What happens if China makes first contact with aliens?

[S'mon]

I tend to agree that it will be a while. I think it could be well before Kardashev-1, but yeah, it has to be something that can be done on whim rather than economic incentive.

I'd like to think that we might be mining near earth asteroids in my lifetime (PBS Spacetime just did one on this), but pace the great Isaac Arthur I really think colonisation probes heading for Alpha Centauri will be a good few centuries from now if ever. The Wright Brothers to Moon Landing period seems in retrospect to have been an aberration, very unusual. Such may come again, but there's no guarantee.

[Pat]

Some of these seem pretty vague. For example, needing children doesn't answer why one would want to never see those children again. Likewise, even if we could duplicate ourselves, it doesn't answer why we would want duplicates that don't give anything back.

Those were deliberately intended to be a broad sample of inspirational reasons, rather than a fully enumerated listed giving every last detail. If you want them all fleshed out to your standards, that's on you. But for those two? Children grow up, they move away. You can still keep in touch; communication will be vastly cheaper than playing tourist. And how does living multiple lives on many different worlds at the same time give nothing back?

I find your entire chain of arguments mind boggling. The idea that humanity will stay cooped up forever in a single solar system, unless there's some concrete loot to be had, runs counter to the entire history of our species. Research, exploration, self defense, taming the unknown -- even without X ramships full of kryptomelange returning every day to fill Earth's coffers, that's a compelling set of arguments to leave Sol. It's also probably essential to our long-term survival as a species, because being trapped in a single solar system means a single catastrophe like a big solar flare could wipe us all out. Grander experiments into the nature of reality will probably require the resources of multiple star systems, if there are threats out there we need an early warning system and production capacities that exceeds one system, and so on.

[Pat]

I'd like to think that we might be mining near earth asteroids in my lifetime (PBS Spacetime just did one on this), but pace the great Isaac Arthur I really think colonisation probes heading for Alpha Centauri will be a good few centuries from now if ever. The Wright Brothers to Moon Landing period seems in retrospect to have been an aberration, very unusual. Such may come again, but there's no guarantee.

The manned space program in the U.S. has been dead since the early 1970s, with the astronauts becoming short-range cargo haulers, and then hitchhikers. So while there's a lot of talk about a manned Mars mission, I don't hold out much hope. We'd have to rekinkle that age of exploration zeitgeist that drove the West around the cape to China, to every corner of the Earth, and eventually the Moon.

Though that's a bit U.S.-centric. Russia hasn't abandoned space; even in the lean years, they kept their program struggling along on a shoestring. It seems to be a deeply embedded part of their psyche. And China has recently become a big player, and with their Tiangong space station they seem to be in it for the long haul.

And it's not like the U.S. abandoned space, either. Just the manned part -- we've sent probes everywhere in the solar system. If we keep that up, and keep sending probes further and further into the Oort cloud, we might end up interstellar in a century. And by then, who knows where we'll be when it comes to AI and self-replicating machine technology.

[Krimson]

But if the colonization of the galaxy returns nothing to Earth, why would we expend the effort to do it?

The meek shall inherit the Earth, the bold will aim for the stars.

[Krimson]

Elon Musk has said that it would be good to have a "backup civilization" in case we wipe ourselves out in Earth. Other than that, I guess that we'd only do it to learn more about the universe?

I'd like to think that we might be mining near earth asteroids in my lifetime (PBS Spacetime just did one on this), but pace the great Isaac Arthur I really think colonisation probes heading for Alpha Centauri will be a good few centuries from now if ever. The Wright Brothers to Moon Landing period seems in retrospect to have been an aberration, very unusual. Such may come again, but there's no guarantee.

I think we should also consider launching rockets into comets and pushing them to Mars, once we figure out how to put a Magnetic Shield in place.

[S'mon]

I think we should also consider launching rockets into comets and pushing them to Mars, once we figure out how to put a Magnetic Shield in place.

One thing I took from Isaac Arthur's videos on planetary colonisation is that it takes a long time for the solar wind to strip away a planet's atmosphere. Once you have one it'd probably be easiest just to keep adding more atmosphere.

Mind you, he also makes the point that colonising space itself with artificial habitats is much easier and quicker than terraforming planets. The big bottleneck is getting people out of Earth's gravity well in the first place, after that the resource requirements become much lower, and asteroids provide lots of resources for building, fuel etc.

[Krimson]

One thing I took from Isaac Arthur's videos on planetary colonisation is that it takes a long time for the solar wind to strip away a planet's atmosphere. Once you have one it'd probably be easiest just to keep adding more atmosphere.

Mind you, he also makes the point that colonising space itself with artificial habitats is much easier and quicker than terraforming planets. The big bottleneck is getting people out of Earth's gravity well in the first place, after that the resource requirements become much lower, and asteroids provide lots of resources for building, fuel etc.

We also have other problems to consider, like the dust on the moon and Mars. Those are some very real problems for fleshy types. Certainly it's a smarter move to build down than up, or putting domes over craters. There is a nice hole on the moon.

What we need is a space elevator, but we currently do not have materials strong enough to build one though we may have materials strong enough to build one orbiting the moon. Mind you, you first have to find a big rock to act as ballast and put it in low orbit. An inverted orbiting tower might be more doable. It wouldn't even have to be in geosynchronous orbit, it just has to be moving at the right speed to not be ripped apart by the atmosphere. That is something that could in theory be accessed by aircraft.

[Krimson]

I gave this it's own thread in the Pen and Paper forum because I thought it might be something useful for Spelljammer or a ground bound game made by industrious dwarves or gnomes. Mostly I thought it was cool, especially should we actually manage to colonize other worlds.

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