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Should humans colonize other planets?

It's a worthwhile goal to pursue colonization of other planets.

  • Strongly agree

    Votes: 78 75.7%

  • Somewhat agree

    Votes: 16 15.5%

  • Neutral/Maybe

    Votes: 2 1.9%

  • Somewhat disagree

    Votes: 4 3.9%

  • Strongly disagree

    Votes: 3 2.9%
  • Total voters
    103
Yes, and have we had one designed by non-idiots that was tenable yet?

uruk pointed out a 'self-sustaining biosphere' but I don't think that it qualifies as a 'self-sustaining biosphere for human habitation'...

Here is a remark (and proposal) link:

Biosphere

and NASA's current statement:

Check No. 24

We aren't there yet. Just keep arguing about nonexistent capabilities, why don't we.......
 
kuroyume0161 said:
Yes, and have we had one designed by non-idiots that was tenable yet?
Click to expand...

No we don't. I'm just pointing out that Biosphere 2 is only of limited value in assessing the feasability of the project, because one would assume that the Martian habitat would be designed so as to work, rather than as a bizarre marketing ploy.
 
From my following of BSII, although it was a 'marketing ploy' to some extent, it also had real scientific input and value. That is why the failure has real impact. One supposes that any pioneering endeavor into new realms will appear 'idiotic' (just look at the range of 'contraptions' envisioned and put forward for early powered flight), but this was an earnest endeavor even if only to a modicum of a degree.

One cannot dismiss the fact that even NASA cannot really put any foothold on tenable solutions. The second link is an official NASA response - and it basically says, "We're working on it, but don't expect anything soon." That is the state of our capability with NASA (no lightweight in research and investment) and their subsidiary research projects with universities and corporations alike. Not very promising at this time.
 
Well, maybe that's why everyone is proposing an R&D program instead of just dumping a bunch of guys on Mars next Tuesday.

The problem is obviously solvable; we just want a solution that is cheap. No point building a Mars colony if you bankrupt Earth in the process.
 
That's what I proposed. We need to develop the technologies and systems rigorously before employing them. That is, as far as I am concerned, good engineering practice.

The problem that I see is that, currently, the R&D is piecemeal - small problems divied out to corporations or universities in a more or less esoteric, far-future purpose. There is not yet a cohesive effort to construct a full-blown simulation system objectively. This situation may be retisent of the problem at hand - the details must be fleshed out before the overall architecture constructed and tested.

And the reason, I guess, agreeing in part with DD, is that the focus is not there. How much of the planetary population is even aware of the possibilities of an ELE or limited resources con an exponentially growing population? Most humans cannot focus beyond the 'here and now', and few even have visions beyond life goals and their offsprings' success.

A particular trait of our sentience is long-term planning, but obviously it has not evolved or been seeded well enough to foster insights into long-term survivability (and we're talking 'long-term' as in thousands and millions of years). If just enough resources were expended in the endeavor, it is likely that we would reach a 'cheap' solution. But since most of the endeavor is now in esoterics without foresight, the expenditure is expensive and without results forthcoming.
 
Fair enough. Though global population is no longer growing exponentially, so at least we have that in our favour.
 
I may be wrong here

but most of the against comments seem to be "We can't do it so we shouldn't". As far as I'm concerned, we'll never get there with that attitude. Hence I vote yes, at some point in the future we should definately colonise other planets and we should start figuring out how to do this now.
 
jay gw said:
Why does anyone have the right to change other planets to suit the needs of humans?
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Why do you think it matters? There are no martians. There ain't even anything AT ALL living there- and if there is, it's bacterial; for that matter, we don't even know of any bacteria living anywhere else in the solar system. If we did, and if it were multicellular, I MIGHT agree that there's SOME sort of reason for not messing with it- but if there's nothing living there? And nothing ever will unless we make it so? What's the problem? The problem with pollution on Earth- or with environmental degradation in general, for that matter- is that if we screw up our biosphere, we'll have no place to live. But MARS? Who CARES?

I also don't accept your analogy with Antarctica- first, plenty lives there, and second, its within our biosphere and we don't know enough to know how destroying it might affect the rest of the biosphere.

jay gw said:
Who decides what Martian land you get and what you don't?
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Good question. Seems to me whoever gets there first gets their pick of settling places. You should try to keep in mind that despite the fact that Mars is smaller than Earth, it doesn't have oceans, so it's total land area is about the same as Earth's. It also doesn't have much in the way of an atmosphere.

jay gw said:
Most people in the world are having serious problems dealing with the fact the rich nations want to spend billions on space research when people have no running water or electricity. If anything says "I've got mine and don't give a ◊◊◊◊ about the poor" that pretty much does it.
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As was noted elsewhere, the problems that cause people not to have running water and electricity will not be solved by not doing space research, and in the long run not doing space research will almost certainly make those problems not only worse, but more widespread. If you advocate doing nothing, you are advocating eventually reducing everyone to live without electricity and running water, and no way to ever get any again.
 
PixyMisa said:
Fair enough. Though global population is no longer growing exponentially, so at least we have that in our favour.
Click to expand...
From what I know that's not entirely true. It's just that it's not projected to continue to grow exponentially. Anything above an average of 2.1 children per woman is exponential growth.
 
Schneibster said:
You should try to keep in mind that despite the fact that Mars is smaller than Earth, it doesn't have oceans, so it's total land area is about the same as Earth's. It also doesn't have much in the way of an atmosphere.

As was noted elsewhere, the problems that cause people not to have running water and electricity will not be solved by not doing space research, and in the long run not doing space research will almost certainly make those problems not only worse, but more widespread. If you advocate doing nothing, you are advocating eventually reducing everyone to live without electricity and running water, and no way to ever get any again.
Click to expand...
Who is advocating "doing nothing"?. I don't think any one here is arguing for "not doing space research". But some of us beleive that right now unmanned research is far more productive. Furthermore, unmanned exploration can lay the foundation for manned missions in the future by developing the robotic systems that will be essential and by mapping locations and local resources so we can make informed and intelligent decisions about the most promising sites.

While Mars "doesn't have much in the way of an atmosphere", what it does have is actually a very useful resource. The CO2 can be processed with H2 (probably from Earth unless prior exploration locates a local source) to produce methane, oxygen, and water. To do so requires automated "factories" and a power source, probably nuclear.

Development of robotic fast neutron reactors (which can extract nearly all the energy from the nuclear fuel as opposed to the 5% extracted by slow neutron reactors) is, IMHO, the most promising technology for meeting the power needs of any future Mars colony. Research in this area would primarily benefit residents of earth (such reactors can "burn" spent fuel from slow neutron reactors and eliminate plutonium and other fissile materials from the waste), with its potential to power space colonies a secondary benefit...

What some of us are trying to say is that focusing now on human habitation is a mistake. Unmanned projects will do far more to advance our knowledge and at the same time lay the foundation for manned missions if they become more desirable in the future. By focusing now on manned space exploration we drain resources from far more fruitful projects.
 
The question is just whether "It's a worthwhile goal to pursue colonization of other planets." I wouldn't have thought that anyone was suggesting we shouldn't be looking primarily at unmanned systems at this stage in the game.

Rolfe.
 
One theme of the thread has been that unless we directly persue manned colonies we won't develop the needed technology to succeed. Also the ISS and, now, goals of returning man to the moon and eventually to Mars, consume most of NASA's budget. Money has been shifted out of unmanned exploration, including ending monitoring of data from Voyager, canceling earth environmental monitoring satellites, and other useful projects.

Too much money and effort is spent on the romantic fantasy of manned space flight to the detriment of real science...
 
patnray said:
One theme of the thread has been that unless we directly persue manned colonies we won't develop the needed technology to succeed. Also the ISS and, now, goals of returning man to the moon and eventually to Mars, consume most of NASA's budget. Money has been shifted out of unmanned exploration, including ending monitoring of data from Voyager, canceling earth environmental monitoring satellites, and other useful projects.

Too much money and effort is spent on the romantic fantasy of manned space flight to the detriment of real science...
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What many people fail to understand is that unmanned probes or even satellite systems are not very sexy to most people. They are very sexy to me, but I am clearly in a minority.

Human drama sells. Immensely. Once you have actual humans doing death-defying stuff, you have peoples' attention. And you therefore have the media's attention.

An uncountable number of interviews and talk-sessions can be made in regard to the background of these "heros", their reasons for going, their family's reaction, the view of their friends, spots on how their pets clearly miss them, phsycologists giving their view, etc, etc, etc.

The bottom line is that humans doing what no other humans have done before, with the risk of death ever present and with new frontiers of human endevour as the prize, have always sold tickets.

And selling tickets is what needs to be done in order to get the crucial "political will". In the good old days, the Space Race between the evil capitalists and the evil commies got the funding flowing. Nowadays, we don't have this luxury. But "human-interest" stories have always been popular.
 
Originally Posted by jay gw :
Most people in the world are having serious problems dealing with the fact the rich nations want to spend billions on space research when people have no running water or electricity. If anything says "I've got mine and don't give a ◊◊◊◊ about the poor" that pretty much does it.
Click to expand...

Thing is, you give those nations money and incentives to get clean water and electricity, and their governments turn around and spend it on guns. The countries that allow "westerners" in to help with building things to get clean water and electricity face getting help from those who want to convert them to alternate religions. I don't think this is the case every time, since I do support a child's education via World Vision-and they said they weren't converting him against his will to another religion (I hope they are telling the truth). Then there are those who figure the old ways are best, and technology is plain evil. You can even offer places like South Africa some solutions to help stop the spread of AIDS, but their health minister figures garlic will do the trick, so keep your evil pharma cancer causing drugs outta the country.

So, who are you to call them poor? Who are you to say they even care if money is spent on space exploration? Why stagnate technology if the govermnents in some nations are "backwards"?

If we can even start a colony on the moon, then we could consider Mars. Which planet in our solar system will exist when our sun is red? Then we'll need to be able to jump to another solar system altogether since this one won't be around forever. Baby steps for now. What will it take to sustain a population long enough to survive the death our solar system?
 
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