Why does money printing kill space programs?

Discussion in 'YouTube Digest' started by CriticalSilver, May 14, 2013.

  1. hawkeye

    hawkeye New Member Silver Stacker

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    Cool, glad you liked it. I like the way he approaches things from different angles that you never even think of. Truly encourages an open mind.

    Anyway, back to the thread subject,

    In the Rogan video, Degrasse talks about the motivations for the space program. This is in response to the "why aren't we on Mars yet" query which always comes up. He points out that we could get there in maybe a few years if we wanted to and that you need to examine the true motivations for the Apollo program to understand why we never went to Mars. He talks about how it was basically because the US were at war with the Soviets (albeit a cold war) and that gave the drive for the competition. The people had to believe that they were technologically ahead, or else the fear would be that they would be eventually invaded and taken over by a technologically superior power. We all now know the truth, of course, that the empire was rotting from within and that was the major reason for the "Iron Curtain". Now that it has collapsed there is the possibility of China. If China were to go to Mars, then suddenly the US space program would ramp up again. The assumption of course is that China is and will become a major economic power. Which is very interesting when you know the things we know about China, as regards it's economics. ie. it looks like it's on the verge of a bust.

    So, all in all, seems doubtful men will go to Mars in my lifetime at least. And as robots become more and more intelligent you have to ask will there be even a need for squishy humans and all the resources they require for spaceflight to continue doing it when robots will be so much more efficient and ultimately almost as capable if not as capable as humans?
     
  2. bordsilver

    bordsilver Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    Sorry. Was meaning to reply to this but got caught up watching the Dawkins vid (who I greatly admire).

    Yes. It was 100% political. The science was a side benefit. I don't think there would have been any scientist/engineer who would have bothered wasting the tonnes of cargo/carrying capacity ferrying a bunch of humans from the airforce to the moon just so they could plant a flag and pick up the random rocks that happened to catch their eye. A fully robotic mission would have made much more sense and would have been faaaaaaaar cheaper.

    In terms of the whether humans will get ferried to Mars, I agree with your Government-sponsored program arguments but I think that we are starting to see that there is a viable private market for manned spaceflight as well as private philanthropists willing to seed fund off-earth colonisation. Both of these things will change the parameters substantially - the Govt-sponsored in terms of throwing sheer weight of resources at it and the private by finding innovative much cheaper solutions over a period of time: solutions that may well entail greater risks but also real paybacks.
     
  3. hawkeye

    hawkeye New Member Silver Stacker

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    I've got another one like that with Dawkins and another physicist if you are interested. The thing I like about these is the way they are so down-to-earth despite talking about amazing science. I like how it is bringing these things to the people and showing them not just the value of science, but also how interesting it really is.

    I see a couple of economic motivations for space missions at the moment.

    The first is space tourism. I want to holiday in a luxury hotel orbiting the Earth. :) I think that would be awesome. I think a lot of other people would too, and I think there is huge economic incentive for entrepreneurs to deliver that. It will become affordable at some point, so there is competition to be the first one to grab that market.

    The second one is asteroid mining. There are incredible amounts of wealth to be made if you can effectively mine asteroids. And you can see that the first company has been set up by people who are very smart with lots of money (like the Google guys) so that's another big one.

    I'm not sure colonization of other planets is as imperative as was colonization of other lands in previous centuries. I think that might have been to do with a growing population in the past, and as well it was expanding the current empires of the time so they would be more powerful than their rivals. With current demographics it looks like population might top out this century. Although thinking about it there is also the idea that we may fend off death for much longer, so, hmmm, not sure....

    Exploration will continue to be done by probes (hopefully it will go back to being a privately-funded thing) because people are curious and willing to pay for that curiosity.

    I do think that if there wasn't as much money sunk into the military and other money-sinks, that if people had that money themselves rather than govt, then investment in the above areas would be greater than it currently is.
     
  4. bordsilver

    bordsilver Well-Known Member Silver Stacker

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    Definitely interested. :)

    I agree and is why I think it will principally be philanthropic or politically motivated. Given my (somewhat limited) understanding, planetary colonisation seems to only makes sense until we can radically alter our genetic profile to cope without substantial gravity. The energy costs of escaping the gravity wells are ridiculous and would seem best to be avoided unless there is a physical benefit in terms of our bodies or if the cost of generating reliable protection against the extreme harshness of space for a sizeable/sustainable population happens to be substantially greater than using the natural protections available from a planet with an atmosphere (which may actually preclude Mars except from a learning point of view).

    Absolutely. How many more minds would not have been corrupted by useless university courses if it hadn't been monopolised and corrupted by the Government which funded many self-interested political/economics/arts/environment/law etc degrees furthering the encroachment of Government and reducing the prevalence of the sciences.

    So to the thread topic. Money printing furthers the encroachment of the Government which kills off R&D and Scientific education which effectively kills off space programs.
     
  5. hawkeye

    hawkeye New Member Silver Stacker

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    These two seem to have done a few of these now but this is the one I watched.

    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WObFAvOw830[/youtube]

    I feel like I'm spamming this thread with videos but here is another way of thinking about it, really outside the box. Couldn't find part 2 on YouTube, you may need to use other methods to get the rest if interested ;)

    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfEF3ED9hGg[/youtube]

    Nicely done.
     
  6. CriticalSilver

    CriticalSilver New Member Silver Stacker

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    The thing that gets me about going into space versus near-earth orbit are how much larger the distances are.

    For instance, it is 384,800kms to the moon, while the furthest from earth a post-Apollo astronaut has gotten is 620km when fixing the Hubble telescope. The ISS is only 330km to 435km high.

    Interestingly, if one laid out US $1 Dollar notes end on end, it would only require $2,467,299,308 (less than $2.5B) to reach the moon.

    Considering the US Fed's $85B per month asset purchase program, that equates to over 34 lunar distances per month in new money printing for that program alone!

    By comparison, it takes $2,241,586,759,425 ($2.2T) to paper over 1 Astronomical Unit (the distance between the earth and sun).

    Alpha Centauri is 277,600 AU from earth, which would require $622,101T to paper over that distance.
     
  7. CriticalSilver

    CriticalSilver New Member Silver Stacker

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    I guess with the tapper, they're not going to get to Alpha Centauri. :(

    But did they get to the moon in the 1960's or was it cold war propaganda? Who knows. But this article investigating the errors in parallax of the Apollo 15 landing is interesting. The explanations are a bit hard to follow at times, but one must make some allowance for translation.

    A Stereoscopic method of verifying Apollo lunar surface images

    An example of the issues:
    [​IMG]

    A proposed resolution:
    [​IMG]

    Who knows what's real anymore? Maybe they got there, maybe not. If they have gotten a living person beyond low earth orbit, they have completely failed at capitalising on the capability because its has not happened again since the Apollo program.

    I note that the Greek god Apollo has correspondences with entertainment (music and poetry) while his twin sister Artemis is the goddess of the Moon, amongst other titles associated with adventure and daring. What's in a name? Probably not much, but again, maybe that was just part of the "in" joke.

    A lunch time pondering.

    Edit: To note the context of the time was that of the London Gold Pool collapse, Vietnam War and their associated economic crisis' along with the MAD policies of the cold war. Maybe some engaging entertainment for the populous to distract from issues of the moment was the order of the day? A dose of global warming anyone. :)
     

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