Discussion The next 100 years..

[Wishbone]

Unmanned probes are exploiting the benefits of miniaturisation on existing rockets, and in 10 years these benefits will turn into a trickle.

We're hitting two walls that don't depend much on commitment of our politicians to "crazy space dreams": cosmic radiation and weightlessness. The only currently known solutions require huge mass delivered to LEO, which means building pyramids instead of helping out the hungry, the ill and the illiterate. Breakthroughs are more than welcome here

In fact, I have a strong suspicion that if all the resources currently being embezzled in Russia were diverted to space explorations, we'd have been selling ice cream on the Moon by now.

 

[GoForPDI]

Then you take it onto the Human level. We are the only case of life - i.e, matter that is capable of memory, matter that can communicate with other matter like itself, matter that is aware of its existance (I think, therefore I am) - that we can observe in the universe.

We live on a planet, which happens to be orbiting a star, and there are other planets and astronomical bodies orbiting the same star. If you look into the vastness of space when you are on the space-facing side of the planet, you can see many many lights in the sky. These are other stars, other planets. We can observe this. We can make some sense of it, and so it becomes part of who we are, it is where we exist, it is us, because we cannot comprehend ''life'' in a different medium, a different set of rules, a different planet. We take it for granted, that we are where we are, and we exist.

Do we need to justify anything? Do we need a reason to do anything? Is there something worthwhile in it for us?

No, there is no reason for anything and nothing for us to gain, in the (here comes the cliche) grand scheme of the universe, and the very existance of anything. Everything us humans do on Earth is absolutely trivial. Our self-justifications, our feeling that we need to control, regulate, buy, sell.. Its just all going around the same bits of matter that happen to be able to communicate with each other.

And after writing that.. I've lost my point. If you can make anything out of that.. well, thats prbably what I meant.

 

[T.Neo]

GoForPDI; it isn't about nihilism. It's about practicality. It's interesting to a select few, but most people couldn't give a damn and it's expensive. That's why the view of most people is "why do it?"

There are actual practical exploits of our civilisation. Like eating and mining minerals andsucking oil out of the ground to power our infrastructure. Space has nothing practical to offer us- beyond of course satellites in Earth orbit. But manned spaceflight is pretty purposeless to our civilisation.

You can go on about "humans are trivial in the grand scheme of the universe", but to be honest, it's complete nonsense. We can observe huge things, but we don't know of anything like ourselves. And even if we did, they would almost certainly differ from us greatly. There is no human civilisation in the depth of space between us and the Andromeda galaxy, there is no innovation in a supernova, there are no works of art on a red supergiant. "Trivial", yes. In a sense of physical scale. But from what we have observed to date, we're the most important things in the entire universe. And if we aren't even that, we're still damn important anyway. We and what we create are an incredibly special phenomenon, even though it is small in terms of mass, or size, or time.

We're hitting two walls that don't depend much on commitment of our politicians to "crazy space dreams": cosmic radiation and weightlessness. The only currently known solutions require huge mass delivered to LEO, which means building pyramids instead of helping out the hungry, the ill and the illiterate. Breakthroughs are more than welcome here

If you want manned spaceflight you're going to have to ship large amounts of mass to LEO anyway. You'll always have miniaturisation benefits in spaceflight; an unmanned probe can mass a ton or less, whereas a manned interplanetary spacecraft needs to mass hundreds of tons.

One option for deflecting solar particle radiation is magnetic shielding; such a shield and its power source might mass less than the amount of passive shielding needed to drop radiation down to similar levels.

In fact, I have a strong suspicion that if all the resources currently being embezzled in Russia were diverted to space explorations, we'd have been selling ice cream on the Moon by now.

Probably. But the problem is: nobody cares enough to provide large amounts of money.

And when they do, it isn't because they want to see actual results, it's because they want jobs for their state, so people can re-elect them...

 

[Jarvitä]

Space elevators? Seriously? You mean the things that need to be made out of materials that don't exist, deliver to only one (high) orbit, clash with all sorts of debris and vehicles in other orbits, that expose passengers to high rates of radiation, that encounter atmospheric corrosion, and that we have no idea how to build?

Yeah.

Note the thread title. This isn't a "what could be done but isn't being done with what we have now" discussion.

That's a bit of a problem, considering that only two of the current G20 nations are on the equator.

Space elevators don't have to start on the equator. If we have the materials science to build a cable strong enough to pull from equator to GEO, pole -> GEO can be done as well.

Where do you propose to send roughly 400 000 people each day (apparently the number needed just to offset current population growth, without actually reducing the population)?

You're using current statistics. The population growth will definitely explode in the next 100 years. We'll be sending people to colonies on planets, moons, asteroids, space habitats and interstellar ships.

I'm a big fan of terraforming, but to terraform Mars you'd need to move huge amounts of mass (either by redirecting magically nitrogen-rich comets, or by liberating gases from the regolith). It would be an absolutely huge project and while it might be (relatively) technologically mundane, require knowledge that we simply don't have (yet).

Terraforming Venus is even more difficult; removing that atmosphere would require very advanced efforts, and changing the spin of the planet would require an extremely powerful civilisation (spin up Venus to a 24 hour day-length over 200 years would likely require power at a rate of several exawatts).

I know this sounds like the argument from magic, but I'm optimistic enough to believe this will be solved by the end of our century.

How do you propose to send hundreds of thousands of people across the interplanetary void each day? Spacecraft that orbit around in LEO are difficult enough to construct.

Initially, most of Earth's industrial capacity would have to be used for the interplanetary fleet. Once that's up and running, little extra investment is needed from Earth, as it can sustain itself through solar energy, and mining fuel/materials from the colonies.

Let's work on getting the birth rate back up to 1960s growth levels so we can imitate bacteria conquering a petri dish, and outstrip all our supplies while we're doing so... :dry:

Filling up the Earth? Do we really want that? A world of trillions of people, existing only to further an economic machine, living on a planet of an entirely obliterated heritage?*

Not just 1960's growth levels. I'm talking about 1960's birth rates combined with minimal death rates achievable with technology a 100 years ahead of us. It will happen, the only question is how we choose to deal with it. We can either destroy human nature and Earth, or protect human nature by spreading it across the universe.

Nobody is going to care about conquering the cosmos. They're only going to care about power, or at the best, what they can achieve in their lifetime. People aren't perfect.

They don't have to care. Conquering the cosmos will only be a side effect of the human reproductive cycle.

 

[APDAF]

Who says we have to use rockets?

 

[N_Molson]

Mmh... giant catapults ? HAARP gun ? :lol:

 

[deltawing777]

From 2100 to the End of Time

by

Frank J. Tipler
http://129.81.170.14/~tipler/wired.html

 

[T.Neo]

Note the thread title. This isn't a "what could be done but isn't being done with what we have now" discussion.

I can suggest a myriad of things that:

A) Could be done but aren't being done now.

B) Could be done in theory but which we don't know how to do.

The Space Elevator pretty much fits into the second category, but that isn't the problem. The impracticalities are the problem.

Space elevators don't have to start on the equator. If we have the materials science to build a cable strong enough to pull from equator to GEO, pole -> GEO can be done as well.

If.

Pole to GEO can be done as well? Since when? I'm sure I read that an equatorial site is required... or at least that the further you shift such an object from the equator, the more energy is required to haul an object to GEO, or the amount of mass that can be carried is reduced, or something like that.

The population growth will definitely explode in the next 100 years.

If it does, our civilisation will most likely resemble a forest of problems resting on the thin stem of logistics, physics, and reality...

You're using current statistics.

I'm the crazy person who goes around on an internet forum talking about superpowerful interplanetary passenger ships.

Spaceflight is difficult. Interplanetary flight is difficult. It isn't impossible to ship huge amounts of people around, but it is difficult. We don't nearly know how to do that yet.

Modern spacecraft are to interplanetary mass transit, what the first boats that sailed the nile are to an aircraft carrier.

We'll be sending people to colonies on planets, moons, asteroids, space habitats and interstellar ships.

Colonies, space habitats, and interstellar ships that we don't yet know how to construct.

Initially, most of Earth's industrial capacity would have to be used for the interplanetary fleet. Once that's up and running, little extra investment is needed from Earth, as it can sustain itself through solar energy, and mining fuel/materials from the colonies.

What materials would you want to ship to Earth? Beyond things that are cosmically rare here (like He3, and even shipping that is debatable), there really isn't anything that could be used for profitable trade. Anything you can get on Mars, you can get on Earth at a fraction of the cost.

I know this sounds like the argument from magic, but I'm optimistic enough to believe this will be solved by the end of our century.

It does not sound like an argument from magic. It is an argument from magic. It's a handwave that assumes all sorts of things that we just don't know how to do, it assumes things that are dubious within what we do know, it assumes gigantic capability we're not even sure is possible, and mathamatically, it is terrifying.

You can't go on a whim and extrapolate Moore's law like patterns to everything under the Sun (or stuff that's under other suns, for that matter). If that was the case there'd be things in our world that would be far more advanced than they actually are. It's about limitations and invention and availability of ideas and how all sorts of different technologies mesh into eachother.

In the 1970s, it could be easy for one to assume that by today, we'd be flying around the world in supersonic transports, that we'd have industry on the Moon, and that there'd be at least thousands of people living in space habitats. Guess what? Concorde was retired years ago, the Moon is as uninhabited as it was in 1961, and LEO has a temporary population of about 6.

Not just 1960's growth levels. I'm talking about 1960's birth rates combined with minimal death rates achievable with technology a 100 years ahead of us. It will happen, the only question is how we choose to deal with it. We can either destroy human nature and Earth, or protect human nature by spreading it across the universe.

The problem is, it can't happen. It's a huge requirement and it gets worse and worse every year. It gets to a point where there are just absurd numbers going around and you can't possibly assume the technology to support them.

A direct quote from Gordon Moore himself:

It can't continue forever. The nature of exponentials is that you push them out and eventually disaster happens

Let's imagine that by 2100, there are 10 billion people on the Earth, and we have a growth rate of "only" 5% (assuming constant growth rate). In a year there are already 500 million more people; that's over a million people per day. By 2110, there are 16.3 billion people; a year after that there are over 17 billion; over 800 million more. You will have to ship over 2 million people into space per day.

By 2120, the world population is roughly 26.5 billion; a year after that there are nearly 28 billion; roughly 1.3 billion more people in a single year.

By 2150, the world population is over 114 billion people. By 2151 there are over 120 billion people; a yearly growth rate of 5.7 billion people; a daily growth rate of nearly 16 million people (read: you're shipping almost the entire population of the Netherlands into space per day).

By 2190, the world population is over 800 billion. By 2191, the world population is over 847 billion; a yearly growth rate of roughly 40 billion people. A daily growth rate of nearly 110 million people (the entire current population of Mexico per day).

By 2200, the world population is roughly 1.38 trillion people. By 2201 the population is roughly 1.45 trillion people; a difference of nearly 70 billion people, a daily growth rate of ~190 million. That's roughly the entire population of Brazil per day.

By 2250, the population might be nearly 16 trillion people. By the next year that will be 16.6 trillion people, nearly 800 billion extra, or a growth rate of over 2 billion people per day.

By 2300, the population might be over 180 trillion. By 2301 that would grow to roughly 190 trillion, an annual growth rate of nearly 9 trillion people, or a daily growth rate of nearly 25 billion people. You'd be adding the current population of Barbados every second.

Now, 9 trillion people, at an average mass of 70 kg (not counting assorted paraphenalia) is a total mass of over 6e14 kilograms. Where is all this mass supposed to be coming from!? :blink:

Sorry, but you can't have a constant growth rate like that. It'll tear logistics to shreds. I don't care if the economy supposedly needs it, or whatever. In that case, you don't try to fix mathamatics, you try to fix the economy.

Exponential growth is an evil thing. It doesn't only make itself worse; it makes itself worse-worse. And when it makes itself worse-worse, it makes itself worse-worse-worse...

 

[PeriapsisPrograde]

Now, 9 trillion people, at an average mass of 70 kg (not counting assorted paraphenalia) is a total mass of over 6e14 kilograms. Where is all this mass supposed to be coming from!? :blink:

Isn't that still like one billionth of a percent of the Earth's mass?

 

[T.Neo]

How much of the Earth is stuff that people can be made out of, vs molten metal at thousands of degrees, thousands of kilometers underground?

And that figure is still growing. By 2400 the global population would be over 23 quadrillion, and growing at a mass of nearly 1.2 quadrillion per year. That's over 8e16 kilograms worth of people per year, and the figure is still growing...

 

[FADEC]

how do you see Spaceflight evolving over the next 100 years, manned and unmanned?

I know you were asking for optimism, but if you ask me how I see spaceflight evolving over the next 100 years, I can only offer the conclusion that there is nothing which points to a significant change beside the usual talk, plans and propaganda. That we went to the Moon 4 decades ago was just the result of a cold war and a President who gave the assignment to do so.

I personally believe that problems and challenges on mother earth will become quite challenging within this century. Like climate change, world population, globalization etc. This will keep politicians that much busy that literally nobody will be willing to free money to send humans to Mars and not even to the Moon (and honestly: for what, if we talk about the Moon?).

Governmental driven space flight can be powerful and beneficial if times permit (i.e. cold war), but it can also be a stagnation. They are even cutting funds for unmanned programs these days :facepalm:

I see ISS follow-ups, updated Soyuz versions, maybe a new US system and maybe China joined in sometimes in the future (just like Russia did). But I don't see a particular diffence in what we are already doing for decades.

 

[Jarvitä]

How much of the Earth is stuff that people can be made out of, vs molten metal at thousands of degrees, thousands of kilometers underground?

And that figure is still growing. By 2400 the global population would be over 23 quadrillion, and growing at a mass of nearly 1.2 quadrillion per year. That's over 8e16 kilograms worth of people per year, and the figure is still growing...

You're using the mass of Earth as a reference to what is "feasible" growth. You can safely use the mass of the solar system for everything past 100 years in the future, and the mass of the local bubble for your 400 year prediction.

As I said, people don't have to "care" about conquering space. Most people don't care about what air is made of either, but they breathe it all the same.

 

[T.Neo]

No, I can't 'safely' use that mass for everything within 100 years. Because I'll have to assume that some sort of technology that we haven't invented yet will act exactly how it needs to, to prevent the entire civilisation from collapsing.

Even if we don't worry about the obvious technological problems, and the absurd numbers that are being juggled around, there comes to a point where you have absurd numbers of people that you just don't know what to do with.

The population of the Earth is gonna keep growing even after you've filled up the planet. Maybe you have some zombie-planet total carrying capacity of 100 trillion. That's fine. Now you have to ship 5 trillion people offworld each year. Once you've depleted the Earth's biological resources entirely (which might take a while, but we are talking Evil Population Growth here), you're going to have to ship resources from Probe knows where to Earth, to make up for all the absolutely absurd emigration rate.

But the problem is; eventually, at least, people out there are gonna want that matter for themselves. Y'know, the 5 trillion who have to leave each year; the 5 trillion that are gonna settle somewhere and continue with Evil Population Growth. They're going to deplete their resources from their local comet or asteroid or moon or whatever and they're going to have to put up with feeding their population growth.

Likewise, imagine a rapidly expanding population, that has colonised its home star to the fullest potential. Let's say it has 1e16 people per star system, and it is growing at a rate of 5%; it's gonna have to ship out 5e14 people each year. We don't really know how the hell they're making up for all the resources, people-wise, they're losing. But anyway, these guys transport 5e14 people to the nearest stars. And the growth rate of these stars becomes birth rate + immigration. Soon they start sending people to the nearest uncolonised stars. And the same thing occurs there. And this goes on and on, but remember; the core system still has a population growing at 5e14 people per year. They can't send people off to systems that are sending people off themselves, and eventually the 'frontier' of unexploited stars gets so far away that it just isn't isn't easy enough anymore. The result? The civilisation collapses, from the core outwards.

Maybe that's an explanation for the lack of galaxy-spanning megacivilisations. The ones that go off with Evil Population Growth Rates end up having requirements that overshoot the logistics that they can hope to employ at a given time, and they collapse. Meanwhile the smart guys, they have slow growth rates, or they have ZPG and they don't grow at all, at least in their home system(s).

 

[orbekler]

...Pole to GEO can be done as well? Since when? I'm sure I read that an equatorial site is required... or at least that the further you shift such an object from the equator, the more energy is required to haul an object to GEO, or the amount of mass that can be carried is reduced, or something like that....

Well, I was thinking the same, but while it appears that off-equatorial space elevators are theoretically feasible to certain extent, pole to GEO seems impossible. :huh:
http://gassend.net/spaceelevator/non-equatorial/index.html

 

[Jarvitä]

Even then, consider which is more likely to survive in the long term - a civilisation stuck in its home system, or an outwardly expanding wave that's collapsing from the inside, but maintaining forward momentum? Keep in mind that you can't possibly enforce a centralised civilisation over interstellar ranges, some offshots are bound to stabilise, and at geometric growth, "some" is bound to be a lot.

The most efficient survival strategy seems to be seeding the galaxy in a fit of overpopulation (a few million years), than slowly stabilising over time as the galaxy is saturated with humanity.

 

[Grover]

well:

as my signature suggests (Hawking's quote), we need to get ourselves off this planet at some point, though its optimistic to believe that we'll make any major progress towards that in my lifetime, due to political and economic reasons (the bane of an Orbinaut's dreams).

though we may do something, developing the Orion to a state where it can perform extended lunar missions, possibly using a modular construction to reach Mars. obvoiusly, these are hard to imagine right now with the Shuttles grounded for good, Orion having early development stalls (as far as i understand it anyway) and no real public interest in spaceflight, despite the endless, romantic and fascinating expanse 100km above and beyond us, and 7Mm below us for that matter

but, for the ultimate goal, we need to work along these development stages (or something similar):
getting spaceflight to be reliable, and economically viable (could take anywhere from 20 years at best (if Obama decides that its the best thing to do), or 200+ if we carry on like this and nearly no-one bothers)
developing better propulsion systems, to extend our range across the solar system, rather depends on what the laws of physics make possible, and how far we can stretch them, linking to other sciences, like quantum physics, nanotechnology etc
developing craft that can carry LARGE payloads over large distances. we need a way to move modular construction machinery, parts and resources around, not to mention people to colonise other planets
convincing the public that:
We can easily, and safely make it around the solar system
we need to, because otherwise earth dies and takes us with it
we can really look after other planets better than we have done to Earth
then we just need to learn to Terraform, no good living in domes for the rest of eternity

obviously, this is a tall order, i dont expect humans to be colonising mars for another 500 years, maybe 1,500, depending on how much Humans focus on getting up there. it also depends on other technologies, Energy supply, construction efficiency, robotics etc

is it necessary? yes. the simple fact of the matter is that NO LIFE, NOR PROCESS ON EARTH IS ENTIRELY SUSTAINABLE. something is ALWAYS consumed, and whereas the sun will burn for another 5 billion years before it consumes Earth, that's our timer. if we Aren't out by then, we're nuclear toast

away from pessimistic Armageddon, sooner or later, Earth's atmosphere will be polluted, our biodiversity shattered, and Humans will be dominating. we can do all we like to use "Greener" tech, but we will always add pollution, and i dont think Earth will get a change to recover, because we're run by capitalism, I'm no communist, but i can appreciate the downsides to Capitalism, the competitive nature of it defines out development: Economics above all else, even above ecology.

ill use the UK as an example: most people here live in great comfort when compared to the rest of the world, we have some who struggle, some incredibly so, but i dont think there are more than 1000 people in out 7 million that have to struggle to achieve water or food. we have a handful of homeless people in cities, but its not a severe problem compared to the Favelas of Brazil.

despite our high level of development, we still strive to continue, to get that payrise, to earn more than out parents, we live in competition, whether we know it or not, we all compete against each other. we could easily use our development to other countries advantage, we could write off debts from HIPCs (see this and [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavily_Indebted_Poor_Countries]this[/ame]), but we choose not to. we can choose to donate millions to improve education, water supply, energy supply, medical facilities (etc) in less developed nations, but we choose not to, because we'd much rather develop ourselves further.

[/rant]
to end my rant, consider this:
we arent ready to move to other planets yet, we arent established as a species on our own planet yet, we'd never cope when managing two planets (or a planet and a moon).
much better to concentrate on our own development soon, like i said, we have 5 billion years left of this solar system, so we should make the most of it, not go getting ahead of ourselves trying to run two at once. I'm currently learning to drive, and i couldnt learn to drive, and learn to drive FAST at the same time, so why should humanity do the same with its development, and evolution?

hope you enjoyed my rant, im off to recover before i can say more

 

[T.Neo]

Even if you assume your mad dash at population growth is successful (which it will not be), you seriously want to kill off quadrillions of people in catastrophes of suffering we cannot begin to imagine?

The most efficient survival strategy is to slowly diffuse a decentralised web through space with "small" populations that are invested into heavily. At least that is actually possible, because population growth is dependant on technology, and technology isn't supposed to magically catch up with huge population growth.

 

[Grover]

population will grow with or without technology, Africa has very little in the way of advanced technology, yet they have the fastest population growth (since China's is now slowing down i believe)

pop. growth is down to two things alone: population size, and the population's attitude, and technology may only have a minuscule effect on the second

 

[T.Neo]

getting spaceflight to be reliable, and economically viable (could take anywhere from 20 years at best (if Obama decides that its the best thing to do), or 200+ if we carry on like this and nearly no-one bothers)

I doubt we will make spaceflight economically viable in 20 years even if we tried. We might make it better than it is now, but not to the point where "Orbinaut manifest destiny" becomes reality.

But 200 years... if we carry on like we're carrying on now, maybe we'll get to Mars within 200 years. :facepalm:

developing better propulsion systems, to extend our range across the solar system, rather depends on what the laws of physics make possible, and how far we can stretch them, linking to other sciences, like quantum physics, nanotechnology etc

Quantum physics and nanotechnology doesn't mean "magic". You could do all sorts of things with both (transistors are arguably an example of the former), but they'll all have their limitations and problems.

There are concepts for drives that could be used to convert matter directly to energy, if they're even possible it doesn't mean that they'd be easy in any way.

developing craft that can carry LARGE payloads over large distances. we need a way to move modular construction machinery, parts and resources around, not to mention people to colonise other planets

LARGE payloads require LARGE amounts of energy to move. That's simple fact; spaceflight is heavily energy intensive.

You could try to make energy cheap, but energy will always have a price.

We can easily, and safely make it around the solar system

Possible but difficult to do. We certainly can't do it today, and whenever there is a huge failure the public goes wild and states that spaceflight is too even dangerous, it's horribly lethal, we should stop (people who died accepted the risk and were willing to fly regardless), etc. It's an explorative field and you won't progress without learning from your failures (yet in general people don't seem to notice this).

we need to, because otherwise earth dies and takes us with it

Far in the future when everyone alive will be long dead. The popular opinion: Who cares?

whereas the sun will burn for another 5 billion years before it consumes Earth, that's our timer. if we Aren't out by then, we're nuclear toast

Earth is theorised to be habitable for another 500 million years. That's still 2500 times longer than humans have been around as a species. To put it in perspective, 500 million years ago, the first trilobites were scurrying around the Cambrian seabed. 500 million years is a long, long time.

But if we don't get out in 500 million years, we're defective. Not only would that just be silly, but the problem isn't as much being on Earth as it is being in only one place. That's dangerous (i.e. "don't keep all your eggs in one basket).

away from pessimistic Armageddon, sooner or later, Earth's atmosphere will be polluted, our biodiversity shattered, and Humans will be dominating. we can do all we like to use "Greener" tech, but we will always add pollution, and i dont think Earth will get a change to recover, because we're run by capitalism, I'm no communist, but i can appreciate the downsides to Capitalism, the competitive nature of it defines out development: Economics above all else, even above ecology.

I always love it how people make humans out to be something out of Avatar, instead of, well, what they actually are.

Capitalism is, on a grand scale, about ensuring a healthy market. If there is no ecology, there is no market.

We're part of the ecology. We might think we're above the ecology, or we're the antithesis or the enemy of the ecology or whatever, but we're just part of the ecology. A very influential and biologically novel part, yes, but we're still part of it.

We can affect the global environment, this is a fact. The key is to learn how to control it for our own good. If we don't do that, then we are morons (and ones with a shortlived civilisation, at that).

despite our high level of development, we still strive to continue, to get that payrise, to earn more than out parents, we live in competition, whether we know it or not, we all compete against each other. we could easily use our development to other countries advantage, we could write off debts from HIPCs (see this and
this
this ), but we choose not to. we can choose to donate millions to improve education, water supply, energy supply, medical facilities (etc) in less developed nations, but we choose not to, because we'd much rather develop ourselves further.

And that is a good thing, because you poured all your money into all the bad countries in the world they'd suck it up and make themselves even worse.

The poor countries in the world need to be uplifted economically, and socially. And they need to do that themselves. With a little help with developed nations, yes. But it's the same addage as "Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day; teach a man to fish, and he'll eat for a lifetime".

And giving the man a fish, means you have deprived yourself of lunch.

we arent ready to move to other planets yet, we arent established as a species on our own planet yet, we'd never cope when managing two planets (or a planet and a moon).

We're not established as a species on our own planet? :blink:

We were an established species before we even got out of Africa. We're huge by biological standards, both in our numbers, and the sway we hold on the environment. There is nothing like us in the history of Earth that we know of.

We can certainly manage a two planets. Heck, from a 1960s point of view we're managing two planets right now.

A large portion of the world isn't managed correctly at all, but that doesn't mean we're a failure. It just means that bad leadership needs to be erased and the population need to learn how to fend such idiots off. If we can't do that sort of fundamental thing, then space colonisation is a silly fantasy.

But still; why would you want to go to Mars, or the Moon? I'm not talking from a space enthusiast standpoint, I'm talking from a person of the 21st century standpoint. There is no reason for it. There are vast uninhabited swaths of Earth; why don't we colonise those places? They are often easier to live in than places elsewhere in the solar system, and far, far easier to get to. Why don't we go to such places?

population will grow with or without technology, Africa has very little in the way of advanced technology, yet they have the fastest population growth (since China's is now slowing down i believe)

pop. growth is down to two things alone: population size, and the population's attitude, and technology may only have a minuscule effect on the second

Generally in developed countries population growth slows, stops, and even reverses.

Africa has the fastest population growth because conditions in most of Africa are best described by profanity inappropriate for this forum. It isn't about technology, it's about economy and society, and in Africa, those things are extremely poor.

 

[Dambuster]

Wouldn't a two-child policy be the simplest solution to all this?