Colonization of Other Planets

[Cortney]

We are the South Pole of the Moon tribe, so why not discuss this concept on a much larger scale?

The Earth won't be here forever. Of course, it's highly unlikely that our planet meets its demise in our lifetimes (or our great great great grandkid's lifetimes), but it is inevitable. Hopefully, our race will have settled on other planets by this time.

So, how do you feel about the concept of mankind (and other Earth species, as well) spreading throughout the solar system and other solar systems around us? What if other planets have intelligent life, how should that be handled? Just your general thoughts on the subject.

[Philosoraptor]

As you said, it is ultimately absolutely necessary for the survival of our species. I'm all for getting a head start. We need to be out of here long before signs of the earth's demise start showing themselves.

We should not plan to colonize a planet with intelligent life. That is a very fundamentally bad idea.

[thekmatheory]

Mar 6, 2010 15:33:52 GMT -5 Philosoraptor said:

We should not plan to colonize a planet with intelligent life. That is a very fundamentally bad idea.

I agree. Just like when Britain tried to industrialize several countries all over the world, it just didn't end up so well. If we need to take our race elsewhere, we should create livable conditions on other planets elsewhere.

To me, that whole concept still kind of blows my mind. But at the same time, it seems so incredibly plausible.

[Ryan]

I'm all for moving to a new planet so long as we do not need to destroy life to live there. One of the biggest problems of colonization is rapid depletion of natural resources. This would be really depressing because it would mean that we may be hindering the process of evolution of intelligent life.

I think it would also to be really cool to meet with other forms of intelligent life in other areas of the galaxy. But if we did then there would need to be a great large change as far as how government works. We already have issues with countries and disputes between them, imagine if we added another planet to the mix.

I think that as a species, humans as a whole are not socially ready to accept extra terrestrial life. (this is interesting, I'm interested in what everyone else thinks, and perhaps ways that we might prepare ourselves for the possibility of meeting extra terrestrial life)

[chelseeyuh]

I saw something about this on the History Channel :3
One of the problems with it is that children in a mother's womb wouldn't form correctly because of the lack of gravity. We would need to find a way to circumvent this problem. Or, I think this shows that we're not meant for the moon... maybe we need to let our species evolve to be more fit for moon habitation?

[zAkAtAk]

I don't think the Christians would like it very much :3

[Ryan]

Religion is a sociological construct, eventually it dies out or evolves and new ones come about - look at ancient greek culture and druidism for example - ancient religions that lasted for centuries or millennia respectively but are no longer (or not widely at least) practiced in today's society.

Sorry if I offend anyone who is deeply religious, it is not my intention but a recognizable possible side effect. I'm not a sociologist so feel free to criticize this statement as much as you'd like, though this thread isn't debating religion .

I don't think that as humans we can evolve past the gravity issue unless we subject ourselves to it. We have to start living on the moon and trying to have babies before we will evolve to the point where it works...unfortunately that would require several "test runs" which is horrible to think about.

[Joey]

why not invent some way to creat gravity?? who knows what technology will be in the future. Maybe even we will figure out a way to create an atmosphere, so any planet is liveable.

[Dimstow]

I think human expansion to other planets is an issue that will probably be the debate of the next few generations, I really don't think the issue is THAT for off, 100 years? maybe? ish?

but regardless of the timeline I ABSOLUTELY support it, its the next step in human survival, earth is just getting too small for us, not to mention it's a sort of 'all of our eggs in 1 basket' situation, if something happens to earths atmosphere, or if we were, i know this is pretty far out, attacked by another species then frankly...

We're boned

As for which planets to inhabit I think we should obviously leave planets that have other sentient (or near-sentient) life alone, pretty much any planet that has living, moving, thinking, breathing life we should TRY and avoid.

The more I think about then the more I shock myself, because I normally don't agree with this kind of stance, in-fact I'm absolutely blown away at my opinion of this matter but....

I think our primary concern has to be Human survival and expansion, avoid other life if we can but spread whenever possible, life-or-no we've got to put our own species as a priority above the other species or potential-species we might encounter, survival of the fittest and we (hypothetically) ARE the fittest.

Oi jeez, Yo no quiero ser un elefante

[americanarchon]

Note to those who wish to avoid colonizing planets if they have intelligent life--while we should not needlessly push off other species, if it is about the survival of the human race we are talking about, and a choice between conquest or extinction, I would choose conquest.

This may never be the case, and we should be open to living beside other intelligent races on other planets, instead of just having our own planet. But the option for conquest must sometimes be on the table.

[zlith]

All I have to say on the matter is that when we were faced with overpopulation the first time around we sent everyone over to the new world [North and South America.] We are faced with overpopulation on a scale that has never been seen in human history or even in the wild. We have run out of land on Earth and are running out of natural resources, we need to either exterminate a large part of the population and find alternative sources of raw materials, or start to colonize on places other than earth. An issue was stated about how unborn children don't develop right under low gravity, we can avoid this problem with sending more people the the colonies as some die off or send people back to earth to have children then send them back. The problem will cause a lot of trouble but humanity can, will, evolve to conquer this setback.

[runforthefinish]

Mar 7, 2010 15:13:43 GMT -5 zlith said:

All I have to say on the matter is that when we were faced with overpopulation the first time around we sent everyone over to the new world [North and South America.] We are faced with overpopulation on a scale that has never been seen in human history or even in the wild. We have run out of land on Earth and are running out of natural resources, we need to either exterminate a large part of the population and find alternative sources of raw materials, or start to colonize on places other than earth. An issue was stated about how unborn children don't develop right under low gravity, we can avoid this problem with sending more people the the colonies as some die off or send people back to earth to have children then send them back. The problem will cause a lot of trouble but humanity can, will, evolve to conquer this setback.

Someone said above create a gravity-esque field generator, which would solve the issue of low gravity

[Deleted]

As for creating gravity, there is a very simple solution: centrifugation.

As for the rest:

I do support the colonization of other worlds, and I do support the contact with aliens as to learn from them/them to learn from us. But this shouldn't happen because we are overpopulating earth.

Notice the pattern: One place gets overpopulated. Solution? Colonization! That place gets overpopulated. Solution? Colonization! What do you think will happen next?

We are just working around the problem. We need to teach the people to control their population naturally, and we need to teach everybody to make a responsible management of our resources. If we don't, we will have the same problem over and over again. And over and over again it will be harder to solve it.

So, colonize planets? Of course, that sounds fun! Colonize as to control overpopulation? Ok... but we need to find another solution... and quick!

[Draemora]

Mar 7, 2010 17:20:03 GMT -5 @ptmb said:

As for creating gravity, there is a very simple solution: centrifugation.

Thank you, we could have centrifugal orbital space stations for births in the rare case that the planet might not have 1g of gravity. Moreover, we couldn't colonize such a planet successfully. With such low gravity, the planet would fail to retain its atmosphere, like Mars for example. Muscle and bone degeneration would be another problem.
A very important criteria for "planet searching" would have to be a gravitationally similar planet.

[Dimstow]

Mar 7, 2010 19:11:50 GMT -5 Draemora said:

A very important criteria for "planet searching" would have to be a gravitationally similar planet.

Agreed, whole heatedly, to a mild degree we could do some transforming (though conservatively, trying not to kill any more flora/fauna then necessary) but for the most part we'd only be able to colonize planets that were kinda sorta similar to earth.
We'd need similar gravity, H2O, oxygen rich atmosphere, the ability to plant crops, and at least 1 McDonald's.

As for inter-species interaction, I think we can all agree that we should approach any and all alien life with utmost respect and try and preserve any non-earth habitats the best we can.

But if it comes to an issue of Human's choosing whether or not to Survive, I think we have the right to take what we need to preserve ourselves as a race.

As for whether we should expand because of over population, I actually disagree, I think overpopulation, while it is a bad thing in itself, is an example that we're doing things RIGHT. And what better reason to expand that to further our ability to continue the success of the human race?

[zlith]

I don't think we should alter the moons gravity with centrifugation or any other methods for one reason: it would mess up earths rotation.

[Ryan]

Dimstow, I agree that if our need to expand is due to the success of our race then it is an absolute necessity. I'd like to point out, that our current state of overpopulation is not an example of human success, it is due to poor conditions and society views around the world that have led us to this state. If you'd like me to further explain any of that, just PM. If you'd like to debate it, then I think a new thread is in order

[chase458]

One big problem with colonizing other planets is travel. It takes many years to get to the planets close to us. If not the moon, then where can we go? Any attempt at colonization would have to wait until we find a way to get around in space faster. If you loaded a ship full of people, they would all die by the time you got far enough. That is one HUGE roadblock for planetary expansion.

[runforthefinish]

Mar 8, 2010 17:20:43 GMT -5 zlith said:

I don't think we should alter the moons gravity with centrifugation or any other methods for one reason: it would mess up earths rotation.

The altering of the moon would be bad, but we are talking about altering another planets gravity. This is only if it's gravity is less than 1g.

One big problem with colonizing other planets is travel. It takes many years to get to the planets close to us. If not the moon, then where can we go? Any attempt at colonization would have to wait until we find a way to get around in space faster. If you loaded a ship full of people, they would all die by the time you got far enough. That is one HUGE roadblock for planetary expansion.

The creation of more efficiennt ion plusar technology would speed things up. The energy would be substantial, but possible.

[Ryan]

The other option is cryostasis.