Category Archives: Moon Colonization

You can hardly blame Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and all their rich buddies for ditching planet Earth to have a hot billionaire summer in space.

After all, even rich people were stuck inside for a year while the COVID-19 pandemic raged its way around the globe. Who among us couldnt use an out-of-this-world vacation?

But it can be difficult not to feel a little salty over the fact that us regular poor folk can only dream of leaving atmosphere. Meanwhile, Elon Musks out there planning exactly what the buildings will look like on Mars.

Heres the thing though: those billionaires are almost certainly never going to live anywhere but on Earth. Its just too hard. Most of us are unlikely to ever visit space and pretty much none of us, in our lifetimes,will get the opportunity to live there permanently.

Like Musk says, humanity should probably become a multi-planet species ASAP. The longer we sit around waiting for our planet to get destroyed by an asteroid, an alien species, or our own unchecked destruction, the more likely well end up joining the same club as the dodo and the dinosaurs.

But were going to need to fix the Earth if we hope to live long enough as a species to obtain the necessary technology itll take to make life possible in space.

Unfortunately, living in space isnt as simple as replicating life on Earth. The reason people get excited about the possibilities is because weve been inundated with pictures of smiling astronauts having fun floating around.

But compared to Earth, outer space, the Moon, and Mars are all hellishly harsh environments. Theres a laundry list of unresolved science problems restricting even the most basic of human life requirements from being met at any scale beyond a trained space station crew, and that makes colonization a far-away science fiction fantasy.

Each of the above line items are mission-stoppers when it comes to moving members of the general public off Earth.

We dont have the technology to build massive structures in space. And that limits our ability to resolve some of the most difficult problems with living in space.

In the movies, characters walk around on spaceships as if they were taking a stroll on Earth. But space doesnt work that way and artificial gravity remains science fiction.

One way in which we can use currently available technology to solve the gravity issue would be to develop huge cylinders and set them spinning in space. Thanks to centrifugal force, a space station rotating at sufficient velocity could theoretically create artificial gravity.

But were talking massive structures here some scientists believe theyd have to be several miles across. And theres currently no feasible method by which we could build such a thing on Earth and get it up into space.

Just feeding, washing, clothing, and supplying oxygen for a handful of astronauts aboard the International Space Station costs millions of dollars per week.

In order to support human life beyond the scope of a spaceship crew, well need infrastructure in space we simply cant build or support with current technlogy.

There are literally no safe spaces in outer space. The moment we leave Earths atmosphere, were completely beholden to our technology. If your ship malfunctions in space, theres no pulling over to fix it.

Furthermore, none of the heavenly bodies near our planet offer the same protections as Earth. Temperatures on the Moon range from 260F to -280F daily. On Mars, the average temperature is -81F. And cosmic background temperature areas of space that arent being heated by nearby stars or other entities is around -455F.

What that means is, if you leave our planet, anywhere close enough for you to travel in your lifetime will be uninhabitable based on temperatures alone.

If you move to Mars or the Moon, youll never be able to stand outside and gaze up at the stars without a special suit to protect you again. And if you live on a giant spaceship or settle on a space station instead, youll spend the rest of your life looking at the cosmos through a window.

The technology it would take to terraform another planet or build giant domes to protect entire populations doesnt exist today.

The science behind making other planets habitable is purely speculative. Elon Musk honestly suggested we should consider dropping a nuclear bomb on Mars to kick start its atmosphere. That should tell you exactly how nuanced our ideas on off-world colonization are.

If we cannot solve Earths current climate crisis, it would be brilliantly stupid to think we can make the atmosphere and surface of Mars habitable for humans.

But with no atmosphere, life outside of Earth would be eternal confinement. The first civilians who try to live in space will be as much prisoners as they are pioneers.

We dont know exactly what effects long term exposure to space radiation will have on people, but we know theyre going to be bad.

Astronauts operating just outside the Earths orbit require teams with hundreds of support personnel to keep them alive. They cant just rocket up into space and fly around willy-nilly.

Scientists have to monitor radiation constantly so astronauts can avoid bursts and protect themselves. Bursts of radiation can disrupt communications and electronics and even prove instantly fatal to humans.

Furthermore, even if we manage to figure out how to shield humans during transport, theres nowhere safe for them to go except home. Humans will experience substantially more radiation on Mars and the Moon than they do on Earth, and thats likely to result in a severely decreased lifespan for anybody who lives off-planet.

The human body has evolved over millions of years. Where once we were single-celled organisms developing mutations such as flagella for locomotion, were now upright primates capable of creating nuclear reactors and episodes of Rick & Morty.

One of the quirks that comes with evolving to inhabit a gorgeous, lush planet, is that were built for gravity. Floating around in space might look like a lot of fun, but the human cardiovascular system is built to pump blood in a gravity-based environment. Our digestive system uses gravity. Our bones, muscles, tendons, and even our organs have all been designed and trained to function with a very specific amount of force pulling them in the general direction of down.

Removing us from the gravity we were designed to live in has catastrophic effects. Itd be nearly impossible to maintain muscle mass. And theres not much research on what that would mean for our hearts and brains. We simply cannot exist in low gravity for long periods of time without expecting serious health risks including premature death.

Theres currently no solution to this problem. Functional artificial gravity in space or off-planet remains squarely within the realms of science fiction.

At the end of the day, living in space would be exponentially more difficult, boring, dangerous, harsh, and soul-suckingly awful than permanently relocating to Antarctica or establishing a human colony beneath the ocean.

No matter what the billionaires tell you, its going to be easier to fix the planet we live on than to find a new home. Theres only one Earth.

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5 reasons why living in space is way harder than solving climate change - The Next Web

Welcome back to our series on Colonizing the Solar System! Today, we take a look at that closest of celestial neighbors to Earth. Thats right, were taking a look at the Moon!

Chances are, weve all heard about it more than once in our lifetimes and even have some thoughts of our own on the subject. But for space agencies around the world, futurists, and private aerospace companies, the idea of colonizing the Moon is not a question of if, but when and how. For some, establishing a permanent human presence on the Moon is a matter of destiny while for others, its a matter of survival.

Not surprisingly, plans for establishing a human settlement predate both the Moon Landing and the Space Race. In the past few decades, many of these plansa have been dusted off and updated thanks to plans for a renewed era of lunar exploration. So what would it take to establish a permanent human presence on the Moon, when could it happen, and are we up to that challenge?

Even before proposals were being made for lunar colonies, the idea of humanity living on the Moon was explored extensively in fiction, with examples going back over a century. In addition, there was considerable speculation as late as the early 20th century that the Moon may be already inhabited by indigenous lifeforms (much like what was believed about Mars).

Between the 1940s and 1960s, science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein wrote extensively about the first voyages and eventual colonization of the Moon. These included multiple short stories from the 1940s that describe what life would be like in settlements on Luna (the name commonly used by Heinlein to describe a colonized Moon.

In 1966, Heinlein released the Hugo Award-winning novel, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, which tells the story of the descendants of a lunar penal colony fighting for independence from Earth. This story received wide acclaim for the way it combined political commentary with issues like space exploration, sustainability, and artificial intelligence. It was also in this work that Heinlein coined the term TANSTAAFL an acronym for There Aint No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

In 1985, Heinlein released The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, where much of the book takes place on a Free Luna after it won its fight for independence and includes characters from some of his previous works.

Lunar colonization was also explored in fiction by the late and great Arthur C. Clarke. This included the short story Earthlight (1955), where a settlement on the Moon finds itself caught in the middle of a war between Earth and an alliance between Mars and Venus. This was followed by A Fall of Moondust (1961), which features a lunar ship full of tourists sinking into a sea of Moondust.

In 1968, Clarke collaborated with director Stanley Kubrick to create the science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey, where part of plot takes place in an American lunar colony that is quarantined after an object of alien origin is found nearby. Clarke elaborated on this in the novel version that was released that same year. A lunar colony is also mentioned in Clarkes Nebula and Hugo Award-winning novel Rendezvous with Rama (1973).

Fellow sci-fi great Ursula K. Le Guin also includes a lunar colony in her 1971 novel The Lathe of Heaven, which won the Locus Award for Best Novel in 1972 and was adapted into film twice (1980 and 2002). In an alternate reality, lunar bases are established in 2002 and then attacked by a hostile alien species from Aldebaran (who in another reality are benign).

In 1973, the late and great Isaac Asimov released the novel The Gods Themselves, where the third section takes place in a lunar settlement in the early 22nd century.The Lunatics (1988) by Kim Stanley Robinson (author of the Red Mars trilogy, 2312 and Aurora) centers on a group of enslaved miners forced to work under the lunar surface launch a rebellion.

The 1995 short story Byrd Land Six by Alastair Reynolds makes mention of a Moon colony with an economy centered around the mining of helium-3. In 1998, Ben Bova released Moonrise and Moonwar, two novels that centered on a lunar base that is established by an American corporation and which eventually rebels against Earth. These are part of his Grand Tour series that collectively deal with the colonization of the Solar System.

In 2017, Andy Weir (author of The Martian) released Artemis, a novel set in a lunar city whose economy is built around lunar tourism. Considerable attention is given towards the details of daily life on the Moon, which includes descriptions of a nuclear power plant, an aluminum smelter, and an oxygen production facility.

The earliest recorded example of humans living on the Moon was made in the 17th century by Bishop John Wilkins. In his A Discourse Concerning a New World and Another Planet (1638), he predicted that humans would one day learn to master flight and establish a lunar colony. However, detailed and scientifically-based proposals would not come until the 20th century.

In 1901, H.G. Wells wrote The First Men in the Moon, which tells the story of native lunar inhabitants (Selenites) and includes elements of real science. In 1920, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (hailed by many to be the father of astronautics and rocketry) wrote the novel Outside the Earth. This novel tells the story of humans colonizing the Solar System and describes in detail what life would be like in space.

With the beginning of the Space Race in the 1950s, a number of concepts and designs have been suggested by scientists, engineers, and architects. In 1954, Arthur C. Clarke proposed the creation of a lunar base consisting of inflatable modules covered in lunar dust for insulation. Communications would be maintained with astronauts in the field using an inflatable radio mast.

Over time, a larger, permanent dome would be built that relied on an algae-based air purifier, a nuclear reactor for power, and electromagnetic cannons to launch cargo and fuel to vessels in space. Clarke would explore this proposal further with his 1955 short story Earthlight.

In 1959, the US Army launched a study known as Project Horizon, a plan to establish a fort on the Moon by 1967. The plan envisioned a first landing carried out by two soldier-astronauts in 1965, followed by construction workers and cargo delivered using iterations of the Saturn I rocket shortly thereafter.

In 1959, John S. Rinehart then-director of the Mining Research Laboratory at the Colorado School of Mines suggested a lunar structure that could [float] in a stationary ocean of dust. This was in response to the then-popular theory that there were oceans of regolith that were up 1.5 km (one mile) deep on the Moon.

This concept was outlined in Rineharts study, Basic Criteria for Moon Building, in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, where he described a floating base consisting of a half-cylinder with half-domes at both ends and a micrometeoroid shield placed above.

In 1961, the same year that President Kennedy announced the Apollo Program, the US Air Force released a secret report based on the previous assessment of a lunar military base made by the US Army. Known as the Lunex Project, the plan called for a crew lunar landing that would eventually lead to an underground Air Force base on the Moon by 1968.

In 1962, John DeNike (the Program Manager for NASAs Advanced Programs) and Stanley Zahn (Technical Director of Lunar Basing Studies in the Martin Companys Space Division) published a study titled Lunar Basing. Their concept called for a sub-surface base located at the Sea of Tranquility, the future landing site of the Apollo 11 mission.

Like Clarkes proposal, this base would rely on nuclear reactors for power and an algae-based air filtration system. The base would be made up of 30 habitat modules divided between seven living areas, eight operations areas, and 15 logistics areas. the overall base would measure 1300 m (14,000 ft) in size that could accommodate 21 crew members.

During the 1960s, NASA produced multiple studies that advocated the creation of habitats inspired by the Apollo Programs mission architecture (in particular, the Saturn V rocket and derivatives thereof). These plans envisioned space station modules being emplaced on the lunar surface and using existing designs and technology in order to cut costs and ensure reliability.

In 1963, during the 13th Proceedings of the Lunar and Planetary Exploration Colloquium, William Sims produced a study titled Architecture of the Lunar Base. His design called for a habitat to be built beneath the wall of an impact crater with a landing field nearby for spacecraft. The habitat would be three stories high with the upper level providing a view of the surface through windows.

These windows would also allow for light to enter the habitat and would be insulated with water tanks for radiation protection. Power was to be provided by nuclear reactors while sections of the habitat would be dedicated to providing office spaces, workshops, labs, living areas, and a farm to produce as much of the crews food as possible.

But perhaps the most influential design of the Apollo era was the two-volume Lunar Base Synthesis Study, completed in 1971 by the aerospace firm North American Rockwell. The study produced a conceptual design for a series of Lunar Surface Bases (LSB) that were derived from a related study for an orbiting lunar station.

In more recent years, multiple space agencies have drafter proposals for building colonies on the Moon. In 2006, Japan announced plans for a Moon base by 2030. Russia made a similar proposal in 2007, which would be built between 2027-32. In 2007, Jim Burke of the International Space University in France proposed creating a Lunar Noahs Ark to ensure that human civilization would survive a cataclysmic event.

In August of 2014, representatives from NASA met with industry leaders to discuss cost-effective ways of building a Lunar base in the polar regions by 2022. In 2015, NASA outlined a concept for lunar settlement that would rely on robotic workers (known as Trans-Formers) and heliostats to create a lunar settlement around the Moons southern polar region.

In 2016, ESA chief Johann-Dietrich Wrner proposed the creation of an international village on the Moon as the successor of the international space station. The creation of this village would rely on the same inter-agency partnerships as the ISS, as well as partnerships between governments and private interests.

It goes without saying that the creation of a lunar colony would be a massive commitment in terms of time, resources and energy. While the development of reusable rockets and other measures are reducing the costs of individual launches, sending payloads to the Moon is still a very expensive venture especially where multiple heavy launches would be called for.

Theres also the matter of the many natural hazards that come from living on a body like the Moon. These include extremes in temperature, where the Sun-facing side experiences highs of 117 C (242 F), while the dark side experiences lows of -43 C (-46 F). Most of the lunar surface is also exposed to impacts from meteoroids and micrometeoroids.

The Moon also has an atmosphere that is tenuous, it is practically vacuum. This is part of the reason why the Moon goes through such extremes in temperature and why the surface is pockmarked by impacts (i.e. theres no atmosphere for meteors to burn up in). It also means that any settlements will have to be airtight, pressurized and insulated against the external environment.

The lack of an atmosphere (as well as a magnetosphere) also means that the surface is exposed to far more radiation that what we are used to here on Earth. This includes solar radiation, which gets much worse during a solar event, and cosmic rays.

Since the beginning of the Space Age, multiple proposals have been made for how and where a lunar colony could be built. The where is of particular importance since any settlement will have to provide a degree of protection from the elements. As the saying goes, the three most important consideration in real estate are: location, location, and location.

For this reason, multiple proposals have been made over the years to construct lunar habitats in locations that would allow for natural protection and/or containment. Currently, the most popular of these is the South-Pole Aitken Basin, a massive impact region around the Moons southern polar region that is heavily cratered.

One of the main draws of this region is the fact that it is permanently shadowed, which mean that it experiences much more stable temperatures. In addition, multiple missions have confirmed the presence of water ice in the region, which could be harvested to make everything from hydrogen (or hydrazene) fuel and oxygen gas to drinking and irrigation water.

Beyond that, any attempt to colonize the Moon will need to leverage technologies like additive manufacturing (aka. 3D printing), robot workers, and telepresence. The base (or bases) will also need to be manufactured and supplies as much as possible using local resources, a method known as in-situ resource utilization (ISRU).

NASA and the ESA have been exploring the concept for many years and both have produced their own methods for turning lunar regolith and other resources into usable materials. For example, since 2013, the ESA has been working with the architectural design firm Foster + Partners to design their International Moon Village.

Their proposed method for building this base consists of placing inflatable frameworks on the surface which would then be covered with a form of concrete made from lunar regolith, magnesium oxide, and a binding salt. NASA has proposed a similar method which calls for robotic workers using sintered regolith to 3D print bases. This consists of melting regolith by bombarding it with microwaves, then printing it out as a molten ceramic.

Other ideas involve building habitats into the ground and having an upper level that provides access to the surface and allows natural light in. Theres even the proposal for building lunar settlements inside stable lava tubes, which would not only provide protection against the vacuum of space and impacts but could be pressurized with greater ease.

Theres even the proposal for a Solenoid Moon-base that would provide its own radiation shielding. This concept was presented by civil engineer Marco Peroni at the 2017 AIAA Space and Astronautics Forum and Exposition and consists of transparent domes enclosed by a torus of high-voltage cables. This torus would provide active magnetic shielding against radiation and would allow for settlements to be built anywhere on the surface.

The abundance of ice around the polar regions will provide settlers with a steady source of water for drinking, irrigation, and could even be processed to produce fuel and breathable oxygen. A strict recycling regimen will be needed to ensure that waste is kept to a minimum, and composting toilets will most likely be used instead of flush toilets.

These composting toilets could be combined with lunar regolith to create growing soil, which could then be irrigated using locally-harvested water. This would be essential seeing as how the lunar colonists would need to grow much of their own food to reduce the number of shipments that would need to be sent from Earth on a regular basis.

Lunar water could also be used as a source of power if the colonies are equipped with electrolysis batteries (where water molecules are split into hydrogen and oxygen and the hydrogen is burned). Other power sources could include solar arrays, which could be built around the rims of craters and channel power to the settlements within them.

Space-based solar power would also be able to provide abundant energy to settlements all over the lunar landscape. Nuclear reactors are another option, as are fusion (tokamak) reactors. This latter option is especially attractive given the fact that Helium-3 (a power source for fusion reactors) is more abundant on the lunar surface than on Earth.

To be fair, establishing a colony on any of the celestial bodies in our Solar System has some serious potential benefits. But having a colony on the nearest celestial body to Earth would be particularly beneficial. Not only would we be able to conduct research, extract resources, and reap the benefits of new technologies, having a base on the Moon would facilitate missions and colonization efforts to other planets and moons.

To put it simply, a colony on the Moon could act as stepping stone to Mars, Venus, the Asteroid Belt, and beyond. By having infrastructure on the surface of the Moon and in orbit which could refuel and repair spacecraft heading farther out into the Solar System we could shave billions off the costs of deep-space missions.

This is one of the reasons why NASA is planning on establishing a space station in orbit of the Moon the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway (LOP-G), aka. the Lunar Gateway, formerly known as the Deep Space Gateway. It is also one of the reasons why the ESA wants to build its Moon Village with international partners. China and Russia are also contemplating their own surface or orbital outposts for this precise reason.

Lunar research would also be highly lucrative. By studying the effects of low-gravity on the human body, astronauts will be better prepared to deal with the effects of long-duration space travel, missions to Mars, and other bodies where low-g is a reality. These studies could also help pave the way towards the establishment of colonies on these bodies.

The far side of the Moon also presents serious opportunities for all kinds of astronomy. Since it faces away from Earth, the far side of the Moon is free from radio interference, making it a prime location for radio telescopes. Since the Moon has no atmosphere, optical telescope arrays like the ESOs Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile would also be free of interference.

And then you have interferometers like LIGO and the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) that would be able to search for gravitational waves and image black holes with greater efficacy. Geological studies could also be carried out that would reveal a great deal more about the Moon and the formation of the Earth-Moon system.

The abundance of resources on the Moon, such as helium-3 and various precious and rare-Earth metals, could also allow for an export economy. This would be aided by the fact that the Moon has a much lower escape velocity than Earth 2.38km/s (1.5 mps) compared to 11.186 km/s (6.95 mps). This is due to the Moon having a fraction of Earths gravity (0.1654 g), which means that launching payloads into space would be much cheaper.

But of course, no lunar economy would be complete without lunar tourism. A colony on the surface, plus infrastructure in orbit, would make regular visits to the Moon both cost-effective and even profitable. Its not hard to imagine that this could lead to the establishment of all kinds of leisure activities ranging from resorts and casinos to museums and expeditions across the surface.

With the right kind of commitment in terms of resources, money, and labor not to mention some seriously adventurous souls! there could be such a thing as Selenians someday (or as Heinlein called them, Loonies).

We have written many articles about lunar colonization here at Universe Today. Heres Paul Spudis Plan for a Sustainable and Affordable Lunar Base, Why Colonize the Moon First?, Stable Lava Tube Could Provide a Potential Human Habitat on the Moon, and ESA Planning To Build An International Village On The Moon!.

For more information, check out our four-part series, Building a Moon Base:

For a glimpse of what life and work could be like on the Moon, check out What is Moon Mining?, and This is Important! Students Are Figuring Out How to Make Beer on the Moon.

Astronomy Cast also has some lovely episodes on the subject. Heres Episode 115: The Moon, Part 3: Return to the Moon.

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How Do We Colonize the Moon? - Universe Today

Two astronauts stand outside a geodesic dome in an artist's conception of a lunar base.

Its time to ask ourselvesthebig question:Should wetrytocolonizeoursolar system, or not?Ill readily admit Imfor it, and I suspect a large portion ofthespace community wouldstand with me but this isnt the space communitys decision, or in fact, any single nations decision.A broad consensus of commercial, civil, defense and international parties will be essential to an undertaking of this magnitude and complexity.Think of it were considering moving large numbers of humans off their home planet, potentiallynot onlyforthe rest of their lives, but for the lives of their descendants.

Its important to distinguish between colonize and explore. Exploration already enjoys broad approval here in America. In June, 77% of U.S. respondents told Gallup pollsters that NASAs budget should either be maintained or increased undeniable evidence of support for the American space program (as its currently constituted). By any measure, weve done an admirable job of surveying the solar system over the past 60 years an essential first step in any comprehensive program of exploration. Unmanned probes developed and launched by the United States and the Soviet Union conducted flybys of the Moon and the terrestrial planets not long after we reached Earth orbit, and since then, weve flown by the outer planets. Multiple nations have placed increasingly sophisticated robotic emissaries on the surfaces of the Moon, Mars, Venus and Saturns largest moon, Titan.

Most stunningly, in atour de forceof technology and Cold War chutzpah,the U.S.dispatchedhumanstoset foot on another world, just 50 years and a few months ago.Butafteronlysixsuchvisits, wenever returned.Moonhabitatsin lava tubes, cropsunder glass domes, ice mining at the south pole?No.NASAs Artemis program may place a man and a woman on the Moon again in 2024.But thats hardly colonization.For perspective, lets look closer to home.

Sailors from an Americanvessel may have landedonAntarctica as early as1821 the claim is unverified butnoscientific expeditionswinteredthere foranother75 years.The first two of these, one Belgian and one British, enduredextreme coldand privation one inadvertently, the other by design.And yet,200 years after the first explorer set foot on the continent, there are no permanent settlements(partially as a result of a political consensus reached in the late 1950s, butin no small part due to thedifficulty of extractingresources such asore or fossil fuels through kilometers of ice).Less than 5,000internationalresearchers and support staffcomprise the summer population at the bottom of the world.That number dwindles tojust 1,100 during the harsh Antarctic winter,requiringmillions of tons of supplies and fuelto bedelivered every year none of which can be produced locally.To suggest that Antarctica iscolonized would be far overstating thesustainability ofhuman presence there.

If Antarctica is hard, the Moon,Mars,asteroids,and interplanetary spacewill be punishingly difficult.Writing inGizmodo this past July,GeorgeDvorskydescribes the challenges to ahuman colony posed by low gravity, radiation, lack of air and water,andthe psychological effects of long-term confinement and isolation insideartificialstructures, in space oronplanetary surfaces.Add to this the economic uncertainties of such a venture where themodernanalog of a Dutch or British East India Company would face enormousskepticism from investorsregardingthe profitability of shipping anygood or finished productbetween colonial ports of call and it becomes clear why nation states and mega-corporations alike haveso farresisted the temptation to set up camp beyond geosynchronous orbit.Perhaps, many argue, we should focus our limited resources on unresolved problems here at home?

Yet a wave of interest inpursuing solar systemcolonizationis building, whether itsinitialfocusisthe Moon, Mars, orONeill-style space habitats.Jeff Bezos has arguedeloquentlyfor moving heavy industry off the home planet, preservingEarthas a nature reserve,and building the space-based infrastructure that willlower barriers andcreateopportunities forvasteconomicand culturalgrowth(similar to how the Internet and a revolution in microelectronics has allowed Amazon and numerous othercompanies to achieve spectacular wealth).Elon Muskand Stephen Hawkingbothsuggestedthe need for ahedge population of humanson Marstoallow human civilization to reboot itself in the event of a catastrophe on Earth an eggs-in-several-baskets approach which actually complements the arguments made by Bezos.And while bothare valid reasons for pursuing colonization,theres a stronger,overarching rationalethat clinches it.

Ill assert that afundamental truth repeatedly borne out by history is thatexpanding, outwardly-focused civilizations are farless likely to turn onthemselves,andfarmore likely to expendtheirfecundityongrowinghabitations, conductingimportantresearchand creating wealth fortheircitizens.A civilization that turns away from discovery and growth stagnates a point made by NASAs Chief HistorianStevenDick as well as Mars exploration advocate RobertZubrin.

As a species, we have yet to resolve problems of extreme political polarization(both internal to nation states as well as among them), inequalities in wealth distribution, deficiencies incivil liberties,environmental depredationsand war.Forgoing opportunities to expand our presence into the cosmosto achieve better outcomes here at home hasnt eliminated these scourges.

Whats more, thecabin feveroftendecried by opponents of colonization (when applied to small, isolated outposts far from Earth) turns out to be a potential problem for our own planet.Without a relief valve for ideologicalpilgrimsor staunch individualists who might just prefer to be on their own despite theinevitablehardships, wemaywell run the risk of exacerbatingthepolarization and internecine strife westriveso hard toquell.Focusing humanitys attentionand imaginationon a grand projectmay wellgive us the running room we need to addressthese problems.But the decision cannot be made by one country, or one company, or one segment of the human population.If we do this, it will of necessity bea trulyinternational endeavor, a cross-sector endeavor (with allcommercial, civil, and defense interestsengaged and cooperating).

The good news:Critical technologiessuch as propulsion and power generation systemswill improveover time.Transit durationsbetweencelestialdestinations will shorten (in the same waysailing vessels gave way to steam ships and then to airliners and perhaps, one day, to point-to-point ballistic reusable rockets).Methods for obtaining critical resourceson other planetswill be refined and enhanced.Genetic engineering may be used to better adapt humans, their crops and other biota to life in space or on other planetary surfaces to withstand the effects of low or micro-gravity, radiation,and the psychological effects of long-duration spaceflight.

As nation after nation lands theirinauguralexploratory vessels on our Earths moon, and as billionaire space enthusiasts race to launch passengers, satellites and other cargo into orbit, its clearly time for us to sit down as a species and debate whether our future will be onehighlighted primarily bygrowth and discovery, opening the solar systemto settlement and economic development, or onethat eschews outward expansion for conservation and preservation.Doing so would allow us to focus our attentions on this planet, leavingthe solar system in itsnaturalstate, a celestial Antarctica stretching beyond Neptune.

I vote for growth.Butone person, or one company, one community, one nation, isnt a plurality here.This debate-postponed for more than 50 years is one worth having.Humanitys futurewill be decided by its outcome.

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To Colonize Space Or Not To Colonize: That Is The Question ...

Building Moon base with electricity and provision which make the life of astronauts comfortable and safe seems like a plot of sci-fiction. But, is there any reality in it? BBC science correspondent Sue Nelson studied the colonialist plans of the world space agencies and found out if they had enough strength and resources to implement them on Moon colonization and beyond it.

Read Also: Earths Oldest Rock Found On The Lunar Surface

In January 2019, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) spoke about the upcoming stages of its successful lunar program to set up a moon base. After the first-ever soft landing of the Change-4 automatic station on the far side of the moon, two subsequent missions are to deliver samples of lunar soil and rocks to Earth.

Then, Change-7, which is scheduled to be launched in 2023, will begin research on the South Pole of the Moon, a region of particular interest because of the presence of water ice there.

China has already planned to send a robotic mission Change-8 to the moon by 2027, which will conduct an experiment with 3D printing, using local resources for the construction of simple structures.

We hope that Change-8 will help test some technologies and do some exploring, said CNSA deputy head Wu Yanhua.

China is not alone in an effort for the moon colonization: today, all the space powers are talking about it. And although to date, only Americans landed on the satellite, now they have to catch up with rivals in the moon race.

Read Also: Apocalypse Is Coming: Moon Collision With An Asteroid Will leave Earth To Die?

For a long time, NASA has not made public plans to create a lunar base, highlighting Mars as a priority. But in May 2019, the US space agency announced that American astronauts would land on the moons surface by 2024.

A few steps ahead, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced its intention to create a moon base in 2016. A year earlier, ESA CEO Jan Wrner introduced the concept Lunar Village, a non-profit project that brings together public and private investors, scientists, engineers, businessmen, architects, and artists. The task of like-minded people is to create and share infrastructure on the Moon for a variety of purposes: astronomical research, tourism, and geological exploration the search for minerals that are lacked on Earth.

CNSA and NASA have already shown interest in the Moon Village project, and Jeff Bezoss private aerospace company, Blue Origin, offered to develop a cargo ship with a payload of 4500 kg to implement it.

The Moon Village is not an official ESA program, but the agencys plans are no less ambitious. So, the mapping of the lunar surface should be completed by 2030, then modules of the future moon base will be delivered to the selected location, their collection will be completed by 2042, and all life support systems, production facilities, and an observatory will be created by 2062.

But whatever organization wins the 21st-century lunar race, survival will be a key priority. Until now, people only have been on the Moon for three days, because is not the most hospitable place for a long stay.

Because of the rarefied atmosphere, the temperature difference on the surface of the moon is very high. So, at a sunflower point, it can heat up to +127 C and cool down to -173 C at night. The lunar day is 29.5 times longer than the earthly days, which dooms the colonialists for two weeks of daylight and two weeks of the night. This can be a problem for the accumulation and use of energy, so any new technology for the moon outpost must work in difficult conditions.

Several organizations, including Blue Origin, Airbus and ESA, recently created a moon-centric prize program known as The Moon Race.

It is already known that the development and testing of technologies are planned for 2021, and the Moon mission itself is set for 2024.

Prototypes of technologies selected for testing in a rarefied atmosphere of the moon will allow completing the mission in 5 years. In 2024, the Moon Race visionaries want to start building infrastructure, energy production, and growing plants.

Traveling into space is expensive. The heavier the payload of the launch vehicle, the more fuel is required and the higher the cost of the flight is. That is why, to create the infrastructure of the lunar base, economical visionaries prefer to use the available resources. For example, lava can be used as shelters leading to frozen water ice below the surface. Another plan is to build a base of lunar regolith fine sand, which is similar to the volcanic sand on Earth.

Professor Mathias Sperl of the University of Cologne collaborates with the German space agency DLR, printing volcanic powder bricks. A regolith simulator forms the desired shape through a process called sintering when concentrated sunlight or lasers bind the material together.

Sperl said, Were not building Lego but we have interlocking bricks. They are going to build something similar to Igloo using the bricks. It must be strong enough to withstand the pressure of a meter layer of regolith, which will protect the colonizers from cosmic radiation. But the construction of one building would be a very long process.

It takes roughly five hours to make a brick, said Sperl, and you need 10,000 bricks for an igloo. It will take months.

To speed up the process, more lenses will be required on the moon to store sunlight, and the construction itself to entrust the robots.

Since traces of water ice were found at the poles of the moon, lunar bases are most likely to appear in those places. No wonder the current mission rover Change-4 collects data in the Aitken crater at the South Pole.

Read Also: NASA Full Plan to Extract Minerals From Martian Soil For Rocket Fuel

There are enough useful resources on the moon. Oxygen inside the regolith can be extracted and used for breathing. Its most likely source is the mineral ilmenite (FeTiO3), which, in combination with hydrogen at a temperature of about 1000 C, produces water vapor, which must then be separated to produce hydrogen and oxygen.

Moreover, future moon colonizers need to take care of the food. Food production in space is not a new idea. It began developing in 1982, when Soviet cosmonauts first grew the Arabidopsis thaliana flower on the space station, Salyut-7.

Since then, hydroponics (growing plants on artificial environments without soil) took a step forward, and in 2010, the University of Arizona (the USA) developed a prototype named Lunar greenhouse. The hydroponic system uses a 5.5-meter membrane tube, water vapor lamps and envelopes to hold seeds with carbon dioxide exhaled by astronauts.

In 2018, with the help of such a system, the Neumayer III-polar station team in Antarctica harvested the first crop grown in greenhouses without land and sunlight: 3.6 kg of lettuce, 18 cucumbers, and 70 radishes. In a high-tech greenhouse, behind the walls of which the temperature was kept at -20 C, a reusable water cycle, a nutrient system, LED lighting and careful control of carbon dioxide were used.

For the construction and life support of the lunar base, a large amount of energy will be needed, and the Sun is far from its only source.

According to ESA scientific adviser Aidan Cowley, during the night, the water extracted from the ice can be divided and recombined to produce electricity. He said that there would be a lot of solar energy during the day, which would help dividing water into hydrogen and oxygen. This is a unique tool that they could use on the moon to provide energy for a long-term mission.

Read Also: 10 Future Space Missions Timeline | NASA Missions To Mars

There is also the possibility of accumulating energy through heat pumps.

There is no wind on the moon, and the heat from the sun remains in the regolith. Cowley suggested to use a lens or a mirror to focus sunlight at a specific point on the surface, and use this resource to heat the base or generate electricity.

Once scientists figure out these technologies and test them, humans will be able to build a moon base and ultimately moon colonization

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Moon colonization: Who is going to build the Moon base ...

Advantages and Disadvantages

Placing a colony on a natural body would provide an ample source of material for construction and other uses in space, including shielding from cosmic radiation. The energy required to send objects from the Moon to space is much less than from Earth to space. This could allow the Moon to serve as a source of construction materials within cis-lunar space. Rockets launched from the Moon would require less locally produced propelant than rockets launched from Earth. Some proposals include using electric acceleration devices (mass drivers) to propel objects off the Moon without building rockets. Others have proposed momentum exchange tethers (see below). Furthermore, the Moon does have some gravity, which experience to date indicates may be vital for fetal development and long-term human health. Whether the Moon's gravity (roughly one sixth of Earth's) is adequate for this purpose, however, is uncertain.

In addition, the Moon is the closest large body in the solar system to Earth. While some Earth-crosser asteroids occasionally pass closer, the Moon's distance is consistently within a small range close to 384,400 km. This proximity has several benefits:

There are several disadvantages to the Moon as a colony site:

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Colonization of The Moon - Advantages and Disadvantages ...

The Nogojiwanong Indigenous Fringe Festival (NIFF) will offer live, COVID-safe outdoor-performances from Wednesday, June 23rd to Sunday, June 27th on the treaty and traditional territory of the Michi Saagiig Anishinaabeg and Chippewa Nations, collectively known as the Williams Treaties First Nations, at Trent University in Peterborough.

For a schedule of performances, visit indigenousfringefest.ca and, to reserve tickets, email indigenousfringefest@gmail.com.

In this two-part series, we introduce you to the artists performing at NIFF. Part one profiled Sarah Gartshore and Lois Apaquash of Zaagiidiwin Collective, Tiger Will Mason, and Olga Barrios and Norma Araiza of Vanguardia Dance Projects. This story profiles Jennifer Alicia, D.B. McLeod, and Stephanie Pangowish.

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Two-time National Poetry Slam champion Jennifer Alicia has been writing ever since they were young.

Its just something that Ive always done, Alicia says. As a child, writing really helped me navigate and process some traumatizing situations in a healthy way.

But it wasnt until Alicia attended X University (formerly Ryerson University) that they were introduced to the powers and possibilities of spoken word poetry.

I began doing my poetry at rallies and activist spaces and I realized that connecting with an audience was something I really enjoyed, Alicia recalls. Its really powerful to share a story and to have folks connect with it.

Since then, Alicia has become a prolific spoken word and page poet.

A member of both the Toronto Poetry Slam team and Seeds & Stardust collective, they have has performed poetry in cities throughout Turtle Island, debuted their first chapbook Mixed Emotions (published by Moon Jelly House), and was artist-in-residence for the Indigenous Storyteller and Spoken Word program at the prestigious Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

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It was during their residency in Banff that Alicia conceived of their first script, Restor(y)ing Identity, which will be performed live for the first time ever at NIFF.

I was thinking about home and talking to my family a lot, Alicia explains. The more we spoke, I kind of felt this feeling of being unblocked I dont know how to explain it, it was as if things started being released in my brain. Suddenly, I remembered hearing this story about my pop.

Originally hailing from Elmastukwek, Ktaqmkuk (Bay Of Islands, Newfoundland), Alicia comes from a long line of fishers, hunters, and trappers. Based on a true familial tale about Alicias grandfather, Restor(y)ing Identity tells the story of a fisherman who encounters a sabawealnu (Mikmaw word for merperson) while checking his fishing nets.

I became obsessed with this story about my pop seeing a mermaid while checking his fishing nets, Alicia says. And so Restor(y)ing Identity is based on this familial tale. It talks about the moment my Pop had this interaction with this being. It also touches on the importance of sharing our stories, and what could happen if we dont share our stories. Its told from my pops perspective and also from my perspective, his granddaughter.

Im really proud to be able to bring this story to the worlds first Indigenous fringe festival its really exciting, Alicia adds.

D.B. McLeod was cornered by her friend and fellow NIFF performer, Stephanie Pangowish, at a social gathering. There, Pangowish convinced McLeod to take a comedy writing workshop hosted by Baroness Von Sketch Show writer and comedian Dawn Whitwell.

She cornered me and was like, You! Youre funny, youre doing this with me!, McLeod recalls. And I was a little bit scared of Steph at the time, so I agreed.

After the workshop, the pair spent eight consecutive Saturdays writing jokes and developing material together. Soon after that, they began performing stand-up.

It was literally supposed to be a hobby, says McLeod. It was just going to be a thing that I did for fun, but its sort of evolved into this other thing now.

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The other thing is Manifest Destinys Child the Indigenous womens stand-up comedy collective, which McLeod and Pangowish helped found, with quite possibly the best name ever.

Theres so many layers to it, says McLeod of the collectives name. It is really funny because of Destinys Child and because its just funny to put those three words together.

More significantly, manifest destiny is a direct reference to the widely held cultural belief of 19th-century American settlers that they were destined to expand across North America resulting in the occupation and annexation of Indigenous peoples lands, wars and conflict, and Indian removal the U.S. government policy of forced displacement of Indigenous peoples from their ancestral lands.

If I think about it in a more political sort of way, we are the children of manifest destiny, McLeod says. Our ancestors survived so that we could be here telling jokes about ridiculousness and laughing at white people.

Its about reclamation and again, you know, as the children of manifest destiny, thinking about all of those Indigenous women that have been taken from us or missing or murdered were still here and theyre you know. With the collective, audiences get eight very different examples of the reality of Indigenous women in this country.

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McLeods comedy show Denis with an E inspired by the alarming number of people who pronounce her name as Dennis (evidently, the illiteracy crisis is far worse than anyone could ever have imagined) makes fun of patriarchy, sexism, fatphobia, colonization, and colonialism.

Im part of the last generation of the sixties scoop and that horrifying intergenerational trauma made me really funny, McLeod says. My humour is really dark. I have lived this very weird, interesting life, and I have a lot of funny stories that kind of come from that.

Regrettably, kawarthaNOW was unable to contact stand-up comedian and Manifest Destinys Child co-founder Stephanie Pangowish for an interview the CBC got to her first!

Given the hilarity of her NIFF artists bio (below), its safe to say that her stand-up comedy NIFF show will side-splitting.

Stephanie Pangowish is a sassy and assy Anishnaabekwe from Wiikwemkoong on Manitoulin Island and is the co-founder of Canadas 1st collective of Indigenous women stand-up comedians, Manifest Destinys Child.

She originally started performing to make her angry mom laugh and avoid the wooden spoon but now uses it to educate Canadians on Indigenous Culture.

Stephanie has danced at pow wows for the past 10 winters, has watched every movie starring Adam Beach and pretends to have read all books about Indigenous people.

To learn more about the worlds first and only Indigenous fringe festival and the amazing participating performers, visit NIFFs website at indigenousfringefest.ca.

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Introducing the artists of the Nogojiwanong Indigenous Fringe Festival in Peterborough (part two) - kawarthaNOW.com

June 14 (UPI) -- Japan's prime minister may have snubbed South Korean President Moon Jae-in and rejected an invitation to a bilateral summit on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Cornwall, according to Japanese press reports.

Yoshihide Suga said Moon failed to keep promises between the two countries, and that the conditions were "not suitable" for an important one-on-one meeting with the South Korean leader, the Nikkei and other Japanese news services reported Monday.

Moon took part in the expanded G7 summit as a guest, with other major democracies, including Australia, India and South Africa. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi participated in the gathering virtually due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in his country.

Suga reportedly blamed Seoul for frosty ties between the two countries.

"Japan-Korea relations are difficult because of the maneuvers of the South Korean side," Suga said. "South Korea must provide a direction" for a resolution.

Relations between the two countries have declined amid demands from South Korean activists representing former "comfort women" and forced wartime laborers. Seoul has generally supported their cause.

Activists also have said Tokyo and Japanese firms should directly pay compensation to victims. Japan has said a 1965 treaty resolved all past issues that occurred during colonization.

Suga downplayed brief exchanges of greetings with Moon at G7.

Moon "came to say hello, so I greeted him not to be rude," Suga reportedly said. Moon also initiated contact with Suga a second time at a beach barbecue for world leaders, the Japanese prime minister said.

Ahead of G7, reports suggested that Suga, Moon and U.S. President Joe Biden might meet for a trilateral summit. The event never took place.

Lee Young-chae, a professor at Keisen University in Japan, said in an interview with TBS' Kim Eo-jun's News Factory in Korea that Suga's priority at the G7 was to garner widespread support for the Tokyo Olympics.

The G7 summit communiqu stated support for "the holding of the Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020 in a safe and secure manner as a symbol of global unity in overcoming COVID-19."

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Japan rejected summit with South Korea at G7, citing 'unsuitable conditions" - UPI News

The history of animals in space is a contentious one, with monkeys, frogs, and of course, Laika the Dog having paved the way for humans in space. More recently, in 2019, we sent mice to space to test microgravity.

Now, a new experiment by Japanese researchers involving mouse sperm may have set the way for sperm banks aboard spacecraft, allowing for colonization via in-vitro fertilization (IVF), a report byCNET explains.

The team, who published their findings in the journal Science Advances,set out to understand the long-term effects of space radiation on mammalian sperm.

For their experiments, they sent freeze-dried mouse sperm samples up to the International Space Station (ISS) back in 2013. Almost six years later, the samples were returned to Earth in a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule in 2019, where they were successfully used to breed litters of healthy "space pups."

At the same time as the experiment was run aboard the ISS, mouse sperm samples were also frozen on Earth as a control group. The freeze-dried sperm from the ISS was used to impregnate female mice via IVF and these space pups were analyzed and compared to the "ground control" pups.

"Space pups did not show any differences compared to the ground control pups, and their next-generation also had no abnormalities," the team wrote in their paper.

The team also reported that no extra DNA damage occurred to the sample aboard the ISS when compared with the sample on Earth.

One caveat to this research is the fact that the ISS is not stationed in deep space and it is partially shielded from the most dangerous radiation by the Earth's magnetic field.

Deep space exploration, which is where the applications for this research would most likely end up, may have a more detrimental effect on such samples.

The research may help to enable projects such as theUniversity of Arizona researcher Jekan Thanga's proposed 'Lunar Ark', which aims to store DNA inside the Moon's lava tubes, as an archive for life on Earth and a "modern global insurance policy."

In fact, the team stated in its paper that it hopes to one day conduct freeze-dried sperm experiments on NASA's planned lunar Gateway project, which will launch a lunar outpost to orbit the Moon. This would allow them to gain a better understanding of the effects of radiation deeper into space.

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Space Pups: Frozen Sperm Produces Healthy Mice After 6 Years on ISS - Interesting Engineering

Ok, I've heard the haunted stories, I've watched the Shining enough times to know EVERY word in the movie by heart and I've walked through the place a few times in awe and felt some creepy stuff but even THIS gives me the creeps even more than any of those things.

According to our friends at Outthere Colorado, THIS picture was taken by a visitor from Texas recently that captured a ghostly and flat out creepy woman peering out of one of the windows in the Stanley Hotel.

Now, skeptics may say that it's someone just messing around and playing jokes to help the hotel live up to its haunted roots and past but to ME, it legitimately looks creepy and add to the fact that hotel employees confirmed that the particular room where the woman was spotted was supposedly unoccupied.

There are a bunch of hauntings and creepy stories surrounding "The Stanley" that it inspired Stephen King's horror classic The Shining. So yeah...even Stephen King felt something when he visited back in the late 70's.

Guests have reported many strange occurrences such as lights turning off and on, doors abruptly slamming shut, eerie sounds of laughter, shadowy figures, and unexplained drafts and chills.

Now I don't consider myself a ghost chaser or someone who is a 100% believer in ghosts but I will say that I definitely felt chills walking up the staircase right at the entry...and that was in the middle of the day with a bunch of people around.

YouTube/ CBS Denver

12 Authentic Colorado Ghost Towns

8 Colorado Legends That Every Coloradan Should Know

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WATCH: Who Is The Creepy Woman In The Window At The Stanley Hotel - New Country 99.1

Recent news accounts suggest the race to go to Mars has begun in earnest, with two of our countrys richest men, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, competing with each other to take the lead.

Jeff Bezos Blue Origin spaceflight company launched a rocket into space last month and returned both the rocket and an empty crew capsule safely to earth. By 2024, Bezos hopes to send astronauts to the moon, which he sees as a necessary stepping stone to a Mars flight. Musks Space X company just returned four astronauts safely from the International Space Station. He hopes to land humans on Mars by 2026.

The Red Planet has long fascinated humans, and scientists have long wondered whether there might have once been water on this large barren rock. This new interest in Mars by the private sector seems to be motivated more by ego and monetary concerns than by scientific ones.

At first glance, it might seem odd for billionaires to spend money on space exploration when we have so many problems on our planet they could address with their excess funds. But I think that misses the point.

Isnt it understandable that, given the growing problems we have sustaining ourselves on earth pollution, overpopulation, war, climate issues, extensive poverty and disease the worlds two richest men might think it is time to escape before earth collapses into warfare over resources, especially if they can make some money on the way out?

If we could find some underground sources of water on Mars and figure out a way to exist in the thinner air there, we might have a place to go once we have drained all the aquifers here on earth in an attempt to stay alive and beat the heat that is coming.

The problem with this thinking is that while climate change is certain to cause enough death and destruction to make the COVID-19 pandemic really seem like the flu, there is nothing we might do to colonize the moon or Mars in time to prevent massive loss of life on Earth.

Bezos and Musk both worry about carbon emissions, but they want to use technology to capture carbon rather than the simpler solution of reforestation or planting crops that sequester carbon in the soil. Many scientists question the idea that we can use technology alone to save our planet (Sam Snead, CNBC 4-19-21).

But we humans tend to reject the idea of sacrificing our comforts by limiting ourselves or our enjoyments. We would rather invent our way out of problems by creating something to collect pollutants rather polluting less in the first place. We will buy an electric car to reduce carbon emissions while also tearing up land a chuck in Idaho to mine the lithium to power electric car batteries. Driving less or car-pooling is not nearly as glamorous as impressing your friends with an expensive new Tesla.

There are many good scientific reasons for space exploration, and even for learning more about Mars. But what Musk and Bezos do in space, with government support, can distract us from the more serious and immediate problems facing our planet which cannot be solved by settlements on Mars 50 years from now. Neither technology nor colonization of other planets can prevent the disasters that could be caused this century alone by climate change.

Some nave liberals like myself might say that space exploration is morally questionable in the face of a climate disaster that could end our species.

Jeff Bezos net worth floats between 175 and 200 billion dollars. Musk is not far behind. How many COVID vaccinations could we distribute with some of this money and that of other very wealthy people and foundations? How much birth control could we dispense to ease planetary overcrowding? How much could we use feed and house victims of war in the middle east? How many trees we could plant to reduce carbon emissions with just a small portion of what these men have? Pick and choose.

Ill bet we would still have a few coins left to build a colony or two on the moon in the next century after making things better on earth in this one.

Ken Wolf is a Democrat and a retired Murray State University history professor. He speaks here as an individual and not as a representative of either of these organizations. He can be reached at wolken43@gmail.com.

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Should we go to Mars? | Opinion | murrayledger.com - Murray Ledger and Times