversation" (quote from memory)

Michael K the other day mentioned the general lack of conversation on long sailing voyages.

Seems about right to me. Can you imagine anything worse than being trapped in a space capsule for days or weeks with someone WHO JUST WON'T SHUT UP!!

John Henry

Roughcoat said...

That's how I saw it at the time — as human arrogance — theater — showing off. Men using tax money to fulfill their exciting boyish dreams.

Do you still feel that way?

Gahrie said...

Vonnegut said it's not science because he meant that science doesn't support going there. We've done it for earthly emotional reasons.

I thought you were in favor of indulging in our emotions.

Roger Sweeny said...

@Big Mike Thank you for that thoughtful explanation.

Roger Sweeny said...

There isn't any food in Antarctica either, and people live there just fine.

Just fine? They are cooped up in small spaces almost all the time. They can hardly go out. There are a limited number of them and they won't see new people for months. Just about everything has to be brought in from outside. But at least they don't have to bring or create their own oxygen.

You are right that there is water on the moon but none of it is on the surface or easily available. The moon is just not an easy place to live--even if you spend millions of dollars.

Bill Owens said...

Humanity will not survive the next asteroid reset unless we are already off-planet. There are riches beyond the dreams of avarice in the asteroid belt and perhaps also on the Moon and Mars. We need new sources of all elements & raw materials and the solar system, so we're told, is replete with them. Interstellar travel? Forget that for now. Reach out and colonize our solar system.

Big Mike said...

The idea that we're going to travel to places other than Earth and live there is still a fantasy.

@Althouse, there’s a finite, nonzero possibility you’re right. Just so you develop enough humility to grasp that neither you nor anyone you read or listen to has a lock on all the world’s knowledge. There may be good economic reasons for people to live and work in space, and if there are then it will happen. You and people who think like you can try to stand athwart progress and fuss at it, but I think you’ll just get run over.

rcocean said...

"prescient effort since, when Colon found the West Indies, the Portuguese knew where to find a cheap labor source who, for the next 400 years, supplied Europeans with what they desired most: sugar."

I don't know what the hell this supposed to mean. The Portuguese didn't have any West Indies colonies, and sugar growing wasn't done in Brazil for almost 60 years after Columbus. Further, Europeans had known about West Africa since 1455 (others say 1346).

Rusty said...

Althouse said,
"Vonnegut said it's not science because he meant that science doesn't support going there. We've done it for earthly emotional reasons. That's how I saw it at the time — as human arrogance — theater — showing off. Men using tax money to fulfill their exciting boyish dreams."
Haven't you ever left the trail to see was over the next hill? Why do you travel? Why do you read? What's the point of anything if you never learn anything?
I'm sure the guy who invented the bathysphere was looked at as a complete kook. " You're gonna do what? In that? You're an idiot". But look what we've learned from it.

Hyphenated American said...

I cannot resist posting what Ayn Rand wrote about the Apollo mission:

“ What we had seen, in naked essentials — but in reality, not in a work of art — was the concretized abstraction of man’s greatness. . . .

One knew that this spectacle was not the product of inanimate nature, like some aurora borealis, or of chance, or of luck, that it was unmistakably human — with “human,” for once, meaning grandeur — that a purpose and a long, sustained, disciplined effort had gone to achieve this series of moments, and that man was succeeding, succeeding, succeeding! For once, if only for seven minutes, the worst among those who saw it had to feel — not “How small is man by the side of the Grand Canyon!” — but “How great is man and how safe is nature when he conquers it!”

That we had seen a demonstration of man at his best, no one could doubt — this was the cause of the event’s attraction and of the stunned, numbed state in which it left us. And no one could doubt that we had seen an achievement of man in his capacity as a rational being — an achievement of reason, of logic, of mathematics, of total dedication to the absolutism of reality.”

rcocean said...

we went to the moon because of the Cold war. Nobody wanted to look at TV one day, and see the hammer and sickle being planted on the moon, except for Leftists like Mailer and Vonnegut.


Hyphenated American said...

I think Ayn Rand explained very well why some people were upset about the moon landing...

https://courses.aynrand.org/works/apollo-and-dionysus/


Trust me, you will enjoy reading it.

Gahrie said...

You are right that there is water on the moon but none of it is on the surface or easily available. The moon is just not an easy place to live--even if you spend millions of dollars.

There will be humans living on the moon before the end of the decade. There will be space hotels in orbit.

Gahrie said...

The idea that we're going to travel to places other than Earth and live there is still a fantasy.

So was effective birth control at one time.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

SensibleCitizen,

Vonnegut's comments seemed to be limited to manned space flight.

No, they weren't. That giant orgasm was a rocket taking off; it made absolutely no difference to the naked visual and audio effects whether there was anyone in the capsule. And remember, before we sent men into orbit, we sent animals. TLC, if I recall correctly, a chimp. (The Russians used dogs, I think.)

Tina Trent said...

First we sent mice. Then we sent dogs. Then we sent monkeys. Then we sent men. Then we sent women.

I certainly understand someone who dislikes travel not warming much to the space program.

But blogging would be pretty hard without satellites, wouldn’t it? And although Matt Drudge is no longer amusing us daily with such news of the world, there are meteors out there with our name on them.

PJ said...

The guy who wrote "Harrison Bergeron" surely had some insight into the human imperative to achieve, to excel, to soar, regardless of any practical value in the endeavor. Of course, Vonnegut's protagonist was an individual who sought to soar in defiance of the State, whereas NASA is a bureaucracy acting with State support. It is certainly possible to make a convincing argument that tax money should not have been spent on the space program, and maybe that was decisive for Vonnegut. (As others have pointed out, it's also possible to make a convincing argument that the space program has at least as much practical value as other programs on which the government spends a lot more.)

Icepilot said...

Bull majors are sooooo short sighted:
The monetary value of of GPS, electronics integration/miniaturization, fly-by-wire, numerous healthcare technologies & hundreds of other scientific & engineering breakthroughs directly or indirectly advanced by the space program cannot be overstated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spinoff_technologies

Icepilot said...

Why space?
Free, unlimited power - a solar panel in space collects more than 5 times the energy it would on the surface of the earth.
Free, unlimited resources - every element, from Hydrogen to Uranium is available in the Near Earth Asteroids. Most are far more accessible than going back down the Moon's gravity well.
Any gravity you want, from zero to Earth's one 'g'(or more). 90% of the time, money & effort to build the Golden Gate Bridge serves no purpose other than to counteract gravity. Which means that truly massive structures will cost much less.

Josephbleau said...

The reason to go to the moon is the same as taking Math Analysis II, you have to prove all the multidimensional theorems before the basic useful methods can be used fluently. Going to the moon stretched us into being capable of routinely working in earth orbit, we don’t need to go further for now. Perhaps no one thinks a new industrial revolution of space based energy and manufacturing of all kinds is necessary, there are always luddites. But the next 20 years of space based development will give the average citizen the lifestyle of today’s kings, as the first industrial revolution gave peasants the lifestyle of royal kings. Space will become a workplace. And if we had not gone to the moon that would not happen.

Joe Smith said...

CNN (I know, right?) produced an unbelievably great movie, 'Apollo 11.'

https://www.cnn.com/shows/apollo-11-cnn-film

I think it was in theaters in 2019.

The best part was, it was old, unused or found footage...lots of never-before-seen stuff...

Those astronauts went to the moon and back with the crudest (by today's standards) technology imaginable...pretty much slide rule calculations.

The men who boarded those moon-bound rockets had giant balls of titanium.

It is a spectacular movie...especially if you can ever see it in the theater.

daskol said...

The reason to go to the moon is because it's there. This is where the middle-aged anti-humanism of John Gray, as tempting as it may be after a lifetime amidst our sound and fury, breaks down a bit. It is not merely symbolic to strive for something out of reach, it is our purpose such as we have one.

mandrewa said...

It's 50 years later and no one has gotten any farther.

There is this huge gap between reality and fiction and people discount the fact that we have had space stations in orbit for about 30 years now. That is in fact progress. Sure it falls short of flying to the Moon, but the sum total of all Moon expeditions was how many weeks?

Yes, it's frustrating we haven't been back since. But the reality that explains that is that it was just too expensive given the technology we had in the 70s.

We have been making progress, slowly, since then. Costs are dropping.

In particular the International Space Station has now been occupied continuously for nearly 20 years by an average of six people at a time. One consequence of that is that we now have a pretty good idea of what is needed to maintain a space station and how to build a less expensive and easier to maintain next iteration of a space station.

There are signs that we are on the verge of dramatically decreasing the cost of getting to and staying in space.

Mary of Boca Chica posts a video nearly every day of the visible changes from the road in Boca Chica at SpaceX's build and launch sites for its Starship effort.

See SpaceX Boca Chica: Starship SN10 Nosecone Ready to be Stacked - SN11 Aft Section Mated

If Starship fulfills its promise this will make all sorts of things feasible that have been out of our reach before this point in human history.

I think it's increasingly likely that we will be going back to the Moon and then on to Mars, and possibly within the next ten years. Now, it's not a sure thing. There are technical and economic questions still to be answered. But the thing that I fear most, that most threatens this, is not technical, but instead the left and its spirit of envy and general dislike of achievement.

LA_Bob said...

I'm trying to imagine the competency, the organizational skill, and the extraordinary patience required to build a livable environment for human colonies on either the moon or Mars. It will not take years. It will probably not take decades It will probably take centuries. You have to keep bringing your own atmosphere tens of millions of miles (in the case of Mars) until you can build something to hold or manufacture that atmosphere. You have to bring your own water. You have to bring your own food. There's a limit to the number of people you can bring to do the building necessary.

Traveling to and "living" on the moon and / or Mars involves enduring changes to the human body that come from reduced-gravity conditions. How will this impact construction and colonization?

Just imagine the size of the space vehicle needed to transport people to Mars. I'll bet you'd never find a rocket powerful enough to launch it. It would have to be built in orbit. Imagine the dozens or hundreds of flights needed to put this behemoth together, supply it, fuel it, and populate it. You might even a need a huge fleet of supply ships to sustain it on the voyage.

I'm just riffin' here with a little light research on the side. But the technical challenges seem utterly immense. Humans are not adapted to live away from Earth. I'm with Vonnegut, Althouse, Roger Sweeny, and the other skeptics. Colonizing our nearest neighbors is a high-order fantasy in today's world. With some breakthroughs and a lot of political will it is likely to happen eventually. But no one around today will be alive to see it. Nor many generations of their descendants.

Narr said...

We humans are going back to the moon, and probably to the asteroids, as already described.

Vonnegut was varied--I like some of his works, disliked others, and have skipped many--but I agree with his general idea expressed somewhere, that we're really here just to fart around and have fun.

And doing expensive, difficult, and dangerous things IS fun to some people.

Narr
For which I am grateful

mandrewa said...

Bob, I will try to answer all your questions.

You have to keep bringing your own atmosphere tens of millions of miles (in the case
of Mars) until you can build something to hold or manufacture that atmosphere. You have
to bring your own water.


Mars has water. Mars has an atmosphere. We can make our own atmosphere from the molecules
in the Martian atmosphere. We can make rocket fuel to get back to Earth from the molecules
in the Martian atmosphere. We have the machinery here on Earth to do both of those things.

We can't go to Mars unless we can do these things on Mars. It is just too expensive to ship
any significant amount of water or atmosphere to Mars. Therefore before there is any human
expedition to Mars there first have to be unmanned missions carrying the machinery to do
and to demonstrate that it is possible to make all of these things before we send people
there.

The same is true for food. The minimum practical length of a Martian expedition is about
five years. We have to be pretty confident that we can produce food on Mars before we
send people there.

Traveling to and "living" on the moon and / or Mars involves enduring changes to
the human body that come from reduced-gravity conditions.


It is only a week to get to the Moon and it is six months to get to Mars. Six month
opportunities, or maybe we can imagine four month travel times in the future, only
come up every two years or so. Six months is the normal time an astronaut spends
on the ISS. So we know people can do it.

Gravity on Mars is one-third of what is on the Earth. Gravity on the Moon is one-sixth of
what is on the Earth. To my mind this is the biggest technical barrier to the occupation of
either Mars or the Moon. We don't know what this means for human health. We won't
know until we try. If the consequences are really bad, then that will end the dream of
living on other planets, more or less.

Just imagine the size of the space vehicle needed to transport people to Mars. I'll
bet you'd never find a rocket powerful enough to launch it.


Starship, which is being designed and tested right now, is large enough to launch a
hundred people to low earth orbit or, with refueling in orbit, to the Moon. Now if we
were flying people to Mars, it might be more like a dozen or two dozen people at
a time given the length of the journey.

Now I want to make a few qualifications. Starship has yet to fly to orbit and if and when
it does it will probably require hundreds of consecutive successful unmanned flights
before it is approved to carry people. And that is probably years away.

For every flight of a Starship to Mars, you need something like eight additional flights
to load the Starship that will be going to Mars with fuel. So for each flight to Mars
we are talking about something like nine launches. That sounds expensive, but Starship
is intended to be reusable and very cheap. If it meets its goals it will cost little more
per flight than the propellant needed to launch it and that is a tiny fraction of what
launches cost now.

I'm trying to imagine the competency, the organizational skill, and the extraordinary
patience required to build a livable environment for human colonies on either the moon
or Mars.


Yes. I totally agree with you there. This is a major, major challenge, and a lot of
the issues won't become apparent until we actually try to do it.

PJ said...

With some breakthroughs and a lot of political will it is likely to happen eventually.

It will take political will if we rush it, like we did in the 60s. If we don’t rush it, it will take political will to stop it.

But no one around today will be alive to see it,

Now that’s rushing it! The question is not when it will happen but whether it will happen sooner if we start working now. Maybe the answer is no, and working now is a waste, but that’s not obvious.

daskol said...

I don't think I'd be up for a trip to New Zealand, let alone Antarctica. And yet travel to the Moon or to Mars is still exciting.

I'm thinking about that quote from Vonnegut that a few others seized on, one of those things he says that even if you've kind of soured on him overall, you still have to appreciate. That bit about colorless men and how that's how goes to space, because, well that's who goes to space. Fair enough. But it would be fund to disrupt that and crowdfund a trip of colorful people into space. I smell reality TV gold. Have your people call my people, Begley.

LA_Bob said...

mandrewa,

You and I are mostly on the same page. Certainly unmanned missions to Mars (and the moon for that matter) make sense for "prepping" the ground if colonization is the goal. Yes, Mars has water, and Mars has atmosphere. Making use of those involves building an infrastructure than can get what we need to survive on Mars, and that is not a slam dunk.

There might be a bit of over-optimism in a few of your points, especially with regard to Starship. I'm sure Elon Musk has many talented people working on the project, but Elon himself has such a talent for hyperbole that I'm inclined to wait for the "acid test" (manned missions) before I get too excited.

But your comments reflect an awareness of the challenges (at least as I see them), and I appreciate that.

PJ,

I'm not opposed to working on it, but the sentiment seems to be that we can "go to Mars" sometime in the next decade or so. And, yes, that is rushing it. Unfortunately, to garner(TM) support for the effort, I'm afraid we'll have to put on a big dog-and-pony show, sending people to Mars and bringing them back, just like we did with the moon in 1969. And that effort short-circuits doing the (extremely) hard and careful work mandrewa and I are talking about which might someday actually get us somewhere.

The Kennedy goal in 1961 was succinct and well-defined. It was "landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth." And that was it. We accomplished that goal, but there was no follow-up and no political will for any. The answer to "where do we go from here" became "nowhere."

daskol said...

He will soon be the richest man in the world. But when does Elon Musk get to be the most colorful man in space?

daskol said...

For an earthling, I must say, I like the cut of his jib.

Readering said...

Support for the space program unites DJT and readering. Imagine that.

PJ said...

@Bob. I don’t think we’re likely to see successful human colonization of Mars in our lifetime (the goal I thought was under discussion), but setting a human foot on Mars can be accomplished within a decade or two with no exercise of political will (or accompanying dog and pony show) except the will to get the government out of the way. Elon looks like the best bet now, but if he doesn’t manage it, someone else might. As I said above, that may or may not accelerate colonization. But I don’t think it’s likely to set us back if we let people spend their own money on the effort.

mishu said...

I'd rather have my tax money going to things like exploring space than to someone who makes up shit and writes it down. But that's just me.

Roger Sweeny said...

@Icepilot Why space?
Free, unlimited power - a solar panel in space collects more than 5 times the energy it would on the surface of the earth.
Free, unlimited resources - every element, from Hydrogen to Uranium is available in the Near Earth Asteroids.


There is no such thing as free, unlimited anything. Solar panels don't spring into existence by magic. They don't fly up into space by magic.

You sound like an environmentalist telling me that electric cars are "zero emission vehicles", as if non-emitting magic makes the electricity, or the cars that the electricity powers.

The question, as always, is how expensive (and reliable) will solar power from space or minerals from asteroids be when compared with power and minerals on earth. Right now, it's a lot more expensive. That is, where the technology exists. A lot of what would be required doesn't even exist yet. Which is again similar to some environmental rhetoric.

Jeff Brokaw said...

Ankle biter: (noun) someone who sits on their ass for a living but has the audacity to criticize those who take actual risks with their lives for the betterment of others

This would include the vast majority of writers and journalists; most are just jealous and addressing their inadequacies the only way they know how, while some are truly nasty people.

Either way, I have learned to tune them all out. The equivalent of the ravings of a street corner junkie.

This divide — those who do vs. those who sit and write about those who do — is an interesting filter on the world, that comes in handy quite often to evaluate people and their public statements.

Rusty said...

NASA has been wasting our money for some decades now. Instead of trying to compete with Musk and other private money in getting more of us into space, why not come up with ways to make it easier for private money to get us there. Sort of like a DARPA for space travel.

mandrewa said...

Without NASA, SpaceX would not exist. SpaceX would have gone bankrupt in 2008 if NASA had not awarded it a contract to ferry and return experiments and structural elements to the International Space Station.

This is despite SpaceX being the most innovative and revolutionary launch company of our time.

The launch service market, including commercial satellites, is not very deep and the field is dominated by launch organizations that are heavily subsidized by governments and can 'win' their contracts by fiat if they wish to.

Actually, NASA has, to the extent it is allowed to, been functioning something like DARPA does, but for space travel, recently and has tried to foster and sponsor the development of a number of new vehicles and promising companies. I hope this allowed to continue.

Unknown said...

They are cooped up in small spaces almost all the time. They can hardly go out.
So pretty much like living in any Blue state, right now. That doesn't seem like such a big deal.

A number of people have made the distinction between "someone being there" and a "colony". The latter is definitely a LONG way off for Mars - there is simply no reason for 1000s of people to go to Mars. However, there are decent reasons for 1000s of people on the moon, but probably not for another 50 years or so.

If it's not obvious: If you want to build anything reasonably large in Earth orbit, where are you going to get the raw materials? It costs a fortune to lift them from Earth. It's much cheaper to send them from Luna, despite being 200x further away (~240,000 miles vs ~1,200 miles). Assuming we can create a base there, launch costs are basically free - a mass driver just needs electricity, which will need to be in plentiful supply in order to turn water into air and rocket fuel - not to mention heating the (underground) base. Polar or orbital solar mirrors (not solar panels) will do fine, but fission will work fine on the surface (it's already effectively radioactive) and fusion shouldn't be ruled out, yet.

The two biggest problems are phosphorus and nitrogen, both of which are required for plants and neither of which is common off Earth (although there is plenty of nitrogen we can suck off Titan, that's for the far, far future). Earth's biggest export to space will be dirt - making dirt from regolith is difficult.

Roger Sweeny said...

@Unknown I thought you were being unrealistic until I read "fission will work fine on the surface (it's already effectively radioactive) and fusion shouldn't be ruled out, yet." Of course, controlled fusion; why hadn't I thought of that can opener?

Sorry, that was snarky. But it bothers me that so many of the arguments in this thread rely on a lack of consideration of costs or a reliance on technology that does not exist. Or both.

It's like some green telling me that banning fossil fuels will be a wonderful thing.

ken in tx said...

This discussion confirms my opinion of Vonnegut. I thought he was nuts, now I know.

mikee said...

The Gemini and Apollo astronauts were not dull people. They were incredibly competent and dedicated people, who when disasters struck could work their way back to safety and completing the mission. I, for one, appreciate that Buzz Aldrin punched an annoying conspiracy theorist for calling him a liar. I also appreciate that the Apollo 13 crew returned to earth alive, not because they were dull, but because they were able.

Tina Trent said...

Mikee: never forget to thank the duct tape.