Establishing colonies beyond Earth

We have let a great opportunity go by.

When petroleum was discovered, it was a huge boon to mankind. It was a concentrated from of energy and raw material that had thousands of different uses. It was soon used to make and run pretty much everything.

Before petroleum, we could only use renewable energy. Nearly all of the renewable energy comes from the sun at a constant rate. Human populations were limited by the amount of renewable energy the earth received. Populations grew until food production maxed out, and food production was limited by the sun's energy.

When petroleum was discovered, it meant a several-hundred-fold increase in the amount of available energy. Food production no longer depended on purely renewable energy. Food production could now be accelerated by using artificial fertilizers. It also made automobiles feasible. It enabled travel by aeroplane. And it fueled the space industry.

Some of the greatest accomplishments of mankind was in space. Sending astronauts to the moon (and returning them to earth), launching satellites to distant planets, landing rovers that performed scientific experiments and measurements, etc. All of these were greatly facilitated by energy from petroleum. In fact the space industry may not ever have existed if petroleum had never been discovered.

Now the petroleum is starting to run out. Or more accurately, it's becoming more and more expensive to extract. It is likely that without petroleum, space research will not be feasible anymore. And without the space industry and space research, we may all be in danger.

What is the nature of this threat? Well it is well known that meteorites often strike the earth. Most of these are tiny and burn up in the earth's atmosphere. But rarely some are big enough to survive the violent entry into the earth's atmosphere to impact the earth. Very rarely, they may be big enough to pose a threat. The damage they could do is immense. Meteorites often travel through space at 40 kilometers per second.

Throughout our planet's 4 billion year history, it has been bombarded by meteorites, asteroids, and even other planets. After life formed 3.6 billlion years ago, each impact caused massive extinction events. Life always came back, but it was generally the more complex life-forms that suffered most. It is not unreasonable to suggest that humanity may suffer serious losses if not downright extinction if a sufficiently large sized body were to impact the earth.

The only real way to ensure that humanity doesn't go extinct is to form colonies on other planets or in space. Unfortunately these ventures require massive amounts of energy, which we very soon may not have any longer. The petroleum is instead being wasted on maintaining an excessively high standard of living. When the petroleum runs out, we will have to go back to using renewable energy from the sun. That level of energy will not be able to sustain the current food industry, and it is likely that large numbers of people will starve. And it will be difficult for any government to justify spending in space research when people are starving.