Is Interstellar Space Travel a False Promise for Humanity?
Nightlife

Is Interstellar Space Travel a False Promise for Humanity?

B2Upper-intermediateOctober 6, 202648 min
  • Science

Philip Clark is joined by and Associate Professor Alice Gorman and Dr Ben Bramble, authors of a new book, Lunacy: Ten False Promises of the New Space Age, where he delves into why what we're told about the absolute need for space travel might not be that true.

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And more recently, Elon Musk has spent billions promising that he'll be putting a permanent colony on Mars any day now.

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Lots of us grew up with it and the excitement of space travel, but somehow we don't seem to be getting much closer to it and

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B2 · Upper-intermediate

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0:00

ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music and more. Space. Star Trek tells us it's the final frontier. John F. Kennedy spoke of space achievement being a key to our future. And more recently, Elon Musk has spent billions promising that he'll be putting a permanent colony on Mars any day now.

0:24

This promise that humanity will reach beyond the stars has been with us for many decades. Lots of us grew up with it and the excitement of space travel, but somehow we don't seem to be getting much closer to it and certainly colonizing anywhere other than Earth doesn't seem to becoming a reality. Will we ever make it out there? And more importantly perhaps now, should we even be trying?

0:46

Dr. Ben Bramble is a mission specialist at ANU's Institute for Space and Electra and Philosophy at the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the ANU. His op-eds have appeared in New York Times, The Guardian, and then many other places. Ben's written a new book called Lunacy, 10 False Promises of the New Space Age, that explores the most common ways we're told that we're going to

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