Ask Lemmy

I do not expect spreading out to significally reduce our resource consumption. In fact, I expect it to momentarily rise, as we shoot equipment and personell out if the gravitational pull of the earth.

Furthermore I'd like to see our energy consumption stay at a constant level or even decrease instead of steadily increasing. This is especially true for energy accessed through burning of fossil fuels. We need to drasticly reduce our CO2 output.

As much as I love space and the idea of space travel we have a lot of problems on this planet that need to be solved before we even think about expanding our reach to the stars.

In the short term, we should probably focus on fixing our problems on earth. Some space research should still be funded, but not as a major priority. Once we finally have our shit together, we can start exploring the stars.

Exploring our universe is how we come to a better understanding of everything. I think this is a fundamental aspect of humanity. There's enough room to do so while still addressing other issues we face. I'm of the opinion that additional understanding can only improve how we address those very issues.

if we can't learn to utilize space resources then we will never significantly be able to travel in space. We should put most of our effort in autmation that can accomplish things in space like mining and refining right up to eventual manufacturing.

Very low priority first focus should be on making our only planet as livable and with as many healthy ecosystems and thriving species as possible given how utterly unlikely we will ever have significant population on any other.

Humans are life's way to expand itself off this planet. So, yeah, let's keep exploring

I think we need to address climate change and capitalism first. But once that's done, I think space exploration would be sweet.

It's a good idea at the wrong time. Our species priority should be managing ecological overshoot. For example, tackling our Planetary Boundaries so humanity can de risk human civilizational collapse and possible extinction.

Space should come after we've solved for sustainability. Edit: I should also note that true sustainability also advances our capabilities in space as for any meaningful human missions, you'll need to bring your sustainable environment with you wherever you go. It will need it's own circular economy and ecology and the technology that goes with it.

At this point i think the rich would use it for mining offworld resources to get richer rather than advancing humanity

Its the only real option we have given a long enough time frame. That or voluntary extinction

Okay so the problem with space travel is numerous and I don't believe we'll see anything beyond reaching Mars and the Moon in our lifetime.

First thing, we need everyone on board to back NASA and be intelligent enough to figure out where exactly what we want to do. We keep finding these earth-like exoplanets, so why not start there?

The other thing is, to achieve the level of space travel we need, on the levels of where Voyager-1 and Voyager-2 is going in length of space, we'd need to spend significant time and resources building the materials and ships needed for that kind of travel.

Like I said, this won't be done in our lifetime. We're probably several lifetimes out.

I believe that space exploration and development is of such high potential future utility as to become a moral imperative, but I suspect that view will be unpopular given that in recent decades some of the most infamous tech billionaires have stuck their hands and toxic branding in that area.

Space is cool and it's a better use of our time than blowing each other up.

I'm all for it, provided Elon, Jeff, or any other tech bros aren't involved.

Space travel is a non-starter. It's taken decades to even leave the solar system.

I want my share of those resources to go to my retirement account. A shorter work week would be better. Or maybe a machine to do my laundry so I can do other things with my limited time on earth.

Depends on how far you're thinking.

Nowhere else in the solar system is anywhere near as habitable as Earth, and there's still lots of empty space to fill on Earth. Consider for a moment how much easier a self-supporting city on Antarctica would be than a city on Mars. Human space travel is done purely for science or recreation, at this point, not for growth.

If you want to "disperse" in any significant way, you have to start looking at exoplanets, and it's going to take centuries to get there, and we don't have the technology to survive that yet. Once we do, there's a strong argument for it, because our planet and solar system will only last so long.

I am all for it in principle. I believe that we owe it to ourselves and our future to make space travel, research, and colonization as feasible as possible.

At the present time, however, I have to believe that we would take all of our earthbound problems, inequities, ignorance, and failings into the solar system with us. Which makes us not a more prosperous civilization, but the same backwards civilization with a larger footprint.

I do believe however that our population is large enough that we can simultaneously devote maximum effort into bettering ourselves, becoming better stewards of this planet, and settling on other ones. To me it’s not an “either or” thing, and I reject any argument that glibly states that we’re so fucked up that we should never leave earth.

Edit: I’m going to change my answer. The more I think about it, the more I realize that my opinion on whether or not we should go to space is irrelevant. We are going to do it. It’s in us as a species to do it. The need, the drive, is innate, and the ramblings of a bunch of opinionated internet squibs isn’t going to change that.

So the question, perhaps, is not whether or not we should, but how do we best go about it without fucking it up? That’s a way more complex question.

https://youtu.be/otwkXZ0SmTs

The maximum speed of information and how spread out space is, combined with the likelihood of fully automated planet destroying superweapons that can't be well defended against being the meta for future warfare, make this a very bad idea IMO. One of thousands of humanity's offshoots goes nuts and decides we all need to die, it's over, and you're rolling the dice with every one. It is clear that on a population scale we do not now have our shit together enough to keep that from happening even with the benefit of instant communication, let alone without it.

Creating human colonies throughout the galaxy at this point would be like making copies of a severely mentally ill and suicidal person in the hopes that the clones will have a better survival rate if there's more of them. It is stupid. Human culture and organizational technology need to be way better before we even consider spreading out into space because otherwise we're facing the exact same apocalypse just on a grander scale and harder to resolve. Probably shouldn't even send humans, instead craft some artificial lifeform using us as a template that is inherently better at this stuff than we are.

“Disperse the population” is still way out in the future and we don’t even know yet if we’ll be able to.

But there are so many steps we should be taking. Life shouldn’t just be a drudge, a life worth living has hopes and dreams, visions of a better future, in addition to challenges driving innovation. Yes we need to invest more in our people, but investing in our dreams has far less money but can return larger value

I know I’ll never live long enough to see a colony but the space program has been a true inspiration from the beginning watch Apollo landings on the family black and white tv. We had a bit of a lull but developments around space are coming faster and more exciting than ever.

I’m excited to progress toward a permanently manned moon base, to answer more questions about whether we’ll ever be able to live in space, develop ever more technology to approach that possibility.