Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

With that attitude, we'd all be sitting inside our houses and noone would do anything of interrest or importance.


> sitting inside our houses

No, but the attitude is staying inside the atmosphere of earth, usually on land, and at or close to sea level. That is what we evolved for, and we are effective there. Nearly anywhere else, we're talking super big, thick, heavy, clumsy suits and, still, lots of just outrageous dangers.

> anything of interrest or importance.

Dying on the moon or Mars is not of much of either.

Instead, for the moon or Mars, we can get a lot of interesting and important work from research, engineering, and construction of robots able to do real work on the moon or Mars.

For more work that is "interesting", and maybe "important", I'm busy at it everyday, without considering the moon or Mars.

Actually, so far we've done pretty well with robots on Mars. For our next effort, we need a way to clean dust off the solar panels.

Our robots have given us some really good data on the sun, Mercury and Venus, Jupiter and its moons, Saturn and its rings, each of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, and now the boundary between our solar system and deeper space.

The Japanese have done well with robots getting samples from some asteroids -- with some interesting data, e.g., where at least some of the amino acids could have come from.

For something really interesting out there, how 'bout the results from a really big gravitational wave telescope?

For humans? I'm just fine, close to sea level, on land, in a house, with an Internet connection, just fine right here, thank you. You are welcome to my slot on any rocket to the moon or Mars, very welcome!




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2025 batch! Applications are open till Aug 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: