Wouldn't it be nice to be able to get off this planet?

Question

There seems to be billions of anti-reason, anti-science wackos and bigots of all types on the planet. Wouldn't it be great if people could one day figure out a way to leave those people behind and build a better world elsewhere, even though this is just fantasy now?

If we think about it, space stations are already off the surface of the planet. One step at a time.

Quote by NASA chief Michael Griffin:
“The goal isn't just scientific exploration... it's also about extending the range of human habitat out from Earth into the solar system as we go forward in time. . . . In the long run a single-planet species will not survive... If we humans want to survive for hundreds of thousands or millions of years, we must ultimately populate other planets. Now, today the technology is such that this is barely conceivable. We're in the infancy of it... I'm talking about that one day, I don't know when that day is, but there will be more human beings who live off the Earth than on it. We may well have people living on the moon. We may have people living on the moons of Jupiter and other planets. We may have people making habitats on asteroids... I know that humans will colonize the solar system and one day go beyond."

Go where? First the low and high orbits (already happening), then the rest of the solar system, then into deep space when capable.

We evolved on Earth but our matter was born in the nuclear center of a star. Homo sapiens evolved in Africa, so that is a sort of home, but a small group of people refused to be limited by the depletion of available resources, and left Africa to colonize other continents in the last 100,000 years; those people were the first Middle Easterners, Europeans and Asians. Even though their early African siblings most likely doubted them when they began their journey, these pioneers conquered and tamed their hostile environments.

The journey to space is more challenging, so it would have to be handled first by the most intellectual and adventuresome members of this species, while the rest of the primates keep indulging in war, food and sex.

Answer 1

I think its much closer than we anticipate. Through things like SpaceX, and Scaled composites, Armadillo Aerospace, and so on.

As for getting away from the anti-science wackos, and soforth, while I don't believe we can escape our problems, necassarily, I think that further embrace of off-planet resources (both physical like mineral resources and non-physical, like better perspectives), the more likely we are to overcome these problems, and move towards greater harmony within the universe.

Finally, a special mention for Richard R - the same is largely true for ocean crusies, and yet they do quite a brisk business. We assume that space has to be this difficult place, that we can't deal with, but it doesn't have to be done that way. Using things like inflatables, we can have plenty of space, in outer space.

Home is what you make of it Richard, whether on Earth, underwater, or in space.

Answer 2

And go where? We evolved here. Its home. I spent considerable time aboard the USS Plunger, a fast attack submarine. Its as close to living on a space station as you can get without leaving the atmosphere. Once or twice we spent almost two months underwater at a time. Things occasionally broke down that required parts to be flown in by copter from a nearby carrier, and once we had to leave station to deliver someone who got seriously ill to medical facilites ashore in Adak Alaska. Now imagine a voyage of hundreds or thousands of years in the same sort of accomodations (although hopefully with women crewmembers as well ). If anything important breaks,your basically toast. If anybodys gets sick, you have to depend upon you onboard physician only. I was very squirrelly after two months submerged. Most of us were. Believe me, you DO NOT want to spend that much time in a ship cooped up like sardines for year after year...

Answer 3

Ponce DE Leone had the same idea, but he looked for it in a reasonable place. You could never separate all of 'anti-reason,science wackos and bigots of all types' from people who think they don't fit into any of those categories, you included. We have to educate those who are ignorant, that would be more realistic and economical.

Answer 4

I don't really know... it depends on how the universe works out there. There are some theories about how if we ever went to another planet that had life that life, especially bacterial/viral or the alien equivalent, would be fatal to us.

Answer 5

U will search all your life looking for that place and will not find it.

Answer 6

nope