19 thoughts on “Should We Stay Or Should We Go?”

  1. “But space expansion won’t be an escape from global warming or the next pandemic. Living on Mars would be far more gruesome than living on Earth through even the most extreme (and unlikely) scenarios of global warming. NASA is hoping to make the first trips to Mars in the 2040s, and these trips won’t involve anyone staying permanently.”

    Mars is neither hot nor cold as lacks much of atmosphere- consider global warming cargo cultist complain about both the cold and the hot- Mars is their
    only escape.
    The only problems is Mars lacks fossil fuel and oxygen in the atmosphere to burn it.
    Though Mars might have mineable water and Earth life might not live well in Mars lower gravity.
    But the lower gravity may not be a problem, and there could a lot of mineable water on Mars.
    If there is mineable water, we will have large lakes on Mars and water could as cheap as Earth’s water.
    Also despite having 60% less sunlight at Mars distance, solar panels which make electricity could better than solar panels on Earth surface.
    Or on Earth the best you get is about 6 hours of usable sunlight, and Mars could average more than 12 hours of sunlight- get electrical power for +12 hours and better 6 hours or less.
    But probably most of electrical power would come nuclear energy and/or SPS. One thing about SPS is oe could beam “harmful” levels of beamed microwave to Mars surface- no birds to kill.

    But if Mars has mineable water it could export it to Venus orbit. Martian need to be able to use Venus orbit, as it cuts the launch windows to Earth by 1/2. And Earthling need Venus orbit for everything- good place to bring space rocks, a lot of solar energy, and Venus is closest to Earth and it’s closer to everything in the solar system.

    1. Also, in the long term we could export atmosphere from Venus to Mars, reducing a greenhouse effect in one and increasing it in the other.

      1. Venus orbit might import billions of tons of Mars water [for Mars to have settlements it needs trillions of tons of water available in regards to the entire planet {mineable water]. China uses 1 trillion tons of water per year, US about 600 billion tons per year. The local region of settlement on Mars could have about 10 billion tons of mineable water {and use it for many decades}.
        But if/when Venus had such large water market that it’s buying millions of tons of water per year, it’s a market large enough that it would encourage getting water from space rocks.
        So, an early Venus water market could get water from Earth or Moon or Mars and it could get in total as much as a few billions tons over decade or so of time{which is a lot rocket fuel} but Venus could eventually, over longer period of time, get trillions of tons from cheaper places other than Earth, Moon or Mars. And this water could/would mostly be used for “residential type use”, rather than mostly for rocket fuel.
        Assuming artificial gravity works, Venus orbit, could have millions to billions of people living there. Lots solar energy, lots of material from space rocks, close to Earth, and some people might visit or live in the atmosphere of Venus, or mine the acid clouds.
        And perhaps nuclear Orions could be used in it’s atmosphere- probably need them if mining the acid clouds.
        Or it just remains weird/exotic place to visit.
        One thing is if millions to billions of people live in Venus orbit, they could block the sunlight from getting to planet- which could cool the planet.

        Ceres is suppose to have a lot of water, for example. And in terms transfer orbits, Venus orbit is better place to ship that water- more windows, and faster travel times {and atmosphere to aerobrake in}, and this applies to most space rocks- such as in main asteroid belt and L-4 and L-5 of Jupiter.
        Both for leaving from Venus and getting to Venus orbit.
        And Earthlings are not going to want this heavy traffic near them.
        But the Moon could want have space elevator, which drop this water from solar system and generate hydropower, so, Earthlings might eventually get heavy traffic somewhat close to them.

  2. It’s interesting what these ideologies consider threats. I wouldn’t consider people living on Mars a threat – that’s just cool. But I guess some people are scared by cool things. Maybe actual Martian colonies would strip away their legitimacy/power and throw them into a universe of uncertainty and fear.

      1. They want us to live meager, miserable lives of apologizing for existing, because humanity is a plague. Their ideology is at its root a secular version of Calvinism — absolute depravity, but no irresistible grace.

  4. Space exploration; can be a combination of government/private (Columbus/Drake/Magellan/Cook/Shackleton) etc. Settlement/colonization more the private sector; (pilgrims/Roanoke(rip)/Jamestown/American West etc. and currently Musk. Obviously supported indirectly by government(s) but don’t really want to see nations on Earth extending their sovereignty off planet anyway. The folks who settle mars can write their own constitution/Mayflower compact etc. without interference from Earth guvs.

  5. Yet another consistently negative view of space based upon leftist ideology. At least 95% of negative articles about space have this characteristic.

    1. They are scared shitless someone might go somewhere else and have fun in a manner they can’t control.

      It’s either that or such deeds remind them on a certain level that they are lesser men and women. It literally offends them that someone else can accomplish what they are afraid to contemplate even attempting.

      Those are my hypotheses.

        2. “If by “fun” you mean slavery, yeah.”

          Why would you need to colonize space if you want slavery? There are plenty of slaves on Earth right now with some in the United States.

          “Contemporary slavery, also sometimes known as modern slavery or neo-slavery, refers to institutional slavery that continues to occur in present-day society. Estimates of the number of enslaved people today range from around 38 million[1] to 49.6 million,[2][3][4] depending on the method used to form the estimate and the definition of slavery being used.”

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century

          “The United States is one of the most advanced countries in the world yet has more than 400,000 modern slaves working under forced labor conditions,” said the group’s founder, Andrew Forrest, in a news release.

          This is a truly staggering statistic and demonstrates just how substantial this issue is globally. This is only possible through a tolerance of exploitation,”

          https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/19/us-modern-slavery-report-global-slavery-index#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThe%20United%20States%20is%20one,substantial%20this%20issue%20is%20globally.

  6. Buckminster Fuller famously wrote about “Spaceship Earth.” It’s an interesting notion, but IMO too limited. If you think of it as “Spaceship Solar System”, then the amount of room and resources for human expansion are nearly limitless. Energy, materials, water, it’s all out there. These things are available for use out there instead of having to launch everything from Earth.

    Some people seem scared of the idea that people could expand beyond their ability to control. People who eventually settle in space, be it on planetary bodies or O’Neil-type habitats, will quickly decide their own rules instead of being ruled by people who stayed on Earth.

  7. Interstellar space travel is just a hopeless dream! The nearest star is approx 4 light ears away. A light year is how far light will travel in a year, which is 5,865,696,000,000 miles! Even if we could travel at the speed of light, which, of course, is impossible, it would take four years to get there. But in such a case the spaceship would have to carry a four year supply of food, water, and oxygen, (and would need a HUGE Septic tank). Also, the nearest planet could be 10,20, or eve 100 light years away. These limitations, of course would also apply to other beings trying to reach earth from a distant planet. Interstellar space travel is simply imposssile, for us , or them.

    1. Yeah.
      But using telescopes to look at planets of distant stars, is something we should be doing fairly soon.
      And it would seriously crazy to travel to any star without first using powerful telescopes to see what is there.
      So, say you get telescopes which are equal to 1 km in diameter, and cost less than 1/10th the money as Webb telescope did.

      And I think people will continue to be interested in looking at these distance worlds.
      One reason is to look is for space aliens, and space aliens might consider it, at least, impolite to enter their solar system at velocity somewhere near light speed.
      And you might need a permit and have various paperwork done, to do this.

    2. “Interstellar space travel is just a hopeless dream!”

      Unless one has reverse-engineered TicTac/Go-Fast/Gimbal/ UAP technology to play around with. Or is merely patient enough; craft capable of reaching at least low double digit percentage of “C” aren’t that many decades away. Travel times to earth-like planets orbiting nearby stars like Teegarden B (~12.5LY from Earth) at 0.2c would be about 63 years away.

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