the drive to explore

wrote:
Mike Combs wrote:
wrote in message
ups.com...
John Ordover claims that, "Exploration is only done for a profit
motive."

John might be incorrect where individuals and groups up to a
certain
size
are concerned, but I think he may be thinking more about societies
and
nations.

Perhaps, but I've never seen him add that qualifier.


To state it more specificially: No society, and certainly no
nation,
has
ever engaged in a large-scale colonization effort in a new frontier
motivated soley by the individual urge to explore for curiousity's
sake.

I'm not so sure about that. I can see some monarchies exploring
motivated solely by the monarch's (and others') curiosity. And there
have been colonization efforts motivated at least *partly* by the
urge
to explore for curiousity's sake. Money has not been the only
motivator--there have been other strong motivations, with curiosity
among these.


Anytime a discussion comes up regarding space exploration,
someone
is
bound to ask, "What's the point? There's no economic
justification
that
I can see." Or something along those lines.

Some of us think that's a problem of the limited vision of the
nay-sayer,
rather than a problem of a lack of economic opportunities beyond
the
Earth.

We agree here. The *long term* economic opportunities beyond Earth
dwarf anything back on the *auld sod*. Money would not be my main
motive for space exploration, but I'm not blind to the economic
possibilities.


Perhaps that's yet another
good reason for me to get off this planet and explore what's out
there.


The unfortunate problem you face is that in the current (and
forseeable)
situation, you will require subsidization to the tune of billlions
to
get to
do what you want. You'll find that most people are not willing to
hand over
vast sums of money to help you satisfy your itch to explore. On
the
other
hand, people occasionally hand over vast sums of money when there's
a
prospect of them getting even more back later on. The trick is to
combine
the two, and that's where most of my attention is directed.

Perhaps you are right. However, I note that people just handed
billions
in taxes for the new War on Iraq. How exactly has that war improved
the
life of the average American? Sure, Halliburton has profited, but how
so for the typical taxpayer? My point is that taxpayers routinely
finance ventures that bring them no immediate profit (or no likely
profit *ever*).

I cannot deny my curiosity. Yet my curiosity is anything but
weak.
It
is powerful enough to rank right next to my need for food, water,
and
life itself.

Please forgive me, but I don't take this assertion very seriously.

That is your right, but believe me, I am serious. That's how
*intense*
my drive to explore really is. Perhaps you simply can't understand,
but
that's the way it is for me.

How many
starving 3rd-worlders are intensely interested in the exploration
of
Mars?
For them, it's a tremendous irrelevancy (just ask them).

Most 3rd-worlders are not starving, and in my experience, one need
not
be some middle-class white male westerner to be fascinated by other
worlds. For many third worlders (as first worlders), religion,
mysticism, and myth speak to their sense of wonder. I'm sure that
many
would jump to the chance of going to Mars. Just because The Gambia
doesn't currently have an active space exploration program does not
mean Gambians lack a fascination with the unknown.

The thought to
explore the universe only comes to people who aren't worrying about
where
their next meal is coming from.

If you're exploring the Amazon and find that your food pack has
rotted
out, you can't exactly drop by the nearest 7/11. But people *have*
explored the Amazon -- at the risk of life and limb. Many times, they
have died while doing so. Explorers have been known to embark on
risky
adventures on which they really *don't* know where their next meal
will
come from. But they don't "worry" about it; they find a way. If they
were chronic worriers, they probably wouldn't have embarked upon the
expedition in the first place. Maybe that's part of the big
difference
in mentality I'm talking about.

If the opportunity were available there would be no shortage of
qualified 'explorers'. Where your argument gets downright silly is the
comparison with the historical exploration of earth. The new world
wasn't so much explored as exploited, first for gold then for furs and
land.
If you were to ask Lewis and Clark what they expected to find they
might say new mountains and rivers, new tribes, animals never seen
before and evaluation of routes for future travel. There was the full
expectation that eventually the land would be populated.
A climber of Everest would expect extreem physical exertion, a view
from the top of the world and bragging rights.
Mars and the asteroids have more in common with climbing the mountain
for the thousandth time. Name one new thing you might find there that
could not be found by robot explorers.
Robot exploration makes far more sense. What needs to be found are
ways to exploit the exploration. Spending hundreds of billions of
dollars so that a few explorers can say 'gosh we are really on mars' is
not in the national interest.
Spending that same amount for solar collectors, closed sustainable
environments, mass driver propulsion and recovery of lunar and
asteroidal material might well be in a nation's long term interest.
Mercury and Gemini explored the capabilities and limitations of
spacecraft. Apollo brought back rocks and pictures that now could be
done with far less expense by machines.
The real explorers of the space age are the ones back in the lab.

In article , Robert Kolker says...

Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:


Going to Everest is hardly exploring. We know what's there.

What was unknown was whether a human could survive the climb. That was
far from clear. The first successful climb was made without oxygen
tanks, by the way. Adapting to 30,000 msl is a non-trivial, nay a darn
near impossible task.

Yes it is, which is why it was not done until 1978, by Messner and
Habeler, both of whom are believed to have suffered minor brain
damage in the process. Actually, a fair number of people believed
Messner was suffering from brain damage beforehand, but he did at
least prove that it was possible to summit Everest without bottled
oxygen.

Hillary and Norgay, when they made the first successful climb in 1953,
damn well did use bottled oxygen, and lots of it.


--
*John Schilling * "Anything worth doing, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * is worth doing for money" *
*Chief Scientist & General Partner * -13th Rule of Acquisition *
*White Elephant Research, LLC * "There is no substitute *
* for success" *
*661-718-0955 or 661-275-6795 * -58th Rule of Acquisition *

wrote:

Because if you can convince yourself that evolution
demands it, you don't actually have to provide a real
justification.


Exploration leads to moving. A species that is spread around is less
vulnerable to localized disaster.

After any reasonably plausible disaster, Earth is still
more habitable than any place in space would be.

Paul

wrote:

Space exploration will continue, because there is demand for it. People
are fascinated with the unknown, like it or not. (You should like it,
considering your occupation.)

Fascination is cheap. Paying for it, is not.

Bob Kolker

wrote:



If the opportunity were available there would be no shortage of
qualified 'explorers'. Where your argument gets downright silly is the
comparison with the historical exploration of earth. The new world
wasn't so much explored as exploited, first for gold then for furs and
land.

Also you could live their without a space-suit.

Bob Kolker

"Wayne Throop" wrote in message
...
: "Pete Lynn"
: Why has evolution imbued you with an instinct for
: exploration if it does not profit by it?

Supposing that "drive to explore" is an adaptive trait,
and not just a side-effect of an adaptive trait at best, is
sort of like asking "why did you stop kicking that
puppy".

Well, he had already confessed to kicking that puppy...

Seems to me I recall several good examples
(presented by Gould I think) where one of the
evolutionary "just so" stories about How Humans Got
their Spots (or whathaveyou) turns out to be just that;
confabulated stories/myths. But sadly, I can't call one
to mind just now. Probably some of the social-
darwinism pop-sci stuff from a while back.

Exploring because you were simply pushed out does sound far less
romantic.

Having said that, many swarming insects seem prone to mass emigration, I
do not immediately see how this is not pre programmed behaviour.
Further, it would not surprise me if human beings possessed such base
type instinctive behaviour, or side effects there of. Genetic
determinism, seems to be one of the default positions when brains are
not used.

But whether I can remember the specific cases or not,
I remain skeptical when people come up with
wonderful little explanations of why this or that
personality trait is as it is because of evolutionary
manifest destiny.

Yes it is all annoyingly difficult to prove/disprove.

But I'm not bitter; no, I'm not bitter.

:-)

Pete.

Robert Kolker wrote:
wrote:



If the opportunity were available there would be no shortage of
qualified 'explorers'. Where your argument gets downright silly is
the
comparison with the historical exploration of earth. The new world
wasn't so much explored as exploited, first for gold then for furs
and
land.

Also you could live their without a space-suit.

Bob Kolker

Touche. Also there was timber for the conquistidor's ships, native
game for food and eventually the 'killer app', farming tobacco. The
explorations were relatively cheap to undertake, Ferdinand and Isabella
paid for Chris's trip with profits from salt evaporation ponds. They
were certainly expecting a return on investment.
It looks a little less like exploration when every rock, crater and
sand dune over a few feet in size can be seen from orbit. The real
exploration will be in drilling for marsologic history, water and
possible life, but this can be done by robots.
Given that a space 'station' could be moved with a mass driver, it
might make sense to station it in orbit around mars where samples from
the surface could be investigated, instead of putting humans down the
gravity well.
If the purpose of exploration is to discover new knowledge than
equipment made for that purpose is the proper means. Is the space
telescope any less of an explorer because there isn't a human peering
through the eyepiece?
BTW, I have always admired the intelligence of your posts to spr,
thanks for going easy on me.

On 21-May-2005, "Paul F. Dietz" wrote:

Exploration leads to moving. A species that is spread around is less
vulnerable to localized disaster.

After any reasonably plausible disaster, Earth is still
more habitable than any place in space would be.

Nova?

Maybe even some types of biological disaster.

wrote:
Pete Lynn wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
Stephen Horgan wrote:
On 20 May 2005 04:16:06 -0700, wrote:

John Ordover claims that, "Exploration is only
done for a profit motive."

Sensible chap.

Try 'senseless'. Exploration is obviously not done only
for a profit motive.

Why has evolution imbued you with an instinct for exploration if it
does
not profit by it?


Pete.

I was referring to economic profit.

Does your instinct for exploration imbue you with a desire to live
within a volume that makes a jail cell appear lavish by comparison?
James Lovell described the 'adventure' he shared with Gus
Grissom in a Gemini capsule as 'two weeks in the men's room'.
It is likely that when such exploration does happen, it will be carried
out by couch potatoes and people with simple hobbies. Travel to mars
or the astroids will be boredom in confinement.
Massive curiosity may be more economically satiated with advanced
robotic missions. The hubble, spirit and opportunity and the rest of
our unmanned explorers were for the sake of gaining new knowledge and
clearly not for profit. Sending people to mars in the same fasion as
Apollo is just plain over the top.
Assuming you were to get several years in space, what would you expect
to be doing with your time on a day to day basis?
What questions about mars or the asteroids do you want to see answered
that can't be answered by unmanned missions?

Robert Kolker wrote:
lclough wrote:

future. To pry Mars money away from the old folks' pensions, the
collapsing health-care system and the highway fund, a really cogent
and powerful reason will have to be presented.


There is no such reason. The only way humans are going to get to Mars is
if some genius comes up with a cheap and ultracapable propulsion system
that is not even in sight in the Think Tanks. What are the odds of that?




Well, that is one possibility. (Nobody is doing research on it
so far as I know -- heck, we aren't even really putting any work
into finding a substitute for oil, even though getting the
petroleum monkey off our backs would put paid to Al Quaeda for
ever.) I can think of at least a couple other ways to kick the
system into gear. If, for instance, China mounted up a really
credible threat to US hegemony and then proposed building a
military base on Phobos. Another classic hardy perennial, which
we have all seen in movies, would be ETs. An INDEPENDENCE DAY
scenario.

But in the near term, realistically? Politically impossible.





--
---------
Brenda W. Clough
http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda/

Recent short fiction: PARADOX, Autumn 2003
http://home.nyc.rr.com/paradoxmag//index.html

Upcoming short fiction in FIRST HEROES (TOR, May '04)
http://members.aol.com/wenamun/firstheroes.html