Dearest of the dear reader. I can see you, in my mind's eye (using my mind's monocle). You are a cosmopolitan, sexually-endearing individual, with comely form and sharpest mind. You are the finest catch for miles around. If two of the readers of this blog were to meet, there would probably be some sort of ripping of universal fabric. Fortunately, you are so few that it is unlikely to happen, but it's best to avoid mingling just in case.
Despite all of these magnificent, wondrous and possibly entirely fictitious qualities, there will be some of you, I have no doubt, who do not wish to see the human race investing in space exploration. You are wrong, and I can only apologise on your behalf.
Often described as the 'Final Frontier' (by people who have not seen the mess underneath my bed, or the depths of Jeremy Kyle's ego), space is the vastest, ball-poppingly massive entity, home to some of the most utterly extraordinary and brain-mashingly brilliant occurrences of nature. To say that we ought not explore it is like saying that you should read only one book when sat in a library that stretches to the Moon, or at a magnificent banquet with every possible culinary delight under the Sun, we should stick to water and possibly sucking the waiter's jacket.
But I do not intend to argue for space exploration by detailing the majesty of its possibilities. Instead, I would like to focus on why it would be best for everybody to get the flip off Earth.
We are, frankly, a little like unwelcome houseguests, eating the scones and sipping endless cups of tea while the hosts roll their eyes and look pointedly at their watches, with enough throat-clearing to produce a phlegm reservoir. I shall detail why in a series of steps, in:
Tom Nash's Pragmatic and Utterly Without Fault Argument For Space Exploration
1. Natural resources are running out.
Within recent years, we have become undeniably dependent upon oil. This is the resource we have that is most under threat, for obvious reasons.
Fans of tremendously-acted and extremely long film There Will Be Blood will be familiar with the idea of oil represented by milkshake, and drilling represented by a straw. Now, if you imagine that the world's oil reserves are a milkshake that is replenished at the rate of one drop a year, and that we suck it up at the usual rate of drinking a milkshake, you will see the issue. Oil is not being replaced at anything like the same rate that we consume it. There is not an endless supply - ergo it will one day be used up.
It is, of course, this difficulty of supply that pushes up its cost, making it even more valuable for the companies who can drill it - especially given our dependence upon it. This is why companies like BP are drilling in places like the Gulf of Mexico, where it is difficult and dangerous to obtain oil - because all the easy, safe spots have been sucked dry, like a desert lollipop. And the more that we demand oil, the more dangerous and difficult drilling will become, until it is eventually impossible.
I am focussing on oil because it is the resource that is most in danger of running out, as far as I am aware... but the same issue occurs with any resource formed by compression or decay over great periods of time - which is practically all our resources. Iron, marble, gold and quartz are all in the same boat, just sitting on different decks.
2. The population is expanding.
Look at the below graph:
Based on these data, this is a graph showing human population growth. As you can see, it has expanded enormously in later years. This has occurred as we've discovered medicine, fast transportation to get fresher food to the table, and scientific breakthroughs which have enabled us to live longer, safer lives.
This looks, to me, remarkably like this graph:
This is a graph of a Lenski experiment. The spike occurs when the bacteria evolved to be able to process citrate, as opposed to being restricted to glucose. In other words - when a resource became available in abundance, their population boomed wildly until the citrate ran out, or another resource restriction became critical.
Now, I'm not saying that we are exactly like bacteria. For one thing, we own toothbrushes. But the issue of expanding to fill your resources is not a bacteria-specific thing - it is a life-specific thing.
We have a number of resources propelling our massive population. One is oil - and that will soon run out. But scientific advance is another... and that won't, simply because the number of things yet to discover is colossal.
The population is now stretching our physical resources to breaking point. We could (and really should) switch to renewable resources, but even then, population will continue to grow as medicine improves and better food becomes available more freshly. Space will run out, and we will start to see the knock-on effect on resources we think are as stable as a horse's house - metals, for instance.
So what are the options?
1. Let more people die naturally.
A genuine option, but one which our morality will not allow us. Very few of us are willing to see our families die in pain when life-saving medicines are available.
2. Kill / prevent more people.
Again, another genuine but immoral option. We could pull a Logan's run, selling Grampy off to the glue factory, or put restrictions on the number of children per family. But the former is abhorrent, and the latter is unenforcable without draconian measures with which most people would be very uncomfortable than a dinner guest at the Kilroy-Silks'.
3. Expand to find new resources.
The issue is postponed - perhaps indefinitely - if we create a way to hop from this leaf of the great galactic tree to one next door. Space, as previously mentioned, is cocking enormous. It is essentially an infinite stockpile of flipping everything.
Science fiction has known this for donkeys' ears, but asteroid mining really would be an ingenious solution. There is no reason why, with our best minds put to it, we could not create some way to live on other astral bodies. Or rather, there are loads of reasons why, but chances are that they are eminently surmountable - with time.
This would remove the restriction of space, because we could be more disparate. Furthermore, it would lessen the drain on other resources on Earth. The Earth would be better off, and we would be better off.
Plus, it reduces the odds of extinction. Currently, all our eggs are in one basket - except that planet Earth is the basket, and our eggs are our soft pink little heads. One large meteorite to the chops, and all our known life is down. One planet-wide epidemic, and our chips are lightly battered. The potential for our extinction is enormous when you consider it. But scatter us lightly across the galaxy, and even if one planetsworth succumbs, we live on - which is really all that the genetic imperative demands.
The counter argument often runs: Nash, you bog-goggler, why waste time and money on something future-based when it could be spent helping people who are currently alive, here, today, right flipping now?
My point here is simple - it will take time and money by the buzzardload to establish the technology and ability to explore space to any useable degree. But it's very possibly the only chance for survival that humanity - and our planet - has. And if we don't start now, it may be too late to do so later. If we discover that we only have 20 years left of life, but that the technology and knowledge required to get us off the rock is 50 years away, then all hell will break loose, and we can't do a damn thing about it. If we get boy scouty about it, and are prepared, then the future is bright... for everyone.
Insert penis joke here!
Fun Fake Facts
Justin Timberlake’s smash hit about a Ukrainian waterway, ‘Crimea River’, was mostly misunderstood by his fan base.
A scandal involving people attending a party they were not invited to is known as a crashgate.
In 2004, pomegranates were voted ‘Most Awkward, Rubbish Fruit’, just ahead of invisible oranges and Bananarama.
Despite going for ten years, nobody ever noticed that, due to an administrative error, there were 6 members of 5ive.
Three was considered a ‘magic number’ until 2003, when it was discovered to be doing it with lights and mirrors.
The pi chart was invented in 1932 in Chicago by a mathematically-inclined private investigator named Dick Chartt.
Budget cuts in public spending have led riot police to downgrade '3' from a crowd to company. (by lofty835)
Rescuers waited 1hr for a reply after lowering the phone in chille because miners forgot to dial 9 for an outside line. (by lofty 835)
If you assign a number to each letter (A=1 Z=26 etc.) and multiplied the total digits in Chris De Burgh the answer is 666. (by Waldinho2000)
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