Should Humans invest in Technology to Explore and Colonize other Planets 🤔?

Scientists believe that the Earth would not sustain us forever. They are of the opinion that we will soon run out of resources to sustain ourselves or would be affected by acute natural disasters wiping out human life from our planet. Our greed to have more and more may also lead to this.

For those who want to think on these lines, there is a major hurdle in trying to colonize other planets. Humans just cannot survive on any other planet due to the radiation, greatly reduced air pressure, and an atmosphere with only 0.16% oxygen there. For example, consider the asteroid that struck the earth 66 million years ago creating the Chicxulub crater and wiping out 75% of plant and animal species on earth, including the dinosaurs. Well, that disaster still left 25% of species that survived, all of whom would die instantly on the surface of Mars.

One may argue that investing in technology is important to alter the conditions in other planets and make them suitable for human existence. This presents many other problems:

The first is that this would mean contaminating other planets and disturbing their geological cycles, which must be avoided at all costs.

Secondly, space missions are super expensive. All of us remember that Jeff Bezoz went to space for just 4 minutes, which cost him a staggering 5.5 billion dollars. A rover called ‘Perseverance’ was sent to Mars by Nasa on July 30, 2020. It cost them about $2.9 billion. Imagine how many underprivileged people we can feed and how many schools and homes we can build with that kind of money. We could make our own Mother Earth the most habitable and beautiful planet.

The third factor is that we need to send humans to other planets to achieve this goal. Astronauts living on Mars would be subjected to 50 times more radiation than humans living on Earth. This amount of radiation can cause dangerous cancers.

Another potential issue raised by those opposed to space colonization is that it could lead to a space-based arms race, sowing the seeds for devastating conflict back home on Earth.

We must work out ways to sustain the Earth for as long as we can, and not try to colonize other planets. We should amend our mistakes instead of looking for an escape. Technology is like magic, and it should be used for the betterment of humanity. What we need is a plan B, not a planet B. Instead of going out to look for solutions, let us look within. Let us be grateful for the earth and use its resources mindfully.

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What are your views on this topic? Let me know in the comments section.

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Goohika ✨