I think this misses 2 possibilities. The first one being the unlikely scenario where a species’ space travel program outpaces the ecological collapse of their planet, necessitating a jump into an interplanetary civilization, and the second being the rarity of certain materials required for a technological civilization to continue to exist. The Rare Earth metals are so named because of their rarity on the planet, with most deposits being the result of meteorite impacts, and even things like iron only exist in finite quanities. There’s been talk for years now of capturing asteroids in orbit around the planet for mining purposes and atmospheric “scooping” to harvest gases from the gravity wells of other planets for gases such as hydrogen.
Unless a civilization achieves 100% efficiency in a closed cycle of material use, they will need to look to the stars by necessity eventually.
warmaster@lemmy.world 3 months ago
3rd option: they want to explore
3rd Plus: Facehuggers in the cargo bay.
Deme@sopuli.xyz 3 months ago
Space exploration necessitates a technological industrial civilization. So they/we would somehow have to figure out how to first do #2 (so as to not die), while still maintaining the industrial capacity to spread out into space. That sounds like an even more improbable subset of the already improbable scenario #2.
where_am_i@sh.itjust.works 3 months ago
It’s obvious that stars provide obscene, unimaginable amounts of energy. It’s also clear that this energy can be captured and stored.
We, currently, can’t exit our orbit without using oil, but that does not mean it’s theoretically impossible.
Deme@sopuli.xyz 3 months ago
Climate change is just one of six planetary boundaries that we’ve crossed, out of a total of nine. The choice of rocket fuel is secondary to having the industrial capacity necessary for such endeavours, while not fucking up the planet in numerous ways.
MindTraveller@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
Don’t most rockets use hydrogen oxygen reaction? Separating hydrogen from oxygen requires only electricity, which we can produce renewably.