{"id":895,"date":"2016-10-31T11:36:45","date_gmt":"2016-10-31T15:36:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paulgurney.com\/whats_new_blog\/?p=895"},"modified":"2016-10-31T11:36:45","modified_gmt":"2016-10-31T15:36:45","slug":"space-colonization-as-backup-plan-b-or-to-protect-earth-yes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paulgurney.com\/whats_new_blog\/2016\/10\/space-colonization-as-backup-plan-b-or-to-protect-earth-yes\/","title":{"rendered":"Space colonization as Backup Plan B or to protect Earth &#8211; Yes!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ars Technica had an article about Jeff Bezos&#8217; motivations for space rocketry and travel:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/science\/2016\/10\/jeff-bezos-dismisses-idea-of-a-backup-plan-says-we-must-protect-earth\/\">http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/science\/2016\/10\/jeff-bezos-dismisses-idea-of-a-backup-plan-says-we-must-protect-earth\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Bezos dismissed this approach on Oct. 22, during the <b>Pathfinder Awards<\/b> at the Seattle Museum of Flight. In remarks first <a href=\"http:\/\/www.geekwire.com\/2016\/jeff-bezos-space-colonies-oneill\/\"><span class=\"s2\">shared<\/span><\/a> by GeekWire, Bezos said Earth should be zoned as a residential area. &#8220;I don&#8217;t like the Plan B idea that we want to go into space so we have a backup planet,&#8221; he said, noting NASA&#8217;s efforts to send probes throughout the solar system. &#8220;Believe me, this is the best planet. There is no doubt this is the one you want to protect. This is the jewel. We evolved here, we&#8217;re kind of made for this planet. It&#8217;s gorgeous, and we can use space to protect it.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">Humanity has two futures, Bezos said. It can continue to grow, or it can settle into some kind of population equilibrium. As an example of the planet&#8217;s limitations he offered energy as an example. Taking the\u00a0baseline energy use on Earth, and compounding it at 3 percent for 500 years, would require covering the entire surface of the Earth in solar cells to meet the demand by the year 2500. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><span class=\"s1\">&#8220;We need to go into space if we want grow as a species,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Another route would be just to face stasis, but I don&#8217;t think that&#8217;s as interesting. I don&#8217;t think we want to just survive on this planet, I think we want to thrive and do amazing things.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ars Technica had an article about Jeff Bezos&#8217; motivations for space rocketry and travel: http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/science\/2016\/10\/jeff-bezos-dismisses-idea-of-a-backup-plan-says-we-must-protect-earth\/ Bezos dismissed this approach on Oct. 22, during the Pathfinder Awards at the Seattle Museum of Flight. In remarks first shared by GeekWire, Bezos said Earth should be zoned as a residential area. &#8220;I don&#8217;t like the Plan B idea &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/paulgurney.com\/whats_new_blog\/2016\/10\/space-colonization-as-backup-plan-b-or-to-protect-earth-yes\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Space colonization as Backup Plan B or to protect Earth &#8211; Yes!&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space","category-technology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p415hC-er","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulgurney.com\/whats_new_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulgurney.com\/whats_new_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulgurney.com\/whats_new_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulgurney.com\/whats_new_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulgurney.com\/whats_new_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=895"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/paulgurney.com\/whats_new_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":896,"href":"https:\/\/paulgurney.com\/whats_new_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895\/revisions\/896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulgurney.com\/whats_new_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulgurney.com\/whats_new_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulgurney.com\/whats_new_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}