Should humanity colonise other planets?

richardb70

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Interesting discussion here at work recently.

So humans must eventually leave Earth to guarantee the survival of the species. The question is, should we?

Is humanity a virus, a disease, a plague - or will we do better next time?
 
So humans must eventually leave Earth to guarantee the survival of the species. The question is, should we?

Yes, we definitely should. Needs to be on a planet with no other beings of near-human intelligence though, or else that'd not end well. We also need to sort out our issues first and get rid of things like religion, war, reliance on oil etc.

Is humanity a virus
No
a disease
No
No
or will we do better next time
Depends on who colonises. If it's same old, then no we won't do better and it'll only be a matter of time before another planet is needed.
 
Interesting discussion here at work recently.

So humans must eventually leave Earth to guarantee the survival of the species. The question is, should we?

Is humanity a virus, a disease, a plague - or will we do better next time?
Why not? Planets are a piece of rock. How do you hurt a piece of rock? They don't have feelings.

Then you need to consider the sheer size of the universe.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/are-there-more-stars-than-grains-of-sand-on-the-earths-1471951896

There are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all the beaches of our planet. So next time you are walking on the beach would you notice a grain of sand that was corrupted?

I guess not. We are really to insignificant in the universe to be noticed.

And the universe doesn't think, and doesn't care. It's just physics doing what physics does.

Also note, the vast majority of species that have lived on this planet died out before we even existed. In the big scale of things we haven't even pushed that much to extinction. If we never existed animals would still have lived and died and became extinct.
 
I like the optimism! Yes, hopefully by the time we're ready to spread our wings, we'll have jettisoned our worst tendencies.

Unfortunately our relatively brief residency on the planet has been destructive in so many ways. Do we really want an ever increasing wave of resource consumption fanning out in all directions?
 
Should we go to the next cave? Yes
Should we go to the next copse of trees? Yes
Should we go to the next forest? Yes
Should we go to the next hill? Yes
Should we go to the next valley? Yes
Should we go to the next plains? Yes
Should we go to the next island? Yes
Should we go to the next land mass? Yes
Should we go to the next continent? Yes
Should we go to the next celestial body? Yes
Should we go to the next planet? Yes
Should we go to the next solar system? Yes
Should we go to the next galaxy? Yes
Should we go to the next dimension? Yes
Should we go to the next Miley Cyrus concert? No
 
I like the optimism! Yes, hopefully by the time we're ready to spread our wings, we'll have jettisoned our worst tendencies.

Unfortunately our relatively brief residency on the planet has been destructive in so many ways. Do we really want an ever increasing wave of resource consumption fanning out in all directions?

1. More species became extinct before we existed. If we didn't exist this would have continued.

2. We might even save life on earth. The dinosaurs were doing just fine until a meteorite turned up. If we didn't exist life might be going just fine for the rest of the animal kingdom - and then all wiped out by a planet killing event like a meteorite. However, humans might see it coming and do something about it. As we get smarter we have also saved species that might have otherwise died out. Numerous animals are capable of taking over the environment. Take a rabbit, it's a cute fluffy ball, but with enough of them and with no natural predator, they can eat crops other animals need, unless disease hits them. We might introduce a predator to wipe out the rabbits.

3. What is the natural order? As far as we can tell all other planets have no life on them. The natural order, therefore, is for us to wipe out ourselves and all other life to make Earth just like the rest. I guess as a virus is alive we would be a virus, bringing life to other planets... That's not destructive.

The planet and the universe still wouldn't care. You are anthropomorphising the universe.

4. Whatever we've done the planet has carried on and doesn't care. It's a ball of rock. Given long enough the sun will become a red giant, scorch the planet and wipe out all life on the planet anyway. This will happen regardless of our existence.

5. Fanning out in all directions? You've watched too much Star Trek. For matter to travel at the speed of light requires an infinite amount of energy. To reach light speed it would mean consuming everything in the universe, your infinite amount of energy, and even that would take twenty years to reach a nearby planet. Which of course doesn't exist as you burnt up all the energy in the universe. What happened is scifi writers rehashed old stories of westerns and the days of sail and moved them to space. So people think of space as like the old days of sail, with ships going off in fleets, discovering new worlds, and exchanging broadsides with other races.

Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale - TV Tropes

On the other hand, "Space is so ridiculously huge that there is absolutely no realistic way that anyone could ever travel to anywhere even remotely interesting in the lifespan of most major civilizations", while not a total deal-breaker, does rule out an awfully broad range of plots.

For example, consider that a light year is on the order of 10 quadrillion metres or nearly six trillion miles. Let's assume your family car uses about 2 and a half gallons (11.37 litres) of fuel per 100km - about 25 mpg - and a gallon (2.55 litres) costs about $4 USD (i.e. 1.6 USD/1 Euro per litre) to traverse it. This means that one light year is roughly where you'd end up if you spent the entire national debt of the US on petroleum fuel note . At the opposite end, an atomic nucleus is on the order of a quadrillionth of a meter. That's ten-to-the-power-of-negative-fifteen of a meter, or a femtometer. Such outrageous SI prefixesrarely appear in fiction, and that's before we get anywhere near the scales of galaxies and subatomic particles. This is because most writers aren't that good at or are too lazy to implement mathematics, let alone the branch of calculus. If it sounds like a number made up by a child (Attention all yoctograms!, septillion seconds), the writer might have actually taken it seriously.

A way of explaining the scale of the universe is to use fermi style estimation to the nearest powers of ten. The solar system is about a million times the width of the Earth while the Milky Way galaxy is a 100 million times the width of the solar system, and the observable universe is a million times the width of the Milky Way. The size of the universe beyond that is speculation, though the observable universe may be but a speck in the larger universe, assuming it's not infinite.

Another example which often comes up is the idea of beings coming to our galaxy from another galaxy. While there's no reason why a writer can't introduce beings from the nearest galaxy intent on contacting/conquering the Milky Way, there would have to be a pretty dang good reason to travel the incredibly vast distances separating galaxies — distances which make traveling between stars seem like a little hop.

There isn't really a practical way we can travel to other solar systems, or at least not for a very, very, long time. Sci-fi writers can't live with that so they come up with ideas such as worm holes etc to try and step outside of the limitations.
 
I can't see it happening anytime soon. We have neither the technology or finances to colonise the moon, and a human mission to Mars is many decades away, if ever.
 
Douglas Adams said:
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
 
The extent of our broadcasts:

Extent of human radio broadcasts

science40114 - Welcome to the Solar System

"Far from marking the outer edge of the solar system, as those schoolroom maps so cavalierly imply, Pluto is barely one 50,000th of the way. Of course we have no prospect of such a journey. Based on what we know now and can reasonably imagine, there is absolutely no prospect that any human being will ever visit the edge of our own solar system — ever. It is just too far". - Bill Bryson, *A Short History of Nearly Everything"

Even if you shrank down everything so that Jupiter was a small as the period at the end of this sentence, and Pluto was no bigger than a molecule, Pluto would still be over thirty-five feet away.” (Pg. 24). If we were on Pluto the sun would just look like a pinhead.

Faster than light?

Faster-Than-Light Travel / Analysis - TV Tropes
 
Should we go to the next cave? Yes
Should we go to the next copse of trees? Yes
Should we go to the next forest? Yes
Should we go to the next hill? Yes
Should we go to the next valley? Yes
Should we go to the next plains? Yes
Should we go to the next island? Yes
Should we go to the next land mass? Yes
Should we go to the next continent? Yes
Should we go to the next celestial body? Yes
Should we go to the next planet? Yes
Should we go to the next solar system? Yes
Should we go to the next galaxy? Yes
Should we go to the next dimension? Yes
Should we go to the next Miley Cyrus concert? No

Should we go to the next pub? Yes. Right, drink up lads.
 
While it's certainly not possible to go anywhere remotely far away and come back and tell you mum about the trip, it is theoretically possible to go a huge distance in a human lifespan if you go fast enough - i.e. approaching the speed of light. Of course the snag is a lot of time will pass back home. A real lot. So it's a one-way trip, but you could set off to seed the galaxy - kinda. e.g. If I remember well, if you got in a ship that could accelerate at 1g for a loooong time (so some fuel problems to solve) you could get to the next galaxy over in about 60 years according to a clock on the ship.
 
even that would take twenty years to reach a nearby planet.

Just over four years actually - enough time to do a MSc in Biology and Terraforming on the way.
 
One day there will be a breakthrough and quickly people will become used to space travel and accept it as normal.

The unknown is when...
 
Yes, we should send all the important people like traffic wardens, politicians, investment bankers, ahead of us to set up the new world for us.

Cheers,

Nigel
 
Yes, we should send all the important people like traffic wardens, politicians, investment bankers, ahead of us to set up the new world for us.

Cheers,

Nigel

Don't forget middle managers and hair dressers.
 
Sorry you're right. Much closer.

Currently Astronomers are way winning the race against physicists to get us to another planet. At some point the closest known planet was 20LY away - now it's only 4LY away - that's 16 LY the astronomers have got us. Up to the physicists now though - unless the astronomers really pull a blinder and discover some new even closer stars :)
 
I can't see it happening anytime soon. We have neither the technology or finances to colonise the moon, and a human mission to Mars is many decades away, if ever.

One day we may solve the issues and actually be able to get a man on the moon for real ;)

But yes, no reason not to go to planets that have no other life for us to screw with.
As has been said, a Planet, even our earth is just a lump (sphere) of rock. Why I laugh when they say we need to stop hurting the planet etc. The planet goes not get hurt.
Rising sea levels, ozone, ect. Nothing can harm the rock :)

I have wondered, and this may even be worth of a separate thread?

If we find and visit another world with similar/ish lifeforms to ourselves, and we don't like the way they are doing things.
Perhaps all women are naked slaves and held at home, simply to do the males bidding, and they are thankful for it!
Would be stick our BIG noses in, and try and change the way their society works ?
 
We just need another world war, it is a great way of cutting down over population.
 
Yes , to survive as a species ( if we don't destroy ouselves first that is ) is the only option open . Unless we go down the Logan's Run or Solent Green route and mass culling of population becomes a thing ( or indeed birth control mandated ) . The Moon and Mars are first obvious first baby steps , planet Earth can't survive this virus of our species as is .
 
^^^^
Indeed. Colonies on tne Moon/Mars in the next few decades.

I can’t believe there’s so much fuss/panic about Global Warming, yet, nobody seems to care didly squat about the staggering population increase over the last 100 years/next 100 years.
 
^^^^
Indeed. Colonies on tne Moon/Mars in the next few decades.

I can’t believe there’s so much fuss/panic about Global Warming, yet, nobody seems to care didly squat about the staggering population increase over the last 100 years/next 100 years.

It's easy to TAX and get money from the current population with Global Warming.

Question I've asked a number of times:
Who decided NOW was exactly as it should be, and ANY deviation from how things are NOW is unthinkably terrible and sold as almost the end of the planet?

Imagine now, there was no English Channel, as there ever used to be, and humans at the time could walk between England and France, as we call them now.
Imagine what would happen is that was now, and there was a threat of this flooding and the UK being cut off from the continent! It would be sold as the end of everything.

Or perhaps around the far north you had lush green forests, with many animals, as there used to be, and there was the threat of ice coming in, killing everything, and making the land a barren frozen wilderness. OMG devastating.

But no. It's all fine.
The UK is SUPPOSED to be an island so it's been decided.
The frozen wasteland are SUPPOSED to be like that.

Things that are underwater now, or not underwater now are SUPPOSED to be like that.

God, humans are so short shortsightedly stupid :(
 

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