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Yes, but there would've been more cost-effective ways of doing it than Artemis.

Also, it's nice to see a Guardian article that doesn't swerve into a tangent about "bUt WhAt AbOuT pRoBlEmS oN eArTh?"

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>Given everything going on down here, it is kind of silly to be making plans for moon colonies that will never happen.

"Given everything going on in the 1800s, it was kind of silly to be making plans for communications methods that would never be built."

"Given everything going on in the early 1900s US, it was kind of silly to be making plans for flying craft that would never be built."

"Given everything going on in the 1970s US, it was kind of silly to be making plans for high-yield grain varieties that would never be planted."

​

"There's so much going on right now! That means we can't do anything else!"

I mean don't have we have more important things like Twitter to save???

I don’t understand this mindset. NASA doesn’t take bags of money and launch them into space. The money is spent here on earth on things like R&D and paying salaries to highly skilled engineers and technicians. There’s a ton of NASA developed technologies that are spun off and used to make life better. Ask anyone that has had their life saved by getting an MRI. That’s technology NASA drastically advanced in the 60’s.

Let's assume this moon colony actually happens. By the end of the century, decent chance that parts or all of the Cape could be underwater. Are we really going to need a moon colony at that point?

But the reality is that 99.9% chance that a moon colony never materializes and all we're left with is a big old giant heavy lift rocket for whomever to use for whatever purpose.

If you think the profitability of a social media platform is more important for humanity than a moonbase, that's on you.

I'm just following Dear Leader Elon's lead.

"Anyone who thinks a moonbase is a good thing is clearly a simp for Elon Musk."

Could you explain why you think that?

I just think it's kind of funny that he and the fans made such a big deal about saving humanity through space colonies but then got gigged by his own memery.

How is that in any way relevant to this?

People who mention Elon Musk without someone else having already done so are, more often than not, obsessed with him.

Not everything related to space is about Elon Musk, which means that someone who mentions Musk (without him already having been brought up) is irritating regardless of whether they're for him or against him. It's very clear that he lives rent-free inside their minds, regardless of whether they see him as some kind of infallible god or as the embodiment of modern economic evil.

Don't be one of those people.

I keep getting the feeling that the US is using Artemis as a kind of placeholder so they don't get edged out of all that free Moon real estate by the Chinese (among other countries with active lunar programs).

>By the end of the century, decent chance that parts or all of the Cape could be underwater.

Why does this make a moonbase a bad idea?

People spend money on, say, improving education, or developing infrastructure. But there are other problems that could also be solved with that money. Does that mean we shouldn't spend money on improving education or developing infrastructure?

>Are we really going to need a moon colony at that point?

A moon colony is useful at any point.

>But the reality is that 99.9% chance that a moon colony never materializes

How do you know that?

>and all we're left with is a big old giant heavy lift rocket for whomever to use for whatever purpose.

You say that like it's somehow a bad thing.

He's definitely made a mess of the space colonies being critical for humanity angle.

If people are against space colonies because Elon Musk is for space colonies, that's on them, not on Musk.

Because once mass migrations start, we're going to have to pull back on any grand space colony fantasies.

And the idea that the govt is going to actually foot the bill for a space colony seems kind of ludicrous. We can barely maintain the funding for ISS lol.

I’m not going to spend a lot of time responding becauseI think you’re determined to wallow in doom and gloom. However, it’s been estimated that there has been an ROI of $7 to $1 from the Apollo program. That’s significant. That program produced, or made better, technologies like better fire fighting equipment, water filtration, heart and health monitoring, more efficient solar panels, better treatments for dialysis patients. Not to mention the billions NASA spends on earth sciences each year. The Saturn V isn’t around any longer, but we still have all the technologies that spun out of the Apollo program.

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>Because once mass migrations start, we're going to have to pull back on any grand space colony fantasies.

Why?

>And the idea that the govt is going to actually foot the bill for a space colony seems kind of ludicrous.

Who says it'll all be the government?

There are sources of funding outside of government spending, you know.

>We can barely maintain the funding for ISS lol.

[citation needed]

Oh, and you're still not addressing why you believe there's a "99.9% chance that a moon colony never materializes" and why a "giant heavy lift rocket" is a bad thing.

You apparently think the things you're saying should be self-evident. They're not. Please explain why you think they are.

Reality seems to be wallowing in doom and gloom. I get it if it's too much to face directly.

>Reality seems to be wallowing in doom and gloom.

If you view everything through social/news media and a lens of cynicism, yes.

Just because a view of the world sucks doesn't mean that view of the world is true.

> I get it if it's too much to face directly.

"You're too afraid to acknowledge how sad and horrible reality is, unlike me, who's an mature adult because I understand how much everything sucks and is hopeless."

Not what you actually said word-for-word, but essentially the same message you're trying to get across.

Believe it or not, people aren't naive children for believing in things you don't.

Why wouldn't mass internal migration lead to pullbacks in pretty much all discretionary spending? Are you living in Elon's fantasy land?

I don't know that it's really all that useful for the average Joe to spend a lot of time pondering all the doom and gloom. So I get the desire to ignore it or focus on other things.

But it is the reality.

>Why wouldn't mass internal migration lead to pullbacks in pretty much all discretionary spending?

Well, for starters, it's probably not going to be internal migration, because a whole bunch of people living around the equator are going to try to flee north or south. There'll be an actual refugee crisis at the US-Mexico border because of it.

But, that aside, why do you think that precludes spending on a moonbase?

>Are you living in Elon's fantasy land?

"anyone I'm against is living in Elon's fantasy land"

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You still haven't explained why you believe:

• "we" can barely maintain the funding for the ISS (whoever "we" is)
• there's a "99.9% chance that a moon colony never materializes"
• why a "giant heavy lift rocket" is a bad thing

Like, do you actually believe any of what you're saying? You don't seem to be able to explain why you actually believe these things. To me, it appears you're assuming the things you're saying are so clearly true that anyone who believes otherwise is mentally deficient, which your other comments reflect.

So when Florida goes underwater and we can't just lock out all the refugees at the border, all the Floridians are going to go where?

>I don't know that it's really all that useful for the average Joe to spend a lot of time pondering all the doom and gloom. So I get the desire to ignore it or focus on other things.

So, in other words, you're above the "average joe". You're enlightened. Unlike all those stupid optimists, you understand that the world is actually a shitty place, that we're all inevitably doomed due to, say, climate change, and that you're smarter than all the stupid, childish sheeple, because you're a complete cynic, just like a wise, mature adult. Reality is awful and horrible, and you're the only one smart enough to realize that. Everyone who doesn't believe in what you do just needs to grow up and face the harsh, cruel truth: the world sucks.

Have you considered you might just be depressed and trying to rationalize that? Objectively speaking, things don't really suck as much as you apparently think they do.

>But it is the reality.

"It's cynical! Therefore, it's true!"

>So when Florida goes underwater and we can't just lock out all the refugees at the border, all the Floridians are going to go where?

Which has what do do with a moonbase?

Regardless, I'm not making an assertation about what the future of climate change-induced migration will look like. I'm asking what that has to do with a moonbase.

Besides, you still haven't explained why you believe:

• "we" can barely maintain the funding for the ISS (whoever "we" is)
• there's a "99.9% chance that a moon colony never materializes"
• why a "giant heavy lift rocket" is a bad thing

Why do you believe these things? I've explained why I believe what I believe. Why can't you explain what you believe?

Didn't you try to say that it wouldn't be internal migration for some reason? I was just explaining that to you.

How many people are starving to death right at this very moment? Is that number projected to increase or decrease?

If you want to discuss migration, do it elsewhere. This isn't about that.

You aren't responding to anything I'm saying.

I think this conversation is over.

So you don't want to talk about starving people being relevant to an underlying state of doom and gloom?

Not surprising.

I was trying to explain to you how you were wrong.

As far as manned lunar program goes America is the only one in the game, next is China. EU being a partner with the US and potentially China also means they will follow right behind the leaders. Russia has talked about a moon program but considering their situation rn I take it with a massive pile of salt.

Apart from that, Japan is on Artemis as well.

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End what?

I do wish to see another human walking on the moon in my lifetime. Maybe within this decade

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https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/iss-20-years-20-breakthroughs

this is just a hand picked selection of 20, now imagine the discoveries a moon base would bring

definitely within this decade i believe, we might even have a rudimentary moon base and gateway station, all we're waiting on now is spacex to develop the lander really

That's all true but won't that also be true for anything that you throw billions of dollars at? Like imagine a Manhattan project except to build out a renewable grid...

Don't you think that sort of thing would generate a similar list of of items that you wouldn't have had otherwise?

I agree that if we had infinite money, definitely go for the space stuff too and use the extreme environment to force innovation.

But we don't have infinite money. And with the end of globalization, every nation is going to have to take a hard look at the things they throw money at. We are entering a new world and no one knows what it's going to look like in 20 years. But making ourselves more resilient would seem to be a better investment than learning how to live on the moon.

space is a totally different environment and can provide countless unique benefits you wouldn’t get on earth, and nasa is only half a percent of the total us budget

please don’t reply i don’t wanna be in a 20 comment rdeditd argument, i’m just saying your mind set is archaic and you could say the same thing about anything that isn’t instantly beneficial to humanity, like the military which gets over half of the us budget and is literally a department working on better ways to make us go extinct

I agree that space is different than down here and the technology generated provides unique benefits.

I'm just not convinced it's the best investment given everything going on down here on Earth right now and in the next decades.

I get the fact that people don't really want to acknowledge the hardships and tough choices that are ahead of us. In fact, the functioning of the economy and everything else sort of requires that we take on some level of cognitive dissonance to keep on going to work everyday and keep on going with our lives. I'm just as guilty of that as anyone else.

But when we're making long term plans, we do need to account for the actual reality and not the dissonant one we're all trying to pretend still exists. And even beyond the money, I'm not convinced the world is going to be geopolitically stable enough to support a long term occupation of the moon.

Is he wrong?

The logic behind making humans an interplanetary species is to preserve our existence.

Surely that is something you support? Considering you are concerned with the risk of extinction that climate change presents? That is not the only threat mankind faces. Asteroids and nuclear war are just two more extinction possibilities.

The jury is still out on whether or not you can build a human supporting biosphere somewhere else.

Regardless of that, for the foreseeable future, any space colony is going to be entirely dependent on the Earth. And one of the biggest dangers they will face is that the supply ships stop coming. That's one of the benefits of the moon...you at least have an out if that happens. Mars, not so much, if you get unlucky on transfer windows and so forth.

Existentially speaking, you're just taking the same problems you have here and transplanting them somewhere else. It's kind of silly to expect different results in a much more resource restricted environment without really changing your behaviors.

And given the oncoming polarization of the world, unilaterally staking claim to an off world colony could be a destabilizing factor that exacerbates one of those extinction possibilities. So, to that extent, you're just making the problem that you're trying to solve that much more likely.

That's a similar issue to what Space Force is inadvertently doing right now. In an effort to try to make us safer, they are making the world less stable.

>The jury is still out on whether or not you can build a human supporting biosphere somewhere else.

We've done that. The ISS, not much different doing it on the moon. Mars of course is another story considering it is quite a bit further but that does not mean it cannot be done.

>Regardless of that, for the foreseeable future, any space colony is going to be entirely dependent on the Earth. And one of the biggest dangers they will face is that the supply ships stop coming. That's one of the benefits of the moon...you at least have an out if that happens. Mars, not so much, if you get unlucky on transfer windows and so forth.

They could and probably would become self sufficient.

>Existentially speaking, you're just taking the same problems you have here and transplanting them somewhere else. It's kind of silly to expect different results in a much more resource restricted environment without really changing your behaviors.

Still doesn't stop us from dying out to an asteroid.

Your negativity towards human progress is sad.

Check out the Biosphere stories. That's what you need to be self sufficient. And again the jury is still out on whether that's even possible over the long term. You might need a Biosphere X about the size of the Moon to provide enough stability over the long term.

And just saying that they could become economically self sufficient is one thing. But you've got to somehow get over the bootstrap problem. Which we really haven't found a solution to yet.

And to your last point, it's actually more likely that we die to our own negligence or our petty squabbles or our refusal to acknowledge the situation we are in and do anything about it than dying to the asteroid thing.

And every year that situation gets a little worse. Where the asteroid risk stays mostly constant and incredibly low.

How many people are being cured or helped with diseases and or disabilities that couldn't have been helped 50 years ago?

Is the glass half full or half empty in reality?

The nasa budget isn’t where I’d get money to fix that

Either way, whatever we say on here doesn't matter.

If NASA doesn't build a lunar base you can bet your arse the Chinese will. They don't give a rats arse about climate enough to prevent their space ambitions.

I really don't see that happening but, if it did, it might actually settle tensions to some extent for the US to allow another nation to do something like that and not go to war to stop them.

It'd be a sign of good faith lol.

Considering the US has quite a lot of pride in itself it wouldn't allow it to go unanswered. Doesn't mean you would have war on your hands but the US would definitely try to one up and that would probably be a base on Mars.

Anyway you seem less opposed to China creating a lunar base which is curious. Why is that? Why more opposed to the US creating a lunar base? When they are the ones most capable of doing so.

I'm just not afraid of China. And as I mentioned, I really don't see China expending the resources to do a moon base. They've got more than they can handle already on their plate to deal with over next couple decades.

The space station is probably their high water mark.

That's where you're underestimating China. They are the biggest threat to US hegemony here and beyond.

And they have the luxury of not really having to give a damn about climate change activists that are anti-space exploration. Because as soon as an activist protests a Chinese mission to build a moon base they'll be locked up before they can utter their first chant.

The US on the other hand doesn't have that luxury and has to navigate the increasing pressure of environmentalists which believe they are doing the right thing like yourself but fail to realise that good intentions do not always equal good outcomes.

Say the US were to bow to your demands and cease space exploration/habitation for the sake of climate change next thing you know an asteroid or nuclear war wipes us all out. Bye bye Earth and all that you hold precious on it that you sought to protect, all for naught because the US didn't get mankind to become an interplanetary species to ensure its continued existence thanks to the "save the planet fight climate change" types.

I sincerely feel those that are anti-space exploration and colonisation under the justification of climate change are misguided and you fall in that bracket.

And on top of all this is a lot of irony. Space exploration and advancement will preserve our planet and all species on it by allowing us to move polluting and environment damaging work off planet. Such as mining, mining asteroids (which have more minerals in them than the Earth does) we will no longer need to mine the earth when we can get most of our minerals from asteroids.

That is just one example of many where space exploration and advancement benefits our planet and the preservation of all species on the planet indirectly and sometimes directly.

US hegemony is the biggest threat to US hegemony. lol

And there's really no need to be scared of the Chinese. Just look at the demographic problems they are going to be facing over the next few decades.

But I guess that would require a little effort on your part and as such too much to ask.

To be fair, killing Twitter is doing humanity a big favor.

True. Does he mean it like that tho?

I love that you're praising the article for not swerving into negatives and you're literally swerving into negatives lol

Most launch vehicles are place holders in general. Once the technology freeze comes into place they will rarely add on modern innovations to existing/nearly complete launch vehicles. They're basically out of date on the first launch. Even during the hay day of the Saturn V they were working on the next one and they were working on several for the space shuttle. The Falcon 9 program is much a demo/test bed and will probably never make profit, but the successors of it 100% will be profitable if not very different from what we'd expect.

The ISS was a placeholder originally to prevent Russian brain drain and keep funding for nasa going.