I got almost nothing original to add to the fine discussions already in progress over Stephen Hawking’s tragic display of douchebaggery, since so many bloggers and commentors hit pretty much all of the relevant points almost instantly.
Running around in science class, the idea of massive migrations into space was never once brought up or seriously discussed, in class or in shooting the breeze with other students. Where I’ve encountered it the most is in psuedo-scientific circles, internet chat groups or friends of friends who fancy themselves knowledgable about some super cool area of physics (usually space). These people are usually pretty smart (a lot of computer programmers, for example) and can pull physical trivia out of their ass far better than I can, referencing this guy’s vaugely used law or that largely ignored study. They are also, to a man (and 99 times out of 100, it’s a man), conservative/libertarian sci-fi fans with shall we say, issues socializing. But they are passionate about getting people into space.
Remember three or so years ago, when Columbia broke up on descent and we lost all the astronauts including the first Israeli astronaut ever, and ordinary Americans found bits of space shuttle in their yards? And it turned out to be a largely preventable accident that exposed serious problems with NASA beauracracy? And so, reasonably, I thought, NASA halted launches and manned space flights to find out that part of the problem was that engineers and project managers were terrified to give bad news to supervisors? You know, that most of the problem wasn’t “Space travel is inheriently dangerous” but “NASA went out of its way to turn petty things into massive dangers.” And of course, money was an issue? Remember all that?
Yeah, the people I’m talking about were outraged that NASA would halt shuttle launches to investigate the most dramatic space shuttle disaster in nearly 20 years. Hey, less than a dozen people died in Challenger (including a teacher who basically won a contest to get on the flight. There was a teacher in my elementary school who had applied for that spot and made it about halfway through the selection process) less than a dozen people died on Columbia-space travel is safer than driving on the highways! They said. What the fuck are people getting their panties in a knot over? This is the cost of space travel, they said.
That the deaths were largely preventable escaped their notice. That the fatalities stem not from dangerous space-virii or alien death rays, but from government paper-pushers and a toxic office culture and that there is a difference in the minds of most people (and I should hope, especially in the minds of the astronauts, you know the people who take the risks to bring you the NASA TV cable channel that you keep running in your bedroom as you post to internet chat boards) eluded them. That’s just the cost they said. Unsuprisingly these people are not such big fans of social services or enviornmentalism.
But when Hawking says we’ll have a colony on Mars in 40 years, he’s not ( or at least, he shouldn’t be) talking about a colony with a space port and a Starbucks that you can go to when the 10 billion people on earth have pushed into your McMansion and divided it into Tree Grows in Brooklyn style flats. It’d be more like Roananoke, Va ca 1585. Because someone’s gotta do the shit work to terraform the place, and it’s highly likely that it will cost skajillions of dollars, fail several times before it succeeds, and cost several lives. Are the colonize space! cheerleaders ready to be on that first shuttle flight to the construction site? Bueller? Anyone?
And then you know what we’ll finally have? A damn mining town because the only thing up there that could possibly pay for it (or make it worthwhile for private sector enterprises) are the mineral rights. Not all the taxpayers in the world, even if we turned everyone into slaves and stopped provided health care or food or education to anyone or ever fought a war or repaved a road again. There would have to be something up there worth selling to us down here, and there’s only two things between us and Jupiter, space and rocks. Who will own the rights to the space, or to the rocks? Who ever gets there first, is my guess. We could spend decades arguing about that while the Earth’s temperature and population climb ever higher.
If the situation on Earth gets desparate enough that people start migrating to space, the non-soaking-rich ones will go to the new world the way they have always gone to new worlds, as indentured servants. But you know, it’ll be worth it because things’ll be different this time around.
I wouldn’t trust NASA to fix me a bowl of cereal without accidentally pouring oven cleaner in it, much less send me into space.
Just to nitpick, the actual location of the Roanoke is in north carolina. Roanoke, Virginia, is a decent sized town in the mountains, founded much later.
though, i really doubt there was much going on in Roanoke, VA in 1586, either.
Its a cool story. They got dropped off there, abandoned for a couple years (war, financial troubles, their backer fell out of favor w/ the virgin queen), and when someone finally went back to check on them, they found an intact settlement with no people on it- no bodies, no signs of fire or violence, just one word, carved into a tree- “Croatan”.
may refer to a nearby island, or to indians, or something. no one knows. 120 people just fucking vanished.
I came home from school one day, and my mom had left me a note with just the word “Croatan” on it.
turns out she just went to the store, but it sure had me worried for a second.
These people are usually pretty smart (a lot of computer programmers, for example) and can pull physical trivia out of their ass far better than I can, referencing this guy’s vaugely used law or that largely ignored study. They are also, to a man (and 99 times out of 100, it’s a man), conservative/libertarian sci-fi fans with shall we say, issues socializing. But they are passionate about getting people into space.
You know, for all the shit my post kicked up, I was too chicken to say what you just said.
You are officially my hero.
This entire discussion of giving up on Earth and starting a colony on Mars just makes me think of this for some reason.
Has anyone else read Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars series? He’s a “hard” science fiction writer, as in, he did lots of research. He’s also a lefty, and most of the story involves political struggles and whatnot. Anyway, it’s a series of novels about colonizing and terraforming Mars, and it thoroughly convinced me that colonizing and terraforming Mars would be a stupid idea, even if it were possible, which it probably won’t be. The only thing that seemed to justify colonizing Mars in Robinson’s books was the creation of radically new, experimental cultures — and doing that doesn’t require a separate planet.
Are the colonize space! cheerleaders ready to be on that first shuttle flight to the construction site? Bueller? Anyone?
Strawman. Yes, many many thousands of space enthusiasts would eagerly volunteer to be on the first shuttle, or the second, or the hundredth. Hell, a lot of them would give their left arms for a chance at a ticket.