• theneverfox@pawb.social
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    1 month ago

    We don’t get new tech without pushing boundaries. We’d forget how to make phones in a single generation if we stopped… We’ve forgotten how to get to the moon already. Space X is just continuing cancelled NASA projects, but they had to basically start over

    You want to learn to terraform here? We’ve only got one shot. The only current idea that makes any sense is to just stop releasing CO2 and hope everything bounces back… But we might be past the tipping point. If you want to find out, you need satilites

    You only get to keep our level of technology by growing new engineers. They need goals and toys, and they need challenging problems

    You want to learn how to terraform the earth, safely? You want to maintain GPS and the Internet? You want to learn how to better clean sewage and the air?

    It’s not either or. You can do everything you said while also letting the best and brightest play with rockets. You can shoot for Mars to save the earth

    You just can’t do it for profit

    • DarkCloud@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      One rocket launch expells 350+ tonnes of carbon. Just to allow some elites to play with rockets?

      That’s a no from me dawg. Go suck “the best and the brightest” off somewhere else. If they’re so bright they can focus on fixing climate change in a different way. Do that and they get to “play with rockets” again later.

        • DarkCloud@lemmy.world
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          30 days ago

          Russia used highly toxic UDMH, SpaceX uses kerosene + LOX (huge amounts of Co2), as do India and China (kero the cheapest and most popular rocket fuel, pollutes the highest level of the atmosphere and lingers… Some are now using methane which is a worse greenhouse gas).

          Liquid Hydrogen and Oxygen are just for specific stages.

          But we’re talking 140 or more launches a year. I’m about as down for that as I am for keeping global tourism alive.

          We don’t need satellites to track the weather or capture air quality data. The air, weather balloons, weather station, and radar is all we need.

          The whole point of downsizing is to use less resources.