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As a life-long space buff, no that's not the reason at all. The solar system can support a vastly greater civilization than our little planet, with millions of
by DennisP 3y ago
As a life-long space buff, no that's not the reason at all.
The solar system can support a vastly greater civilization than our little planet, with millions of times the resources available and no existing ecosystems to screw up (that we know of so far). Antarctica does not compare.
- anonymouskimmer 3y agoEarth's ecosystem can only absorb the side-effect of so many spaceflights per year. It's one thing to advance the state-of-the-art of space travel vehicles, it's another thing to plan on colonizing the solar system with the equivalent of coal-burning, soot-emitting, 19th century locomotives. Billions of people could live in habitats in orbit around Earth, while mining local asteroids or the moon. Targeting one of the deepest gravity wells in the inner solar system doesn't seem like a good first step.
- DennisP 3y agoStarship's exhaust is CO2 and water. At scale, make the fuel from ambient CO2 and you're net-zero carbon. Water vapor in the stratosphere is a potential problem but only at extreme volume, since most of the exhaust is at lower altitude. Definitely we should do the moon and orbitals too, and Starship's launch costs would make that a lot easier. Mars does have things to recommend it though: lots of local resources, gravity only 1/3 of Earth's so you can get to orbit with just the Starship upper stage, only place in the solar system besides Earth where you can grow crops on natural sunlight, close to the asteroid belt.
- anonymouskimmer 3y ago> Starship's exhaust is CO2 and water. And fast moving, directional heat.
- DennisP 3y agoThat's a very transient, localized effect. I have a hard time imagining it making a real impact, though if you can reference a study showing otherwise I'd be interested.
- anonymouskimmer 3y agoI don't follow rocket studies.