Space Colonies Needed

[Barb]

Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking says that the human race should begin colonizing space as a matter of survival.

Full article here

However, one dissenting scientist, quoted in my local paper, stated that it may be easier to terraform Antartica instead of spending untold billions creating and maintaining bases on either the Moon or Mars, or both. Thoughts?

 

[GrnMarvl14]

We ARE terraforming Antarctica. It's called "global warming."

But, seriously, I'm all for the colonizing of other planets. Now, granted, I'm a huge sci-fi geek, so I AM biased, but terraforming Mars or the moon not only gives more places to expand, it also ensures that if some huge volcano erupts, some huge earthquake goes off, or an asteroid strikes the earth and the entire human race on Earth is killed, there will be some small pocket of habitation left. Is it going to be cheap? No. But something of this magnitude isn't about money, it's about the basic human need to expand beyond our borders. Humans are constantly driven to expand, and moving to new worlds is the next logical step. Antarctica is nothing more than a half-step...at best.

 

[Rayne]

The trick is getting remote civs to be self-sufficent first...

The best we can do now is feed our sources into artifical climates, but only
for a limited period of time. Terraforming looks to be a long, long way off.
If we could have it as simple as those giant 'insta-climate' machines in
Serenity, we'd have it easy and Humanity could viraly take over the Universe.
Now there are technologies being developed in the near future that will help
process oxygen and water out of lunar soil which can be a humongous boon
for a Moon Base (which would pave way for Mars Missions). At least we have
somewhere to head with these techs.

Hawking has the right idea of getting humanity off the earth as soon as
possible and seems feasable with such development going on except for one
issue: Politics.

Getting on the moon is one thing, but living on the moon? Whose juristiction
is this? This will take a global effort in terms of cooperation and unanimous
agreement to keep space neutral (lest we resort to sci-fi space dog fights and
nuclear wars and even interplanetary warfare: think Young USA vs England on
planetary scale :/). I'm not sure if there have already been talks in terms of Planetary
Ownership, but I feel that political boundaries may block us from living anywhere
in the solar system, or at least unnecisarily delay further plans for expansion.

 

[Jukain]

If we could just build the things we need and not worry about what it's going to cost, that would be great, but we still rely on our precious money, so it's just impractical right now. Not to mention that we still do not have the technology to send ordinary people to space. Some may argue that sending our most extraordinary people would be advantageous. However, he didn't say we had to do it now. We just have to prevent ourselves from destroying everything long enough for technology to be capable of all that. Good luck to that. Maybe after 2008, we can get on the right track again.

 

[The Big Al]

For one thing, the International Space Station should have been made as a shipyard. We need nuclear powered space ships able to travel the distances required to get to the Moon and Mars. It's as simple as that. Then there's the cost which isn't cheap. But think of the amount of money spent on exploration in the days of Columbus. If given the right incentitive, humanity will gladly take the cost and the risk in favor of the gains.

Though a place we could colonize is under the oceans. The same technology needed to colonize the Moon and Mars would also provide habitats under the oceans like in Sealab 2020 and Sea Quest DSV.

 

[the gadfly]

The biggest problem with colonizing the moon or the planets is the cost of getting into orbit. The problem consists of building a vehicle robust enough to push its way through the atmosphere and achieve escape velocity safely and economically. Once in orbit, the vehicle no longer needs to to be aerodynamic and it doesn't need a god-almighty engine to go somewhere. Recent space probes with ion engines prove it.

No, colonizing the moon and the planets on a large scale will depend on us finding a cheap way to get into orbit. If we can put people, supplies and consumables like oxygen, water and food into orbit cheaply, colonization will occur naturally. Sure, there will be political ramifications and obstacles, but they will be overcome just as they have been in the past, probably less bloodily.

Once colonies are established, they will eventually find ways to wean themselves from Mother Earth and make do with the natural resources they find. But until they do, they will rely on a cheap supply train from Earth.

Again, it boils down to finding a cheap and reliable way to get people and things off the Earth and into space.

We may very well have to wait until the space elevators written about by Arthur C. Clarke become reality. Which may be possible if current experiments with carbon nano-tubes prove to be as promising as they appear.

Then, all it will take is the will of governments or the profit-hunger of corporations to make it happen.

As for Big Al's suggestion to colonize the oceans, one big asteroid hitting the earth will wipe out any ocean colonies just like previous impacts have wiped out oceanic species before.