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Space settlement is an excellent solution to overpopulation (among other things). However, it does have certain drawbacks to it...I'll post a few, but feel free to point out other drawbacks.

1) Expense - lunar settlements, space colonies, terraformation of Mars and the Jovian moons, etc., these are very expensive, although the economic opportunities involved might outweigh the cost.
2) Technology - we're going to have to be very innovative and daring to apply any of the concepts needed for large-scale space settlement, including but not limited to: mass drivers, nuclear fusion (or other alternative non-fossil fuel-dependent energy sources), advanced propulsion, space colonies (Bernal Sphere, Stanford Torus, O'Neill Cylinder, etc.), solar reflectors and everything else needed for large-scale terraforming, etc.
3) Ethics - is terraforming or 'remaking' other worlds in the image of our home planet really ethical (for me it is, so long as no other sapient species live there)?
4) Politics - its going to be 19th Century politics again (with colonies, settlements and so on and so forth).

I'm in favour more than I'm against, I think your first 3 are fine, but the last one it wouldn't work with, so I'm going to pretend that the World is actually united a la Starship Troopers (I think they were united, not 100%, haven't read it in a while)

#3 is kinda odd to me. Its not like you can even pull the, rather silly even on Earth sometimes, argument that we have no right to mess up something. If someone is already living there you might have a point, but in space there's nobody there.

#4 is going to be what happens you know. Its not necessarily going to be a bad thing. The only "bad" thing that happened as a result of colonialisim was the exploitation of native peoples, not a concern on uninhabited planets. Doubly so for planets with no life.

Space Age Colonialisim would actually be a major motivator. Everyone's got a Colony, we need to make ours bigger and better etc... And thats incentive for innovation and development.

Lets just take Mars by itself. It's almost another entire Earth as far as landmass to divide up and, lets be honest, not every country is going to be able or capable to get a piece of the pie so its not going to need to be doled out to everybody.


The best way to Terraform and Colonize Mars IMO would be as follows.

Have an international group be responsable for the major terraforming processes(melting the ice caps, transporting water, monitoring the climate...)

But as far as getting things like plants and animals transplanted to start all the minor stuff, that should be each individual nations perogative in their areas of control.

Some sort of international treaty would have to be signed as far as how a country can "legally" claim territory. Having to have a settlement to extend their zone of control etc...


Corporations are going to be huge on this one. In exchange for cash funding, the companies can mine natural resources and start turning profits so the Mars development will pay for itself. Possably by using Mars as a jump off point for the mining of the Asteroid belt.

Tariffs could be charged on these companies that would be used to pay for the continued terraforming.

At this point, Mars becomes a stepping stone to other areas of the Solar System. Space Stations around Jupiter and Saturn, massive mining just about everywhere, etc...

Water mining would probably be the biggest money maker. Going into the outer system to haul in Comets and ice laced hunks of rock to bring back to Mars or individual colonies to allow for expansion.

Sorry, but I forgot to put this in the OP - what about Humans and other species adapting to their new environments? The way I see it, we're going to be divided into several subspecies...

1) Homo sapiens terrestria - normal, baseline Humans, they're from Earth and the orbital Stanford Torii and La Grange O'Neill Cylinders, and are the largest sub-species.

2) Homo sapiens lunaris - little to no radiation tolerance (due to living in ABSOLUTELY radiation-shielded dome cities and underground cavern cities), very low gravity tolerance (they will be debilitated on Mars and the Jovian moons, and they will die on Earth and her colonies without exo-suits).

3) Homo sapiens martianus - low gravity tolerance (will be debilitated on Earth and her colonies), somewhat higher than normal radiation tolerance.

And so on...note, that these are suppositions on my part, in particular the radiation tolerance part, but the gravity part, no so much. Old problems may flare up again over the issue of these adaptations...

I highly doubt people will end up living on the moon for long enough periods of time for a subspecies to develop. Mars would be another matter for sure.

Adapting to the Martian gravity would cause issues. Although it would most likely take many generations to happen. colonies will have centrifuges to allow for Earth gravity simulation so muscle mass isn't allowed to erode.

Although, once Mars becomes inhabitable outside and we have full colonization there will probably be severe changes. People will all be really skinny and won't require as much food(hey, a perk!) but manuel labor would actually be viable. Due to the lower gravity, a person could do significantly more work. A human from Earth would be positivly ripped on Mars.

I think the solution to overpopulation is a rule on how many children you can have.
And Also, only if everyone ha a fair chance to explore, if the people who are "Less Valuable" get stuck on a deteriorating earth then no..

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I think the solution to overpopulation is a rule on how many children you can have.

Sounds a lot like the one child policy of China to me...or the premise of that movie called 'Ultimate Fortress' or something.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I highly doubt people will end up living on the moon for long enough periods of time for a subspecies to develop.

Why not?

..colonies will have centrifuges to allow for Earth gravity simulation so muscle mass isn't allowed to erode...

Space colonies rotate to generate gravity and are specifically designed to replicate Earth's conditions...the people there will be normal, baseline Humans.

A human from Earth would be positivly ripped on Mars.

No...he/she will be fine. But a Martian Human who went to Earth without an exosuit would be debilitated for sure.

It'd be nice to live in space...
It'd be nicer to do it as a united human race but the world is not perfect.

 purplefood wrote:

It'd be nicer to do it as a united human race but the world is not perfect.

The whole point of this thread is to discuss the difficulties and problems of such an enterprise.

There's currently no reason whatsoever to attempt this, other than as a scientific endeavour.

In 1-2 centuries? Sure. But I'd rather we look for proper terraformation, which will be an incredibly long process, than live in a bubble sphere with the constant fear that one supersonic pebble will kill an entire population.

I want society to crumble and burn, and from the ashes, a new society will arise that will have no need to expand their dirty fingers to the stars.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:
There's currently no reason whatsoever to attempt this, other than as a scientific endeavour.

In 1-2 centuries? Sure. But I'd rather we look for proper terraformation, which will be an incredibly long process, than live in a bubble sphere with the constant fear that one supersonic pebble will kill an entire population.

Over-cautious non-sense. He who is overcautious...achieves nothing.

The sheer size of an O'Neill cylinder requires an entire 'window' side to be destroyed to count as a significant threat to life support. The 'ground' sides are incredible thick and are heavily-reinforced, not to mention the entire colony is fitted out with multiple redundancy systems. Space colonies are designed to be completely self-sufficient, except for raw materials for manufacturing purposes.

Captain Fantastic wrote:
I want society to crumble and burn, and from the ashes, a new society will arise that will have no need to expand their dirty fingers to the stars.

To ascend to the stars is to answer the call of destiny.

Perhaps. I think we need about 5 billion people to die, and another billion castrated for preventative measures before we realize that. That leaves 3 billion people to reproduce and populate the world at a normal pace, while the scientists ready their equipment and prepare to jettison the first space colonists into the void.

Why do 5 billion people need to die?

 purplefood wrote:
Why do 5 billion people need to die?

Because we need to kill everyone with undesirable traits, so they don't poison the genetic pool of future space colonists. You know, everyone with a big nose, splotchy skin, cleft chins, knobby knees, foot cheese, canker sores and terminal hangnails.

We have too much going on here on Earth, I feel, that we shouldn't get too serious into Space Settlement at the moment. Sure, testing the waters is cool for when we do decide to go full blown colonization but more energy ought to be spent on situations where we are at right now. For instance, San Luis Obispo, CA has no drive-thrus at their fast food restaurants. Until that gets resolved, I will not go to Mars.

Captain Fantastic wrote:

 purplefood wrote:
Why do 5 billion people need to die?

Because we need to kill everyone with undesirable traits, so they don't poison the genetic pool of future space colonists. You know, everyone with a big nose, splotchy skin, cleft chins, knobby knees, foot cheese, canker sores and terminal hangnails.

Undesirable? Sounds like the Final Solution to me.

 Tadashi wrote:
Space colonies are designed to be completely self-sufficient, except for raw materials for manufacturing purposes.

I really see no point to Space colonies, beside eventual docking and construction ports.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Captain Fantastic wrote:

 purplefood wrote:
Why do 5 billion people need to die?

Because we need to kill everyone with undesirable traits, so they don't poison the genetic pool of future space colonists. You know, everyone with a big nose, splotchy skin, cleft chins, knobby knees, foot cheese, canker sores and terminal hangnails.

Trolling much? At least I hope...

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 Tadashi wrote:
Space colonies are designed to be completely self-sufficient, except for raw materials for manufacturing purposes.

I really see no point to Space colonies, beside eventual docking and construction ports.

Overpopulation solution, duh.

Overpopulation really isn't an issue the way you think it is.

The population density of the entire planet is only 13.1 persons per square kilometer. To put this in perspective, that's less dense than Norway. And this is as crowded as you're ever going to see the planet (in about 15 years the population will shrink back to what it was in the 90s).

The trouble is having enough basic resources for the planet, which is a ratio that is already at critical mass. However, lunar colonization will not fix that.




That being said, I'd still volunteer in a heartbeat.

 Tadashi wrote:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 Tadashi wrote:
Space colonies are designed to be completely self-sufficient, except for raw materials for manufacturing purposes.

I really see no point to Space colonies, beside eventual docking and construction ports.

Overpopulation solution, duh.

Settle other planets. Arcologies. Floating towns. Stuff...

 azazel the cat wrote:
Overpopulation really isn't an issue the way you think it is.

The population density of the entire planet is only 13.1 persons per square kilometer. To put this in perspective, that's less dense than Norway. And this is as crowded as you're ever going to see the planet (in about 15 years the population will shrink back to what it was in the 90s).

The trouble is having enough basic resources for the planet, which is a ratio that is already at critical mass. However, lunar colonization will not fix that.




That being said, I'd still volunteer in a heartbeat.

Not just lunar, martian and jovian, not to mention space itself, will be settled.

The idea behind space colonies is that habitable worlds are rare, and terraforming takes time...if you can't find habitable worlds, and/or you don't have time to terraform, then build a mini-Earth: space colonies.

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 Tadashi wrote:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 Tadashi wrote:
Space colonies are designed to be completely self-sufficient, except for raw materials for manufacturing purposes.

I really see no point to Space colonies, beside eventual docking and construction ports.

Overpopulation solution, duh.

Settle other planets. Arcologies. Floating towns. Stuff...

Yes, but you can't settle a planet beyond a certain point, unless you want a Hive World-like equivalent, which, I'm sure, no one want IRL.

 azazel the cat wrote:
Overpopulation really isn't an issue the way you think it is.

The population density of the entire planet is only 13.1 persons per square kilometer. To put this in perspective, that's less dense than Norway. And this is as crowded as you're ever going to see the planet (in about 15 years the population will shrink back to what it was in the 90s).

The trouble is having enough basic resources for the planet, which is a ratio that is already at critical mass. However, lunar colonization will not fix that.

That being said, I'd still volunteer in a heartbeat.

Basically this and space colonisation is far, far, far too expensive to even be considered as a solution to over population, it also makes the problem of scarce resources worse. In a few centuries it may well be a reality but not for a long while.