191
Whose future? (thelemmy.club)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/solarpunk@slrpnk.net
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[–] 7 points 4 months ago (5 children)

It's more than that. I see it as insurance for humanity if we started permanently settling the moon. Then not even an asteroid could wipe us out.

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  • [–] 8 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Actually, there's a pretty solid chance that a significant asteroid hitting Earth could create enough ejected material to cause serious issues for habitation facilities on the Moon.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Moon base is progress to becoming a multiplanetary species. Most people will die in the planet they are born on, but some may get to move to another.

    But does it even matter of humanity survives a bit longer or not?

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  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

    A moon base could not be truly self sustaining for a long, long time, if ever. Probably never, definitely not within say 500 years.

    So if Earth goes, the moon base is definitely gone too. There is no saving humanity without saving Earth.

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Idk why people are downvoting you. The moon has literally nothing we could use to create a self-sustaining colony. Idk if I necessarily agree with your timelines (the future is, um, a bit unpredictable...). But in any forseeable timeline, a moon base watching earth get hit by an asteroid would be watching their own death on slow motion, as everything they need to survive is on earth.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago

    But in any forseeable timeline

    500 years was just a number I threw out there as "clearly beyond any forseeable time". It could be 200 years, 1000 years, maybe never. Point is just that it's completely wrong to think that we just need to land on the moon or on Mars and then we're an "interplanetary species" and if Earth goes, we have a backup plan.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago

    I agree.

    Another way that I like to describe this is that almost nothing could make the earth less hospitable than the moon or mars already are. Asteroid strike? Mars' thin atmosphere is even more vulnerable. Climate change? The moon swings between -170C and 119 C each month. Nuclear war? Try living under constant cosmic radiation in a pressurized habitat that could be completely destroyed by a few small conventional explosives instead of a nuclear bomb.

    If we had the ability to make a self sustaining colony on mars we'd be able to restore earth's biosphere or make self sustaining arcologies or bunkers.

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