Opportunities For Space Colonization
Human Space colonies do not currently exist. It can be said, however, that humans have had a continuous space presence since 2000 due to the International Space Station. There is concern that the human species may lose its organized societies or its technological knowledge, deplete resources or even become extinct before it colonizes space.
The author Sylvia Engdahl wrote about the "Critical Stage", a period of time when a civilization has both the technology to expand into space and the technology to destroy itself. Engdahl states that the human civilization is at a Critical Stage, but that the funding for space exploration and colonization is minuscule compared to the funding for weapons of mass destruction and military forces. Similar ideas have been discussed in terms of the Fermi paradox and the great filter.
Read more about this topic: Space And Survival
Famous quotes containing the words opportunities for and/or space:
“The American adolescent, then, is faced, as are the adolescents of all countries who have entered or are entering the machine age, with the question: freedom from what and at what price? The American feels so rich in his opportunities for free expression that he often no longer knows what it is he is free from. Neither does he know where he is not free; he does not recognize his native autocrats when he sees them.”
—Erik H. Erikson (1904–1994)
“In the tale proper—where there is no space for development of character or for great profusion and variety of incident—mere construction is, of course, far more imperatively demanded than in the novel.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)