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I agree. We don't need to colonize Mars or any other planet. There's plenty of room on Earth. But we should be working towards tapping the $700 quintillion of

I agree. We don't need to colonize Mars or any other planet. There's plenty of room on Earth. But we should be working towards tapping the $700 quintillion of wealth in the asteroid belt. The Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway and any missions to Mars should be laser-focused on that single goal. Once we achieve it, exploration of the solar system, planet colonization, and everything else becomes possible.

fallingfrog 8y ago
I think that this is a much better plan- gives an economic reason to stay, which is going to have a lot more staying power than "because it's there". Although, this is itself rather dangerous since we are then intentionally steering asteroids towards the Earth.
- aiyodev 8y ago
  Well, I would imagine we would start with relatively small ones. The cancelled Asteroid Redirect Mission would have targeted one about 25ft in diameter which would be harmless if it ended up in Earth's atmosphere.
GW150914 8y ago
Amen to that. A launch loop or EM launch system on the Moon combined with ore processing and a robotic assembly/launch/retrieval system for asteroid mining could change the world in ways that firing some doomed saps at Mars never will. With all of those raw materials we’d have a real hope of spreading out in ways which can help to preserve Earth, rather than abandon it like a virus shedding from a cell.
- andrew_ 8y ago
  > firing some doomed saps at Mars made me giggle incessantly. well done.
- v_lisivka 8y ago
  One small problem: Moon is the gigantic EM recorder. It recorded every EM wave from Earth. Most of them are just lighting strikes, but some of them are interesting, radio transmissions, for example. They are very weak, but antenna is huge. We may be able to restore these recordings in (far) future, so we should preserve at least 1/4 of visible Moon for future archaeology.
  - aiyodev 8y ago
    I haven’t heard this before. Where can I read more about it?
    - v_lisivka 8y ago
      I haven’t heard this before too, but Moon constantly bombarded with charged particles, and charged particles are affected by EM waves, including signal from Earth, so EM signal from Earth (and other sources) leaves trail in Moon dust. Extremely weak signal, of course, but Moon surface is huge. Moon covers 0.2 deg^2 of the sky: not bad. Also, few tons of dust is regularly drops on Moon, so it dust layer thickness increases with time, thus old recordings are affected less by radiation. Technology to recover these recording is not invented yet, but if we will have trails of every high energy particle in the Moon dust and powerful enough computer, we will be able to recover them.

fallingfrog 8y ago

I think that this is a much better plan- gives an economic reason to stay, which is going to have a lot more staying power than "because it's there". Although, this is itself rather dangerous since we are then intentionally steering asteroids towards the Earth.

aiyodev 8y ago
Well, I would imagine we would start with relatively small ones. The cancelled Asteroid Redirect Mission would have targeted one about 25ft in diameter which would be harmless if it ended up in Earth's atmosphere.

GW150914 8y ago

Amen to that. A launch loop or EM launch system on the Moon combined with ore processing and a robotic assembly/launch/retrieval system for asteroid mining could change the world in ways that firing some doomed saps at Mars never will. With all of those raw materials we’d have a real hope of spreading out in ways which can help to preserve Earth, rather than abandon it like a virus shedding from a cell.

andrew_ 8y ago
> firing some doomed saps at Mars made me giggle incessantly. well done.
v_lisivka 8y ago
One small problem: Moon is the gigantic EM recorder. It recorded every EM wave from Earth. Most of them are just lighting strikes, but some of them are interesting, radio transmissions, for example. They are very weak, but antenna is huge. We may be able to restore these recordings in (far) future, so we should preserve at least 1/4 of visible Moon for future archaeology.
- aiyodev 8y ago
  I haven’t heard this before. Where can I read more about it?
  - v_lisivka 8y ago
    I haven’t heard this before too, but Moon constantly bombarded with charged particles, and charged particles are affected by EM waves, including signal from Earth, so EM signal from Earth (and other sources) leaves trail in Moon dust. Extremely weak signal, of course, but Moon surface is huge. Moon covers 0.2 deg^2 of the sky: not bad. Also, few tons of dust is regularly drops on Moon, so it dust layer thickness increases with time, thus old recordings are affected less by radiation. Technology to recover these recording is not invented yet, but if we will have trails of every high energy particle in the Moon dust and powerful enough computer, we will be able to recover them.