I am not a space-travel curmudgeon, but the realities....
This is a fascinating podcast about the current realities of humans not living on planet Earth. Very timely topic that goes with my post about Space is dangerous to humans.
The following is just the start of the discussion:
Russ Roberts: Let's start with some of the myths, as you do in the book, that people have about this. Somehow if we travel into space, we're going to be able to start the world anew--a Garden of Eden, free of the constraints of human failure, either international conflict and so on, a sort of utopian vision, which I think is very common and very appealing. What's wrong with that?
I suppose that the obvious thing wrong with it is just that humans remain social apes, and there's no reason to suppose there will be a discontinuity with history.
My older brother is a Constitutional scholar..... 'Well, how would you write the Constitution for Mars if you were going to do that?' First question--he's a tweedy conservative--he said, 'Well, who's going?' Which, nerds tend to think, well, we just need the right people and the right set of rules and nothing bad will happen.
He was, like, 'No, they're not going to be discontinuous with the culture. They come with a culture. There's no way to undo it.' And so, you have to, like humans always have done, exist within these constraints.
So, the moon is very hard.
...for example, there are two days' night--fortnightly days, fortnightly nights--meaning it's, like, 14 Earth-days of day, 14 Earth-days of night. So, it gets extraordinarily cold and extraordinarily hot.
You're exposed completely to radiation. So, on Earth, even the International Space Station is protected by Earth's magnetosphere, which blocks or reroutes ionizing radiation. You don't have that on the moon.
I kind of thought about this. Humans would bring their current cultures with them. We do not get along here, why would we get along somewhere else? The environment of space - as in WHAT environment?!
Again, a podcast well worth your time to hear.
p.s. Zach Weinersmithhas a graphic novel for children called "Bea Wolf," based upon the classic Beowulf.
