3 ms·
"certainly won't happen within the lifetime of anyone alive today" Agreed, but even two lifetimes isn't that long if we're talking about a low probability but
by fighterpilot 5y ago
"certainly won't happen within the lifetime of anyone alive today"
Agreed, but even two lifetimes isn't that long if we're talking about a low probability but ever-present existential risk.
- yread 5y agoBut then you should compare to other ways how to minimize that risk. Multiple lifetimes of trying to estabilish a self-sustaining colony on Mars sounds more difficult than mapping all rocks in solar system larger than ~ 10km in diameter, monitoring their orbits and developing a technology to nudge them away/break them down. And it's also something that sci-fi nerds would enjoy. EDIT: it seems that we're quite well on our way to the first step, there are about 1000 near Earth asteroids larger than 1km, much less than previously thought https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/aa8036#ajaa8036s4 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/aa8036#...
- fighterpilot 5y ago> But then you should compare to other ways how to minimize that risk Agreed with this as well. I'm all for comparing those alternatives and weighing up costs and benefits. Just don't like the offhand dismissal we so often see (I'm not accusing the above poster of that) before that analysis has been done.