Hi Scott! As always, a fantastic starter of my day, but let me add two comments.
First, I missed a reference to Robert Zubrin's totally serious Mars Direct concept from 1990/1996, based on then-existing hardware and contains the tethered spinning vehicle idea. As far as I know, they came up with a prototype of creating fuel on the Martian surface. I think you could create a great video about this.
"During the trip, artificial gravity would be generated by tethering the Habitat Unit to the spent upper stage of the booster, and setting them rotating about a common axis. This rotation would produce a comfortable 1 g working environment for the astronauts, freeing them of the debilitating effects of long-term exposure to weightlessness."
Second (my obsession): We will never stay in space with this mindset. The 0th law of space exploration is that we need a working human mind in time sync in extreme distances. Not a human body. In space, it is a dead weight (or more precisely, a continuously dying burden regardless of all the ridiculous amount of effort and cost). If you like, our body is an excellent Earth-suit for the mind. Without a magical synchronous communication device, we must start with extracted brains, kept alive and in the immediate communication loop with the local equipment and delayed contact with Mission Control. Is there any serious research in this direction?
daviga118 hours ago (edited)
Regarding the second, of course there's some progress in that sort of direction, we have therapies like ECMO and Dialysis etc. However, to get a brain-in-a-jar means replacing all of the life support services that the body provides with artificial surrogates - including a prothetic immune system, blood cells or advanced blood surrogate, various hormones, detoxification etc. etc.. It's a very large set of problems, and the solutions need to weigh less than a human body, be at least equally resilient and fault-tolerant, cost-effective, non-traumatic (!), and as versatile as a living crew (the ability to do the space equivalent of 'get out and change the tires' when something goes wrong is very valuable).
Regarding the second, of course there's some progress in that sort of direction, we have therapies like ECMO and Dialysis etc. However, to get a brain-in-a-jar means replacing all of the life support services that the body provides with artificial surrogates - including a prothetic immune system, blood cells or advanced blood surrogate, various hormones, detoxification etc. etc.. It's a very large set of problems, and the solutions need to weigh less than a human body, be at least equally resilient and fault-tolerant, cost-effective, non-traumatic (!), and as versatile as a living crew (the ability to do the space equivalent of 'get out and change the tires' when something goes wrong is very valuable).
Happens that working towards extreme transhumanist goals invariably makes all healthcare better, so I'm 100% for it
Lorand Kedves12 hours ago (edited)
@daviga1 You don't seem to get the point. Have you ever seen a rocket and wondered how inefficient machine it is? See Artemis 1: MASS AT LIFTOFF — 5,750,000 pounds / PAYLOAD TO THE MOON — 59,000 pounds (copied from NASA). 99% of the mass is there only to lift itself and the 1% useful part at the top.
From space travel's aspect, the human body is the "mass at liftoff", the brain is the "payload". You need bones and muscles to move and get food, digestion, immune system, healing capacities, ... only survive alone (self sustaining) on Earth and in this ecosystem. In space, you only need to keep your brain that "operates you" in homeostasis.
Some Wikipedia facts (I am not an expert on this field). The dura mater contains the cerebrospinal fluid that completely surrounds the central nervous system: your brain and the spinal cord. You have the blood-brain barrier that filters most of the stuff out of your blood, allowing the transportation of the absolutely necessary components. Your brain is already in a biological jar.
You should learn to replace this jar with external, mechanical systems. Such systems already showed that they can go around the solar system and even out of it, without "changing tires". Humans? Made it to the moon 50 years ago a few times. Because it only takes days, and a little luck to not meet with solar storms. (Or issues with wiring that killed the crew of Apollo 1 during ground test, blew up 13 in flight, and most missions have their close calls...)
I absolutely do not think that keeping a brain alive in a jar is simple, but at least, more manageable than doing the same with a whole, continuously dying and totally useless human body. You should compare the weight and complexity of the "life" support systems - like for a brain, you need a cubic meter filled with water and you got sufficient radiation protection as a bonus. For a crew? Huge volumes "just to move around" with pressurized air or O2, with ventilation to avoid CO2 bubbles, food, water circulation, ... serious, error-prone etc. systems just to keep the bodies alive longer (but they are damaged regardless). You need humans to operate the systems that keep them alive? Does not sound too efficient...
A hint. The key to space is energy management: not hopping over to another gravity well but go out of this one and stay outside, indefinitely. You even knew how to do it but it is not compatible with Star Wars and Marvel stories - so you forgot about that. Please, don't enlighten me, I also know this will not happen because people don't really want to leave Earth, just want to live in their dreams (or more precisely, most of them just admire the few who do and forget about how to live IRL). I just forgot to delete the previous comment.
I am not a "transhumanist", I only have a properly trained and tested logical thinking. I simply don't care much about "healthcare" as long as you spend thousand times more on killing; "education" as long as you do everything to enslave; "communication" as long as you only want to remote control; etc. each other. Very inhuman and absolutely not popular attitude. But you do your best to prove that a technological civilization does not work without it.
Sorry, I am not as good as Douglas Adams with sugarcoating, and TMI anyway. Good luck. You all will need it...
daviga14 hours ago
@Lorand Kedves “Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.” - Thomas Jefferson
daviga14 hours ago
@Lorand Kedves “Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.” - Thomas Jefferson
"The Internet's Own Boy depicts the life of American computer programmer, writer, political organizer and Internet activist Aaron Swartz. It features interviews with his family and friends as well as the internet luminaries who worked with him. The film tells his story up to his eventual suicide after a legal battle, and explores the questions of access to information and civil liberties that drove his work."
You find the film here on YouTube. The momentum of the "long tail" is a pretty strong adversary today and mental attitude is just part of the game. I would add a wink if Aaron survived but instead, Skol, brother!
