[ExI] Millions of tons to space

[Ben Zaiboc]

Dan <dan_ust at yahoo.com> wrote:

> 
> You speak as if Earth contained most of the rock and metal
> in the solar system 
> if not the galaxy. There's plenty of rock and metal around
> to play with.
> 
> From: Ben Zaiboc <bbenzai at yahoo.com>
> To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> Sent: Wed, April 6, 2011 9:39:04 AM
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Millions of tons to space
> 
> Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > I can see Earth being a museum piece.
> 
> Permanently lock away all that useful rock and metal, for
> the sake of a zoo for 
> a few primitive biological organisms?
> 
> I think there are probably better solutions.


There was plenty of oil, too, a century ago, yet many people think we're going to run out of the stuff soon.

If we discovered an oil-reservoir-dwelling bacterial ecosystem, I rather doubt it would be widely thought a good idea to preserve a multi-billion-barrel amount of oil under the ground, for the sake of those bacteria.

We would think of a better solution, I'm sure.  We could easily provide for the bacteria *and* still avail ourselves of the bulk of the oil.

Planets are a terrible way to make a habitat (even for biologicals). Wasteful, dangerous, and so difficult to leave, when you want to.  I wouldn't be surprised if there were no bodies larger than a few km in size left in the whole solar system (expect the sun), in a few hundred years.

Ben Zaiboc