You know how people say that we know less about the ocean than we know about space?
Well, that's a lie. There is clearly way too much to know about space.
Except the point isn't that we know a smaller percentage about the ocean than we do of space, but that we have less information on the ocean than space.
We know very little about the oceans, but what we do know might make up 2% of all there is to know.
We know a lot about space, but what we do know might make up 0.000000001% of all there is to know.
But we still know more about space than the oceans.
Actually once space travel is perfected we will be able to claim resources from other planets.
Eventually all resources on earth will dry out. We can only drill earth so much.
You know there is a planet that is 90% diamond? We could claim that planet and then instead of using diamonds for stuffty jewelry we can use them for something actually useful.
When space travel is 'perfected' it will probably be hundreds or even thousands of years from now.
There are only 3 rocky planets in the Solar System that we can even land upon.
Venus' atmosphere would currently crush/destroy most things we would be capable of sending. We couldn't mine it.
Mercury is so unbelievably hot and cold that we'd struggle to mine it too.
Mars is in a good position, and we are trying to get there, but for the meanwhile, it is just to colonise and to research the planet.
Maybe we could go to the several interesting rocky moons within the solar system, but they provide their own challenges, and don't have all that much benefit (Maybe Titan would be good, since it has a some methane in its atmosphere, and hydrocarbon lakes which in essence means a planet with fuel).
The next nearest planets in remotely safe locations (meaning it's close to a star, and therefore not at a temperature close to 0K) are in solar systems far away.
The nearest star is 4.24 light years away, and it doesn't even have any gas giants. We don't yet have the technology to determine if there are any rocky planets that would be useful for gathering resources.
At any rate, we'd have to first develop a way to travel anywhere close to the speed of light.
If we could get to even half the speed of light, then it would still take 16 years for a round trip, not including the time it takes for mining whatever resources we are after.
If we wanted to find useful resources for humanity, we'd be unwise to completely ignore the Ocean, when we're currently stuff out of luck if we want anything from other worlds.
Also the dangers with deep, deep undersea exploration is much higher. We don't know what the forget is down there for one, there could be an undiscovered species of aggressive megalodon sharks we don't know about.
*We don't know if life is out there on other planets yet but the chances of finding life is lower than finding a man hungry giant shark in the deep ocean.
Also the slightest crack could implode a damn submarine at that depth.
It's also easier to build oxygen support on another planet on land than it is under water.
There couldn't be super aggressive giant sharks down there, because massive rigid structures can't survive at the extreme pressures down there.
Not to mention that the sparsity of oxygen makes it difficult for large organisms to exist. Hence the fact that at the deepest parts of the oceans, the largest creatures are things like jellyfishes which don't require oxygen for all of their body.
Even the 'big' creatures down there, the largest carnivores, like the Vampire Squid, are only 30cm long.
There are Cod that are bigger than that.
There's also no chance of a slight crack happening in a submarine at extreme depths, unless they pilot directly into a bit spiky rock at high speed.
Deep-sea submarines have steel hulls that are 2.5 inches thick and can withstand pressures of at least 16,500 pounds per square inch.You're suggesting that we would be needing to produce oxygen underwater too. Are you talking about us colonising the deep sea, or just visiting it in submarines?
If it's the latter, then they bring hours of oxygen down with them.
If it's the former, we wouldn't be bothering to do it anyway, and if we were, we would just pump it down from the surface.
Believe it or not but water is also a resource. We cannot reproduce water, we will run out of water some day.
Uhh, only if we are using it in extreme processes that completely remove water.
The large majority of water is simply consumed by people and animals, and excreted back out.
Have you not heard of the water cycle before? We are in no danger of using up all the water in the world.
I've always wondered why we never sent manned missions to other planets. We'd be able to put more than enough food, water, oxygen and other life support neccesities in there to last them maybe even five times the trip planned, and should disaster happen, the astronauts out to have special protocols to deal with that, right? So what's stopping us?
Because it's unbelievably more complex than that.
You need to give astronauts the means to survive on a planet. That doesn't just mean a store of food/water. That means a way of creating more food, and recycling (and hopefully producing) more water.
And there aren't all that many ways of getting astronauts out if things go wrong.
Potentially they could fly back, but that's not a guarantee.
And certainly no one can come to help them, given that they are roughly six months away by means of our current space travel technology.
I don't even know why we haven't turned the moon into an orbital space station yet. I don't see why not.
It's even safer than a regular space station.
It serves no purpose whatsoever. There's nothing on the moon to interest us at the moment.
And it's much more dangerous to be sending ships that have to regularly dock and leave from another heavenly body that has gravity (yes, the moon does have gravity. More than there is on the ISS).
And in the event of a disaster (such as a meteor strike, or a fire), the moon is much farther away from the earth.
It's much more simple for the ISS to evacuate to earth via Soyuz capsules.
Plus the fact that the moon regularly faces away from the sun, meaning temperatures get crazily low.
I remember hearing something or another about NASA having plans to capture an asteroid for mining purposes. Is this true, or am I just talking out of my bum?
There are plans to lasso a passing asteroid, one to see if it is possible, and two to bring it into a safe orbit around the earth so that we can research it.
We wouldn't necessarily be mining it for resources, but rather to see what it contains. Could it contain water, or other useful minerals.
That would be a step towards us being able to mine asteroids.
