In threads about interstellar travel, people have often voiced the opinion that it is important that humans spread out as far as possible, to avoid being wiped out altogether.
Why is this such a desirable thing? What does it matter if we (as a species, that is) are stuck here for a few thousand years more, then we’re gone?
because it’s there?
Perhaps there will someday be too many of us for this rock?
Interstellar mass emigration seems the most unlikely scenario of all though.
In the “long run,” it doesn’t matter.
I once had a friend insist that, one million years from now, people will still remember the United States of America. I never quite was able to get him to grasp the absurdity of that belief.
Trinopus
Well, humans are scum, but as scum, i’d like my genetic seed to spread over the universe like darkness spreading as the sun sets. Plus i bet most aliens are way worse than us, what with the probing and all.
Ow Ow Ow!
I think it’s deeply instinctual to need to defeat entropy (even the long-term sun-goes-nova sort) by spreading out.
And the thing that scares me most is that there isn’t a reason to live. Why strive to acheive when it’ll all come to naught in the long run? I seem to be lacking the ‘faith’ gene so many others find comfort in therefore I’m stuck with hoping that humans can overcome the inherent limits of our short lifespans by making something as permanent as possible.
Always, always make a backup!
I have always thought that this question was answred best by a passage of dialogue from Babylon 5:
I’m going to go with the semi-philosophical answer, that it’s our nature as a species to jump into hostile and unknown environments first and figure out how we’re going to live there later. We aren’t niche creatures, we don’t live only in semi-tropical wetlands and eat only the secretions of a certain aphid. We live in every environment we can tolerate physically, we ingest anything that won’t kill us, plus quite a few that do but just do it slowly enough that we can breed first.
It’s sort of sad to me to think we’ just give up on going into space at all.
Not so much the “settle the universe” thing. It’s not really even an option until we find some actual environment out there to move into that isn’t completely dependent on what we pack in with us.
I just want to get way up high and check out the view.
Well, if humanity goes enough places, there’s a chance that at one of them, we’ll get it right!
But how will I ever go to Dagobah and become a Jedi Knight then?
Seriously, while it may not be possible for a long time, think of how neat it would be to be in a galaxy like in Star Wars-with many more diverse planets and worlds and species-you don’t think it would be, at the very least, fascinating to see these things?
I think in gereral it is a good thing for us to know as much about what we physically see and know of, the way I figure it, it can’t hurt to explore and know of options if something were to happen, IMHO:)
Why do people emigrate from one country to another? To improve on their current situation. That question will eventually become "Why do people emigrate to other planets? The answer should be the same.
I agree with the OP that we shouldn’t leave earth until we’ve gotten our act together.
Not just someday but possibly well within our lifetimes we’ll hit maximum population by most predictions. About 9 billion people sometime in the next 70 years. link
And yet we’ve failed to learn how to live in harmony on this world. Sometimes I feel like Agent Smith was right, we are a virus. We have no equilibrium. Hence our desire to spread.
To seek out new life, new civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before.
To hope that, one day, we won’t have to be alone anymore.
Because it’s there.
Trite, but true. To expand has ever been the human ideal. To explore, to conquer, to discover.
It’d almost be ungracious of us not to, with such a glorious feast out there.
As to why humanity should survive, that’s a philosophical question that’s been answered above. As to why going into space is desirable if we want to survive:
There’s a serious non-zero chance that “this rock” will not remain humanly habitable. An extinction level asteroid or comet impact is unlikely but far from impossible. Much more likely is that either a large scale nuclear war, ecological collapse or exhaustion of resources will destroy civilization.
Sooner or later the knowledge and materials necessary to build nuclear weapons will be available to anyone with the resources of a large corporation. The result will probably either be a nuclear Beirut or else a global authority with a monopoly on nuclear weapons and a ruthlessly efficient secret police to enforce it.
Meanwhile the oceans are being fished out and polluted, the rainforests are vanishing, and drinkable water may become the limiting factor of how many people can survive. Petroleum can’t remain relatively inexpensive forever, and other resourves are being used up as well.
My guess is that we’ll muddle through somehow. We’ll develop renewable energy, new technology will allow us to recyle more efficiently, and the degradation of the enviroment will eventually stablize, though at a level that leaves the Earth a much more barren place then it was before the Industrial Revolution.
But space could offer us so much more. For starters, it could give us room! Colonies that are days, weeks, or months away from nuts with nuclear missiles. Where people could pack up and move if they didn’t like their neighbors, or the laws of the majority. Where (with the possible exceptions of Mars and Europa) we could expand without harming any indigenous life. Where humanity could, if it chose, use genetic engineering to speciate, creating experiments in sentience. Where we could have a future besides those limited to one biosphere 8,000 miles in diameter. In short, where we could grow and advance instead of reaching a steady state equilibrium.
I don’t think I’m alone when I say I’d like to see more and more planets fall under the ruthless domination of our solar system - Jack Handy
As it was mentioned in the other thread, with that kind of thinking humanity will get nowhere. Why did Christopher Columbus insist of seeking a sea-route to India? Everyone knows that he’ll only fall off the edge of the earth and besides, we have already got a land route to India, so why bother?
There are always more pressing matters at hand, but fortunately not every problems needs to be handled in a linear fashion (solve problem A, then advance to problem B, then to C, etc.), but can be done parallel.
Space exploration might yield new insights that are useful to achieve those goals, we currently consider “more important”. For example, if it weren’t for satellites in orbit, nobody would have ever discovered the ozone hole. Plus, more accurate weather forecasts are helpful for growing crops and such.
It’s in humanity’s best interest to further space exploration and on a cosmic scale, that’s the only thing that makes earth significant.
If we were content with staying on earth and just trying to achieve that everyone lives peacefully, fed, content and very long, then earth might as well be a barran rock or a big field of grass for cows to sit on. Without innovation and the will to further expand our frontiers, earth will become a meaningless planet from a more distanced point of view.
Well, it just might be economically helpful to develop interstellar space. Near earth factories could prove a great thing.
As for getting our house in order first … yeah, right! Get a clue! We be humans! Though if we develop an interstellar civilization, we might not be humans.