This is the last part of three in our series “Why Do We Need Robots?”. The goal is to highlight the major reasons why robotics will be part of our future, and an essential one, by looking a bit further.
While the democratization of robots is rendering them more and more present in our daily live
I disagree, the logic in this article is flawed.
The logic used is this:
At least the first 2 assumptions can be debated, and therefore the conclusion is not a very good one either.
Sending robots for space exploration is common sense. Just giving up on Earth is not, that is stupidity. The idea that “we” can leave Earth seems ridiculous, there is no way to just pick up civilisation from earth, put all the people elsewhere and just keep on living. There’s just to many of us to move everyone to Mars in giant space-ferries. And not everyone will want to. You can’t save everyone. You can only create new colonies. Which is fine, spreading the risk seems like a good tactic. But we might just be creating a new enemy who can fire nukes at Earth because “hey, we don’t suffer the consequences of their fallout!”. And we will of course fire nukes back. The chance of interplanetary war within a thousand years of the first colony seems way higher than that of a “Yucatan”-sized asteroid hitting earth in that time.
Earth is a fine planet, it is home and we should stop destroying it rather than continue burning it full speed ahead and assume things will be better when we get to “the other side”. Especially since you don’t know when the event will happen; there is no real need to leave for some other planet right now and no guarantee that the other planet is not going to get struck first. I might just take my chances here rather than get into a metal container that I will be stuck in for months or years with all kinds of insufferable, selfish idiots. We all die someday, it’s not like dying in a metal box in space is better than dying on a planet.
Hi Jacco,
Thanks for reacting to our post!
Even if we’re not talking about asteroids, climate change, overpopulation, wars, or any other apocalyptic scenario, we can agree that our planet will die one day. And if humanity survives until then, leaving will be non-optional.
Leaving doesn’t always mean going on another planet. It could also be living in space stations.
Setting up an extra-terrestrial colony is not a small effort. In fact, it’ll the largest ever undertaken by humanity. We’re not talking about next year nor the next decade, but further.
Thus, it’s important to start as early as possible to progressively have people settling on another planet.
The idea is not to move everybody all at once in giant space arks. But rather start making another planet habitable and offer people the option to start a new life there.
I don’t see why people on two planets would want to be at war with each other. Especially since there wouldn’t be any competition for territory or resources (as each planet would have its own).
We can all agree that we should stop destroying our planet. But we can do that, and find a way to settle on another one. And offer that option for those who’d like to leave.
Let me know your thoughts!
honestly i do agree with Jacob, i do agree that our planet will die one day but so will our species. we species wise aren’t immortal all of our findings research inventions will all be dust one day to. we need to focus on saving the planet we were born on instead of putting so many eggs in one basket that isnt even a sure thing, but hey we know we have an effect on the planets environment and we know therefore we can help fix it. i do think interstellar travel in the long run is a good thing but if we cant even save our own world and ensure the survival of the animals and plants that live beside us then we might as well as not try at all same issues with survive on a different world.
Hi Floyd,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I totally agree that we can’t just go and ruin another planet and trying to become a multi-planetary species shouldn’t prevent us from saving Earth.
But this in itself shouldn’t prevent us from looking to settle on another planet either 
Best,
