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Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species

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Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species

#121

Post by bmcusick »

Well I don't care about all you naysayers and negative nellies. I'm psyched as hell by this.

1/ Does humanity need to stop screwing up Earth? Yes. Does Elon going to Mars make that job any harder? No. Is claiming that people shouldn't try to make progress on issue X until issue Y is fully resolved total BS? Yes.

2/ Are planets the best place for human colonization off Earth? I have no idea. I find The High Frontier to be persuasive but I think we can all agree that landing a few people on Mars is easier than building an O'Neil Cylinder. Baby steps, people! Even if Mars ends up being a backwater, the infrastructure that Musk builds to allow its colonization will also allow us to start developing the rest of the solar system too.

Remember, Elon's going to build a giant reusable rocket that can lift hundreds of tons into orbit with each launch, and I doubt SpaceX is going to use 100% of that launch capacity. I'm sure that if Bezos, Bigelow, or some other billionaire wants to throw a 6,000 cubit meter inflatable space-hab at L5 as a starter-home for O'Neil colonies, Musk will be happy to sell him that launch.

3/ Will Elon terraform Mars within his lifetime? Probably not! Is that a reason to never start? No.

4/ Even if the colony doesn't work out, just think of the science! If Musk can put colonists on Mars he'll also be able to send teams of NASA, ESA, etc. astronauts for the Martian equivalent of McMurdo Station. And the same for Venus (in floating habitat at 50km altitude), the Moon, or even the larger asteroids or outer moons.

5/ If you have a rocket that big, and colonization makes the economics cheap, just think of the size of the telescopes you can put into orbit. Hubble, eat your heart out.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species

#122

Post by 3pt14159 »

restalis wrote: post #42
3pt14159 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Outer Space Treaty was written with the party states knowing that it was a medium term measure. Capitalism will come to The Moon, Mars, and Venus. It will start with people just building wherever there is available land, like we did on the frontier, then once a couple thousand or a couple hundred thousand people are in outer space a new treaty will be formed around the political realities of the day.

"Capitalism will come to The Moon, Mars, and Venus." The thing is that the order on which capitalism relies on to exist is not uphold outside the recognized international treaties. So, good luck on defending whatever ownership claims you have or you'll just have to submit to whoever can reach you and has more power than you. Also, it's kind of pointless for a government on Earth to claim ownership of outer space unle…

Extraterrestrial contact aside, governments will recognize property in space because it is in their interests to coordinate teams and allocate resources. This is most easily done through state backed capitalism. Governments that act in bad faith will see a dramatic drop in wealth due to sanctions and there is always MAD as a final safeguard.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species

#123

Post by 3pt14159 »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #29
3pt14159 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Outer Space Treaty was written with the party states knowing that it was a medium term measure. Capitalism will come to The Moon, Mars, and Venus. It will start with people just building wherever there is available land, like we did on the frontier, then once a couple thousand or a couple hundred thousand people are in outer space a new treaty will be formed around the political realities of the day.

I agree. In some ways the OST resembles the Antarctic Treaty: intended to mitigate the near and medium-term problems until something new comes along. And I don't have a problem with capitalism per se , but our legal and political systems don't seem to be doing a very good job of managing its excesses.

Many of our systems deal just fine with capitalism. Most Nato members. Most Nordic countries. Some of the Americas and some of Asia.

I don't think it is hopeless, but we'll need to reign in the outliers to stop global warming / Kessler syndrome.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species

#124

Post by zer0gravity »

watwatwatwat wrote: post #116
zer0gravity wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Musk is able to do it, then he will beat all the governments from Earth. However, I expect to see a lot of politics in this. It's just too an important of an issue to remain uncontrolled. I dunno, maybe we should work on our social decision making process as well, not just on technology. Progress is a function of both and we seem to be leaving the social one behind. Maybe we should be working to transition to a ki…

The problem is not the kind of democracy, those are just definitions. Is that people don't care (not about their privacy, not about earth, not about anything). And sincerely why should I care? I'm going to die in 50/60 years. I exploit others as much as I can then farewell.

So you say, if they behave like cattle, I shall behave like the wolf. Fair enough, there may be some justice in that, but the predator behaviour is the one that brough us where we are in the first place. It's true that it' also the one that gave us our intelligence.

The thing is that one may expect that intelligence would change things, but apparently it doesn't. It's just another tool on the predator's toolbelt. But somehow I just can't settle with this, it seams there should be a middle way..

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species

#125

Post by tangue »

tsaprailis wrote: post #15
tangue wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Each time I'm hearing about minerals (like in asteroid mining) I'm wondering how do you deal with atmosphere re-entry ? Meteorites made of metal are melting so what's the plan here ? And which country will be ok to receive a ton of unguided metal on its territory ?

I think the whole idea of space/asteroid mining is to use them eventually in space based manufacturing. The biggest cost of space exploration is actually raising a spaceship into outer space. If you just build it up there it's very fuel efficient to transport between space and to other stations/planets.

Ok in an Ender's game future, but asteroid startups are talking about ten years...

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species

#127

Post by dharma1 »

espadrine wrote: post #22
dharma1 wrote: post #17

If we succeed (long term), will there be countries in Mars? Governance? Who will own the land and resources?

It is really no different than it has always been. If a colony on Mars wants independence, it can draft a military to enforce its independence and/or seek the diplomatic approval of other nations.

I'm not really sure how this would work.

Suppose SpaceX (or another operator) establishes a colony with people from various countries - what country (if any) is that colony subject to? Perhaps all the countries initially, but after a couple of generations?

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species

#128

Post by jonnycowboy »

ema wrote: post #108
harperlee wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So could we engineer ourselves to be able to withstand more radiation? Perhaps with advances in cancer treatment and CRISPR-style modifications on the most fragile parts of the genome we can make us more resilient so we can become a multiplanetary species... On the other hand, sending life to Mars, due to that radiation, would make it evolve much faster, right? Perhaps we can start terraforming it and study the evolu…

> On the other hand, sending life to Mars, due to that radiation, would make it evolve much faster, right? The bottleneck in evolution isn't mutations but selection events (~= number of organisms).

Not anymore, at least with CRISPR.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species

#129

Post by espadrine »

dharma1 wrote: post #127
espadrine wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is really no different than it has always been. If a colony on Mars wants independence, it can draft a military to enforce its independence and/or seek the diplomatic approval of other nations.

I'm not really sure how this would work. Suppose SpaceX (or another operator) establishes a colony with people from various countries - what country (if any) is that colony subject to? Perhaps all the countries initially, but after a couple of generations?

SpaceX is an american company, so they are subject to their laws.

The situation is similar to Antarctica, which is home to a large number of small scientific settlements, each following the rules of the country that it is bound to.

A treaty that some countries have signed acknowledges some country borders, but they are not enforced in practice, and those territories are home to settlements from other countries — you even have multi-nationality settlements.

Re: Making Humans a Multiplanetary Species

#130

Post by otempomores »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #50
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.…

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

Can they? Or are they just sock puppets? Irresponsibility abstracted?
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