Environment & Energy

hunter

(40,506 posts)

14. These mass extinction events were no big deal in comparison to living in outer space.

Thu Jan 12, 2012, 05:08 PM

Jan 2012

Since life began on earth, at least three and a half billion years ago, there hasn't been any natural disaster that would make the earth less attractive than mars, the moon, any known planet, or free space.

Clobber earth with an asteroid, freeze the earth's surface solid in ice, cover it with volcanoes and a poison atmosphere, and yet the earth is still an easy place for us to live in comparison to anywhere else.

Time is long, the universe is big, and we don't know of any other planets that humans would be comfortable on.

The earth is where we live, the earth is where we will die.

We've got as much chance of thriving in space as a dolphin has got living in a fourth floor walkup in Brooklyn.

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Prof Stephen Hawking: man faces nuclear armageddon and must colonise space [View all] bananas Jan 2012 OP

I wonder about the "within a thousand years" part stuntcat Jan 2012 #1

Mars ain't the kind of place to raise yor kids. In fact it's cold as hell... hunter Jan 2012 #2

Prof. Hawking is absolutely right txlibdem Jan 2012 #3

Around here where I'm from the rocks are chirt madokie Jan 2012 #4

With 5 mass extinctions plus one that nearly wiped out the humans I count 6 txlibdem Jan 2012 #12

These mass extinction events were no big deal in comparison to living in outer space. hunter Jan 2012 #14

We won't be living in some inhospitable environment: we'll bring Earth's environment to live in txlibdem Jan 2012 #16

Even sooner if things warrant it madokie Jan 2012 #15

A disaster is befalling the earth TODAY. GliderGuider Jan 2012 #5

"But love of the wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach" Kolesar Jan 2012 #6

+1. Abbey's vision was precisely right. n/t GliderGuider Jan 2012 #8

prof. Maslo55 Jan 2012 #7

"We should not have all our eggs in one basket." GliderGuider Jan 2012 #9

what Maslo55 Jan 2012 #10

I've been a major fan of space exploration since Sputnik. GliderGuider Jan 2012 #11

NASA's follow-on plan to the Apollo missions was to colonize the moon (in the 70's) txlibdem Jan 2012 #13

Those "colonies" would have been the equivalent of Antarctic science stations. GliderGuider Jan 2012 #17

... Maslo55 Jan 2012 #18

L5 in '95! Kolesar Jan 2012 #19