for ourselves and our posterity.
Observations and analysis from Daniel McIntosh.
18 July, 2005
Another reason to get off this rock
"Earth is a crumb in a supermarket full of resources." --Peter Diamandis, originator of the X-prize, at this year's TED conference.
3 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Quite true. But more true would be to say "Earth is a crumb at the far edge of a supermarket of resources."
It seems to me that the primary reason our space exploration efforts have been largely stationary for so many decades is the fact that we have only one naturally habitable planet in our solar system, and that we are the only form of intelligent life in the same. Had the moon or Mars turned out to have livable atmospheres, or if intelligent, if even primitive, pre-industrial beings were found on any body in our solar system, the impetus and incentives for furthering the technical development manned space travel and exploration would be orders of magnitude greater.
As it is, we have the only livable rock in the neighborhood, and that neighborhood happens to be on the sparsely populated (in terms of stars and matter) outside edge of the city. I'm inclined to think that by mere virtue of the greater multitude of stars and matter more towards the center of the glaxy, it follows that the number of planets would be greater, and all in relative closer proximity to each other. Given that assumption, any civilizations arising in that area would be more likely to discover each other, and have the impetus to develop their space-faring ability.
Godd point about "astrogeography". On the other hand, if long-term life support works for spacecraft, habitability of the target is less important than the time and energy it takes to get there, and once you make it to earth orbit (and 5 mi/sec.) you only need a relatively small push to move on and coast to wherever you want to go. If and when spacecraft have a higher specific impulse, or can manage long-term constant acceleration, there's literally no place in the solar system we can't go.
Start thinking about colony ships (or MUCH better propulsion systems) and the nearest stars are a possibility. When we get to those magnitudes, however, I suspect we're in about the same place as Cyrano was when he tried to imagine means to travel to the moon.
3 comments:
Quite true. But more true would be to say "Earth is a crumb at the far edge of a supermarket of resources."
It seems to me that the primary reason our space exploration efforts have been largely stationary for so many decades is the fact that we have only one naturally habitable planet in our solar system, and that we are the only form of intelligent life in the same. Had the moon or Mars turned out to have livable atmospheres, or if intelligent, if even primitive, pre-industrial beings were found on any body in our solar system, the impetus and incentives for furthering the technical development manned space travel and exploration would be orders of magnitude greater.
As it is, we have the only livable rock in the neighborhood, and that neighborhood happens to be on the sparsely populated (in terms of stars and matter) outside edge of the city. I'm inclined to think that by mere virtue of the greater multitude of stars and matter more towards the center of the glaxy, it follows that the number of planets would be greater, and all in relative closer proximity to each other. Given that assumption, any civilizations arising in that area would be more likely to discover each other, and have the impetus to develop their space-faring ability.
Geographic (astrographic?) determinalism, being my point.
Godd point about "astrogeography". On the other hand, if long-term life support works for spacecraft, habitability of the target is less important than the time and energy it takes to get there, and once you make it to earth orbit (and 5 mi/sec.) you only need a relatively small push to move on and coast to wherever you want to go. If and when spacecraft have a higher specific impulse, or can manage long-term constant acceleration, there's literally no place in the solar system we can't go.
Start thinking about colony ships (or MUCH better propulsion systems) and the nearest stars are a possibility. When we get to those magnitudes, however, I suspect we're in about the same place as Cyrano was when he tried to imagine means to travel to the moon.
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