Robert Zubrin Makes 'The Case For Space' (usatoday.com) 200
Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from USA Today discussing a new book from famed astronautical engineer Bob Zubrin, who makes the case for why we should go to space -- not only for the knowledge and challenge, but to "ensure our survival and protect our freedom." Among the reasons why he thinks we need to spread out through the Solar System (and perhaps beyond):
For the Knowledge: We know little about the universe, despite our conceit that we have things figured out. The farther we go, the more new things we will encounter, and the more our knowledge and understanding will expand.
For the Challenge: Zubrin looks at the way the Age of Exploration rejuvenated a stagnant Europe at the beginning of the 16th Century, and the way the American frontier imparted a dynamism to American culture that, since that frontier's closing, seems to have faded. New frontiers, with their array of opportunities and challenges, make an excellent antidote to stagnation, aristocracy and zero-sum thinking.
For Our Survival: Last week saw reports that an 1100-foot asteroid will pass within 13,000 miles of earth -- that's closer than many satellites -- in less than a decade. (The famous Barringer Meteor Crater in Arizona was made by an asteroid a fraction that size, and exploded with the force of more than 100 Nagasaki-sized atomic bombs). These asteroid encounters turn out to be much more common than once thought, and the likelihood of a strike is high enough that authorities are rehearsing a response. With a strong space economy, deflecting dangerous asteroids will be easy. Without it, we're just sitting ducks in a cosmic shooting gallery.
For Our Freedom: Earth is crowded, and governments (and corporations like Facebook) are getting ever more intrusive as privacy grows every more scarce. The danger of a global tyranny backed by modern technology of surveillance and control is growing. Getting a sizable chunk of humanity off the planet and far enough away -- the Moon, Mars, even the asteroid belt -- makes it less likely that such a tyranny could become all-encompassing.
For the Challenge: Zubrin looks at the way the Age of Exploration rejuvenated a stagnant Europe at the beginning of the 16th Century, and the way the American frontier imparted a dynamism to American culture that, since that frontier's closing, seems to have faded. New frontiers, with their array of opportunities and challenges, make an excellent antidote to stagnation, aristocracy and zero-sum thinking.
For Our Survival: Last week saw reports that an 1100-foot asteroid will pass within 13,000 miles of earth -- that's closer than many satellites -- in less than a decade. (The famous Barringer Meteor Crater in Arizona was made by an asteroid a fraction that size, and exploded with the force of more than 100 Nagasaki-sized atomic bombs). These asteroid encounters turn out to be much more common than once thought, and the likelihood of a strike is high enough that authorities are rehearsing a response. With a strong space economy, deflecting dangerous asteroids will be easy. Without it, we're just sitting ducks in a cosmic shooting gallery.
For Our Freedom: Earth is crowded, and governments (and corporations like Facebook) are getting ever more intrusive as privacy grows every more scarce. The danger of a global tyranny backed by modern technology of surveillance and control is growing. Getting a sizable chunk of humanity off the planet and far enough away -- the Moon, Mars, even the asteroid belt -- makes it less likely that such a tyranny could become all-encompassing.
Sun expansion missed (Score:1)
Asteroids we may be able to deflect..
We won't be able to deflect Sun's expansion in couple bln years
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Re:Sun expansion missed (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't see Star Trek a reality. Over the next 100,000 years if we put focus in space travel we may be able to populate a 20 light year radius of our solar system. By the Star Trek time 2260's With some real focus on space travel. We may have a stable colony on the Moon and Mars.
Because Space is really big and hostile. And the energy needed to get to these places fast (1/2 speed of light) is still great even with e=mc^2 as the ideal efficiency.
If we did find life in other planets, chances are they will be just slime puddles.
However having humanity diversified and placed on other worlds will improve our chances for survival. and those humans who are lightyears away, are probably will be going on a divergent evolutionary path, but that is a good thing.
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Whatever intelligent species may inhabit earth in a billion years, it assuredly won't be human. There's no reason for people to care about the sun's expansion. Zurbin's case is for thing that could affect ourselves, our grandchildren, or at least somebody recognizably similar to us.
We need it to flow (Score:3)
new frontier (Score:2, Insightful)
What new frontier ? There's nothing but cold, dark vacuum, with some nasty radiation, and an occasional ball of gas or dirty rock. It's not like we're going find another America.
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Don't worry, your actual "main problem" is much more mundane... we're fast polluting and destroying the Earth, the only planet known to support life anywhere. In a few decades of this no one will be worried about space travel at all.
If we can't manage to govern ourselves for survival on a space-faring vessel as large and bountiful and perfect as the Earth, there's nothing we can't fuck up. It's insane to think we "must escape" Earth in even the next few centuries.
It's laughable. We have such flying car e
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We produce less pollution than ever.
You are stupid on every level. Fisheries are extremely important but you're discounting major threats entirely, because you're retarded for politics and know nothing about the actual science.
No, we are not producing "less pollution than ever" - it's retarded that you would even think that, lest of all say it. You are a fucking moron.
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Actually, you have it backwards. If you want to get something from Venus to Mars, you actually hav
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Adding velocity or subtracting velocity are the same thing. You just add a velocity vector to another velocity vector. Or you mutiply the vector with -1 first and then subtract it. The amount of energy necessary is depending on the square of the norm of the velocity vector, not on the direction in any way. Thus you were (wrongly) nitpicking about a -1, which is dependent on the chosen intertial system, but doesn't change anything in the argument.
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You can nitpick as long as you want to weasel out of your mistake.
Energy wise accelerating or deccelerating about the same amount is the same.
However in an orbit the effects are drastically different, same as on a road.
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And if pigs could fly, we would have even more!
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We need to stop fixating on planetary surfaces.
The best option is a Dyson Swarm of O'Neill Cylinders [wikipedia.org].
This will give us living space equivalent to two trillion earths.
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Indeed. All these demented dreamers want back is some old recipes, that did not work nearly as well back then as they imagine now.
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It's not like we're going find another America.
Oh, there's always hope that we will find another species that we can wipe out with, as Jared titled it, our "Guns, Germans and Steel"
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Eventually discovering and reaching another Earth-like planet is inevitable, unless we go extinct first. It may take a very, very long time though.
Mars looks pretty viable though. Some time this century people are going to be living up there.
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How is it "inevitable"? I am always astonished by people who say things like that. What Earth-like planet are you planning on reaching? How far away is it, and how fast can you travel to get there. You do realize there are laws of Physics? Not all things are physically possible.
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It's inevitable because eventually someone will make the effort to get there, even if it takes an extremely long time, or as I said the human race will just end up extinct first.
Eventually we will be able to travel long distances either in some kind of suspended animation state or by sending embryos and robots. Assuming there is no fast way of course, which there probably isn't but no-one can conclusively rule it out.
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Indeed. And there are natural limits. For example, there is not an unlimited number of engineering materials and many are at a point where they are finished and no progress is happening in their properties. Hence the materials needed fro such a trip may simply not be available or the amount of matter that would need to be sent may simply exceed what is available in this star system or the energy needed may do the same. There is no magic in engineering (or science) and in the absence of that, even many theor
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Indeed. Well, they will just lose interest and follow some other demented hype then.
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It becomes "inevitable", if you have an irrational belief in progress. You know, basically religion, were a lot of things are absolute and "inevitable". That things are limited both by practicalities and by fundamental limits is beyond these people. They think that if they just believe hard enough, reality changes and magic happens. In actual reality, this does not happen to the best of our knowledge.
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Mars looks pretty viable though.
Only to the ignorant.
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Eventually discovering and reaching another Earth-like planet is inevitable
We all have a mom. Imagine leaving her to go find another one. It may be possible, but certainly silly.
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And though life no doubt exists in abundance throughout the universe,
Nobody knows that. All we have is no EM evidence of other life and one sample. Hence we do have basically anything between us being the only ones to there being a lot, but nothing close or nothing intelligent close by.
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We are not 16th century colonists exploring the New World, we are the Vikings trying not to freeze to death in Greenland. The sad truth is that we need a good couple centuries until we can actually take advantage of space. Trying to force it before that will only lead to tears.
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And even America was pretty hostile back then with a lot of people dying despite ready availability of air, gravity, sun and often food and water, all for free. Going to space in numbers is not anything that will even be possible anytime soon and it certainly does not make much sense.
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Guarantee you, if you go to church, you will go to Heaven. That is what you sound like.
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Hahaha, an that is just it. People that have trouble separating reality from fantasy. Excellent for selling them all sorts of crap.
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Indeed. There is still some space for new fundamental discoveries (Physics is inconsistent, and maybe, just maybe quantum gravity will have some practical applications), but the longer we wait, the less likely they become. The computer revolution, for example, is pretty much done on the hardware side, only cheaper and less energy needed are still possible. Software lacks far, far behind, because, as it turns out, it is excessively difficult to write complex software. And A(G)I? Not even on the distant horiz
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Indeed. That is pretty much exactly how science describing nature works. You just have to understand that all the limits and restrictions are already there and we are just discovering them. Many people seem to believe instead that this works the other way round and that all sorts of things will eventually be possible, we just have to find out how. That is not the situation in this physical universe at all.
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Not only that, but the extremely well funded domain of submarines (another example of closed systems in hostile environments) and underwater structures, things trivial in comparison, have not advanced much either.
They are not even remotely "trivial in comparison". That problem domain is considerably harder than open space. The maximum pressure differential between its environment and the interior of an occupied space station is 1 atmosphere (and it could be 50% less). The maximum pressure differential between its environment and the interior of an occupied submarine is 1085 atmospheres. A difference of three orders of magnitude causes all sorts of new and different engineering problems. And that 1085 atmosphere
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They are trivial by comparison because they are never more than a handful of meters away from breathable air, potable water, and not far away an endless logistics chain to maintain both the vessel and the crew.
Only if you consider 10,900 meters a "handful". And none of the water they're under is potable. And if they start from the middle of the Pacific, access to that "endless" supply chain could be 7 days away. It's actually easier to bail out of orbit in an emergency and reach support than it is to reach support from the middle of any of the world's oceans. And specifically in the case of submariners, it may not be possible to provide support at all. Either they can't be found where they sank, or no equall
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It got modded "insightful" because it is. Your mindless cheering is not informed by actual facts. You can only "fill a niche" to the size it has, and the "space niche" is very, very small. At this time, it can houses less than 10 people, and that only with massive support from earth.
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Or you can carve out a bigger niche...
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Nope. Not in this case.
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What The Species, all 8 billion of us, needs, is death in a vacuum
Go right ahead. No one is stopping you.
Deal with our own home first. (Score:2, Insightful)
While I also like to think about humans as a multi-planet species,
if we cannot look after our own planet how can we expect to look after another ?
We are simply not qualified to take on the responsibilty of a "planet B"
1) 200 species a day going extinct
2) co2 emissions have now passed tipping point
only technology that does not exist yet can reverse it
3) we must become carbon neutral in order to slow it down enough to buy ourselves time (~11yrs if we do nothing )
4) we must stop bl
Re:Deal with our own home first. (Score:5, Insightful)
The moon and mars have 0 species to drive to extinction. Really one of the better arguments for colonization is that other planets provide a safe place to experiment with geoengineering. And building a moon/mars colony necessitates building a self-sustainable, highly-recycled, low-waste biosphere that keeps a whole ecosystem alive and in balance... that surely has a few Earth applications.
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I see that your reading comprehension skills are as weak as ever.
They are referring to the risk of ecological damage from the experiment as collateral for a failure.
Here on earth it is easier to perform such experiments, because we have breathable air, drinkable water, it is warm enough to live, and all that-- but it also means that a failure will have a significant risk of removing one of those features from the local environs. THAT is the risk being discussed, and the kind of "safety" referred to.
But you
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Well, compared to the cold emptiness of interplanetary or interstellar space, then yes, Mars and the Moon are safe.
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Good news if you are a rock, I guess.
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In a world with billions of humans, where money spent on space is a small fraction of everything we do, I wouldn't look at it as an either-or. Plus: I would argue that our activities in space help in regards to those problems you outlined.
* Our best information about how badly we are messing up our planet comes from satellites. Think of pictures of deforestation, diminishing sea ice, changes in global albedo, indirect measurements of surface
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Indeed. If we cannot master comparatively _easy_ problems, how can anybody expect we can master hard ones?
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We are simply not qualified to take on the responsibilty of a "planet B"
Not a believer in intersteller travel but playing devils advocate here. If we are able to accomplish it what does the destruction of planet B matter? After all its an infinite universe what is the harm. Why not just move on to planets C,D,E,F... B(prime) at that point?
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It really is no laughing matter .
It is undeniable that :
1) the planet is getting warmer
2) Ice caps are melting faster than we thought
3) co2 levels are still increasing (at an all time high)
Those are facts
the results of these if left unchecked are
1) rising sea levels
2) ice cap melts can release diseases such as anthrax
3) co2 causes acidification of our oceans
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It should be noted that the planet has been getting warmer since the end of the last glaciation. Yes, it's warming faster now due to human insistence on not living in caves.
And since we're going to come out of the current Ice Age (yes, the planet has been in an Ice Age for about as long as humans (depending on which species you consider "human" of course) have existed) sooner or later, the planet WILL get warmer with or without our help.
That said, if we're going to have a long-lasting civilization, we re
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It should be noted that the planet has been getting warmer since the end of the last glaciation.
That is wrong.
the planet WILL get warmer with or without our help.
It is a funky difference if it gets warmer because of CO2 or because of shifts in orbit etc. What the funk are you thinking will happen if the "natural fluctuation" due to orbit oscillations (yes I simplify, so don't bother to correct me) add up with the CO2 induced changes?
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1) rising sea levels
25cm over a period of 500 years. Scary!
2) ice cap melts can release diseases such as anthrax
Not proven. While pathogens are a necessary component of infectious disease, they are not the only or even the sufficient component. You are exposed to harmful pathogens daily and you don't get sick. Putting an additional negligible amount of pathogens in the environment does not necessarily correlate to higher incidence of disease. You are, after all, dividing this fictional repository over the surface of the entire planet - that makes for a fractional increase in act
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C02 is a pollutant when it goes into excess. It is a greenhouse gas, FFS it's like 8th grade physics. Teenagers are capable of understanding this. You can deny the laws of physics all you want but the reality is going to bite you in the end.
While models might not be 100% accurate, they are the closest we can get without experiencing the real deal. I don't know about you, but I'd rather take the model. Meanwhile, flat out denial and wishful thinking is even further from facts than models. Statements like "n
For our survival? Would that be a good thing? (Score:3)
Based on how fast we're destroying our own planet, and every other living thing on it, Sapiens being wiped out by an asteroid could be viewed as a net positive for the Universe.
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Sapiens being wiped out by an asteroid could be viewed as a net positive for the Universe.
In Soviet space, Sapiens wipe out Universe!
And asteroids as a side order.
Re:For our survival? Would that be a good thing? (Score:5, Interesting)
Based on how fast we're destroying our own planet, and every other living thing on it, Sapiens being wiped out by an asteroid could be viewed as a net positive for the Universe.
Whoa - wait a minute, how is that a net positive? Just because humanity has lost its way for a few hundred years and forgotten to be good stewards of the Earth doesn't mean we can't change, as we often do, and become better at honoring our responsibilities. Just because an elite few humans who control economies are looking after their interests doesn't mean the entire race should die like that. This is taking self hatred way too far, the ultimate "It's all too hard - I give up".
It's exactly this attitude that has got us into the mess we're in and created the apathy that allows people to shirk their responsibilities. If climate changes we die, along with all the animal friends we've individualized, the Earth and everything else will do just fine. Looking after the environment is about looking after the next generations of humans and our living companions. It's about saving the humans and everything that is a part of humanity.
You're advocating for the destruction of all art, science, our philosophy, our history, everything we've built, discovered, preserved and saying that is a net positive? Sounds like you need a hug.
I'm gonna side with the human beings here and point out that the Earth's biggest chance of propagating this entire bio-sphere onto another world is human beings. I, personally, think humans are fucking amazing, I like people. Sure some of them are dickheads, some of them are stupid, some are assholes but we are always going to have losers. Losers that just give up instead of pushing as hard as they can until they break through some new frontier, like space and then go back and try to make good on their mistakes.
If we are the only beings like us in the universe what a gross loss that would be to the universe because, for all our flaws, we are a great ordering force in the universe that counteracts all of the chaos around us. If we make it into space, and I hope we do, maybe what we need to be is better to each other than we are down here. Maybe it's because of how we are concerned with how we will be served is why there is no human civilization in space, we're too selfish.
I hope I am alive to see it.
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All the things you've listed here are significant only for us. The universe doesn't care. A much better argument would be that science could allow life to propagate to other inhabitable planets, so that the inevitable end of the Earth wouldn't mean the end of all life (as far as we know) in this universe.
Still I
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Maybe not, however individualized consciousness certainly is.
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What's so good about "individualized consciousness"?
It can question its nature.
And while we're at it, are you sure free will actually exists?
Yes. You had enough autonomy to ask the question and I chose to respond.
we populate and procreate in as much area as we physically can, yet considering our lack of respect to this planet resources and our advances in science, we are now actually actively destroying our habitat, I mean planet Earth.
Yet we realize our flaws and eventually adapt.
Maybe we should start with decreasing our malevolent presence.
Great, lets start by eliminating consumerism.
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This guy. This is the kind of guy I'd like to have as a friend and have a beer with. We need more like you.
Thank you!
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Space is like having a baby - there's no perfect time to do it
But there are plenty of times when you shouldn't do it. Like when you're still in high school, or right after getting fired, etc...
Freedom? (Score:1)
Until our new Emperor says "All your planets are belong to us!"
Game over
For the lulz (Score:1)
for deez nuts
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c'mon - that was hilarious.
An "economy", destroys asteroids now? (Score:2)
"With a strong space economy, deflecting dangerous asteroids will be easy. Without it, we're just sitting ducks in a cosmic shooting gallery."
Care to explain exactly how a "space economy" is going to deflect the next planet-threatening rock hurtling at us? Are you going to throw your huge budget at it? Does a strong GDP on the Moon serve as some kind of magical force field?
Even if we did happen to have some kind of escape plan, it would be akin to scrambling for a lifeboat on the Titanic for the human population, which is far from "easy" as you claim. We're still sitting ducks in a cosmic shooting gallery, and will be for a very long time.
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The risk of a planet-threatening rock is absolutely miniscule. We haven't had those for billions of years, and the number of candidate rocks in the solar system is only getting less.
There's a small risk of a city-threatening rock, but the loss of a city is something that humanity can survive.
Re:An "economy", destroys asteroids now? (Score:4, Insightful)
The risk of a planet-threatening rock is absolutely miniscule. We haven't had those for billions of years, and the number of candidate rocks in the solar system is only getting less.
There's a small risk of a city-threatening rock, but the loss of a city is something that humanity can survive.
You've lived millions of minutes in your life. Doesn't mean your life might end within the next 15, so let's stop trying to play the "billions of years" game here. History means essentially nothing in the random game of cosmic pinball. Ironically, when bad shit doesn't happen for a very long time on our planet, many label that threat as long overdue, not dismiss it under the category of never-gonna-happen.
The risk has always been there, and pretty much static. It's not the threat that gets humans talking about this every few years. It's the potential impact. Either way, a thriving "space economy" is hardly the answer to deflecting asteroids.
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The risk of a planet-threatening rock is absolutely miniscule. We haven't had those for billions of years, and the number of candidate rocks in the solar system is only getting less. ... does not really make sense to try to multiply likelihood with risk to get a number.
The universe does not work like that. Either you get hit by a big rock you don't
And you are off by 3 magnitudes anyway ... the dinosaurs got wiped out 40 million years ago, not billions. And such a roc can hit us any day again. You can not pu
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For our freedom ? (Score:3)
For the freedom? (Score:5, Interesting)
If you think property taxes are a downer just imagine what an environment where every cubic meter only retains it's habitability for more than a few minutes at best because of the (almost certainly relatively centralized, highly complex; and carefully eyed and controlled by everyone else in the hab module who doesn't want to suffocate) life support systems.
It would, and this isn't something you expect to say often, be more plausible to declare an anarco-syndicalist commune on a nuclear submarine; at least there you are only a few minutes, an hour tops, from being able to surface and reach the relatively survivable environment of an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere with desalinateable water and edible organisms.
Yes, being 18 months out somewhere will keep the Terrestrial Tyranny Troops from sending their jackboot squads to bust up your party on short notice; but to the indirect force imposed by an environment that will kill you up right quick, if more impersonal, is even more urgent than any thing squad.
If anything, space colonization, if undertaken, is likely to be super dystopian: when it costs a small to medium fortune to deliver someone to space(and shipping times are long for anything much beyond the moon); do you think that you'll get to change your mind when you get homesick? Or decide that you don't really want to be a martian reactor technician? Or opt out of your assigned role in the breeding scheme designed to keep a tiny human population on the right side of genetically viable? It'll be cool And sci-fi and stuff; but odds are notably better that your colony will basically be a bunch of indentured servants under Mission Control's central planning and eugenics programs(at least for quite some time, the constraints will presumably recede back to 'your fellow colonists and their concern about life support' if a large, self-sustaining population is achieved; which means several generations of the creepy dystopia, at best).
Ok, I admit, I liked Firefly: dashing captain escaping to the space frontier with his plucky crew to make their way with their ship and their luck, good story. But that story involved preposterously generous soft sci-fi: Earth-level habitable planets all over the place, travel times of weeks maximum even for a beater spaceship, leaving planetary gravity Wells just morning's work. Not how it works out in the black.
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There are reasons you usually get these calls from affluent white dudes, the people who already have the most freedom and economic access i
"get a sizable chunk of humanity off planet" (Score:2)
This is an illusion at least for a very long time to come. The current human population growth rate is about 75 million per year, about 140 humans every minute. That's how many humans you currently have to transport into space just to stay even. To get a sizable chunk, say 1Bn, off planet within 10 years put another 190 on top of that, every minute, day and night, every day of the year. That's about two jumbo jets full of people every three minutes, and even if you make your space craft reusable round trip
P.S.: correction (Score:2)
... not low earth orbit, but geosynchronous orbit plus whatever extra the space lift gives you.
Re: "get a sizable chunk of humanity off planet" (Score:2)
Obviously, deploying a nuclear war or engineered plague after you've finished cozying up i
Not a physicist (Score:3)
I'm not a physicist but all these four reasons sound like total BS for me.
Doing science from the Earth is a lot more practical. The farther we go, the less control and abilities we have. Things which have left the solar system are as good as totally useless.
This sounds exceptionally romantic to bear any significance. Also, we can't really what would have happened, had we not discovered and sailed to Americas circa 1494. However I'm absolutely sure we'd discover them sooner or later. And most science was done in Europe up to the 20th century anyways. As far as I know the USA became a scientific hub only during/after the first world war maybe because a lot European (mostly German) scientists emigrated to the US.
It would be 1,000,000 times better to limit/stop/reverse the growth of the world population, to combat global warming and to create weapons/methods to combat asteroids.
It's in our evolutionary nature to amass power and control the others. Colonies are even more likely to become tyrannies because there's nowhere to go and resources are exceptionally limited.
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Global warming has nothing to do with population growth on earth.
Most of it is - and most importantly was - caused by the industrialized first nations. In other words, 90% of the CO2 we have now are caused by a low percentage of the population over a course of the last 100 years, minus the last ten years.
There are only few countries left anyway where population is growing ... no idea why people are to stupid to realize that.
this one (Score:3)
For the Knowledge: We know little about the universe, despite our conceit that we have things figured out. The farther we go, the more new things we will encounter, and the more our knowledge and understanding will expand.
I like this one.
We do mostly just sit here and theorize about things based on electromagnetic radiation just happening to fall on us.
Nonsense and this guy should know better (Score:2)
We will not get any significant number of people into space anytime soon. And in particular the last reason is either a direct lie or simply inspired by stupidity. If humans go into space, it will be in a highly controlled environment for a long, long time.
Lets aim for something practicle (Score:2)
Realistically if we want an off world colony of any kind we probably are looking at mars or the moon. Anything else is just to far away; to even consider resupplying or sending additional waves of colonists. (after all if the distance is great you run the risk wave 2 shows up in time to find the first group all dead because literally anything went wrong). Additionally you need to be able to resupply said colony at least for the startup years with replacements for anything requiring complex manufacture.
Europe was not stagnant at beginning of the 16th C (Score:2)
Better arguements (Score:2)
For the Knowledge:
We know little about our own planet. We have barely been to the bottom of the ocean. We have barely explored Antarctica, a continent that is 10% of the total land mass.
Each year, scientists identify about 15,000 new species of animals, plants, fungi or microorganisms. It is estimated that about 86% of existing species on Earth have yet to be discovered or identified.
For the Challenge:
Space is a challenge, but there is no shortage of challenges for man to achieve. Heart disease is the #1 ca
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The problem with the USA is simply that it's too powerful. As 50 independent states, it would be fine. That's also the problem with any world government: absolute power corrupts absolutely. A space colony far enough away that it'd be difficult to control would provide at least a slight diversity of government, a slight backup.
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You're the kind of guy that doesn't buy real estate in Spain because the African plate will just gobble up your seaside mansion in less than 2 million years...
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Space weapons, spy satellites, space debris,...
You were saying?