Yesterday’s April Fool’s Gag and My Real Thoughts on Space Colonizing

Okay, there is no planned flight to Mars. In fact to my knowledge the United States is largely going the opposite direction in terms of their space program.  That was an April Fool's gag.

That said all the opinions in that post (http://saneinsanities.blogspot.com/2012/04/initial-thoughts-on-uss-decision-to.htm) were real.  People complain about money being spent on space matters when there are immediate concerns (and absolutely more money needs to be spent on current issues; the richest people need to give up more personal money) but people also complain but people making decisions that have short term benefits but which hurt things in the long run. 

I think the decision not to go into outer space is actually one such decision.  We can slow down the damage to the Earth by going to more renewable resources, but even that is something of a "Bandaid solution", albeit one using a better Bandaid than we normally use.  Unless we want to commit genocide on a scale beyond anything we saw during the 20^th century (and that’s way too dark a road to travel), sooner or later we do need to get off the planet.  If not for humans then for all the other lifeforms on this planet that deserve to keep existing.

And if we do manage to reach the stars, just imagine all the discoveries our descendants will make.  Taking to the stars is a scary step and many will want to stay on Earth. I don’t know if even I’d want to travel off planet unless safety levels became comparable to modern commercial airplanes at least.  But if we fear space travel, if we say that space colonizing needs to mbe a low priority given modern day issues, the world may not have a future.  Let’s give our descendants, the the descendants of all other life on the planet, a real chance of having a future of their own!