Genetically modify ourselves so that we can live both in zero gravity (and maybe survive short exposure to vacuum) and on other planets.
this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2024
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Both! All three!
Men will do anything other than go to therapy.
Bonkers question. Can't even figure out living on Earth sustainably and you want to talk about doing it without gravity, an atmosphere or an ionosphere?
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THE YEAR IS UNIVERSAL CENTURY 0079
Is this sub-populated mostly by Facebook people? Some of the answers really feel like it.
All these answers are so killjoy and boring. Like yeah we should strive to make our own planet better, but why not also do this? Building habitats on other worlds doesn't prevent us from caring for this one.
Plus maybe trying to make a liveable environment in space can give us new insights in preserving the one at home. Like how solar panels have come from space exploration.
Why would people want to focus more on things we can actually do right now and would improve our lives instead of completely unfeasible pipe dreams? I don't understand.
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All these answers are so killjoy and boring.
Yes, fantasizing about billionaires fixing everything by making good on their bullshit marketing pitches is very exciting to credulous people.
Building habitats on other worlds doesn't prevent us from caring for this one.
If you believe that there's some magic means to have zero emissions launches into space that are in any way self-sustained without further launches to keep throwing resources after spent resources from an increasingly polluted, depleted, and warming Earth, sure, you can huff that hopium deep and hard and ignore the worsening material reality all around you.
Plus maybe trying to make a liveable environment in space can give us new insights in preserving the one at home.
You've bought deeply into billionaire bullshit and their bogus promises, especially as privatized space travel in the west becomes increasingly vanity tourism and marketing stunts. The accomplishments that such companies' underpaid and overworked workers achieve are not for the common good, nor can they be because they are publicly subsidized private companies seeking to maximize profits and expand their own venture capital appeal, and nothing more.
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Both.
Why? Nice planet we've got here, we could focus on preventing it becoming inhabitable due to climate change instead.
I'm not convinced that suspending space programs would create solutions to climate change.
No matter what you do the Earth won't stay habitable forever. So we either learn to expand out into space as a species or face extinction eventually. Not to mention putting all our eggs in one basket is a terrible idea. Any cosmological event could wipe out the Earth at any time. The question is are you okay with our entire species going with it?
There needs to be a backup, ideally multiple.
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If we can do B, A doesn't provide many benefits.
A 1km diameter, 30km cylinder would provide enough area to feed ~140k people. 95km^2 of space.
That is assuming no imported food etc, based on 7000m^2 per person which is almost 2 acres each.
140k people is a small city.
140k people is about the amount of people living in a 1km radius around you, if you live in some inner city area.
You could have most people in a relatively small area with the rest for farming.
There would be little need for the equivalent of roads, almost all travel would be walk or bike. The longest distance between two points is less than 34km. If the main settlement is in a ring around the middle of the cylinder, it is less than 17km to any point.
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We should stay fucking put until we figure out how to end greed and racism once and for all
Any ideas?
We aren't going to stop being prejudiced against each other until we meet other species to turn our prejudices outward.
If we are capable of doing one, then we can do both.
Neither. There's plenty of room and resources here on Earth. I think it's fine to do space exploration and even have research bases on moons and other planets, but I just don't see the imperative for colonization.
If we can't manage to keep Earth's ecosystem thriving to support us, we certainly won't be able to create a new self-sustaining ecosystem elsewhere. And without that, there's no chance of any non-Earth settlement being able to sustain a healthy human society and culture long-term.
Without some serious (currently impossible) terraforming, Mars colonies are limited to deep caves or heavily shielded buildings, no outside to relax, nowhere else to go. Have a look at the list of crimes in Antarctica, a similar situation where people are stuck together, that's not a good environment for mental health, and it will be worse farther away. A Mars colony (edit: or space station) owned by a private company will be a corporate prison, the inhabitants are 100% dependent on that company - who would voluntarily put their lives into the hands of the whims of some narcissistic hoarder with no empathy or regard for workers?
If we canβt manage to keep Earthβs ecosystem thriving to support us, we certainly wonβt be able to create a new self-sustaining ecosystem elsewhere. And without that, thereβs no chance of any non-Earth settlement being able to sustain a healthy human society and culture long-term.
I'm unconvinced that pulling back from space programs will make Earth's ecosystem thrive.
A Mars colony (edit: or space station) owned by a private company will be a corporate prison, the inhabitants are 100% dependent on that company - who would voluntarily put their lives into the hands of the whims of some narcissistic hoarder with no empathy or regard for workers?
Agreed. That would be a super-weird concept, like a country owned by a private corporation.
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Until we are able to travel way faster than what we can do now, I think itβs more feasible to build in space. Lots of implications for long term effects on human bodies though. Most ideal is a wormhole to an identical planet to earth so humans wonβt need to adapt.
The odds of an exactly identical planet existing naturally are very slim. The only way to get that is some kind of terraforming. Or we evolve to adapt to our new environments. Which could mean that humans could split out into multiple successor species.
C) Undersea habitat domes!
Colonizing Antarctica would be more reasonable than that.
Neither. We can't even unfuck Earth, where in that did we earn the privilege to pollute the cosmos?
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Porque no los dos?