Is this blog a space blog?

So far there has been over 300 posts on this blog.  Nearly 100 of those classified under "Space Stuff".  If it isn't a space blog, it is getting close to being one.  Yet I didn't start out with that intention.

I suppose everything has its start in an inspiration.  That inspiration in the case of this blog would be "Mining The Sky".  From that book, I concluded that whatever problems we may be facing here on Earth, there is a solution for it in space.  Let's be clear on one thing:  that statement is mine, not John S. Lewis'.   He merely points to the resources that are available in space.  I have taken it one step further.

For those who believe overpopulation is a major problem, there is plenty of room in space.  People may laugh at that.  How can anyone live in space?  Well, there are those who believe we can.  Even though I haven't studied the idea for very long, I think this is true.  After all, what does it take to survive?  Food, shelter, clothing.  All of these can be found or made in space.  Problems of survival can be solved in space as they are solved on the ground.  Therefore, the possibilities of large numbers of people living "off world" is not at all farfetched.  It may well be the solution for our problems with this phenomenon.

Global warming?  Same story.  There is plenty of energy in space which can be beamed back to Earth.  It would be renewable and available.  The trouble with solar energy on the ground is that the sun doesn't shine all the time.  But it does in space.  There are logistical problems in setting up such a system, but these may be overcome if there was an intention to actually solve the problem this way.  Perhaps it is thought to be too expensive.  Yet, name one technology that wasn't expensive in the beginning.  The only thing lacking is a foothold.

The unique thing about getting that foothold is that it already exists, yet gets thrown away every time something has to come back down.  The amount of fuel required to escape the deep gravity well of the Earth makes up 95 percent of the weight of a rocket.  If that "launch problem" can be solved,  space colonization and commercialization won't be far behind.  To solve the launch problem, you have to minimize the number of launches, in my opinion.  That means, whatever goes up, stays up.  Sending stuff back down just wastes all that fuel expended in order to get something up in the first place.  But I digress, let's move on.

Overpopulation and resource competition lead to wars.  If you don't believe in the first two instances as problems or causation of problems, the third one is an undeniable one.  Does that mean that space colonization can lead to peace?  It may, in my opinion, if it eases the pressures of those other two phenomena.  Based upon what's available in space, if we would actually look there, there would seem to be little reason to fight over scarce resources.  There is an abundance in space that is truly mind boggling.  People don't fight wars over the air we breathe.  If everything that people needed were in that abundance, what reason would anyone have for wars?

Not only fewer or no wars, but the probability of the survival of the species would be enhanced if space were colonized.  One of the functions of a permanent presence in space would be in stopping extinction events that periodically visit the Earth from asteroids.  If the asteroid was big enough, it could wipe out all life on Earth.  Now if people lived off the Earth, if such an event did occur, life could go on somewhere else.  Instead of space being seen as a useless waste of resource, it should be seen as a vital necessity.  It may well be possible that everything may depend upon it.

This may not be a space blog yet, but it may be getting there.