> I don't think you actually understand the difficulties.
I understand the difficulties perfectly well (or at least recognize that there are numerous difficulties far beyond my expertise, let alone that of people far more knowledgeable about space exploration than I am). That doesn't mean they cannot be overcome in the coming decades, nor does it mean that they cannot eventually be overcome in a way that's economically viable, no matter how much you strangely want to pretend otherwise, nor does it mean we can't discuss how we might try to overcome them. Technology marches on, and naysayers like you get left in the dust.
> You have read some pop science books and some "hard sci-fi" and think you've got it all worked out.
"pop science books and some 'hard sci-fi'" indeed. But no, apparently you've got me all figured out. Just some starry-eyed nobody who watched Dune a few too many times instead of someone who, you know, actually pays the slightest bit of attention to what NASA (let alone other space agencies) is actively researching and around which it's planning missions.
(As a disclaimer: I have watched David Lynch's Dune a few too many times, but I assure you that has no bearing on my perception about what's feasible in the coming decades in terms of actual real-life space technology, at least not until we get people so hopped up on drugs that they figure out how to fold space)
> You're talking about mining asteroids like it's a solved problem and it's just a question of willpower.
All things are a "question of willpower". Nobody (least of all myself) is under any illusion that it's easy or that it's a "solved problem". The only claim is that it will someday be possible, and that for that to happen we need to be figuring out how to solve those problems, and in general what we need to do to make it possible.
Meanwhile, you're talking about mining asteroids like it's some impossibility that we'll never achieve. Too hard with today's technology and economies of scale, so let's not even talk about it, right? What a bleak and pathetic outlook on humanity's technological progress.
> Many things in pop science books or science fiction are simply not practical and many more aren't even possible.
And this ain't one of them. There is nothing being discussed here that is entirely outside the realm of physics. We ain't talking fucking warp drives and replicators and Vulcans here. We're talking about very real plans and very real research by very real space agencies and very real companies trying to figure out exactly how they can make use of the vast resources beyond this single planet.
Yeah, obviously it's expensive now, and we don't have all the necessary technologies now. What about 20 years from now? 50? 100? That's the target, and that's where we're fundamentally at odds: you're going off on this tangent about how it's so expensive and impossible in 2020 (and needlessly insulting me in the process - thanks, buddy) while entirely ignoring that we ain't talking about 2020 at all. And in that equation is the fact that Earth's resources are - whether you like it or not - finite. Earth cannot sustain humanity's continued economic and industrial growth even in ideal conditions (and let's face it: we ain't in ideal conditions). As resources become scarcer and scarcer, so too do those asteroids become not only more and more economically viable to mine, but more necessary.
Baby steps. Now is the time to start building out that infrastructure, bit by bit. First LEO, then the Moon, then beyond (including Ceres and the rest of the asteroid belt). We'll get there eventually, assuming we don't drive ourselves to extinction first.
> Also while space is awesome, Earth is right here. It's the only place in the solar system humans can live without being wrapped in massive amounts of technology.
Not forever it ain't.
And that's another key point there: you do realize how destructive Earthside mining is to that very environment that makes Earth friendly to us humans, right? How it poisons our soil and our water and trashes ecosystems? Earthside mining at modern scales is "cheap" only if you ignore the countless externalities thereof. Such concerns are not an issue with asteroids; there is no ecosystem to destroy, no rivers to poison.
The sooner we're mining asteroids instead of Earth, the better the prospects for Earth to continue to be a place where humans can live without being wrapped in massive amounts of technology. And if we're too late for that, well, hopefully we've figured out the technologies with which we need to wrap ourselves, eh? If we can survive in space, we can survive on even the most human-hostile Earth imaginable, and between mining and carbon pollution and deforestation and the myriad of other short-sighted things we as a species have done to our home, that human-hostile Earth is not only an inevitability, but one that's coming sooner than you think.
I understand the difficulties perfectly well (or at least recognize that there are numerous difficulties far beyond my expertise, let alone that of people far more knowledgeable about space exploration than I am). That doesn't mean they cannot be overcome in the coming decades, nor does it mean that they cannot eventually be overcome in a way that's economically viable, no matter how much you strangely want to pretend otherwise, nor does it mean we can't discuss how we might try to overcome them. Technology marches on, and naysayers like you get left in the dust.
> You have read some pop science books and some "hard sci-fi" and think you've got it all worked out.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1612.03238v1.pdf
https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/new-nasa-mission-to-hel...
"pop science books and some 'hard sci-fi'" indeed. But no, apparently you've got me all figured out. Just some starry-eyed nobody who watched Dune a few too many times instead of someone who, you know, actually pays the slightest bit of attention to what NASA (let alone other space agencies) is actively researching and around which it's planning missions.
(As a disclaimer: I have watched David Lynch's Dune a few too many times, but I assure you that has no bearing on my perception about what's feasible in the coming decades in terms of actual real-life space technology, at least not until we get people so hopped up on drugs that they figure out how to fold space)
> You're talking about mining asteroids like it's a solved problem and it's just a question of willpower.
All things are a "question of willpower". Nobody (least of all myself) is under any illusion that it's easy or that it's a "solved problem". The only claim is that it will someday be possible, and that for that to happen we need to be figuring out how to solve those problems, and in general what we need to do to make it possible.
Meanwhile, you're talking about mining asteroids like it's some impossibility that we'll never achieve. Too hard with today's technology and economies of scale, so let's not even talk about it, right? What a bleak and pathetic outlook on humanity's technological progress.
> Many things in pop science books or science fiction are simply not practical and many more aren't even possible.
And this ain't one of them. There is nothing being discussed here that is entirely outside the realm of physics. We ain't talking fucking warp drives and replicators and Vulcans here. We're talking about very real plans and very real research by very real space agencies and very real companies trying to figure out exactly how they can make use of the vast resources beyond this single planet.
Yeah, obviously it's expensive now, and we don't have all the necessary technologies now. What about 20 years from now? 50? 100? That's the target, and that's where we're fundamentally at odds: you're going off on this tangent about how it's so expensive and impossible in 2020 (and needlessly insulting me in the process - thanks, buddy) while entirely ignoring that we ain't talking about 2020 at all. And in that equation is the fact that Earth's resources are - whether you like it or not - finite. Earth cannot sustain humanity's continued economic and industrial growth even in ideal conditions (and let's face it: we ain't in ideal conditions). As resources become scarcer and scarcer, so too do those asteroids become not only more and more economically viable to mine, but more necessary.
Baby steps. Now is the time to start building out that infrastructure, bit by bit. First LEO, then the Moon, then beyond (including Ceres and the rest of the asteroid belt). We'll get there eventually, assuming we don't drive ourselves to extinction first.
> Also while space is awesome, Earth is right here. It's the only place in the solar system humans can live without being wrapped in massive amounts of technology.
Not forever it ain't.
And that's another key point there: you do realize how destructive Earthside mining is to that very environment that makes Earth friendly to us humans, right? How it poisons our soil and our water and trashes ecosystems? Earthside mining at modern scales is "cheap" only if you ignore the countless externalities thereof. Such concerns are not an issue with asteroids; there is no ecosystem to destroy, no rivers to poison.
The sooner we're mining asteroids instead of Earth, the better the prospects for Earth to continue to be a place where humans can live without being wrapped in massive amounts of technology. And if we're too late for that, well, hopefully we've figured out the technologies with which we need to wrap ourselves, eh? If we can survive in space, we can survive on even the most human-hostile Earth imaginable, and between mining and carbon pollution and deforestation and the myriad of other short-sighted things we as a species have done to our home, that human-hostile Earth is not only an inevitability, but one that's coming sooner than you think.