[HN Gopher] Are We Multiplanetary Yet?
___________________________________________________________________
Are We Multiplanetary Yet?
Author : da-x
Score : 18 points
Date : 2025-01-05 09:33 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arewemultiplanetaryyet.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arewemultiplanetaryyet.com)
| bjourne wrote:
| But on the bright side, we may not stay uniplanetary either!
| da-x wrote:
| Multiplanetary is easy, multistellar will be a whole different
| game
| alganet wrote:
| I think he's talking about the very real possibility of
| humans ending up spreading to -1 planets.
| da-x wrote:
| I really thought he was talking about relocating mankind to
| asteroids and orbital stations
| coldtea wrote:
| Even two-planetary wont be happening anytime soon.
|
| And zero-planetary (extinction) is quite likely as well...
| moomin wrote:
| We're still trying to figure out the propulsion side of the
| problem, which frankly is the Asylum Demon of colonising another
| planet.
| ricksunny wrote:
| We're not prepared to countenance two things:
|
| 1) That some form of propellantless propulsion may in fact be
| 'a thing'.
|
| 2) That exotic propulsion technologies may be 'born secret' by
| default -- even if you or I invented them -- because of their
| national security implications (can be formed into an ICBM
| platforn). There would be no publicly-referenceable
| classification list informing you of this, because that is not
| how it works and would defeat the purpose. Our best precedent
| on this is in fact the Manhattan Project. Living then we would
| not know that isotope fission methods were restricted data,
| even while speculation could be bandied about in amateurish
| publications (cit. Alex Wellerstein's excellent blog
| https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/03/07/death-dust-1941/ )
| Moreover, we would see those few scientists who were actually
| pursuing relevant study under government auspices actively
| misrepresenting (i.e. lying) to the press. cit. Urey on heavy
| water:
|
| "...it got Harold Urey, the guy who discovered heavy water, to
| write a letter to the editor saying I don't have any clue what
| this is about. There is certainly no way to use this in war,
| which is a total lie."
|
| https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Ful...
| throw5959 wrote:
| Today's world is too transparent and connected. I can open
| the web page of an university where a bunch of PhDs research
| this and send them an email. There are legions of nerds that
| would immediately spot any inconsistency and make a total
| online outrage out of it.
| ricksunny wrote:
| 1) You do not necessarily have the email address of a
| government scientist working on a black project. 2) And if
| you do, the Urey example cited demonstrates that they are
| fully empowered to lie to you about the importance of a
| research line of interest.
| throw5959 wrote:
| You don't need it. You find someone else out of the
| thousands of people working un that field across the
| globe.
| skissane wrote:
| The whole idea of a "born secret" novel propulsion technology
| seems unlikely to me. You need to start with basic research
| showing such a technology is possible in principle-and nobody
| would make that classified because it is way too remote from
| practical application. If you did, all that would happen is
| someone else would discover the same thing sooner or later,
| publish it openly, and then your own researchers would be
| demoralised about being denied credit for their own
| breakthroughs.
|
| And then it is a very long and hard slog to get from basic
| research to something practically usable. Even if at some
| point you start classifying it, other teams can follow the
| same path openly in parallel.
|
| Something is unlikely to be "born secret" unless it is
| developed in a government lab like LANL or LLNL. Are those
| kinds of labs even working on spacecraft propulsion? And even
| if they are, are they likely to be getting ahead of open
| research (academic, private sector, non-classified government
| labs)? Being classified can actually slow research down, by
| adding bureaucratic red tape and removing opportunities for
| collaboration and getting more eyeballs on a problem.
|
| This sounds more like something out of fiction than reality.
|
| The Manhattan Project was different because it was during a
| World War.
| chrsw wrote:
| What counts as multiplanetary? Landing as small group of people
| on Mars who don't last very long probably doesn't meet the
| criteria.
| slimebot80 wrote:
| Are we brainwashed yet? Absolutely.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-01-05 23:01 UTC)