Why Werner Herzog thinks human space colonization “will inevitably fail” | Hacker News Reader

Why Werner Herzog thinks human space colonization “will inevitably fail”

arstechnica.com

32 pointsTomte27 comments

I love Werner Herzog - but he’s never been an optimist. As for the content of the complaint: habitable planets are too far away, Mars is very much not a nice place to live, and we must protect the earth instead of abandoning it: well - of course. Does anyone disagree?

Just because mars isn’t great and the stars are far doesn’t mean inevitable failure. And as for “moving on like locusts” - there will most likely never be the means to get more than even a tiny fraction of a fraction of the human population off the planet.

Becoming multi planetary isn’t some economic frontier - it isn’t a new world to colonize - it’s a required backup for the survival of life itself. Deer and trees stand little chance to reproduce if the early is destroyed (by us or by something else). We do have some chance - it’s our responsibility to life itself to not perish. Forget humanity - let’s save the penguins.

Anyways - I can’t believe someone as clearly intelligent is Herzog does the “but we can’t just abandon earth!” Argument. No one is abandoning earth - we’re all stuck here - as if we’re all one mind and decided “eh, fuck it”. Thank god humanity takes thousands of different courses simultaneously. I hope one of those courses doesn’t go extinct.

Let’s fix earth and get some folks off it just in case. If it’s testosterone that saves humanity - so be it - what’s so wrong with testosterone anyways?

>Becoming multi planetary isn’t some economic frontier - it isn’t a new world to colonize - it’s a required backup for the survival of life itself.

That doesn't make it feasible - as said survical is not by any means signed in any contract with the universe, and has very slim chances (and even in the wildest scenario, it ends with the heat death of the universe anyway).

Being "necessary for survival" just makes it stronger as a wishful dream.

>Thank god humanity takes thousands of different courses simultaneously. I hope one of those courses doesn’t go extinct.

Well, if huge resources are spend to send a few moguls, select personel, and other people in some shitty (compared to Earth) Mars colonies, while still continuing profitable (and destructive) business as usual on Earth, to the ultimate demise of billions and the half-arsed space-colony survival of said few, I wouldn't call it a win.

Neither if dreams of "we'll just make it to space if needed" and other pipe dreams help downplay pressing actions needed on Earth.

So living on Mars would suck, and Alpha Centauri is too far away to be a real option. What's the point? So we can mine some asteroids? That seems so limited compared to the vision of people like Elon Musk and gang promoting the idea the survival of humanity depends on leaving Earth.

I wish people would spend less time on Mars and more time in asteroid mining. Building capital in space will be a real game changer and the results will be far more useful and practical. Colonization might even look realistic afterwards.

It wouldn’t matter if there were no resources in space (which obviously is not true). Nothing has to be brought back ever. It does not have to be profitable.

What it has to do is allow life (maybe not even human life) to survive if either humans or anything else ends life on earth. It’s more than the survival of humanity - we’re the only life that has ever evolved to the point of being able to leave. It’s about the survival of life itself.

Seems you'd have a better chance of surviving in a specialized bomb shelter on earth than pretty much any scenario on mars.

There are people already living in pretty inhospitable places. We don't even need to go to bomb shelters. Just look at let's say Dubai or Middle-East... Hot and dry locations, still supporting people. Maybe not as many people, but still reasonably survivable.

I doubt Dubai is self-sufficient, so I'm not sure it's a good example of an extreme environment supporting people. Other parts of the middle-east though, yes.

Why the obsession with "drinking recycled urine?" That's already part of the drinking water we consume every day. Recycled horse sweat too.

Regardless, I have long believed that space is the natural domain of our children the robots. They don't need to drag the earth biosphere around with them but can adapt to whatever the local environment may be, as long as it isn't the "surface" of the sun.

Leave space travel to them and make this planet a paradise instead.

I'd love to see a filmmaker also sign off on the engineering plans to a bridge since everyone is so enthralled by, essentially, an art major's opinion on a scientific, geopolitical, and sociological endeavour.

This documentary (and the interview) is more about how our human nature prevents us from taking the problem seriously, and threatens any major efforts due to either our behavior in space/on colonies or due to relations between space and earth breaking down.

A bridge engineering analogy might be a documentary about how we are incapable of funding infrastructure or how we struggle to design and build new kinds of bridges where they can’t currently exist.

What is filmmaking, especially in Herzog's style, if not applied sociology?

Applied?

Applied means real world. A script and movie set is not the real world. There is zero push back and change from unexpected real world vectors to test ideas on paper and on stage.

A movie is a real world construct, an application of sociological principles.

What is the point of colonising (not exploring) Mars. It just seems a dead, barren wasteland that is only of interest to geologists and other highly specialized scientists.

The longer term idea would be to make it into a non-dead, non-barren place. The main purpose would be to take the first step towards protecting human civilization against being completely wiped out in a planet-scale disaster, whether human-caused (nuclear war) or natural (supervolcano, giant asteroid hit)

I know it's not either or but seems that money is better spent protecting the Earth. The idea of terraforming Mars is kind of beyond even science fiction.

I think the money would be better spent building larger, more comfortable space stations. Think something between the ISS and DS9 :D

There are bilions of us, we can do more than one thing at a time.

Mars is a lethal desert, but it has gravity, some atmosphere, and water, making it better than most places for a species with our current level of technology. Floating cities in the atmospheres of gas giants, or underwater cities on ice moons might be better long term, but we can't do that sort of thing yet. Life may be rare and unusual, we need to ensure it does not end with Earth.

Humans colonizing space is essentially a religious belief and people freak out if you challenge it. Just keeping people in low earth orbit requires a tremendous amount of resources. Every person who goes up depends on the efforts of thousands of people on the ground. It will never be self-sustaining. It’s not like walking across the land bridge from Asia or setting out on your canoe in the South Pacific. But people freak out when confronted with the obvious facts.

>Humans colonizing space is essentially a religious belief

'The market' is essentially a religious belief as well. What it has called 'the Conquest of Space' is unlikely until the lack of wisdom in exploiting one's fellow man and home planet causes that religion to do itself in.

When a dandelion releases seeds to the wind, this does not save the mother weed.

but it does keep dandelions from extinction.

space colonization?

we are still acting and living like apes, and you think we ready to go explore space?

we'll begin space exploration the day capitalism will die, it'll be about scientific research, well being, preservation and ascending humankind, something the market doesn't give two shit about

I wouldn't be so confident. Some of the most exciting developments in space xploration are coming from private firms. Anyways why do you want a inefficient state bureaucracy to do something the market can do for half the cost?

Getting there might be one thing. I think there is entirely enough made up wealth in economy and to get to that point.

Staying there after harsh reality of living in communal shoeboxes for years and decades, plus shipping things in at horrible expense however...

lies, with public tax payer money

greatest medical research/advances came from public institutions

same for mathematics, same for chemistry, same for energy

space exploration stopped because of military and the market didn't want it

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