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The point of colonizing other planets isn't the opening up of now-uninhabitable areas. It's creating a human society in a place that won't be affected if/when s
by azernik 10y ago
The point of colonizing other planets isn't the opening up of now-uninhabitable areas. It's creating a human society in a place that won't be affected if/when some catastrophic event alters the environment on Earth.
Sure, preferable to preserve Earth's environment, but there's nothing that says we can't do both, and the work that's going into interplanetary transport isn't appreciably detracting from environmental efforts here.
- gambiting 10y agoI'd argue that a self-sufficient colony on the bottom of the ocean would be unaffected by 99% of natural disasters that can happen to this planet - maybe short of direct meteor or nuclear hit. Even in an event of nuclear war, water is absolutely amazing at blocking radiation, so a colony couple miles below the ocean surface should be completely safe. And it would give us loads of experience on how to build self-sufficient colonies in extremely difficult environments, which would eventually be useful for colonizing space.
- lmm 10y agoUp to a point. It's very hard to get energy underwater, and the pressure constraints are quite different. Some of the experience will generalize, but I'm not sure how much.