03-30-2018, 11:13 AM
I don't see any reason we can't do both space development and ecosystem repair/management. But I'm against taking a 'we have to solve all of Earth's problems before we do space' approach because a fair number of problems might be solved using resources from space and I also feel that approach is just a cop out along the lines of 'when will we do X - someday' that parents so often do - with the only intent to shut the kids up and with full intent that 'someday' will never come.
I see no problem with exploiting the moon as long as the exploitation is managed in a way that doesn't cause sufficient changes to interfere with the Earth's biosphere (i.e., changing the moons brilliance to such a degree that it threw off the breeding patters of some animals that use the moon as a trigger or guide or somesuch). For similar reasons, I'm not overly wild about terraforming the moon - at least until/unless the state of the art on ecosystem knowledge has advanced to the point that we can be reasonably confident it won't have undesired side effects. Besides Sol System has lots of moons - we can readily terraform some of them (and take some of the rest apart or otherwise re-engineer them).
For similar reasons I'm a bit leery of SPS - the long term effects of low level microwave radiation on either anything living under it or the atmosphere is something that needs to be looked at before we take the approach of constantly beaming energy down to Earth - let alone letting cows graze in the receiver antenna as someone once suggest. If an environmental study is positive in its recommendations than we could give it a go - but also watch it like a hawk. But I don't think it's realistic to say that we know for sure that SPS will have no downsides at this early state of things. Of course, I also don't think its realistic to demand energy sources that have no downsides - either in general or from the pov of every possible person who might have an issue with it.
On a larger scale - I basically want to make the engineering of the OA setting real and then some. Terraforming, space habs, dysons, and beyond. Whether I'm most supportive of 'turning the galaxy green' or imploding it down to something like the Leviathan (not necessarily to move it anywhere, but barring wormholes or something else, current interstellar distances are inconvenient), or maybe breaking the whole thing down to its component atoms and then converting it all into computronium (with Earth and its entire biosphere down to the smallest lifeform uploaded and stored in virtual reality), I'm not really sure, yet. But in a nutshell, I want to upgrade the entire universe and all other universes we can reach or create or simulate (or all of the above).
Todd
I see no problem with exploiting the moon as long as the exploitation is managed in a way that doesn't cause sufficient changes to interfere with the Earth's biosphere (i.e., changing the moons brilliance to such a degree that it threw off the breeding patters of some animals that use the moon as a trigger or guide or somesuch). For similar reasons, I'm not overly wild about terraforming the moon - at least until/unless the state of the art on ecosystem knowledge has advanced to the point that we can be reasonably confident it won't have undesired side effects. Besides Sol System has lots of moons - we can readily terraform some of them (and take some of the rest apart or otherwise re-engineer them).
For similar reasons I'm a bit leery of SPS - the long term effects of low level microwave radiation on either anything living under it or the atmosphere is something that needs to be looked at before we take the approach of constantly beaming energy down to Earth - let alone letting cows graze in the receiver antenna as someone once suggest. If an environmental study is positive in its recommendations than we could give it a go - but also watch it like a hawk. But I don't think it's realistic to say that we know for sure that SPS will have no downsides at this early state of things. Of course, I also don't think its realistic to demand energy sources that have no downsides - either in general or from the pov of every possible person who might have an issue with it.
On a larger scale - I basically want to make the engineering of the OA setting real and then some. Terraforming, space habs, dysons, and beyond. Whether I'm most supportive of 'turning the galaxy green' or imploding it down to something like the Leviathan (not necessarily to move it anywhere, but barring wormholes or something else, current interstellar distances are inconvenient), or maybe breaking the whole thing down to its component atoms and then converting it all into computronium (with Earth and its entire biosphere down to the smallest lifeform uploaded and stored in virtual reality), I'm not really sure, yet. But in a nutshell, I want to upgrade the entire universe and all other universes we can reach or create or simulate (or all of the above).
Todd