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There’s no planet B

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Re: There’s no planet B

#51

Post by paulryanrogers »

roryisok wrote: post #41
mabbo wrote: post #32

Let's set aside the part that making a planet where we could live is hard. Just presume we did that, to start. Let's talk Logistics . Presume there are only 1 billion people left on Earth when we decide it's time to go. How do you get them there ? The gravity well holding us here (and holding the air down so we can breath it) is pretty darn strong. Today we're hoping to get cost-to-orbit down to around $100/kg. I wei…

The idea of finding another Earth is not so much about moving everyone from Earth to somewhere else, but rather about "backing up" our species and civilisation in additional places. If an asteroid is going to wipe out Earth, we can't evacuate 8 billion people, or even 8 million people. but if we had a few generations of colonists in domes on Mars, or floating in the clouds on Venus, or somewhere else, the species its…

> But we're crazy to keep all of our existential eggs in a single basket and hope it all works out.

While the cost to colonize elsewhere is "mine the earth to a wasteland" it does make sense to preserve the basket we have. At least until we can afford to buy another basket without ruining the original.

Re: There’s no planet B

#52

Post by Cthulhu_ »

Pinegulf wrote: post #7

> The scientific evidence is clear: the only celestial body that can support us is the one we evolved with. I must have missed the evidence. Exactly what were they? Additionally, don't stand in the way of those who wish to boldly go where no-one has gone before.

> I must have missed the evidence. Exactly what were they?

We haven't found another body yet, let alone one that is within reach. The headline leaves the "yet" out intentionally, to be stronger and goad people into engaging with and reacting to it.

Re: There’s no planet B

#53

Post by coldtea »

ben_w wrote: post #39
hattmall wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why would a terraformed mars somehow be better than even a highly polluted earth? The only potentially legitimate reason for a move to Mars would be to get away from other people on earth.

A desire to explore and settle a new frontier isn't legitime?

Not so much. Populations look for new better frontiers, not merely new frontiers...

Re: There’s no planet B

#56

Post by college_physics »

> There’s No Planet B

The mere need to state this suggests we are facing a serious problem internalizing our condition. We are not taking seriously the implications of human choices and actions when multiplied by billions.

The sustainability of our living on Earth was not even a visible problem 300 years ago [0]. It is far more of a problem now and could become a terminal problem 300 years from now.

300 years is nothing in the scheme of things. We should be scared. Not in a superficial, panicky way, but in a deep, culture-changing way. Obviously the problem does not yet hit the present generations severely enough (hence the luxury of idle talk). But it will certainly hit the ones following in the near future.

[0] Alexander von Humbolt seems to be the first author that articulated environmental risk circa ~1800.

Re: There’s no planet B

#57

Post by credit_guy »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #48
api wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a straw man. I still don’t hear anyone serious saying humanity will pick up and move to Mars or anywhere else. They say a very small number of humans (relative to the billions of us) may try to go to the Moon or Mars. That is conceivable. In our lifetimes I could picture basically McMurdo station on the Moon and some flights back and forth to Mars. I could picture a mostly autonomous settlement somewhere in 1…

The only reason - for now - for people to go to / from Mars and the Moon is for scientific reasons or for money. I think the only way that trips to the moon or mars that will earn money is space tourism. I don't believe Mars will have any valuable resources, for example. Or even discovering them will require an improbable amount of investments (trillions). The last reason I can think of is political; the first major…

There could be one more reason: living on the frontier.

It's not about discovering new materials, or technologies, or physical phenomena.

It's about exploring new social contracts. Here on Earth we are stuck with whatever social arrangements we've developed over the millennia, we can tweak here and there, but we can't start with a blank slate.

For me this would be the grand prize: figuring out better ways for people to live together.

Re: There’s no planet B

#58

Post by paulryanrogers »

ben_w wrote: post #39
hattmall wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why would a terraformed mars somehow be better than even a highly polluted earth? The only potentially legitimate reason for a move to Mars would be to get away from other people on earth.

A desire to explore and settle a new frontier isn't legitime?

Desire is reasonable. Yet permanently settling Mars or beyond is unreasonable based on some fundamental physics.

Re: There’s no planet B

#59

Post by roryisok »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #51
roryisok wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of finding another Earth is not so much about moving everyone from Earth to somewhere else, but rather about "backing up" our species and civilisation in additional places. If an asteroid is going to wipe out Earth, we can't evacuate 8 billion people, or even 8 million people. but if we had a few generations of colonists in domes on Mars, or floating in the clouds on Venus, or somewhere else, the species its…

> But we're crazy to keep all of our existential eggs in a single basket and hope it all works out. While the cost to colonize elsewhere is "mine the earth to a wasteland" it does make sense to preserve the basket we have. At least until we can afford to buy another basket without ruining the original.

> While the cost to colonize elsewhere is "mine the earth to a wasteland"

I'm not sure where this idea is coming from. I think the idea of most modern colonisation plans is to use materials at the location to build habitats etc, by 3d printing using martian soil or lunar regolith, not ship millions of tons of natural resources into space.

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