What will we do when we use up all of our natural resources, over populate, and completely pollute our planet? Of course we will try to develop renewable fuels, keep building new homes, and recycle more trash. But what if we have lead our world to complete chaos, what if we have no place to go? Our next way out is moving out, in other words, building colonies in space. Developing housing in unknown areas can be risky but there would be endless space for shelter. So the sooner we start the more beneficial it will be for not only us, but for future generations.
If we start developing technology in space that can end up as a mass transit network then we need to start development now. We can start renewing energy by using massive solar panels as big as entire cities, making enormous generators that will float literally in the middle of nowhere, and hydrogen powered vehicles and buildings. The reason why we should use solar panels the size of cites is because in space, no matter what might happen, there will always be sunlight in space. Large floating generators can be powered by themselves by using low powered motors to spin the turbines, using only a fraction of the energy they produce on reproduction of electricity. Using hydrogen is another way of renewability because hydrogen is found in water, and Earth has an overabundance of water. If we can extract hydrogen from water at low costs and at a high rate, that will be considered a renewable resource for decades, if not centuries. Using renewable resources will keep us from polluting Earth even more, and in space, we don’t know what pollution can do in space, so it would be best to keep emissions down and keep income at a high rate.
What will happen if we overpopulate Earth? We will either have to live in apartments while neighborhoods with lots of land will be destroyed and turned into cities. If we stay on Earth long enough, we will end up living with our neighbors in our faces. No matter how rich someone may be they will have to live with or near a highly prolific family with children crying at night and with criminals lurking in the shadows. Wouldn’t it be nice to live in an isolated place with peaceful neighbors, a perfect view of the stars above, below and around? Of course it will, when we slowly and unsuccessfully turn Earth into a colossal slum. Highly ranked people in our society or just people who love peace will have to move to a peaceful place or they will turn into the slum itself. With the enormous size of the planet it may seem like a while until people will overpopulate Earth, but it is closer than we might think or even want to think, because new families will always be established, and the population will constantly increase. We will need to move out into space, build colonies there and perhaps make cities out of space stations. Homes in space might be built on land like the moon or they might be like satellites, orbiting planets and other larger objects.
At this rate we will burn a hole in our atmosphere and we will need to escape Earth before we die of inhalation of smoke and other airborne bacteria, as well as get fried by the sun’s UV rays. We will kill all of our natural materials by polluting them, if we keep filling up dumps, throwing away toxic chemicals into rivers, and puffing away smoke into the atmosphere we will eventually kill Earth and it will kill us. We will have to pollute other planets or just build big reservoirs that can store all solid waste, we can build large pressurized tanks that can keep all harmful gasses out of our atmosphere, and we can try to purify all liquid waste by using filtering facilities. Sending hazardous materials into space can lead into unknown situations, like explosions that might affect our colonies, and the citizens of those colonies. Polluting space can lead to unforeseen consequences, like asteroids directing towards Earth, chemicals eating through our atmosphere from the outside, and loose baggage like trash just floating around and damaging equipment.
The point of establishing space travel is that if we start traveling now we can still discover ways to keep on living and thriving but not necessarily on Earth, because we can and will eventually burn up all of our fuels, we will overpopulate and crowd Earth, and we will damage the environment by polluting every natural, living thing. So if humanity is to prosper, let it take a huge step outside, into the new frontier, into space.
