Space Settlement at the NSS

Reading the NSS roadmap overview, I'm struck by the following statement and its implications: "An unexpected failure [...] that would likely be fatal on Mars might be recoverable on the Moon." It may sound cold-blooded, but if the goal is to learn how to survive in these environments, wouldn't we learn a lot faster by being willing to accept losses? I mean, people die on virtually every large construction job, be it bridges, tunnels, or office buildings, yet if a crew died on a Mars mission it would be deemed a catastrophic failure regardless of how much was learned. People seem least willing to accept losses when risk-taking is most crucial to getting the ball rolling, and yet casual about losses when nothing is learned from them (i.e., a stupid construction mistake). So we need to be aware of how distorted our priorities are in this respect and correct for it.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at 11/29/07 18:45:06

This also caught my eye in the full NSS roadmap: "Before we can commit to sending people to a space settlement without firm and definite plans to return them, we must know that long-term survival and quality of life is assured." Really? Survival and quality of life have to be *assured* before we can even TRY? This doesn't sound like a plan for settling the most hostile frontier humans have ever faced - it sounds like a suburban zoning plan. I hope NSS is less timid than they sound.

Posted by Brian Swiderski at 11/29/07 20:08:50

Let's just hope that the National Space Society is not the only entity working on settling Space.

Posted by Rob Abiera at 11/30/07 17:43:45

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