The Bell Nucleus 2017-2018 BN Jan 2018 Issue | Page 7

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Conditions on Earth pose a great threat to the future of our species, but
investment in space promises to both alleviate all problems and generate great
economic and social improvements on our home planet now and for
generations to come.
brate life.
human race has only had one place to call
The overwhelming power we wield
home: Earth. Life originated on this tiny over the future of our shared home is why
blue dot, evolved and grew here, and has many prominent figures of our day urge us
continued to stay tethered to the Earth. Hu- to branch out to different planets: We can-
mans appeared some several millennia ago, not hope for unanimous international coop-
and subsisted as a rather insignificant spe- eration to counteract the damages of over-
cies of hunter-gatherers for 98% of their en- population. Rather, inhabiting other planets
tire time on the planet. The last 2% was the would serve as an insurance against catas-
advent of agriculture and civilization, and trophe and relieve the environmental stress
humanity’s rise to global domination. How- of a greater population. Even if the worst-
ever, ever since that rise to preeminence, case scenario became a reality on Earth, hu-
the environment and well-being of the man civilizations on other planets would be
Earth has become increasingly precarious. able to forge onward, and perhaps even re-
Nature has been unable to counteract the colonize Earth once it became habitable
rapid rate of human innovation quickly again.
enough, and so humanity has risen to an
From the beginning of time, the
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Every advancement that allow mod-
unnatural and unprecedented level of power ern-day explorers to step further into the
that threatens to destroy the very place that unknown reverberates on the surface. In
nurtured them for so long. The United Na- other words, space-related technological in-
tions estimates that by 2050, there will be novations benefit astronauts and every indi-
9.6 billion people on Earth; 2 billion more vidual back on Earth too. For instance, the
than today. With a growing population water purification systems used on the In-
comes growing costs: the increased use of ternational Space Station have found a pur-
fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide into the pose on Earth as well. According to NASA’s
atmosphere, culminating in a drastically Acting Administrator and COO Robert M.
warmer climate and the potential loss of one Lightfoot Jr., “we’ve actually taken a modi-
-fourth of all of the world’s plant and verte- fied version of [the ISS water purification
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