From Stephen Ashworth, Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society
Your feature on population growth and sustainability missed two important issues: the possibility of space colonisation and the likelihood that a medical breakthrough in human ageing could lead to another surge of growth through extended lifespans (26 September, p 34). These are, in fact, closely linked, as the medical problems of life in space are similar to those of old age.
Space colonisation would be far more likely if private companies were to break the global space agency monopoly on crewed space flight. Equally, it will only happen with continued high consumption of the Earth’s natural resources.
If space colonisation becomes possible, then the carrying capacity of the solar system for human and post-human life is clearly many orders of magnitude greater than that of Earth alone, putting the future development of our species into a somewhat different perspective.
In the “Big thinkers, big ideas” section of your “Blueprint for a better world”, I was astonished to read J. Richard Gott lending his name to the notion of colonising Mars (12 September, p 35) when there are other arid and inhospitable areas that could be made habitable more cheaply and safely: the Earth’s deserts.
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Our long-term survival prospects would be more effectively improved by spending money repairing the damage that we have inflicted on the Earth rather than exporting our foolishness to other planets.
Binalong Bay, Tasmania, Australia
Oxford, UK
