Oh, I personally agree that the "eggs in one basket" argument is worth a lot, and would be willing to subsidize colonization. To really have another "basket" probably requires terraforming, so we're talking a very long term project.
As for how likely we are to fund a colony on such a basis, not very. We do extremely poorly at spending large sums of money to avert high-impact, low-probability events -- and even plenty of high-impact, high-probability events!
I'm a little surprised that we've been as responsible as we have on searching for potential impactors. In Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama, we don't build get serious about looking for incoming rocks until a Tunguska-size event kills millions in Europe in 2075 or so. The amount of money we've had to put into the NEO search is trivial, though.
Space/Science » in reply to How accurate and important is the "eggs in one basket" argument?
re: How accurate and important is the "eggs in one basket" argument?
The whole thread (27 posts)
- Do you think we'll ever colonise Mars?
- I believe the only way is to move it
- Cute!! And no.