Comment on Realistically, what do people plan to do on the Moon and Mars that requires a permanent, or long term human presence there?

• LovableSidekick@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  This is a much-discussed topic and you can easily find tons of information on it. For one thing, not trying to expand into new places goes against our nature - not just as humans but as living things. Every species we know of collectively tries to find and adapt to new habitats. A long-term practical reason is that inhabiting more than one planet ensures that our species will survive planetary disasters, like the asteroid collisions we know have repeatedly caused massive extinctions on Earth. Or the volcanic upheavals 250 million years ago that wiped out most life on Earth. We know these things happen again and again, and if this is humanity’s only home when the next one hits, game over.

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  • greedytacothief@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Unless you’ve written blog posts on this before then no I can’t do research on it, because I want to know specifically why you want this. From your answer should I assume the reason you want humans to colonialize other planets is genetic redundancy?

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    • LovableSidekick@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      That’s my top reason, but it’s not an original thought - I arrived at by learning about the subject. Or maybe because expansion is a universal trait of living things, as I said, and I don’t have a reason not to want it. The world has enough resources to solve Earthly problems and also reach outward.

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• WoodScientist@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Again, if you don’t get it, you don’t get it. I don’t know how to explain to you why it’s a good thing for humanity to make something greater of itself, to spread life beyond Earth.

  If you don’t get it, that’s fine. You simply won’t be part of that future. Space exploration is something that will be done by people that care about space exploration. You can stay home and play video games while others go out and explore the universe.

  Some things are their own motivation, an end unto themselves. Stop looking for economic justifications. Not everything in life is about money.

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  • SLVRDRGN@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    This is not really a whole response to the question. I’m all for space exploration but responsible space exploration. At the current moment, humans haven’t even proven themselves capable of taking care of their blue marble in the void. The last thing I think humans should do is expand our irresponsible behavior to other worlds - until we have shown ourselves capable of the great responsibility that comes with that great power.

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    • WoodScientist@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      That will never not be true. There will always be room for improvement. In fact, the moment we don’t have anything to improve on Earth is the time we shouldn’t expand outward, as by that point we’ve probably become a society of narcissists that thinks we’re perfect and can do no wrong.

      And moreover, expanding outward helps us protect Earth. We should be trying to move as much of our industry offworld as possible. Most of the universe is not a place we can “ruin.” There is no way to irresponsibly use a dead asteroid. There’s nothing to “take care of.” The only biosphere in need of protection that we know of is Earth’s. That’s half the point of space colonization - giving us space to do a lot of the things that really shouldn’t be done on a place as delicate as Earth. You can’t pollute the Moon to be more lethal than it already is. It’s already a barren, airless, radiation blasted hell hole.

      Humans aren’t Captain Planet villains. No one pollutes for the sake of pollution. Pollution is always the negative byproduct of something else. And a lot of those industrial processes would best be moved off Earth in the long term.

      I don’t think we’ll ever be perfectly responsible. If we turn Mars into a paradise and later wipe it out through our idiocy, well at least it had a brief time as a living world. But that’s fine. We can expand outward and turn a million dead worlds into a million living worlds. Will some of those new Edens later be driven to ruin by our own flaws? Certainly. But even if half die off, I’ll take 500,000 new Edens over a 500,000 barren rocks.

      Those who wait for the perfect time to act die of old age before they ever accomplish anything.

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  • greedytacothief@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I don’t know man, permanent settlements on other worlds seems kinda like a big thing to not have a justification for. I’m not saying that you need to have good reasons either. Most of the colonialization on earth had emotional reason behind it. I want to know what your reason is?

    Is this like an Everest thing? “I want to climb it because it’s there”

    I love to go on adventures and do dangerous things, my face is currently broken in two places because of mountain biking.

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