Comment on First contact when?

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EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

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.

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