[ExI] Space governance

[Ben Zaiboc]

On 25/09/2020 18:55, Adrian Tymes wrote:
>  I was thinking about this very topic just yesterday.

The thing that immediately occurs to me is how much it would cost 
(energy, not necessarily money) to put even just 20k biological humans 
into space in the first place. I don't see a sizeable off-planet 
population of humans-as-they-are-now ever being plausible. The only 
scenario where that might be possible, I think, is where a small 
off-planet population grows thorough reproduction (even then, there are 
immense problems that might just be unsolvable), but I don't see how 
anyone can think that large populations of humans can be lifted off the 
planet. Just do the maths. How much energy does it take to put 100kg 
into orbit? How much mass would be needed to launch and support a single 
human? The amount of energy it takes doesn't change, no matter what 
technology you use, so how could millions of people ever get into space?

I'm not talking about transmitting uploads, of course. That changes the 
picture completely.

-- 
Ben Zaiboc