John Rando on Nostr: Unless technological civilization completely collapses I wouldn’t be so quick to ...
Unless technological civilization completely collapses I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss this whole thing as pointless. There will still be a need for communications satellites and observation sats and all the other stuff we’ve been placing in LEO. Spacex already has a huge slice of the market with Falcon 9 and assuming we don’t all get destroyed in WW3 in the next few years they will probably start operating Starship. If they can do it for cheaper than anyone else they’re gonna get money even if it dries up for everyone else.
As for the people who might go to the Moon and Mars, it’s pretty damned risky but we had people take pretty big risks in the past too. IIRC a very large percentage of the first North American colonists died within the first few years of arrival. It didn’t stop others from also coming and eventually enough came and survived to found our country. You may not think the risk is worth it, but others might feel otherwise.
The biggest risk for spacex I see is if the USA shits the bed and collapses in the next few years. Which is a very real possibility. But I thought the same was likely in 2008, and old guys I know thought the same in the 1970s and 1990s. As it stands right now I’m not going to bet on the end of the world just yet.
As for the people who might go to the Moon and Mars, it’s pretty damned risky but we had people take pretty big risks in the past too. IIRC a very large percentage of the first North American colonists died within the first few years of arrival. It didn’t stop others from also coming and eventually enough came and survived to found our country. You may not think the risk is worth it, but others might feel otherwise.
The biggest risk for spacex I see is if the USA shits the bed and collapses in the next few years. Which is a very real possibility. But I thought the same was likely in 2008, and old guys I know thought the same in the 1970s and 1990s. As it stands right now I’m not going to bet on the end of the world just yet.