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Alternative 3

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Science Report 1977 - Alternative 3

https://youtu.be/CL4AyZASZwU

Alternative 3 (Remastered 2005) - Brian Eno

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C0WglNI3tM

Great scifi, but unfortunately some people take this possibility really seriously still today.

Living high tech live on earth with catastrophic climate change +6 C would be still several times safer, cheaper and more comfortable than living on Mars.

Alternatively, reversing climate change technologically on Earth would be several magnitudes cheaper, easier and faster than having Mars settlement.

Instead of colonizing Mars, we might want to establish a colony and industrial infrastructure on the Moon, using it to mine/manufacture aluminum, glass, steel, oxygen, and water. (For use in space, not Earth, of course.) If we can get the Moon's population up to a half million, with industrial infrastructure to match, the colony might be able to maintain the emergency capability of gathering enough resources from Mars and the asteroids to become materially independent in the event some disaster befall the Earth.

Just the fact that the Moon is only 3 days away would make achieving the above situation a lot easier than achieving the equivalent on Mars. Whichever Earth power controls the industrial infrastructure on the Moon would also be in a position to militarily dominate Earth-Moon space and the inner solar system and asteroids.

Plot twist. We do what you said and eventually destabilize the Moons orbit from mining. It becomes a heated debate on wether it’s going to happen like climate change.

Or we do a reverse Armageddon[1] and mining causes an asteroid to split and hit earth.

[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120591/

We do what you said and eventually destabilize the Moons orbit from mining

Look up the Moon's gravitational binding energy.

https://www.sciencefocus.com/space/what-would-happen-if-we-b...

"120 million, trillion gigajoules"

It is a joke my friend. If you started taking materials off the moon maybe you would only need 300 billion atomic bombs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space:_1999

My most favorite of all time...:-) https://youtu.be/Y6BXaGEuqxo

If you want more space-related mockumentaries, I can really recommend “First on the Moon” from 2005, about the “very first spaceflyer programme that took place in the USSR of the 1930s”.

Russians have great space movies ! Its a shame we do not easily see more of what they produce.

Some references and partial trailers:

"First on the Moon" https://sovietmoviesonline.com/fantastic/pervye-na-lune

"Salyut-7" https://sovietmoviesonline.com/drama/salyut-7

"The Spacewalk" https://sovietmoviesonline.com/adventure/vremya-pervyh

"Baikonur" https://sovietmoviesonline.com/comedy/baykonur

"Gagarin: First in Space" https://sovietmoviesonline.com/adventure/gagarin-pervyy-v-ko...

Of these, I personally have only watched “First on the Moon” and “Salyut-7” of these, and judging by the reviews of the other ones, the latter is a bit emblematic wrt the problems that some of these have. They will sometimes either exaggerate stuff or just make stuff up to make the story sound more exciting. Which is a bit silly, considering that space exploration, and especially its early steps, are in and of themselves deadly and terrifying enough to make for a great thrill factor.

Stopping by just to mention how similar this is to Alan Moore's Watchmen main plot themes by character Ozymandias. I wonder if Moore was sitting in front of the telly in Jun '77? There's no mention of Moore of Watchmen on Wikipedia but it doesn't seem far fetched.

As mentioned this has some music by Brian Eno, which I had been trying to track down for 30 years or so. It had been used as background music in other things when I heard it.

and a 6 year old Elon furiously taking notes in the living room …

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