How about we focus our efforts on unshittifying Earth first, eh?
Space colonies. That way they can be dropped to earth to start colony independence wars.
Europa tea party!!!
We should be exploring both options, exploration can often lead to unexpected discoveries and technological advancement.
Launch Billionaires into deep space without supplies
Terraforming other planets would be astronomically more challenging than fixing our own planet and we don’t seem to be able to get our shit together to do that. Even if we are capable of terraforming other planets, it would take many centuries at minimum. O’Neal cylinders are far more likely to work once we start industrializing the moon.
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.
I don’t see the application of an O’Neil Cylinder within the Earth and Mars gravity wells given how expensive they would be to build next to better places to grow crops.
If one does get built, I would expect it in orbit around Jupiter or Saturn to support activity there.
C) keep the planet we have habitable
our planet could easily be wiped by a number of things. if we dont plan for a planetary catastrophe out of our control, our species is doomed.
there is not a single thing that could wipe out a deep sea habitat that wouldnt also wipe any space colonies. but i dont see anybody arguing for that, despite being far more achievable and practical. also, there is no feasible way for space colonies to be self sufficient anywhere in the near future, so wiping out earth also wipes out space colonies relying on it for supplies. this argument aboOt survivability is absurd.
a rogue planet hitting this one would. i would expect a space faring race to want to move not only to the outskirts of the solar system, but possible attempt venturing to a new one. perhaps multiples.
but go ahead, keep thinking small for some reason. technology never advances dontcha know.
a planetary catastrophe out of our control
You’re still describing climate change. Science fiction ideas are fun to think about but our own inability to live harmoniously with nature is going to kill us off before any of those problems become relevant.
youre still not thinking astronomically. you need to think bigger. i like to at least pretend out technology advances.
I was kind of surprised that comet that’s been visible at night was only discovered like a year ago. Crazy to think that would be the warning time of anything coming to hit us
There are black holes that travel at the speed of light. If one were to pass through our astronomical neighborhood we would never see it coming and it would end our existence so instantaneously that it would be like our species and planet never existed.
I didn’t realize they were mobile, that is terrifying.
As long as it’s instant then it’s not that bad I guess
And you have your head stuck so far up your ass you think climate change is the only threat to the habitability of the Earth when one solar flare gone wrong or object striking the Earth or black hole travelling at the speed of light passing sufficiently close could erase humanity from existence and we would never see it coming. None of these things are fiction and all of them are completely within the realm of possibility. Modern astronomy has documented examples of all of these things happening. In fact the leading theory right now is that the Earth and moon existing as they do is the result of the collision of two objects typically referred to as Gaia and Theia. Theia broke off pieces of Gaia and those eventually came together to form the moon while the rest became the Earth.
As of right now the only thing preventing our species from going extinct due to any of a very large number of astronomical events is luck. But you have no guarantees that that luck will last forever and humanity needs a backup plan.
Uh, nope, you’re putting words in my mouth. It’s not realistic to worry about mitigating that kind of stuff when we can’t even prevent ourselves from cooking ourselves, and several of the things you listed don’t even have plausible technical solutions right now. Nice try, though.
Humanity can easily survive a KT extinction event. Sure, 99.999% of us will die, but tens of thousands will still survive.
If I use your math of 99.999% dying, only ~80,000 people will survive, not millions…
Thanks, updated comment
If Mars became one “arm” of the human race Earth would still be the heart. Your heart fails and all your limbs are fucked.
huh? why do people have this innate ability to underestimate what we might be capable of? why do you think its impossible for us to become masters of our own genome?
not getting off this rock means our species is doomed regardless of how ‘perfect’ we keep earth.
why do people have this innate ability to underestimate what we might be capable of?
Because we can see what we’re currently capable of in terms of climate change, and the outlook is pretty bleak
why do you think its impossible for us to become masters of our own genome?
Because even in the best case scenario, this is dangerously close to eugenics
not getting off this rock means our species is doomed regardless of how ‘perfect’ we keep earth.
If we can’t keep earth livable, an entire self-regulating planet that’s been livable for hundreds of millions or billions of years, what are our chances of keeping anywhere else livable?
our planet could easily be wiped by a number of things.
Most likely by us, while we waste our limited resources on useless things like spaceships
if we dont plan for a planetary catastrophe out of our control, our species is doomed.
Oh no, how will the universe ever recover from this tragedy?
Oh no, how will the universe ever recover from this tragedy?
yep, this is what people resort to when they dont have a real point. ‘so what?!’ pfft
Men will do anything other than go to therapy.
Ringworld.
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’m unconvinced that pulling back from space programs will make Earth’s ecosystem thrive.
My point was more or less the opposite: Anyone interested in space exploration should also be interested in keeping Earth well livable, because that is needed for its success.
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.
How to survive in space: Develop ways to survive in space only first. Once you manage that all the other problems are trivial compared and you don’t have a single point of failure (aka our planet) anymore. Isn’t that obvious?
Fix our own planet first
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.
You could have most people in a relatively small area with the rest for farming.
There would be little need for the equivalent of roads, almost all travel would be walk or bike. The longest distance between two points is less than 34km. If the main settlement is in a ring around the middle of the cylinder, it is less than 17km to any point.
Is this sub-populated mostly by Facebook people? Some of the answers really feel like it.
All these answers are so killjoy and boring. Like yeah we should strive to make our own planet better, but why not also do this? Building habitats on other worlds doesn’t prevent us from caring for this one.
Plus maybe trying to make a liveable environment in space can give us new insights in preserving the one at home. Like how solar panels have come from space exploration.
Actually, both.
Why? Nice planet we’ve got here, we could focus on preventing it becoming inhabitable due to climate change instead.
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.
I’m not convinced that suspending space programs would create solutions to climate change.
