Author Charles Stross linked to a blog entry, “Why Not Space?” by astrophysicist Tom Murphy, about why space colonization is not going to happen anytime soon, perhaps not ever – a bit of a “reality check”. This civilization is using up its readily-available energy resources (namely petroleum and derivatives) at a tremendous rate, an obvious concern because of the deleterious effects on the environment we depend upon, and because our society depends on these fuels to function (alternative fuels are nowhere near as easy to develop or use).
I want to caution against harboring illusions of space as the answer to our collision course of growth on a finite planet. We live at a special time. We have enjoyed spending our inheritance of fossil fuels, and are feeling rather heady about our technological prowess. For many generations now, we have ridden an exponential growth track, conditioning ourselves to believe that our upward trajectory is an eternal constant of our existence. We’ll see. When we cross to the down-slope of fossil fuel availability – beginning with oil – we’ll see how timeless the growth phase seems to be, and whether we can afford a continued presence in space. We should be mature enough to admit that we have no context in which to evaluate how successfully the human race will navigate this unprecedented transition.
He also says in reply to some of the comments that it – the idea of moving into space – has become something of a quasi-religion or cult, which I tend to agree with (I have noted this before in previous entries) – a pithy comment from Stross’s entry: “Space occupies for some the same mental real estate as Heaven does for Christians”. The proponents are obsessed with the idea of The Frontier, a relic from the days of colonizing America. The colonists of then, though, still had easy access to air, water, food and so on – little of which can be found in space.
Okay, I am starting to decline more comments than I accept on account of redundancy. The prevailing message is that I have offended a deep religious belief in our space future. Note that I never say such a future is impossible. The responders assure us that it will happen. Don’t trust people who claim to know our future path: especially at this turning point in history when the energy inheritance that made our current lifestyle possible will begin its decline this century. How we manage that is an open question, but our presupposition that it’s in the bag may prevent our success.
There is a disturbing mentality among some of the Earth being disposable – that if humans stuff up the environment here, well, no worries, we’ll just move onto other worlds! But with that attitude, those worlds (assuming there are any and that people could get to them) would eventually get trashed too. There’s a mention of this mentality in the novel The Killing Star: “Isak’s people had realized – miraculously, it often seemed to him – that even as ascents to orbit finally became cheap, new worlds must never be viewed as relief valves for expanding, ravenous hordes who had overrun and exhausted their home. The deadly temptation to think of Earth as a disposable planet had been squelched with barely a decade to spare.” (That 1995 novel proved overly-optimistic in its timeline of progress and technology development, though.)
There’s a blind optimism in some that private industry can achieve what governments can’t, as this commenter cheerily asserts:
The solution to colonizing space is to take the “power of control” of space away from NASA, this is happening right now! This is great news and will usher in a new renaissance of space endeavors over the coming decades. Christopher Columbus was a government sponsored program. Sure he gets the credit with the discovery of the “New World”, however it was private industry, private funds, and private individuals that took the greater risk to their lives and livelihoods to take the risks to make the voyage to colonize. The same will be true of colonization.
If they have a few billion dollars and decades to spare! I can’t imagine many (if any) current billionaires with that level of commitment. Indeed, there was a recent article saying “Space tourism dreams are fading as the years pass by” as progress in private spaceflight is proving to be much slower than predicted – and this is just for short parabolic hops out of the atmosphere! That being said, I could envision billionaire enthusiasts eventually funding their own small private space stations, but these would likely orbit Earth, or the Moon at most, and with no advancement in technology they would likely be cramped and uncomfortable like previous space stations.
The disappointing reality is that:
- Launching into space with current technology (chemically-powered rockets) is hugely expensive and difficult, and the comparatively primitive rockets are inefficient. Manned spaceflight is not a priority for many governments – the American and Russian programs are currently moribund. China and others have ambitions – China has launched men into orbit already, but is progressing slowly.
- Distances in space are huge – mindbogglingly huge. Even light takes an appreciable length of time to cross between planets, let alone other stars! We have no technology to let us cross such distances in a reasonable time (i.e. months or years).
- Most people are quite happy on Earth and wouldn’t want to move off it.
- There is an overwhelming list of other problems on Earth that have more priority.
- Humans, like other creatures, are exquisitely tuned to Earth’s environment after millions of years of evolution, and living in space in microgravity has proven hazardous to health in all sorts of ways. There was a recent revelation that some astronauts were finding their eyesight affected after stays in orbit – add that to bone and muscle loss, radiation exposure and who-knows-what-else.
- Technology is nowhere near what is needed to sustain humans in space for long periods. The only current long-term vessel in orbit, the International Space Station, is dependent upon supplies from Earth to function.
Given those factors, the idea of humans “conquering” space seems hopelessly naïve.
