REM@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU (Robert Elton Maas) (02/21/86)
F> Date: 9 Feb 86 04:10:48 GMT F> From: unmvax!nmtvax!fine@ucbvax.berkeley.edu (Andrew J Fine) F> Subject: Re: Scuttle the Space Program? F> Does humanity (men and women) really *need* to populate space? Yes, if we expect to survive we absolutely must either populate space or move Earth away from the Sun to another star in about 5-10 billion years. F> Do we really need to explore, in person or otherwise, other planets? No, not specifically, but generally if we explore everything we become aware of then our science will advance further than if we omit some categories of exploration. F> Historically, exploration and open boundaries only encouraged F> exploitation, slavery, and genocide of indigenous peoples such as F> African, American Natives, and East Asians. For the time being this point is totally moot. We are pretty certain there is no intelligence life whatsoever anywhere except Earth in this solar system, thus during the next two phases of exploration (local Earth/Moon system, and Ringworld/DysonSphere) we won't be conquering anyone already out there, and we will be relieving a lot of need to conquer that has been going on on this overcrowded Earth. F> It widened the gap between the rich and the poor at home, and the F> massive funds spent on ships and weapons in that previous era caused F> more people to starve. We'll have to be careful to avoid repeating that. Massive collectors of solar energy in space, feeding pure electricity via microwaves or other means to Earth so that we can provide everyone on Earth with nearly free energy instead of only the rich while avoiding the inefficiency of traditional power plants on Earth that waste half their energy in heat into the local environment, will shrink the gap between rich and poor in my opinion. We'll have to make sure that potential becomes actuality. Something between the "moon treaty" which prevents anyone from getting a return on investment, and a totally free enterprise where the rich get richer and the poor stay the same but feel worse by comparison with the rich, needs to be adopted within the next 30 years. With lots of cheap energy to desalinate water and pump it into the deserts, there'll be more food to support more people. With habitat in space there'll be hundreds of times as much living space as there is on this tiny Earth, so that we can support 500 billion people comfortably instead of having trouble supporting the 6 billion we have now. F> It also increased the likelyhood of the lawless being able to escape F> justice, for example Botany Bay and the HMS Bounty. I see nothing wrong with Botany Bay, especially compared to locking them in jail and then supporting them until we parole them. I think on this point I can't argue with you, just say I disagree on what is more desirable. F> So what do we buy with $2 billion dollars? One shuttle, good for F> 100 missions (best case) with 7 people each. Or enough food, clean F> water, and other necesssities to feed Ethiopia for the next ten F> decades, easily. Do we spend our last 100 years of industrial society squandering our resources on feeding ourselves but not developing any long-range plan, then the fossil fuel supply collapses and we have no alternative so we revert to pre-industrial society and 90% of the world's population dies within a few years due to starvation, and then before continental drift can uncover new fossil fuels the Earth gets too warm to support life and we all die (permanently; unlike Saturday-morning cartoon shows when you are dead you stay dead)? Or do we spend our last 100 years of Earth-based industrial society developing industry in space and then go on to survive to the end of the Universe? F> So what do space-faring nations prove when they invoke national prestige and F> the desire of humanity to expand, by consuming all that money and F> men-centuries? "I'm rich enough to do this and you're not, so there!". I don't like that argument for space either. I wish we didn't have to appeal to "national prestige" and politics just to develop the space-based resources we will need to survive the next two centuries. F> "My rocket is bigger than yours!". "We are leaving you behind to scratch the F> dust while we inherit the universe!" One man's glory is another man's F> humiliation. One man's wealth is another man's poverty. One man's F> livelihood is another man's serfdom. Each individual person will die, within a hundred years from birth in most cases although some live slightly longer and next century perhaps many will. Thus the topic of "leaving you behind to scratch dust" must be applied not to individual people, all of which will turn to dust anyway, but to genetic lines, i.e. to descendents. Even somebody who never goes to space can have children who do, if my plan is adopted. I proposed (and repeat now) that once we have largescale space-based habitat, that we encourage sperm and egg to be sent to space and "test-tube" births to occur there. I figure within about 40 years the technology for an artificial womb will be developed, about the same time large-scale space-based habitat is developed. Then what we can do is have each couple have one child on Earth (mandatory birth control) but an unlimited number of children in space via artificial womb. It is advantageous for the survival of our species that *all* people on Earth partake in this, rather than just the rich, because it gives more variety of genetic component and thus better chance of surviving various new envirionments in space. Further, it is advantageous that other species are brought with us into space. For one-celled life and other microscopic life we can bring the life itself. For large organisms we can use the same artificial-womb method we use for humans. I would then advocate we actually do this, reproduce *all* Earth-based life into space one way or another. Very few species will go extinct after we do that. Among humans, the poor as well as the rich will (via descendents) move into space. Telecommunications will be such that parents on Earth can conference with their children in space, so maybe they can't hug them but they can do just about everything else in the way of raising their children. (With teleoperators that have good tactile feedback they may even be able to hug!) F> Why have satellites and information systems at all, except to invade the F> privacy and keep records on a captive populace? I think you're getting absurd on this point. How about these electronic-mail discussions we're having? Don't you think they're worthwhile? If you don't, why do you participate? Or did you take electronic mail so much for granted you completely overlooked the fact it is an information system? -- Yes, we have to be careful not to turn the electronic revolution into 1984. We need concerned people such as you and me to speak out against Orwellian use of our technology. But so far I see more good than bad. F> Why have land and weather satellites at all, except to take advantage F> of another nation's resources and vulnerabilities? Ridiculous again. Mostly we try to predict the weather so we can warn people of bad weather and eventually be able to change the weather not to be so bad sometimes. -- Of course we have to speak out against misuse. F> Why explore the planets, interesting though they are, except to find F> more virgin landscape to despoil and riches to plunder? Do you eat plants or animals to stay alive? If plundering is immoral you should stop eating and starve to death. I think you are wrong to equate use of resources with loaded words such as "despoil" or "plunder" so long as you are alive doing exactly that to stay alive. F> Why put a man, or a women for that matter, in space? What is so F> special about anyone that we must exhalt that person above all others F> in such an eletist fashion? Somebody has to be first, and naturally the first to do something gets some special media attention. I've already argued that it's good to move out into space, so I guess we just have to put up with the first few people getting an inordinate amount of attention. I do wish there was a program on TV that picked random hardworking normal people and exhalted them a little, so we can appreciate the vast numbers of hardworking busdrivers and stockroom clerks and grocery checkers and street mainteners and computer programmers and typists etc. There are already programs that exhalt doctors&nurses, police officers & private detectives, and various kinds of very successful business owners/managers, probably too many such programs. Maybe if more ordinary people (but not like that stupid "ordinary people" program on TV) were exhalted on TV routinely, the attention of astronauts wouldn't upset you so much? I.e. I see your problem and I think the solution is to exhalt lots of regular occupations rather than to demean astronauts. F> Why shouldn't that person be put to a task that serves the world F> rather than that person's ego? It shouldn't be an either/or situation, and in case of astronauts it is in fact both; as I argued above it's necessary for the survival of the human race, and as you argue it is ego building. F> The main problem with all of us is we are still essentially barbarians at F> heart. Yup, but we're also apes at heart, and most apes (chimpanzees being the principal non-human exception) are rather peaceful. We have the choice. For a few centuries we (our ancestors, not us personally) acted mostly like barbarians, and now we are learning not to do that so much. I think Captain Kirk (Startrek) said it best; my paraphrase: yes we tended to kill in the recent past, but we can decide not to kill today. F> The Viking who was the explorer was also the Viking that also raped F> and pillaged. The Columbus who was the explorer was also the Columbus who F> converted people to his religion by force. Because (1) the lands explored were already inhabited, unlike space; (2) he wasn't watched minute by minute by three major metworks, one cable network, and lots of minor networks and individual stations, so he could do whatever he wanted and then have months to figure out an explanation before he got back to Scandanavia/Portugal, (3) global responsibility hadn't yet become popular, theirs was an age of glorious war and conquest, (4) the lands explored were small compared to the lands already known whereas space is orders of magnitude larger than Earth so there's lots of elbow room so even if we find some planet around some distant star already inhabited we don't have to conquer them or be conquered, we can simply keep our distance. F> The shuttle pilot who was the explorer was also the pilot who killed F> husbands, wives, and children in North Korea and North Vietnam. Yup. Today he is not killing, he is doing something useful instead. F> The wanderlust we all experience is just another word for the lust and F> coveting for the outside world that blinds us to the potentials of the F> inside world and the darkness of the soul that we need to correct. I respect the desire to survive, to stay alive in terms of genetic lines (descendents). Do you want Homo Sapiens and in fact all life on Earth to go extinct? Or is it just you who wants to die? Regarding the rest of your above remark, it may take centuries for us to completely get rid of the bad parts of our culture, our "inner flaws". Unless we survive (via descendents) the next several centuries we won't live long enough to finish the self-purification task. I don't think one person in one lifetime can go from where we are now to a correct inner perfection. Some have tried, such as the monks of the middle ages and the hippies of the 60's, but all of their plans were flawed in some way. With further experiments in the future, and with general cleansing of our overall culture, perhaps those lofty goals can be reached someday, but only if we (our descendents) are alive then. F> Do we really deserve to go "out there" when we have such a mess "down here"? Fact of nature: Nobody deserves anything, period. We have no right to be alive in the first place, but on the other hand there's no immorality inherit in being alive. We just are alive, period. You no more or less deserve to live on this planet than others deserve to live in space. Those who are successful at living will live, the rest will die out. -- Note, your remark and my answer are basically statements of religious belief, not science or engineering. I think you're grossly wrong in implying there's some global morality that makes it inherently wrong to go to space, and you probably think I'm grossly wrong in denying the global morality you believe in. Fortunately in this country we have religious freedom, not only to believe in recognized religions, but to believe in things that others may not even accept as a religion much less a good religion. I trust my debate with you on this matter won't be construed as opposing your right to believe as you do, although I hope you don't hogtie the rest of the world to your particular religious belief. F> Earth is enough for us, ... Definitely not in the long run, and these next hundred years (or less if those military people have their long-planned thermonuclear war) are crucial for getting our much-needed space. F> (the concept of having to work for one's bread is deadly when there is F> not enough work to go around) There's plenty of work to go around, just not enough paying work in a society where paying work is both the means of maintaining self-respect and respect of society and the means of getting decent food on the table and roof over head. I have lots of things I want done, like cleaning up the broken glass in the street where I have to bicicle, and I wish somebody would do that, I wish society would pay somebody to get it done so the person who does it doesn't have to starve because of doing it instead of something else, with the rest of us chipping in our share of the pay. I'd be willing to clean up the glass myself if somebody paid me to do it and provided me with tools for doing it properly and transportation for moving tools around from one site to another. -- This is getting far afield of development of space, let's move this topic to a private distribution list?? F> to recognize that the most humble peasant in Mexico or India is worth F> more to us than the President of the US or the Queen of England. I think that's stupid. The peasant and president should be equal in basic worth, just like our Constitution says for citizens of the USA, I want that extended worldwide. -- Again, off topic of space. F> If humanity can simply change from mere descendants of carnivorous apes to F> something totally gentle, altrustic, and noble, then Earth will be enough. I respectfully repeat my claim that Earth isn't enough in the long run. Re altruism, read "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins. So-called altruism is either really helping copies of genes to survive (thus really selfish, but not evil) or truly stupid altruism that dies out soon. F> We only try to escape the Earth because we try to escape our own natures. I disagree. Maybe some do that, but I want us to escape certain extinction on Earth. Our nature is to try to survive, not to knowingly suffer certain extinction. ((By the way, you have asked some good questions, and a few stupid ones. That's better than par for the course lately.)) F> *************************************************************************** F> I, personally, am in full support of the Shuttle, the Space Program, and F> the exploration and exploition of space, and it's eventual population by F> humanity. BUT NOBODY HAS EVER ASKED US THESE QUESTIONS, NOBODY HAS EVER F> CHALLENGED US TO QUESTION OURSELVES! S**t, I go to all that trouble rebutting your anti-space claims, and then it turns out you are on our side anyway. Instead of playing devil's advocate, why couldn't you have answered some of them yourself? F> We need to be able to answer them, especially if those who have not, F> question the motives of us, those who have. Somehow, net.space would F> benefit from a really in-depth discussion of our justifications of our F> actions in space and their consequences. I agree. You should try answering them too. You may have good answers a little different from mine.