EVERY TIME I watch the news on television more often than not it’s bad news.
I know news agencies concentrate on negative issues, as it is more ‘saleable’ to the public as ‘shock horror’ stories get more attention, but I cannot help thinking that we are in a downward spiral here and it does little good concentrating on problems when it is far better to look for solutions.
We have to see the big picture and realise that we are on the surface of a tiny planet with limited resources and limited room. There will always be conflicts over land and supplies of food and fuel have always been causes of stress for mankind, right back to Stone Age times. This will never change and with our population on the increase there will come a time when our existence is not sustainable.
In order for mankind to have a future in the coming centuries, when standards of living can be maintained and health and education are available to all, the most practical solution is ‘up there’. The technology involved in developing vehicles to explore and colonise new worlds will solve our energy problem, there is unlimited real estate, unlimited raw materials and unlimited energy available ‘up there’.
Space colonies will become the industrial engines of the future. The colonists would mine the other worlds in our solar system and construct spacecraft and beamed power satellites that will replace power plants on the Earth. They would also take advantage of the plentiful raw materials, unlimited solar power, and micro gravity in ways to create products that we cannot while inside the Earth’s atmosphere. In addition to replacing our current Earth-polluting industries, these colonies may also help our environment in other ways. Since the colonists would create miniature biospheres to live in, they will safe guard mankind if some kind of disaster befalls our planet.
We really owe it to ourselves to reach for the stars and to fulfil our destiny, we are the first on this planet to have the intelligence to do so, and if we don’t we will become extinct sooner or later. It will be a real shame if this happens. I don’t want to be the one to say ‘I told you so’.
