Could Humans Actually Live On Another Planet?

The idea of space colonization has been around for decades. However, given the alarmingly quick effects of global warming in recent years, space colonization has been a highly debated topic. Essentially, if space colonization were to become feasible, humans and animals would be able to permanently colonize on other planets, forming new societies. However, there is little conclusive evidence of what actually would happen if people lived in space. Simply put, we have no idea what would actually happen because no one has ever done it. Unfortunately, the idea of permanent colonization on, for example, the moon may not be available in time to outlive global warming. Currently, it is 640 dollars per pound, to put something in space. Now take 7.5 billion people, ranging in weight, and try to take them all to different planets to escape Earth’s demise. Insanely expensive and probably not realistic.

Is it possible to live in space in the future? Maybe. Is it possible to do so permanently and build an entirely new civilization? Maybe not. The article talks about how this could relieve overpopulation. However, it wouldn’t be anywhere near affordable to put millions of people on a different planet, and let them loose. There would have to be an unimaginable amount of money spent; from educating people on how to live on another planet, to creating somewhere liveable to humans, to actually being able to transport them there. It is an infeasible idea. Space engineers would have to figure out how to get enough of earth’s natural resources onto another planet, to support an entire community of people. This would seemingly contradict the ability of using less of Earth’s resources, because we would have to take resources from the Earth population, to put onto another planet. There would also be billions of tons of rocket fuel used to take resources and people to another planet. Obviously, this would be wildly detrimental to the ozone layer of Earth. Therefore, it might not truly help in combating climate change.

In order for humans to be able to survive in space, there would have to be foolproof methods of life support. So far, nothing has come close to making this possible. The amount of brain power, resources, and money needed to accomplish this for even one human, is gigantic. Aside from this, there would have to be human volunteers willing to experiment with outer-space living. Where these trial efforts result in harm or death of the people living in the space colonies, this would be a major deterrent to convince people to leave Earth.

Overall, the idea that humans could permanently live in space is a bit far fetched. There could be developments, perhaps, that would allow us to visit or stay longer on other planets in the future. However, the idea of creating an entirely new society of people on a different planet is simply too great a feat to complete.