Genetically modify ourselves so that we can live both in zero gravity (and maybe survive short exposure to vacuum) and on other planets.
How to survive in space: Develop ways to survive in space only first. Once you manage that all the other problems are trivial compared and you don’t have a single point of failure (aka our planet) anymore. Isn’t that obvious?
C) keep the planet we have habitable
our planet could easily be wiped by a number of things. if we dont plan for a planetary catastrophe out of our control, our species is doomed.
there is not a single thing that could wipe out a deep sea habitat that wouldnt also wipe any space colonies. but i dont see anybody arguing for that, despite being far more achievable and practical. also, there is no feasible way for space colonies to be self sufficient anywhere in the near future, so wiping out earth also wipes out space colonies relying on it for supplies. this argument aboOt survivability is absurd.
a planetary catastrophe out of our control
You’re still describing climate change. Science fiction ideas are fun to think about but our own inability to live harmoniously with nature is going to kill us off before any of those problems become relevant.
And you have your head stuck so far up your ass you think climate change is the only threat to the habitability of the Earth when one solar flare gone wrong or object striking the Earth or black hole travelling at the speed of light passing sufficiently close could erase humanity from existence and we would never see it coming. None of these things are fiction and all of them are completely within the realm of possibility. Modern astronomy has documented examples of all of these things happening. In fact the leading theory right now is that the Earth and moon existing as they do is the result of the collision of two objects typically referred to as Gaia and Theia. Theia broke off pieces of Gaia and those eventually came together to form the moon while the rest became the Earth.
As of right now the only thing preventing our species from going extinct due to any of a very large number of astronomical events is luck. But you have no guarantees that that luck will last forever and humanity needs a backup plan.
Uh, nope, you’re putting words in my mouth. It’s not realistic to worry about mitigating that kind of stuff when we can’t even prevent ourselves from cooking ourselves, and several of the things you listed don’t even have plausible technical solutions right now. Nice try, though.
youre still not thinking astronomically. you need to think bigger. i like to at least pretend out technology advances.
I was kind of surprised that comet that’s been visible at night was only discovered like a year ago. Crazy to think that would be the warning time of anything coming to hit us
There are black holes that travel at the speed of light. If one were to pass through our astronomical neighborhood we would never see it coming and it would end our existence so instantaneously that it would be like our species and planet never existed.
I didn’t realize they were mobile, that is terrifying.
our planet could easily be wiped by a number of things.
Most likely by us, while we waste our limited resources on useless things like spaceships
if we dont plan for a planetary catastrophe out of our control, our species is doomed.
Oh no, how will the universe ever recover from this tragedy?
Oh no, how will the universe ever recover from this tragedy?
yep, this is what people resort to when they dont have a real point. ‘so what?!’ pfft
Humanity can easily survive a KT extinction event. Sure, 99.999% of us will die, but millions will still survive.
If I use your math of 99.999% dying, only ~80,000 people will survive, not millions…
Thanks, updated comment
If Mars became one “arm” of the human race Earth would still be the heart. Your heart fails and all your limbs are fucked.
huh? why do people have this innate ability to underestimate what we might be capable of? why do you think its impossible for us to become masters of our own genome?
not getting off this rock means our species is doomed regardless of how ‘perfect’ we keep earth.
why do people have this innate ability to underestimate what we might be capable of?
Because we can see what we’re currently capable of in terms of climate change, and the outlook is pretty bleak
why do you think its impossible for us to become masters of our own genome?
Because even in the best case scenario, this is dangerously close to eugenics
not getting off this rock means our species is doomed regardless of how ‘perfect’ we keep earth.
If we can’t keep earth livable, an entire self-regulating planet that’s been livable for hundreds of millions or billions of years, what are our chances of keeping anywhere else livable?
D) Move manufacturing and other dirty processes off planet and live here.
Okay Bezos.
Tyrell Corporation.
yes.
if we want to become a true space faring species resilient to all that the universe can throw at us we will need both
Why not both?
I’m guessing B will happen first, just because we have so much more control of the environment, but we’re still so far away from either one… Maybe I’ll get to see the early stages sometime in my life.
Yes.
Seriously, we should be doing both as long term space habitats can serve as a way to reduce the cost of moving cargo around.
What’s the purpose—research? Tax evasion? Shits and giggles?
All of the above. But start with cleaning up this planet. Build better / more sustainable and more diverse communities and energy production. Building arcologies in the arctic, deserts, oceans. Those are good “practice” for building the same off planet.
After reading A City on Mars by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith I think a O’Neill Cylinder spinning spaceship for artificial gravity type is more achievable than planarity colonisation.
But the main point of the book, and I am fairly convinced of the more I think about it, is that it is a lot of effort and risk for not a lot of gain and we are entirely unprepared for space colonisation.
We. Like, you and me? Whatever you wanna do I guess.
I don’t think space habitats any significant distance from Earth will be possible. Mitigating the increased radiation will be tough enough just trying to get to Mars, much less trying to stay in space out that far. At least on Mars we can hang out in old lava tubes or something.
Yes and first century peasants couldn’t imagine the idea of reading comments and responding to them on a magic lit up rectangle that knows when you touch it and where and exchanges the information involved invisibly through the air even passing through solid objects.
If that’s what you think, then you severely underestimate human technological innovation.
i think you underestimate human ingenuity and the time frames involved.
Both.
Is this sub-populated mostly by Facebook people? Some of the answers really feel like it.
What do you mean?
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.
All these answers are so killjoy and boring
Fuck you, the planet is literally on fire and you bazinga-assed techbros want to talk about escape plans. FIX WHAT YOU FUCKED UP FIRST.
the planet is literally on fire
Nah.
You can ignore catastrophic global warming and actual fucking wildfires of unprecedented frequency and scale if you think being a Reddit-tier pedant will protect you.
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.
Isn’t there space for both? Why not try multiple avenues? Why have this negative view on everything? Wouldn’t you say the airplane and the car have tremendously improved humanity, even with all its downsides? Or the cellphone?
I bet at the time of their inventions you would be opposing it because “billionaires are bad and this industry is going to explore the working class”. Guess what? Yes billionaires are bad and explore people and you (all of us) should be fighting against that, not against scientific and engineering inovation.
Isn’t there space for both?
No. Flatly. You do not get to eject any more human garbage into the cosmos from which we came-- you already have WHOLE FUCKING ARRAYS of busted up satellites and pieces of rockets and a bunch of other more shit floating in high orbit; fuck would you propose making even more for? Other than the narcissistic techbro flex, I mean?
There is no way you are this upset about piece of metal existing on Mars, littering the rocks. You’re upset about something else and transferring it.
It physically enrages me every time I look into the night sky ad have to question how much of what I’m seeing up there is just dead space junk. I grew up considering the cosmos more beautiful, and honestly, more sacred than even the ocean that perpetuates our planet. So no, it actually does anger me that people just brazenly throw around ideas of doing what they’ve already done to Earth to other planets, and honestly fuck you for trying to imply you know more about my head than I do.
Are you a psychiatrist? Do you have ANY kind of accreditation or doctorate to make such a call? I don’t know how you got a lemmygrad account; but I can only take it to mean the moderation there really is slipping.
It physically enrages me every time I…
I’m starting to suspect it doesn’t take much to physically enrage you 😄
Every industry exploits the working class under capitalism.
Are we colonizing planets or building habitats in space right now or any time in the perceivable future, though? No, so beyond a fun thought experiment or sci-fi material, it’s not an idea worth giving any serious thought towards.
Right because innovation materializes itself when we want … We just flicked our fingers and airplane, cellphone and others just appeared.
Who are you to tell what we should or should not pursue?
Are we pursuing colonizing planets or building space habitats in any serious way?
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 of 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 turn a profit and expand their own venture capital appeal, and nothing more.
You seem to be letting your hatred for Musk confuse you about space exploration. NASA and other governmental agencies do very important work when it comes to space exploration
He has Musk Derangement Syndrome 🤣🤣🤣
Too much time reading clickbait
Meh I dislike Musk as well but I don’t let that cloud my judgement of his companies or science/engineering in general.
He isn’t even the guy behind any discovery his manifold bought-up companies make. He’s just the nepobaby failspawn of blood emerald mining company money in South Africa; and as far as I’m concerned, that makes anything that comes out of his companies while he helms them fruit of the poison tree.
We do not support, uplift, or patronize colonizers, slavers, resource-extracting thieves, or any combination of the three in this house.
He isn’t even the guy behind any discovery his manifold bought-up companies make.
Then stop obsessing on him maybe? The thread was supposed to be about space stations and stuff.
I don’t let that cloud my judgement of his companies
That says a lot about you, then. The guy’s a fascist but you don’t care because
muh bazingamobiles and space crap!Polly’s Tenet: “I can excuse anything from anyone if it means my treats arrive on time”. My parrot is literally more disciplined than these settler shitstains.
Techbros are burning the world down in swathes to fuel their theftboxes at best, and artificial lovers at worst, Neuralink just fucked some guy’s brains up, Cybertrucks keep failig left and goddamn right, but sure, let’s just chalk all this up to “Musk Derangement Syndrome” jesus fucking christ I hate you techbro settlers. Please die young of something preventable.
Can you string together 2 sentences without culture war tropes?
Can you string two together without coating your tongue in c-suite low quarter polish, polly?
Die in a fire, narcissist.
Culture war is when a person points out the chauvinism inherent in cracker fantasies about colonizing the stars because there is nowhere left to colonize here without just admitting to themselves they just want to subjugate everyone and everything on earth and above.
@[email protected] is 100% correct in every single comment they have made in this thread.
I can’t really even add anything to this other than say they right fuck off.
Techbros are burning the world down in swathes to fuel their theftboxes at best, and artificial lovers at worst, Neuralink just fucked some guy’s brains up, Cybertrucks keep failing left and goddamn right, but sure, let’s just chalk all this up to “Musk Derangement Syndrome” jesus fucking christ I hate you techbro settlers. Please die young of something preventable.
lol this sounds like you have smoke coming out your ears writing it
We all know what NASA research is really for.
My grandpa helped design and test the tech for ballistic missiles while working as a private contractor for a now defunct aerospace corporation under contract with NASA.
If he was still alive I would say he gets the wall too.
You seem to be conjuring an imaginary psych degree so you can concern troll. Fuck off.
Space exploration isn’t unique to capitalist systems.
Drej Queen, Earth yearns for the Cleansing Light of extermination
Drej words for "I think I’ll just sit back and watch these ignorant humans burn their own planet down while fantasizing about escaping it for now.’
Fix our own planet first
