Before I ask this, I want to preface it with the fact that studying space has been a dream of mine as long as I can remember (not saying this to suck up, only to ensure I don't set the wrong tone); I study physics, and try to immerse myself in the field, and I believe wholeheartedly that we need to be in space, even if just for the natural technological jumps we'll make as a result.
But there's one thing that was posited to me by a professor a few years ago that has nagged at my mind for quite a while, and I've never gotten a satisfactory answer: the Earth has finite resources, and going to space takes a very large amount. What happens if we deplete (or at least use up to enough degree) our fuel to such a degree that we become land-locked, before we find other extraterrestrial sources? If we continue the status quo, with no real improvements to humanity's spacefaring capabilities, is there not a risk of burning out and trapping ourselves here? I feel that this argument needs to be presented in favor of dramatic progress; it seems like we NEED to find these fuel sources, before they are forever out of our reach.
CrazyClockMaker6 karma
Before I ask this, I want to preface it with the fact that studying space has been a dream of mine as long as I can remember (not saying this to suck up, only to ensure I don't set the wrong tone); I study physics, and try to immerse myself in the field, and I believe wholeheartedly that we need to be in space, even if just for the natural technological jumps we'll make as a result.
But there's one thing that was posited to me by a professor a few years ago that has nagged at my mind for quite a while, and I've never gotten a satisfactory answer: the Earth has finite resources, and going to space takes a very large amount. What happens if we deplete (or at least use up to enough degree) our fuel to such a degree that we become land-locked, before we find other extraterrestrial sources? If we continue the status quo, with no real improvements to humanity's spacefaring capabilities, is there not a risk of burning out and trapping ourselves here? I feel that this argument needs to be presented in favor of dramatic progress; it seems like we NEED to find these fuel sources, before they are forever out of our reach.
View HistoryShare Link