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Originally Posted by Boerseun
For instance, why not colonize the seafloor? It's as alien and dangerous as any colony on the moon would be, it would serve as a great learning tool to develop skills and techniques required for colonizing other planets. It's much closer and cheaper to get there, though - and as a project would occupy humanity for quite a few centuries.
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I would agree, the seafloor is a good place to create settlements, aggregate resources
together. This is not and either/or situation though. We should do both.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Boerseun
Any resources that could be found on Mars or any other body in the Solar System is worthless in the absence of buyers. It's no good landing on an asteroid that is made of 99% solid pure gold, if you can't get it to Earth. And even if you could get such a massive amount of gold to Earth, all you would achieve by this is to depress the gold price to such an extent that it becomes essentially worthless. Which kinda makes the whole exercise pointless. The availability of resources in space must be seen in the context of what wants and needs any colonizers would have; resources should be mined and processed for them - attempting to trade with Earth will be virtually impossible due to fuel requirements and the distortion of the planetary market by the sudden availability of the rare commodity of your choice.
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We will make into space as a collection of communities. We will likely do it only after
some kind of scientific revolution regarding propulsion to get out there has occurred.
Whether it be Ion, Nuclear (Fusion preferred), Matter/Anitmatter (one NASA official I
spoke with suggested using Anti-Protons), or something even more exotic is not sure.
That we will do it is clear. I predict in this 21st Century there will some kind of permanent
facility somewhere in this solar system other than Earth.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Boerseun
Even the old story of "keeping humanity's eggs in one basket" is not enough. With early detection and sufficient resolve, asteroids in dangerous close-earth orbits can be identified and either destroyed or nudged into safer orbits. If we can't do it yet, we should be able to in the not-too-distant future.
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This is a must have as well, Identification and well as Management.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Boerseun
Don't get me wrong, I don't want to depress y'all. Colonizing the moon and planets will be awesomely cool. But I think increasingly intelligent robots will be the ticket for humanity's presence in space, and not only on the short term, but for hundreds of years to come, still.
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All things out there will require Human intervention at some point. I would agree that
not to "break the bank" to get there is prudent. So getting out there has to become
financially viable as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Boerseun
I just can't see any justification for spending billions of dollars on space colonization when there are no locals to trade with, and its impossible to get anything of value back to Earth in large enough quantities to make it sustainable.
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We are the locals once we colonize. We become the natives.
maddog
