Comments on: Planetary Chauvinism

By: Just Me

Just Me — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:43:19 +0000

Conclusion? Barring an unlikely breakthrough in physics, the human race isn’t going to go anywhere.

Yep. The cosmic radiation problem alone is probably insurmountable.

Space is extremely hostile to life, especially complex life like humans, and long distance space travel is a complete fantasy. Just getting a very small colony going on Mars is probably about the limit of what we can achieve, and I do not see the point of doing even this. Our resources are far better spent keeping this planet habitable for as long as possible.

Our species was born of this earth, and we shall end here.

By: John Grenfield

John Grenfield — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 03:23:40 +0000

Sorry Jason I got momentarily sidetracked by intergalactic externalities.

By: Jason Soon

Jason Soon — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 03:18:48 +0000

Dammit Greenfield, what a letdown.
I clicked on your comment hoping to see how you’d bring luvvies into the issue of planetary colonisation.

By: John Grenfield

John Grenfield — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 03:14:06 +0000

I support planetary chauvinism; after all, the colonisation of space is surely part of the homosapien’s burden?

By: Jacques Chester

Jacques Chester — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 01:57:14 +0000

Sinclair;

I can’t find it

By: Sinclair Davidson

Sinclair Davidson — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 21:25:52 +0000

Jacques - I’ve got a comment in your spam-filter.

By: Niall

Niall — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 21:10:51 +0000

Douglas Adams really was ahead of his time, eh?

By: Jacques Chester

Jacques Chester — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:46:29 +0000

fatfingers;

If evacuation was the goal, the trick would be to send the poor up first and then the rich. So Stark is all backwards.

By: fatfingers

fatfingers — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:40:13 +0000

“Further, it is hard to imagine that anyone would volunteer to spend a lifetime encased in a spaceship, for the sole purpose of breeding further generations, who themselves would be subjected to a similarly sterile existence, and without any say in the matter.”

I know I’m nitpicking as well, but that’s a silly argument from Canning and Hill. Replace “encased in a spaceship” with “stuck to the surface of a planet”, and it describes current reality. If the arkship (to use a sci-fi term) is big enough, that’s not a problem - think a hollowed-out moonlet or big asteroid.

One real problem that occurs to me but isn’t mentioned here is getting people into the arkship(s). Even assuming a super-efficient surface-to-space delivery method (likely multiple space elevators) that made it economically feasible, we’d have to send up hundreds of thousands of people every day just to keep breaking even with current population growth, let alone make a good effort at evacuating the planet.

“Conclusion….”

I agree. Of course, there’s always the ‘Stark’ scenario for a tiny minority.