For The Artemis Generation Living Off World Is Natural
FWIW the last time that all humans from planet Earth were confined to one planet was 2 Nov 2000. Since that time there have always been humans living offworld on ISS. We now have high school graduates who have spent their entire lives wherein such a thing is quite normal #Artemis pic.twitter.com/ZgxToOIler
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) November 3, 2019
Yes. However, when the ISS was established and “permanently manned”, it advertised itself as a permanent human presence In space. But how permanent is permanent? There is a problem with definitions here, and about NASA using superlatives to boost its own image. Now there is a discussion about decommissioning the ISS in 2024, or possibly 2028. So, unfortunately I can foresee a time in the not too distant future that there will be no-one in space. That will be a real shame.
OK you win the depressing pessimist of the day award.
LOL, I am actually an optimist. I fully believe that NASA’s shortcomings will be made up in spades by the private sector. I am a big fan boy of SpaceX, and I could be of Blue origin if they would ever launch anything to orbit. I was watching when the most humans in orbit were ever achieved (10 I think, a few times). But NASA saying it is going to mars gets a bit thin after a few decades…
There have been 13 humans in space at once a few times during the Shuttle/Mir and Shuttle/ISS era.
Er… China will start launching the modules for it’s own, semi-permanent space station in a year or less. And Elon may do something spectacular in a couple of years. How are you missing these facts?!
Maybe because none of what you said has happened yet.
There are many old adages that people these days seem to have completely forgotten – i.e. “counting your chickens before they hatch” – old adages survive for a reason in human existence.
That’s a bit of a non sequitur in this case: Unless ISS is suddenly de-manned next year the era between ISS operations ending and the Tian-He space station coming online will have a lot of overlap. Same with SpaceX Starship operations, though that of course remains to be seen. And other commercial space operation’s mileage may very.
China and Bigelow would disagree with you…
First off, do most of the subsystems for a B330 actually exist on anything but paper? If so, then second, when is BA actually going to stop pushing the first deployment of the B330 to the right?
They arrived at ISS on 2 Nov 2000, but they launched on 31 Oct 2000 (1:52 AM CST, 7:52 UTC). Hopefully, 31 Oct 2000 was the last day in the history of the species that all humans were on earth. Kind of cool that happened on Halloween.
This is a little misleading perhaps, because, though an actual human has not been off world continuously, there has been a continuous media presence, from advertisements to a complete genera, increasingly bombarding our subconscious regarding humans in space ever since the late 1060s. A study between the perceived realization and actual realization I think would not show much of a difference to the average human. So to assume there is a difference might be a stretch.
The sad thing though, is that over 50 years we have not achieved populations of more that a dozen humans in space for any extended periods of time. Given history, and near term transportation capabilities and understanding of populations in space, it will take us hundreds of years to get a human population permanently living in space the size of the average McMurdo base (Antarctica) summer working population of ~1200 people. Or even more pessimistically, given all the growing and interrelated problems with another 2 billlion humans on the planet by 2045, we will never achieve viable human populations off Earth. I hope I am wrong.
You are wrong.
And how can I say that with finality?
By observing the pace of science, that’s how. We are witnessing the last and greatest vestiges of chemical rocket propulsion: I’m talking about Mr. Musk’s efforts, which have, and are, stretching the rocket equation to a logical conclusion.
Yes, this technology will enable a permanent off-world population. It is a very close analogy to Dr. Matula’s beloved transcontinental railroad, or to the construction of the Panama Canal.
There will be permanent missions to various sites. They will be based on hydrocarbon technology stretched to maximum. But unlike the railroad or the canal, it will remain very expensive, and the cost will sour the successes.
Even so, these are exciting times.
The next steps require something absolutely new and different, a form of energy to power space vessels matching the mass of a Nimitz-class carrier.
That’s a mostly outrageous thing to say, I know. We need breakthroughs in our fundamental understanding of how the universe is put together, and how it works. From this will come the stunningly dense energy sources need to conquer space.
Is this a pipe dream? It is not. The semi-pro literature contains at least a dozen books by leading theoreticians and experimentalists who have taken the time to survey scientific history for a general audience.
The field is moving fast and it is accelerating. I think that the world of physics is going to open the energy door. Those pointy-headed professors are really on to something!
Exciting times indeed.
I thought NASA had been closed all this time….
We inhabit wondrous times indeed, Mr. Host. Thank you for never losing sight of exactly where we live, and how much has changed.
If you will bear with me for a moment:
I’m comparing the social upheavals of the 60s-80s to the technological changes of today. Both were huge and to some extent taken for granted. I heard a piece on BBC yesterday, for instance, about women running in marathons. A sit-down strike in 1972 by women runners brought the matter some exposure. It seems that women weren’t allowed to run in marathons because (paraphrasing here) “their bodies were not designed for it, and that their lady parts would simply fall out.” I am not making this up.
Women and girls and men are laughing over that one, but it exemplifies the social change.
And now we find ourselves, all of us, feeling incomplete without a computer in our pockets. It’s a similar delta, isn’t it?
I’m very fond of saying that it is a great time to be alive. Because it is.
And there’s only one thing that could possibly be better:
To watch the sunset.
In 2119.
From Olympus Mons.
I’m not sure about “natural.” It’s only been a billionth of the Earth’s population at any given time, and no one born after November, 2000 has been in space (yet.) I’d rather say it the other way; they’d probably find the idea of _no_one_ being in space to be _un_natural.
Wonder how many members of the “Artemis Generation” could correctly answer this 2 question quiz?
1) When was the last time that all humans from the planet Earth were confined to one planet?
2) For those humans not so confined, where have they been living?
Not sure bragging is in order about this factoid unless a majority could at least answer one of the two questions correctly.