A Reason to go

[KASASpace]

So, I was thinking, a lot of people say that we shouldn't go to space, that it isn't worth it. And some guy on the forums said that exploration is not natural. But, maybe instead of exploring or getting information on things, we have to go for survival.

Think about it, eventually there will not be enough farms on earth to keep everyone fed, by about 2055 or so:(. So, maybe before then, we could have a huge space expansion. Perhaps gigantic farms, many cubic kilometers, in high orbits over earth. Utilizing artificial heating and lighting methods combined with hydroponics, hundreds of tons of crops can be grown, IN SPACE! This is perhaps the only way to sustain ourselves. I don't want us to stagnate as a race. This isn't about a race or anything, this about human survival. Food is a necessity. What about water? Other places have water, for example, Luna (the Earth's moon) has water, in the form of ice.

But, this would cost trillions, perhaps quadrillions of dollars. But it isn't about profits, it's about SURVIVAL.

Now, here's my question to you guys:

What reason is there for expansion into space? Post your ideas here!

[Themohawkninja]

So, I was thinking, a lot of people say that we shouldn't go to space, that it isn't worth it. And some guy on the forums said that exploration is not natural. But, maybe instead of exploring or getting information on things, we have to go for survival.

First off, exploration IS natural. If humans never explored, we wouldn't hunt, if we didn't hunt, we would die. Whoever said that exploration isn't natural is lying. Secondly, when it is worth it, is really a matter of the mission at hand.

Think about it, eventually there will not be enough farms on earth to keep everyone fed, by about 2055 or so:(. So, maybe before then, we could have a huge space expansion. Perhaps gigantic farms, many cubic kilometers, in high orbits over earth. Utilizing artificial heating and lighting methods combined with hydroponics, hundreds of tons of crops can be grown, IN SPACE! This is perhaps the only way to sustain ourselves. I don't want us to stagnate as a race. This isn't about a race or anything, this about human survival. Food is a necessity. What about water? Other places have water, for example, Luna (the Earth's moon) has water, in the form of ice.

But, this would cost trillions, perhaps quadrillions of dollars. But it isn't about profits, it's about SURVIVAL.

2055 is way overly-optimistic. Maybe 2255, but we're not getting much more than perhaps another ISS, and maybe the first manned Mars landing by 2055.

Now, here's my question to you guys:

What reason is there for expansion into space? Post your ideas here!

For unmanned missions, that's simple: Science, and all the gains of knowledge that goes with it.

For manned missions, that's a bit trickier. You see, unlike in KSP, there isn't really much reason to put a man in space aside from saying "we did it!", because we don't need a person to pick up a rock, we have robots to do that. I mean sure, there is a bit of medical science to be gained, but this is at the cost of trillions of dollars, years of work, and risking human lives. The biggest reason to land a man anywhere nowadays is for the P.R. Think of how much money a private company could get (Like SpaceX) if they landed the first man on Mars. The media would go wild, and every contractor in the world would be lining up to get their signature.

Now, in the long-term (decades to centuries from now), space colonization will be a great way of (as Michio Kaku adequately put it) keeping all of our eggs out of one basket. Right now, if something happens to Earth (like a giant meteor), the human race as we know it would die (and yes, something that large would surely throw enough debris and heat into orbit to destroy the ISS, not to mention the fact that the ISS would be out of a food source if they did somehow survive). Colonizing Mars would allow the human race to continue if Earth were destroyed.

In the long-long-term (millions to billions of years from now), space exploration will be vital to the human race, because the Sun will go into the red giant stage, and the Earth itself will either (at best) have it's atmosphere stripped away, and have a molten surface, or (at worse) be enveloped by the Sun's expanding surface, and be destroyed completely.

[kiwiak]

I dont really get concept of farming in space. What are advantages of it? Lets even assume that space transportation became as cheap as current oceanic is.

Are you talking about situation when there will simply no free land on surface of earth to create farming fields?

It will be still cheaper to use ocean bottom and grow some seaweeds!

[Themohawkninja]

I dont really get concept of farming in space. What are advantages of it? Lets even assume that space transportation became as cheap as current oceanic is.

Are you talking about situation when there will simply no free land on surface of earth to create farming fields?

It will be still cheaper to use ocean bottom and grow some seaweeds!

Long-term space missions/orbital space stations. It might be cheaper to make the food en route to the body, or up in orbit on the station than to pack tonnes of food/send resupply missions.

[kiwiak]

Long-term space missions/orbital space stations. It might be cheaper to make the food en route to the body, or up in orbit on the station than to pack tonnes of food/send resupply missions.

Sure, but that something to sustain hypotetical space settlements not reason to go to space itself, whith OP mentioned.

[rpayne88]

If you ever study human geography you will find that a population will eventually reach a point where the death rate (from natural causes) equals the birth rate. The Earth's population is still increasing, up to the estimated 10 billion person carrying capacity of the planet. Most of these people are in developing nations where the crude birth rate greatly exceeds the crude death rate, leading to a population increase. When we reach carrying capacity, those people will no longer be able to sustain themselves, and will (how do I put this softly) die off. This increases the crude death rate to meet the crude birth rate, thereby stabilizing the population. We (you, I, and most of the people on the forums) are lucky. We live in developed nations with more than enough money to import crops from elsewhere, despite the increased food cost. As cruel as it sounds, our nations may just sit back, accept the temporary increase in food costs, and ride the famine out. Once enough people (unfortunately) die, the population will have dropped significantly below the planet's carrying capacity. This in turn will cause a decrease in food prices and the population will begin to rise again. The cycle will continue to repeat itself until it reaches an equilibrium. And it is possible to reach equilibrium. Look at Japan, in which the crude death rate exceeds the crude birth rate. Their population is decreasing due solely to the fact that people are willingly reproducing only once, or not at all.

As far as water is concerned, we have absolutely NO shortage of it. The planet is 75% water. Developed countries can afford massive desalination plants on the cost to supply them with water. Maybe the can even afford to "donate" money to less developed nations to finance the construction of desalination plants. Land locked nations are a different story, though.

Unfortunately, given the time frame of 41 years, I fear it is too late to avert such as disaster. But if we get started NOW, and find a way to do so cheaply, we may be able to minimize the number of fatalities (I don't know how many cycles it would take to reach equilibrium.)

[Kerbin Dallas Multipass]

I like spaceflight, I don't think we need manned spaceflight, but it's pretty awesome.

What I do not like is the idea that we just have to "move west" to find new fruitful lands where we can settle, and that this new "west" is space. We have run out of "west" long ago, this metaphor from cowboy movies does not work anymore - If spaceflight has showed us anything it's that our home is a fragile blue marble.

You mentioned the problems: We are overpopulating our planet and each individual is posing more stress on the environment as we all gain standard of living (which is more awesome than manned spaceflight!)

I belive that simple things like birth control and education (both for every citizen of planet earth) are the way to tackle problems, not colonizing hostile, irradiated, infertile places.

[Themohawkninja]

Sure, but that something to sustain hypotetical space settlements not reason to go to space itself, whith OP mentioned.

Science is always the answer in the end. Might as well find out how plants grow in microgravity in-case full-blown farming becomes part of a mission later on.

[ramses]

Ask the Dinosaurs how having all their eggs in one basket turned out for them.

Oh wait, that's right, you can't, because one single event wiped them out.

If we're going to survive as a species, we need to get off this planet and find multiple homes for ourselves.

[Klingon Admiral]

Ask the Dinosaurs how having all their eggs in one basket turned out for them.

Oh wait, that's right, you can't, because one single event wiped them out.

If we're going to survive as a species, we need to get off this planet and find multiple homes for ourselves.

With about 10,000 extant species, dinosaurs are the, by far, largest group of tetrapods.

[Nibb31]

There are no other homes around us. There is nowhere for us to go that supports our particular form of life. Wherever we would go, we would be stuck into living on artificial life support inside tin cans. If you are going to spend the rest of your life in a hab module with closed-loop life support, then there are better places to do so than on other planets: under the oceans, deep under ground, in LEO...

I can't think of a single event that would totally wipe us out with no survivors. We have the technology for at least a small number of us to survive even an Chicxulub-class impact, and the odds of that happening in the next thousand years are infinitesimal.

[Rondon]

I'm not saying that space colonization ins't a good idea for survival in the long term, but using it to make more resources available isn't plausible for most goods, even if it was straight up free to go to orbit, it would still cost way too much to produce resources in space than on earth. For a farm, well on the plus side you now get sunlight nearly all day, but now you have to build a giant, greenhouse that has to be thick enough to hold the pressure and never vent air, while having systems in place to maintain and recycle the air,water and temperature.

For metals sure it would be great for precious metals, but how could it be worth mining bulk metals like copper and iron, compared to the giant amount of infrastructure on earth and the millions of tons of potentially recyclable material available.

Then you'd need to consider how all the works done, if its by humans they need there own food,air,energy and long term they need gravity, if its automated, the robots could cost millions upon millions to manufacture.

but it isn't free even if you could dramatically reduce the cost, for convenience lets say 30 times (its said that the cost to bring a kilogram to LEO is on average 30 thousand dollars) so that's a 1000 dollars a kilogram, giant compared to transport costs on earth. if we cant produce a bulk resources on earth economically, we certainly wont be able to do so in space.

[sal_vager]

Has anyone mentioned tourism yet?

Yes there's resources on other worlds/moons, and we could build stuff in low or zero G, but for a lot of people there's the desire to actually go to Mars and the rest for the experience alone.

This isn't necessarily financially viable, not for a long time anyway, but we're a curious species, we'll go to these places not because it makes sense, but because we just want to go.

That is reason enough.

[Themohawkninja]

I can't think of a single event that would totally wipe us out with no survivors. We have the technology for at least a small number of us to survive even an Chicxulub-class impact, and the odds of that happening in the next thousand years are infinitesimal.

Historically speaking, we're overdue for an impact that size last time I heard.

[Themohawkninja]

I'm not saying that space colonization ins't a good idea for survival in the long term, but using it to make more resources available isn't plausible for most goods, even if it was straight up free to go to orbit, it would still cost way too much to produce resources in space than on earth. For a farm, well on the plus side you now get sunlight nearly all day, but now you have to build a giant, greenhouse that has to be thick enough to hold the pressure and never vent air, while having systems in place to maintain and recycle the air,water and temperature.

For metals sure it would be great for precious metals, but how could it be worth mining bulk metals like copper and iron, compared to the giant amount of infrastructure on earth and the millions of tons of potentially recyclable material available.

Then you'd need to consider how all the works done, if its by humans they need there own food,air,energy and long term they need gravity, if its automated, the robots could cost millions upon millions to manufacture.

but it isn't free even if you could dramatically reduce the cost, for convenience lets say 30 times (its said that the cost to bring a kilogram to LEO is on average 30 thousand dollars) so that's a 1000 dollars a kilogram, giant compared to transport costs on earth. if we cant produce a bulk resources on earth economically, we certainly wont be able to do so in space.

Hence why you develop the technology over time.

[Moar Boosters]

Has anyone mentioned tourism yet?

Yes there's resources on other worlds/moons, and we could build stuff in low or zero G, but for a lot of people there's the desire to actually go to Mars and the rest for the experience alone.

This isn't necessarily financially viable, not for a long time anyway, but we're a curious species, we'll go to these places not because it makes sense, but because we just want to go.

That is reason enough.

I think eventually this is the way it'll go. We've already had a few space-tourists up in LEO and soon to be a lot more going on sub-orbital flights once Richard Branson gets everything sorted out.

If the missions themselves are interesting enough, I can imagine sponsors paying big money to get their logo plastered on the side of a rocket/orbiter/lander. A starbucks branded rocket might not be everyones cup of tea, but If commercial spaceflight continues the way it's going, it's only a matter of time before rockets look like racing cars with all their sponsors.

[Nibb31]

I think eventually this is the way it'll go. We've already had a few space-tourists up in LEO and soon to be a lot more going on sub-orbital flights once Richard Branson gets everything sorted out.

The problem with space tourism is that there's nowhere to go. Suborbital hops like on Virgin are a fun rollercoaster ride, but in the end, it's expensive for 6 minutes of zero-g. Going into orbit will never be cheap or easy.

A space hotel would be a nice destination, but it would cost billions and the capacity would be limited to a handful of tourists, plus crewmembers. Think of the ISS on steroids... In addition, floating around and looking out of a Cupola would be fun, but the average joe would find it boring after a couple of days. You won't get many repeat customers either.

If the missions themselves are interesting enough, I can imagine sponsors paying big money to get their logo plastered on the side of a rocket/orbiter/lander. A starbucks branded rocket might not be everyones cup of tea, but If commercial spaceflight continues the way it's going, it's only a matter of time before rockets look like racing cars with all their sponsors.

I don't think so. It's been done already and nobody cared. How many people heard about Pizza Hut sponsoring the Zvezda launch?. The audience of a space launch will never be comparable to NASCAR or Formula 1.

[Nuke]

conquest. definitely conquest.

[Spartwo]

Overpopulation.

[theend3r]

Overpopulation.

It's cheaper (wasting less precious natural resources humankind needs for research of new technologies) to just kill off some people. Not a reason.

[maccollo]

It's a tool to display the power and technological prowess of your nation.

Overpopulation.

I don't think is ever gonna be a place where we dump excess people from Earth. Let's say we colonize mars, and manage to terraform to allow for wide scale habitation. Most of those will be born Mars. The population on Earth would not be significantly affected by this, and even if it did, the population on earth would just grow again until the carrying capacity of the Earth is reached again.

Edited January 12, 2014 by maccollo

[Rondon]

Okay, but develop what technology, are you saying develop it to the extent where the average human being could live anywhere in the solar system, even then if you want the best living standards you'd live on earth with all its infrastructure and its pre-existing life friendly environment, the only real reason you'd go anywhere else is for a sense of adventure (which probably will be a big motivator for many people).

[G'th]

I'd like to hear a reason for not going into space that doesn't have to do with risk (crap argument. Anyone whose ever gone into space didn't do it on the assumption that there would be no risk) or money (also crap, because we spend more money on killing each other).

[Nibb31]

Unfortunately, it's all to do with cost. No bucks, no Buck Rogers.

If we had unlimited resources, there's nothing we couldn't do.

Edited January 12, 2014 by Nibb31

[G'th]

Naturally its money thats preventing us from really digging into space, as politics locks out access to that money. However, thats not a reason against going into space, its just something stopping us from doing so.