Thread: Is the colonizing of space the ans. to our crowding here?

It seems to me that we are running out of room here on Earth and that we are on the way to the colonizing of our Solar System and then out further into the universe.

Of course, it will not be a matter of dumping extra people on other planets like we dumped people in Australia and even America, we will still have to protect the environment here and learn to control populatioin numbers.

All this might mean building and shooting the equipment to the new locations or it could mean climatizing other planets.---or both.

Anyone have any idea how long all this would take?


charles, http://humanpurpose.simplenet.com

while i agree, we are expanding population at an alarming rate, there are many societies reducing. my guess is, we could as a planet, easily maintain 15 or 20 billion persons, which is now a little over 6. if we did continue at the current rates, this limit would exist about 2200.

doing things to the moon or other planets to make suitable for human life is an on going discussion (terraforming). we certainly can't wait for Jupiter to cool down and form into a rock planet. the estimates for changing atmosphere on mars, which most seem to think most logical, range from 10k years and up. another more logical possibility are domes cities or even underground cities. however we could do this right here on earth, where 70% of all space is now oceans or much of earths land surface in uninhabitable. i can see a large domed city, holding 10m much like LA, in Death Valley or in the Yukon and maybe even on the ocean...

I doubt that you will ever be able to move people off the planet as quickly as they are born. It must be going up by hundreds of thousands/day.

[quote="jackson33"]while i agree, we are expanding population at an alarming rate, there are many societies reducing. my guess is, we could as a planet, easily maintain 15 or 20 billion persons, which is now a little over 6. if we did continue at the current rates, this limit would exist about 2200.[quote]

I don't agree with that. We are using resources at an alarming rate. We will be well out of resources on this planet by 2200 especially with triple the population. We would NOT be able to maintain 15 or 20 billion persons and especially not as you said, "easily". Also not sure about this part so correct me if im wrong... Over the past decades our population has been increasing exponentially. We should be at 15 or 20 billion in 2100 not 2200... Again correct me if I'm wrong about that. We will have to move into space as soon as safely possible. The problem is even if we get to space we won't have resources for the people there. I have no solution to this, other than really concentrate hard on space exploration and tighten our pollution and environmental laws, which no government on this planet currently has the will power to do, and therefore IMHO WE ARE SCREWED!

shawn; there are as many guesses on future populations as there are on any speculative issue. the general figure is we will double the 6b figure by 2100 or a little short of that. the next double is wide open and gave my opinion. ie, there is no right or wrong.

as for resources; aluminum, copper, steel and nearly all basic metals are plentiful. we can double production tomorrow from the manufacturers that exist. wood products would be a problem, but being replaced daily. we actually grow more trees, than we use today, in the US. we at this time are not allowed to clean the underbrush from public forest, but what we can, produces much of our paper products. energy in so many forms i won't go into, will never be a problem. fresh water, that we use, makes up very little of the total. Ice in our glaciers make up much of fresh water.
additionally we can and do desalt sea water today. General Electric boast producing 2b bottles per year. agriculture is the least of our problems for any total of people. transportation of goods is a current problem, only because manufacturers insist on next day service to anywhere. we have the ability today to double tonnage. i see no reason why populations of 20b, will have any problems, if it were to happen in 2050.

i am an enthusiast for space travel, exploration and in time think we will have settlements on objects in our solar system and maybe outside of it.
when the time comes or even if, it will require a special type people. like it or not they do not exist today, in any large numbers. as for having to;
no, by 2100-2200, many things will be figured out. ill use one example. in looking for a motel to buy i found probably 500, maybe 20k rooms, many with full kitchens and countless beds. prices ranged from 3 to 5k per unit and most all had all the things needed to live. A/C, heat, TVs and so on.
not one of these properties was in operation. no one lived there, there pools and restaurant facilities, lay vacant. my point is today, at least in the US, we have room today, not tomorrow or 2100, for 6m people. we are given time by nature to preplan this influx and any thought of being impossible will not solve, what is such a minor problem.

Houm...

Overpopulaiton happens in places of the world where they do not earn enough for a living -let alone colonyze space!

So, what we do?

Case #1: "We" pay the ticket and send "them " in space? Dammit, wouldn't be cheaper just eliminate misery & give a dign standard of living to everyone?

Case #2: "We" pay the ticket and "we" go in space. Houm. Fine. Yet population "there" will keep blooming and our countries will lose population at a faster rate than they are now.

Rather than keep spreading like retard bunnies armed with poisons, weapons and greed, would be easier to just manage to fit ourselves within the biological frame of the only life-sustainign planet we know... 8)

I agree with Lucifer. And i don't think there is any need to move to mars just yet. Most of the worlds population growth is in developing countries, once they are developed their population growth should slow down a lot maybe even decrease. The quicker we help them develop with money to help build education facilities and general infrastructure, the quicker the worlds population should settle down.

Jackson is right though, current predictions for 2200 are about 20 billion and we do have enough resources for that number of people. The reason that some people don't have access to the housing, water and food that they need at the moment, is simply bad management of countries by their own governments.

Well The problem I think with having 20b people is that there is still going to be over crowding. The cities will have 4 times as many people and the countries will still be sparsely populated. It’s not a matter of if we have the metals and things to use but, fuels and enough space to farm and live.
Maybe Going off terra forming and exploring space is a little in the future but I do see it happening. Colonizing the moon and mars could happen in a couple decades.
One point this does raise however is, if we do go off colonizing space surely our planet must be 1 stable government. Because when start shooting each others shuttles down and claiming who owns what on other moons and planets then it’s not a discussion of fuels and housing and exploration but war.

i can only speak for where i live. In England or for that matter most of Europe, crowding may already be a problem. urban areas draw people for many reasons, jobs and welfare the most common. however in all honesty i can head out in any direction from where i live and go for 500 miles and see no towns or anything but farms and ranches. as a over the road truck driver i got to see massive areas, suitable for life, with no humans. Utah comes to mind as 90% of their population lives in one city, SLC. Montana, Wyoming and most of Western Canada is not well populated and weather conditions are not that bad. certainly equal to that of Minneapolis, which boast 60% of thats states people.

terra forming would be very expensive and as i said would require a type of people and mentality, we are no longer creating. the cost of even one dome city on the moon would build 4 on earth. 60% of earths land mass is currently to dry or hot for human development and would be much easier to work with. i do however agree that short term outpost will be on Mars, the Moon and possibly a moon near Jupiter, but think where talking 50 to 100 years. the problems here will be long term effects on the humans which is yet not fully known, what is not all that good.

food is the least of problems. we have commercial farms with massive lands which, could produce two crops per year but do one. reason, transportation, manpower and lack of markets. likewise there are herds of buffalo that equal the American Indian days, with no market to sell the product. water is more a replenishment thing, as in Africa rainfall can fall below usage and does often. in some So American areas rain water primarily runs into the oceans as five times usage occurs yearly. with sea water becoming a reality, these problems can be solved.

[quote="shawngoldw"][quote="jackson33"]while i agree, we are expanding population at an alarming rate, there are many societies reducing. my guess is, we could as a planet, easily maintain 15 or 20 billion persons, which is now a little over 6. if we did continue at the current rates, this limit would exist about 2200.

I don't agree with that. We are using resources at an alarming rate. We will be well out of resources on this planet by 2200 especially with triple the population. We would NOT be able to maintain 15 or 20 billion persons and especially not as you said, "easily". Also not sure about this part so correct me if im wrong... Over the past decades our population has been increasing exponentially. We should be at 15 or 20 billion in 2100 not 2200... Again correct me if I'm wrong about that. We will have to move into space as soon as safely possible. The problem is even if we get to space we won't have resources for the people there. I have no solution to this, other than really concentrate hard on space exploration and tighten our pollution and environmental laws, which no government on this planet currently has the will power to do, and therefore IMHO WE ARE SCREWED!

warp speed to the rescue

I take two things into account :

1) - population growth is exponential, like compounded interest. If, oh say... the population doubles every 60 years, for example.

In 600 years, there would be 1024 times as many people as there are now.
In 1200 years, there would be over a million times as many as now
In 1800 years, over a billion times as many
In 2400 years, over a trillion times as many

2) - No matter how improbable evolution is, sooner or later we will populate to the point where our borders run into those of another culture, in every direction we expand, and we'll have to stop expanding or wage a very high tech (probably worse than nuclear) war.

In the end, the only long term solution to population problems is to stop population growth. We can put it off, but we can't get out of it.

Originally Posted by charles brough

It seems to me that we are running out of room here on Earth and that we are on the way to the colonizing of our Solar System and then out further into the universe"

I don't imagine that extraterrestial colonization will ever make the slightest dent in the population figures of Earth. I think the greatest advantage of extraterrestial colonization for the human race would be to increase its chances of survival.

Originally Posted by charles brough

"All this might mean building and shooting the equipment to the new locations or it could mean climatizing other planets.---or both.

Anyone have any idea how long all this would take?"

No idea, but let's have some fun. Timetable:

By 2020, first discovery of Earthlike planets in other star systems.
By 2025, permanently manned moonbase
By 2070, a permanently manned scientific outpost on Mars
By 2100, robotic exploratory missions sent to Earthlike planets in other star systems.
By 2150, an industrial/mining colony on Mars, mostly robotic, but with a human team of supervisory technicians.
By 2200, first coloniser mission to an Earthlike planet in another star system. The starship to serve as a base, and programmable von Neumann machines build the infra-structure.
By 2225, second coloniser mission to the same Earthlike planet in another star system, because this one can make the trip in half the time using better technology!
By 2250, third coloniser mission to the same Earthlike planet in another star system, because this one can make the trip in 5% of the time, using still better technology!

Seriously, though, if civilization survives long enough our species will probably colonize a large slice of the Milky Way. The two big questions are, (1) can it survive? and (2) how long will it take.

Answers? Your guesses are as good as mine.

At the moment as far as I know iw WOULD take three years to GET to Mars and you can only leave when it & earth are in a suitable orbit whereby you wouldnt end up chasing Mars indefinitely!
I know you're just speculating but I think 2025 and 2070 are a bit unrealistic!
Fun to speculate though! If only we'd be around to see it all!

According to UN figures, 175 thousand people are born every day and about 130 thousand die.

Net gain of 45,000 a day.

It's plain silly to think that space can make a mote of a dent on Earth population.

You want to know what I think ?

I think we should stop sending aid to african countries.
Let natural selection run its course instead of interferring with it.

Yes I may seem cold. There there is logic behind this. The stronger genes survive, the weaker ones die out.

Originally Posted by leohopkins

You want to know what I think ?

I think we should stop sending aid to african countries.
Let natural selection run its course instead of interferring with it.

Yes I may seem cold. There there is logic behind this. The stronger genes survive, the weaker ones die out.

You're not cold but politically incorrect.

Whenever I get a request for aid I put a condom in the return envelope and tell them to make sure it gets used. I don't want the weaker ones to die out but not to be born, but if born, not to breed. Incentives for sterilization. This applies worldwide and not just in developing countries.

It's nice to be actually talking the cold hard facts of the matter, instead of bleeding heart make-believe.

For me, it's about letting useless or primative cultures anihilate themselves. That way new children aren't being born into a social system that simply can't provide for its members. If the people of the culture were going to change and do more wisely in the future, I'd be happy to send them enough aid to rebuild, but they are unlikely to do so.

If you try to spare everybody, then they just flood you with their economic refugees. That's kind of the problem with attempting to unilaterally keep population down. We can't just not have so many kids ourselves. We have to prevent others too.

Note that fertility rates in the developed nations are low, so, disregarding immigration, population growth is either zero or close to zero.

Overpopulation is only occurring in undeveloped nations.

No third world = No population crisis.

Conclusion: The developed world should help the poor, overpopulated regions to develop as rapidly as possible. In the long term, this would put the breaks on growth.

By 'help', I don't mean temporary or small scale intervention like Oxfam. I mean that a significant slice of Western GNP should be diverted to developing real infrastructure in the third world, as a base for self-sustainable development.

The problem will not disappear by ignoring it.

Why don't we just sterilize every second women in the three most populous countries on the planet? Can anyone here guess which ones those are?

Originally Posted by river_rat

Why don't we just sterilize every second women in the three most populous countries on the planet? Can anyone here guess which ones those are?

That's treating women like objects!! Why dont we just teach people not to reproduce like crazy? (somehow...)

I see you do not realise which are the three most populated countries. None are in Africa and one is definitely not third world.

The population growth in Africa is only 2%, so which people do you need to teach?

It's the ones with high growth rate we're after here. Mexico is a pretty good candidate. So is most of the muslim world. Africa would probably have a higher growth rate if the death rate were a little lower.

redewenur
Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2007 12:53 pm Post subject: Reply with quote

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Note that fertility rates in the developed nations are low, so, disregarding immigration, population growth is either zero or close to zero.

Overpopulation is only occurring in undeveloped nations.

No third world = No population crisis.

Conclusion: The developed world should help the poor, overpopulated regions to develop as rapidly as possible. In the long term, this would put the breaks on growth.

The problem is you can't help a backward culture, except by removing or changing the culture. Send them all the stuff that *should* help you want. They won't make proper use of it.

Originally Posted by kojax

The problem is you can't help a backward culture, except by removing or changing the culture. Send them all the stuff that *should* help you want. They won't make proper use of it.

You make a good point, but we have to think of the long term, i.e., possibly 50-100 yrs. The West has a triumphant culture in terms of its ability to organise and develop. The cultivation of Western culture in a socially and politically disorganised and undeveloped region may be a slow process, but given sustained drive and a consistantly high level of help, I think it's possible. That's my 'at a glance' guess, anyway.
_________

Incidentally, regarding the colonization of space, mining of Helium 3 on the moon may be part of the solution. Helium 3 fusion drives promise to be a good option for long-haul space voyages.

http://www.charm.net/~jriley/energy/...tMalapert.html

http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...m3_000630.html

A very interesting pdf: "The Significance of Helium 3 Fusion":-

http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/neep533/FALL2001/lecture25.pdf

Originally Posted by leohopkins

You want to know what I think ?

I think we should stop sending aid to african countries.
Let natural selection run its course instead of interferring with it.

Yes I may seem cold. There there is logic behind this. The stronger genes survive, the weaker ones die out.

Africa is not the problem. All African countries combined have a population slghtly below China's. India is on its way to outnumber Africa, too.

And of course, there's that little thing that if you're starving and there's food to the other side of a line on the map, you're going to cross that line whatever it takes. Then stronger and weaker genes will be in a same niche and you'll see who prevails...

It is the developing country's that produce most of the worlds population growth. In time as they become developed their population growth will slow down, perhaps even start to decrease such as in Euurope. Seeing as most of the developing regions are in south America and Asia, and the developed countrys are in Europe, north America and Oceania + Japan most of the world populations should be stable by the end of this century. That only leaves Africa (with the possible exception of South Africa and Egypt) with a large population growth in the future. If we start to help them developed their economy's now rather then simply propping up their populations with aid, in the long run we would all be better off.

Originally Posted by leohopkins

You want to know what I think ?

I think we should stop sending aid to african countries.
Let natural selection run its course instead of interferring with it.

Yes I may seem cold. There there is logic behind this. The stronger genes survive, the weaker ones die out.

They won't like us Leohopkins:

We sanctify much too much all human phenotypes. That in a nutshell is the root to many of our problems including overpopulation. I'm surprised everyone is puzzled by the reason for the recent tragedy in Virgina: that genotype was being de-selected but no, we continued to keep it on life-support until it mutated into a demon (he probably sensed some sort of de-selection and that contributed to his rage). Should have terminated that lineage before it got to that expression. Same dif for many, many other problems facing modern societies. Let natural selection take it's course: stop perpetuating weak genes and I suspect the fitness of humanity would improve drastically and overpopulation would not be an issue.

I know . . . ice cold . . .

"overpopulation" is not an issue. We already produce more than enough food to feed the world, thats why Africa can support 850-odd million people even though most of it is third world. The problems are economic and political.

Originally Posted by Cat1981(England)

"overpopulation" is not an issue. We already produce more than enough food to feed the world, thats why Africa can support 850-odd million people even though most of it is third world. The problems are economic and political.

i suggest you read "Collapse" by Jared Diamond, with the subtitle "how societies choose to fail or survive" - it clearly shows that a population can't exceed the carrying capacity of their environment indefinitely and when collapse comes it can be mercilessly quick

Then could you please tell me where on earth the population of a region has outgrown the amount of resource that region can produce ?

----------

Acording to the 'United Nations Development Programme'......

"The world has come to recognize that chronic hunger is not due to lack of food. It is due to poverty. In many countries there are abundant examples of hungry people in food surplus areas - people who lack adequate income or assets to purchase or produce enough food for themselves and their families."

the only way that our current way of life with in excess of 6 billion people on earth can be supported is by using up resources faster than they can be replenished

it also crucially depends on transporting those resources across the globe without interruption

so the watchword is "indefinitely" - it's a bit like borrowing from the bank, they'll like + allow it until you're overdrawn too much for too long and then they'll pull the plug on you

then you'll be like one of those cartoon figures that runs over the edge of a cliff, threads air for a few seconds until he realises there's nothing to support him and then ... bye bye

Well there is nothing more i can add except that i believe that we can support a greater number of people even by using current technology.

I think that the major problem arising due to increasing population is imbalance of resources. The resources(elect. water, food) are getting on depleting whereas the population is increasing.
So, if we think of migrating people to other countries it would take a lot of non renewable resources which far exceeds the resources used by us.
We can see just sending a dozen of people require a lot of resources so if we think of migrating in thousands hiuuuuuuuuuu.....
Else, if we think of improving technology a next cold age is waiting.....

there's already plenty of migrating going on, in case you hadn't noticed - they're either called illegal immigrants or asylum seekers

just remember this : whether you spread shit evenly or not, it remains shit

The more serious problem as the ballance between people and resources gets worse is the increased inequality it will create between "haves" and "have nots"

When the scarce resource is labour, everybody is equal to everybody else. When it's oil or land, oil and land owners are more equal than ordinary people.