Why Colonize Space?

On Jul 20, 5:47*pm, Immortalista wrote:
Today I was reading some opinions of people who believe that there is
no reason for humans to leave earth. Are all arguments for moving into
space and onto other bodies in space really that weak and irrelevant?

Well, here are the most common arguments, roughly from in decreasing
order of silliness:

Relieve population pressure by shipping people off Earth: Beyond
silly. First, no amount of emigration could ever keep up with
geometric increase in population, and second, it is unnecessary. As
people get richer, birth rates drop, always, regardless of religion.
All developed countries have barely replacement or below replacement
birth rates. Solution to overpopulation is PROSPERITY.

"Eggs in one basket argument": See my other post on this thread. If
all of Earth's nuclear arsenals are blown up at once, or if a 10-km
"dinosaur killer" asteroid strikes the Earth, Earth will STILL be far
more hospitable and more suited for re-colonization than Mars or
asteroids or any location in space. So if your goal really is to
create a "backup storage" for human race*, then the logical and far
more cost-effective solution is to build underground bunkers on Earth
with everything you can think of to jump-start civilization. Or mine
shafts, as Michael Stemper already pointed out.

Making use of space resources: Something to this, but only something.
First, there are not many resources in space which are worth taking to
Earth -- energy is first, then platinum group metals and perhaps some
other elements rare on Earth but not so rare on asteroids. If you have
technology to haul iron from asteroids and hydrocarbons from Outer
Solar System (as Turtoni suggested), then you do not NEED bulk iron
and hydrocarbons -- the higher is technology level, the less raw
materials are needed, not more. But more importantly, space mining
does not require COLONIZATION. Nobody raises children on off-shore oil
rigs -- people come for a few months, get loads of money for hard
dangerous work, then go home to spend it in more benign climates.

Moving polluting industry off Earth's surface: Certainly desirable,
but again, subject to "offshore oil rig" conundrum. Vast majority of
people do not want to live permanently and raise children where you
need an airlock for a foyer.

Military uses of space: Has been going on from the very start --
Pentagon spends more on space than NASA does, -- but it requires very
few people in space. US never had a dedicated military manned mission,
USSR had one or two. Aerial combat is moving away from manned planes
and to robotic ones, and space is more suitable environment for robots
than air is. If there is ever a shooting confrontation in space, with
China or otherwise, the side silly enough to rely on fragile sacks of
protoplasm, with their ridiculously slow reaction time and absurdly
high environmental requirements, will be the side which loses. Again,
no colonization.

"Frontier" argument, establishing colonies away from stifling control
of Earth governments: Might or might not work (I am dubious -- we seem
to take our social problems wherever we go), but more importantly, who
is going to pay for it? Earth governments are not likely to spend
money on colonies whose express purpose is to break away from said
governments. And if you wait until the world is wealthy enough that
space colonies are within reach of private organization, then they are
also within reach of armed governments. You may establish your utopia
on Tuesday only to find an IRS spaceship pointing a gun at you on
Wednesday. Besides, without something to sell your colony will wither
and die. Don't even think about colonies (as in, live permanently and
raise children) until there is some economic activity done more
efficiently in space than on Earth AND requiring human presence.

"Gaia" argument, spreading life to lifeless universe: The most
philosophical argument, and hardest to refute. All I can say about it
is -- if people really want to do it, they will, and if they do not,
they won't. Although it seems to me that "spreading life" is better
accomplished with genetically tailored algae than with oxygen-
demanding, radiation-vulnerable, hibernation-incapable primates.