space exploration for survival

[Don]

I see this argument pop up a lot for the guys who argue that we need to put more money into space exploration because it's too dangerous to put all your eggs in one planet. Now I'm not against space exploration, but as far as I know unless the planet Earth ceased to exist, virtually any kind of disaster whether manmade or natural would still make Earth a far more habitable place than any planets/moons we know of. I mean even in the most inhospitable place we at least we still have oxygen, water, and normal gravity.

I see a lot of smart guys, even Stephen Hawkins, use this argument and I think it's just fear-mongering. Even if an asteroid wiped out 99% of life on Earth tomorrow, the 1% that survived still will have far easier time continuing to survive versus some martian or lunar outpost that is most likely not even self-sustainable.

[Eric]

If something wiped out 99% of the human race what makes you think Earth would be habitable for the remaining 1%. -_-

[Don]

Even with a Matrix style 'torched sky' I'm guessing your chance of survival is better here than another planet. Even with killer machines that are trying to harvest you for food.

[Kupek]

Science fiction author explains why we're probably never leaving the solar system: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-st ... redux.html

It's not as long as it looks, the vertical height of the page is due to comments.

Short version: unless our understanding of the Universe (that is, physics) is revolutionized, the time and energy requirements are too great by many orders of magnitude.

And Eric, it's happened before. Our species has very little genetic diversity - there's more genetic diversity in a group of 50 chimps than all 6 billion humans. This is because, in recent geological time, our ancestors numbered in the 1,000s due to climate change brought on by volcanoes.

[SineSwiper]

The planet can survive just fine. It's the people that are fragile.

If it gets 30 degrees hotter (F), people bitch about the weather. (Make it 50 degrees and people start dying off. Not to mention the massive flooding.) Fuck up the balance of atmospheric gases by one degree, and we couldn't breathe.

[Zeus]

Humans are stupid but not that stupid. The Earth will survive....with us on it

[Don]

Even if you have some catastrophic meltdown like say, Waterworld, people will still survive. Life might suck if you have to live on a raft your entire life but it's still easier to survive on a raft than say, on Mars.

[SineSwiper]

Even if you have some catastrophic meltdown like say, Waterworld, people will still survive. Life might suck if you have to live on a raft your entire life but it's still easier to survive on a raft than say, on Mars.

Hey, Earth'll just ship off some packs of fresh air and we'll be fine.

[Don]

Science fiction author explains why we're probably never leaving the solar system: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-st ... redux.html

It's not as long as it looks, the vertical height of the page is due to comments.

Short version: unless our understanding of the Universe (that is, physics) is revolutionized, the time and energy requirements are too great by many orders of magnitude.

And Eric, it's happened before. Our species has very little genetic diversity - there's more genetic diversity in a group of 50 chimps than all 6 billion humans. This is because, in recent geological time, our ancestors numbered in the 1,000s due to climate change brought on by volcanoes.

The difficulty of colonization/space travel really isn't the issue here. It's more like the effort needed to keep life going against any disaster we can think of is inherently an order of magnitude easier than actually colonizing anywhere else. I keep on see big name scientists say that we can't just 'put all our baskets in one planet', as if you can just spend 400 industry points and terraform the Moon or Mars into a habitable planet if we just put our resources 100% into that. If we really had a Moon or Martian Base and Earth got wiped out, it's like 99.99999% certain those guys are dead too because we wouldn't be able to resupply them and we sure don't know how to make a self-sustaining environment when you don't even have stuff like oxygen or water to work with.

[Julius Seeker]

I recall having this same discussion on this board years ago. The idea of space colonization for the purpose of human survival because we're going to ruin our planet (or an asteroid will) is silly =)

A myth of our culture is that there is a better place that lies ahead. This serves to disconnect the masses from the importance of making this world a better place. That myth has just changed from heaven to another planet. If we pollute this planet enough; it could spell the end of almost all multicellular life. I agree though; it would be FAR less expensive to fix earth than to colonize a new place.

Mostly; we have multi-billion dollar space missions that don't serve any purpose but to serve the jollies of scientists. We don't need a Mission to mars; hundreds of billions of dollars could solve huge problems here on our own planet. The Simpsons did a good job by comparing the relevance of thework of the space program to seeing how ants will sort tiny screws in space.

[RentCavalier]

I had a weird moment of clarity on this issue just last night, while watching Independence Day. Now, I grew up with a BIG love for Space. I think Astronomy is fucking fascinating, I love those Hubble photos and I want to cruise around the galaxy in the Millenium Falcon as much as the next person.

But as I was watching the movie, I saw the shot of the frozen flag on the moon, and my friend quipped something along the lines of "Let's go to the moon and accomplish nothing but bring back space rocks."

...

Wow. That's a pretty goddamn good point, unintentionally. What the FUCK did our mission to the moon do, besides just prove that we COULD do it? We get more value from just launching up random computer parts and sattelites than we do actually putting living, breathing humans on a chunk of rock waaaaay the fuck over our heads.

And, wow. Mars has ICE CAPS. Remember when THAT was a big story? Three solid weeks of coverage on CNN, with everyone ooing and awwwing over how INCREDIBLE the evidence of rivers once were? Yeah. Wow. Nobody really paid attention to the fact that MARS IS FUCKING DEAD.

We can't even terraform it. Until we develop THAT technology, there's no incentive to going to space. I mean, have our world leaders ever even PLAYED Civilization 2? Tech trees, man. You invest in the proper tech trees!

[Julius Seeker]

I think most of them played Sim Earth and figured that's how it should happen (essentially, there is no tech tree, just tech ages; and at the end the entire world population launches into space to find a new planet to live on; often the original one is polluted back to the geological era.).

[Don]

Well there are benefits for space exploration that may go beyond just landing on Mars.

But I sure don't see much benefit for creating a coloy on Mars or Moon, if it's even possible. Certainly if they have the technology to terraform the planet, we can probably use it to fix our own problems on Earth first before messing with worlds that don't even have oxygen.