The Art Neuro Weblog

Art has summed up my main reason why going into space in a big way is essential now not later & especially not for some future generation

The Earth is a fragile ecosphere where we are eating through her generosity at increasing rates. While being a little over-invested in the notion of a collective humanity, I strongly believe the future of humanity cannot escape being in space. This is not a science fiction aspiration any more than the impending crunch of the Malthus' logic.

It is not (as Robert Zubrin of the Mars society argues) to revitalise our society, create frontiers, prove ourselves to be anything etc. It is about species survival.

If we stay here, we will die here. We are using up resources too fast now and the pace is accelerating. Even were it decreasing (as in a few instances) we are still not even attempting true sustainability, nor can we. Our whole system absolutely requires growth and realistically will not be given up. In fact the system spreads as everyone else wants to live as richly Westerners too. We cannot have this without the growth & the growth uses up non-renewables at a growing rate. We will run out of a whole lot of things we cannot replace or substitute within 1-200 years. It will take 50-100 to get into space and the effort will accelerate our resource usage! We may not even have the resources later whatever our perceived need.

So we are trapped in the Malthusian bind Art mentions. We cannot "walk lightly", not just because everyone won't recycle but because we just can't! There are too many of us & it won't work. The only thing we can do is find more resources. These resources (especially energy) are simply not available on Earth. We need to expand into space to save the species and to save the Earth (from the consequences of our own collapse). Stabilising & reducing our population is just part of that & we must do that space or no.

Secondly we cannot currently deal with asteroid or comet strikes like the one that whacked the dinosaurs. Realistically only an extensively space faring species will have the werewithall to do this as we must find and change orbits of big bodies over time. No shuttle hopping & moon visiting culture can do this. We must get serious.

So it is not about seizing our destiny or opening psychic or real frontiers. We need to do it so we (humankind) do not die and take most of the biosphere with us. We need it so the biosphere (& us in particular) escape the cycle of regular mass extinctions caused by the regular Rocking from space. The Dinosaurs WAY outdid us for biological success & longevity so we can't skite. Yet their specialties were different. We have the means to perceive and get around the extinction trap though so we do not have any excuse to not go into space and take the next step for ourselves and for 'Life', 'Gaia', what you will.

Compared to this all the wars on tourism, politics, religions, sports & other present day issues are just smoke. They blind us to our impending doom and provide the excuse for concentrating on more 'pressing' (read more immediate) issues.