Universal Basic Income and the Threat of Tyranny

Our modern system was founded on the basis of constant expansion, The Matrix said it best "human beings a virus", for our system to continue we will have to expand beyond our planet. Space stations, mars, lunar colonies, etc... Alternatively we will create advanced AI before we manage to get off planet and it will destroy us.

Constant expansion (on a mass level) is over, though, and given the difficulties of space travel, it will be for quite a while (and this is already the positive scenario). We have to learn how to maintain and balance what we have instead of recurring to nomadism and move someplace else, because for the foreseeable future "someplace else" doesn't exist. Wehn it will exist, we will move again.
 
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The only reason space travel is difficult is because comparatively little money has been put into it. Once powers that be realize that the only way out of the hole is space exploration it will get a lot more common. It's already starting, despite my general dislike for Musk and his failure to learn from the past, he is putting a lot of money into space travel, similarly Branson with his Virgin Galactic. You also have Chinese and Indians getting into the space race now, that will motivate others.
 
And it has nothing to do with the radiation or vacuum?
 
And it has nothing to do with the radiation or vacuum?

You live somewhere where winter temperatures alone can kill you, yet you are very much alive. I would posit that it is probably because you live in some sort of a building that was designed to keep you warm when it's cold out. When you venture outside of that building you probably wear special clothing that protects you from said cold. Perhaps you even have some sort of a vehicle that can get you from one building to another without exposing you to the elements. You see where I'm going with this yet?
 
Radiation exposure is not that easy to get around once a ship gets outside the Earth's magnetic field.
 
Manned space exploration is expensive and slow. You're basically transporting people on ICBM, which is inherently more dangerous than most other forms of travel. The safety and redundancy requirement will make any development take a very long time. So far SpaceX has only been transporting cargo, it's no big deal if the rocket explodes on the launchpad, they recovered in less than 1 year. But if there was astronaughts on that rocket, there would've been congressional hearing and all kinds of investigation.
 
Radiation exposure is not that easy to get around once a ship gets outside the Earth's magnetic field.

I'm not saying it's simple, I am saying that it is possible and doable, main limitation is funding for research.

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Manned space exploration is expensive and slow. You're basically transporting people on ICBM, which is inherently more dangerous than most other forms of travel. The safety and redundancy requirement will make any development take a very long time. So far SpaceX has only been transporting cargo, it's no big deal if the rocket explodes on the launchpad, they recovered in less than 1 year. But if there was astronaughts on that rocket, there would've been congressional hearing and all kinds of investigation.

For now, they are already planning a Mars mission. Also again the problem comes down to funding for research, chemical rockets are not the best way to get into space but basically the cheapest and easiest for the time being.
 
And it has nothing to do with the radiation or vacuum?

Loss of bone density and muscle atrophy is arguably a bigger problem in space exploration than radiation and pressure-loss. That being said, there is a lot we don't know about the long-term effects of cosmic radiation in deep space on biological life. The only data points we have are from the SST, ISS, and Apollo missions; the first two don't tell us much because the astronauts and biology experiments are still largely under the protection of the Earth's magnetic field and the Apollo missions were too short in duration to get any meaningful data. NASA has an upcoming mission that seeks to answer some of these questions: Link
 
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Loss of bone density and muscle atrophy is arguably a bigger problem in space exploration than radiation and pressure-loss. That being said, there is a lot we don't know about the long-term effects of cosmic radiation in deep space on biological life. The only data points we have are from the SST, ISS, and Apollo missions; the first two don't tell us much because the astronauts and biology experiments are still largely under the protection of the Earth's magnetic field and the Apollo missions were too short in duration to get any meaningful data. NASA has an upcoming mission that seeks to answer some of these questions: Link

There is actually a relatively easy fix for the bone and muscle issues, you can spin the ship and use centripetal force as simulated gravity.
 
Not as easy as it sounds. Yes it can be done, but it complicates everything.

First there is keeping it balanced. With people moving around inside the ship it will never be perfectly balanced. That means attitude thrusters that consume some form of fuel, which adds weight, expense, and complexity. You also will have to maneuver the ship at some point, and that makes it even more fuel hungry to keep it balanced. Stopping the spin will use even more fuel, so that is reserved for emergencies or extra-vehicular departures.

Then there are the solar panels. You have to keep those panels pointed towards the sun, and that is really hard when the ship is spinning. Stick them out of the ends and keep them moving the opposite rotation of the ship? Well sure, but then where do you put the engines to accelerate and decelerate the ship? Then there is feeding power from the panels to the ship. A contact loses a lot of power, and that means bigger panels.

Lets say we skip the big solar panels and use fuel cells. Well, that is even more fuel and weight that requires larger main engines and expense.

Then there is getting to the surface, that will require a separate capsule and launch vehicle. The ship will have to stop spinning for this, and when it comes back up from the surface.

Then we are back to the radiation shielding. With the big solar panels, they can act as a partial shield. But on a spinning ship, that will require thicker shields all around which adds more weight, fuel use, and expense.


And that is just what I can pull off the top of my head.
 
First there is keeping it balanced. With people moving around inside the ship it will never be perfectly balanced. That means attitude thrusters that consume some form of fuel, which adds weight, expense, and complexity. You also will have to maneuver the ship at some point, and that makes it even more fuel hungry to keep it balanced. Stopping the spin will use even more fuel, so that is reserved for emergencies or extra-vehicular departures.
It doesn't have to be balanced, the weight of the humans is going to be insignificant, even if the ship does "wobble" a little bit it makes very little difference as there is no medium that has any resistance so it will keep going in the direction it was originally accelerated in. Acceleration phase of any travel will be relatively short you get to max speed and then coast.

Additionally you don't need attitude thrusters, you can use gyroscopes, that's how the hubble positions itself to point at different parts of the "sky".

Then there are the solar panels. You have to keep those panels pointed towards the sun, and that is really hard when the ship is spinning. Stick them out of the ends and keep them moving the opposite rotation of the ship? Well sure, but then where do you put the engines to accelerate and decelerate the ship? Then there is feeding power from the panels to the ship. A contact loses a lot of power, and that means bigger panels.
Solar panels are not particularly useful on a space voyage like say one to Mars, distance to the sun makes it impractical. However the entire ship doesn't have to spin, there can be a central axis and panels can easily be connected to that with breaks in the compartments to allow for mounting arms.
Lets say we skip the big solar panels and use fuel cells. Well, that is even more fuel and weight that requires larger main engines and expense.
Use a nuclear battery like the Curiosity Rover. Also I would think that any decently large ship for a Mars mission would have to be built in orbit, that makes weight issue a bit less serious.
Then there is getting to the surface, that will require a separate capsule and launch vehicle. The ship will have to stop spinning for this, and when it comes back up from the surface.
Again same as solar panels and engines and such, central axis that houses all of that and can be "stationary" There is also using something like the Canada arm we currently have on the ISS.
Then we are back to the radiation shielding. With the big solar panels, they can act as a partial shield. But on a spinning ship, that will require thicker shields all around which adds more weight, fuel use, and expense.
Solar panels wouldn't work here for above reasons and also unless you expect to cover the entire hull of the ship with the panels, which would actually solve your problem of spinning panels, they would only be protective from limited angles. Current suggestion from most of the engineers is to use water on the outside of the ship, you have to take a water supply with you anyway and it's a good barrier to radiation.

All of the above is completely irrelevant though because neither of us have any clue where technology is going to be when working in space will actually be a real possibility. Again none of this is on a scale of 10 years from now, more like 100 years from now.
And that is just what I can pull off the top of my head.[/QUOTE]
 
There is actually a relatively easy fix for the bone and muscle issues, you can spin the ship and use centripetal force as simulated gravity.

Sure, but not even pie-in-the-sky Musk is shooting for that. :)
 
Sure, but not even pie-in-the-sky Musk is shooting for that. :)

Musk is also not shooting for 50-100 years from now, he is shooting for at most 10. Gotta keep in mind the time scales here, UBI will not become an issue until automation is at the level where there are simply not enough jobs for all of the humans, it's nowhere near there yet. The most ubiquitous and successful application of automation is flying planes and we still have to keep two humans on board of every commercial airliner because any non-standard situation requires human intervention.
 
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It doesn't have to be balanced, the weight of the humans is going to be insignificant, even if the ship does "wobble" a little bit it makes very little difference as there is no medium that has any resistance so it will keep going in the direction it was originally accelerated in. Acceleration phase of any travel will be relatively short you get to max speed and then coast.


But it does need to be balanced. There are other systems that require pinpoint accuracy. Communications require the antennas to be pointed within a degree at the most, as an example.



Additionally you don't need attitude thrusters, you can use gyroscopes, that's how the hubble positions itself to point at different parts of the "sky".


You need attitude thrusters before you even get to a spinning hull. That is how the ship will turn. A spinning ship will need more. Gyroscopes work fine when keeping a ship pointed in the same direction when it is not spinning. Hubble is also much smaller than a ship that will be going to Mars.


Solar panels are not particularly useful on a space voyage like say one to Mars, distance to the sun makes it impractical. However the entire ship doesn't have to spin, there can be a central axis and panels can easily be connected to that with breaks in the compartments to allow for mounting arms.


Panels are fine in space. There is no atmosphere, so they are more efficient. NASA even used one on the surface of Mars for the Sojourner Rover. The rover worked fine until the signal to the base station was lost.



Use a nuclear battery like the Curiosity Rover.


Back to the shielding issue, along with added weight.


Also I would think that any decently large ship for a Mars mission would have to be built in orbit, that makes weight issue a bit less serious.


You still need to accelerate the ship out of orbit and decelerate it at Mars.


Again same as solar panels and engines and such, central axis that houses all of that and can be "stationary"


Okay, now you have to seal the atmosphere into the ship and there has to be a connection between the "stationary" portion and the spinning portion. I know there are joints on deep sea suits that have a seal that stops moving when it fails, but if that style joint were used on the ship between the two sections and it failed, the ship would transmit all that motion into the stationary section and that could twist the ship into bits.



There is also using something like the Canada arm we currently have on the ISS.

I am sure such a device will be there as a back up, but not as a primary way to catch the extra vehicular vehicle.


Solar panels wouldn't work here for above reasons and also unless you expect to cover the entire hull of the ship with the panels, which would actually solve your problem of spinning panels, they would only be protective from limited angles.


I doubt there would be enough surface area to cover the ship to provide effective power. Besides, the only way they work as partial shields is to be away from the ship and to reflect some of the Sun's(the main source) radiation away from it. Being away from the ship also allows the panels to provide shade for the ship.


Current suggestion from most of the engineers is to use water on the outside of the ship, you have to take a water supply with you anyway and it's a good barrier to radiation.


Yes, water will of course be used as part of the shielding system as well as the heating and cooling systems. But that means that more water needs to be carried on board, and that is even more weight. Using solar panels away from the ship as part of the shielding system is lighter while still being effective.



All of the above is completely irrelevant though because neither of us have any clue where technology is going to be when working in space will actually be a real possibility. Again none of this is on a scale of 10 years from now, more like 100 years from now.


Autonomous is where it is at. People are fragile and hard to protect and limit the performance of the ship. People will not be on Mars this century.


Musk needs to prove part of his technology before going to Mars, so he will have ships on the Moon as soon as he can get clearance to launch.
 
But it does need to be balanced. There are other systems that require pinpoint accuracy. Communications require the antennas to be pointed within a degree at the most, as an example.
Antennae don't need to pointed with that kind of precision, all EM signals lose focus with distance and with that kind of distance it will be a massive focus loss. That is of course assuming a directional antenna is used, which I doubt because it would make it much harder to properly aim.

You need attitude thrusters before you even get to a spinning hull. That is how the ship will turn. A spinning ship will need more. Gyroscopes work fine when keeping a ship pointed in the same direction when it is not spinning. Hubble is also much smaller than a ship that will be going to Mars.
So you would need them anyway is what you are saying, then what is the issue? Hubble uses them to turn not to just keep pointed at something.

Panels are fine in space. There is no atmosphere, so they are more efficient. NASA even used one on the surface of Mars for the Sojourner Rover. The rover worked fine until the signal to the base station was lost.
Panels work best when they are at 90 degree to the light source, a planet where the position of the sun is pretty constant. Another issue is the amount of power needed, the rover has no life support system, moves at crawling speed and is pretty small. A ship that is going to Mars will have to be massive, will not necessarily be in the best position for the panels to work and will require a ton more power to keep squishy bags of mostly water alive. Those panels would either have to be absolutely massive and have a mechanism that allows them to always face the sun @ 90 degrees. That also means that you can't have any panels that are "below" other panels because they would be doing nothing.

Back to the shielding issue, along with added weight.
That's again imminently solvable, we sent a rover with a nuke battery, yes it did require shielding electronics don't like radiation, all the way to Mars so the tech is mostly there. Weight is only of major concern if you are building on the ground, something of that magnitude is likely to be build the way ISS was.


You still need to accelerate the ship out of orbit and decelerate it at Mars.
Yes but that is a tiny fraction of the total travel time, not to mention that you can use orbital mechanics to help with establishing orbit and save a lot on fuel.


Okay, now you have to seal the atmosphere into the ship and there has to be a connection between the "stationary" portion and the spinning portion. I know there are joints on deep sea suits that have a seal that stops moving when it fails, but if that style joint were used on the ship between the two sections and it failed, the ship would transmit all that motion into the stationary section and that could twist the ship into bits.
It could be hit by a micro meteoroid shower that will make a bunch of holes in the hull and cause atmosphere to escape. It could blow up before leaving orbit, it could fall apart on deceleration, someone could use metric and imperial calculations and not properly convert. A million things could go wrong. Additionally why would the central portion need oxygen at all? Central portion would house a lot of the hardware needed to run the ship, it need not have atmosphere. Alternatively each module, including central can have it's own atmo, which is a better idea than a centralized system in the first place as it takes away single point of failure.


I am sure such a device will be there as a back up, but not as a primary way to catch the extra vehicular vehicle.
That's the primary way of docking to the ISS at the moment, so why would it be a backup?

I doubt there would be enough surface area to cover the ship to provide effective power. Besides, the only way they work as partial shields is to be away from the ship and to reflect some of the Sun's(the main source) radiation away from it. Being away from the ship also allows the panels to provide shade for the ship.

See above


Yes, water will of course be used as part of the shielding system as well as the heating and cooling systems. But that means that more water needs to be carried on board, and that is even more weight. Using solar panels away from the ship as part of the shielding system is lighter while still being effective.
See above

Autonomous is where it is at. People are fragile and hard to protect and limit the performance of the ship.
Autonomous is extremely limited, not to mention the cultural and social implications of putting people on Mars, space race during Cold War was a major engine of innovation, a huge amount of technology we use in our daily lives comes from NASA and space exploration.

People will not be on Mars this century.
NASA disagrees.
Musk needs to prove part of his technology before going to Mars, so he will have ships on the Moon as soon as he can get clearance to launch.
I'm not disagreeing, but it has little to do with the topic of UBI and how to avoid it. Having a large number of the population work in space is not a possibility *in the next couple of decades* but neither is a need for UBI. The more resources are allocated to space exploration the faster technology will progress and the faster the possibility of lunar bases, advanced space stations and manned flights to beyond Mars will come.
 
Antennae don't need to pointed with that kind of precision, all EM signals lose focus with distance and with that kind of distance it will be a massive focus loss. That is of course assuming a directional antenna is used, which I doubt because it would make it much harder to properly aim.


Every probe that goes out of orbit has a directional antenna because it is going so far out of range of a normal antenna. It would be no different for a ship with people.


So you would need them anyway is what you are saying, then what is the issue? Hubble uses them to turn not to just keep pointed at something.


Maybe you missed the spinning ship needs more comment. More than double I would bet.



Panels work best when they are at 90 degree to the light source, a planet where the position of the sun is pretty constant. Another issue is the amount of power needed, the rover has no life support system, moves at crawling speed and is pretty small. A ship that is going to Mars will have to be massive, will not necessarily be in the best position for the panels to work and will require a ton more power to keep squishy bags of mostly water alive. Those panels would either have to be absolutely massive and have a mechanism that allows them to always face the sun @ 90 degrees. That also means that you can't have any panels that are "below" other panels because they would be doing nothing.


Now you are getting it. Both the size and direction of the panels is important. Also take a look at the ISS over time to see how many panels have been added as the craft was enlarged.



That's again imminently solvable, we sent a rover with a nuke battery, yes it did require shielding electronics don't like radiation, all the way to Mars so the tech is mostly there. Weight is only of major concern if you are building on the ground, something of that magnitude is likely to be build the way ISS was.


People are less resilient to radation than machines, so that means more shielding, and now it is part of the ship too.



Yes but that is a tiny fraction of the total travel time, not to mention that you can use orbital mechanics to help with establishing orbit and save a lot on fuel.


I get that it is only a small part of the time. Still doesn't change the fact that it takes more energy to accelerate a heavier ship.



It could be hit by a micro meteoroid shower that will make a bunch of holes in the hull and cause atmosphere to escape. It could blow up before leaving orbit, it could fall apart on deceleration, someone could use metric and imperial calculations and not properly convert. A million things could go wrong. Additionally why would the central portion need oxygen at all? Central portion would house a lot of the hardware needed to run the ship, it need not have atmosphere. Alternatively each module, including central can have it's own atmo, which is a better idea than a centralized system in the first place as it takes away single point of failure.


Don't want to be going on a trip between planets without the ability to repair something in case it breaks. Yes, of course there would be compartmentalization. You seem to be missing my point so let me lay it out. Using a spinning sections solves one problem, it causes other complications that quickly multiply need for extra fuel and power.



That's the primary way of docking to the ISS at the moment, so why would it be a backup?


No it is not, it is one of the ways to dock there.

https://www.space.com/33416-spacex-launching-international-docking-adapter.html



See above



See above


What part?


Autonomous is extremely limited, not to mention the cultural and social implications of putting people on Mars, space race during Cold War was a major engine of innovation, a huge amount of technology we use in our daily lives comes from NASA and space exploration.


The autonomy will be guided with human intervention when needed. Humans will put someone on Mars eventually, but it will be a multi country effort. We will be going back to the Moon first to test and prove new designs. Yes the space race was innovative, but you have to be when going outside the atmosphere. I will cover the Space Race in the next section.


NASA disagrees.


NASA doesn't have the budget to do anything other than design stuff that will probably not get used before some company (Musk?) puts a ship of some type on the Moon. During the Cold War, NASA had money thrown at it until we landed on the Moon a few times. The budget has been on a fairly steady decline since. The only exception to that was the Shuttle program that was funded partially because we wanted to keep putting spy satellites in orbit, and the Shuttles offered a cheaper way to do it in theory.



I'm not disagreeing, but it has little to do with the topic of UBI and how to avoid it. Having a large number of the population work in space is not a possibility *in the next couple of decades* but neither is a need for UBI. The more resources are allocated to space exploration the faster technology will progress and the faster the possibility of lunar bases, advanced space stations and manned flights to beyond Mars will come.


None of my comments here had anything to do with the UBI. Explain the need for funds to the Congress Critters. They will mostly tell you we have to increase funding for the military and that some things will have to be neglected for some time. There will also be those in Congress that will tell you it is best left in the hands of the corporations.
 
Every probe that goes out of orbit has a directional antenna because it is going so far out of range of a normal antenna. It would be no different for a ship with people.
That still doesn't invalidate the idea of a spinning ship.

Maybe you missed the spinning ship needs more comment. More than double I would bet.
Sure but it will need more of everything.


Now you are getting it. Both the size and direction of the panels is important. Also take a look at the ISS over time to see how many panels have been added as the craft was enlarged.

I always got it, spinning ship does not preclude panels that can change angle and position, which they would have to regardless of how the hull of the ship is.

People are less resilient to radation than machines, so that means more shielding, and now it is part of the ship too.
So?

I get that it is only a small part of the time. Still doesn't change the fact that it takes more energy to accelerate a heavier ship.
No argument but again what does it matter? No matter the mass of the ship there will have to be some sort of a solution to fuel, for example you would likely want to send autonomous ships with fuel on board to be picked up on trajectory. This way you save on "take off" mass at least.


Don't want to be going on a trip between planets without the ability to repair something in case it breaks. Yes, of course there would be compartmentalization. You seem to be missing my point so let me lay it out. Using a spinning sections solves one problem, it causes other complications that quickly multiply need for extra fuel and power.
Again true for any design.


It's a way to line up for docking, at least according to Chris Hadfield (was listening to Star Talk with him recently)


What part?
The one about having to angle and move panels around, they might not be in perfect position to shield any of the craft.

The autonomy will be guided with human intervention when needed. Humans will put someone on Mars eventually, but it will be a multi country effort. We will be going back to the Moon first to test and prove new designs. Yes the space race was innovative, but you have to be when going outside the atmosphere. I will cover the Space Race in the next section.
There is a 15 minute delay between Mars and Earth we cannot possibly have human intervention. Also it's not about directing it's about things like analysis, I think I mentioned this before, I was listening to Star Talk Radio and one of the things mentioned as to why you'd want humans exploring is because what takes a human 5 minutes to do, takes the rover a few hours at best.

NASA doesn't have the budget to do anything other than design stuff that will probably not get used before some company (Musk?) puts a ship of some type on the Moon. During the Cold War, NASA had money thrown at it until we landed on the Moon a few times. The budget has been on a fairly steady decline since. The only exception to that was the Shuttle program that was funded partially because we wanted to keep putting spy satellites in orbit, and the Shuttles offered a cheaper way to do it in theory.
If you remember my original point about space exploration and expansion as a way to avoid the issue of UBI was contigent on increase in funding for various *SAs around the world.

None of my comments here had anything to do with the UBI. Explain the need for funds to the Congress Critters. They will mostly tell you we have to increase funding for the military and that some things will have to be neglected for some time. There will also be those in Congress that will tell you it is best left in the hands of the corporations.
Then frankly, I don't understand what you are attempting to do. This thread is about UBI and all the issues that come with it. I made a suggestion that space exploration and expansion could be a way to avoid the problem of not enough jobs and too many people, you are arguing that it's not tenable due to all the challenges with our current technology.
 
No, it is not tenable at all with space exploration.
 
I don't think a UBI will work at all. People will become creative and develop new lines of work. There will also be a new emphasis on education and philosophical pursuits.
 
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