Talk:Colonizing Outer Space/Colonization

The use of specie as the singular of species

 * Where the intended meaning is a category of biological classification below genus, the preferred spelling is species. Specie usually refers to money in coin.  The use as a singular for species based upon the misunderstanding of species as a plural form dates from 1617 if not earlier, but species is still the preferred singular according to Mirriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition (c)2007.  So, I will change it back.
 * Fartherred (discuss • contribs) 19:21, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Should the article suggest "small incremental steps"?

 * The suggestion itself implies that saying "small incremental steps" is saying something significant. Some people have taken this idea to mean that having people orbiting Earth in a space station is progress toward economic space colonization, but is it really progress?
 * Solving the problem of establishing economical space colonies is more like navigating a maze full of many dead end passages than it is like walking along a road to a neighboring town. Various tasks must be accomplished before other tasks can be accomplished.  There must be some order to the various efforts for the over-all effort to eventually succeed.  Having people on a space station orbiting Earth can fit into the puzzle by being a step toward traveling to the moon or Mars, but there is no point in people going to the moon or Mars until infrastructure can be established on one of these places to support people on local resources.  Establishing such infrastructure on the moon by remote control devices is certainly easier than sending people and the infrastructure all to the moon in one big series of heavy lift launches.
 * We need someone who can see over the walls of the maze to plan the effort so that we do not end up in a dead end passage. Backing out of one dead end passage after another looking for a route through the maze can be discouraging enough that the problem becomes greater than our abilities.
 * I have the ability to look over the walls of the space colonization maze, so I know how limited the ability is. I do not have sufficient information to analyze the potential for progress for all of the different paths open to us.  If I were in charge of the over-all effort, I would be spending some effort to see how expensive and time consuming some of the problems are so I could better map the strategy for the solution of the complete problem.  Currently my pick of the most productive effort would be landing remote controlled rovers at a lunar pole to see what we have to work with in sufficient detail to make firm estimates of the expense and time required to establish industry there by remote control.  I consider the efforts to have astronauts ready to go to the moon to be decades premature.  Gaining the knowledge that this effort is wasteful by being made in the wrong order is a benefit bought at too great a price.
 * The statement in the article about going out in small incremental steps is too vague and should be removed.
 * Fartherred (discuss • contribs) 11:04, 8 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Ending the section (not article) with "The solution then seems to point to going out in small incremental steps." points to the next section that starts by covering space stations and then then asteroids and the moon before going to other planets.
 * In small incremental steps is how any type of "sensible" colonization is made, note that colonization is not the same as exploration and that we can not colonize what we do not know. There aren't any active colonization plans for the moment, China has the intention of a moon base but not a colony. --Panic (discuss • contribs) 02:07, 9 March 2012 (UTC)