• Question: to what extend is relevant for us to gain understanding of outer space?

    Asked by paris305 to Adam, Alexander, Aron, Jess, Neil on 11 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by nb123.
    • Photo: Adam Scott

      Adam Scott answered on 11 Mar 2014:

      The way I see it, if we want humanity to exist forever, we are eventually going to have to leave the earth and either live in a ‘world ship’ style space station, or find a way of getting to other planets (at least), then other star systems… It seems like simply a matter of time, in the long(est) term, the sun will eventually die out, making life on earth unsustainable. Other than that, it would be nice to at least have an idea when the next big asteroid may hit the earth and if we could do anything about it. Having a second colony off the earth (meaning you need to go through space to get there) would mean that if a deadly virus was released on Earth, we would at least have a colony of people who are unaffected. So to answer your question, I believe that understanding of outer space is vital to human existence!

    • Photo: Aron Kisdi

      Aron Kisdi answered on 11 Mar 2014:

      “To what extend do we need to understand the sea?” an old explorer might have asked.
      Earth is finite, and the resources and energy on earth is even more so. Energy in many cases linked to higher quality of life. If we want everyone on Earth to have higher quality of life, and sustain more humans it is absolutely vital that we understand and explore space, use or bring back resources and eventually spread out in the solar system and galaxy.
      I know this sounds long term but if we don’t start now we delay it even more, and instead we will be fighting each other for the remaining space and resources on Earth.

    • Photo: Neil Bowles

      Neil Bowles answered on 11 Mar 2014:

      Well, we live in space as the Earth is part of the Solar System and knowing what is going on around us is always a good idea, think of the dinosaurs.

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