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fitzroy95 t1_j20kmrr wrote

Reply to comment by Half-Borg in Planetary Colonization by lodoslomo

> disregarding unlikely extinction events

"unlikely" ?

Most of the world's super-volcanos are overdue for an eruption, those are guaranteed to happen, the only question is whether the next one is next year, or in 1000 years.

The same applies to dinosaur killers. We've been hit by multiples of those over the millennia, we're almost guaranteed to be hit by another. That one is more on the range of millions of years statistically, but could still be tomorrow (but probably won't be).

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Half-Borg t1_j20lnsp wrote

What makes the moon more habitable, than earth after an super volcano eruption?

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fitzroy95 t1_j20n0o5 wrote

Humanity will still (probably) survive after a super-volcano eruption, but current technology and civilization is much less likely to. And once those are gone, they can never be rebuilt, because all of the necessary resources (minerals etc) needed to rebuild have already been used up, and those remaining are impossible to access without already possessing those technologies.

Having self-sustaining colonies off-planet means that technology and civilization can still survive, and be reintroduced afterwards. Getting them to the point of being self-sustaining, and having their own space-based manufacturing isn't a trivial task, but is very achievable within a century or so.

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Half-Borg t1_j20ndy6 wrote

So far life has survived asteroid impacts and super volcano eruptions on earth. It hasn't on Mars. So why not build the self sustaining colony in Australia?

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