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be the means to lay the foundation for future space development, including permanent human presence in space.
I think this is the biggest problem with these debates, people say things like "Well, we have problems here on Earth, why waste money on going to Mars?" And honestly they have a point, IF we go to Mars as we went to the Moon, with absolutely no followup or no secondary presence in space.
People seem to view space and the Solar System as if it is only a scientific curiosity without any material benefit to people on Earth, this is the wrong view, both in my opinion and factually. Space, and the objects in it, are resources that we can use to HELP the people on Earth. Hell, a single Nickle-Iron asteroid, let's say about 5km in length(about a little above average, there are thousands in Near Earth Orbits), contains more of either of those materials, and even others, such as Carbon and even Water, than we have mined on Earth for ALL of human civilization.
Earth isn't a closed system, in its Biosphere, but Human Civilization does use limited resources, particularly in energy generation, which makes our Civilization a closed system itself, on planet Earth. We are running out of fresh water, coal, oil, natural gas, arable land, topsoil, etc. We rely on every single one of these things to fuel our economy, put food on the table for our children, for our jobs, etc. and our population is still growing. Climate Change is ravaging previously arable land at an ever increasing rate(desertification), we are hitting a ceiling on energy consumption because our supplies our dwindling. Even with a switch to all available renewable alternatives, it frankly will not be enough to sustain and ultimately increase our energy production from present levels, at least not without sacrifices.
Should we level the Sahara and turn it into a large Solar Cell Array? Should we do the same in the American Southwest, and what will the affects of changing the albedo of the Earth that drastically have on not only the local climate, but the global climate?
And what about food? Thanks to the Green Revolution we have a surplus of food, for right now, and the Earth may be able to support humans to feed us until we about double the present population, so give it maybe around 50 years. Then what? Should we institute a China Policy worldwide? How would that work without oppressive government? Or do we just clear cut every remaining forest and jungle left in the world and try to convert it into poor quality farmland?
We are killing every remaining ecosystem on this planet through our consumption, every single one is in decline, systems we need to maintain the atmosphere so we can breathe for crying out loud! At some point we are going to kill ourselves, and most other lifeforms on this planet, through the exploitation of its resources just to maintain current levels of consumption much less allowing them to grow to match our population.
This is a dark outlook on the fate of humanity itself, outside of a drastic die off of humans, something I believe none of us want, there are very few practical solutions to be found on this planet. We think far too short term, how the hell are my great-grandchildren supposed to survive on this planet, and how will yours survive?
Basically we are facing a problem with resource and land depletion, so what are the solutions? Well, prospecting for one, the thing is it can't be on Earth, but rather out in space, specifically Near Earth.
For Energy, let's see, we could build geosynchronous solar arrays that can beam down energy(in the form of microwaves) to the Earths surface, these solar arrays would have the advantage of being in the Sun's light continuously, and they will not take up large swaths of the Earth's surface. Such arrays could possibly power continents, if not the entire world, and it would be clean energy, hell Japan is already experimenting with them.
Energy would only be the first step, the next would be concentrating on food and other resources, building orbital farms(glorified greenhouses) to grow crops is also a possibility. They would be mostly automated, and their environments can be controlled to such an extent to maximize the output of food, with atmospheres, temperatures, gravity, and other environmental factors optimized for growth.
The one thing is this, the initial investment would be expensive, but the costs, after the infrastructure and space resources are utilized, will be reduced drastically. Without needing to fight Earth's gravity to build stations in space, the costs are reduced, not to mention that energy is literally free in space, at least around Earth. The interesting thing is all of this is possible with CURRENT technology, nothing futuristic about it.
Of course, to get a little more futuristic, it would help to reduce costs by building a space elevator, we need to improve our materials technology a little bit before this is feasible, however.
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