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Dogmudgeon Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-16-07 12:06 AM
Original message
Eternal Frontier: Why We Need to Expand into Space
As seen on Slashdot and Cosmos Magazine On-Line.

Said Zentropa at Slashdot:

"Why do humans need to explore and colonize space? To save the planet and our species, argues an opinion piece in Cosmos, an Aussie science magazine. It makes some good points from an angle you may not have previously considered; for example, it's in the universe's best interest to keep us around. We make things fun. 'So what if humans pass into history? It's not just a tragedy for us, but also one for nature. Without us, there is no one to witness its infinite beauty; no one to marvel at a sunset, revel in a view, or thrill to the breaking of a wave on a beach. As the late astronomer and author Carl Sagan once said, "we are a way for the universe to know itself". But we also deserve to continue because we have created things greater than ourselves. Not only scientific and engineering knowledge, valuable as this is -- we have also created new and beautiful ways to see the world through art, music, literature and performance.'"

And here is a chunk of the original opinion piece at Cosmos:

I love our planet. I love its trees, its mountains, its oceans, its big beautiful skies and its extraordinary diversity of life. What we have on this world is precious — it's worth cherishing and nurturing.

But that doesn't mean I think that traveling beyond this planet is a waste of time or resources; or that I think we should instead focus on getting our world right before venturing into space. That's just plain silly: did we fix Europe before embarking for the Far East and the Americas? Did we perfect an idyllic nomadic society before leaving the African plains? Waiting to get our 'house in order' will achieve nothing but guarantee the demise and eventual destruction of our planet, our ecosystem and our species. Going into space is one of the best things we can do to save our world, and ourselves.

...

The first thing to do is reduce our impact on the planet: make technologies more efficient and our cities, transport systems and industrial processes less damaging to ecosystems. We rely on the web of life to sustain us: we need bees to pollinate, trees to make oxygen and worms to aerate the soil, or we would swiftly perish.

And after that? Do we mandate population controls? Do we nominate an arbitrary age at which people need to 'retire', as in the dystopian fictional vision of Logan's Run? Because populations will continue to grow, especially as child mortality falls and science finds ways of extending human lives. The logical thing to do is to expand beyond Earth: to build colonies on Mars, floating habitats in Earth's Lagrange orbits, mines on the Moon and the asteroids, and expand deeper into our Solar System.

...

We need to expand into space because Earth alone cannot sustain us. Space provides a pressure valve, but exploring it will also ensure our survival. Because one day, a massive calamity will befall our world — an asteroid strike, ice ages, supervolcanoes, solar bursts or nuclear war — and we may disappear, or our civilisation fall.

...


This is obviously going to have to be a long-term project, but I think we should begin, ASAP, to move heavy industry into space. "ASAP" could be as little as a decade (the start of it), but will probably be more than that. As I have written before on several occasions, most of the problems we are facing (other than war) are from our failures to build for the future. That building commonly goes under the name of "infrastructure" but also includes development in space.

As a result of the war in Iraq, we are getting a chance to see just how much we have sacrificed for the insane ruinous folly that is war. The trillion dollars in direct costs so far for the neo-Cons' recreation could pay the budget of NASA for 40 years; the cost of a "skyhook" tower into space is estimated at $45 billion for the first one, and $16 billion for each one thereafter; development of a new generation of space transport vehicles would take $20 billion mainly in guaranteed loans among private companies; a full-scale mission to Mars would cost, at a high estimate, $400 billion. The war is a project on an even larger scale, and is entirely destructive. It is like taking money out of the banks and the economy, burning it, and pretending that it is a noble act.

We also have ten million wind plants and 2000 nuclear reactors to build for our energy supply; the reform of industrialized agricultural monoculture; community and urban re-planning (e.g., de-suburbanization); desertification, especially of Iberian peninsula, to stop, and reverse; and, before I forget, global warming itself to stop and reverse.

If the entire world decided to physically rebuild and modernize, and incorporate space development as part of that strategy, we could put $5 trillion (world) per year into it, turn a profit, eliminate unemployment, clean up our act on a species-wide basis, achieve something close to a utopia, AND turn a profit for everyone. Developing a solid foothold in space should be a part of that work.

--p!
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losthills Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-16-07 12:44 AM
Response to Original message
1. Space exploration
is never a waste of money or resources. It is essential. It's essential for some of the practical reasons given, and it's essential for the pursuit of knowledge. We inhabit a certain space in the universe and it's important for us to understand that space in order to understand ourselves and our world. We need to explore every part of our solar system, and the knowledge gained along the way will lead to things that would be impossible to predict at the outset....
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defendandprotect Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-16-07 12:52 AM
Response to Original message
2. PNAC-THINK ---
It's the idea, of course, of capturing the highest hill --

We're always threatened by "others" of course -- !!!!

In fact, LBJ was talking about this in the 1950's . . . and, of course, we had taken in Werner Von Braun and other Nazis a while before that.

We are bound to this planet -- it is doubtful that we have ever landed any live astronaut on the moon.

We are unsuited for space travel --
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Mythsaje Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-16-07 01:37 AM
Response to Reply #2
4. We don't have gills either, but we managed to cross thousands
of miles of ocean. We don't have wings, but we managed to learn to fly.

That's why we have brains--to learn to adapt ourselves to the various environments into which we expand.

And the moon? Are you kidding me?

Sheesh.
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defendandprotect Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-16-07 11:27 PM
Response to Reply #4
16. This isn't a matter of "learning" -- this is a matter of not being capable. . . .
of suviving space travel.

Humans cannot survive even a year in space --

Now . . . one day evolution may present us with an entirely different human being . . . .
but expectations would be that Global Warming gets us before that.

The moon? Are you kidding me -- !!!! LOL

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Mythsaje Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-17-07 01:44 AM
Response to Reply #16
18. We're probably 20 years, at the outside,
of taking control of the next stages of evolution. It's a scary thought, but it's almost certainly going to happen. China and N. Korea are rapidly becoming the leaders in biotech research, and I guarantee you that they do not fight our moral battles. People here laughed at Bush and his statements about human/animal hybrids but that's one of the few things he's ever said that I actually agreed with.

I'm curious why you believe that humans can't survive a year in space. And why you're so certain we never landed on the moon.
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defendandprotect Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-17-07 09:52 PM
Response to Reply #18
21. We are more likely "hybrids" and we don't control evolution ---
Edited on Fri Aug-17-07 09:53 PM by defendandprotect
Man is not nature -- man is not a creator.

What we see from everything that man touches is disaster and destruction.

If humans could survive far adventures in space, it would be happening.
We have problems keeping people on the space station -- and I think a woman -- Shannon _____ --
might still hold the record for that. I'm presuming that is NEAR space.

Usually, when the males come off they don't walk -- she was OK.

I'm not CERTAIN we didn't land on the moon. I feel confident that we probably didn't.
Russia, for one, was far ahead of us re radiation -- because they put satellites up where it was obvious the impact. And they had a great deal more time and training invested in space travel.
Their cosmonauts speak about dead cosmonauts -- something America doesn't acknowledge.
Sputnik was a great public relations challenge for America --

There are many reasons why I don't believe we landed men on the moon --
The Van Allen Belts are just part of it -- human vulnerabilities are just part of it.
Evidence from space of the impact on helmets/satellites -- just part of it.


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Mythsaje Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-18-07 02:11 AM
Response to Reply #21
22. A space station constructed to create artificial gravity
through spin can easily fix the problem with prolonged weightlessness. Dude, much greater minds than ours have weighed in on these issues time and time again. All of what you're saying is simply crazy conjecture with no links to verifiable facts.

You're telling me that they've managed to keep this more or less a secret for almost forty years without it getting out? I don't buy it for a minute.
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hunter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-16-07 10:42 AM
Response to Reply #2
11. My grandfather was one of the many engineers on the Apollo Project.
Parts of the Apollo 11 capsule displayed at the Smithsonian are his handiwork.

Of all the things he built in his life, of all the engineering projects he was part of, he was most proud of that.

You are kidding, perhaps, when you say it is doubtful that we have ever landed any live astronaut on the moon???

Okay.

Engage :sarcasm:

Personally, I wonder if the internet exists. I've been thinking all you people here on DU are just a figment of some huge computer's imagination, well, except for the posters I've actually met... but maybe those people are only lying about posting on DU, claiming the computer's words as their own.

And what do I know? I'm just a dog.




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defendandprotect Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-16-07 11:35 PM
Response to Reply #11
17. Much of what happened was compartmentalized . . . .
Remember, it was Werner Von Braun heading NASA . . .

I'm sure the Apollo 11 was a good capsule . . .

No I'm not kidding about the unlikelihood of our having landed live astronauts on the moon.

There's a video active at the moment and other stuff that has tried to suggest that we haven't been back because the moon was "occupied" -- "bogeys" --

I'm not saying there are no ET's in space --
I'm saying that the myth of us landing astronauts on the moon is unlikely --
The Van Allen Belts being the primary reason --

But, post-myth, you can see that we didn't return. Is that likely? No.
The Russians were always ahead of us in space. If anyone made it it would have likely been them.
Meanwhile, they tell of dead Russian astronauts.







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Mythsaje Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-17-07 01:46 AM
Response to Reply #17
19. You do realize that the Van Allen belt theory
has been debunked, don't you?

What pseudo-scientific nonsense.
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defendandprotect Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-17-07 09:44 PM
Response to Reply #19
20. The Van Allen Belts have not been "debunked" --
In fact, you should understand that in the early 60's, I believe, we exploded three nuclear weapons in outer space which some suggest was an effort to break thru the Van Allen Belts.
Unsuccessful, of course --

The fascists in control of NASA had no problems with introducing nuclear stuff into space --
however, JFK, seemed to more logically understand the dangers of this and he was very specifically objecting to nuclear fuels suggested by Werner Von Braun.

The radiation levels in space are even higher and more intense than presumed --
but at even known levels of radiation, HUMAN BEINGS CANNOT SURVIVE MORE THAN A YEAR IN SPACE.

In fact, women seem to hold up better than males according to the records that have been set for time in space.

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Mythsaje Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-18-07 02:28 AM
Response to Reply #20
23. Bullshit...
Sergei Krikalev spent 814 days in space, beating the record set by ANOTHER Sergei, Sergei Avdeyev of 748 days. The longest time spent by an American is only about a year. You REALLY need to stop reading those stupid conspiracy websites, my friend.

The most serious threat to health outside the atmosphere, and, incidentally, outside the Van Allen Belts, is the lack of gravity. Humans can only tolerate zero-gee for so long. That can easily be countered by building stations that use spin to create artificial gravity.

I really can't believe I'm debating this crap.
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bananas Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-18-07 03:54 AM
Response to Reply #23
28. There is no Van Allen Belt!!!
This blog entry by Van Allen's nephew debunks that myth!
Click on the photo and look closely - you will see there is no Van Allen Belt!

http://people.artcenter.edu/~vanallen/2006/08/james-van-allen-1914-2006.html

Thursday, August 10, 2006
James Van Allen, 1914 - 2006

Yesterday my Uncle James Van Allen died in Iowa City, Iowa at the age of 91.
<snip>

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bananas Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-18-07 03:24 AM
Response to Reply #11
26. You can't fool me - those aren't real dogs!
Here is PROOF the moon landings were faked!
http://www.stuffucanuse.com/fake_moon_landings/moon_landings.htm

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Mythsaje Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-16-07 01:34 AM
Response to Original message
3. I'm more or less exactly on the same page as Sagan
on this. Exploration is a quest to find the divine spark, to see what's over the next hill, to find the answers to the next mystery. It was something that's ingrained in us, so ingrained in fact that WE are not the only primate, and not only primate, that suffers from it. If WE did not achieve sentience, or should something happen to us that doesn't take out the creatures that live so close to us now, they may eventually evolve to take our place.

It may be that the universe requires sentience, that it's part of its ultimate design. Or so I see it.

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bananas Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-16-07 05:08 AM
Response to Reply #3
8. Me too, although sometimes I wonder
if any dinosaurs had the same thoughts...

(dinosaurs were around a long time - we don't know what levels of sentience and cognition they reached)

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razzleberry Donating Member (877 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-16-07 02:42 AM
Response to Original message
5. if somebody else pays for this ...
if somebody else pays for this
(somebody other than the US)

I would support it.
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ramapo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-16-07 09:51 AM
Response to Reply #5
10. 1960s Space program was America at its best
What was accomplished in less than a decade was nothing short of incredible. Had we maintained that dedication to excellence, I think we'd be living in a far different country. The knowledge gained and technology invented in our quest for the moon was applicable across society.

The cost of our space program is minimal compared to what is pissed away by the defense department. Multiply the cost by ten and it would still be relatively minor.

That we trashed the program is a tragedy. It was foolish and shortsighted. I don't think we'd be colonizing planets but I bet we would've made at least an attempt at Mars.

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Adsos Letter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-16-07 03:47 AM
Response to Original message
6. I have such mixed feelings on this issue...
...yes, better understanding, increases in knowledge...good things...especially if they can help alleviate the multifaceted crises we face as a planet.

I just wonder about the wisdom of trying to find answers and colonize other planets when we can't seem to cooperate in fixing what we have going here.

And, I guess I wonder if we wouldn't be better applying the resources committed to the space program to fixing the problems we have here and now...then let us go out into the stars.

:shrug:
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GeorgeGist Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-16-07 04:28 AM
Response to Original message
7. vain drivel /nt
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phantom power Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-16-07 09:47 AM
Response to Original message
9. The baby either gets born, or the baby and the mother both die.
We've already been in the womb about a month too long.
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The2ndWheel Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-16-07 10:52 AM
Response to Original message
12. We're not solving anything by going into space
Nothing was "solved" when the "New World" was found either.

I'm sure we'll try to go into space. We might even get there. It just won't solve anything. All it will do is create newer and bigger problems.
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hunter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-16-07 11:39 AM
Response to Original message
13. The infrastructure will be Artificial Intelligence and Robotics.
I used to think space was comparable to deep sea stuff -- after all submarines and deep sea diving suits are roughly comparable to space ships and space suits. But the difference is you can build all that deep sea stuff in a hospitable environment, and the energy cost of getting it to where you want it isn't great.

But there is a very high energy cost to lofting stuff into space, and the answer "build it in space" is roughly equivalent to building submarines and diving suits underwater out of stuff you mine from the ocean floor.

There's also the problem of human frailty. Accidents happen in industry, and in space the consequences of what would be a very minor industrial accident on earth can be dire. You accidentally drop a wrench and short out a power supply on earth and the manufacturer can send you a new power supply the next day by Fed-Ex. You drop a wrench and accidentally burn out a power supply at your Asteroid mine and maybe there's some unforeseen cascade that takes out your life support system and then you die.

But let's say you build your Mars station using robots, and finish it to the point where the first human there can simply open the airlock, walk inside, use the toilet, take a shower, make dinner, and catch up on the news. Let's say robots are used to build a nuclear powered transport craft entirely in space that can get a human being to Mars in a few weeks, not months as would be required by a chemical rocket. You launch in small relatively safe capsule on a LOX-LNG rocket, you dock with your nuclear powered mars transport, and in a few weeks you are staying at a nice Martian science station, and it reminds you quite a bit of overwintering at the South Pole on Earth.

Once you have that robotic infrastructure in place space travel and exploration becomes much more tenable for humans. At the same time there are fewer reasons for any human to go into space. You want to look around the surface of Titan? A robot with a variety of super-human senses can do that. There's no reason for human footprints.

But to do all these things we need a well working economy on earth, and a lot of bright, well-educated people doing the science and engineering. Unfortunately the prospects of that seem rather dim at the moment.


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IDemo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-16-07 12:30 PM
Response to Original message
14. I believed. Now, I'm an agnostic.
Just three years ago, I would have been one of the strongest believers in and supporters of space exploration here. I grew up in the sixties and can remember watching Gemini and Apollo splashdowns on black and white tv in the classroom. Reading "Cosmic Connection" by Sagan when I was 13 got me hooked on all things space related. I got a small telescope and was lucky enough to have a planetarium and astronomy class available at my high school. I was able to take one semester of college astronomy before economics made me join the workforce.

It is economics, unfortunately, that makes me believe now our window for achieving anything like a human migration into space has closed, for anytime in the foreseeable future anyway. The dual sledge hammers: peak oil and climate change, will ultimately result in the disassembly of the present global economic system, likely sooner than later. Without a strong economic engine driving education, science, and technology, I no longer believe that "Beyond Tomorrow" scenarios are plausible, epic space adventures the least of them.

The "Manhattan Project" for replacement energy needed to have begun thirty years ago. It is becoming increasingly unlikely with each passing year that we will be able to continue industrialization at its present scale, much less grow indefinitely.

I'm also left wondering about mankind's commitment to the "do no harm" concept. If we slough off of this planet without first repairing its present state of environmental catastrophe, what does that say about what our expected modus operandi will be on Mars or Epsilon Eridani?

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Dogmudgeon Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-16-07 04:46 PM
Response to Reply #14
15. Planetary exploitation is not required
The real benefit of space development won't be exploration, at least not for a while. I am also decidedly NOT proposing the stuff of space opera. It won't even be possible for quite some time, anyway. I know that the dream of terraforming Mars is on a lot of high-powered minds these days, but we haven't even walked around there yet. Our robots are nice, but it will still be a while before boots are on the ground.

What I propose, and the author of the piece touches on, is getting industrial processes that harm the biosphere OFF the Earth. The effort would not require a large human presence in space, and could be built with a bootstrapping effort -- small robots building bigger robots, etc., all under control from the Earth. Positions in high orbit would be stable for thousands of years, and Lagrangian positions would be stable for perhaps millions. The Earthside machine and robot operators would have to be well-trained, so this could be a field that produces a large number of tech-savvy jobs.

I'm also not calling for a "let's do it all now" approach. This project would ideally be worked out over a 20- to 50-year time frame, in the context of an overall infrastructure rebuilding effort.

The original piece addresses the "let's fix up Earth first" attitude, too. The problem with that idea is that fixing up home first never works out. Problems of that scope are only finally solved when there is a change of historical scale. Political freedom only got going in the British Empire (and Europe in general) after the American revolutionary war. Our own historical challenge won't simply be to "add Space travel and mix well", but to build for the future and include space-based infrastructure. Reducing, stopping, and remediating the destruction of the environment will certainly be part of it. And we have some major political reforming to do, as well.

We will eventually get our new Manhattan Project, too, but the longer we wait, the more expensive and difficult it will be.

--p!
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Mythsaje Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-18-07 02:30 AM
Response to Reply #15
24. Yep... Move major mining and industrial operations into space...
It's a great idea. And overdue.
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bananas Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-18-07 03:18 AM
Response to Reply #24
25. The first industry seems to be space tourism
There have already been a few wealthy tourists taken up by Russia,
and Bob Bigelow has sent a few prototypes of his space-hotels up already.
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Mythsaje Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-18-07 03:47 AM
Response to Reply #25
27. It's a good first step...n/t
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skids Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-18-07 06:05 PM
Original message
It's the worst first step possible...

...and a glaring indictment of the self-centered, egotistic, short-sighted mentality of our race.

You don't leave for vacation with the iron left plugged in sitting on the ironing board, and you don't start a space-based civilization (which will be heavily reliant on the earth economy and ecosystem for hundreds of years) with wars and ecological catastrophe both ongoing and looming.

Let's let the space program look around with its robots first. I fully support that, it is worth the price, but these yahoos who just have to go up there in person are a drain on our resources and need to have some sense smacked into them. Doubly so the idiots who think they or their better-than-thou offspring can escape on the backs of the rest of the race (and the other races) and leave them to die.

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Mythsaje Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-19-07 01:48 AM
Response to Original message
34. Out there is where the resources are.
Maybe someday we'll be able to build robots we can trust out of our sight for five minutes, but as things stand now, we'll have to do it in person to make sure it gets done at all.

There are more raw materials available in the asteroid belt than there has ever been on Earth. That, if for no other reason, is motivation to get out there and start making use of it. And if it takes space tourism to start to privatize space exploration, then that's what it takes.

Or we could just sit here in our own shit and die.
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skids Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-19-07 08:20 AM
Response to Reply #34
35. I got an idea...
Edited on Sun Aug-19-07 08:21 AM by skids
...why don't we send a few thousand people out there, then sit in our own shit and die. Then the few thousand people can all die too, but at least it won't be sitting in shit.

The kind of resources we would get from an asteroid belt are not going to save us, and it will be a century at least before such an operation breaks even given the resources needed to launch it.

And by then the robots will be a whole lot better.

Seems to me better robots would help down here on earth, too. Seems to me a better investment of our dwindling resources would be in better robots.

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Mythsaje Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Aug-20-07 12:26 AM
Response to Reply #35
36. Do you actually know anything at about this subject?
Or is this all ideological?
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skids Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Aug-20-07 05:44 AM
Response to Reply #36
37. You first. n/t
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Odin2005 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-18-07 09:47 AM
Response to Original message
29. Interesting technoprogessivist site I ran into a few months ago:
http://lufwiki.pbwiki.com

The Living Universe Foundation seeks to bring the galaxy alive with life from Earth, while healing the damage that humanity has already inflicted upon the Earth. We believe that expansion into space in the immediate future is a step towards accomplishing this aim.

Incredible riches in the form of energy and minerals lie in space where there are no ecosystems to be disturbed in using them. The Earth currently receives only 1 billionth of the available energy provided by the sun. The asteroids in our solar system alone hold readily available minerals that dwarf those available on Earth.

If we are to relieve the burden that we've placed on Mother Earth, we must find alternative sources of minerals and energy. Only then can we use these new found resources to propel humankind to the stars, and to also heal the Earth.

The role of the Living Universe Foundation is to work towards the implementation of this vision by whatever means possible. Books such as The Millennial Project by Marshall Savage, and Mining the Sky by John Lewis show how even with the technology envisioned in the Early Twenty-First century, these goals can be achieved.

If you feel space is the future of humanity and it is our duty to be good custodians of the Earth in the process, then the LUF is where you belong.

The means are at your disposal to participate in the greatest adventure of all time.
Explore the LUF Web site for more in-depth information.

And if you agree, roll up your sleeves and join in.


The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in 8 Easy Steps

By Marshall T. Savage

Now is the watershed of Cosmic history. We stand at the threshold of the New Millennium. Behind us yawn the chasms of the primordial past, when this universe was a dead and silent place; before us rise the broad sunlit uplands of a living cosmos. In the next few galactic seconds, the fate of the universe will be decided. Life--the ultimate experiment--will either explode into space and engulf the star-clouds in a fire storm of children, trees, and butterfly wings; or Life will fail, fizzle, and gutter out, leaving the universe shrouded forever in impenetrable blankness, devoid of hope.

Teetering here on the fulcrum of destiny stands our own bemused species. The future of the universe hinges on what we do next. If we take up the sacred fire, and stride forth into space as the torchbearers of Life, this universe will be aborning. If we carry the green fire-brand from star to star, and ignite around each a conflagration of vitality, we can trigger a Universal metamorphosis. Because of us, the barren dusts of a million billion worlds will coil up into the pulsing magic forms of animate matter. Because of us, landscapes of radiation blasted waste, will be miraculously transmuted: Slag will become soil, grass will sprout, flowers will bloom, and forests will spring up in once sterile places. Ice, hard as iron, will melt and trickle into pools where starfish, anemones, and seashells dwell--a whole frozen universe will thaw and transmogrify, from howling desolation to blossoming paradise. Dust into Life; the very alchemy of God.

If we deny our awesome challenge; turn our backs on the living universe, and forsake our cosmic destiny, we will commit a crime of unutterable magnitude. mankind alone has the power to carry out this fundamental change in the universe. Our failure would lead to consequences unthinkable. This is perhaps the first and only chance the universe will ever have to awaken from its long night and live. We are the caretakers of this delicate spark of Life. To let it flicker and die through ignorance, neglect, or lack of imagination is a horror too great to contemplate.

Prometheus Unchained

The stars are our destiny. They are our legacy. Strewn like diamonds on a field of black velvet, they lie waiting for the hand of man to pluck them up. Star clusters coruscate like diadems of the precious gems. The glut of space is like some huge versions of Ali Baba's cave, crammed with jewels and riches beyond counting.

Scanning the star clouds of the Milky Way with the beacon of the mind's eye, we see that it is wholly uninhabited. All these treasures strewn before us are free for the taking. There is no guardian genie. There are no alien owners to be bargained with, no evil empires to be vanquished, not even a galactic bureaucracy to demand emigration forms in triplicate. The galaxy is free and open now in a way it never will be again. Our species can skate across the glassy spaces, sliding unfettered through the blizzard of stars, skimming down the frosty spiral arms to the snowy banks of the galactic nucleus.

For better or worse, Life has evolved Homo Sapiens as the active agent of her purpose. We are the sentient tool-users. Perhaps Life should have bet on the dolphins. But, she put her money on us, and there is no time left for second guesses. Life has endowed us the with power to conquer the galaxy, and our destiny awaits us there, among the powdery star-fields of deep space. Now we must spring from our home planet and carry the living flame into the sterile wastes. It is time to return the gift of Prometheus to the heavens.

To fulfill our cosmic destiny and carry Life to the stars we must act quickly. The same unleashed powers that enable us t enliven the universe are now, ironically, causing us to destroy the Earth. The longer we delay, the further we may slip into a pit of our own digging. If we wait too long, we will be swept into a world so poisoned by pollution, so overrun by masses of starving people, so stripped of surplus resources, that there will be no chance to ever leave this planet. Thus far, we have failed to use our new powers for the ends they were intended. The result is an accelerating slide toward disaster.

The litany of eco-crisis is numbingly familiar--like a Gregorian chant of doom the ozone hole, the greenhouse effect, deforestation, desertification, overpopulation. Woe, lamentation and gnashing of teeth. If you are still unaware of the emergency, you must already live on Mars.

The crisis is driven by the exponential explosion of human numbers. A hundred million new people enter the world each ear. A new population the size of Iran every five months. Where will all of these new people live? What will they eat? What prospect for the future do they have?

There is no way, short of nuclear war, plague, or famine, to prevent human numbers from doubling. the parents of tomorrow have already been born, and when they bear children of their own, the global population will surge.

Our situation is analogous to yeast in a bottle. The yeast cells will double their number every day until the bottle is full--then they will all die. If the yeast die on the 30th day, then on what day is the bottle half full? The 29th day! We are in the 29th day of our history on Earth. We must do something now, or face extinction.

The obvious answer is to blow the lid of this bottle! We need to rupture the barriers that confine us to the land mass of a single planet. By breaking out, we can assure our survival and the continuation of Life.

Space beckons us. It is the clarion call of destiny. We are still evolving as a species and Life is still evolving as a force of nature. Only by leaving the womb of Mother Earth can man and Life survive and mature.

Within a thousand years, we will break forever the bonds of gravity and soar freely among the stars. This Great Divide in the topography of time coincides with the dawn of the Third Millennium. The coming Millennium is the Age of Aquarius--prelude to the endless emerald epoch of Life's galactic empire.

Life is too precious a thing in the Cosmos not to be preserved at all costs. It is entirely possible that ours is the only living planet in the universe. Throughout the star clouds of the Milky Way, planets probably team by the hundreds of millions. But every one may be as dead and sterile as our own moon. Those myriad empty worlds could be just so many particles of barren galactic dust.

Yet, out of the margin of this vast slag-heap of stellar debris, there blows a single magic scintilla of blue-green living light. Like a lone incandescent spark in an endless landscape of cinders--this is Gaia. Earth, a single tiny glimmer of Life, utterly and eternally alone. And yet, for all our microscopic insignificance, we have the potential to suffuse our green fire through every granule of the whole lifeless pile. What is such a spark worth do you suppose? How many of the lifeless worlds would you give in exchange for the one living one? It is like asking how much coal ash you would trade for the Hope Diamond.

Consider for a moment the implications if we are alone: Then the entire responsibility for Life in the Cosmos is ours to bear. Compared to this duty, the burden of Atlas was nothing. As the sole caretakers of Life it is our sacred duty not only to preserve Life here on Earth, but also to disseminate the magic among the stars.

The universe may teem with Life. We don't know that it doesn't. Conversely we don't know that it does. The bottom line is that as __far as we know__, this planet holds the only reservoir of Life Force in the Cosmos. Until we find out otherwise, it is incumbent upon us to act as if the Earth is the lone spark in ten billion parsecs of frozen desolation.

Let's Go!

This book presents a plan of action for building a stairway to the stars. Step by step we can pile up the cyclopean stones; like the mythic Titans we will heap Ossa on Pelion on Olympus, erecting a pyramid to touch the heavens

The message of this book is a simple one: the stars are within our reach. We now have the capacity, economically and technically, to leave this planet and begin the infinite task of enlivening the universe. We can accomplish our ends in eight easy steps: First, we will lay the Foundation, uniting ourselves around the green banner of Cosmic destiny. Then we will grow a crystalline city, floating on the waves of the sea. With power from the ocean we will launch ourselves into space, propelled aloft by a rainbow-hued array of lasers. In orbit above the Earth, we will inflate gleaming golden bubbles to shelter our new generation of space dwelling people. On the face of the Moon, we will cap the craters with glistening domes, each sheltering a green oasis of life. Mars will be transformed into a glorious gem of blue oceans and swirling white clouds, vibrant and alive as Gaia herself. Among the asteroids we will strew a spreading ring-cloud of billions of billions of bubbles of life, shimmering like a galaxy of golden sparks. Finally in the latter half of the Millennium, space arks will carry human colonists across the interstellar gulfs to inseminate new worlds with the chartreuse elixir of Life. By Millennium's end the night sky will twinkle with a handful of emerald stars--the initial scattering of our celestial seeds. From this first planting will spring a growing forest of living solar systems. Life will explode through the star clouds like beryllian fire through flash powder. Within a thousand millennia, the whole majestic pinwheel of the Milky Way, will be saturated with the lush aquamarine light of a hundred billion living suns. We will have created a living galaxy--seed of a living universe. Then the animate flame will leap the firebreak between galaxies and ignite new blazes among the great star clusters in the outer universe. The process will continue, unremitting, for the eternal lifetime of the Cosmos. (But of this I do not speculate. I am just a simple home-boy, and take no great interest in anything much beyond the Magellanic Clouds.)

Manifest Destiny

A million years from now, our descendants will populate this galaxy. From the red dwarves of the globular clusters to the blue giants of the galactic nucleus, a hundred billion stars will shine on the homes of a trillion trillion human beings. Their civilizations will span the heavens with powers transcending the feeble reach of our imaginations. Yet, each person of that countless multitude will look back in space and time to a tiny yellow star out on the rim of the Orion Arm. In their grandeur and their glory these demigods for a future time will remember us, and think of how it all began.
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Mythsaje Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-18-07 11:30 AM
Response to Reply #29
30. I get a kick out of the introduction to his book
where he clearly assumes there's no other intelligent life out there that might object to our "manifest destiny" approach. Now while I agree that we SHOULD get out there, and our survival as a species may depend on it, I really think there's a good chance we'd run into other beings who might take exception to imperialistic colonization and any such philosophy on our part.

To be honest, the site looks like a promo for his book more than anything else. And believe me, I know as well as anyone how THAT works.
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Odin2005 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-18-07 05:42 PM
Response to Reply #30
31. He's only one of the folks that make up the organization.
I also disagree with his assumption about there being no other civilizations, but the premise in the into of the website is OK IMO.
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DU GrovelBot  Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-18-07 06:05 PM
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tom_paine Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Aug-18-07 06:13 PM
Response to Original message
33. Yes, exactly so. Space Exploration is vital.
Unfortunately, it seems 5-1 against the idea that we will successfully colonize even the Moon or Mars before the oil runs out and the new anti-intellectualism and Dark Ages, begin.
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phantom power Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Aug-20-07 08:56 AM
Response to Original message
38. I have always considered this to be a good reason for colonizing off-planet:
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