Planetary Chauvinism vs the High Frontier

To Starship Forum Starship_Forum@...
Date: Thu Oct 18, 2001 10:53 pm

Dennis May wrote (10/16):

> "Humans Doomed Without Space Colonies, Says Hawking" "LONDON (Reuters) -
> The human race is likely to be wiped out by a doomsday virus before this
> millennium is out unless it starts to colonize space, top British scientist
> Stephen Hawking warned..."

> http://www.abcnews.go.com/wire/SciTech/reuters20011016_9.html

> I may disagree with Hawking's view on quantum mechanics and general relativity

> but he is generally understood to be one of the leading scientists of the
> last forty years. This is just more of the same concerning what I've said
> about Weapons of Mass Destruction.

I reply:

In the article, Hawking was quoted as saying, "I don't think the human race
will survive the next thousand years unless we spread into space. There are
too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet."

The human species has survived many "accidents" and catastrophes in the past,
from the World Wars of the last century, to the Plague in medieval Europe, to
the planetary collisions of Mars and Venus in 1500 BC, described by Immanuel
Velikovsky. It seems arbitrary to suppose that humankind will be
destroyed by such catastrophes, rather than to suppose that humankind can
survive or avert them.

Besides, is the danger of something wiping out the human race on Earth the
main reason for going into space? I, as an individual, if I find that the
future of humanity in a thousand years to be irrelevant to my own life now,
why should I be motivated by that hypothetical danger to go into space?
There are far better reasons for moving into space.

Dennis May also wrote (10/12):

> . . . It would be a grave error to assume that everyone in space or
> everyone with WMD [Weapons of Mass Destructionscan be reasoned
> with. Nomadic technological societies are the only solution I see, I
> am open to the possibility of other solutions."

Peter Taylor, in response, wrote (10/16):

> Nomadic existence is necessary only if we know
> the threat exists. We have no such information now but we certainly need
> to find out before we go forward or advertise our existence. If the
> information that alien civilizations do exist, is not available, then
> the most logical explanation is: they do NOT exist. Nonetheless, we
> should at least colonize at least one other planet, asap.

I reply:

Why colonize another planet when we could construct our own artificial
planets? The gigantic, country-sized vessels envisioned and designed by
physicist Gerald O'Neill (author of _The High Frontier_) are not only
earth-like in environmental suitability -- but are more in human control as
to gravity, solar radiation, climate, location, and locomotion, than being
confined to the surface of a planet, even one as hospital as Earth. There are
some who promote the colonization of Mars because it's the planet nearest to
Earth's conditions, but the Martian conditions are far severe than any area
on Earth, worse than a combination of Sahara desert and Antarctica.

It's understandable why people today easily think of space settlement in
terms of planetary locations, since they were born on and accustomed to
living on Earth. But why struggle to escape the gravity-well of a conducive
planet like Earth, only to sink down another gravity-well of a nearly
airless, waterless, arctic desert like Mars? If we had to live on a planet,
we'd be better off staying on Earth. But staying on Earth or eking out a
living on Mars, or crammed into space submarines, are not the only types of
alternatives. Living in the high frontier of free space within environmental
conditions superior to that of Earth -- that's a far more appealing
alternative.

See my other writings on this subject, including this post on the archives:

As to Dennis' concerns about space settlements being susceptible to attack by
Weapons of Mass Destruction, some answers were discussed in another thread,
starting with this one at
civilization consisting of these free-floating, free-flying space countries
could be an excellent example of Dennis' suggestion of having "nomadic
technological societies."

Monart
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Starship Aurora http://www.starshipaurora.com>