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Thread: How advanced can a civilization get without space exploration?

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    The Queen Zuul's avatar
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    Default How advanced can a civilization get without space exploration?

    This xkcd strip got me thinking about this question.

    There are a lot of technological advances that we have made thanks to space travel, but would we have eventually made those same advances without that impetus? One thing that gets talked about is mining resources from other planetary bodies, but our own planet is still a long way away from that. There's also, of course, the fact that a civilization that never spreads out from its place of origin is more vulnerable to extinction.

    So imagine a planet very much like Earth, with the difference being that they've all decided not to bother with focusing beyond their own immediate space. So they might get as far as launching satellites, but no serious effort or thought is ever put into visiting another world. No Venera 7, no Rosetta space probe, no Mars Rovers.

    Would this stifle creativity, or would all of that effort that would have gone into space exploration be intensely focused on bettering their world?
    So now they are just dirt-covered English people in fur pelts with credit cards.

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    Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo What Exit?'s avatar
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    Well miniaturization of electronics got a big boost from the space race. Also I doubt the money would have been focused on bettering the world. So I would vote that just this difference would not make for a huge difference either way. Maybe a few years lag in miniaturization that the satellites would still encourage.

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    Oliphaunt Rube E. Tewesday's avatar
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    Way back around the time of the Moon landings, I remember reading a piece that compared going to the Moon in the Sixties to going to the South Pole in 1912: It was just barely possible to do it with the technology of the time, but not possible to do anything useful with it (after Amundsen and Scott, after all, nobody went back to the South Pole by land for a long, long, time, and we still don't do anything much with it).

    Would civilization have lost much if nobody had gone to the South Pole in 1912? Would it have lost much if we hadn't sent people into space in the sixties? I'm thinking probably not, that a civilization can do fine on its own world, and that if it can't, going to space isn't going to save it.

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    Administrator CatInASuit's avatar
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    Necessity is the mother of invention. I would imagine a lot of things would be delayed by a few years of possibly longer without the impetus required to develop them.

    The other issue is that for a while the space race was something that forced East and West into an ongoing battle of wits and resources trying to outdo each other. What do you think the impact would be if there had been no space race. Would the world be more peaceful or is it more likely that the budget went on armaments and more ground based methods of allowing people to kill each other?
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

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    The Queen Zuul's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by CatInASuit View post
    The other issue is that for a while the space race was something that forced East and West into an ongoing battle of wits and resources trying to outdo each other. What do you think the impact would be if there had been no space race. Would the world be more peaceful or is it more likely that the budget went on armaments and more ground based methods of allowing people to kill each other?
    That was my thought. Those were tense and scary times with the space race. Without it, it seems as though a direct confrontation would be more likely. If necessity is the mother of invention and you take space off the table, would both sides have been putting all that energy into war? Maybe they wouldn't have attacked one another directly because of the fears of mutual annihilation, but dragging even more little nations into it seems likely, as does advancing military technology closer to the ground.
    So now they are just dirt-covered English people in fur pelts with credit cards.

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    Wanna cuddle? RabbitMage's avatar
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    I recall hearing that there was a major push for education in math and the sciences in the 50s and 60s relating to the Space Race, and that part of the reason we're lagging behind in those areas as a nation is due to a lack of inspiration.

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    Administrator CatInASuit's avatar
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    The Space race dragged the world from World War 2 and the rebuilding into a different age. Without the Space Race, we could still be stuck in the late 50's looking for the next bit of insipiration.

    Another thought along these lines. If the world had given up on Space Exploration of any form, would any Sci-Fi exist?
    In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.

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    Member Elendil's Heir's avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by CatInASuit View post
    ...If the world had given up on Space Exploration of any form, would any Sci-Fi exist?
    Oh, sure. It might focus even more on space exploration, as that would be the only forum for those interested in the subject. But there could still be alternative history, Twilight Zone-style morality plays, cyberpunk, gender-bending stuff, undersea adventure, robotics fiction, etc. The limits of sf are still those of the imagination; space exploration is and always would be only a part of it.
    Last edited by Elendil's Heir; 03 May 2011 at 10:16 PM.

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    The space race drove a lot more than just electronics. Aviation got a huge boost during the space race as methods other than a rocket into the sky were explored. Once you're in a hostile environment like space, there's got to constant research into improving the quality of life for people there. If there were a sizable human presence outside earth's atmosphere, we'd be forced to find a way to make things cheaper or introduce small scale manufacturing of parts. Hostile environments are great at forcing people to improvise.

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