William Shatner: Actually, going to space was a huge bummer

[ZombieRasputin]

@VeronicaConnor

So much this. Musk fanbois and such never really appreciate how hard getting to Mars and staying there is. Their imagined boss adventure of flying there in a cool ship full of touch screens then living in a cool high tech dome on another planet is probably 1000 years away. We’re nowhere close to even thinking about considering starting to plan to build the early stages of a mission that could lead to anything like that.

Absolutely! When you think about it, actually going to Mars is the easy part.

@Brainspore

Recreating and maintaining an entire ecosystem is freaking hard.

The island effect really fucks everything up. EVERYTHING.

[jerwin]

@Brainspore

Robinson really pissed off a lot the fanbase he built through his Mars trilogy

I should get around to reading the Mars trilogy, but am afraid that he’ll destroy my impression of him as a fundamentally pessimistic author. Yes. I have read Aurora; loved it.

[Brainspore]

@ZombieRasputin

@Brainspore

Recreating and maintaining an entire ecosystem is freaking hard.

The island effect really fucks everything up. EVERYTHING.

Once you start packing everything you think you’ll need to establish a new biosphere you start running into what I call the “Noah’s Ark” problem pretty quick. You want to bring a pair of lions? Better make sure you have a breeding population of zebras to keep them well fed! And that means a whole lot of grass. And of course you’ll need lots of soil additives and nutrients and microbes and whatnot to keep the grass alive. And so on.

Even if the only species you ultimately care about keeping alive is humanity we aren’t exactly sold separately.

[Otherbrother]

@Brainspore

Once you start packing everything you think you’ll need to establish a new biosphere you start running into what I call the “Noah’s Ark” problem pretty quick.

There’s always the approach from that story The Wandering Earth by Liu Cixin. Why pack when you can just build giant thrusters and take the whole Earth along for the ride?

[smulder]

@VeronicaConnor

The more fragile a colony is, the more rigid and centrally-controlled life would have to be

@smulder

Bob Heinlein told me the “libertarian space colonies” are actually run by a central computer named Mike

[ZombieRasputin]

@Brainspore

Once you start packing everything you think you’ll need to establish a new biosphere you start running into what I call the “Noah’s Ark” problem pretty quick. You want to bring a pair of lions? Better make sure you have a breeding population of zebras to keep them well fed! And that means a whole lot of grass. And of course you’ll need lots of soil additives and nutrients and microbes and whatnot to keep the grass alive. And so on.

Even if the only species you ultimately care about keeping alive is humanity we aren’t exactly sold separately.

There is a part in Aurora where the residents of the ship realize that the original mission planners neglected to bring along enough bromine, and the quantity they had was slowly leaching into structural elements of the ship, and it would be prohibitively expensive to extract it. The residents despair that there isn’t a source of it for five lightyears in either direction.

[DukeTrout]

Someone forgot to consult with NileRed.

[Surprise_Puma]

Excellent point. And yet…I kind of want to hear more from the person who hears “hey, let’s start a colony on Mars!” And immediately thinks “great but first we’ll need some lions.” That’s a person I wouldn’t necessarily want to hang out with but would probably enjoy observing from a distance.

[sylvia]

Except most scuba divers want to preserve life on earth and in its bodies of water.

[Elmer]

I think if you read more of even his most recent stuff, that’ll happen anyway - his Green Earth series, for example, has as its hero the NSF, which more or less productively addresses climate change, a fundamentally optimistic outcome. Similarly, Ministry for the Future starts out dire, but solutions are found through the course of the novel. I think his post-capitalism futures are basically hopeful.

[nosaj]

@VeronicaConnor

People need to appreciate what they have so they don’t lose it.

I had the ?good luck to see The Road not knowing at all what to expect. At an outdoor movie screening at a lovely park in Sydney, by the waterfront and dotted with massive trees. I had exactly this feeling, wandering away at the end of that harrowing film. Our world is so beautiful, and I’d rarely appreciated it more.

[ClutchLinkey]

To echo what others have said, I’m glad Shatner got this epiphany and is using his platform to share the news.
I’d also like to say, for plenty of us here, it didn’t take a rocket ship ride into space for us to realize the same exact thing.
In ecological terms we were born into a veritable Eden.

[VeronicaConnor]

I love movies like The Road and shows like The Walking Dead specifically because they make me feel really good about my life and appreciate that I didn’t have to eat a stray dog or my neighbour to survive even once this week. In fact I think I have some really nice Havarti in the fridge…

[dfaris]

Reddit:

William Shatner trying to share his unique view of traveling to space dies inside after Jeff Bezos thinks champagne showers are more important.

https://www.reddit.com/r/WatchPeopleDieInside/comments/xzzsas/william_shatner_trying_to_share_his_unique_view/

[stinkinbadgers]

@ZombieRasputin

You’re underground for 99.9 percent of your life, with short excursions on the surface in enclosed rovers or bulky pressure suits. Unless you’re one of the very few that would be okay with it, it’s going to end in a bad time.

I dunno, I see plenty of people on earth living in environments I would consider hellish, and yet to them it’s perfectly normal and they don’t think anything of it because it’s all they’ve known. I imagine first generation colonizers might struggle with it but by the second or third they could very well be fine.

[Elmer]

[ZombieRasputin]

@stinkinbadgers

I dunno, I see plenty of people on earth living in environments I would consider hellish, and yet to them it’s perfectly normal and they don’t think anything of it because it’s all they’ve known. I imagine first generation colonizers might struggle with it but by the second or third they could very well be fine.

The challenge, I believe, is getting past that first generation. A lot of social upheaval could happen.

Also, figuring out if humans are even capable of reproducing in a lower gravity/higher radiation environment.

[dfaris]

@ZombieRasputin

Also, figuring out if humans are even capable of reproducing in a lower gravity/higher radiation environment.

NASA has been really dragging its heels on research in this department.

What are they waiting for?

Let's talk about sex — in space – DW – 09/22/2021

[1000YearBan]

@unhallowed

the Overview Effect.

That’s fantastic, I didn’t know it was really even a thing, much less the name!

I have long said the key to world peace and turning things around on this planet is to fly every CEO, President, general, dictator and billionaire - all the people with the power - up to the ISS, so they can look down at this tiny earth and hopefully have this very epiphany - just before ejecting them from the airlock.

[Otherbrother]

@dfaris

NASA has been really dragging its heels on research in this department.

What are they waiting for?

Officially the married astronauts Doug Hurley and Karen Nyberg didn’t get it on when they flew a mission together in the ‘90s but, come on, they aren’t fooling anyone.