Why we should(n't) go to space -- Kim Stanley Robinson
The creation of a cosmic diaspora is just one argument for putting humans in space -- a bad one. But now, as human-made climate change has thrust us into the role of stewards of the global biosphere, new reasons, good ones, have emerged. Indeed, keeping our space ambitions relatively local -- within our own solar system -- can help us find solutions for the climate crisis.Return to the Heavens, for the Sake of the Earth (via Making Light)It has been said that space science is an Earth science, and that is no paradox. Our climate crisis is very much a matter of interactions between our planet and our sun. That being the case, our understanding is vastly enhanced by going into space and looking down at the Earth, learning things we cannot learn when we stay on the ground.
Studying other planets helps as well. The two closest planets have very different histories, with a runaway greenhouse effect on Venus and the freezing of an atmosphere on Mars. Beyond them spin planets and moons of various kinds, including several that might harbor life. Comparative planetology is useful in our role as Earth's stewards; we discovered the holes in our ozone layer by studying similar chemical interactions in the atmosphere of Venus. This kind of unexpected insight could easily happen again.
- Kim Stanley Robinson and James Patrick Kelly talk about writing ...
- Kim Stanley Robinson on what Martian water means for science ...
- Kim Stanley Robinson talks ecotastrophe - Boing Boing
- Boing Boing: Kim Stanley Robinson on eco-disasters on Earth and Mars
- Kim Stanley Robinson on "Comparative Planetology" - Boing Boing
- Kim Stanley Robinson's new book, Forty Signs of Rain - Boing Boing
the latest
latest episodes
The sun must used up some day.
You may argue that these are very very far away.
But life on Earth should end in Earth?
Why people afraid of develope? of grown? it is from their weak heart?
Kim Stanley Robinson's book "Mars" is available for FREE for the Amazon Kindle at the moment:
http://www.amazon.com/Red-Mars/dp/B000QCS914/
If you're a Kindle user/owner/lover, there are some great titles available for free in the Kindle Store on Amazon.
The first poster brings up a valid point: Why is it appropriate to take the long view regarding pollution and global warming, but not the Sun's ultimate demise?
Because the "long view" that we are capable of thinking usefully about is still but an instant compared to the at least tens of billions of years that the sun will shine.
@3 Climate change will theoretically affect our lives in hundreds to (maybe) thousands of years.
The sun will die in billions of years.
The difference between thousands of years and billions of years is six orders of magnitude. The sun won't die for such a ridiculously long time it hurts the mind to even contemplate.
Helium-3 can be harvested from the moon's surface and be used in Fusion reactors for safe, green energy.
That is why we should be interested in space travel - economics!
It is extremely unlikely that there will be anything that could be called "human" around when the sun dies, which will happen in about 75 times the length of time from when the dinosaurs died out until now, or 500000 times the duration of human civilization to date. Ordinarily even the chance that anything descended from us would survive would be vanishingly small, as almost every evolutionary branch dies out sooner or later. However, we're no ordinary species. We're singlehandedly responsible for a sudden (in geological scale) global mass extinction (without even trying!), and we are on the verge of willfully altering our own genetics (the end of the "natural selection era?"), creating AI (the end of the dominance of common ancestor biological life?), and spreading life outside our own planet. Far future paleontologists descended from termites are going to be looking at our time as the moment everything suddenly happened.
Our incredible universe has secrets which we will never know, which we should just wonder about and respect in the magnitude and magnificence thereof!
The same secrets and wonders which we have on our small precous planet, the same one which we have not lived in awe of but rather plundered, butchered and detroyed BECAUSE WE CAN! without any forethought, only hindsight!
Of all creations we are the most ridiculous, since, when we actually examine the reasons for the existence of anything and everything we are able to scientifically discover why all creatures have been created or have evolved!
There has not been to date any reaonable argument put forward as to the reason for the existence of humans - they actually serve no useful purpose at all, unless one considers malicious destruction of all things good and precious as being useful!
In our amazing universe I personally find it inredibly hard to believe that The Creator truly loves us and wants us anywhere near Him, when He has so much in the Universe and Nature already!
Saddened indeed am I that we are the way we are, without care, respect, love or anything that is good in our hearts - just the dregs of the Universe!
We will all be long gone with all our fame and fortunes and The Universe will belch and carry on!
#5 and we should start by sending clones to the moon to harvest it! ... oops, spoiler.
I dig the article, but I just have to take issue with a point I see brought up a lot. KSR says Sci-fi keeps bringing up FTL travel, despite the lack of feasibility. And then he brings up solar power in space which, while technically feasible, is pretty absurd at this point.
There's plenty of room for solar power on the ground. We could power all of our needs with a relatively small amount of desert and greenfield space. In other words, there's no need to resort to orbital solar, unless your goal is to vastly increase the complexity, cost, and technology requirements of the power production.
I mean, think of the difficult of maintaining a solar array in space, let alone the losses from storage, "beaming", and distribution. I really can't figure out why straight thinkers believe we need to go there.
We need to go into space, if only to plunder butcher and destroy it! Space must be destroyed BECAUSE WE CAN!
@9: There's a difference between the (currently?) impossible FTL, which is prohibited by physics, engineering, and economy and the currently impractical space-based solar, which is limited only by economy.
That said, by the time we find some way of setting sail for Beta Canes Venantici or Delta Pavonis, we will have thoroughly infested the solar system the cosmic diaspora will come on its own, good idea or bad.
what are the currently calculated odds for an extinction sized asteroid strike within the next thousand years?
I should point out that the as the Sun ages it gets hotter, moving the inner edge of the habitable zone further out, leading inevitably to the Earth becoming too hot for life in only half-a-billion years time, so you optimists banking on another five billion years are in for a rude shock.
"what are the currently calculated odds for an extinction sized asteroid strike within the next thousand years?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_event#Sizes_and_frequencies
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0722/p02s04-usgn.html
@10 because the prospects for powering the world with carbon-free energy are very, very discouraging.
Nathan Lewis has given a talk which summarizes earlier work on this subject. IMO, even well-informed environmentalists are totally out of touch with the reality of what creating 10-30 terawatts requires. Environmentalists who want to solve global warming are working on a totally different scale than land-use issues of the past.
For example: 100 new mega-wind turbines every day for the next 100 years. Fission plants on a scale which would deplete the ocean's entire repository of uranium. I appreciate that advocates SAY that we can make a difference on the scales that are being implemented, but that simply. isnt. true.
When you have somebody like Hoffert who has taken a hard look at the subject and concluded that beaming power from the moon is the only realistic solution, you start to get a sense for just how deep the hole is.
Here's the link to Lewis's talk (which I screwed up above).