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"Keep Earth hospitable" and "Colonize Mars" have very different goals, though. It would likely be humanity's crowning achievement to put a permanent outpost on
by rev_bird 10y ago
"Keep Earth hospitable" and "Colonize Mars" have very different goals, though. It would likely be humanity's crowning achievement to put a permanent outpost on another planet, but it would be, what, 15 people maybe? The other planet we're talking about has to support at least 7 billion.
- VLM 10y agoI'm so old I remember we only supported 4 billion people. Even pessimistically over one human lifetime I bet that "15 people" turns into at least 30. You get gene pool and interbreeding issues with too small of a pool, then again you'd be amazed what you can store in liq nitrogen for a long time. Also looking at the temporary and limited mineral and energy requirements, the earth isn't going to support 7B or 9B or even 1B for much longer, on a geologic / radiation timescale. For awhile you can turn mined petrochemicals and chemical fertilizers into lots of human biomass. The key is for awhile, temporarily.
- ProAm 10y agoIt's amazing to think the earth's population doubled between 1960 and 2000