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Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species

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Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species

#71

Post by restalis »

danblick wrote: post #38

This reminds me of Astro Teller's recent article: http://qz.com/536483/why-its-compeltely-ridiculous-to-think-... """...we live on a planet that is perfect for us, and we seem to be unable to prevent ourselves from making it less and less habitable. We’re like a bunch of teenagers destroying our parents’ mansion in one long, crazy party, figuring that our backup plan is to run into the forest and build our own house.…

"Proponents of Mars colonization talk about “terraforming” Mars to make it more like Earth, but in the meantime, we’re “marsforming” Earth"

I never thought about that before, but this is definitely a way to speed up anything - literally change the destination reference to look more like the the piece in work.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species

#72

Post by prawn »

grondilu wrote: post #65
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Teller really ought to blame the system and leaders who can actually change environmental policies rather than, you know, our whole species.

You make it sound like we've been destroying environment only lately and with current political systems. Humans have been wrecking havoc various environments ever since Neolithic. Although there's no definitive proof, there are strong suggestions that they were at least contributing to the disappearance of the Mega-fauna, for instance. Examples of small human settlements in small islands are very characteristic, IMHO…

You were doing pretty well until that Maori culture comment. In their elimination of a species, are they really that different to man anywhere else?

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species

#73

Post by TeMPOraL »

misterS wrote: post #8
flexie wrote: post #7

Imagine the wealth a company could amass if it succeeded in terraforming mars. Rare metals, sale of land etc. This is one of those markets where you have rather high barriers to entry.

> rather high barriers to entry. About 55 million kilometers/34 million miles high at least.

(nitpick)

In space, you count barriers to entry in km/s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species

#74

Post by grondilu »

prawn wrote: post #72
grondilu wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make it sound like we've been destroying environment only lately and with current political systems. Humans have been wrecking havoc various environments ever since Neolithic. Although there's no definitive proof, there are strong suggestions that they were at least contributing to the disappearance of the Mega-fauna, for instance. Examples of small human settlements in small islands are very characteristic, IMHO…

You were doing pretty well until that Maori culture comment. In their elimination of a species, are they really that different to man anywhere else?

Fair enough. Edited.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species

#75

Post by CoryG89 »

kseistrup wrote: post #55
noir_lord wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on the other side of this one, while I think it's stupid to wreck the Earth because we need it I don't see why we shouldn't expand out and use the resources, they are just rocks waiting for us to do something with them.

We don't know yet if they're just rocks. And if we can't take care of Earth, I fail to see how we could ever take care of another planet.

Think about 50 years from now, when we are expected to have a few more billion people living here on Earth. If you think things are stretched to their limit now, just wait.

It may be that the only way to save Earth is to give some of the 10+ billion another place to go.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species

#76

Post by sktrdie »

I'm always confused about our priority for us to become a multi-planetary species. Planets are interesting to us for their resources, but they provide a far greater risk: they're another huge gravity well. This means that it's expensive/resourceful to leave these places (as it currently is for earth).

So I'm confused to why not make space habitats our priority instead of other planets. Certainly inhabiting planets is something that will happen regardless, I'm just baffled to why it needs to happen before we build something like a Stanford Torus.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species

#77

Post by feintruled »

kseistrup wrote: post #44

Humans belong to one of the most, if not THE most, destructive species on Earth. We exploit all resources we can lay our hands on and destroy plants and animals in the wake of our immense and selfish greed. We would serve the Universe best if we stayed here on Earth, and possibly even obliterated ourselves.

There is an irony here in that we are the only beings we (yet) know of that in any way appreciate the universe on an aethestic level, on subjective criteria we have determined ourselves. So we would be obliterating ourselves to save the universe for... ?

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species

#78

Post by JBReefer »

khoury wrote: post #16
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really not sure I want companies to have the capability to re-format entire planets. That sounds like entirely too much power for any organisation to have, if only given its potential for weaponisation. And land sale? The Outer Space Treaty [1] prohibits governments from claiming ownership of planets, so where would the authority to sell land on Mars come from? Do we really want companies to own planets? Weyland-…

Does the concept of "owning" even exist outside of earth? Interesting times.

So far as we know, no concepts exist outside Earth

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species

#79

Post by ohitsdom »

kseistrup wrote: post #44

Humans belong to one of the most, if not THE most, destructive species on Earth. We exploit all resources we can lay our hands on and destroy plants and animals in the wake of our immense and selfish greed. We would serve the Universe best if we stayed here on Earth, and possibly even obliterated ourselves.

So because we're resourceful, we shouldn't venture off our planet and consider mass suicide?

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species

#80

Post by namaemuta »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #68
espadrine wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is easy to have an effect on something, and much harder to have a positive one. Building a house takes months, but in a day, it can be burnt. Fighting entropy 101.

Now imagine building that house together with 20 people who all try to scream at, sue or shoot each other over trivial and irrelevant details. That's generally how all international affairs look like. In terms of lowering entropy, we're not even trying.

That's why I want SpaceX to success. If they manage to get some profits or find something interesting out there, the race for the colonization would be even bigger than the space race during the cold war.
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