The ethics are simple, at least to me. If we find sapient life, then no, they already live there and colonizing would be an act of war. If it's not sapient then it's like discovering new animals, and colonization is fine.

it didn't put emphasis on asteroid mining, no, but asteroid mining would be the easiest and most cost-effective way to meet these goals, so it's highly unlikely that they'll just push it out of mind. the only problem is that it'd be expensive as hell to get started, and nobody wants to take the first step because everybody's afraid it won't work out. they stress the Moon and Mars because that's what everybody (i.e. investors, the general public) wants to hear; nobody's cared about asteroids since Armageddon.

what we need is either a crazy billionaire or another bad movie about asteroids to get them back into the popular consciousness.

I've actually given that some serious thought. If the human race doesn't nuke itself, will the distant future be like that? It would be very interesting. However, the chances of finding a humanoid race of aliens that can understand/learn our language are hysterically low at best. We should start by working on locating those Prothean data banks hidden somewhere on Mars.

Well, if you don't mind, I feel like this debate isn't really going anywhere so I'm just going to "drop out" of it right now. Others can continue with it if they want. :shrug:

Edit: Actually I think I'll just get this topic closed, there isn't much discussion of what I had originally asked anyway.

I think the hard part is finding a cheap way to get people into orbit. Currenmtly we waste craploads of fuel just escaping from Earth' gravity. Maybe what we need is a combination of space guns, skyhooks and space elevators to get stuff into orbit. After that, its just a matter of floating idly into place.

it's all related to your topic, though! extraplanetary orbital colonies are very likely going to be the first step towards a mass migration into space, yes, but that doesn't mean planets are completely ruled out - they're just a horribly inefficient starting point. i exist to crush dreams.

once we're up there with permanent teams devoted to permanent research and building a research outpost on PLANET X is economically feasible and we find extraterrestrial germs then that's when ethics will come into play, which is what this thread is about and we should totally continue it come on

It's nothing that you said, It's just that I just stayed awake all night due to another bout of insomnia and I'm starting to feel the effects (pretty much being too tired to debate or argue).

Everybody can do whatever they want, I'm out for today though. :shrug:

I rather not, with all those long elevator trips and all.

Serious answer: probably not in our generation.

Defiantely not in our generation. Mass Effect takes place abot 150 years in the future, and even that's pushing it, the humans in those games got a huge technology boost from the Prothean artifacts, we're probably not gonna find anything like that any time soon

but the codex entries from ME show that humanity flew to the stars in just a few decades, after they discovered a stash of eezo on mars. It could still happen!

But what would that accomplish? If we terraform a planet at least we can mine for minerals, and have room to expand. If you just make colony pods orbiting the Earth, then you have a lot more things to worry about such as collisions, thrusters, fuel, etc. In the long run, it would be better to colonize Mars or the Moon, than build a space station that will be outdated and probably decommissioned in the future.

Biologically life on other planets is interesting; the question presented is not answerable via yes/no - the question for me would be how human life, earth based plants etc. will be able to interact with this life. It would not be logical to assume the ecosystem would have any relation to that of earth; therefore a safety hazard is raised from any life on a planet, microbial or not. Regarding the ethical question of whether or not we should colonise a planet with a form of life, I would be indifferent to the life form. It would be worth while developing a form of enclosure so we can observe the life/conduct research on them, however whether or not they remain on the majority of the planet I don't see as a problem. It would be best if we could leave a degree of the natural aspect of a planet with life, and integrate (or create human enclosures; ie. self sustained cities), however if this poses a risk to development on the planet I would eradicate then colonise.

Essentially I don't think it would be possible to inhabit a planet with any form of life on it, due to the ecosystem differences and the lack of natural defence.

I honestly dont care if we were to colonize it or not. I actually think it would be cool to have human life outside of earth.



A microbe or bacteria wouldnt care whats going on nor does it care about its future. Its goal is to survive; eat, poop, reproduce, (do bacteria sleep?). I dont think humans should bring said life back to earth though. But really, I dont care what happens to the microscopic organisms we may find. On the other hand, if it were to be a more complex organism such as a plant or fish, it still wouldn't matter if we colonized it or not. Now im not saying purge the planet clean, but I would choose human survival over alien. Im aware making a colony isn't a life or death deal, but a life form is still a life form. A fish on a moon is still a fish, just a new breed of fish.

Hopefully humanity living alongside non-sentient alien life would be pretty easy. Sentient life... depends on them as much as us, really.

I just want to live on Uranus. I don't know if its possible, but I think it'd be cool just saying that.

Simple things for simple people.

Seeing as it's made of gas, I'd say living on the planet itself is a no go. You can't colonize the surface of something that doesn't have a surface

I know there's alien life out there. I also know they're very smart. The reason I know this is because they haven't tried contacting us.

Meh, we will probably kill them with diseases from earth and we would probably die from their diseases.

We want it or not, those planets will be assimilated.

But I would like to see other planets colonized, as long as we behave ourselves there. Plundering planets is not cool. Destroying natives is old. We should merely let the colonies live under our iron boot for a few centuries, let them break off, and start colonizing their own planets. United Provinces of Callisto and such.

Anything living on the moon would not be a fish, since fish are products of the Earth's evolutionary history. Extraterrestrial life would be a totally new strain of life, not a "new species".

FTL travel wouldn't really make plundering necessary. You could just devote entire planets or even systems (Maybe even galaxies, if we advance that far) could be devoted to nothing but agriculture, factories, or shipyards. Of course, this would mean that nothing would be self-sufficient, but it would make it organized and efficient. Naturally, there would be enough fail-safes in place, should a breakdown in the line of transport occur.

That movie was [censored], humans should have won, I hope #2 ends with humans raining down atomic fire on that place.
Anyway, I hope we dont colanise, and that we are all either stuck here permanently or wiped out, mainly because humanity is pretty messed up, either remove the problem or contain it, no need to spread our violence and greed elsewhere.

There is an entire universe out there, and you would rather see us stuck on this one pathetic rock?

So Religion is Unintelligent? :lmao:

If we do find Intelligent Life I would want us to co-op with them. If we didn't though, colonizing on Mars would be very interesting.
I would love to see Humanity expanding through the Galaxy, or failing that our local solar system.

What would this intelligent life be like though? I have always imagined if we or they found aliens, they would be the exact species as us, Human's.
How freaky would that be? :ahhh:

I didn't mean for it to come out like that, honestly. I wanted to stress that religion could get this topic locked and therefore had no place here, and it just so happened to come right after me saying this was meant to be an intelligent discussion. I could edit it, but that would be pointless because quite a few people have already seen it. :shrug: