Will Humanity Colonize Space?

[proangelwhangs]

No but only because whatever does manage to successfully colonize space will be the Level Above Human.

 

[ChefBourgeoisie]

Humanity goes extinct in less than 200 years. The remainder will be somewhat underwhelming, as economies contract and stagnate, capabilities are lost, and those stuck in the mess struggle to live. We don't get the Star Trek future, and our descendants don't get it either... because we won't have any. When fertility rates crash and become sub-replacement, as they already have, population shrinks. Shrinking populations forget how to do even unimpressive things like keep factories running that crank out the tools of civilization.

This already started even before you were born. The "space colonization" dream ended in 1972, or close enough to that.

 

[OrangeJuliusEvola]

Humanity goes extinct in less than 200 years. The remainder will be somewhat underwhelming, as economies contract and stagnate, capabilities are lost, and those stuck in the mess struggle to live. We don't get the Star Trek future, and our descendants don't get it either... because we won't have any. When fertility rates crash and become sub-replacement, as they already have, population shrinks. Shrinking populations forget how to do even unimpressive things like keep factories running that crank out the tools of civilization.

This already started even before you were born. The "space colonization" dream ended in 1972, or close enough to that.

While I doubt we go extinct (we've been through these civilizational cycles before), it seems fairly certain that we're entering a period of long decline, and what arises from the ruins of the slow collapse will likely be completely alien to us. What is certain is that in this current cycle, we've pulled all the easily accessible resources of energy and metals from the ground, and what will be rebuilt is going to be much more materially modest and technologically constrained.

In the meanwhile, those that come next will look at us and our works with melancholic wonderment, much like the anonymous Old English poet of this work did, wandering through the ruins of the Roman city of Bath:
The Ruin

 

[Yamaha YM2612]

Space is fake and gay

 

[Taser Confetti]

Mars can never be properly terraformed because it's gravity is too weak to capture most of the atmosphere it would theoretically be generating. Best you're ever gonna have is underground complexes with their own atmosphere generators that scientists and techs would work at temporarily like McMurdo stations.

 

[Jemn Oopi]

setting up bases or settlements on other planets and moons

t. planetary chauvinist
You forgot the option of space habitats, orbiting planets/moons or sitting at interplanetary Lagrange points.

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

I think we will but the spectacle will wear off very quickly. Living on Mars would only be cool for like a week and a half until the colonists realizes that Mars is a boring lifeless frozen desert that makes Antarctica a more appealing place in comparison. The Mars colonists will miss things like green spaces, birds flying by chirping, <insert fun restaurant/bar here>, amusement parks, Ski Hills, lakes you can jump in and swim in, fresh air from trees, squirrels chasing around, an actual big moon that isn't two mere pebbles you can barely see from the ground, and a breathable atmosphere that wont give you skin cancer.

Things can only really become exciting when humanity leaves the Solar System for the first time.

 

[Taser Confetti]

Living on Mars would only be cool for like a week and a half until the colonists realizes that Mars is a boring lifeless frozen desert that makes Antarctica a more appealing place in comparison.

You forgot the low gravity that'll make you as a weak as a Calcutta orphan and may make returning to Earth impossible. I'm sure we will get bases on Mars at some point in the future assuming we avoid annihilation - it's always gonna be treated like an Antarctic research station.

Really, our best bet would be to use the incomprehensible resources in the asteroid belt and construct space stations.

 

[ChefBourgeoisie]

While I doubt we go extinct (we've been through these civilizational cycles before),

We've never been through this before. World wars? Sure. Natural catastrophes? Hell, all the time. Famine was a once a decade companion, and we've had a Black Death (or three) here and there.

But fertility rates were always high. Most stupid niggers want to count population ("there's 8 billion of us!" screams the simpleton, jewish lies in his ears), but non-retards should count "how many children have on average". That's the fertility rate. Since sex ratios are about 50/50 (not exactly, close enough though), every woman must have (on average) one child to replace herself, and one child to replace her male counterpart.

That's just so population doesn't shrink, it won't ever grow. In fact, that's not quite enough to stave off extinction... some children die before reaching reproductive age. So population would gradually shrink even then, they say the replacement-level fertility rate is 2.1 kids on average (21 kids for every 10 couples).

Throughout all of human history the fertility rate never really dropped. Never. Even when nature and fortune were busy trying to wipe us all out, if even a few men and women survived, the females would start squirting out far more than the replacement rate, and population would "bounce back".

Fertility rate is below 2.0 everywhere. In some places like Korea and China, it's below 1.0. When the moose get wiped out by the wolves, the wolves starve to death, and just a few moose can repopulate because the females have a fertility rate somewhere between 15-20 (I looked it up). But when fertility rates drop below replacement, population just dwindles.

No, actually it's worse than that. The current adult generation teaches the current juvenile generation. And the adult women are teaching the juvenile girls low fertility. They see all their role models having few children, and they internalize it. Normalize it. And the peculiar nature of this normalization is that it acts as a ceiling... the girl will never have more than that internalized norm, but she might have fewer. And if she has fewer, she's the new role model for the generation after her (what's left of it). Thus, fertility rates drift down, and the rate of decline accelerates.

If you think this is just like it has been before, you've not bothered to think it through.

 

[PandaChai]

No. Our betters have decided that the money for going to space would be better spent caring for the third world.

 

[Suspicious Clothes]

Unless someone shit-out a viable FTL-solution, we won't go further than Mars/Venus with a direct human presence.

 

[Dysnomia]

As for Mars a few countries will land there, and some may even have a base for 3-5 people for a decade or so to survey it with a rotation but no real settlement. The planet is wholly worthless.

There's so much that can go wrong. It takes 6-9 months to get to Mars, right? I've seen some redditards say we can do it in three. But I don't think so. We also need to wait until Earth and Mars are lined up in the correct positions. We can't just fuck off to Mars whenever like on some TV show. The crew has to survive the trip to Mars, then start setting up a habitat. I assume that robotic landers full of stuff would ideally be sent in first to make it easier. Also more realistic given the weight limits on ships.

You have to keep your space suit on at all times while outside due to the thin atmosphere that's mostly carbon dioxide. It has more argon than Earth's atmosphere too. I don't know if that really matters though considering that you can't breath in the carbon dioxide anyway. It's not just the atmosphere either. You'll get bombarded with radiation, have to deal with lower atmospheric pressure than what we've evolved to tolerate, deal with much lower gravity and the effects on your body and those damn sand storms. There's no plate tectonics or magnetosphere. But hey, at least Olympus Mons, a volcano more that twice the height of Mount Everest and as wide as France is probably dead. Probably. God help us if it isn't.

I think we are better off just making orbital stations. Maybe some day when our technology advances we can have space hotels and more science based stations. But living in space, the moon or Mars long term? I don't think it will happen any time soon. If humanity can survive long enough to reach a technology level where we can leave Earth and live elsewhere then yes. I think we can do it. Just don't count on your great great grandchildren being born on Mars.

 

[grump]

I'm a little baffled by all the edgelord doomerism here.

Lets get the most important question out of the way. Is it possible to live in space long term? Well yeah, many people have done so, some for more than a year. And they seem to be relatively fine for it. Theres some health and economic issues sure but there is no particular reason to believe these are completely unsolvable anymore than whatever issues Columbus had with his trip. Now with that out of the way the question should be what's going to keep everybody on Earth forever and ever? Many some doomsday scenario that wipes out the human race before it could get a big enough presence in space but other than that.....

I'm fairly sure some of the same people scoffing at space colonization would be scoffing at the idea of airplanes.

 

[Gay Sex Enjoyer]

The only relevant question is "Are there aliens to be racist against?"

If no, then we'll die out on Earth having never touched the stars.

If yes,

 

[Fishnumm]

Mars can never be properly terraformed because it's gravity is too weak to capture most of the atmosphere it would theoretically be generating. Best you're ever gonna have is underground complexes with their own atmosphere generators that scientists and techs would work at temporarily like McMurdo stations.

titan is smaller than mars and has a substantial atmosphere how do you explain that pal

 

[blackshirt]

Humans would fuck space up, leave it alone, as it's the one place that hasn't been corrupted by Capitalism.

Reminds me of Ad Astra, my favorite space movie. Most people call it "Brad Pitt in space with daddy issues", but it's really about how escapism is a dead end.

It hits on the idea that we're all just lords of our own tiny brain kingdoms. We could travel four billion miles away, but we're still bringing our neuroses and our corporate logos with us. The movie shows the moon as just another shitty transit hub with a Subway franchise. We won't find anything in the void that we haven't already failed to find on Earth.

 

[Taser Confetti]

titan is smaller than mars and has a substantial atmosphere how do you explain that pal

Titan is significantly colder and less battered by solar radiation which also contributes to atmosphere and lack thereof. Neither of those places are fit to colonize.

 

[Gay Sex Enjoyer]

Titan is significantly colder and less battered by solar radiation which also contributes to atmosphere and lack thereof. Neither of those places are fit to colonize.

The solar system is for strip mining, so we can make a fleet of space stations begin construction of the dyson sphere

 

[Angry Alt Right Nerd]

Zero chance it will ever happen, and Earth is probably the only rock in the entire universe that contains and will ever contain life

 

[Agamemnon Busmalis]

Mars can never be properly terraformed because it's gravity is too weak to capture most of the atmosphere it would theoretically be generating. Best you're ever gonna have is underground complexes with their own atmosphere generators that scientists and techs would work at temporarily like McMurdo stations.

Maintaining an atmosphere itself isn't the issue, Mars has enough mass to keep oxygen, nitrogen and water vapor from escaping to space and at one time it was able to sustain rain-fed rivers, lakes and possibly even massive oceans.

The problem is it doesn't have the mass needed to keep the core hot enough to generate the magnetic fields sufficient to protect that atmosphere from being stripped away by solar winds. You'd need an artificial magnetosphere to protect it.

Mars is a pretty depressing story overall, just getting colder and colder as it was stripped of its atmosphere by the solar wind. There was one chilly day the rains on Mars turned to snow for good. Then the snow stopped as the atmosphere grew thinner and the water and carbon dioxide froze into eternal ice.

Titan is significantly colder and less battered by solar radiation which also contributes to atmosphere and lack thereof. Neither of those places are fit to colonize.

Most importantly Titan has an Earthlike surface pressure, 50% higher in fact. If something went wrong with a colony's air supply on Titan it'd be a lot more manageable.