Who would move off-planet?

Talking about the colonization of Ceres, I was wondering who would actually move off planet if it were possible?

I like Earth. Radiation, heat, air and gravity are all handled by extremely reliable systems. Water is abundant. Transportation can be done very efficiently. Greenhouse space is very cheap. Transportation can be very energy efficient on Earth.

I am quite happy with Earth and its resilience, despite what many environmentalists say. Telepresence is somewhat feasible today, so physical location in the solar system is less important than it used to be. I would eliminate the manned space program, but I was VERY surprised with the negative sentiment against Obama's efforts to kill Constellation expressed by non space enthusiasts. Maybe there is interest in the general public for some cost effective manned space action.

I think the operative term is "cost effective".

I would go, but probably only if there was a possibility of getting back to Earth every once in a while on vacation

I think Mars would be ideal, it has low gravity that allows for all kinds of interesting stuff but, I expect, still enough that you could move more or less like you do here on Earth.

I should have used the phrase 'value for their money'. ex: paying the Space Shuttle to put payload into orbit, vs paying a Falcon Heavy to put payload into orbit.

I chose 'in a minute' to reflect that I would duly consider my options before jumping aboard. But likely I would choose to travel and live off-world. Of course, it would be best if I could return to Earth to visit; but the chance to be an explorer would over-rule just about anything else.

I don't know if going back to Earth would be possible. Muscles atrophy in low gravity.

Destination set, Kepler 22b - here we come!

Yeah... only 600 LYs away. It'll only take you a few million years to get there with current technology.

Pack some extra underwear.

Only if my girlfriend were willing to come with me, and the environment would be safe enough to raise a family. I would also need to be able to return the Earth easily.

I'd go if there was a place to go. I'll reiterate, there is no place in the solar system as ideal for us as the one we evolved in. We could make, say Mars, or another planet more hospitable, but my question is, why aren't we doing that here? At the moment, all our our technology seeems to be geared toward messing up the only place we have which is survivable. Start with Earth, it wouldn't take much to get it back on track, and with that experience, we could attempt the global affecting technologies to make Mars liveable. Otherwize, it would be temporary, lasting only until the first colonists arive to indescriminately pollute it.

There's your solution, make better people, then make better planets.

I happen to have a short bucket list, I want to go to orbit. It's also something we could do in our lifetime. The moon, not gonna happen. Mars, not for decades. Terraforming? That will take centuries once we get there. I'm not talking about a Sub-Orbital transatmospheric trajectory, I want Orbit, at least one lap. So far, it's been my life's work, you want something done right...

I think that living undersea near a volcanic heat source would be good training for living for extended time in space. Sealed environment dependent on gathered energy and a artificial ecosystem. But until we come up with a way to travel at near the speed of light....... We would be better off living here... Most places could be explored and possibly mined with robotics and AI. Humans need requirements that machines don't.

Getting a bit closer

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/02 ... ocks_zone/

Tho heavy G and possibly resource poor.

Humanity collectively has become very successful by moulding our local environment to our needs often at the expense of the greater environment admittedly but with 7 times 10 to the 9 of us we seem to do quite well at it. But what we are not any good at so far is large scale controllable manipulation of weather and things like volcanoes, earthquakes etc. Prediction of and defence against their effects is still very much in its infancy. I would much rather live on an O'Neil colony with decent radiation shielding and lots of human designed backup systems including preferably lots of other low population density O'Neil colonies*1 within a reasonable commuting distance than to continue to play the grand game of ultimate Russian roulette*2 with friends and family down here at the bottom of a gravity well every day, with all the single point of failure disasters that could happen to any or all of us at any time.



*1 Preferably not built by the lowest bidder on a government contract.

*2 Admittedly with longer odds than the one in six of an ordinary revolver but if we spot the wrong kind of rock heading our way tomorrow we might briefly realise we are currently playing with an automatic.