Yeah, cows used to be blamed for everything, now Elon and Russians are blamed for everything.

As if we didn't know this already.

Space launches disrupt ozone layer, contribute to air pollution and global warming, waste a lot of resources, and produce tons upon tons of space debris.

We should be careful with this industry and technology, and use it when it makes sense. But hey, why not launch billionaires and their cars into space for leisure and launch hundreds of satellites under different brandings all promising the best Internet ever or whatnot?

Also, massive launches such as Starlink should be approved by international bodies, not national organizations. Cool, US has greenlit the launch, but now it's a global headache.

As if we didn't know this already.

Space launches disrupt ozone layer, contribute to air pollution and global warming, waste a lot of resources, and produce tons upon tons of space debris.

We should be careful with this industry and technology, and use it when it makes sense. But hey, why not launch billionaires and their cars into space for leisure and launch hundreds of satellites under different brandings all promising the best Internet ever or whatnot?

Also, massive launches such as Starlink should be approved by international bodies, not national organizations. Cool, US has greenlit the launch, but now it's a global headache.

So the billionaires escaping climate collapse into space will cause more climate collapse? That's a bit ironic but not really a problem since the important people will be in space anyway, right?

But this can also encourage more billionaires to escape into space creating a feedback loop and new tipping point we have to worry about so maybe it actually is problematic.

I'd argue we need to advance spaceflight technology at as fast a pace as possible. Yes it does add CO2 to the atmosphere, but we've also gained some great advances through our exploration of space.

We're doing a lot of things wrong on this planet, a whole fucking lot. But rocketry is one of the few things we're starting to do right and the bottom line is this, the situation on earth is not great, and it could get worse. Ultimately, the situation on earth will get a lot worse when a huge, life ending, continent obliterating asteroid hits the planet (and not if it hits earth, but when it hits earth). We should absolutely continue living on earth and striving to make it a good place to live, but we also, desperately need to get a foothold off of earth. When the next global calamity occurs (and it will), I would prefer if it didn't end all known intelligent life in the galaxy.

Don't remember cows using hairspray

To me, there are two reasons we're doing it too soon;

• We don't really have technology needed to build a self-sustaining colony anywhere outside Earth; say, a colony on Mars is inherently dependent on Earth's supplies, and will quickly die out as Earth does too; the technologies needed can largely be developed on Earth;
• The chance of some asteroid obliterating Earth in the coming millenia is so minor we might as well focus on much more real threats.

To me, there are two reasons we're doing it too soon;

• We don't really have technology needed to build a self-sustaining colony anywhere outside Earth; say, a colony on Mars is inherently dependent on Earth's supplies, and will quickly die out as Earth does too; the technologies needed can largely be developed on Earth;
• The chance of some asteroid obliterating Earth in the coming millenia is so minor we might as well focus on much more real threats.

Yeah, every time I see someone say go to Mars as an answer to the earth getting ruined, have to keep in mind that Mars is pre ruined, and whatever calamity that ruins earth will be easier to survive than colonizing Mars