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Comment by kmlx | Hacker News Reader

Hopefully this will make us ditch the planet and finally look towards the stars.

But I fear it will actually lead us towards an "Interstellar" future: where our inter-planetary progress is hampered by this single planet that we want to save.

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We're increasingly incapable of surviving on a planet that's perfectly suited to us.

There's no chance we "look towards the stars" if we can't fix the ground.

If we hadn't looked to the stars in the first place, then we'd have a much worse idea of what is wrong with the ground than we currently do and technologies such as solar panels might not have entered commercial development. We are going to find this much more difficult to fix without a space industry.

there’s always going to be issues that need solving. but it’s these extremely conservative ideas that give me pause. we can’t solve everything. we need to go to the stars before another asteroid strikes and wipes us all out.

You can't migrate every person on the planet to another one. And we still haven't found any planets remotely as habitable as our own, nor solved the problems related to long-term space travel or terraforming. And above all else, why the hell would you be content with throwing away Earth, the most livable planet we know of? The idea of saving the human race by just going somewhere else is laughable.

>You can't migrate every person on the planet to another one.

I completely agree, none of them are suitable. On the other hand, space habitats built from asteroids are a practical possibility.

>"If the asteroids are ultimately used as the material resource for the building of new colonies, and if by constructing new colonies near asteroids relatively little reaction mass is wasted in transportation, the area of land that is made available on the space frontier can be estimated. Assuming 13 km of total area per person, it appears that space habitats might be constructed that would provide new lands with a total area some 3,000 times that of the Earth. For a very long time at least mankind can look toward resources so nearly inexhaustible that the current frustration of limits to growth can be replaced by a sense of openness and the absence of barriers to further human development."

From the NASA report, 'Space Settlements: A Design Study' - https://settlement.arc.nasa.gov/75SummerStudy/Table_of_Conte...

We cannot damage the Earth enough for it to be a worse option than space habitats. We simply can't, even if we bomb all of the surface to oblivion, triple the amount of CO2 or even add more toxic gases.

I'd say that rather depends on the design of the space habitat.

edit - also, while a space economy develops, the initially dangerous and messy environment is part of what will attract many of the first settlers. That and the money. Asteroid mining will be a goldrush.

any massive planetary destruction (like asteroid strike) will solve this for us.

we’re an asteroid strike away from perma death. single planet is not sustainable.

Part of the reason I want to see massive populated orbitals and an economy develop in space is because I want to see this planet do better. We need a hope that isn't delineated by having a global government that enforces the number of children people have and having somewhere else to go is one of the long term solutions that could avoid this.

We could also bet on everyone becoming socially responsible, but while people are waiting for that to occur, I suggest we get really good at asteroid mining.

completely agree. it needs to be done in parallel if we want any chance for survival.

Do you mean ditch most of the animals too? Because it seems highly unlikely what we're going to take even 1% of animal species into space.

we should not even consider taking any animals to space. let them be where they developed naturally. humans, on the other hand...

Given your views on asteroid impacts, that seems a bit short sighted.

why? there’s been 7 extinction events so far.

I think you can join mazt1 in paintbrushing flowers for the amusement of spectating bees.

the bees should already be considered extinct. and we have drones for this today.

Nope, I give up. Volcano gods for the lot of you.

*citation needed

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