alt Hacker News> The main reason humanity hasn't meaningfully started expanding into space is because it used to cost $54,000 to get a liter of water into space.
Am I naive in thinking that we haven't expanded into space because we don't need to? What's the benefit?
Replies
ben_w • today at 2:53 PM
> What's the benefit?
For why we'd want to go at all: there's a lot of resources up there, and pollution is much less of a concern for factories made up there. Also some material processes may be much easier in zero-gee.
But that doesn't mean it's actually worth the effort.
andsoitis • today at 2:05 PM
> we haven't expanded into space because we don't need to? What's the benefit?
Access to resources. A sense of adventure. Learning.
➕ show 2 replies
chrissnell • today at 2:20 PM
A hedge against civilization-destroying events. Meteors, global war, disease.
➕ show 1 reply
Asteroid mining is the obvious one. That said as part of looking into SpaceX's business I learned that currently the TAM for launching other people's stuff into space is under $10 billion. SpaceX already owns most of that market. Their own focus on data centers in space IMO speaks for itself.