The Top Three Reasons for Humans in Space

An anonymous reader writes "Why humans in space? The Space Review has the top three reasons: 3. To work. 2. To live. 1. To survive. 'To work' means doing stuff in space: research, explore, visit, etc. 'To live' means to have humans/life beyond Earth in colonies/settlements. 'To survive' means that putting humans/life beyond Earth is a very Good Thing in case a very Bad Thing happens to humans/life on Earth."

To Survive

[Anonymous Coward]

That also means having enough genetic material in a good diversity in a self sustaining environment. Just having a crew in a space station doesn't count unless it can support itself and you have a large enough population and mixed gender. Otherwise you miss this one.

Re:Regarding the article:

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously you were not raised Catholic.

As long as you and your SO are married, Catholics are all for "being fruitful and multiplying". Also incase you haven't noticed, the Catholic Church has a different outlook on science than the in the 17th century.

The article seemed a bit fluffy

[PIPBoy3000]

In general, the article seemed a bit fluffy. For example, the robot versus people argument didn't mention that sending up a robot to do a specific task is often one or two orders of magnitude cheaper than people. Robotic capabilities keep getting better while plain old non-genetically modified humans remain the same.

I'm not sure that people must colonize space immediately. For me, it's like playing those old sim games. Do you spend limited research dollars on building 1960's style moon bases, or keep pressing on and shooting for nanotech before you move off the planet? If you can hold on long enough before colonization, you can move far more people and reach self-sufficiency much sooner.

Re:What Bad Things?

[kramtark]

No, not really.

Colonizing other planets will ensure that some of our offspring survive, because even when Earth becomes uninhabitable, we will have another planet to fall back on.

Also, I hope that we are more responsible with pollution and population on other planets. Scientists know the obvious consequences of pollution and overpopulation, so hopefully this will encourage responsibility for the prevention of either problem.

My real reasons

[lheal]

1. Low-gee life for the aged, disabled, et al. While muscle atrophy is a problem, I think some people would trade a shorter lifespan at 1/6G on the moon for a longer lifespan on Earth at full gravity.
2. Survival of the race. If Giant Meteors or terrorists with nukes or superpox don't get us, something else might. Having people off-planet could keep some of these things from killing us all.
3. Because it's there. We've always wanted to see what was beyond the next ridge, or on the other side of the sea. Now we can see a huge frontier, just waiting to be explored.
4. Barbarella!

Re:Regarding the article:

[Alcilbiades]

that isn't the point. Not that humans damage the earth so badly but natural disaster such as a huge asteroid hitting earth and killing us off like it did the dinosaurs. Oh and btw massive nuclear war would finish us off pretty quick.

Re:What Bad Things?

[TheFlyingGoat]

Think a little bigger. If a really really big meteor hits the Earth, we're screwed. The likelyhood that 2 planet-killer meteors will devastate 2 planets that we have colonies within a relatively short amount of time (20 years) is extremely less likely.

Also, your examples of polution, population, and nuclear explosion don't make much sense either. Polution is far less likely on another planet, since fossil fuels are far less likely. We'd probably be using solar or nuclear power instead.

Population makes the least sense, since expanding to other planets is the single most effective way of dealing with this issue. You effectively double your space and eliminate population issues.

Nuclear explosion isn't really a factor either. If you're talking weapons, the likelyhood of them being taken to upstart colonies isn't too likely. Once the colony is established, if one location (Earth or the colony) wipes itself out with nukes, the other is going to think long and hard before using theirs. Having a front-row seat to devastation makes people do everything they can to avoid it happening again (see 9/11 attacks for proof). If you're talking about nuclear power plants, they're getting safer and safer, so I doubt it would be an issue. Besides, nuclear meltdown is a local issue, not a planetary issue.

Re:1. To survive. ... ?

[cfromg]

Most people won't to see their children and their children's children and so on survive.

Then why do members of a family often live close together? According to the logic of the article they should spread to different continents to maximise their chance of survival. And they should not travel together. (Yes, I know that some parents actually do take different planes.)

I really do not care if there are humans in space in case of a catastrophe on earth.

Re:Survive?

[selectspec]

This article is rediculous. First of all, humans in space is a complete joke: there is very little of interest in space. Humans on other planets is another story.

However, while all of us dream of populating other planets, the practicality of doing so with today's technology is absurd. For example, we haven't colonized Antartica. Sure there are a few scientists living on isolated stations, but they are doing research - no intention of making the area habitable. If we can't even colonize all of the continents here on Earth, why bother with other planets. A better example is the bottom of the ocean. Why not colonize the ocean floor? It's less rediculous than colonizing the moon.

On this survival front, no scientist could possibly prove that life is safier anywhere else than on the Earth, where it has been happily plodding along for a few billion years, and so far been unobserved anywhere else.

Missing the Point

[logicnazi]

Damn Formating

This article entierly misses the point. No one argues that humans should not eventually go to space for these reasons and many more. The question is whether it makes sense to send people into space now.

In particular the question boils down to whether the money spend on human space flight now would be better spent on general technological advancement and not wasted on giant solid rocket boosters. This general technilogical advancement would then reduce the cost and increase the utility of going to space. This would be a plan to ultimately colonize space faster in the long run and in no way contradicts the arguments in the article.

In short the question is whether we are ready for human space flight or if we should spend more of our resources laying groundwork. I mean I think we all agree that in the 1950's it would have been a mistake to just try and build a really big v2 and do space exploration in that fasion. Instead we needed to do lots more research and build tools. Perhaps we need to build better launch systems, robotic support systems, life support systems and the like before it really makes sense for humans to be in space.

In particular at the moment it is not economically effective to send humans to space for raw materials. Thus at the moment argument 1 doesn't really apply yet. Also we don't have the technology to establish independent colonies. If the earth was hit with a disaster any space colonies we had now would die without support. This means argument 3 doesn't really apply yet. Finally argument 2 is a good general goal but it has no time component. Sure lets put life in space but lets spend our money now on technology and later use that to more effectively put life in space.

(Yes I admit that human space flight has some spin offs. However, my claim is that these spin offs are not really worth the large price compared to other research opportunities like robots or ground based research)

Re:Regarding the article:

[pizzaman100]

does that mean it's our manifest destiny to spread life throughout the universe, merely for the sake of spreading life?

C.S. Lewis, (who was an Anglican) addressed this very concept in his space trilogy. In it, man (and Earth) is corrupted, and the rest of the solar system is not. In the stories, men attempt to leave earth and colonize other planets in order to spread the 'manifest destiney' of Adam's race. Lewis portrays these attempts as misguided and resulting in great evil.

Re:So, you've decided to miss the point....

[TripMaster Monkey]

we'd have to either terraform Mars, or go to a whole other solar system, which isn't cheap

Everywhere in this discussion I'm seeing the same arguement...that a space colony must be located on a planetary surface. Why, after you spent all the time, money, and effort to break free of one gravity well, would you willingly shackle yourself to another???

Establishing colonies on planetary surfces is expensive, for the same reason getting off Earth in the first place is. Building a colony that remains in nice flat space saves a lot of money, and affords portability in the bargain.

Re:Missing the Point

[dreamchaser]

The problem with your reasoning is that we may not have the resources to do it in a generation or so. If we don't do it now, there is every chance that we never will.

Your arguement is almost like saying that a one year old shouldn't try to walk because they'll be inefficient at it, it will be expensive (energy and time wise), and that they should wait until the technology (their musulature and nervous system) is more developed.

Three reasons not to put people in space

[Animats]

• The worst real estate on earth is better than the best anywhere else in the solar system. Cities and towns have been built in some of the most inhospitable places on earth, from the Aleutian Islands to the Empty Quarter of Saudi Arabia. Military bases have been built in even worse places. They're all easier environments for people to operate in than anywhere in orbit, on the Moon, or Mars. That's not going to change.
• Space flight with chemical fuels will never work much better than it does now. There's just not enough energy per unit mass. It doesn't get any better than liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen, which has been used for over forty years.
• Robots don't need air or water. And you don't have to bring them back.

Death of Organic Life?

[geomon]

I heard Peter Ward and Don Brownlee pumping their book a couple of years ago on National Public Radio's Science Friday [sciencefriday.com]. They propose that NO life will be possible in approximately 500 million year due to the life cyle of the Sun. I only heard the last few minutes of their explanation, but they contend that the organic molecules that life depends on here on Earth will not form under the intense ultraviolet radiation that will be pumped from Sol in a half-billion years. No organic molecules, no life.

Okay so what if they are wrong? If Sol takes the normal life course of any star it will expand and consume the inner terristrial planets, Earth included. That scenario can only be avoided by the only other option stars take: a nova and possible core collapse. That isn't exactly a path that leads to expansion of organic life either.

So we either move out into space or die out as a life form. Humans might not (probably not) exist in those timeframes, but organic life will have to move to survive.

George Carlin Quote:

[The Angry Mick]

The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles...hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worlwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages...And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet...the planet...the planet isn't going anywhere. WE ARE!

We're going away. Pack your shit, folks. We're going away. And we won't leave much of a trace, either. Thank God for that. Maybe a little styrofoam. Maybe. A little styrofoam. The planet'll be here and we'll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet'll shake us off like a bad case of fleas. A surface nuisance.

Re:Regarding the article:

[TnkMkr]

Actually it may help us to move beyond our problems here. If a group were to go forth and colonize away from the general body, it may allow for different philosophy to take hold. Not to mention with the harsh realities of survival in space, it might force a little practicality on the population, one would hope, no one would care about little things like sexual preference when the regular meteor shower may destroy the living environment and everyone is needed to repair it.

After all during the colonizing year (when Europ 'blessed' the world with civilization) didn't the colonies usually end up with more progressive populations, willing to be more practical than hold onto old social norms*. Especially since (aside from the criminals) those who left to colonize were generally interested in building a better place then where they came from.

*Disclaimer - I am an AMATURE historian and am drawing for a general remembrance of a western centric education, and I'm sure there are specific examples to the contrary of what I am saying, but I am trying speak in general terms.

Re:Regarding the article:

[hey!]

'to survive'. Finally we come to the heart of the matter...the reason that should have been number one, with the two reasons listed above in support of it.

I don't agree.

To survive, we need to focus on what we have now. Even if the Earth goes to hell in a handbasket -- if it becomes a radioactive, greenhouse gassed nightmare, there is little doubt that barring changes to the Sun, the adaptable human species will survive, albeit possibly in greatly reduced numbers. There's a world of difference between a devestated, dystopic world, and one that is truly "uninhabitable."

The space survival option is, right from the get go, one for a much smaller number of people than even the most hellish Earth based scenario. And who will be the "lucky" survivors? Most likely the people responsible for fucking the planet up. Haven't you seen Dr. Strangelove?

No, better to keep all of humanity in the same large lifeboat for now, than encouraging the fantasy of survival by flight by a lucky few. We'll have plenty of time to work on human longevity and other technologies before the Sun becomes a red giant and finally makes the Earth truly "uninhabitable".

Re:Regarding the article:

[misleb]

'to survive'. Finally we come to the heart of the matter...the reason that should have been number one, with the two reasons listed above in support of it. Humankind must colonize space, and do it soon. Between the dwindling rescources available to us while we remain shackled to a gravity well, and the impending mass-extinction events (asteroid, pandemic, super-volcano...take your pick), we are left with very little time in which to secure our species' future. Establishing a viable space-community should be the primary goal of the human race.

I couldn't disagree more. Learning to get along and use resources efficiently and effectively should be the primary goal of the human race. You eliminate most of the immediate danger to life on Earth right there. And it doesn't cost a dime. If humans can't manage to get along and use resources efficiently, I see no point in saving them (humans). Don't knock this "gravity well." It is the best home you will ever see. I'm sorry that you feel shackled to it. Maybe you need to get out more. There is a beautiful planet out there and I will bet anything that you haven't explored but a tiny fraction of it.

-matthew

Re:So, you've decided to miss the point....

[TripMaster Monkey]

A nice big hollowed-out asteroid gives you all the things you mentioned. Although the asteriods in the Belt may be out of reach for the moment, there's no reason we can't establish a colony on the Moon, start ripping up materials and accelerating them to escape velocity with the aid of a railgun-type catapault. 1/6 of earth gravity and no atmosphere means lifting resources off the Moon is way cheaper than lifting the same masses from the Earth, and there's no ecological concerns to stand in your way. Once off the Moon, resources could be collected in one of the Trojan points and used to start construction on a nice big habitat, complete with air and gravity (centrifigual force, anyway).

Re:Regarding the article:

[mbrother]

I was once at an event at the Johnson Space Center where there was a panel on the space program. The event had a mix of scientists, astronauts, and science fiction writers.

The topic of why the dinosaurs became extinct came up, with the leading contender being a killer asteroid. Larry Niven turned the issue upside down and said, "The dinosaurs went extinct because they didn't have a space program."

Given the audience, there was lots of laughter and cheering.

Re:So, you've decided to miss the point....

[Rei]

There are many, many different ways that humanity could go extinct; only a handful were listed. Here's one that I've mentioned before that doesn't get much play in the media: a bioengineered apocalypse. Picture that biobricks and modelling software get to the point where it's easy to design a gene to produce a protein or set of proteins to code for any simple molecule. So, you design a gene to produce VX, Sarin, or any other nerve agents. Already, you can buy custom-made genes for a price affordable to almost anyone, and insertion into unicellular organisms is not that difficult. You implant the gene into a common species of phytoplankton, along with an additional gene that gives it a competitive advantage against its wild relatives. You then take a long cruise, dripping a thermos full of the phytoplankton along the entire trip. It colonizes the ocean, riding on oceanic currents, before anyone realizes what is wrong, and then destroys almost everything on the planet with a nervous system.

The first clue would probably be fish kills. Massive fish kills, which would only fuel the bloom by adding more nitrates and other minerals to the water. However, going from "seing fish kills", to not only identifying the chemical cause, but isolating what is producing it and coming up with a way to combat something spread across the entire planet before it kills us, would be quite the challenge.

Re:What Bad Things?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's say that there exists an extra-terrestrial location that can sustain a population from Earth.

What's to say that that group doesn't attempt to destroy earth? Give it a few generations and they won't think of Earth in the same way.

Look at the last couple centuries - colonies declaring war on their colonizers.

Populating another planet may perversely promote Earth's end. So far, we're all on the same rock.

Re:Regarding the article:

[Erwos]

"After all during the colonizing year (when Europ 'blessed' the world with civilization) didn't the colonies usually end up with more progressive populations, willing to be more practical than hold onto old social norms*."

I think you confuse causation and correlation. And in any event, I would not regard the Puritans as particularly progressive.

-Erwos

Re:beware

[quisph]

That kind of argument can potentially keep humans out of space forever. Theoretically, there will always be superior technology on the horizon, and if we always decide to wait for it, then we'll never get anywhere.

This reminds me of the proof [www.fpx.de] of the uselessness of running a computer program to print a googolplex. (For a few centuries, anyway.)

In short, there may indeed be an optimal time before which it would be pointless to colonize space, since our future selves would catch up and overtake us with better technology. But on the other hand, I doubt that we are capable of discerning exactly when this optimal time would be, so what do we do?

Re:Regarding the article:

[Anonymous Coward]

The earth is the center of the Universe!
The Sun is the center of the Universe!
Out galaxy is the center of the Universe!
All we see is all there is!
Life started on Earth!
Jeesh!

Dude spread out a little and enjoy the fire, it won't last forever. For those who worry - there
is enough sunshine falling on Nevada every year to power the whole Earth! Relax, build some spaceships and checkout your local space. You are not going to get very far until you figure out how to brake the local speed limits.

Btw - We are going to burn all the fossil fuel pushing us around in personal vehicles. We will do this until the profit margins don't warrant it anymore. Then someone will have a really bright idea that we could use electron's do do the same thing! Ah ha, regenartive braking - what a concept. Whadya mean we could have done that all along! Psst - there isn't much profit in it - Duh.
Oh, why don't we store the electrons in chemical based storage units! Yeah that's the ticket - fuel. Yeah we gotta have fuel to sell! That's it - we need a business model! Fuel sells, yeah that's it. Now where the hell is my trolley I gotta get to work :/

Re:Regarding the article:

[drinkypoo]

Hasn't it occurred to anyone that funding a multi-trillion dollar effort to colonize space, with its massive consumption of energy and resources, might push us over the edge and to the very extinction which space fanboys claim to be staving off?

Yes, I did, right after I read one of Douglas Adams' books in which it was related that an entire empire was lost due to an unsanitized telephone.

Then I came to my senses.

Has it occurred to you that the advances in technology made during the space race benefited all humanity? Granted there are still people squatting in the mud building houses out of sticks and straw and mostly going hungry, but those people were doing that BEFORE space travel. Now, they occasionally get someone bringing them some medication, sometimes some food - and the shit is wrapped in space-age (and later) plastics. I don't want to get off on a rant here, so I guess I'll just stop soon, but have you considered that if there is always going to be this great a disparity, the answer is to provide enough wealth so that everyone can actually have some?

Developing space is highly desirable because it's not hazardous to people living on Earth. Whatever you say about Earth's climate, and the materials lying around on or near its surface, Humans are making it worse in both regards. Even if it's only a tiny nod of the head compared to natural processes, why do we want to do that to ourselves? Putting a lot of our infrastructure in orbit (food and energy production for example, as well as heavy manufacturing, refining, blah blah blah) would allow us to increase production and decrease pollution. Having people up there is sort of a necessary part of building it all, putting it in place, and maintaining it. For some types of problems, you really need a human at this point.

Starting sooner rather than later means that we will proceed faster. The faster we improve our level of technology the more rapidly the lower levels of technology will reach more people, allowing them to crawl up out of the mud, take a shower, and go to work, feed their family, et cetera. Personally I'm merely hoping that somewhere in the world, these people end up building a society that's not predicated upon taking advantage of the weaknesses of the citizenry.

Re:Regarding the article:

[Mr. McGibby]

How does making colonization of space the highest priority improve any of these metrics? My point is that it doesn't.

I never said it did. I'm saying it has a probability to do so. Again you're confusing your *opinion* of what would happen (the metrics would improve if we didn't colonize space), with what might happen. Colonization has the potential to improve those metrics if the earth is destroyed. Whether or not it actually does is an entirely different question, and one that you cannot answer no matter how times you repeat it.

If there are no humans, metrics don't exist. That isn't the same as low metrics.

If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? Of course it does. If there are no people around to compute the metric, does it exist? Yes, of course it does. We can compute the metric, whatever it might be, before humans all die.

Re:What Bad Things?

[Grishnakh]

The problem with this comparison was that there were already people living in North America when the Europeans came, so of course a resource war ensued. The Europeans knew that other people lived here, but they didn't care so they came anyway.

In space, there is no indication whatsoever of other life within our limits of observation. We've been looking and listening, and haven't found anything. If we colonize other planets in this system, and mine them and the asteroids for resources, it's highly unlikely that we'll disturb any other intelligent lifeforms (or unintelligent for that matter). Therefore, I don't see any problem with doing so.

Now, there may very well be lifeforms on other planets in other systems that would be disadvantaged by us if we were to visit them, but that's really not something we should worry about, simply because it isn't feasible for us to travel to other star systems with our current technology, or any technology that may be invented for a long time. It simply takes too long to travel between star systems at sub-lightspeed.

Re:There are no "other planets"

[Coryoth]

A self sustaining environment for human populations, potetially just in space, is possible. Why do I say that? Well, you can think of the earth as a giant self sustaining environment for human populations. The question is not "can it be done", the question is "can it be scaled down to something we can construct". Work is being done on that problem, and so far it hasn't been completely solved - but we are actually much closer than you might think.

Jedidiah.