this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2025
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chapotraphouse
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No anti-nautilism posts. See: Eco-fascism Primer
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I think people underestimate just how much resources would be required even for our own planet to be fully space faring.
The fuel for our current ships, for example, is in short supply. There is only so much rocket fuel on Earth and each time we send something up requires a LOT. Remember that next time Tesla sends some burger or CEO to space for a PR stunt.
People treat technology and science like it's some magic thing that will keep getting more advanced to the point it can do any magical thing. But sometimes the answer science gives you is "there is literally not enough matter and energy on our planet to ever do this." But of course we have these weird infinite growth brainwarms that see technology like a progression line in a video game instead of the result of observing and studying the material world.
Don’t listen to this alien propaganda
The absolute idiot. If we don't have enough matter, we will simply create more
Aliens pay me good money to post here you better not fuck up my gig.
I blame the Civilization games
Liberal capitalism too, but also the Civilization games
Incidentally, this is one thing I love about Shadow Empire. It's a 4X game that takes place on a randomly generated planet, all resource deposits are finite, and you have to tailor your economic and military strategy to the planetary conditions and resources available. If the planet's a lifeless rock, it won't have any oil reserves, so your motorized and mechanized forces will have to rely on biodiesel or electric engines. No atmosphere but lots of rare earth metals? Get your power from solar panels. Bone-dry desert world? You will fight all-out wars for an underground lake.
This mindset existed long before Civ though.
Bitcoin fixes this.
Fuck I forgot to consider doge
Only to the moon though.
A space elevator would fix this.
Imagine getting in the spave elevator and some jerk presses all the buttons 😩😡
I'm gonna take the space stairs and hit the stop button on every level.
What do you mean? Is there even enough steel on earth to build something that tall? How would such a structure be possible when we can't even keep our ground level structures properly maintained?
The current idea is carbon tubes to make the supports light enough, but material science is nowhere near close enough for a space elevator.
and this is why we must build the space staircase first before we embark on the mysteries of the elevator
Oof I’ve heard of a walk-up but this is ridiculous!
The key idea of a space elevator is that it's being held in tension by a counterweight just past the point of a geosynchronous orbit. The problem of course being that even being in tension like that we don't have anything that could support its own weight let alone the capacity to construct and place such a massive structure.
A side note is that earth is probably one of the worst places for a space elevator anyways, the moon isn't an awful choice though.
supposedly we could do one on the moon to lunar orbit with current materials....
except for the gosh dang UV sensitivity
Me if they send me to space
China’s single thorium reactor will take us there
Hydro-LOx (read: water) is one of the most efficient conventional fuels, and it's in use in NASA's Space Launch System powering the Artemis program.
Even if you assume somehow all the fresh water has disappeared, there's still solar-powered electrolysis to create hydrolox from sea water.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170412-is-the-world-running-out-of-fresh-water
Hasen't that been abandoned for being too expensive/resource consuming?
It's not too expensive, it's just more expensive than getting hydrogen from fossil fuels, so the only reason you'd electrolyze hydrogen from water right now is if you're trying to be green.
I see
Yeah you're doing the spaceflight equivalent of the great horse manure crisis. Earth-to-space technology begins with rockets.
What else would possibly produce enough energy? Some imaginary technology we haven't made yet? Something that defies the laws of matter and energy? We just assume we will find or create something before that fuel runs out, even though there isn't a solid reason for us to make these assumptions other that "Sci-fi movies told me so."
Expecting something that we have no reason to assume exists to save us isn't any different from believing in the second coming.
How is it neo-luddite to accept the reality that we need to carefully plan our resources and not just expect shit will go like the movies? If anything expecting space travel to be like a video game hampers our ability to find solutions that don't live up the the "space colonial" ideal. Sure, if we figure out how to mine asteroids in my lifetime without expending more resources than we would gain, fine, I'll eat my hat. But you're talking a round trip of insanely heavy stuff over unfathomable distances when Space X currently can barely put people in orbit.
You are the one treating spaceflight like a video game here. FTL, stagnancy, and unrealistically efficient rockets are mainstays in that genre. Dialectical materialist analysis of the development of human civilization is not.
Hmm I'll take your word for it, but I still don't think it's unreasonable to consider that the resources of a planet can dictate a civilisations technology.
Of course resources are a limitation. But instead of investigating a supposed limitation and seeing what can be overcome and what is truly fundamental, you have people either giving up and calling the issue intractable or not putting in the work while expecting it to be resolved. Example: liquid fuels. Inside of America there are two wolves—one correctly notes the high carbon cost of liquid hydrocarbons and the high money cost of synthesizing them and concludes there is no future for liquid fuels, while the other hears "synthetic fuels" and assumes the problem is already solved and so electrification need not be hurried. In reality, the high money cost can be overcome with sufficient buildup of renewables, as is beginning to be seen in China and will become obvious in the 2030s.
I see your point.
You're speaking without any investigation in the matter. In the 21st century, advanced spaceplanes, electromagnetic rail assisted launches (there was even a post about this here, and it concerned China so everyone was a big fan), and sustainable & advanced energy infrastructure that can synthesize fuels is the future of the launch industry. Eventually, costly and complex infrastructure projects such as skyhooks and launch loops can be employed. The task of humanity is to develop the productive forces that enable such projects, not throw our hands up in the air and pretend we will be stuck with the Saturn V and fossil fuels for all eternity.
There are more resources in the solar system though
How do you extract them? How much energy would you be expending by extracting them?
If you don't have to worry about money you can be very efficient with energy. It just takes a little mass to trick asteroids to leave the belt and hang out near the moon if you don't have to have it done in time for a quarterly profit.
More iron than we can imagine nice and easy.