- 14 Dec 2017 15:15
#14870886
Potemkin wrote:It is said that generals tend to fight the previous war instead of the war that's actually happening, and I think the same thing is true for the exploration of space. We are unconsciously trying to repeat the great voyages of exploration which opened up the world to European colonisation and conquest back in the 16th and 17th centuries, regardless of whether or not is is appropriate to do so in the current circumstances. Because the ships of the 16th and 17th centuries were crewed by human beings, we pack our spacecraft with human beings. Because the captains of those expeditions would plant their nation's flag on the newly discovered lands, we plant an American flag or a Soviet flag or a Chinese flag in the dust of the Moon. Considered objectively, it's idiotic. It is incredibly wasteful and utterly pointless. Why are we doing this? Why are we even thinking of doing this? Mars is not the Earth; it will never be habitable for human beings. We haven't even colonised Antarctica, and we think we can colonise Mars? Even the Moon is unfit for human habitation.I agree, but going to the Moon does make sense as it is our natural stepping stone to explore, exploit and "colonise" the Solar System. Earth is like a prison because of the enormous energy needed to lift spacecraft and content into space. Building Moon bases with production capabilities, producing the necessary spacecraft, equipment and fuel there, and launching space missions from there would be far more cost-effective than what we are doing so far.
Only machine intelligences (assuming we manage to create them) will be able to explore and operate in space - they will have the long lifespans and the robustness to survive the huge time spans required for interstellar travel and the extreme physical harshness of space. Our biology ties us to the Earth, and we need to accept this fact.Terraforming Mars or other planets or moons in the solar system is not cost-effective and indeed very challenging because of our biological restrictions. But there may be more options to colonise/terraform in the future due to developments in technical feasibility, cost-effectiveness and revolutionary technologies. Also, future machines could expand our ecosystems and civilisation to the planets of other star systems. We could send arks with frozen eggs, cells and DNA of humans and other organisms, giving machines a mission to cultivate planets that have potential to host Terran life.
foxdemon wrote:To stir the pot a little, Venus is a viable target for a colony. What to argue about it?Under the current conditions on Venus only its upper atmosphere may be viable for colonisation; but it would be very expensive and without any advantage (except for Venus' gravity and pressure). Nor is it off any added value, a space station in orbit around Venus would be far more cost-effective than that.
colliric wrote:Um no. NASA has proven there are planets beyond this solar system which are known to be capable of possibly supporting Human Life and other carbon based lifeforms.There is no proof that the discovered exoplanets have any capacity to support human life. It's just that some of them are rock planets that are in the Goldilocks zone of their respective star. There is no indication so far about the actual conditions on those planets being in any way hospitable for human life. But probability is of course high that somewhere in the universe such hospitable planets/moons do exist.
"The Easter Island conservatives are dropping out of Land Erosion treaties. They say the giant heads will save us." - Qatz