Have any of these next-generation space planes actually carried anyone into space yet?
No the American and Chinese government ones that have launched so far are both robotic. This Dream Chaser one that’s supposed to test this year is manned though, we’ll see how that goes.
The current Dream Chaser is cargo only, but Sierra Space would like to build a crewed version that launches without a fairing. The cargo version launches inside a fairing with folding wings.
Too bad that IF we somehow don’t destroy our shared, sole, naturally hospitable habitat, and that’s an enormous if, all of this technology is privately owned, unlike the public space endeavors we starved to give the people profiting off this a tax breaks.
We’re creating a future where if we succeed in making any brave new human colonies, they will be exploitative resource extractors for private companies, not humanity, and people will be born into interstellar company stores they can never afford to escape.
I used to be all in on space, what changed is knowing who we have become and seeing the blatant lack of any noble values or aspirations to take with us. Our owner class is literally pushing for colonization because they need to grow/metastasize, and strip mining the paradise we inherited that they’ve already conquered and saturated to the point of ecological disaster is no longer enough.
It’s pretty obvious that if we can’t succeed in finding homeostasis on this, the only planet we will ever know that is completely suited to our biology, we will absolutely die on the vine attempting to set up a persistent presence anywhere else, all of which will be lethally unforgiving.
There’s no growing/metastasizing our way out of the many crises our reckless growth/metastasis has created.
Yeesh sounds like you are down on humanity generally, referring to the growth of our civilization as “metastasizing” like it’s a cancer. I don’t expect that expanding into space will solve any big metaphysical problems or anything, but you shouldn’t turn your nose up so quickly at the benefits of growth. The first space settlements beyond little research outposts probably will be some kind of resource extraction, since any human settlement needs to be economically viable and that’s what they’ve got up there. I’d be very happy to make the world a lot richer with cheap raw materials while reducing the need for environmentally damaging mining on Earth where there’s an environment to damage.
Reckless growth of an aspect(humans) of a larger but still finite organism(Earth’s ecosystem) that aspect is completely dependent on but indifferent to the damage its growth is doing, because it keeps doing it as it is its only imperative, is what metastatic cancer does.
I know our species worships the idea of infinite growth/metastasis with reckless abandon as fast as we can, but that recklessness has consequences.
Gotta love the true believers.
That analogy makes nonsense of your description of humanity metastasizing into space though - the equivalent being a cancer expanding and gathering resources from outside of the body it’s embedded in? If anything it’s the obvious solution to the problem of our putting too much strain on Earth’s ecosystem - let us spread that strain to other worlds where there’s no ecosystem to damage.
We haven’t learned how to care for one another or the very air we breathe, and have very little interest in doing so, so I’m sure mastering strip mining the death void despite not learning how to crawl or walk as a species will go spectacularly 👍
Remember, the answer is always mooooaaaaaar.
Well yes mooooooar economic growth has always been an incredibly positive thing for humanity and space based growth would be no different.
