Ringworld.
Terraforming other planets would be astronomically more challenging than fixing our own planet and we don’t seem to be able to get our shit together to do that. Even if we are capable of terraforming other planets, it would take many centuries at minimum. O’Neal cylinders are far more likely to work once we start industrializing the moon.
Actually, both.
Men will do anything other than go to therapy.
Both! All three!
Fix our own planet first
Bonkers question. Can’t even figure out living on Earth sustainably and you want to talk about doing it without gravity, an atmosphere or an ionosphere?
Huge sci-fi lover here. But at the same time, colonization of space for humans is possibly impossible without avatars. The human body evolved here, and it’s a vessel that works here the best. To colonize other worlds, it’s more economically viable to send machines, create biologically synthesized new species (taking dna from local species there), and then transfer consciousness to them. Similar with Avatar, but without having to have the spaceships arrive in the planet full of humans. Humans remain on earth, and they project their consciousness somewhere else, in an instant due to entanglement.
Genetically modify ourselves so that we can live both in zero gravity (and maybe survive short exposure to vacuum) and on other planets.
Is this sub-populated mostly by Facebook people? Some of the answers really feel like it.
All these answers are so killjoy and boring. Like yeah we should strive to make our own planet better, but why not also do this? Building habitats on other worlds doesn’t prevent us from caring for this one.
Plus maybe trying to make a liveable environment in space can give us new insights in preserving the one at home. Like how solar panels have come from space exploration.
Why would people want to focus more on things we can actually do right now and would improve our lives instead of completely unfeasible pipe dreams? I don’t understand.
All these answers are so killjoy and boring.
Yes, fantasizing about billionaires fixing everything by making good on their bullshit marketing pitches is very exciting to credulous people.
Building habitats on other worlds doesn’t prevent us from caring for this one.
If you believe that there’s some magic means to have zero emissions launches into space that are in any way self-sustained without further launches to keep throwing resources after spent resources from an increasingly polluted, depleted, and warming Earth, sure, you can huff that hopium deep and hard and ignore the worsening material reality all around you.
Plus maybe trying to make a liveable environment in space can give us new insights in preserving the one at home.
You’ve bought deeply into billionaire bullshit and their bogus promises, especially as privatized space travel in the west becomes increasingly vanity tourism and marketing stunts. The accomplishments that such companies’ underpaid and overworked workers achieve are not for the common good, nor can they be because they are publicly subsidized private companies seeking to maximize profits and expand their own venture capital appeal, and nothing more.
Space exploration isn’t unique to capitalist systems.
THE YEAR IS UNIVERSAL CENTURY 0079
Both.
If we can do B, A doesn’t provide many benefits.
A 1km diameter, 30km cylinder would provide enough area to feed ~140k people. 95km^2 of space.
That is assuming no imported food etc, based on 7000m^2 per person which is almost 2 acres each.
140k people is a small city.
140k people is about the amount of people living in a 1km radius around you, if you live in some inner city area.
You could have most people in a relatively small area with the rest for farming.
There would be little need for the equivalent of roads, almost all travel would be walk or bike. The longest distance between two points is less than 34km. If the main settlement is in a ring around the middle of the cylinder, it is less than 17km to any point.
Why? Nice planet we’ve got here, we could focus on preventing it becoming inhabitable due to climate change instead.
I’m not convinced that suspending space programs would create solutions to climate change.
No matter what you do the Earth won’t stay habitable forever. So we either learn to expand out into space as a species or face extinction eventually. Not to mention putting all our eggs in one basket is a terrible idea. Any cosmological event could wipe out the Earth at any time. The question is are you okay with our entire species going with it?
There needs to be a backup, ideally multiple.
If we can’t manage to keep Earth’s ecosystem thriving to support us, we certainly won’t be able to create a new self-sustaining ecosystem elsewhere. And without that, there’s no chance of any non-Earth settlement being able to sustain a healthy human society and culture long-term.
Without some serious (currently impossible) terraforming, Mars colonies are limited to deep caves or heavily shielded buildings, no outside to relax, nowhere else to go. Have a look at the list of crimes in Antarctica, a similar situation where people are stuck together, that’s not a good environment for mental health, and it will be worse farther away. A Mars colony (edit: or space station) owned by a private company will be a corporate prison, the inhabitants are 100% dependent on that company - who would voluntarily put their lives into the hands of the whims of some narcissistic hoarder with no empathy or regard for workers?
If we can’t manage to keep Earth’s ecosystem thriving to support us, we certainly won’t be able to create a new self-sustaining ecosystem elsewhere. And without that, there’s no chance of any non-Earth settlement being able to sustain a healthy human society and culture long-term.
I’m unconvinced that pulling back from space programs will make Earth’s ecosystem thrive.
A Mars colony (edit: or space station) owned by a private company will be a corporate prison, the inhabitants are 100% dependent on that company - who would voluntarily put their lives into the hands of the whims of some narcissistic hoarder with no empathy or regard for workers?
Agreed. That would be a super-weird concept, like a country owned by a private corporation.
