I think that it is rather foolish that we are trying to conquer other planets while we have still only colonized 30% of our current planet.
It would be significantly cheaper, more practical, and more in-line with a psychologically comfortable lifestyle.
It would be far easier to create a self-sufficient ocean colony over making one on non-earth bodies.
Ocean colonization could actually help solve issues we have in earth in decades rather than centuries.
We already have the technology to colonize the oceans RIGHT NOW, while planet terraforming is still at-least, several centuries off.
Taking all of this into account, why is the idea of space travel so much more prevalent than ocean colonization? Why hasn’t there been more of a push to colonize the oceans?
Making underwater colonies is incredibly expensive and requires solving significant engineering challenges. It only comes up in the context of “this is much more feasible than a Mars colony”. Which is true, but on the other side of the ledger, a mars or moon colony looks like the first steps towards becoming a space faring species and not being entirely tethered to one planet.
Whereas an underwater colony looks like a bit of a dead end. What’s the ultimate goal?
But to illustrate how un-sexy the ocean is, did you know that there is a science base in the florida keys, essentially the closest thing to an ocean ISS? Well, there is: Aquarius Reef Base.
Ok, maybe it’s just me, but I’d never heard if it before googling 5 minutes ago.
Exactly this. From what I’ve read over the decades, a big reason for colonizing space has always been to give humanity a “plan B,” in case something terrible happens to Earth (which, honestly, is already happening). Colonizing Earth’s oceans really doesn’t address that reason.
I am not convinced that a giant mesh of rafts and barges would be significantly cheaper and more practical than a normal city—I really want to see your back-of-the-envelope calculations for that. As for psychologically comfortable, surely that is very very much a matter of taste (are we talking a Kowloon Walled City here?)
In sci-fi novels, maybe, but it would also take some sci-fi bio-engineering for you to be able to survive living in a space colony, even given there were one.
Both are viable. But, for practical purposes, it could make more sense to colonize the surface of the seas first for resupplying/trading with, ocean colonies. As to what problems ocean colonization would solve, here are a few:
Spreading out human life would greatly decrease the strain of overpopulation, decrease the affects of climate change, and would encourage ocean conservation to a much higher extent.
It would have the affect of allowing more of the land that is used currently for farming and human habitation to instead be allowed to be reserved for wildlife.
It would have all of the benefits of colonization “new economic and class-mobility, lower taxes for people who choose to stay on land, more land to be used for farming and mining, more opportunities for distinct and unique cultures to grow, etc” and few of the direct downsides.
Ocean colonies could become very populated within a few years of them becoming profitable. (Unlike space, where the exact opposite is true.)
Finally, ocean colonies, if they where made now, could conceivably become self-sufficient within a few decades, and would thus not serve as a burden for world governments for very long.
I agree with this. Space exploration has captured the imagination of generations before and after the “Space Race”, and ISTM as a way to continue our exploratory ways using current technology, since nearly every inch of Earth’s land area is already known. I often hear parallels to the exploration age, when large, ocean-crossing ships expanded knowledge of the world.
This I totally agree with, but not for the reasons of colonization of other worlds. I think it is foolish to invest so much in space exploration (and ocean, to a lesser extent) while we have so many problems top-side that are demanding attention, resources, and intellect. But solving pollution, population control, habitat loss, drought, etc. apparently aren’t sexy enough. However, some of our current problems could mean the end of us long before we have perfected any way to colonize another planet, or even our own oceans. I’d rather invest in more practical problem-solving before putting some bauble on the moon or mars or in the ocean.
It would be more comfortable mainly due to the fact that it would be reversible. Everyone want’s to talk about how much we should colonize mars or the moon, but I have never meet anyone that would personally volunteer. At least today, colonizing Mars is basically a one-way-trip. It’s easy enough to say that you would while living a decent lifestyle here on earth. But, when really confronted, wants to spend the rest of their lives in a small bubble without the possibility of ever being in contact with earth, their loved ones, or basic hobbies ever again?
I sort of agree with you. But, I think that funding ocean colonization on a mass scale might be able to help solve a lot of the problems that you are referring to nearly immediately. Space travel will do none of that until the far future where mass asteroid mining becomes cheaper than earth mining.
Historically, most colonial immigrants made one-way trips and faced pretty substantial dangers and hardships to do so. I expect there will be plenty of people willing to go to Mars and raise their kids there and die there when and if they think there’s a 90% chance they’ll survive the trip and their kids might have a better life.
The difference there is that there was at least some hope that they might one day return, or they would at least know that they could actually have a life in a distant land. Mars colonists, on the other hand, would know that the trip is one-way, and would know that if they are at the complete mercy of some governmental bodies on earth. It is less like choosing to move to a distant country, and more like choosing to live in an alternate universe where a single mistake in any field can kill you.
Yes and no… Even if we did absolutely nothing about global warming until every scrap of fossil fuel had been burned, the result would still be a heck of a lot more hospitable than even Mars, and all the other worlds in our Solar System are even worse.
Now, there are some things that really could potentially completely ruin our planet, but most of those would also ruin everything else in the Solar System. To have a real insurance possibility, we need to spread to other stars.
The same thing could be said about space colonization. “Oh, sure you could colonize billions of galaxies and expand human life and well-being for 50 duodecillion people, but isn’t that still sort of a dead end? What is the ultimate purpose here?”
I think there is a big difference between immigrants going across the ocean to live and someone going to another planet. At least they were 100% confident in their ability to breathe when they got to their destination, and drink the water, and walk around in an environment not too unlike where they left. Even if their prospects for surviving and making a better life were <100%, they still had the basics to count on.
There is a big difference. I still do not believe that a potential Mars colonization program will fail for lack of colonists. A prerequisite of that will obviously be systems that make them reasonably sure that they will have air to breathe and water to drink and a decent chance at survival and a better life.
But if we fail to have those things, then we are simply not technologically capable of a Mars colony. Plenty of people are willing to take risks and make a one-way trip. They’re just (mostly) not willing to take excessive risk and make a pointless suicide trip.
What problem does ocean colonization solve? We aren’t out of places for human beings to exist on the surface of the Earth. It’d be easier to fill up currently empty areas on Earth than to create complex, dangerous, and costly ocean habitats.
No one is seriously considering creating large colonies on other planets. At most that is a far off, aspirational goal well beyond our lifetimes. And so as a pie in the sky, aspirational goal, living in a new biome on our own planet is significantly less sexy than imagining colonies on entirely new planets.
Indeed the same thing could asked about anything and everything.
Nonetheless we can still draw distinctions between plans which will enable us to make further, more ambitious plans in the future, and those which don’t.
And anyway, space travel is a poor example for this kind of rhetoric, because there is still so much we have to learn in science and engineering. If space travel is a dead end, we don’t know where that dead end is right now. Colonizing billions of galaxies is one potential outcome among very very many.
I already made an extensive list of possible benefits when replying to @Folly
Spreading out human life would greatly decrease the strain of overpopulation, decrease the affects of climate change, and would encourage ocean conservation to a much higher extent.
It would have the affect of allowing more of the land that is used currently for farming and human habitation to instead be allowed to be reserved for wildlife.
It would have all of the benefits of colonization “new economic and class-mobility, lower taxes for people who choose to stay on land, more land to be used for farming and mining, more opportunities for distinct and unique cultures to grow, etc” and few of the direct downsides.
Ocean colonies could become very populated within a few years of them becoming profitable. (Unlike space, where the exact opposite is true.)
Finally, ocean colonies, if they where made now, could conceivably become self-sufficient within a few decades, and would thus not serve as a burden for world governments for very long.