It's not fear mongering when they lay out a good argument, which is not what you're doing.
It's fascinating that you and nick49488171 both characterize this article in ways that no reasonable person would ("pearl clutching", "fear mongering") and have nothing substantive to say about the points made at all.
I was not arguing about the hazards of space travel. Of course it is hazardous. I dislike the article because his conclusion is more dangerous to society than any hazardous activity: "something is dangerous therefore nobody should do it." And he makes no arguments to support this conclusion.
“As far as human space travel goes, it’s probably best that it stays in the realm of science fiction, at least for the foreseeable future.”
And no arguments for that conclusion? C’mon: radiation, the effects of microgravity on human bodies, none of which we have good solutions for…yet. The author argues that we don’t have good solutions, and probably won’t within their lifetime. If you’ve got counter-arguments, let’s hear them, but calling the TFA’s sound arguments “pearl clutching” isn’t productive.
The counter argument is this: if the chance of dying is 2% to make a historic mission, then people should be able to make that choice. What's your counterargument to this statement?
As for your hazards
Microgravity can be counteracted with a centrifugal living environment.
Radiation can not be mitigated effectively yet other than throwing mass at the problem. But if someone wants to launch enough mass that's on them.
Don’t need one, it’s an opinion piece, with plenty of facts to back it up. You’ve proposed solutions that don’t yet exist. When those solutions are viable, maybe it’s not such a bad idea. But at the moment it would appear that such a journey has low odds of ending well. If Musk wants to burn cash, and has willing participants, go for it. But with my tax dollars? Yeah, you’re going to have to do better than a lick, prayer, and a hearty “good luck!”
You could literally have made exactly the same argument about the moon landing in 1969! And people actually did, some were truly against it. Way too expensive, near impossible, lethal, pointless, all the arguments were used.
"Space travel is bad for your health and here's what we know about it" is actually a fine article. It's his concluding statement that is contemptible.
"Space may be fascinating, wonderful, and exciting, but most of all, it is incredibly dangerous. As far as human space travel goes, it’s probably best that it stays in the realm of science fiction, at least for the foreseeable future."
How about letting explorers, informed adults, and risk takers make their own decisions.
I was able to thumb type at high speed and accuracy on the 3.5 inch iPhones. On modern iPhones, I produce more typos than ever, because apparently Apple thinks it knows which key I meant to hit better than I do, even with all the autocorrect and suggestions turned off.
I've banned social and don't use my phone much anymore, so it's less of an issue than it used to be, but it's really frustrating when I'm clearly hitting the right key and it insists on pretending I hit an adjacent key.
It’s so strange. Like, the obviously correct thing is to have a small ML model that learns the user’s typing patterns, which of their own typos they fix, which auto- and suggested fixes they reject, what rare, made-up, and jargon words they use, what acronyms they use, etc.
Instead, after 20 years of iPhone usage, I am not allowed to type the names of projects I use all the time without fixing the autocorrect every time, or (as you say) carefully hitting the left side of the F key because dead center will produce a G.
Bought from a retailer that has "no returns on phones with broken seals", and honestly with all accounts and everything else setup on the device now, the time taken to go exchange it and setup everything again, I'm gonna lose money by swapping it compared to possibly buying the next phone one year earlier instead.
It's fascinating that you and nick49488171 both characterize this article in ways that no reasonable person would ("pearl clutching", "fear mongering") and have nothing substantive to say about the points made at all.