Last and most importantly, Starlink exists is to create revenue for SpaceX and to fund the Starship program. The value to humanity of Starship succeeding at its goals is extremely high.
Starship to orbit sounds useful, but Starship to Mars is near useless. If that's what rich people want to spend their money on, go nuts.
It's something for humanity to be excited about and root for. What happened to wanting to achieve things? Having things to look forward to, build toward and be proud of is healthy for society. Must we aspire to and dream of nothing because there's suffering on earth, is that what it is? Why can't we take it as the objective good it is that we're trying to push technological boundaries that will unlock more advancements in science? In what world does HN not want that?
I strongly disagree.
If "Starship to Mars" is a possibility, then so is "Starship to the asteroid belt". It's very close to "Starship to the asteroid belt, capture asteroid, return to Earth orbit" - and that's very close to orbital mining of metals that are rare and valuable on Earth.
To put this into perspective, an Earth-Mars round trip costs about 15 km/s; Earth-main Belt about 13 km/s.
You'd need to add Δv for returning the mass of the asteroid. But you get your reaction mass for "free."
(To be clear, we are hundreds of billions of dollars of capex and decades away from asteroid mining. But the work to get there is decently in line with the work we would need to establish a logistical chain to Mars and back.)
A single astronaut with a shovel could do more science in a couple days than all the probes combined in the last 54 years (Which have barely scratched the surface). For all we know there are literal fossils a few meters below the surface but none of our technology had the ability to even start looking.
Apollo to the Moon was near useless by that metric. We wouldn't have Starship to orbit if we hadn't gone to the moon.
If humanity agreed with this statement, humanity would fund the program directly through investment, donations or taxes, the same way we fund roads and schools which we also value highly.
...Starlink and SpaceX are funded through investments and taxes. When they launch a non-profit's satellite I guess, indirectly, through donations, too.
Also, what? Why is the funding source a measure of value?
I beg to disagree. I see no value at all. This must be one of those accelerationist or extropianist/utilitarian beliefs.
This does not benefit "humanity" at all, even if they do succeed. If a human colony on Mars is established, and all of humanity is wiped out on Earth, does it really benefit "humanity" or only the 0.000000001% of "humanity" located on Mars?
And life on Mars is going to be difficult, it isn't habitable, and is in fact quite hostile to life. I seriously doubt any colony on Mars would be viable long-term. If life on Earth is wiped out, the colony on Mars will very likely wither and die soon after without continued support from Earth.
Any colony on Mars is going to be so exponentially more fragile and fraught with problems for sustaining life, that the suggestion that it's somehow going to save humanity is ridiculous.
How does "getting mass to orbit" benefit all of humanity more than what we have now? Not that much, I think, but maybe you have some inside scoop that the rest of us don't know about.
