Vacation in a Space Station

Jennifer Hanchette


Overpopulation.


When you truly think about it, this has to be one of the largest and most challenging environmental issues caused by man. Our obstacle is ourselves, ethics, research, and our overall advancement in society. Furthermore for us humans to continue researching how to better our planet, we need more time, effort, and resources which can include tearing other habitats apart for our metropolitan jungles. This brings us back to this very moment in time; we are depleting Earths resources - renewable and nonrenewable - and fast. We need 4 Earths to sustain the average US citizen. 4.8 For Australians. 5.1 for Kuwaitis. the further down the list we go, the clearer the image becomes; Earth won't be able to sustain this aggressively massive, self-aware life form for much longer.


Humans are in fact, dangerous to Earth.


A lot of this is due to our invasive-like nature and overall greediness for resources, but our consumptive, wasteful nature tops overpopulation. If we do hit 11 Billion people on earth, we could completely wipe out nature itself. On top of that, we don't even know Earth's human carrying capacity! It wouldn't be a far our guess to believe we are coming closer and closer to its limit every year, however. So, why don't we take humans and just push them somewhere else?


Pictured above: The graph shows a prominent S curvature, implying we should mellow out at about 11 Billion, but there's always outlying factors. (Baby booms, diseases, etc.)

Remember when a majority of your friends sent this link to you so you could possibly be sent to Mars in 2020? We all thought we were going to be the next Neil Armstrong; even though we were all underaged with zero experience about space. The most we knew was that there were planets that were (maybe) like more than a 100 feet away, Polaris was that big star at night, and that the sun was really, really hot. Perhaps it was as hot as the oven; but we couldn't know that. How would you feel if you knew that in approximately 10-15 years that it's a possibility?
Image result for Mars one
Pictured above: The idea of a one way trip to mars by NASA. The most notable leap of research to colonize Mars however is made by Mars One.


Well, the child in me went nuts that's for sure. As of February 11th, 2019 there are currently 3 astronauts living in space. You can track who is living in the space station anytime here. The international space station has a volume of a five bedroom house (or two Boeing 747 Jetliners) with the ability to support a crew of 6 people, plus visitors. Now, I know what you're thinking, but these people are ongoingly living in space, which is a vital step to create a fully functional society outside the bounds of Earth. Exciting, right?


Image result for the international space station

Pictured above: The international Space station and all its space-tacular glory.
.

Well, now it's time for the largest rainstorm of all of this galactic parading; money. The international space station has a total cost of 150 billion US dollars , only to house 6 crew members. (The ISS has been in space since 1998 and this is the total cost added up to 2015.) 18 years of manning the ship with supplies and people, which roughly costs more than $8 billion a year to maintain! However, the space station's main goal is used for research and work towards NASA's future expeditions, which is why it's so costly. Mars One, on the other hand, estimates bringing the first humans into space will cost 6 Billion US dollars (including hardware, supplies, etc. with margins.) Every next manned mission would be about $4 Billion. Below are cost breakdowns of the Mars One missions.

Current Cost Breakdowns 
US$ 450 mil for the first unmanned Mars lander mission
US$ 425 mil for the communications satellite
US$ 900 mil for the first rover mission
US$ 2,300 mil for all remaining outpost hardware and supplies before the human mission 
US$ 1,250 mil for sending the first crew to Mars
US$ 582 mil for operations, including astronaut selection and training
US$ 93 mil for ground stations and other costs
US$ 1,850 mil per year for follow-up human missions

So do you think this possibly is out of this world or otherworldly? How can we save our crumbling Earth from resource depletion? Is it worth it to put more resources and money into exploring space or are there some other ways we could deal with overpopulation in a morally correct way?


Sources not previously linked:
https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/features/nasa-knows/what-is-the-iss-58.html
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration/International_Space_Station/Building_the_International_Space_Station3
https://aeon.co/ideas/the-earths-carrying-capacity-for-human-life-is-not-fixed

Comments

Anonymous said…
This possibility is definitely out of this world. As you said, so many people were excited of the potential to go to space. But just imagine how scary it would be. You would be almost isolated from the “mainland,” or Earth, for a very long time. Food would not be fresh, and exploring the unknown can be scary. We can save our Earth from resource depletion by cutting down on usage of resources, reducing reliance on resources, and reusing resources. While this may seem like a daunting task, it is achievable if we show others this kind of information. We could potentially place money into putting people into space, but only a handful of the population could be chosen. Mars isn’t habitable currently for over 100 people. It will take time to figure out how to send mass number of people to Mars, but we can focus on efforts to reduce resource depletion from Earth right now.
February 12, 2019 at 8:34 AM
Anonymous said…
I feel as if we should resolve issues on Earth before we decide to go and exploit the planets in space. We really don’t know how us on another planet may alter the planet and ourselves. Our earth is in fact overpopulated and another planet seems like a dream. Sending scientists there would reveal so much that we don’t know and it would be like starting over with a different Earth—- Mars. We can only hope that the Earth has a higher carrying capacity for humans, but if we do reach the capacity a lot of lives may be jeopardized by Earth not being able to support all of human life. We may need to limit the number of children people can have, but not to an extreme extent. If a women naturally has like quintuplets or any amount in one pregnancy it should be okay to keep the children. People just need to be more aware that having less children will result in better chances of survival. I think exploring space is very worth it and something that can make or break our survival.
February 12, 2019 at 11:51 AM
Anonymous said…
Moving to mars would definitely be interesting considering the fact that the Earth’s population is continue in to rise. In my opinion, creating a “second Earth” would definitely be life changing and completing this task would be truly historical. However, a part of myself feels as though humans are not supposed to be living on other planets. Apart from my personal beliefs about moving out of earth, I believe that if living on the Mars is possible, people should try to make it happen. However, I also believe that in a way, if life cannot be supported and mars is not an option, humans should simply stay on earth and look for ways to lessen reproduction rather then go out of space to look for options. Earth is full of life and unique from other planets. We as humans should do our very best to keep it healthy.
February 13, 2019 at 11:03 AM
Anonymous said…
As cool as it sounds, space travel seems doesn’t seem to be able to be achieved in the next couple of years. Like Anshul said, Mars can’t hold thousands of people and we haven’t completely figured out the logistics of transporting people and supplies to mars regularly and then being able to sustain a population that is extremely far from the mainland. Going to mars is a tantalizing offer and flashy for sure. But, it is scary knowing your family, friends, and normal comforts are gone. Living from shipment to shipment knowing a shipment of supplies could be lost in space and there isn’t anything you could do about it. For space travel to happen, I think more research needs to happen and more planning as well. We don’t know a lot and to eliminate the unknown and make this transition to mars successful, knowledge is needed.
February 13, 2019 at 11:20 AM
Anonymous said…
I think that this would be a very interesting and amazing thing to do if it could be pulled off, but as humans, we could not survive on another planet. We are fit for earth and the cost of making it possible to even survive on another planet would be huge. Not to mention, we would probably destroy that planet too. Also, we do not have the technology to pull off something like this anytime soon. We would have to learn to live a completely different way to make use of the environments there. I think this would be just giving up on earth. We should work together to take steps to save our planet. We can live more responsibly and we can work together which would be easier and cheaper than taking on this feat.
February 13, 2019 at 2:46 PM
Anonymous said…
I feel like this possibility is definitely too good and too far-fetched to be true. Say, even if we did get stable technology that would be able to repeatedly transfer humans to other planets, what’s to say that people would do it? Some crazies will pay exorbitant prices to go live on another planet, sure, but a majority of people would be too scared to. People are afraid to leave everything they’ve known their whole lives behind and simply travel to another planet. We have become so adapted to Earth that there is absolutely no point in colonizing another planet unless absolutely necessary. I think the real way to go is to strive for a planet that runs on renewable energy and doesn’t need to rely on fossil fuels that much. The planet should work together to create a better living situation for every individual across the world. Going to a different planet is simply a waste of time, money, and common sense.
February 13, 2019 at 6:28 PM
Anonymous said…
The idea of people moving away from earth to Mars is a very interesting prospect, but it is not very realistic. Not only would it be extremely expensive, but I don't think many people would be willing to leave to comforts of their home to adventure to another planet. Also, as you mentioned, we currently only have 3 people living in space, which tells me that we are a long way away being able to house a sizable population away from earth. The earth is definitely on a dangerous path because people live so unsustainable, but we are still a long way away from facing a disaster because of it. If people and countries find a way to switch to using renewable resources and start living more sustainably, we will have no need to leave earth.
February 13, 2019 at 9:23 PM
Anonymous said…
I agree, as I think it would be so interesting to see the creation of a civilization on mars, but with the problems you mentioned, like cost and willingness, were gonna have to waif a few years even after we gain the necessary technology needed to embark on a journey like this. I also agree with the fact that there is still time to stop the fast deterioration of Earth's resources. If we switch to more renewable resources, then we wouldn't need to pour money into taking the population to Mars.
February 14, 2019 at 8:23 AM
Anonymous said…
I think that in order for living in space to be feasible, there needs to be a lot more research and preparation. It seems like a great idea on paper, but in reality, it’s somewhat impractical. The costs and necessary equipment would be very high, and we have no examples or anything to compare it too. The idea of the unknown has always been something intriguing to humans, but it often brings many consequences as well.
February 15, 2019 at 10:20 AM
Anonymous said…
Moving our population to another planet or to space seems like an amazing idea, but there are so many things that need to be done before we can start to. Moreover, I think our money is better spent on saving this world rather than moving to a new one. We can put our time and effort towards not depleting our little remaining resources. We should turn to renewable and sustainable practices to keep the world the way it is now. Even better would be to reverse the damage we’ve done to make the world better and restore it to the way it was meant to be. However, if this isn’t possible, then space travel and inhabiting another world is probably our best chance at sustaining the human population and keeping humanity alive.
February 15, 2019 at 1:26 PM
Anonymous said…
The idea is something that catches the eyes of many as a way to escape the deteriorating Earth but soon it’ll be a Wall-E situation in which we focused all of our resources and money for something that is beyond and leave the planet to a garbage dump essentially. Although it is becoming a necessity to go somewhere else because we’re not doing much to reverse the damage the Earth is sustaining, we should allocate more of the money being put forth for Mars to fixing the issue. Maybe in a few decades after we bring the Earth back to it’s former glory and sufficient research has been done on the feasibility of the human population to migrate to Mars then we can continue with our pursuits for interplanetary living.
February 17, 2019 at 7:42 AM
Anonymous said…
Although we are progressing in this field of work, I don’t believe that it would be possible for all the people in the world to live in space. Besides the uncocievable amount of money that would be needed to support over 7 billion people, the longevity of resources would run out. The current individuals living in space have to come back to Earth to resupply on resources, so in order to live in space permanently, this issue would need to be resolved. However, this circumstance is much more extreme and unnecessary than what it would take for us to simply save the Earth. Governments could start enforcing laws that protect wildlife and natural resources, switching to forms of energy that don’t deplete these non renewable resources. Additionally, citizens can make small shifts in their lives (such as recycling and minimizing waste) to help the Earth.
February 17, 2019 at 1:53 PM
Anonymous said…
I think that while we think we can solve our worlds problems simply by leaving, we would be making a mistake. Mars does not have a biosphere at all, and is in no way suited for life. We have no idea how we or other plant and animal species would interact there, and what mutations could occur. I think a better use for that money would be to help solve our worlds environmental problems, so we can keep it from ending up like mars, a barren wasteland.
February 17, 2019 at 5:13 PM
Anonymous said…
I think it is worth living on another planet if it is possible. It is another option to possibly save the Earth from totally falling apart. There will definitely be a lot of money and resources spent for such a big project, but if it does work out it will be worth it. Also, there are several people saying that by doing this, it will beg just abandoning our Earth and leaving all the waste we created behind. However, I believe that there can be positives. Just because some people are moving to a different planet doesn’t mean people on Earth can’t help the environment. It will decrease the waste created while still cleaning our environment.
February 18, 2019 at 9:44 AM
Anonymous said…
I don't think that the first step to solving overpopulation should be moving to another planet. We should try to preserve our home planet. China implemented a one-child policy to control their population growth. Although that isn't a realistic law in the western world, there are ideas related to it. Families with fewer children could be given tax breaks or other benefits. Living on Mars sounds like a dystopian dream, but I think it should be the last resort.
February 18, 2019 at 11:54 AM
Anonymous said…
I think leaving the planet is not the ideal situation right now. The smartest idea would be to try and preserve Earth rather than to try and escape from it. Trying to move our whole population out of Earth and into space is not very realistic. Rather than wasting our time and money on that idea, we should be looking for problems to try and resolve the issues we have on this planet. We should start implementing more sustainable techniques into our daily lives in order to make this planet more liveable and ideal for our population and species.
February 18, 2019 at 12:04 PM
Anonymous said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
February 18, 2019 at 3:15 PM
Anonymous said…
I never thought overpopulation would be such an overlooked issue. While exploring space and other planets seem like a good idea at first, I strongly believe that we should try to fix our problems here on earth and find alternate resources to stop overconsumption. Millions of people living in space does not seem like a possibility, as we do not have the technology and resources to support that kind of living situation. I think our money will be better spent saving Earth rather then venturing into uncharted territory. Some solutions could be enacted by the government, possibly enacting laws that conserve wildlife and switch to renewable sources of energy for various things to stop overconsumption. Moving to space is highly far-fetched and would not help Earth’s current situation because of the expenses and time put into that instead of Earth.
February 18, 2019 at 3:48 PM
Anonymous said…
As many other people have said, we need to attempt to fix our issues on Earth before we venture out to other planets. Although it is very well possible to travel to Mars and establish society there, I believed that we need to exhaust our efforts on fixing Earth first. While it may seem like an impossible task, science is constantly evolving and coming up with solutions that may remedy this overconsumption. Better farming techniques and technology can come about and help us with food issues, and we can be more considerate about the space we take up. Instead of spending all of this time and money on space travel and research, we should use it to fix the problems we have on Earth. Only when all of our efforts have failed should we look into colonizing Mars and other planets, as right now it is extremely expensive and time-consuming to do so.
February 18, 2019 at 3:50 PM
Anonymous said…
Going out of space would definitely be a possibility for our future, however I believe there are better things that we must do before thinking of leaving Earth. I believe that simply starting a new planet fresh would be a good idea but it would take significant amount of time, money, and effort. So, instead of going out and trying to start a new living, why don’t we just concentrate on recovering Earth and making it a clean and great place to live? Although it would be hard for us to turn things back to normal, I believe if we put the same effort of discovering a new planet into attempting to recover the Earth, we could live for a longer time. In order to do so, I think we must educate ourselves first because once everyone knows how significant and urgent the problem is, we would all be willing to fix the environmental issues with significant efforts.
February 18, 2019 at 4:19 PM
Anonymous said…
Life on another planet seems like an intriguing idea and although it’s interesting, I don’t think this is where our priorities should be. I believe that before we start trying to figure out the logistics of life on another planet, we should work on fixing our current planet. The amount of money that is put into these projects could be better spent finding solutions to the problems that are driving people into space. It seems far too expensive and unrealistic to try and move the population to Mars or any other planet. It would be far too costly and until Earth reaches the point of no return, I don’t think it’s necessary.
February 18, 2019 at 6:16 PM
Anonymous said…
Despite the fact it's a big cliche in science fiction, it's a lot easier to fix whatever mess we made on Earth than to pack our bags and mess up another planet. Yes, eventually humans will become extinct, if not on this planet, then on another. A far cheaper, more efficiently, slightly horrible method of decreasing overpopulation is creating one child policies, like China. Or, eventually there'll be a nuclear holocaust. And while that's happening, scientists are producing more sustainable methods, like solar energy in place of fossil fuels, and better farming methods. Overpopulation won't ever be a problem.
February 18, 2019 at 11:18 PM
Anonymous said…
I think we must first take care of our planet first before we look at the others. The earth has the resources we need we must learn to use them efficiently. If we don’t succeed after great efforts is when we must look at other planets. It is more efficient and less costly to solve the problems we have rather than others.
February 19, 2019 at 10:20 AM
Anonymous said…
Before anything else we do, as a collective the planet needs to do what it can to preserve itself. Humans are the main cause for its destruction thus we must be the ones to fix. There are alternatives to saving the Earth and solving the overpopulation crisis than resorting to populating mars. Rather than spending money and funding on ways to explore mars, it would be a far better alternative to fund education in third-world countries as the probability that a genius is born out of these countries and finds a solution to our current crisis is probably higher than finding a way to explore Mars. Thus, what is the better, more humane, and more logical option is to avert from populating Mars and focus more on the planet we live on.
February 19, 2019 at 12:11 PM
Anonymous said…
While the idea of space travel may seem interesting, it is an extremely unrealistic solution. As we learned, our population will eventually stabilize as we reach Earth’s carrying capacity, and the reason it hasn’t happened yet is because we keep creating inventions that allow for more and more population growth. We are depleating resources fast and becoming over crowded, but the key to fixing this issue isn’t to flee Earth and do it all again on another planet, but rather to become environmentally sustainable. We need to focus our energy on conserving the planet we already have rather than destroying another. Even if we decided to move to another planet, by the time we had enough technology and energy our resources would most likely already have run out, leaving us to go extinct.
February 19, 2019 at 1:45 PM
Anonymous said…
Before we consider going into space, we should worry about our own planet for now. It is ridiculous that the average American citizens day to day life takes up four earths in energy. We need to focus on demographic issues such as overpopulation. A lot of countries in Asia are overpopulated and have enacted policies to combat against it, specifically China, but we need to realize that with how over populated the world is, soon enough we will not be able to sustain ourselves environmentally. After we learn to sustain resources on Earth, I think humans will be able to go to space. The idea of space is so exciting because currently, a human is in total isolation when traveling in space. If we end up going to Mars, this isolation will drag on for several years.
February 19, 2019 at 3:30 PM
Anonymous said…
The fact that we think about people going to Mars and such sounds fun and interesting but is also very expensive. So although the idea of space travel may feel amazing, it is very unrealistic in the real world. As we focus mainly on our own planet, to save us from resource depletion, we can try to use more solar energy and limit our waste. These are factors of our current problem, overpopulation. It is not worth putting more money and resources into exploring space when we should deal with the current issues because it is not like we are going to move there. We just need to implement more sustainable ways for everyone so that we can solve our own problems first rather than exploring ways to avoid them.
February 19, 2019 at 6:43 PM
Anonymous said…
Resource depletion on Earth should be seen as an issue before sending people into space, which is an extremely futuristic thought. The idea itself is appealing, but the future may be grim for people spending their days in space. Our call to action should be about environmental sustainability because our Earth should always be our first priority. A big problem facing us now that would give initiative to the space shuttle project is the threat of severe overpopulation. Overpopulation is looming over us as the Earth can not hold as many people as we would think. However, this is yet another call to action for us rather than problem to avoid.
February 20, 2019 at 7:22 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What's the deal with airline food?

Image
Paula Cao You ever notice how airline food tastes like your dentist's waiting room floor? You have your little bowl of pasta, and it looks like they fished it out your sink drain. And you can't bring food onto the plane, so you're stuck with either hours of not eating the food or hours of wishing you hadn't eaten the food. And they spend half an hour pushing the little cart and blocking the aisle so you can't get to the bathroom, which strangely enough, smells exactly like what you just ate. But even worse than eating airline food (hard to believe) is the waste airline food generates. The last time I was on a plane, I had two meals. Everything was individually wrapped: the bread, the main course, two sides, even the Kit-Kat bar that was already in a wrapper. Everything came in these plastic containers. Seems like a ton of waste. Every tray of food brought onto the plane is thrown away, even if no one eats it (due to health concerns), which is quite wasteful....
Read more

What We Can Recycle

Image
Ryan Oh Recycling. An option that all of us can directly take that, supposedly, shouldn’t be very hard to do. I mean, so often we are told to recycle what we can, but of those times how many resulted in the recycling of un-recyclable items? Yes, recycling technology has been improved upon, and now we have a wider array of recyclable options, however there are still many items that are thought to be recyclable but are not. For example, plastic bags. Yes, these can be recycled it’s just how we recycle them. By gathering recyclables in plastic bags or recycling the baggies in general, we cause problems for recycling equipment resulting in jams, contamination of paper bales, and interference in compost facilities. What we can do to prevent plastic bags from becoming our demise is to give them to recycling programs that focus exclusively on them. Oftentimes, grocery stores offer plastic bag pick-up and drop-off programs. If you don’t have such a grocery store near you, keep a bag collec...
Read more

Land Pollution Is Not The Solution

Image
Rishit Podder Land Pollution We talk about water and air pollution all the time but land pollution as well as a big impact on the environment as it is continuously polluted and vulnerable. Land pollution simply means degradation of the earth’s surface as a result of human activities like mining, littering, deforestation, industrial, construction and agricultural activities. Land pollution can have a huge environmental impact in the form of air pollution and soil pollution which in turn can have an adverse effect on human health. There are many causes of land pollution, but the main concern is deforestation and soil erosion. Deforestation results in dry land which mean that it can never be fertile again. The problem with that is that the land will eventually become unstable for farming and other crops. In addition, the land will also become polluted by heavy metals such as lead and mercury. It is estimated that over 50 percent of all earth's surface water has been polluted b...
Read more