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Space Science

Space Development And Earth's Future 79

Posted by timothy from the what-future dept.
apsmith writes "In the New York Times' Sunday Book Review Dennis Overbye reviews British Astronomer Royal Martin Rees' new book: Our Final Hour - A Scientist's Warning: How Terror, Error, and Environmental Disaster Threaten Humankind's Future In This Century--On Earth and Beyond. The book paints an exceedingly grim picture of our future - Reese gives humanity only a 50-50 chance of surviving the 21st century, with all the potential for calamity we have unleashed (and that nature may have in store for us too). But the book isn't just doom and gloom - we CAN do something, and the answer lies in space. But NASA has been doing it all wrong. Interestingly enough, this coming weekend is the International Space Development Conference in San Jose, where you can find out the latest ideas on how we really should be settling space."
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Space Development And Earth's Future More

Space Development And Earth's Future

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  • Conflict is human in nature (Score:4, Insightful)

    by egoff ( 636181 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @12:58PM (#5992244)
    We can't assume that just because we go live somewhere else, everything will be okay. Granted, that's a simplistic argument, but humans will tend to carry conflict with them, or create new conflict elsewhere.

    • Re:Conflict is human in nature (Score:4, Insightful)

      by BrynM ( 217883 ) * on Monday May 19, 2003 @01:15PM (#5992400) Homepage Journal
      Ahhh, but in space there is more room to blow stuff up without exterminating humanity as collateral damage (no, orbit doesn't count - we can do a LOT of damage in orbit).

    • Re:Conflict is human in nature (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Strange Ranger ( 454494 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @01:25PM (#5992490)
      It's not about living somewhere else. It's about living in lots of somewhere elses. Such that if one somewhere else were destroyed there would still be humans left in the universe/galaxy.

      You're statement seems to miss the point. Of course you're right that any other place will likely eventually have huge problems similar to those we now have here on earth. The point is that earth is a single point of failure. We should work to fix that. AKA, we shouldn't keep all our ova in one basket.

      • Re:Conflict is human in nature (Score:4, Interesting)

        by egoff ( 636181 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @01:43PM (#5992628)
        We'll carry any conflict that does happen on Earth to where we go next, Mars, asteroids, etc. Look at how the Napoleonic wars in Europe led to the French/Indian wars in North America. The War of 1812 was also started by European politics. At the time, colonists tried to escape those issues. Any nuclear war would surely spread to the colonies.

        Overpopulation is also a critical issue. But the vast majority of people involved in the population boom couldn't afford cost-prohibitive colonization. The option of forced colonization is inhumane, as was effectively argued by free blacks in opposition to the American Colonization Society in the pre-civil war United States.

        The only serious concern left is an astronomical disaster, such as a meteor strike. It seems that the reasonable thing to do would be to focus resources on a defense system for that.

        I'm not arguing that all off-planet development is bad by any means, but it isn't the answer to all of our problems.

        • I always thought the War of 1812 was the US thinking it could take advantage of Britain concentrating on its holdings in India. To me it was the first in a series of US attempts at colonialism.
          • Without getting too off-topic from the original intent of this article, the War of 1812 was indeed partially about America's desire to seize British holdings, but the maxim still applies: The new civilization was drawn into a conflict that started in the old one.

          • The immediate cause of the War of 1812 was Britian's failure to recognize the sovreignty of the U.S. Britian was impressing American sailors on the excuse that they were British subjects, and interfering with Franco-American trade.

            Of course, the opportunity to "liberate" Canada from the British - and the fact that 1812 was an election year - certainly added to the picture.

        • Re:Conflict is human in nature (Score:4, Insightful)

          by barawn ( 25691 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @03:55PM (#5993629) Homepage
          The only serious concern left is an astronomical disaster, such as a meteor strike. It seems that the reasonable thing to do would be to focus resources on a defense system for that.

          No matter what you do, you are never going to develop a defense system against resource depletion. While many people constantly say that there's plenty of X on Earth for humans to use (where X is anything consumable), they're crazy. Helium, for instance, is a decidedly depletable resource, and one that is being used up quite rapidly. It's doubtful that the Earth's helium supply will last much past the end of the 21st century - and yes, this is true, even with people using helium to lift balloons.

          There are plenty of other resources that're being heavily depleted as well. Yes, there are more sources for them, but it will not be economically feasible to recover them. Which, of course, means that they might as well not exist.

          Plus there are other disasters to be concerned about: a magnetic pole reversal, an Ice Age, a sudden rise of the sea levels, etc. - none of which you can reasonably protect against. Earth is fragile, and it will always be fragile. It's also not permanent. It will die. It has a finite lifespan in the neighborhood of a few hundred million years left before the oceans boil off. The reasonable thing to do is get the hell off the planet.

          Once people migrated to North America, suddenly oceanbound travel started to explode. And likewise, ship technology increased dramatically. There's no reason to believe that the same thing wouldn't happen here.

          There's also no reason to believe that colonization wouldn't provide the same benefits it did in the 1600s-1700s: a fresh view of the world from a different perspective.

          There've been many people that have said that the reason the Internet boomed so well in the US was due to free local phone access, because the phone infrastructure in the US is so good. This is because the US is a large country with lots of open land - certain technological advances started here because it was best suited for them. There's no reason to believe that a Martian colony wouldn't be subject to the same pressures.

          The point is that human beings do best in adversity - "necessity is the mother of invention." There are surely people working on radiation treatments, space health issue, space transport mechanisms, etc., but there's no real need for them now. If there IS a need, then those sectors of science will literally explode, and the secondary benefits will be very hard to imagine.

          It's important to realize that one can -never- estimate the benefit of a colony to the home country, virtually by design - a colony is a new settlement, with new needs, and new ideas. And nothing - nothing - is more valuable to the human race than new ideas.

          So maybe you're right. Maybe off-planet colonization isn't the answer to all of our problems. But it might be the answer to a whole, whole lot of them. You simply don't know until you go there, and find out.
          • It's doubtful that the Earth's helium supply will last much past the end of the 21st century - and yes, this is true, even with people using helium to lift balloons.

            Yet another reason to develop fusion reactors; they can replenish the helium supply.
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Just so you know, the Napoleonic wars didn't happen until after the American Revolution, which happened after the French/Indinan war.
      • This technique of spreading out humanity via colonies in the hopes that some of the colonies will survive seems a lot like a farmer that throws a handful of seeds in a hole in the hopes that one or two grow. Are humans becoming so numerous that we're expendable and of no more consquence than a seed? I would hope not.
    • And I think the point should be that in space we will have to struggle to survive again---whereas here we've become all comfortable and self-complacent. Consider your own life: have you noticed that everything you've done that is worth something was done under pressure?

      Lets go to Mars!
      • A frontier brings out the best and the worst of people. Again, to draw from American history, e the settlers' "pioneering spirit" to create great works and the Sand Creek massacre [sandcreek.org] (in addition to numerous other outrages).

        In addition, a very strong case can be made for a specific human nature, and has been made by Steven Pinker in his excellent book, How The Mind Works.

  • Talk of the Nation (Score:4, Informative)

    by PD ( 9577 ) * <slashdotlinux@pdrap.org> on Monday May 19, 2003 @01:00PM (#5992259) Homepage Journal
    NPR had a show on Talk of the Nation Science Friday about this too. The link to the show is here [npr.org]. The segment is in the second hour, so scroll down.

  • Martin Rees (Score:5, Informative)

    by ralian ( 127441 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @01:05PM (#5992312) Homepage
    I just got a new interview with him in my email from edge.org, where he speculates on multiple universes, alternative formulations of physics and the Matrix (hehe). It's here [edge.org], for all of youse enjoyments. (N.B. RealPlayer format)

  • A solution to many problems (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BrynM ( 217883 ) * on Monday May 19, 2003 @01:10PM (#5992361) Homepage Journal
    I've long felt that getting off the planet is the solution to many of our problems. Manufacturing/refining pollutants? Thanks to being a vacuum, pollutants can be better contained or cleaned up after leakage. Overpopulation? We've run out of room on our planet, but the rest of space is out there. Defense? Stuck on Earth, we're sitting ducks for our own devastating conflicts or if some other advanced species reaches us before we reach them (improbable, but theoretically possible). Someone too dangerous to detain? I bet Georgie Boy would LOVE his own orbital prison or prison colony. Stagnant empiracal growth? There's lots of rocks out there for countries/powers to plant a flag in and claim.

    Let's face it, we've just about used some natural resources on Earth up. We're making it mor un-inhabitable every passing moment. Humanity is not getting smaller. We could all be wiped out with a good size chunk of iron ore hurled into our atmosphere. The only way for humanity to survive in the very-long-term is to diversify our holdings ;)

    Then again, we could just sit here and live up to the name we've given our sun: SOL.

    • Re:A solution to many problems (Score:5, Funny)

      by PD ( 9577 ) * <slashdotlinux@pdrap.org> on Monday May 19, 2003 @01:34PM (#5992562) Homepage Journal
      Thanks to being a vacuum, pollutants can be better contained or cleaned up after leakage.

      And that's a good thing too. We wouldn't want to turn space into a lifeless place full of radiation and harsh substances that would require a person to wear a protective suit just to survive.

    • Amen. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by maddogsparky ( 202296 )
      The reasons you mention above are the exact reasons I'm leaving my current job and going back to school for Aerospace Engineering. It's a little scary to give up a secure, well paying job to go back to grad school, but it is even scaryer to think about what the world will be like for my 3-year old when he is my age.

      It's time to take action instead of being wistful and just talking about it...

      • Re:Amen. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by BrynM ( 217883 ) * on Monday May 19, 2003 @01:46PM (#5992648) Homepage Journal
        My hat is off to you! I've often thought about the same thing. Get more involved. Every time I think about it though, I realize that one of the best ways to get involved in exploration is to inspire others. I think the popularity of science fiction in the past 20 years or so has done some of this, but it has too much of a "eventually we'll be here" attitude. The average person has no idea what the current technology is capable of or how to implement it to further the goal of exploration. If space exploration were a popular cause, we might not be having this discussion with such a morbit (our extinction) spin. Thus, I have been looking into animation as a means of storytelling. We can't afford to let the next couple of generations grow up with a "someone else will do it" attitude.
      • Congratulations! The most revolutionary ideas and inventions were conceived because someone took risks. That is equally true regarding career moves and unonventional thinking. Best of luck to you.
    • The problem is, where do we go and how do we get there? The planets around us are mostly uninhabitable. We need some place with water and an atmosphere, and even mars, the topic of much speculation, doesn't really have much water on it. The closest system is light-years away. Our technology is still barely able to get is into orbit and back. And it doesn't look like anyone is taking any of this seriously - we'd much rather spend billions on weapons research then on the space elevator (which is think is

      • Re:A solution to many problems (Score:4, Insightful)

        by BrynM ( 217883 ) * on Monday May 19, 2003 @02:11PM (#5992860) Homepage Journal
        "The problem is, where do we go and how do we get there?"... "we'd much rather spend billions on weapons research then on the space elevator (which is think is the first step to utilizing the resources of space)."

        You've just answered your own question. We need to inch our way off the planet. We've gotten used to orbit, now let's get used to being on the moon (I know, some of us are quite used to being "on the moon" ;) ). Then we pick a planet in our solar system, or build some type of solar orbiting station. Right now, we've been so wishy-washy about the international space station. Why? Because there's no public pressure to make it work. The knee-jerk public just wants it to work or get scrapped. They have no idea that it's a step among many.

      • "I think we had better stick to more realistic measures here on earth then wistfully dream of a life in space."

        Eventually, we will use up our resources. What happens once weve used up all the metals, uranium, fossil fuels and the like? DO we slide back down to being toolless primates again? ANd im talking on the order of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years here.

        PLus, theres the whole putting all your eggs in one basket problem.
        • Ummm...ever hear of renewable resources? we need not EVER run out of anything - the sun will go on providing us with free (as in beer) energy for billions of years. If we use solar energy, organic crops, bionic fuels, etc... we could stay on this plant for as long as there is a planet. although, i guess, thats almost as wisftful as moving off the planet - neither will ever happen.

  • Rees is a rip-off artist! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    He says, in fact, that he has bet $1,000 that an instance of bioterror or bioerror will take a million lives before the year 2020.

    Only $1,000 for a million deaths! What a rip off. You can make more for hacking an XBOX!
  • "This is my long-run forecast in brief: The material conditions of life will continue to get better for most people, in most countries, most of the time, indefinitely. Within a century or two, all nations and most of humanity will be at or above today's Western living standards. I also speculate, however, that many people will continue to think and say that the conditions of life are getting worse." - Julian Simon

    • Re:Just another alarmist wacko (Score:4, Interesting)

      by frenchgates ( 531731 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @01:59PM (#5992765)
      I'm a bit surprised that the late Julian Simon, professor and "Cornucopian," didn't predict he would never die. He would have been as correct as any other of his predictions until the exact moment of his death.

      The problem with this kind of convenient optimism is the following:

      Let's say you are a frog who lives in a pond. One day a weed blows into the pond. This weed is very successful and doubles in size every day. As it does so it strangles the all the other life wherever it has grown in the pond. But you don't mind because as the first few days go by, most of the pond is weed free. Even when the pond is half full of weeds you've still got plenty of space. The problem comes the day after pond is half full.

      While it is true that a lot of doom-and-gloom predictions have failed to materialize, most famously the "Club of Rome" report in the seventies which predicted running out of oil ludicrously soon, it is silly to ignore the clear signs of environmental and social degradation simply because we've been fine up until now.
      • "it is silly to ignore the clear signs of environmental and social degradation simply because we've been fine up until now."

        Quite silly, indeed. And the solution to that is to fix the social and environmental problems, not to have unrealistic dreams of escaping into space.

      • Re:Just another alarmist wacko (Score:4, Insightful)

        by arpad1 ( 458649 ) on Monday May 19, 2003 @02:50PM (#5993161)
        I'm a bit surprised that the late Julian Simon, professor and "Cornucopian," didn't predict he would never die.

        Why? Would that have made the job of misrepresenting his views easier?

        I suppose that sort of name-calling is necessary though when you want to divert attention from the uniform record of failure of the alarmists and the uniform record of success of the "Cornucopians". Does the name "Paul Ehrlich" ring a bell?

        While it is true that a lot of doom-and-gloom predictions have failed to materialize, most famously the "Club of Rome" report in the seventies which predicted running out of oil ludicrously soon, it is silly to ignore the clear signs of environmental and social degradation simply because we've been fine up until now.

        And there's the whole issue wrapped up in one sentence. Oh sure, sayeth the alarmist, we've been wrong about everything up until now but is that any reason not to believe us this time? After all, any minute now our losing streak might break and then you'll be sorry.

      • While it is true that a lot of doom-and-gloom predictions have failed to materialize, most famously the "Club of Rome" report in the seventies which predicted running out of oil ludicrously soon, it is silly to ignore the clear signs of environmental and social degradation simply because we've been fine up until now

        This report has often been cited as wrong, but at the time it was substantially correct.

        Basically, it did not predict oil running out. It will always be possable to extract some oil from th

    • The average hunter-gatherer (e.g. the !Kung) work about 20 hours a week fulfilling all their basic needs: food, shelter, etc. The rest of the time is for recreation. On the other hand, people in modern industrialized societies hardly have time for recreation, which may be why we are so obsessed with it.

  • Rees is too much of an optimist (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 19, 2003 @01:56PM (#5992738)
    All matter will decay. This universe will end in a big crunch or expand forever into nothingness. It won't matter if we escape the solar system. There is no place for us to go. We will all die and the matter we're made of will decay and the universe will end and there is NOTHING we can do about.

  • space escapism (Score:2, Insightful)

    by g4dget ( 579145 )
    People like Rees better get used to the fact that we aren't going to get off this planet in significant numbers any time soon and that colonization of space is a pipe dream for now.

    So far, there is not a shred of evidence that we can travel faster than light or even get close? But, more importantly, if we can't control population growth and pollution on earth, how is that going to work in space, where just going a little bit over the limits can mean death for everybody? Even Antarctica is very forgiving

    • Re:space escapism (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      What's far more dangerous than "space escapism" is "we-can-fix-it-ism" because that distracts us from making progress during the small window we have available (between technological ability and environmental meltdown).

      The only way to achieve the mandatory objectives you have detailed (controlling population growth, military spending, and pollution) is a global totalitarian government forever.

      This would be required because you are talking about requires changing human nature which won't happen without t

      • On the other hand, while the Earth may be condemned to a Blade Runner like future where the gifted migrate off world, at least some of humanity would survive if not actually flourish.

        Just imagine... forking humanity.

      • Agreed, except for a slight problem:

        Absolute power corrupts absolutely (Julius Caesar).

        One totalitarian gov't will have its favoured corporations and select elite, which will run things. And seeing how things are at the moment, I can bet you that this will mean fewer corps will have the power, and the circle of the select elite that will run the world behind the government will be very small.

        This means a hell of a lot more money to a hell of a lot less people. And all the rest of us either working for th
      • >>>The only way to achieve the mandatory objectives you have detailed (controlling population growth, military spending, and pollution) is a global totalitarian government forever.

        Population growth severely decreases with acceptance and availability of contraceptives, lack of societal pressure to marry, and equality for women. Pollution and military spending can probably be controlled to some extent. Of course, space exploration remains a major Good Thing.
        • Space exploration is a great thing, and we have the technology for extensive exploration of our solar system. I think that's a great thing to do.

          Space colonization is something completely different, and much harder, however, and creating a self-sustaining colony on another body is even more out of reach.

      • Re:space escapism (Score:3, Insightful)

        by g4dget ( 579145 )
        What's far more dangerous than "space escapism" is "we-can-fix-it-ism" because that distracts us from making progress during the small window we have available (between technological ability and environmental meltdown).

        I am pretty pessimistic about being able to fix it. But I'm even more pessimistic about space travel.

        The only way to achieve the mandatory objectives you have detailed (controlling population growth, military spending, and pollution) is a global totalitarian government forever.

        No, that

        • We can fly around the solar system for the next thousand years with current technology and we would still be unable to achieve colonization. Unless and until we achieve fundamental breakthroughs, space colonization is a pipe dream, and those breakthroughs depend on science to be done here on earth.

          There is no technological barrier preventing us from establishing permanent bases in earth orbit and the moon right now. All that we lack is the will and the desire to spend the money to do it.

          The technology

          • Take a read of this article on Nuclear propulsion [nuclearspace.com]. Could be a solution to our slow chemical rockets. The current administration has already started the ball rolling in this.Very interesting.
            • That's an interesting link. I've read about gaseous core nuclear powered rockets about twenty years ago, but I hadn't heard about the "transparent silica" idea of heat transference before. I hope this guy succeeds in influencing NASA in persuing something similar to what he outlines.
          • The technology needed to put people on the moon, for instance, was there in the late sixties, or has everyone forgotten that?

            We can put people in permanent bases in orbit. We can put people in permanent bases on the moon. We can probably put people in permanent bases on Mars if we redirect our output from producing sneakers and overpriced fighter jets to producing rockets.

            But those are not self-sufficient colonies and they don't achieve what people claim they want to achieve: backup against disaster on
        • Go read "The High Frontier" and come back and say that "we would still be unable to achieve colonization". There's no need for any fundamental breakthroughs - the solar system has 10 billion times more energy than we could ever exploit on Earth (and a somewhat smaller ratio of material wealth). What's needed is the capitalization to get started off this planet, and the human resources off planet to get the location-specific R&D done that will make it increasingly economical and even profitable. But it's

      • B.S. (Score:4, Informative)

        by barakn ( 641218 ) on Tuesday May 20, 2003 @11:27AM (#5998786)
        China is the only country to have made significant progress in controlling birthrates and that's because they are a totalitarian government.

        You ignore a large number of countries in Europe and Japan whose birth rates have dropped so perilously low they are in danger of losing population. Eastern European countries' fertility rates, while higher than those of Western Europe, dropped dramatically after the fall of the Soviet Union, a totalitarian government. The female literacy rate correlates better than the type of government with low growth rates.

        • You ignore a large number of countries in Europe and Japan whose birth rates have dropped so perilously low they are in danger of losing population. Eastern European countries' fertility rates, while higher than those of Western Europe, dropped dramatically after the fall of the Soviet Union, a totalitarian government. The female literacy rate correlates better than the type of government with low growth rates.

          Actually, that's an interesting point, because you used "fertility rates", rather than "birth ra
          • I believe fertility rate is synonymous with birth rate. The claim that there are many infertile people in first-world countries is nonsense. The medical profession in first world countries has done an amazing job of overcoming fertility problems. I would guess infertility is far more common in the third world from such things as scarring from untreated STDs, malnutrition, violent acts on pregnant women, etc..
            • Well, true and false. It's difficult to find out any info whether or not natural infertility is higher in developing countries or in third-world countries, and naively you'd expect it to be better in first-world because of nutrition, though this isn't a guarantee.

              Age-induced infertility problems are MUCH more common in first world than in third world, because in third-world countries children are born much earlier than first-world (people don't wait as long).

              Oddly, even though the original idea was wrong,

    • Re:space escapism (Score:3, Interesting)

      by BrynM ( 217883 ) *
      I agree that putting all of our eggs into one basket is a BadThing(tm). Yes, environmentalism (not being liberal, but truly thinking of sustainable environment) is important to our survival, but many (scientists too) feel that we are already too far gone to save this planet or at least save it as we know it. The breadth of our ecological destruction has created ripples that will ebb and flow for centuries to come. We really don't know the extent (or lack) of what we have begun. (pseudo-proverb)Just beca
      • The breadth of our ecological destruction has created ripples that will ebb and flow for centuries to come.

        What we have done to the ecology of the planet has been immoral and destructive, but it doesn't yet threaten our existence. If we stopped our destructive behaviors tomorrow, the planet would soon stabilize and then start to recover. What does threaten our existence is that we keep doing what we have been doing, on an ever expanding scale.

        but many (scientists too) feel that we are already too far g

    • People like Rees better get used to the fact that we aren't going to get off this planet in significant numbers any time soon and that colonization of space is a pipe dream for now.

      100 years ago even less was expected of human flight. These days the average American flies about twice a year. What is so terribly unreasonable about the same happening for space flight? There are no physical constraints to huge numbers of people leaving this planet - the energy required is really not that large (roughly eq

  • Two outcomes are not automatically of equal probability. I automatically question the legitimacy of anyone that makes this basic mistake -- at least if any of their other opinions/positions involve stats.
  • Rees' book reads like a well crafted research proposal! ;)
  • It seems to me he is a bit of a doomsday merchant. While we do have big problems on this planet, i don't think they are irreversable. First thing to do is get the big business serving leaders out of office. I think government should be like jury duty. That would force every one to take notice of issues. The problem with politicians is that the people who go into politics suck arse. But I do think space colonisation is a worth while venture. I'm sure if we made colonisation a goal, some one would come up wit
  • ...there are _two_ possibilities: everyone dies, or at least some stay alive. 1/2=50%

    This joke is crappy, but couldn't help myself.

  • Control Freaks (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Baldrson ( 78598 ) on Tuesday May 20, 2003 @10:35AM (#5998424) Homepage Journal
    Central governments and even centralized asset ownership is hostile to doing anything to relieve the planet of its technological civilizations.

    The fundamental problem is control freaks. These are people who have a serious problem with letting people decentralize fundamentals of life. They are the guys who convinced the GI generation to give up their farms and make their boomer kids get money, whether from central government or big corporations, to have fundamentals like food from the grocery store or a place of residence from the landlord or mortgage banker.

    NASA is part of this problem and it is not therefore likely to be reformed to allow decentralization of fundamental resources like land.

    Nevertheless I'm sure there are lots of guys who still want to work within the system rather than figure out how to dislodge the death-grip on the planet now held by those like NASA bureaucrats or big corporate moguls.

    If you guys want to support NASA, I suggest you take a few years living in poverty so you can pass some laws reforming that organization independent of the conflicts of interest arising from any industry or government funding.

    I did [geocities.com].

    It radically changed the way I view politics, people and the world.

    You could, alternatively, listen to guys who actually walked the talk.

    If that sounds more appealing to you than spending years in poverty to learn some very hard lessons, then in addition to the above link to my Congressional testimony, you might want to follow the following links for more information:

  • Space colonization is too cost prohibitive to relieve population pressure problems here on earth. But the utility of space colonization isn't in helping earth, its in helping insure the continuation of human life. Don't put all your hopes in one boat, as the saying goes.

    Of course, space aint that friendly, you know...

    whether or not you think that this is a worthy goal is a question of ethics...

    • Just why should we even care? Why should I want them to spend my taxmoney on backups in space so in case we all nuke ourselves there will be some humans left? There's absolutely no benefit in there for us. Now if you were to go mining planets for whatever resources there are, go on. But don't use my tax money on it. Like wise if you think the survival of 100 humans as opposed to 6 billion is so important to spend trillions of dollars on them, you may well go. Just make sure I don't find out it was partly
  • John McCarthy's Sustainability of Human Progress [stanford.edu] website discusses many of the arguments about population growth, resource usage etc.
    In particular, we argue that the whole world can reach and maintain American standards of living with a population of even 15 billion.

    Slogan: He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

  • The thing about colonization to a (sol)orbiting station or a moon colony is that mistakes are deadly and people with problems find themeselves very quickly without an airsupply (as Roger Wilco would say; Sudden decompression sucks as you float into space). I tend to believe that a colony like that will _very_ quickly learn how to behave and regulate. See Heinleins "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". He makes some good points about this in his book.
  • The UN is constantly monitoring world population to look for signs of impending supply/demand mismatches especially when it comes to food supply. The dogma for decades has been just what you said, population grows exponentially, and food production does not; however, several months ago, the UN released a report showing that population growth was slowing, not only in modern industrial societies, but in developing nations across the globe as well.

    This was not due to some global epidemic or food shortage.

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