Is Space Our Future?

For years, humans have been questioning how or if we would ever have to flee planet earth and make a new planet our home. If our planet is destroyed one day due to some kind of disaster, where are we going to go? As far as we know, Earth is the only planet with humans and life on it, so there is nowhere we can go in a huge emergency. Although many could argue why we should not try to colonize on another planet, you could also argue why we need to develop a colony somewhere else in space.

The main reason for developing a new place to live in space is for long-term survival. Unfortunately, one day, our planet is going to be destroyed, or we are going to run out of resources. According to theoretical physicist and cosmologist, Stephen Hawking, he argues that colonizing in space will one day save humanity.

He has predicted that the human race will become extinct in two thousand years, unless we could establish colonies in space. Back in 2005, the NASA Administrator at the time, Michael Griffin, said space colonization is their ultimate goal saying: “In the long run a single-planet species will not survive...If we humans want to survive for hundreds of thousands of millions of years, we must ultimately populate other planets.” (Washington Post, p. B07) As you can see, scientists know that life on earth will not last forever, which is why it is so important to develop the technology we need so that one day humans will be able to survive outside of planet Earth.

Although we do not have the technology yet, we have taken massive steps towards one day being able to sustain life on another planet. It would not make sense to not attempt to colonize life outside of Earth, because the solar system is abundant in resources, materials, and energy. It has been estimated that the solar system has enough resources to support somewhere between several thousand to over a billion times that of the human population on Earth. Right now, we are continuing to use up our resources on Earth every single day. Everyday we get closer to running out of resources completely, unless we can find another way to sustain life.

Ultimately, there are many reasons why it is smart for us to continue to research ways we can one day sustain life and create colonies on a planet other than Earth. One day we will run out of resources, or Earth will be destroyed because of a disaster. If we do not want humans to become extinct, it is a good idea to find ways to maintain life somewhere else in the solar system. Although you can argue that space colonization could possibly lead to overpopulation, economic equality, and environmental degradation, this isn’t too different to how we live now. Our planet has a lot of problems now, so it would not be too drastic of a change if we had to colonize somewhere else. We have two options: either humans become extinct, or we colonize space within the next few hundred or thousand years.