Major increase in space exploration could be a necessity.

Imagine its 2059 and the world population has reached what seems to be its peak of a little more than 9 billion. Can the Earth sustain such record capacity without serious catastrophe?

As of 19 July 2009 (UTC), the Earth's population is estimated by the United States Census Bureau to be 6.772 billion. The world population has been growing continuously since the end of the Black Death around 1400. The fastest rates of world population growth (above 1.8%) were seen briefly during the 1950s then for a longer period during the 1960s and 1970s. According to population projections, world population will continue to grow until around 2050. The 2008 rate of growth has almost halved since its peak of 2.2% per year, which was reached in 1963. World births have levelled off at about 134-million-per-year, since their peak at 163-million in the late 1990s, and are expected to remain constant. However, deaths are only around 57 million per year, and are expected to increase to 90 million by the year 2050. Since births outnumber deaths, the world's population is expected to reach about 9 billion by the year 2040.

Wiki

So my question is just that. What is the Earth's breaking point? Could we see the day where it is necessary to truly and whole-heartedly search for sustainable worlds, or better yet make currently inhabitable (moon) places harbor life?

Growth has slowed before, but never stopped. Will it? Can the death rate catch up to the birth rate? Catastrophes will always continue to kill higher numbers of people each time they happen because more people will be in area. It's a simple matter of time. But that number has to surpass the number born, or guess what? Population still increases! (That is, over the coarse of a larger time span)

With the way apartments are springing up, and housing developments are becoming the norm, people are piling more and more into much smaller places. More and more land is cleared each year for just such projects. Something HAS to give, or eventually, there's no land left. We may be able to pack more into smaller areas, but eventually there's no where left to pack. Will we see that day before something even more horrific happens? Or will we just see us get close only to have massive deaths and then restart over again?(this would be considered horrific!)

Let us not forget increase in technology and medical processes! Even though new diseases may arise every day, less some sort of plague, our medical abilities will grow right along with our numbers. So what's our (potential) future? We can either find new innovative ways to populate areas of our planet, or do the same on another. So far, We haven't done much with the first option.

It's an interesting notion to consider. Our Earth is fragile, and albeit it has survived billions of years, never underestimate human potential for destruction. We indeed must care for our home, or move out and find a new one. So, will the day come we must find a new home? Does the NWO plan for population control have merit? Either way, space exploration should be a must, for we know so little of even our own solar system!

Density

Research

I, for one, am not worried at all about over-population. At all. Think of all the land that corporations use for mass farming for profit when that land could be used for smaller, individual farming for our own food. We just need to change the way we live...utilize the space we have and get off our addiction to possesions. A little over-idealistic, but that's just how I think.
I don't doubt at all that there will be another world-wide catastrophy one of these days, but im not so sure if there is anything we could do to stop it.

Old lurker, first post. And that's a S&F. Hope you'll get enough to reach the front page : this topic you bring up clearly is one of, if not the only one direction mankind must consider as for its very next development.

Against any kind of vicious try to simply wipe out some large parts of our common universal brotherhood, the idea of conquerring the new Terra Incognita that outerspace merely represents should bethe very first collective, collaborative, international short-term project officially scheduled for the coming century, say less than a hundred of yrs to get straightly out, and en masse, from this lil'blue marble to seriously get on the long trip right out, one way, straight on.

And yet...

Why still no World Space Agency ?

Why no earthly experimentation like Biosphere shortly was, training vast part of the population to live autonomously within some scientifically managed and informatically controlled environment ?

Why no world-wide wish to conquers the third dimension when all the folks around the world seem so entertained by so many UFO spotted all around the wild wide world ?

Sometimes this world sounds like a joke.

Whose fault, if any ?




[edit on 19-7-2009 by 0123210]

obvious solution is to reduce our population voluntarily.

Going into space is great and all, but let's get real, no one wants to live in a Biosphere on the moon, and we're not gonna be finding any earth like planets nearby by 2050.

Seems a little crazy to keep mindlessly creating more humans, the standard living would be much higher with less people.

I've argued this out in threads like this a million times, still haven't heard a good reason for continuing to mass populate.

Originally posted by liquidsmoke206
obvious solution is to reduce our population voluntarily.

Going into space is great and all, but let's get real, no one wants to live in a Biosphere on the moon, and we're not gonna be finding any earth like planets nearby by 2050.

Seems a little crazy to keep mindlessly creating more humans, the standard living would be much higher with less people.

I've argued this out in threads like this a million times, still haven't heard a good reason for continuing to mass populate.

well..you could cut population growth by letting china put as much deadly pollutants into the air as possible, you can provide weapons so you can let the petty wars in africa continue to kill hundreds of thousands of its own people, you can have the muslims continue to kill each other because of some small differences in their religions, you can continue to advertize heavily to feed people in america foods that cause heart attacks and strokes, you cut health care as much as possible for the most people that you can politically get away with........oh that's already happening...sorry

reply to post by jimmyx


I believe that most of the issues you have listed are the result of overpopulation...
And those issues are hindering our efforts to colonize out space.

reply to post by liquidsmoke206


I agree, we just keep poppin out more and more children. Reminds me of the Korn video for the song evolution! If any one saw it...

And there's more to it than just space for all of us, as you said, the standard of living, employment opportunities, places to grow food as opposed to creating it in a lab.....

But it just seems we've ignored outer space for far too long. Sure, we took a brief interest back in the Kennedy day's, but that spark seems lost now. We will learn one day IMO, something will make us look 'up' instead of just 'forward' with our everyday lives.

reply to post by 0123210


Absolutely, why are we lacking in the UFO or space interest as a nation? There's so much more to 'life' than our jobs and television re-runs.

It does seem a bit fishy that, as a nation collectively, since the days of racing to the moon, it's almost like our government "forgot" about space. Of course we have little tidbits of exploration and government projects, but Earth to me seems pretty much explored. Imagine the rewards for finding extraordinary things beyond this world? WHY is that not an issue? If we went to the moon thirty years ago, why haven't we done MORE? Was that the ultimate goal?

reply to post by Karrotz


well, we're sending people into space on a regular basis. I think we're making progress in space, just maybe a little slow for most people's tastes. True we haven't gone to mars, but I don't think people realize how huge of a task that is.

The real problem isn't that we're not doin enough in space, but theres a lack of interest by the general public, astronauts should be semi celebs. No one even knows their names anymore...

I think a little ET disclosure would go a long way, doesn't have to be actually aliens, but anything, some artifact or fossil on the moon or on mars would generate a lot of public interest and really jump start or space programs..