A quote attributed to a few people, Heinlein and Pournelle for two, “If you can get your ship into orbit, you’re halfway to anywhere.” Both space and planets have shared and their separate problems to solve. In my head I prefer the image of most populations moving into habitats in space, customized to their preferences, with smaller settlements on various bodies for their own purposes. In my realistic view I don’t see us getting that far before we get bogged down with all the problems we’ve created on this planet. The window to a permanent space civilization might have already shut. A sad thing, as a 70s kid I grew up convinced we were full speed into some version of what scifi had sold to me.
Yes.
Seriously, we should be doing both as long term space habitats can serve as a way to reduce the cost of moving cargo around.
All of the above. But start with cleaning up this planet. Build better / more sustainable and more diverse communities and energy production. Building arcologies in the arctic, deserts, oceans. Those are good “practice” for building the same off planet.
yes.
if we want to become a true space faring species resilient to all that the universe can throw at us we will need both
After reading A City on Mars by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith I think a O’Neill Cylinder spinning spaceship for artificial gravity type is more achievable than planarity colonisation.
But the main point of the book, and I am fairly convinced of the more I think about it, is that it is a lot of effort and risk for not a lot of gain and we are entirely unprepared for space colonisation.
I don’t think space habitats any significant distance from Earth will be possible. Mitigating the increased radiation will be tough enough just trying to get to Mars, much less trying to stay in space out that far. At least on Mars we can hang out in old lava tubes or something.
i think you underestimate human ingenuity and the time frames involved.
Yes and first century peasants couldn’t imagine the idea of reading comments and responding to them on a magic lit up rectangle that knows when you touch it and where and exchanges the information involved invisibly through the air even passing through solid objects.
If that’s what you think, then you severely underestimate human technological innovation.
Porque no los dos?
Neither. We can’t even unfuck Earth, where in that did we earn the privilege to pollute the cosmos?
Neither. We can’t even unfuck Earth, where in that did we earn the privilege to pollute the cosmos?
What kind of weird Abrahamic mental model is going on here? We need to morally prove ourselves to Jehovah and he will decree we have “earned” the “privilege” to go to some rocks? Makes no sense.
What’s your definition of ‘pollute’? I don’t really get how the verb ‘pollute’ can apply to non-biological planets; to me the word means something like ‘putting matter in places where is disrupts ecosystems’. I think the book about Gaia has a definition like this too.
Yeah no; I don’t do ‘quibbling definitions with sophists’. If you don’t know what ‘pollute’ means, you’re not fit to discourse with me. 🖕🖕
I think this is the Gaia quote they’re talking about –
The very concept of pollution is anthropocentric and it may even be irrelevant in the Gaian context. Many so-called pollutants are naturally present and it becomes exceedingly difficult to know at what level the appellation ‘pollutant’ may be justified. Carbon monoxide, for example, which is poisonous to us and to most large mammals, is a product of incomplete combustion, a toxic agent from exhaust gases of cars, coke or coal-burning stoves, and cigarettes; a pollutant put into otherwise clean fresh air by man, you might think. However, if the air is analysed we find that carbon monoxide gas is to be found everywhere. It comes from the oxidation of methane gas in the atmosphere itself and as much as 1,000 million tons of it are so produced each year. It is thus an indirect but natural vegetable product and is also found in the swim-bladders of many sea creatures. The syphonophores, for example, are loaded with this gas in concentrations which would speedily kill us off if present in our own atmosphere at similar levels.
Almost every pollutant, whether it be in the form of sulphur dioxide, dimethyl mercury, the halocarbons, mutagenic and carcinogenic substances, or radioactive material, has to some extent, large or small, a natural background. It may even be produced so abundantly in nature as to be poisonous or lethal from the start. To live in caves of uranium-bearing rock would be unhealthy for any living creature, but such caves are rare enough to present no real threat to the survival of a species. It seems that as a species we can already with stand the normal range of exposure to the numerous hazards of our environment. If for any reason one or more of these hazards should increase, both individual and species adaptation will set in.
What is your definition of pollution tho? How can there be pollution on a lifeless rocky planet?
Again, I don’t do “quibbling definitions with sophists”, and honestly this just reads as techno-woo made to justify leaving dead rovers and broken satellites in our wake. “Oh, it was already there in trace amounts so we can just leave our toys scattered around the playroom.” If I had that kind of laissez-faire attitude towards say, Yellowstone, I’d be put out of the park and banned for life. The fuck happened to ‘leave no trace’?
Who or what is harmed by a piece of lifeless metal on a piece of lifeless rock?
You said you’re against sophistry, then you said Mars=Yellowstone
Classic troll move of refusing to engage when someone points out you’re making no sense.
Who do we need permission from? The rocks?
You’re so fixated on whether you can that you will never stop to question if you should. What, are you going to frack asteroids until they become space junk? Utterly violate another planet to its core for all its worth the way you’ve done the Earth, just to bail out like the deadbeat developer humanity has proven itself as? Disgusting, parasitic, over-consumptive, self-centered, practically narcissistic-assed question out of you.
the levels of 白左 on some hexbears, really… 100% moralising 0% thinking
Ok ‘colonizer’; you can go up first. Hope you die in the vacuum after your vessel malfunctions.
If we can’t manage to keep Earth’s ecosystem thriving to support us, we certainly won’t be able to create a new self-sustaining ecosystem elsewhere. And without that, there’s no chance of any non-Earth settlement being able to sustain a healthy human society and culture long-term.
Without some serious (currently impossible) terraforming, Mars colonies are limited to deep caves or heavily shielded buildings, no outside to relax, nowhere else to go. Have a look at the list of crimes in Antarctica, a similar situation where people are stuck together, that’s not a good environment for mental health, and it will be worse farther away. A Mars colony (edit: or space station) owned by a private company will be a corporate prison, the inhabitants are 100% dependent on that company - who would voluntarily put their lives into the hands of the whims of some narcissistic hoarder with no empathy or regard for workers?
If we can’t manage to keep Earth’s ecosystem thriving to support us, we certainly won’t be able to create a new self-sustaining ecosystem elsewhere. And without that, there’s no chance of any non-Earth settlement being able to sustain a healthy human society and culture long-term.
I’m unconvinced that pulling back from space programs will make Earth’s ecosystem thrive.
A Mars colony (edit: or space station) owned by a private company will be a corporate prison, the inhabitants are 100% dependent on that company - who would voluntarily put their lives into the hands of the whims of some narcissistic hoarder with no empathy or regard for workers?
Agreed. That would be a super-weird concept, like a country owned by a private corporation.
I definitely agree with you, however, I think needing to become self sustaining on earth is a goal that would be well served by trying to design a self sufficient system for mars.
Earth is big enough that it’s really easy to forget we’re all in the same fish bowl. Entire cities can flush their shit down the river and as far as they are concerned, nothing bad ever happens to them. The scale of earth makes us blind to the problems our actions and methods cause. The ecosystems also do quite a bit to protect us from our own actions
You can’t ignore externalities in a space colony. Everything must be accounted for. That is what makes it so difficult to design for. Any small amount of waste will still accumulate over time and eventually becomes a problem.
The tighter scope and strict requirements of a space colony would make it easier to actually objectively measure how sustainable it is. You would know exactly how much external inputs you are delivering each year. We can then take the lessons and technologies that are absolutely required in a space settlement and use them to inform how to better be sustainable on earth. For example, solar cells used to only really be used on satellites, not because they were great on satellites, but because they were pretty much the only option that could stay operational for years. Now PV power generation is helping countries all over the world become a little more sustainable. The harsh requirements of space make us better at problem solving.
I totally agree that earth is our only option for species survival though. Anyone selling Mars as a “backup” for humanity is either delusional or a con man. I think developing the capability to keep a settlement on Mars is a worthwhile endeavor, but there is no way for humanity to thrive there. Any large scale catastrophe on earth will still be more survivable in select pockets on earth than anywhere on Mars.
c) Move life underground and leave the solar system on Earth as a spaceship. It would be the biggest achievement of humanity if we move the planet out of this shit hole and be able to do it all together.
I feel like if you think about this for even a minute this seems like the worst possible idea ever.
I mean, sure it’s an achievement. But so is smashing the moon into the Earth.
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If the colonization strategy is the Moon then Mars, I expect humanity would have the technology needed to colonize Mars easily while terraforming occurs.
The problem with an O’Neil Cylinder is bringing up enough processed material to build one.
The problem with an O’Neil Cylinder is bringing up enough processed material to build one.
One possible solution is a moon base. The moon is full of titanium and iron.
And then you could launch the stuff out of a weaker gravity well with no air resistance.
If we are capable of doing one, then we can do both.
If we can do B, A doesn’t provide many benefits.
A 1km diameter, 30km cylinder would provide enough area to feed ~140k people. 95km^2 of space.
That is assuming no imported food etc, based on 7000m^2 per person which is almost 2 acres each.
140k people is a small city.
140k people is about the amount of people living in a 1km radius around you, if you live in some inner city area.
Habitats are risky and not as good as planets imo. It would be trivially simply to sabotage one and kill everyone inside. Just vent atmo into space, poison the air/water, and even a accidental fire could kill everyone who doesnt manage to flee… Planets not so easy. Some of the same attacks work but u can just walk elsewhere.
plus in a habitat your not really thinking of psychological effects. Its been shown for example that humans needs to see big bodies of water regularly to not get stressed out. So youd need to devote significant space onboard to just that. Plus imagine never seeing the mountains again, or a sunset, or the ocean. The earth is intrinsically linked to our evolution and many of its features are far too big to have on a habitat. I mean not to mention all the microbiomes we interact with unknowingly on earth all the time.
While habitats might be an ok solution for some people there are definitely things we will always need a planet for and imo a planet will always be superior in quality of life.
Why? Nice planet we’ve got here, we could focus on preventing it becoming inhabitable due to climate change instead.
I’m not convinced that suspending space programs would create solutions to climate change.
No matter what you do the Earth won’t stay habitable forever. So we either learn to expand out into space as a species or face extinction eventually. Not to mention putting all our eggs in one basket is a terrible idea. Any cosmological event could wipe out the Earth at any time. The question is are you okay with our entire species going with it?
There needs to be a backup, ideally multiple.
the answer is yes. I am ok with our entire species going with it. Death comes for us all it should not be seeked out, but neither should it be feared.
How about we focus our efforts on unshittifying Earth first, eh?
