The Case for Human Settlement of Interplanetary Outer Space
Although there is some strident niche public criticism of these outer-space-venturing projects, this spending and investment in outer-space exploration and interplanetary development and settlement by the space-program engineer and scientist entrepreneurs, and the like of their enterprises, and in part supported in viewpoint, policy and funding by NASA and the US Congress, plus, offers solutions to humanity's great and grave problems of industrial-economic -- industrial and general human-overpopulation over-harvesting and depletion of Earth's natural resources, expansion and takeover of all habitable land for commodification, marketplace productivity and real estate development for human habitation and commerce resulting in endless substantial species extinction/s -- environmental despoliation (of the atmosphere, water and land everywhere with all variety of mass pollution, war degradation and toxic-waste, garbage and litter, etc., contamination, dumping and blight) and unchecked, exponentially growing human overpopulation on our home planet Earth, whose natural life-support systems and species, including our own, are existentially endangered by these anthropogenic problems. Our species in these respects is the biggest root problem for planet Earth and its biology.
The idea of these visionary space-faring sci-tech entrepreneurs, most prominently Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, but long before advised by scientists Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking, among many others, as a necessity, is a feasible, smart and noble one of transferring heavy and polluting industry as well as making it possible and attractive on a voluntary basis for ordinary people on a mass scale to relocate and settle ongoingly Earth's moon, Mars and its moons and the dwarf planet Ceres, as well as for Earth's human extractive and mining industries to extract from and mine these and the mineral and valuable metals rich asteroids of the asteroid belt, to spare the Earth of unsustainable continuous human overpopulation growth and its gross despoiling and depleting commercialization of Earth's atmosphere, water bodies and lands and the consequential extinction of Earth's biodiversity and eventually most or all of Earth's species.
They also are proponents for establishing backup other-world homes for human civilization in case a mass species extinction event is dealt to our planet Earth, making it unhabitable for the long-term for our species and most other complex and large species, as has happened repeatedly in Earth's natural history, by an asteroid or comet strike (the Chicxulub impactor), being the latest such event (65-66 million years ago), and a series of catastrophic geophysical events of origin from our planet, and as is currently underway, so far gradually, primarily caused by humanity's industrial fossil-fuels-use and other hydrocarbons-generating atmospheric pollution in conjunction with its commercially-driven deforestation globally, and that is a credible potential from large-scale intercontinental thermonuclear war on the part of humanity against its factional, feuding self, internationally armed with doomsday-scenario stocks of aerially deliverable intercontinental nuclear missiles, naval marine-to-marine and marine-to-land deliverable nuclear missiles and battlefield tactical nuclear weapons. (In this connection, I venture to advise screening for founding settlers of these other worlds physically and mentally--emotionally-ethically fit, peaceful persons with exceptional empathizing, cooperative, attention-span and listening skills -- men, women and youth -- with high-level STEM-and problem-solving education knowledge and skills, favoring such scientists, engineers, mathematicians, medical personnel, technical designers, techies and building-trades technicians, cognitive- and psychotherapists, as well as youth educationally highly successfully on these vocational paths, all with objective, merit-test-verified advanced reading, writing and math skills. I venture further to suggest the naming of the first founding settlement Science City or renaming the other world Science Planet, Science Topia or Science World. Let them be very well financially compensated with lifetime-guaranteed, comprehensive health-medical care and insurance, tenured employment and pay, and retirement benefits.)
The off-worlding from Earth of humanity’s heavy and pollution industries, as well as mineral and ore extraction and mining industries, would occur in a gradual process and is doable in the relative near term, as would the start of populating their excavated and architecturally crafted subsurface and already existing caves, lava tubes and some craters, to be domed, with humans, vegetation, agriculture (including a variety of edible fungi/mushrooms & shrooms and high-protein gourmet, edible African worms and mudfish), and aquaculture (including aquariums for animal companionship and amusement). Habitat development for humans and their food, oxygen, hydration, thermal-control and fuel-energy production systems on and in these off-worlds from Earth readily can be constructed in large part from their regolith and soil, the latter converted to cement, concrete and glass (they have otherwise been detected to possess in planetary abundance the spectrum of chemicals, minerals and ores, and more, as those of the Earth) and by 3D-printing machines and robots. Human feces, perhaps irradiated or pasteurized to kill its pathogens, according to scientific research and development on its recyclable practical use may or can be used as a like building material by the same processes to construct habitations for humans on other-worlds like the moon and Mars (Mouse click on the following hyperlink to read the science on recycling human poop for this purpose: Bricks Made From Human Waste Could Be The Future of The Construction Industry (sciencealert.com)). They can be constructed to be luxurious and electronically hi-tech accommodation with all of the technological amenities of the most upscale living quarters and communities on Earth, including facilities for cleaning, bathing, showering (via fog and steam delivered from faucets, spigots, showerheads, etc., otherwise used for dispensing flowing water, in order to conserve water), sports and recreation, entertainment, garden strolling and lounging, hanging out and socializing with others, meditation and worship, study and learning and general intellectual pursuits, arts and crafts, music, piano, guitar, singing, dancing, TV, movies, radio, etc., too, as well as for communal dinning and imbibing spirits and medical services, etc., and they could be, as applicable for the particular other world or location on it, electrically powered and utilities-gas supplied variously by thermo-voltaic solar arrays (with magnifying glass amplifiers for Mars, its moons, and the dwarf planet Ceres in the asteroid belt), and such energy capture and storage units, wind-turbines, bio-digesters (for converting into heating-, cooking- and electricity power-source methane gas human toilet and food waste and other biomass waste, which they also convert in part to high-grade plant fertilizer), hydro-chemical and geothermal energy-supply sources, and, possibly but cautiously, by Bill Gates compact, portable, reportedly failsafe nuclear power plants that also reportedly operate on nuclear waste as their power source.
In addition, the human habitations of these other-worlds should have on hand an overabundance of hand-crank-powered technology, such as flashlights, lanterns, radios, generators, etc. -- mouse click on the following hyperlink to see examples of available hand-crank-technology offerings at https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=crank+powered+devices&qpvt=Crank+powered+devices&form=IQFRML&first=1&tsc=ImageBasic Hover -- and, if possible, such space heaters and hotplates (for cooking), in the event of unexpected electrical or utilities vapor-gas power failures, as well as an overabundance of indoor and outdoor solar heating and lighting, plus, technology that is automatically energized by daylight during daylight hours (mouse click on the following hyperlink to read on and further mouse-click link to examples of solar-power-tech offering at https://news.energysage.com/solar-panel-technology-advances-solar-energy/). Hopefully, such utilities power failures will be rare or precluded, but if incident, then humans and other biology cultivated and kept by humans will be in dwellings well-insulated against onsets of dangerous temperatures, dwellings insulation that is the legally compelled and implemented rule for all dwellings.
(Concerning other-world temperature, near the equator of Mars, its warmest or least cold location, during its summer, temperatures average 70 degrees Fahrenheit during daylight time, with the highest temperature ever recorded there being 95 degrees Fahrenheit during daylight time, but with the temperature plunging there at night to its planetarily normal extreme-cold, below-zero temperature range across all seasons, whether day or night. This location on Mars and warmest locations, including comparative geothermal hotspots, on other worlds in our solar system selected for human settlement should be detected and developed for prime human settlements, especially if they have substantial water-ice deposits in their environs or vicinity, for making liquid water and breathable oxygen. Oxygen can also be made from the water-ice and carbon dioxide-ice, and, as applicable, atmosphere of these other worlds. They would make for the best permanent settlement sites and ideal daytime hospitality sites for visitors, or interplanetary space tourists, too.)
Considerable quantities of water-ice (enough to support and sustain substantial off-Earth human colonies), which can be sublimated into liquid, flowing water, have been detected by resource-probe and surveillance spacecraft on Earth’s moon, Mars and Ceres, and ethically and harmlessly extractible billions-of-years’ worth of water-ice in the aggregate have been so observed to exist across the relatively nearby asteroid belt, the gas-ice giant planets Uranus and Neptune and vast Kuiper Belt ice-objects expanse of our outer solar system, beyond the icy dwarf-planet Pluto planetary-moon system, which along with the water-ice rich planet-moon systems of Jupiter and Saturn, the largest planets in our solar system, may host moons with current subsurface aquatic life, that may be complex aquatic life, making these environments ethically taboo for mining their water-ice structures for their continuous supply of, and delivery to the collection craters for them on, our interplanetary colonies. Nevertheless, some of the scores of moons of each Jupiter and Saturn that are evidently life, as we know it (reproductive cellular, mutational, evolutionary life -- biology), barren and prohibitive as a matter of their geophysical condition, would be, like likewise life-barren and desolate Earth's moon, Mars and its moons, and Ceres, ethically suitable for geoengineering and terraforming by humans for habitability by humans and other of Earth's life forms. Humanity can also construct much more effective land-based [telescopic] observatories on these off-Earth worlds, free of humanity's, on Earth, chemical, fossil-fuels, light and orbital-space-junk pollution, and locate there museums to store humanity's and our sciences' portably historically, scientifically, culturally, artistically and educationally priceless treasures and secure them, hopefully for always, from the ravages of human war, all other destructiveness, and all looting and banditry.
The biological problems for humans in spacecraft flight to and physically functioning on these off-Earth worlds of particularly susceptibility to cancer from cosmic rays and radiation and bone-density loss from in-flight zero-gravity or microgravity and new-world low gravity might in significant part be overcome or offset by insulating the skin of the spacecraft traveling to and temporary [modular] buildings on these worlds with layers of antiradiation lead-foil shielding and making the travelers' living and working, etc., quarters, clothing and furniture (not forgetting beds) electronically, silently, imperceptibly and continuously, vibratory and providing the facilities, and/beds with robotic equipment that, on a daily basis, deep massage the muscles and bones of travelers and settlers, and subject their muscles and bones to weight-bearing and skeletal traction exercises, in which the subjected travelers and settlers behaviorally remain passive. On medical approval, it might be a good idea for them to intake glucosamine and chondroitin nutritional supplements with MSM as well as magnesium, potassium and zinc mineral nutritional supplements, and a capsule of high-quality calcium and drop or easily chewable small tablet of antiradiation potassium iodide, with a meal or meals, for the most part daily permanently. All of these nutritional supplements, except for the small tablet potassium, to be chewed thoroughly, should absolutely be consumed in capsule, therein powdered, form, and not in pill form, including for all same form of official oral medication, in my opinion, inasmuch as pills and tablets, for sure, in my judgment and opinion, can and do damage the digestive system and cause hernias as well as, by their binder ingredients, hardened stool in the gut, constipation and difficult and rectal-tissue rupturing and/or tearing defecation -- in my experienced judgment and opinion. To avoid consuming the byproduct cellulose capsule-container of these powdered nutritional supplements, they should be opened and their contents deposited in a section of one's soup, yogurt, smoothie or hot cereal, or on a portion, the sauciest portion, of one's plate of food and mixed in and covered over by that section or portion of food of either kind. (I must say "opinion" to avoid vicious producer lawsuits against me -- some producers, in my opinion, want to do what is cheapest and sales competitive for themselves and their P&L bottom line without foremost concern for the overall health and safety of their product to and for consumers, while sharing in the credit of the good effects of the capsule versions but selling harm, in my opinion, from the more cheaply produced pill and tablet versions.)
For human babies born on low-gravity other-worlds, there will be a Darwinian adaptive and evolutionary sorting of them in best and, eventual, optimal physical functionality to the natural geophysical conditions of those other-worlds, and the newcomer, pioneer settlers will have to and will readily, to varying bio-locomotional degrees (skeletal, neural-muscular locomotionally or motorically), adapt according to their individual physical capabilities there and learn to function there physically adequately, for basically healthy, physically fit persons. But much, an overabundance of, long-term-use painkiller medication should be there and accepted as a necessary evil, for situations of unexpected and expected intolerable pain there for humans. As a practical matter, decedent persons may have to be disposed of in a biodigester process or by cremation (preceded by funerary rites or memorials) with the remnant debris or ash in either event being used as plant fertilizer. For the most part, until these other-worlds have been breathably geoengineered and terraformed on the surface for near-normal human survival and health safety against cosmic rays and radiation showering and bathing them, humans will have to live underground most of the day and work on the surface at night -- they will have to be an interim subterranean and nocturnal species on the other-worlds.
The terraforming of these worlds to make their surfaces, hydrology, atmosphere and meteorology, summarily breathable, protective against carcinogenic and lethal cosmic, habitable and cultivatable for the reproductive lifeforms of our planet, for surface-land foresting, farming aquaculture and bringing our pet dogs, cats, birds and horses, etc., will entail advanced astrophysics-geoengineering study, theorizing and experimentation as well as other research and development to accomplish and will take much more time. But it is feasible and will happen to completion, if our species, with its advanced sci-tech, does not destroy itself and most life on Earth beforehand.
Electronic- or telecommunications between humans on these off-Earth worlds and Earth would be immediately available via computer-device email messaging (text, audio, video or audio-video), cell-phone texting and satellite (or its spacecraft substitute) -radio broadcast signals and such broadcasts. Eventually, instantaneous communications may be interplanetarily possible between and among the interplanetary diaspora of humans via quantum-particle-entanglement language coding of data (alphabetic -- alphabetic that is human devised and standardized, using species of particles, their varied quantity and up-down, left-right spins, and vice versa, for alphabetic meaning or character -- replications of this quantum-particle-entanglement on a transmitter-receiver database in all diaspora setting, in which quantum entanglement can be obtained not only between subatomic particles (quantum particles) but between atoms, molecules and among arrays or collections of atoms or molecules, too) and its transactional, interactive, teleportation by interacting quantum computers, now under development, perhaps globally, but most prominently by Google, IBM and the Peoples Republic of China.
They and their space-faring sci-tech successors, over generations, will make it work via their related education, training and experience and by solving all nature of mechanical and human and involved flora and fauna biological engineering problems by constant sci-tech R&D, human ingenuity and figuring things out on the go.
Engineer-entrepreneurs (formal and informal), informal sci-tech, self-taught, self-motivated tinkerers, innovators and inventors, and scientist-entrepreneurs, as well as, and at times along with, government engineers, scientists, planners and technical designers, have provided advanced nations all of their technology and infrastructure of every kind, against all majority or widespread public incredulity and naysaying of their such concepts and projects, including, most recently, personal computers, the worldwide-web internet, pocket Wi-Fi cell phones, stem-cell therapy, genetic editing and clean, healthful and delicious tech beef and chicken alternative meat that's ranch, farm and slaughter and butcher cruelty-free, with probably pork, crab, lobster, hotdog, sausage and other sci-tech plant-cell cultured, cruelty-free, tech meat to come, which could be machine cultured and consumed by outer-space travels, sojourners and crews and passengers onboard passenger spaceships and orbiting space stations and so made and consumed by human settlers on off-Earth colonies.
With sci-tech humanity's genome decoding, biotech and gene-editing, sci-tech humanity's accumulated bodies of knowledge, skills, experience, mass scientific and related branches of technical education, literacy and talent is position to make and on the cusp making an endless succession of extraordinary breakthroughs in bioengineering, as well as in other applied sciences, in which it may be possible for humanity's sci-tech to not only be able to repair and regenerate body organs and parts of all kinds of and for humans, but also may be able to mass manufacture these from animal stem cells and tissue, artificially and free of the animals themselves and their agricultural domestication, enslavement and food-supplies slaughter by humans and for feeding humans, including milk and eggs, perhaps on all variety of bio-engineered meat trees or vines with the animal meat covered in nutrient plant skins, like those of bananas, oranges, grapefruit, melon, etc., and hanging from the trees and vines.
One of my pet bioengineering fantasies is for sci-tech humanity to mass produce designer, for the construction building trades, cultured [real] wood (real tech wood, hi-speed grown in shape-and-size mold/ing containers) of all construction-wood varieties to spare our planet, and its wildlife, and otherwise, dependent on trees and forests, Earth's [planetary] respiratory system, of interminable mass harvesting and deforestation by humankind. This idea brought to fruition would probably result in, for itself as an industry, a potential multi-hundreds of billions of dollars in net profits annually.
