Habitat Population Control

On Tuesday, September 23, 2003, at 08:33 AM, Andy Goddard wrote:

> Now, if you think we'll still be around in 540 years, then it's a
> problem
> that might be worth addressing. Personally, I think the growth rates
> will
> plummet, possibly much of humanity will be hardware, and going in for
> STL
> interstellar travel by then...
>

Birthrates have, historically, plummeted when women get effective
control over their bodies (i.e., birth control and practical
independence from men). In most industrialized countries, the native
population is actually declining. All the population growth is coming
from people moving in from elsewhere.

The International Space Station (ISS) most important legacy may be
jump-starting space tourism. Consider: the first space tourist, Dennis
Tito, was supposed to go to the Soviet era Mir space station. Under
pressure from NASA, Russia de-orbited the Mir which resulted in Mr.
Tito going to the ISS instead. Now the Mir was old, smelly, crowded and
probably not all that nice. The ISS was brand new, shinny, much more
roomy, etc. Mr. Tito came back to Earth with glowing accounts of how
great space is. Would his experience have been as good on Mir?

Al Globus
CSC at NASA Ames Research Center
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/~globus/home.html

Views expressed in this email are only my opinions and are not the
position of any organization I'm familiar with.