Evergreen

Companies and governments look at other worlds and asteroids as just another resource to be exploited for the benefit of themselves. This idea that these new territories are just for making money or gaining territory (Territorial Imperialism)is a short sighted one as all those new territories will be of little value if Planet A is no longer capable of supporting human life.

Think about that for a minute. Spend money to develop a new resource elsewhere to return the benefits of that resource to an uninhabitable planet. That is a flawed business plan.

A second shortsighted and flawed plan is the militarization of space by any nation to exercise control over space.  Would it not be smarter, and cheaper, to encourage international cooperation and development rather than create a situation where a new arms race would ensue, and potentially a new cold war?

This type of thinking was addressed in an earlier posting and unless we learn from our past mistakes, our ventures into outer space will just be more of the same, but in an environment hostile to our species.

Planetary colonization is about the planting of our seed, not the continuation of our wars elsewhere.

Elon Musk was recently quoted as saying:

“I think there are really two fundamental paths, History is going to bifurcate along two directions. One path is we stay on Earth forever, and then there will be some eventual extinction event. I do not have an immediate doomsday prophecy, but eventually, history suggests, there will be some doomsday event. The alternative is to become a space-bearing civilization and a multiplanetary species, which I hope you would agree is the right way to go.”[1]

That doomsday event could be celestial (comet or asteroid impact) or man made. We have the ability to prevent both of those, should we choose to do so.

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[1] https://observer.com/2018/04/why-elon-musk-and-spacex-aim-to-colonize-mars/