On 7 April 2014 17:37, meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: > On 4/6/2014 9:56 PM, LizR wrote: > > On 7 April 2014 15:47, Stephen Paul King <[email protected]>wrote: > >> Hi Liz, >> >> Why is there no interest in developing tech to get us off the planet? >> Why is there a retreat into a bunker mentality? >> >> I wouldn't say there is no interest - but getting anyone or anything > off the planet isn't easy, to quote Robert Heinlein when you reach low > Earth orbit you're half way to anywhere in the solar system, which > indicates how hard it is to get into even LEO. We haven't got the > capability to get large amounts of mass into space, nor have we got the > ability to survive outside the biosphere in great numbers and for long > perionds. (We really should have had a self-sufficient Moon colony by now, > dammit...) > > > It's not only difficult and expensive, it's not very useful. In case of a > asteroid hitting Earth, it would be a way for the human race to survive for > a while longer. But it would be much cheaper and more effective to make > Earth self-sufficient. >
Well it would be nice to make it self-sufficient against comets and asteroids as well, which involves a *certain* amount of space effort. Although I think a human outpost on the Moon would be a good thing for a number of reasons, we're doing OK without it - sending robots into space to explore and observe the universe is FAR more effective than sending humans, a fact that perhaps got forgotten during the "Space Race" and the national kudos involved in being first to take "one small step". The USSR (as it was then) was doing fine with robotic exploration, having been first into orbit, first on the Moon, first to orbit the Moon, first to land on Mars and Venus... -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
