r/SpaceXLounge - What are your thoughts on the "anti-spacex, anti-space travel" culture that seems to be growing?
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190 votes and 156 comments so far on Reddit

Seems like the material human cost of space travel never even occurs to them. The poor indigenous people who mine the precious metals and iron etc. that make the spacecraft, the massive costs of feeding and housing all the engineers and scientists working on Musk's futile vanity project -- none of that is even on their radar. They reason that because SpaceX is more efficient and cost effective than Boeing/Lockheed/Northrop that Elon deserves all the praise in the world. In their eyes, Elon is "selflessly" dedicating his time and money to "saving" the human race by making it multi-planetary. The OP calls anti-Elon people "cultural authoritarians" fueled by "billionaire-hate" who want us to be "imprisoned on this planet forever".

Imprisoned on this planet???????

Are you fucking kidding me? Every good thing a human being could possiby want is on this planet. What's on the moon? Grey rocks. What's on Mars? Red dust. There's nothing out there. There's really nothing in space worth having. If you're not happy on earth, that's not a problem with earth, that's a problem with you (or the social or economic structure around you). Moving to a new planet is not going to solve your self esteem problems. That whole thread is just full of so much bullshit.

  • UmbraVivi [he/him, she/her]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I don see anything wrong with colonizing other planets. I see something wrong with investing millions upon millions into a sci-fi pipe dream.

    Mars is an inhospitable hellscape and it’s really, really, really, really far away. Nothing can live on it without ridiculous artificial effort, and the logistics are inconceivably awful. We would need to fly a massive amount of technology, supply and resources incredibly far away and for what, really? More space? What is there on Mars that’s worth the immense effort that would require it?

    In the far future, if civilization hasn’t collapsed and we perhaps discover tools to somehow terraform Mars, then it would make sense and be amazing.

    But at this point it’s an absolute waste of money and resources. No human has even set foot on the damn thing yet. There’s not even like a precedent of a „moon base“ or anything, and the moon is basically right next door comparatively speaking.

    Nobody will live on Mars in our lifetimes. Not even scientists. It’s hostile to life and really fucking far away.

      • KobaCumTribute [she/her]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Isn't that only a problem on geologic timescales? Like you slam enough comets into it* and seed with some GMO extremophiles** and it'll be fine for as long as you could possibly want it.

        * With magic, presumably, since there's no way of getting the sorts of dV that requires with any modern tech.

        ** Which don't exist but would probably be the easier of those two things since "make this weird bacteria like to eat rust and bleach and produce oxygen and water as waste products" is at least feasibly conceivable, unlike "get a large engine and fuel assembly into a weird orbit to intercept and attach to a comet and somehow shift millions of tons that are already moving very fast into a collision course with a planet" which is not.