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Colonization Neg- Wave 2 Index
Colonization Neg- Wave 2 Index ................................................................................................. 1
***Advantage Frontlines***........................................................................................................ 3
**Colonization Advantage F/L** ................................................................................................ 3
It’s Not Try or Die......................................................................................................................... 3
Now Not Key .................................................................................................................................. 5
Colonization Bad ........................................................................................................................... 6
Colonization Impossible ............................................................................................................... 6
Space Debris Turn ........................................................................................................................ 9
No Impact .................................................................................................................................... 11
**Leadership Advantage F/L**................................................................................................. 13
Alt Cause ...................................................................................................................................... 13
AT: China Space Race ................................................................................................................ 13
Heg Sustainable ........................................................................................................................... 14
**He3 Advantage F/L** ............................................................................................................. 14
He3 Mining Impossible ............................................................................................................... 15
He3 Not Key................................................................................................................................. 15
A2: Resource Wars ..................................................................................................................... 15
***Space Debris Turn*** .......................................................................................................... 16
2NC Space Debris Turn ............................................................................................................. 18
A2: Small Risk of Collision ........................................................................................................ 20
A2: Space Debris Not a Big Deal ............................................................................................... 21
***Disease Turn*** .................................................................................................................... 22
2NC Disease Turn ....................................................................................................................... 24
A2: NASA can cure space diseases ............................................................................................ 25
***Leadership ADV***.............................................................................................................. 26
A2: Leadership- Heg Sustainable .............................................................................................. 27
A2: US Losing Space Race ......................................................................................................... 29
US and China Relations Good ................................................................................................... 30
*** Colonization ADV*** .......................................................................................................... 32
A2: Super Volcanoes ................................................................................................................... 33
A2: Overpopulation .................................................................................................................... 34
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A2: NASA funding would be “all purpose” .............................................................................. 36
***He3 Advantage*** ................................................................................................................ 37
AT: He3 key ................................................................................................................................. 37
A2: Resource wars ...................................................................................................................... 38
***Space Based Solar Power Advantage*** ............................................................................ 40
A2: Space Based Solar Power .................................................................................................... 41
***Overview Effect*** ............................................................................................................... 43
A2: Overview Effect .................................................................................................................... 44
AT: Moon Colonization .............................................................................................................. 45
AT: Artificial Gravity makes procreation feasible .................................................................. 46
Nuclear War Impact ................................................................................................................... 46
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***Advantage Frontlines***
**Colonization Advantage F/L**
It’s Not Try or Die
They say Try or Die, but even if their astronomical threats are true, we don’t necessarily
have to colonize space to survive. We have enough time for other means of solvency.
Williams 10 (Lynda, M.S. in Physics and a physics faculty member at Santa Rose Junior
College, “Irrational Dreams of Space Colonization, http://www.scientainment.com/
lwilliams_peacereview.pdf) OP
According to scientific theory, the destruction of Earth is a certainty. About five billion years from now,
when our sun exhausts its nuclear fuel, it will expand in size and envelope the inner planets, including
the Earth, and burn them into oblivion. So yes, we are doomed, but we have 5 billion years, plus or
minus a few hundred million, to plan our extraterrestrial escape. The need to colonize the Moon or Mars
to guarantee our survival based on this fact is not pressing. There are also real risks due to collisions
with asteroids and comets, though none are of immediate threat and do not necessitate extraterrestrial
colonization. There are many Earth-based technological strategies that can be developed in time to
mediate such astronomical threats such as gravitational tugboats that drag the objects out of range. The
solar system could also potentially be exposed to galactic sources of high-energy gamma ray bursts that
could fry all life on Earth, but any Moon or Mars base would face a similar fate. Thus, Moon or Mars
human based colonies would not protect us from any of these astronomical threats in the near future.
Earth is sustainable, and it’s impossible to economically transport a significant number of
people without trading off with the resources that enable sustainability
Elhefnway 9 – Nader Elhefnawy, Professor of English at the University of Miami, writer on IR published in
journals including International Security, Astropolitics, and Survival, February 2, 2009, “Planetary demographics
and space colonization,” online: http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1296/1
The idea that population growth will drive space expansion is an old one. In 1758, the Danish Reverend Otto
Diederich Lutken made reference to the settlement of human beings on other planets as a way to alleviate population pressure in his
article, “An enquiry into the proposition that the number of the people is the happiness of the realm, or the greater the number of
subjects, the more flourishing the state.” It was also much on the mind of Nikolai Fedorov in his development of his important ideas
about space travel. The population explosion of the 20th century and the increased concern about the planet’s ecological limitations have
kept these concerns alive and well, figuring prominently in visions like Gerard K. O’Neill’s 1976 book The High Frontier, and a great
deal of space opera.
Today the world is still seeing large-scale migrations, but it seems highly unlikely that they will translate into a
“push” off-planet, even were the technology to become available in this century as O’Neill (and many
others) have predicted. An important reason is that the
affluent, technologically advanced states that are most
capable of conducting the effort seem least likely to generate space colonists, given their tendency
to receive rather than export immigrants in recent decades. This pattern is reinforced by the fact that their
populations are aging, and appear to be either stabilizing or gradually declining —not the demographic picture
usually associated with such dramatic expansion.
This may suggest that the rich industrialized countries will be the main providers of the money and technology for the enterprise, while
the fast-growing developing nations provide a disproportionate share of the colonists, but the facts of the situation are more complex.
(O’Neill, certainly, was concerned by the need to redress Third World poverty when he wrote The High Frontier.)
However, even assuming that the cooperation necessary to make this highly unequal arrangement work is
somehow achieved, the fact remains that most developing states are actually well along the demographic path
already taken by the industrialized nations. The pundits who dismiss Europe’s future on demographic grounds, while celebrating (or
dreading) the rise of China, tend to overlook the reality that Europe and China are in the same boat with regard to family sizes. The Total
Fertility Rate (TFR)> for the People’s Republic of China is actually 1.77 births per woman, well below the replacement level of 2.1, and
slightly below Norway’s. (The trend is even more marked among the “overseas” Chinese: the four countries with the lowest TFRs in the
world being Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore and Taiwan, respectively.) While countries like the Philippines have higher fertility rates, a
similar drop is already evident in several other developing East Asian countries (Burma, Thailand, Vietnam), as well as industrialized
Korea and Japan.
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The same trends are evident in the Middle East as well, contrary to what some sectors of the media proclaim. In Turkey, Algeria,
Tunisia, Lebanon and Iran, in fact, birth rates have already fallen below replacement level, with fundamentalist Iran’s 1.7 children per
woman below the levels of Finland, Denmark, Luxembourg and France.
The trends are less advanced in southern Asia, but still evident there too, with India’s TFR at 2.8 and Bangladesh’s at 3.0. Pakistan’s is
3.6, relatively high, but also representing a sustained drop from nearly twice that in the early 1960s, and likely to fall to 2.3 by 2025
according to a United Nations study. (In the same time frame, India’s birth rate is likely to fall to replacement levels, or very close to
them.)
The situation is similar in the Western hemisphere, and not only in the United States and Canada. While fertility remains relatively high
in Central America (Guatemala’s TFR is 3.6 births per woman), these countries still represent a relatively small share of the population
of the region as a whole. In populous Brazil, by contrast, births have fallen to fewer than two per woman, and the same goes for
Uruguay, with Argentina not far behind. Cuba’s TFR is among the lowest in the world at 1.6. Even in Mexico, the source of so much
consternation in the United States, the figure is under 2.4 and dropping.
In short, very high fertility rates have become a thing of the past outside sub-Saharan Africa, and even there the
likelihood is that development will mean this changes here as well. Of course, that leaves the possibility of population growth from the
other end of the telescope: greater longevity, but the prospects for this also seem to have been exaggerated. For American women, life
expectancy improved from 47 years in 1900, to 71 years in 1950—a 50 percent increase in that half-century. From 1950 to 2000, this
was extended by another eight to ten years, a much more modest 10–15 percent growth in the same length of time. (The profile of male
life expectancy in the US followed a similar course.)
This is a broad slowdown in the extension of the human life span, despite the skyrocketing cost of health care. Accordingly, just going
by the established trends, life is unlikely to get very much longer in the foreseeable future. Indeed, there are signs that this progress is
being reversed, with smoking and obesity commonly attacked as the culprits. Of course, there are those who predict revolutionary
advances in medicine which will radically extend life and health in the near future, and perhaps even eliminate death, but there has been
little in the way of tangible results to support such promises.
Because of these trends, where global population nearly quadrupled in the last century, it may actually crest and start to
drop by the middle of this one. Of course, none of this is to dismiss claims that the world faces serious population stresses, or to argue
that even slower population growth would not be desirable. According to the Worldwatch Institute, the world economy was already
consuming the resources of 1.2 Earths by 1999, a figure that had risen to 1.4 Earths by this year. The addition of two to three billion
people in the coming decades as the drop in population growth catches up with the drop in fertility rates, as well as the struggle to give
billions more of those already here a decent life, will increase it (all other things being equal). The fact that the increase will
overwhelmingly occur in the poorest countries also poses important challenges.
Of course, it may seem a world of nine billion people or more on a planet facing ecological degradation and resource
crunches will still suffice to drive a torrent of settlers out to the rest of the solar system. However, the same
economic constraints discussed above would preclude that. Even were space settlement to appear an attractive
palliative under those circumstances, it seems unlikely that a really struggling planetary economy would be up
to the job of delivering demographically significant numbers of people to new homes in orbit
and beyond and equipping them to live off the resources in space , rather than depending on Earth’s limited stock of
them.
In other words, the motivation would exist, but not the means, and the opposite also seems to be true: that
a world economy capable of building habitable space colonies is likely to be one significantly more
prosperous than that of today, rather than poorer. For that reason, life would probably be more
comfortable for most of the planet’s inhabitants rather than less, diminishing the “push” factor
that has historically been so important in such movements in the past. (That this population would on the
whole be older—and in that, hardly the demographic profile of a pioneering culture—should also be noted in
such a consideration.) This may mean that, as writers like Hans Moravec and Ray Kurzweil have suggested,
it is not human beings, but the robotic “mind children” of humanity, that will leave the Earth to explore the
universe beyond it, with the vast majority of the flesh-and-blood humans sitting out the adventure at home.
And, super volcanoes are not a threat. Yellowstone is the largest threat and its not erupting
anytime soon.
Lowenstern 09 (Jake, USGS Scientist in Charge of Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, “The Volcano Beneath
Yellowstone”, 4-16-09, http://geology.com/usgs/yellowstone-volcano/)
How Active is the Yellowstone Volcano? The Yellowstone Volcano Observatory closely monitors
earthquake activity, ground deformation, streamflow and stream temperatures in the Yellowstone area.
Occasional earthquake swarms occur, the ground surface changes elevation and streams change in both
discharge amount and temperature. They have no evidence to suggest that a volcanic eruption of any size
will happen at Yellowstone in the forseeable future. When Was the Last Yellowstone Eruption? The
most recent volcanic eruption at Yellowstone occurred about 70,000 years ago and produced the lava
flows of the Pitchstone Plateau. The lava flows of this eruption covered an area about the size of Washington,
D.C. and are up to 100 feet thick.
Overpopulation not an issue either.
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Heather Horn, Columnist – The Atlantic Wire
March 15, 2010
(http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2010/03/there-is-no-overpopulation-problem/20057/) “There Is No
Overpopulation Problem”
"Many of today's most-respected thinkers, from Stephen Hawking to David Attenborough, argue that our efforts to fight climate change and other
environmental perils will all fail unless we 'do something' about population growth." This, says Fred Pearce frankly, "is nonsense." Far from
surging out of control, population growth is actually slowing, he says. Writing in the British magazine Prospect, Pearce argues that
the Western preoccupation with the overpopulation issue isn't just silly, it's hypocritical:
In fact, rising consumption today far outstrips the rising headcount as a threat to the planet. And most of the extra consumption has
been in rich countries that have long since given up adding substantial numbers to their population, while most of the remaining
population growth is in countries with a very small impact on the planet. By almost any measure you choose, a small
proportion of the world’s people take the majority of the world’s resources and produce the majority of its pollution.
In other words, argues Pearce, focus on the population "problem" is essentially a matter of the rich "downplay[ing] the
importance of our own environmental footprint because future generations of poor people might one day have the temerity to get
as rich and destructive as us." He's not making any exceptions in his condemnation: "Some green activists need to take a long hard look at
themselves."
And, there is virtually zero risk of a catastrophic asteroid strike – Small rocks are the vast
majority of the ones that are not yet mapped.
Choi – Contributor to Scientific American – 2009
(Charles Q., “Could Earth Be Hit, Like Jupiter Just Was?” Space.com, 28 July. [Online]
http://www.space.com/7062-earth-hit-jupiter.html) Accessed 06.05.11 jfs
Currently just one NEO of all the objects scientists are tracking poses any significant chance of hitting
the Earth ? 2007 VK184. If this roughly 425-foot-wide (130 meters) asteroid hit our planet, it would strike
with an energy of roughly 150 million tons of TNT, or more than 10,000 times that of the atom bomb
dropped on Hiroshima. Roughly 100 telescopic observations made so far suggest that 2007 VK184 has a 1in-2,940 chance of hitting Earth 40 to 50 years from now. However, if the past is any guide, further
observations to refine computations of its orbit very likely will downgrade its probability of hitting
Earth to virtually nothing, Yeomans said. Of remaining concern are the NEOs that we do not see.
Researchers suspect about 156 large NEOs 1 kilometer in diameter or larger remain to be found, and when it
comes to dangerous NEOs in general, "when we get down to 140 meters (460 feet) or larger diameter
objects, we think we've discovered about 15 percent of them, and with 50 meters (164 feet) or larger
diameter, we've discovered less than 5 percent of them," Yeomans explained. On average, an NEO
roughly a half-mile wide or larger hits the Earth roughly every 500,000 years, "so we're not expecting
one anytime soon," Yeomans explained. "For 500 meters (1,640 feet), we're talking a mean interval of
about 100,000 years," he added. "When you get down to 50 meters, the mean interval is about 700
years, and for 30 meters (98 feet), about 140 years or so, but by then you're getting down to a size
where you won't expect any ground damage, as they burn up in the atmosphere at about 25 meters (82
feet) in diameter and smaller, probably for an impressive fireball event." When it comes to truly
monstrous NEOs some 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) or larger, of the size thought to have helped kill off the
dinosaurs, "that's a 100 million year event, and in fact, I don't think there is anything like that we see
right now," Yeomans said. "The largest near-Earth object that can actually cross the Earth's path, Sisyphus,
has a diameter of 8 kilometers (5 miles), and the largest that is termed a potential hazard is Toutatis, which
has a diameter of approximately 5.4 km (3.35 miles)."
[NOTE: Yeomans is Donald Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object program office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory……………The Mgt.]
Now Not Key
Space colonization wouldn’t work and now isn’t the right time to colonize
Williams 2010. (Lynda Williams is a professor at Santa Rosa Junior College. “Irrational Dreams of Space
Colonization” Peace Review, a Journal of Social Justice The New Arms Race in Outer Space (22.1, Spring
2010) http://www.scientainment.com/lwilliams_peacereview.pdf) hss
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According to scientific theory, the destruction of Earth is a certainty. About five billion years from now, when our
sun exhausts its nuclear fuel, it will expand in size and envelope the inner planets, including the Earth, and burn
them into oblivion. So yes, we are doomed, but we have 5 billion years, plus or minus a few hund red million,
to plan our extraterrestrial escape. The need to colonize the Moon or Mars to guarantee our survival based
on this fact is not pressing. There are also real risks due to collisions with asteroids and comets, though none are
of immediate threat and do not necessitate extraterrestrial colonization. There are many Earth-based
technological strategies that can be developed in time to mediate such astronomical threats such as
gravitational tugboats that drag the objects out of range. The solar system could also potentially be exposed to
galactic sources of high-energy gamma ray bursts that could fry all life on Earth, but any Moon or Mars base
would face a similar fate. Thus, Moon or Mars human based colonies would not protect us from any of these
astronomical threats in the near future. Life on Earth is more urgently threatened by the destruction of the
biosphere and its life sustaining habitat due environmental catastrophes such as climate change, ocean
acidification, disruption of the food chain, bio-warfare, nuclear war, nuclear winter, and myriads of other
man- made doomsday prophesies. If we accept these threats as inevitabilities on par with real astronomical
dangers and divert our natural, intellectual, political and technological resources from solving these problems into
escaping them, will we playing into a self- fulfilling prophesy of our own planetary doom? Seeking space based
solutions to our Earthly problems may indeed exacerbate the planetary threats we face. This is the core of the
ethical dilemma posed by space colonization: should we put our recourses and bets on developing human colonies
on other worlds to survive natural and man-made catastrophes or should we focus all of our energies on solving the
problems that create these threats on Earth?
Colonization Bad
Space exploration will cause environmental exploitation, nuclear-powered arms races, and
epidemics.
Gagnon 99 (Bruce K., Coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power
in Space, “Space Exploration and Exploitation,”
http://www.space4peace.org/articles/scandm.htm) hss
We are now poised to take the bad seed of greed, environmental exploitation and war into space.
Having shown such enormous disregard for our own planet Earth, the so-called "visionaries" and
"explorers" are now ready to rape and pillage the heavens. Countless launches of nuclear materials,
using rockets that regularly blow up on the launch pad, will seriously jeopardize life on Earth.
Returning potentially bacteria-laden space materials back to Earth, without any real plans for
containment and monitoring, could create new epidemics for us. The possibility of an expanding
nuclear-powered arms race in space will certainly have serious ecological and political ramifications as
well. The effort to deny years of consensus around international space law will create new global
conflicts and confrontations.
Colonization Impossible
Space colonization is impossible- takes out their entire solvency.
1. Can’t reproduce in space- gravity kills sperm.
Lippi 08 (Giuseppe, professor and surgeon at the University of Verona, “Abolishing the Law of
Gravity,” Canadian Medical Association Journal, http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/178/5/598)
hss
As the International Space Station moves us closer to the possibility of colonizing space, it is becoming
increasingly important to understand the effects of altered gravity on mammalian reproductive physiology.
There is evidence that hypo- and hyper-gravity induce changes in male and female reproductive
processes.2 Findings from studies using a variety of experimental conditions to simulate hypogravity
raise questions about whether reproduction is possible when gravity is reduced. Studies using the
Holton hindlimb suspension model, which provides a practical way to simulate the major physiologic effects
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of hypogravity, are providing evidence that hypogravity might exert pronounced effects on male
reproductive processes and reduce the rate of implantation during early pregnancy in rats. Moreover,
the cardiovascular deconditioning, bone demineralization and decrease in red blood cell concentration
associated with hypogravity might affect the ability of female rats to sustain their pregnancies. Similar
findings from experiments during space flights raise questions about whether early pregnancy can be
sustained in humans when gravity is reduced.2 Additional research is needed to fill in the gaps in our
knowledge about reproductive physiology under conditions of hypo- and micro-gravity.
2. Tech Needed for Closed-Loop Life Support System
Woodcock 11 (Gordon R. Woodcock, Published over 100 Space Exploration books, On the NASA Advisory Board, Executive Vice President
of the National Space Society, “NSS Roadmap: Technological Barriers to Space Settlement”,
http://www.nss.org/settlement/roadmap/technological.html, 4/24/2011)
No Closed-Loop Life Support System The third issue facing development of a spacefaring civilization is
life support. Permanent
outposts or settlements can't afford to import life support supplies or equipment over the long term. The current
technology is adequate for the space station. It provides partial recycling of water and oxygen, using "physico-chemical" technology. It
uses chemical absorbers and reactors, and physical processes such as distillation and reverse osmosis, to recycle water and scrub CO2 from air.
Oxygen is reclaimed by water electrolysis and CO2 reduction. Hydrogen and carbon from these processes are waste products, not recycled.
There is no food production, and no recycling of wastes or garbage; these are returned to Earth. For the International
Space Station, the crew and operations resupply requirement is about 10 kg per person per day. The ISS will typically have a crew of
four; in 90 days it needs 900 kg per person; 3600 kg for the crew. This is easily within shuttle capabilities, even the
capabilities of a crew and cargo vehicle flying on an ELV. There is little motivation to do better . A Mars protosettlement of 1,000 people is a lot different. Such a settlement is not feasible with this state of technology. Consider
1000 people, 365 days, at about 10 kg/day. This figures to 3.65 million kg (about 8 million lb) per year. Even at reduced launch cost of $1,000/lb,
the delivery cost to Mars is at least $5,000/lb. The annual cost therefore is $40 billion just for life support . No government or
consortium of governments will put up with such high cost, and it is out of the question for the private sector.
Bioregenerative technology is needed. This technology is also highly applicable to cleaning up our environment here on Earth. A
permanent outpost needs a closed micro-ecology or something close to it. This means full recycling of all life support supplies, including waste
and garbage. Periods of "no opportunity" for Mars resupply last almost two years; transit times are six months or more .
Not only is the cost infeasible for ISS-level technology, the masses to be transported are outrageous. In a bioregenerative
system, water and oxygen are recycled by semi-natural means, such as composting or oxidation of organic wastes,
and condensation of water. CO2 is taken up by plants, and oxygen generated by photosynthesis. Plants produce food, and some may be
ornamental or needed to make the micro-ecology stable. Food production is by "farming" — hydroponics. Animal protein production is feasible
in larger outposts. Wastes are completely recycled. Nothing is thrown away. The life support and food production system must have
long-term ecological stability. Such a closed-cycle technology is very poorly understood; Biosphere II showed how
little we really know. Unfortunately, NASA is investing almost zero in this. A few years ago, NASA invested modestly.
However, in today's political climate, these investments are seen as applicable only to non-approved programs and are strongly discouraged. It is
likely that developing bioregenerative life support technology to a point of confident use, i.e., where space settlers could
depend on it, will take longer to solve than the high cost of space transportation , perhaps much longer.
3. Space transportation is not economically feasible.
Mankins 07 (John C., former manager of NASA’s Advanced Concepts Studies Office of Space
Flight,, “Leading Scientists and Thinkers on Energy,” from an interview with Mankins
conducted by David Houle, an analyst who advises companies on new developing technology,
http://www.evolutionshift.com/blog/2007/10/12/leading-scientists-and-thinkers-on-energy-–john-c-mankins/) hss
All of the basic science seems to be in hand. Unlike fusion energy R&D, not fundamental problems of
science remain to be solved for space solar power to become feasible. However, there are definitely
significant technical challenges remaining before economic feasibility can be established. Solving these
challenges is more than just engineering—it requires real invention—but not basic research. A number
of areas remain to be developed, including wireless power transmission, robotics, materials and structures,
thermal management—and, of course, very low cost Earth to orbit transportation is critical.
4. Disease
A. Space exploration exposes us to new diseases and irritants
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SciPop 08 (Space blog, http://popchaser.wordpress.com/2008/06/11/interesting-problem-for-moon-dwellers/)
During the Apollo program, scientist discovered that the statically charged moondust proved to be quite an
engineering problem, but now, researchers are starting to realize that lunar dust may also pose a
significant health risk for astronauts to come. One superficial aspect of moondust is that it extremely
small and jagged, much like tiny, little shards of glass. There is no consistent weathering process on the
moon, unlike here on Earth, so rounded edges cannot develop on the dust particles. For Apollo astronauts,
the sandpaper-like nature of moondust scratched faceplates and caused irritation to both the eyes and lungs.
To combat this problem, right now, researches of the Lunar Airborne Dust Toxicity Advisory Group (or
LADTAG) are exposing lab rats to moondust aerosols and studying the effects. Additionally, in the lunar,
airless, environment, moondust is also super chemically reactive. On Earth, the constant presence of
highly reactive oxygen in the atmosphere quells any potentially reactive compounds on surfaces when they
are exposed to air. Fortunately, scientist believe that the high reactivity of moondust will probably not be a
major problem, considering that future lunar astronauts will most likely come equip with their own supply of
air…hopefully. As you read, research aimed at learning more about the above mentioned nuances of lunar
dust marches on; however, I believe there is one more possible moondust complication which merits
scientific attention: moondust allergy. I know this may seem silly at first, but if astronauts or lunar
settlers are going to be living with moondust day in and day out and, thus, become chronically exposed to
it, then there is always the possibility of a longterm sensitization allergy developing. Furthermore, some
more sinister type of moondust-induced autoimmune disease may also be lurking in the future for
humans living on the moon. Here on Earth, there have been reported cases of humans developing a rare type
of autoimmune disease while breathing in pig-brain aerosols at meat-packing plants, so I guess that anything
is possible.
B. Space diseases have 300% higher mortality rate and are resistant to antibiotics.
Karin 10 (Janice, Senior Managing Editor of Science & Technology at Suite101, “Disease May
Derail Space Travel”, 6-23-10, http://thefutureofthings.com/news/9563/disease-may-derailspace-travel.html) OP
The scientists used existing studies concerning astronaut immune systems and the results of two
experiments (one in 2006 and one in 2008) where cultures of salmonella were grown simultaneously on
Earth and on the space shuttle to allow direct comparisons. The cultures on the space shuttle grew faster
and resulted in a 300% increase in mortality rate when injected into mice. Furthermore, the bacteria
in space tended to grow a biofilm coating which has proven particularly resistant to antibiotics in the
past. This accelerated rate of growth may be caused by fluid shear that creates an environment similar to that
found in human intestines. Basically, the salmonella detects the force of surrounding fluids. The salmonella
typically slips into the spaces between the villi in the intestines which protect it from the significant churn
found in the center of the pathway. Researchers believe the low fluid shear of space is similar to the shear
found within these pockets, a condition that sends the bacteria into overdrive as it prepares to enter the blood
stream and cause infections. When combined with an observed decrease in the effectiveness of the
human immune system in space, the virulence of bacteria growth could cause significant health issues
for astronauts on long-term flights. Researchers are exploring the use of different growth medium to
control the rate of bacteria virulence. In addition to information about disease in space, these experiments are
providing additional information on how salmonella and similar bacteria work more generally which may
improve treatment and prevention on Earth and well as in space.
C. Antibiotic resistant diseases threaten human extinction.
Discover 2000 (“Twenty Ways the World Could End” by Corey Powell in Discover Magazine,
October 2000, http://discovermagazine.com/2000/oct/featworld) OP
If Earth doesn't do us in, our fellow organisms might be up to the task. Germs and people have
always coexisted, but occasionally the balance gets out of whack. The Black Plague killed one
European in four during the 14th century; influenza took at least 20 million lives between 1918 and 1919;
the AIDS epidemic has produced a similar death toll and is still going strong. From 1980 to 1992, reports
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, mortality from infectious disease in the United States
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rose 58 percent Old diseases such as cholera and measles have developed new resistance to antibiotics.
Intensive agriculture and land development is bringing humans closer to animal pathogens. International
travel means diseases can spread faster than ever Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert
who recently left the Minnesota Department of Health, described the situation as "like trying to swim
against the current of a raging river." The grimmest possibility would be the emergence of a strain
that spreads so fast we are caught off guard or that resists all chemical means of control, perhaps as
a result of our stirring of the ecological pot. About 12,000 years ago, a sudden wave of mammal
extinctions swept through the Americas. Ross MacPhee of the American Museum of Natural History
argues the culprit was extremely virulent disease, which humans helped transport as they migrated into
the New World.
.
.
5. Can’t colonize moon-water impossible for use
Williams 2010. (Lynda Williams is a professor at Santa Rosa Junior College. “Irrational Dreams of Space
Colonization” Peace Review, a Journal of Social Justice The New Arms Race in Outer Space (22.1, Spring
2010) http://www.scientainment.com/lwilliams_peacereview.pdf) ED
Although evidence of water has been discovered on both bodies, it exists in a form that is trapped in
minerals, which would require huge amounts of energy to access. Water can be converted into fuel either
as hydrogen or oxygen, which would eliminate the need to transport vast amounts of fuel from Earth.
However, according to Britain's leading spaceflight expert, Professor Colin Pillinger, "You would need
to heat up a lot of lunar soil to 200C to get yourself a glass of water." The promise of helium as an energy
source on the moon to is mostly hype. Helium-3 could be used in the production of nuclear fusion energy, a
process we have yet to prove viable or efficient on Earth.
Space Debris Turn
Launches necessary for space colonization increase space debris.
Williams 10 (Lynda, M.S. in Physics and a physics faculty member at Santa Rose Junior
College, “Irrational Dreams of Space Colonization”, http://www.foresightfordevelopment.org/2/
index.php?option=com_sobi2&sobi2Task=sobi2Details&catid=0&sobi2Id=420&Itemid=) OP
Since the space age began, the orbital environment around Earth has become crowded with satellites
and space debris, so much so that circumterrestrial space has become a dangerous place with an increasing
risk of collision and destruction. Thousands of pieces of space junk, created from past launches and
space missions, orbit the Earth at the same distance as satellites, putting them at risk of collision.
Every time a space mission is launched from Earth, debris from the rocket stages is added to orbital
space. In 2009, there was a disastrous collision between an Iridium satellite and a piece of space junk that
destroyed the satellite. In 2007, China blew up one of its defunct satellites to demonstrate its antiballistic
missile capabilities, increasing the debris field by 15 percent. The United States followed suit a few months later when, in February
2008, it used its ship-based antiballistic missile system to destroy one of its own satellites that had reportedly gone out of control. There
are no international laws prohibiting anti- satellite actions. Every year, since the mid-1980s, a treaty has been introduced into the UN for
a Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS), with all parties, including Russia and China, voting for it, except for the United
States and Israel. How can we hope to pursue peaceful and environmentally sound space exploration without international laws in place
that protect space and Earth environments, and guarantee that the space race to the moon and beyond does not foster a war over
space resources? Indeed, if the space debris problem continues to grow unfettered, or if such a thing as
a space war were ever to occur, then space would become too trashed for further launches to take
place without a great risk of destruction.
For every piece of space debris launched into orbit, the risk of collision increases.
Tan 00 (David, Ph.D. in Law from Melbourne University and Master of Laws from Harvard,
"Towards A New Regime for the Protection of Outer Space", Yale Journal of International Law,
http://wenku.baidu.com/view/dc28328a84868762caaed551.html, lexis) OP
In recent years, man-made space debris n 2 l or space refuse has been an environmental hazard whose
seriousness is a shared concern of many scientists and policy-makers in the international community.
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n22 The deployment of an ever-increasing number of man-made objects into outer space has created a
potential for malfunctioning and decay. It has also resulted in a concomitant rise in the number of defunct,
damaged, or abandoned objects, which, together with other debris caused by explosions and collisions, has fast become
a threat to space activities. It has been estimated that there are over 7000 trackable man-made objects in space and a
substantially larger number of untraceable objects. n23 Most of the trackable objects are located in low-earth-orbit
(LEO) n24 with a significant number in geosynchronous orbit (GEO) an area of intense space activity. n25The
limited empirical data reveal 1*1521 that objects of sizes between 0.01 and I centimeter can cause significant damage
upon impact Objects larger than 1 centimeter can produce catastrophic effects. n26 Present spacecraft systems are
particularly vulnerable as they have not been designed with these threats in mind, n27 If the growth in numbers
is permitted to continue without adequate measures to safeguard active space objects from damage
caused by explosion, collision, or harmful radiation, it could easily result in serious accidents involving the
loss of human lives or substantial property damage. Collision and interference are the major risks
space debris poses to human life and active payloads. Perhaps the most serious consequence of collisions with
space debris is the cascade effect: (1) As the number of space objects in earth-orbit increases, the
probability of collisions between them also increases: (2) collisions would produce new orbiting
fragments (secondary debris), each of which would heighten the risk of further collisions: (3) collisions
and any ensuing cascading would lead to an exponential increase of debris flux and could lead to the formation of a
debris belt around the Barth by the end of this century: and (4) the near earth environment could become so populated
with space debris that portions of |*153| LEO would be unusable. n28 Moreover the majority of NPS satellites
reside in the most densely populated regions of LEO, thereby enhancing the danger of collision with space debris.
n29 The impact of a spent NPS fuel core colliding with a space station could cause devastating radioactive
contamination in addition to structural damage, because the half-life of uranium-235 is in excess of 700,000
years.
Russian satellites are unable to detect the difference between an accidental collision and a
deliberate one- means a collision would inevitably result in nuclear miscalculation.
Lewis 04 (Jeffrey, postdoctoral fellow in the Advanced Methods of Cooperative Security
Program at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland
School of Public Policy, “What if Space Were Weaponized? Possible Consequences for Crisis
Scenarios”, Center for Defense Information (D.C.), July 2004,
http://www.cdi.org/PDFs/scenarios.pdf) OP
This is the second of two scenarios that consider how U.S. space weapons might create incentives for
America's opponents to behave in dangerous ways. The previous scenario looked at the systemic risk of
accidents that could arise from keeping nuclear weapons on high alert to guard against a space weapons
attack. This section focuses on the risk that a single accident in space, such as a piece of space debris
striking a Russian early-warning satellite, might be the catalyst for an accidental nuclear war. As we
have noted in an earlier section, the United States canceled its own ASAT program in the 1980s over
concerns that the deployment of these weapons might be deeply destabilizing. For all the talk about a "new
relationship" between the United States and Russia, both sides retain thousands of nuclear forces on alert and
configured to fight a nuclear war. When briefed about the size and status of U.S. nuclear forces, President
George W. Bush reportedly asked "What do we need all these weapons for?"" The answer, as it was during the Cold War, is that the
forces remain on alert to conduct a number of possible contingencies, including a nuclear strike against Russia. This fact, of course, is
not lost on the Russian leadership, which has been increasing its reliance on nuclear weapons to compensate for the country's declining
military might. In the mid-1990s, Russia dropped its pledge to refrain from the "first use" of nuclear weapons and conducted a series of
exercises in which Russian nuclear forces prepared to use nuclear weapons to repel a NATO invasion. In October 2003, Russian Defense
Minister Sergei Ivanov reiterated that Moscow might use nuclear weapons "preemptively" in any number of contingencies, including a
NATO attack.44 So, it remains business as usual with U.S. and Russian nuclear forces. And business as usual includes the occasional
false alarm of a nuclear attack. There have been several of these incidents over the years. In September 1983, as a relatively new Soviet
early-warning satellite moved into position to monitor U.S. missile fields in North Dakota, the sun lined up in just such a way as to fool
the Russian satellite into reporting that half a dozen U.S. missiles had been launched at the Soviet Union. Perhaps mindful that a brand
new satellite might malfunction, the officer in charge of the command center that monitored data from the early-warning satellites
refused to pass the alert to his superiors. He reportedly explained his caution by saying: "When people start a war, they don't start it with
only five missiles. You can do little damage with just five missiles."4,1 In January 1995, Norwegian scientists launched a sounding
rocket on a trajectory similar to one that a U.S. Trident missile might take if it were launched to blind Russian radars with a high altitude
nuclear detonation. The incident was apparently serious enough that, the next day, Russian President Boris Yeltsin stated that he had
activated his "nuclear football" - a device that allows the Russian president to communicate with his military advisors and review his
options for launching his arsenal. In this case, the Russian early-warning satellites could clearly see that no attack was under way and the
crisis passed without incident.46 In both cases, Russian observers were confident that what appeared to be a "small" attack was not a
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fragmentary picture of a much larger one. In the case of the Norwegian sounding rocket, space-based sensors played a crucial role in
assuring the Russian leadership that it was not under attack. The Russian command system, however, is no longer able to provide such
reliable, early warning. The dissolution of the Soviet Union cost Moscow several radar stations in newly independent states, creating
"attack corridors" through which Moscow could not see an attack launched by U.S. nuclear submarines.47 Further, Russia's constellation
of early-warning satellites has been allowed to decline - only one or two of the six satellites remain operational, leaving Russia with
early warning for only six hours a day. Russia is attempting to reconstitute its constellation of early-warning satellites, with several
launches planned in the next few years. But Russia will still have limited warning and will depend heavily on its space-based systems to
provide warning of an American attack48 As the previous section explained, the Pentagon is contemplating military missions in space
that will improve U.S. ability to cripple Russian nuclear forces in a crisis before they can execute an attack on the United States. Antisatellite weapons, in this scenario, would blind Russian reconnaissance and warning satellites and knock out communications satellites.
Such strikes might be the prelude to a full-scale attack, or a limited effort, as attempted in a war game at Schriever Air Force Base, to
conduct "early deterrence strikes" to signal U.S. resolve and control escalation.4'* By 2010, the United States may, in fact, have an
arsenal of ASATs (perhaps even on orbit 24/7) ready to conduct these kinds of missions to coerce opponents and, if necessary, support
preemptive attacks. Moscow would certainly have to worry that these ASATs could be used in conjunction with other space-enabled
systems for example, long-range strike systems that could attack targets in less than 90 minutes - to disable Russia's nuclear deterrent
before the Russian leadership understood what was going on. What would happen if a piece of space debris were to
disable a Russian early-warning satel- lite under these conditions? Could the Russian military
distinguish between an accident in space and the first phase of a U.S. attack? Most Russian earlywarning satellites are in elliptical Molniya orbits (a few are in GEO) and thus difficult to attack from the
ground or air. At a minimum, Moscow would probably have some tactical warn- ing of such a suspicious
launch, but given the sorry state of Russia’s warning, optical imaging and signals intelligence satellites
there is reason to ask the question. Further, the advent of U.S. on-orbit ASATs, as now envisioned50 could
make both the more difficult orbital plane and any warning systems moot. The unpleasant truth is that the
Russians likely would have to make a judgment call.
No Impact
A. SQUO extinction scenarios preclude- Eventual extinction of the Earth doesn’t matter if
we’re all dead.
Stross 7 (Charles Stross, Freelance Journalist and Writer, “The High Frontier-Redux”, http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blogstatic/2007/06/the-high-frontier-redux.html)
And I don't want to spend much time talking about the unspoken ideological underpinnings of the urge to
space colonization, other than to point out that they're there, that the case for space colonization isn't usually
presented as an economic enterprise so much as a quasi-religious one. "We can't afford to keep all our eggs in
one basket" isn't so much a justification as an appeal to sentimentality, for in the hypothetical case of a
planet-trashing catastrophe, we (who currently inhabit the surface of the Earth) are dead anyway. The future
extinction of the human species cannot affect you if you are already dead: strictly speaking, it should be of no
personal concern.
B. No brink to their extinction claims.
Shapiro 07 (Robert, staff writer for The Space Review, “Why the moon? Human survival!”,
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/832/1) hss
Of course, we have been hearing predictions of Doomsday for years, and we are still here. According to
geologists, the eruption of Mt. Toba in Indonesia 71,000 years ago darkened the sky for years. The
event caused killed much of plant life on the planet. The famine that resulted caused a severe drop in
the human population of that time. The Black Death of the 14th century killed perhaps one-third of the
population of Europe and the great flu epidemic of 1918 claimed an estimated 40 million victims.
Despite these disasters, and others such as global wars, humanity has muddled through and even
prospered. Why should things be different now?
C. Timeframe and Probability- The chance of extinction in nuclear war is high, will happen
within the century.
Marusek ‘03
[James A. Marusek ] 2003 Nuclear Physicist & Engineer. U.S. Department of the Navy,
http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/Permian.pdf
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It is possible for humanity (or its descendents) to survive a million years or more, but we could succumb to
extinction as soon as this century. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, U.S. President Kennedy estimated
the probability of a nuclear holocaust as “somewhere between one out of three and even” (Kennedy,
1969, p. 110). John von Neumann, as Chairman of the U.S. Air Force Strategic Missiles Evaluation
Committee, predicted that it was “absolutely certain (1) that there would be a nuclear war; and (2) that
everyone would die in it” (Leslie, 1996, p. 26).
More recent predictions of human extinction are little more optimistic. In their catalogs of extinction risks,
Britain’s Astronomer Royal, Sir Martin Rees (2003), gives humanity 50-50 odds on surviving the 21st
century; philosopher Nick Bostrom argues that it would be “misguided” to assume that the probability of
extinction is less than 25%; and philosopher John Leslie (1996) assigns a 30% probability to extinction
during the next five centuries. The “Stern Review” for the U.K. Treasury (2006) assumes that the probability
of human extinction during the next century is 10%. And some explanations of the “Fermi Paradox”
imply a high probability (close to100%) of extinction among technological civilizations (Pisani, 2006).4
D. Magnitude- Nuclear war has the biggest impact
Marusek ‘03
[James A. Marusek ] 2003 Nuclear Physicist & Engineer. U.S. Department of the Navy,
http://www.breadandbutterscience.com/Permian.pdf
Estimating the probabilities of unprecedented events is subjective, so we should treat these numbers
skeptically. Still, even if the probability of extinction is several orders lower, because the stakes are
high, it could be wise to invest in extinction countermeasures
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**Leadership Advantage F/L**
Alt Cause
Alternative Causality- economy collapse.
Roberts, 9[Paul Craig Roberts, economist, 2009 “The Era of American Leadership Is Over”
http://www.creators.com/opinion/paul-craig-roberts/the-era-of-american-leadership-is-over.html]
The discouraging fact is that even when faced with crisis in the economy and in foreign policy, the
American political system is incapable of producing any leadership. Here we are in the worst economic
crisis in a lifetime, perhaps in our history, and on the brink of war in Pakistan and Iran while escalating
the war in Afghanistan, and all we get is a government made up of the very people who have brought us to
these crises. Just as the Bushites could not admit the failure of their man, the Obamacons will not be able to
admit the failure of their man. The era of American leadership has passed. America's shyster financial
system has brought economic crisis to the world. America's wars of aggression are seen as serving no
purpose except the enrichment of the military industries associated with Dick Cheney. The world is looking
elsewhere for leadership.
AT: China Space Race
The Space Race is over- US and Russia cooperating on space.
WSJ 10 (Wall Street Journal, “Russia Seeks Cooperation With U.S. in Space Effort, 5-19-10,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704912004575252842393481092.html) OP
WASHINGTON—Russian leaders are trying to use the current thaw in relations with the U.S. to
enhance cooperation in space, pushing for joint exploration efforts extending past the life of the
international space station. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov spoke over the weekend with
Charles Bolden, head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and gave the Kremlin's
strongest indication to date that it wants to team with the U.S. to explore more deeply into the solar
system. View Full Image Reuters U.S. astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson and Russia's Mikhail Kornienko in
March at a space center near Moscow. In a speech and brief interview Monday, Mr. Ivanov said the time is
right for the two countries to share financial and engineering resources on possible ventures that would be
launched past 2020 and travel beyond low-earth orbit. The two countries already collaborate extensively
on the space station, an international consortium that includes Russia, the U.S. and several other
countries. The station, which operates in low-earth orbit, is slated to continue for at least another
decade.
The US would win a Space Race vs. the Chinese
Boozer, 5-19 (Rick, Ph D in Astrophysics, Yahoo News, The United states will beat china in the newest space
race, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20110519/sc_ac/8496119_united_states_will_beat_china_in_newest_space_race,
JG)
America is laying the groundwork for its greatest space endeavor since sending astronauts to the Moon. But
that's not the story you will hear from a few senators and congressional representatives who are more concerned with bringing home
pork than significantly advancing U.S. spaceflight prowess. Exaggerating China's future spaceflight plans is one of
their favorite strategies. In fact Chinese space ambitions are modest. Their yet-to-be-started space
station won't be complete until 2020 at the earliest. It will weigh only 60 tons compared to the
International Space Station's 400 tons and less than half the defunct Russian MIR station's 130 tons. China's state
news announced they are tentatively considering a gigantic super rocket. It prompted Rep. Frank Wolf of
Virginia to say, "The announcement made clear that if the United States does not get serious about its own Exploration Program, the
next flag planted on the moon may be a Chinese flag." Even before the announcement, Rep. Bill Posey of Florida made similar dire
predictions about future Chinese space accomplishments. However, careful reading of the Chinese article reveals it is a
preliminary feasibility study, NOT any actual plan to build the rocket. Furthermore, given that the rocket would
carry a 130-ton payload, which is exactly the same payload weight as the super rocket demanded by certain U.S. Senators, the Chinese
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study is probably just a knee-jerk response to the Senators' efforts. But the Chinese are glimpsing something that disturbs them. They
are worried that the American company SpaceX can launch satellites and people into space for prices
so low that the Chinese can't compete with them ! SpaceX is one of the companies NASA is hiring to come up with
space vehicles for sending astronauts to the ISS under its Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program. Other CCDev companies
include veteran aerospace giant Boeing and newcomers Sierra Nevada Corporation and Blue Origin. Competition between these
companies would bring down launch prices allowing NASA to have more money for developing technology
we will need to send Americans to the Moon, asteroids, and Mars. However, the money hungry super rocket (that politicians are forcing
NASA to build with obsolete and expensive 1980's era shuttle technology) jeopardizes the development of deep space exploration
technology by potentially gobbling any money freed up with CCDev. Not relying heavily on subcontractors as its competition does,
SpaceX manufactures 80% of its vehicle parts, giving them greater quality control. They use the same rocket engine in all of their launch
vehicles. When they want more power, they add more engines to the vehicle, giving them economies of
scale. Those are just a couple of the many ways they hold prices down while insuring high quality and safety. That affordability is
allowing them to develop the most powerful launcher since the Saturn V moon rocket - totally on their own with no government money!
The other companies participating in CCDev also use American ingenuity to bring prices down. In a few years because of their cost
savings, more astronauts will be launched into orbit than have ever been before! And if politicians can be prevented from squandering
the money freed up by CCDev, Americans will lead the way in exploration throughout the inner solar system with such proposed NASA
projects as Nautilus-X at much lower cost than the traditional way of doing things. Nautilus would be the first true spaceship that would
stay in space and never land, with astronauts brought to it from Earth by the CCDev vehicles. NASA can accomplish great things
without a budget increase. If we have the national will, the U.S. will dominate outer space, not the Chinese!
Heg Sustainable
US heg sustainable.
Walt 10 (Stephen M., is the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs at
Harvard University, “Five big questions”, 7-12-10, http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/07
/12/five_big_questions) OP
The United States will remain the world's most powerful state for some time to come. Its economy will
be the world's largest until 2030 at least, and its per capita income will be much higher than that of
other potential rivals (meaning there is great potential wealth that can be mobilized for national purposes).
Unlike Europe, Japan, and Russia, the U.S. population will continue to grow and will not as old. And it will
take a great deal of time before any other country amasses global military capabilities akin to ours.
Inertia from previous gains alone is enough to make any loss of hard power or
competitiveness impossible
Stephen G. Brooks, Assistant Professor of Government at Dartmouth, and William C. Wohlforth, Associate
Professor of Government at Dartmouth, 2008, World Out of Balance: International Relations and the Challenge of
American Primacy, p. 38
The very same arguments apply in reverse to the hegemon. Consider, for example, high-technology military
capabilities. An
important feature of the current international security landscape is the absence of competition on this crucial
dimension of power. The United States’ massive commitment to R&D in general and military-related R&D in
particular presents ever higher barriers to entry into this competition . The trend since the collapse of the Soviet Union’s
military industrial complex has been a steady widening of the U.S. lead.32 This dramatic advantage is not restricted to military weaponry; the United States
is also in a class by itself in collecting, processing, and distributing information on the battlefield.
To reverse the momentum in this state
of affairs would require Herculean efforts.
**He3 Advantage F/L**
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He3 Mining Impossible
No solvency- Helium 3 mining is impossible, requires metals that can’t be found on the
Moon, Mars, or Earth
Williams 2010. (Lynda Williams is a professor at Santa Rosa Junior College. “Irrational Dreams of Space
Colonization” Peace Review, a Journal of Social Justice The New Arms Race in Outer Space (22.1, Spring
2010) http://www.scientainment.com/lwilliams_peacereview.pdf) hss
Although evidence of water has been discovered on both bodies, it exists in a form that is trapped in
minerals, which would require huge amounts of energy to access. Water can be converted into fuel either as
hydrogen or oxygen, which would eliminate the need to transport vast amounts of fuel from Earth. However,
according to Britain's leading spaceflight expert, Professor Colin Pillinger, "You would need to heat up a lot
of lunar soil to 200C to get yourself a glass of water." The promise of helium as an energy source on the
moon to is mostly hype. Helium-3 could be used in the production of nuclear fusion energy, a process we
have yet to prove viable or efficient on Earth. Mining helium would require digging dozens of meters into
the lunar surface and processing hundreds of thousands of tons of soil to produce 1 ton of helium-3.
(25 tons of helium-3 is required to power the US for 1 year.) Fusion also requires the very rare element
tritium, which does not exist naturally on the Moon, Mars or on Earth in abundances needed to
facilitate nuclear fusion energy production. There are no current means for generating the energy on
the Moon to extract the helium-3 to produce the promised endless source of energy from helium-3 on
the Moon. Similar energy problems exist for using solar power on the Moon, which has the additional
problem of being sunlit two weeks a month and dark for the other two weeks.
He3 mining is too expensive to be feasible
Morrow ’11 (John A, worked in the Army Defense Appellate Division in Virginia, http://www.quora.com/Justhow-feasible-is-to-mine-Helium-3-on-the-Moon “Just how feasible is to mine Helium-3 on the Moon?”) ED
Economically feasible? Absolutely not. The cost of constructing and maintaining a moon base, plus the
astronomical (pun intended) cost of actually transporting materials to and from the moon would render it
utterly pointless. Current costs (depends on who you ask) are something like $5000-$10,000 per pound to put
something into low earth orbit - nowhere near the moon. Efforts are underway to lower that (some cool stuff being
done in the private sector) but there is no conceivable way that you could do this economically anytime in the
next several decades.
He3 Not Key
Abundant solar energy is available on earth, a moon expedition to find He3 would be
pointless
Bearden ‘9 (http://www.altenergy.org/renewables/solar.html Thomas Lieutenant Colonel U.S. Army (Retired).
President and Chief Executive Officer, CTEC, Inc. MS Nuclear Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology) ED
The Earth receives an incredible supply of solar energy . The sun, an average star, is a fusion reactor that has been burning
over 4 billion years. It provides enough energy in one minute to supply the world's energy needs for one year. In
one day, it provides more energy than our current population would consume in 27 years . In fact, "The
amount of solar radiation striking the earth over a three-day period is equivalent to the energy stored in all fossil energy
sources." Solar energy is a free, inexhaustible resource, yet harnessing it is a relatively new idea. The ability to use solar
power for heat was the first discovery. A Swiss scientist, Horace de Saussure, built the first thermal solar collector in 1767, which was
later used to heat water and cook food. The first commercial patent for a solar water heater went to Clarence Kemp of the US in 1891.
This system was bought by two California executives and installed in one-third of the homes in Pasadena by 1897. Producing electricity
from solar energy was the second discovery. In 1839 a French physicist named Edmund Becquerel realized that the sun's energy could
produce a "photovoltaic effect" (photo = light, voltaic = electrical potential). In the 1880s, selenium photovoltaic (PV) cells were
developed that could convert light into electricity with 1-2% efficiency ("the efficiency of a solar cell is the percentage of available
sunlight converted by the photovoltaic cell into electricity"), but how the conversion happened was not understood. Photovoltaic power
therefore "remained a curiosity for many years, since it was very inefficient at turning sunlight into electricity." It was not until Albert
Einstein proposed an explanation for the "photoelectric effect" in the early 1900s, for which he won a Nobel Prize, that people began to
understand the related photovoltaic effect.
A2: Resource Wars
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Resource scarcity doesn’t cause wars-- laundry list
DEUDNEY 1999 (Daniel, Asst Prof of Poli Sci at Johns Hopkins, Contested Grounds: Security and Conflict in
the New Environmental Politics ) ED
Another major limitation of most studies on environmental conflict is that they rarely consider the character of the overall international
system in assessing the prospects for conflict and violence. Of course, it is impossible to analyze everything at once, but conclusions
about conflictual outcomes are premature until the main features of the world political system are factored in. The frequency with which
environmental scarcity and conflict will produce violent conflict, particularly interstate wars, is profoundly shaped by six features of
contemporary world politics: (1) the prevalance of capitalism and the extent of international trade; (2) the
existence of numerous functional international organizations, nongovernmental organizations and
epistemic communities; (3) highly developed state-system institutions; and (4) the existence of nuclear
weapons; (5) the widespread diffusion of conventional weaponry; and (6) the influence of a hegemonic
coalition of liberal constitutional democracies. These deeply rooted material and institutional features
of the contemporary world order greatly reduce the likelihood that environmental scarcities and
change will lead to interstate violence (see figure 8.1).
Their resource wars arguments are wrong, scarcity makes diplomacy
DALBY 2006 (Simon, Dept. Of Geography, Carleton University, "Security and environment linkages revisited"
in Globalisation and Environmental Challenges: Reconceptualising Security in the 21st Century,
www.ntu.edu.sg/idss/publications/SSIS/SSIS001.pdf) ED
In parallel with the focus on human security as a necessity in the face of both natural and artificial forms of vulnerability, recent
literature has emphasised the opportunities that environmental management presents for political cooperation between states and other
political actors, on both largescale infrastructure projects as well as more traditional matters of wildlife and new concerns with
biodiversity preservation (Matthew/Halle/Switzer 2002). Simultaneously, the discussion on water wars, and in
particular the key finding the shared resources frequently stimulate cooperation rather than conflict ,
shifted focus from conflict to the possibilities of environmental action as a mode of peacemaking. Both
at the international level in terms of environmental diplomacy and institution building, there is
considerable evidence of cooperative action on the part of many states (Conca/Dabelko 2002). Case studies from many
parts of the world suggest that cooperation and diplomatic arrangements can facilitate peaceful responses to the environmental
difficulties in contrast to the pessimism of the 1990’s where the focus was on the potential for conflicts. One recent example of the
attempts to resolve difficulties in the case of Lake Victoria suggests a dramatic alternative to the resource war scenarios. The need to
curtail over-fishing in the lake and the importance of remediation has encouraged cooperation; scarcities leading to conflict
arguments have not been common in the region, and they have not influenced policy prescriptions
(Canter/Ndegwa 2002). Many conflicts over the allocations of water use rights continue around the world
but most of them are within states and international disputes simply do not have a history of leading
to wars.
***Space Debris Turn***
Launches necessary for space colonization increase space debris.
Williams 10 (Lynda, M.S. in Physics and a physics faculty member at Santa Rose Junior
College, “Irrational Dreams of Space Colonization”, http://www.foresightfordevelopment.org/2/
index.php?option=com_sobi2&sobi2Task=sobi2Details&catid=0&sobi2Id=420&Itemid=) OP
Since the space age began, the orbital environment around Earth has become crowded with satellites
and space debris, so much so that circumterrestrial space has become a dangerous place with an increasing
risk of collision and destruction. Thousands of pieces of space junk, created from past launches and
space missions, orbit the Earth at the same distance as satellites, putting them at risk of collision.
Every time a space mission is launched from Earth, debris from the rocket stages is added to orbital
space. In 2009, there was a disastrous collision between an Iridium satellite and a piece of space junk that
destroyed the satellite. In 2007, China blew up one of its defunct satellites to demonstrate its antiballistic
missile capabilities, increasing the debris field by 15 percent. The United States followed suit a few months later when, in February
2008, it used its ship-based antiballistic missile system to destroy one of its own satellites that had reportedly gone out of control. There
are no international laws prohibiting anti- satellite actions. Every year, since the mid-1980s, a treaty has been introduced into the UN for
a Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS), with all parties, including Russia and China, voting for it, except for the United
States and Israel. How can we hope to pursue peaceful and environmentally sound space exploration without international laws in place
that protect space and Earth environments, and guarantee that the space race to the moon and beyond does not foster a war over
space resources? Indeed, if the space debris problem continues to grow unfettered, or if such a thing as
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a space war were ever to occur, then space would become too trashed for further launches to take
place without a great risk of destruction.
For every piece of space debris launched into orbit, the risk of collision increases.
Tan 00 (David, Ph.D. in Law from Melbourne University and Master of Laws from Harvard,
"Towards A New Regime for the Protection of Outer Space", Yale Journal of International Law,
http://wenku.baidu.com/view/dc28328a84868762caaed551.html, lexis) OP
In recent years, man-made space debris n 2 l or space refuse has been an environmental hazard whose
seriousness is a shared concern of many scientists and policy-makers in the international community.
n22 The deployment of an ever-increasing number of man-made objects into outer space has created a
potential for malfunctioning and decay. It has also resulted in a concomitant rise in the number of defunct,
damaged, or abandoned objects, which, together with other debris caused by explosions and collisions, has fast become
a threat to space activities. It has been estimated that there are over 7000 trackable man-made objects in space and a
substantially larger number of untraceable objects. n23 Most of the trackable objects are located in low-earth-orbit
(LEO) n24 with a significant number in geosynchronous orbit (GEO) an area of intense space activity. n25The
limited empirical data reveal 1*1521 that objects of sizes between 0.01 and I centimeter can cause significant damage
upon impact Objects larger than 1 centimeter can produce catastrophic effects. n26 Present spacecraft systems are
particularly vulnerable as they have not been designed with these threats in mind, n27 If the growth in numbers
is permitted to continue without adequate measures to safeguard active space objects from damage
caused by explosion, collision, or harmful radiation, it could easily result in serious accidents involving the
loss of human lives or substantial property damage. Collision and interference are the major risks
space debris poses to human life and active payloads. Perhaps the most serious consequence of collisions with
space debris is the cascade effect: (1) As the number of space objects in earth-orbit increases, the
probability of collisions between them also increases: (2) collisions would produce new orbiting
fragments (secondary debris), each of which would heighten the risk of further collisions: (3) collisions
and any ensuing cascading would lead to an exponential increase of debris flux and could lead to the formation of a
debris belt around the Barth by the end of this century: and (4) the near earth environment could become so populated
with space debris that portions of |*153| LEO would be unusable. n28 Moreover the majority of NPS satellites
reside in the most densely populated regions of LEO, thereby enhancing the danger of collision with space debris.
n29 The impact of a spent NPS fuel core colliding with a space station could cause devastating radioactive
contamination in addition to structural damage, because the half-life of uranium-235 is in excess of 700,000
years.
Russian satellites are unable to detect the difference between an accidental collision and a
deliberate one- means a collision would inevitably result in nuclear miscalculation.
Lewis 04 (Jeffrey, postdoctoral fellow in the Advanced Methods of Cooperative Security
Program at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland
School of Public Policy, “What if Space Were Weaponized? Possible Consequences for Crisis
Scenarios”, Center for Defense Information (D.C.), July 2004,
http://www.cdi.org/PDFs/scenarios.pdf) OP
This is the second of two scenarios that consider how U.S. space weapons might create incentives for
America's opponents to behave in dangerous ways. The previous scenario looked at the systemic risk of
accidents that could arise from keeping nuclear weapons on high alert to guard against a space weapons
attack. This section focuses on the risk that a single accident in space, such as a piece of space debris
striking a Russian early-warning satellite, might be the catalyst for an accidental nuclear war. As we
have noted in an earlier section, the United States canceled its own ASAT program in the 1980s over
concerns that the deployment of these weapons might be deeply destabilizing. For all the talk about a "new
relationship" between the United States and Russia, both sides retain thousands of nuclear forces on alert and
configured to fight a nuclear war. When briefed about the size and status of U.S. nuclear forces, President
George W. Bush reportedly asked "What do we need all these weapons for?"" The answer, as it was during the Cold War, is that the
forces remain on alert to conduct a number of possible contingencies, including a nuclear strike against Russia. This fact, of course, is
not lost on the Russian leadership, which has been increasing its reliance on nuclear weapons to compensate for the country's declining
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military might. In the mid-1990s, Russia dropped its pledge to refrain from the "first use" of nuclear weapons and conducted a series of
exercises in which Russian nuclear forces prepared to use nuclear weapons to repel a NATO invasion. In October 2003, Russian Defense
Minister Sergei Ivanov reiterated that Moscow might use nuclear weapons "preemptively" in any number of contingencies, including a
NATO attack.44 So, it remains business as usual with U.S. and Russian nuclear forces. And business as usual includes the occasional
false alarm of a nuclear attack. There have been several of these incidents over the years. In September 1983, as a relatively new Soviet
early-warning satellite moved into position to monitor U.S. missile fields in North Dakota, the sun lined up in just such a way as to fool
the Russian satellite into reporting that half a dozen U.S. missiles had been launched at the Soviet Union. Perhaps mindful that a brand
new satellite might malfunction, the officer in charge of the command center that monitored data from the early-warning satellites
refused to pass the alert to his superiors. He reportedly explained his caution by saying: "When people start a war, they don't start it with
only five missiles. You can do little damage with just five missiles."4,1 In January 1995, Norwegian scientists launched a sounding
rocket on a trajectory similar to one that a U.S. Trident missile might take if it were launched to blind Russian radars with a high altitude
nuclear detonation. The incident was apparently serious enough that, the next day, Russian President Boris Yeltsin stated that he had
activated his "nuclear football" - a device that allows the Russian president to communicate with his military advisors and review his
options for launching his arsenal. In this case, the Russian early-warning satellites could clearly see that no attack was under way and the
crisis passed without incident.46 In both cases, Russian observers were confident that what appeared to be a "small" attack was not a
fragmentary picture of a much larger one. In the case of the Norwegian sounding rocket, space-based sensors played a crucial role in
assuring the Russian leadership that it was not under attack. The Russian command system, however, is no longer able to provide such
reliable, early warning. The dissolution of the Soviet Union cost Moscow several radar stations in newly independent states, creating
"attack corridors" through which Moscow could not see an attack launched by U.S. nuclear submarines.47 Further, Russia's constellation
of early-warning satellites has been allowed to decline - only one or two of the six satellites remain operational, leaving Russia with
early warning for only six hours a day. Russia is attempting to reconstitute its constellation of early-warning satellites, with several
launches planned in the next few years. But Russia will still have limited warning and will depend heavily on its space-based systems to
provide warning of an American attack48 As the previous section explained, the Pentagon is contemplating military missions in space
that will improve U.S. ability to cripple Russian nuclear forces in a crisis before they can execute an attack on the United States. Antisatellite weapons, in this scenario, would blind Russian reconnaissance and warning satellites and knock out communications satellites.
Such strikes might be the prelude to a full-scale attack, or a limited effort, as attempted in a war game at Schriever Air Force Base, to
conduct "early deterrence strikes" to signal U.S. resolve and control escalation.4'* By 2010, the United States may, in fact, have an
arsenal of ASATs (perhaps even on orbit 24/7) ready to conduct these kinds of missions to coerce opponents and, if necessary, support
preemptive attacks. Moscow would certainly have to worry that these ASATs could be used in conjunction with other space-enabled
systems for example, long-range strike systems that could attack targets in less than 90 minutes - to disable Russia's nuclear deterrent
before the Russian leadership understood what was going on. What would happen if a piece of space debris were to
disable a Russian early-warning satel- lite under these conditions? Could the Russian military
distinguish between an accident in space and the first phase of a U.S. attack? Most Russian earlywarning satellites are in elliptical Molniya orbits (a few are in GEO) and thus difficult to attack from the
ground or air. At a minimum, Moscow would probably have some tactical warn- ing of such a suspicious
launch, but given the sorry state of Russia’s warning, optical imaging and signals intelligence satellites
there is reason to ask the question. Further, the advent of U.S. on-orbit ASATs, as now envisioned50 could
make both the more difficult orbital plane and any warning systems moot. The unpleasant truth is that the
Russians likely would have to make a judgment call.
2NC Space Debris Turn
For every space ship the aff would launch in order to transport humans from Earth to the
Moon, they would uniquely increase the risk of space debris colliding with a Russian
satellite, that’s Tan 2000, making our impact inevitable. And, our Lewis 04 evidence says
Russia’s current technology prevents them from being able to differentiate between an
accidental collision and a deliberate attack. They would likely have to make a judgment
call and err on the side of caution ensuring a nuclear miscalculation, that’s also Lewis 04.
And, space debris turns their leadership:
1) US space satellites are key to the US economy and overall US national security.
Lieutenant Colonel Imburgia 11 (Joseph S., B.S., United States Air Force Academy, Judge
Advocate in the USAF and is legal exchange officer to the Directorate of Operations and
International Law, “Space Debris and Its Threat to National Security: A Proposal for a Binding
International Agreements to Clean Up Junk”, 5-1-11,http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3577
/is_3_44/ai_n57583169/pg_28/) OP
These gloomy prognostications about the threats to our space environment should be troubling to
Americans. The United States relies on the unhindered use of outer space for national security.151
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According to a space commission led by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. "[t]he [United
States] is more dependent on space than any other nation."152 According to Robert G. Joseph, former
Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security at the State Department- "space capabilities are
vital to our national security and to our economic well-being 153 Therefore a catastrophic collision
between space debris and the satellites on which that national security so heavily depends poses a very
real and current threat to the national security interests of the United States.
2) Loss of satellites hinders our national security opening us up to even more potential
threats.
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A2: Small Risk of Collision
Space debris poses a huge thereat to satellites.
Science Daily 11 (“Surveillance System to Cut Risk of Space Debris Hitting Satellites”, 4-7-11,
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110406132020.htm) OP
The growing quantity of space debris is a serious threat to satellites and other spacecraft, which risk
being damaged or even destroyed. A new European space surveillance system is being developed to ward
off the danger of collisions in orbit. Fraunhofer researchers are supplying the receiver for the radar
demonstrator system. Orbital space is like a busy highway, with countless satellites constantly circling Earth
and occasional visits by stray asteroids, comets and meteorites. The region is also strewn with debris from
human space activities such as burnt-out rocket stages and fragments of disintegrated spacecraft,
which are transforming it into an orbiting junk yard. It is estimated that there are currently around
20,000 objects with a minimum diameter of ten centimeters in orbit around Earth, including 15,000 in
the low Earth orbit at an altitude of between 200 and 2,000 kilometers. These objects travel at a speed
of up to 28,000 kilometers per hour, which means even the smallest particles measuring a centimeter
or less in diameter are capable of causing serious damage to any satellite they encounter, or even
completely destroying it. Only two years ago, in February 2009, a retired satellite collided with one of the
Iridium communication satellites. The International Space Station ISS has to perform four to five evasive
maneuvers each year.
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A2: Space Debris Not a Big Deal
Space debris is the greatest threat in space.
Kelly 5 (John, Florida Today, “Debris is Shuttle's Biggest Threat”, 3-5-11,
http://www.space.com/792-debris-shuttle-biggest-threat.html) OP
Tiny rocks, paint flecks and other fragments of junk whizzing around the Earth pose the greatest
threat to the shuttles and the astronauts on board, according to the preliminary results of a new NASA
risk study. Engineers and scientists long have known the stuff pounding the shuttle as it flies through
space can do catastrophic damage. Until now, few put space debris on the same level as the dangers
seen during the shuttle's treacherous launch or its fiery plunge back through the atmosphere to land.
The internal risk assessment, still under review by the agency's experts, says space debris hitting
different parts of the orbiter accounts for 11 of the 20 problems most likely to cause the loss of another
shuttle and crew. Overall, space debris accounts for half of the catastrophic risk on any flight.
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***Disease Turn***
Space exploration exposes us to new diseases and irritants
SciPop 08 (Space blog, http://popchaser.wordpress.com/2008/06/11/interesting-problem-for-moon-dwellers/)
During the Apollo program, scientist discovered that the statically charged moondust proved to be quite an
engineering problem, but now, researchers are starting to realize that lunar dust may also pose a
significant health risk for astronauts to come. One superficial aspect of moondust is that it extremely
small and jagged, much like tiny, little shards of glass. There is no consistent weathering process on the
moon, unlike here on Earth, so rounded edges cannot develop on the dust particles. For Apollo astronauts,
the sandpaper-like nature of moondust scratched faceplates and caused irritation to both the eyes and lungs.
To combat this problem, right now, researches of the Lunar Airborne Dust Toxicity Advisory Group (or
LADTAG) are exposing lab rats to moondust aerosols and studying the effects. Additionally, in the lunar,
airless, environment, moondust is also super chemically reactive. On Earth, the constant presence of
highly reactive oxygen in the atmosphere quells any potentially reactive compounds on surfaces when they
are exposed to air. Fortunately, scientist believe that the high reactivity of moondust will probably not be a
major problem, considering that future lunar astronauts will most likely come equip with their own supply of
air…hopefully. As you read, research aimed at learning more about the above mentioned nuances of lunar
dust marches on; however, I believe there is one more possible moondust complication which merits
scientific attention: moondust allergy. I know this may seem silly at first, but if astronauts or lunar
settlers are going to be living with moondust day in and day out and, thus, become chronically exposed to
it, then there is always the possibility of a longterm sensitization allergy developing. Furthermore, some
more sinister type of moondust-induced autoimmune disease may also be lurking in the future for
humans living on the moon. Here on Earth, there have been reported cases of humans developing a rare type
of autoimmune disease while breathing in pig-brain aerosols at meat-packing plants, so I guess that anything
is possible.
Space diseases have 300% higher mortality rate and are resistant to antibiotics.
Karin 10 (Janice, Senior Managing Editor of Science & Technology at Suite101, “Disease May
Derail Space Travel”, 6-23-10, http://thefutureofthings.com/news/9563/disease-may-derailspace-travel.html) OP
The scientists used existing studies concerning astronaut immune systems and the results of two
experiments (one in 2006 and one in 2008) where cultures of salmonella were grown simultaneously on
Earth and on the space shuttle to allow direct comparisons. The cultures on the space shuttle grew faster
and resulted in a 300% increase in mortality rate when injected into mice. Furthermore, the bacteria
in space tended to grow a biofilm coating which has proven particularly resistant to antibiotics in the
past. This accelerated rate of growth may be caused by fluid shear that creates an environment similar to that
found in human intestines. Basically, the salmonella detects the force of surrounding fluids. The salmonella
typically slips into the spaces between the villi in the intestines which protect it from the significant churn
found in the center of the pathway. Researchers believe the low fluid shear of space is similar to the shear
found within these pockets, a condition that sends the bacteria into overdrive as it prepares to enter the blood
stream and cause infections. When combined with an observed decrease in the effectiveness of the
human immune system in space, the virulence of bacteria growth could cause significant health issues
for astronauts on long-term flights. Researchers are exploring the use of different growth medium to
control the rate of bacteria virulence. In addition to information about disease in space, these experiments are
providing additional information on how salmonella and similar bacteria work more generally which may
improve treatment and prevention on Earth and well as in space.
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Antibiotic resistant diseases threaten human extinction.
Discover 2000 (“Twenty Ways the World Could End” by Corey Powell in Discover Magazine,
October 2000, http://discovermagazine.com/2000/oct/featworld) OP
If Earth doesn't do us in, our fellow organisms might be up to the task. Germs and people have
always coexisted, but occasionally the balance gets out of whack. The Black Plague killed one
European in four during the 14th century; influenza took at least 20 million lives between 1918 and 1919;
the AIDS epidemic has produced a similar death toll and is still going strong. From 1980 to 1992, reports
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, mortality from infectious disease in the United States
rose 58 percent Old diseases such as cholera and measles have developed new resistance to antibiotics.
Intensive agriculture and land development is bringing humans closer to animal pathogens. International
travel means diseases can spread faster than ever Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert
who recently left the Minnesota Department of Health, described the situation as "like trying to swim
against the current of a raging river." The grimmest possibility would be the emergence of a strain
that spreads so fast we are caught off guard or that resists all chemical means of control, perhaps as
a result of our stirring of the ecological pot. About 12,000 years ago, a sudden wave of mammal
extinctions swept through the Americas. Ross MacPhee of the American Museum of Natural History
argues the culprit was extremely virulent disease, which humans helped transport as they migrated into
the New World.
.
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2NC Disease Turn
Colonizing space will expose us to new diseases that our bodies do not have defense against,
that’s SciPop 08. Furthermore, diseases in space are 300% more fatal than diseases on
Earth and are immune to antibiotics, Karin 10. Our Discover 2000 evidence indicates that
antibiotic resistant diseases are a risk for human extinction. But with the affirmative, it’s
try AND die because we’ll either die on Earth or from disease in space.
If we try to escape our Earthly doom by colonizing space, we’ll only trash the Earth until
then.
Williams 10 (Lynda, M.S. in Physics and a physics faculty member at Santa Rose Junior
College, “Irrational Dreams of Space Colonization, http://www.scientainment.com/
lwilliams_peacereview.pdf) OP
Life on Earth is more urgently threatened by the destruction of the biosphere and its life sustaining
habitat due environmental catastrophes such as climate change, ocean acidification, disruption of the
food chain, bio-warfare, nuclear war, nuclear winter, and myriads of other man-made doomsday
prophesies. If we accept these threats as inevitabilities on par with real astronomical dangers and divert
our natural, intellectual, political and technological resources from solving these problems into escaping
them, will we playing into a self- fulfilling prophesy of our own planetary doom? Seeking space based
solutions to our Earthly problems may indeed exacerbate the planetary threats we face. This is the
core of the ethical dilemma posed by space colonization: should we put our recourses and bets on
developing human colonies on other worlds to survive natural and man-made catastrophes or should we
focus all of our energies on solving the problems that create these threats on Earth?
Even if their astronomical threats are true, we don’t necessarily have to colonize space to
survive.
Williams 10 (Lynda, M.S. in Physics and a physics faculty member at Santa Rose Junior
College, “Irrational Dreams of Space Colonization, http://www.scientainment.com/
lwilliams_peacereview.pdf) OP
According to scientific theory, the destruction of Earth is a certainty. About five billion years from now,
when our sun exhausts its nuclear fuel, it will expand in size and envelope the inner planets, including
the Earth, and burn them into oblivion. So yes, we are doomed, but we have 5 billion years, plus or
minus a few hundred million, to plan our extraterrestrial escape. The need to colonize the Moon or Mars
to guarantee our survival based on this fact is not pressing. There are also real risks due to collisions
with asteroids and comets, though none are of immediate threat and do not necessitate extraterrestrial
colonization. There are many Earth-based technological strategies that can be developed in time to
mediate such astronomical threats such as gravitational tugboats that drag the objects out of range. The
solar system could also potentially be exposed to galactic sources of high-energy gamma ray bursts that
could fry all life on Earth, but any Moon or Mars base would face a similar fate. Thus, Moon or Mars
human based colonies would not protect us from any of these astronomical threats in the near future.
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A2: NASA can cure space diseases
There’s currently no way of treating space diseases.
Lord 07 (MG, author of Astro Turf:The Private Life of Rocket Science, “Are We a Spacefaring
Species? Acknowledging Our Physical Fragility as a First Step to Transcending It,” Societal
impact of spaceflight, http://history.nasa.gov/sp4801-chapter32.pdf) OP
Not only does chronic radiation exposure hurt people, it also degrades the drugs used to treat them. The
antibiotics NASA currently uses on Shuttle missions (Bactrim, cipro, and augmentin) lose their potency
after about two weeks in space, according to Lakshmi Putcha, a pharmacotherapeutics researcher at the
Johnson Space center.6 if Mars-bound astronauts equipped with these drugs in their current
formulations became ill, she said, “We would have no way of treating them.”
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***Leadership ADV***
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A2: Leadership- Heg Sustainable
Heg sustainable.
Walt 10 (Stephen M., is the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs at
Harvard University, “Five big questions”, 7-12-10, http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/07
/12/five_big_questions) OP
The United States will remain the world's most powerful state for some time to come. Its economy will
be the world's largest until 2030 at least, and its per capita income will be much higher than that of
other potential rivals (meaning there is great potential wealth that can be mobilized for national purposes).
Unlike Europe, Japan, and Russia, the U.S. population will continue to grow and will not as old. And it will
take a great deal of time before any other country amasses global military capabilities akin to ours.
The US will not be replaced as a super power for a very long time.
Brooks and Wohlforth 9 (Stephen G., Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth
College, and William C., Professor of Government and Chair of the Department of Government
at Dartmouth College, “Reshaping the World Order.”, Foreign Affairs; Mar/Apr2009, Vol. 88
Issue 2, p49-63, 15phttp://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=4&hid=13&sid=bd557b4f-58eb4930-833b 9d20d6aab0f3%40sessionmgr15&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZS
ZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=aph&AN=36636314) OP
Only a few years ago, pundits were absorbed in debates about American "empire." Now, the conventional
wisdom is that the world is rapidly approaching the end of the unipolar system with the United States
as the sole superpower. A dispassionate look at the facts shows that this view understates U.S. power as
much as recent talk of empire exaggerated it. That the United States weighs more on the traditional scales
of world power than has any other state in modern history is as true now as it was when the
commentator Charles Krauthammer proclaimed the advent of a "unipolar moment" in these pages nearly two
decades ago. The United States continues to account for about half the world's defense spending and
one-quarter of its economic output. Some of the reasons for bearishness concern public policy problems
that can be fixed (expensive health care in the United States, for example), whereas many of the reasons for
bullishness are more fundamental (such as the greater demographic challenges faced by the United States'
potential rivals). So why has opinion shifted so quickly from visions of empire to gloomy declinism? One
reason is that the United States' successes at the turn of the century led to irrational exuberance, thereby
setting unreasonably high standards for measuring the superpower's performance. From 1999 to 2003,
seemingly easy U. S. victories in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq led some to conclude that the United States
could do what no great power in history had managed before: effortlessly defeat its adversaries. It was only a
matter of time before such pie-in-the-sky benchmarks proved unattainable. Subsequent difficulties in
Afghanistan and Iraq dashed illusions of omnipotence, but these upsets hardly displaced the United
States as the world's leading state, and there is no reason to believe that the militaries of its putative rivals
would have performed any better. The United States did not cease to be a superpower when its policies in
Cuba and Vietnam failed in the 1960s; bipolarity lived on for three decades. Likewise, the United States
remains the sole superpower today. Another key reason for the multipolar mania is "the rise of the rest."
Impressed by the rapid economic growth of China and India, many write as if multipolarity has already
returned. But such pronouncements mistake current trajectories for final outcomes--a common strategic error
with deep psychological roots. The greatest concern in the Cold War, for example, came not from the Soviet
Union's actually attaining parity with the United States but from the expectation that it would do so in the
future. Veterans of that era recall how the launch of Sputnik in 1957 fed the perception that Soviet power was
growing rapidly, leading some policymakers and analysts to start acting as if the Soviet Union were already
as powerful as the United States. A state that is rising should not be confused with one that has risen,
just as a state that is declining should not be written off as having already declined. China is generally
seen as the country best positioned to emerge as a superpower challenger to the United States. Yet
depending on how one measures GDP, China's economy is between 20 percent and 43 percent the size
of the United States'. More dramatic is the difference in GDP per capita, for which all measures show
China's as being less than 10 percent of the United States'. Absent a 1930s-style depression that spares
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potential U.S. rivals, the United States will not be replaced as the sole superpower for a very long time.
Real multipolarity--an international system of three or more evenly matched powers--is nowhere on the
horizon. Relative power between states shifts slowly. This tendency to conflate trends with outcomes is often
driven by the examination in isolation of certain components of state power. If the habit during the Cold War
was to focus on military power, the recent trend has been to single out economic output. No declinist tract is
complete without a passage noting that although the United States may remain a military superpower,
economic multipolarity is, or soon will be, the order of the day. Much as highlighting the Soviet Union's
military power meant overlooking the country's economic and technological feet of clay, examining only
economic output means putting on blinders. In 1991, Japan's economy was two-thirds the size of the United
States', which, according to the current popular metric, would mean that with the Soviet Union's demise, the
world shifted from bipolarity to, well, bipolarity. Such a partial assessment of power will produce no more
accurate an analysis today.
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A2: US Losing Space Race
Space Race is over.
History Channel modified 7/1/ 11 (http://www.history.com/topics/space-race#a4_) OP
By landing on the moon, the United States effectively "won" the space race that had begun with
Sputnik's launch in 1957. For their part, the Soviets made four failed attempts to launch a lunar landing
craft between 1969 and 1972, including a spectacular launch-pad explosion in July 1969. From beginning to
end, the American public's attention was captivated by the space race, and the various developments by the
Soviet and U.S. space programs were heavily covered in the national media. This frenzy of interest was
further encouraged by the new medium of television. Astronauts came to be seen as the ultimate American
heroes, and earth-bound men and women seemed to enjoy living vicariously through them. Soviets, in turn,
were pictured as the ultimate villains, with their massive, relentless efforts to surpass America and prove the
power of the communist system. With the conclusion of the space race, U.S. government interest in lunar
missions waned after the early 1970s. In 1975, the joint Apollo-Soyuz mission sent three U.S. astronauts
into space aboard an Apollo spacecraft that docked in orbit with a Soviet-made Soyuz vehicle. When the
commanders of the two crafts officially greeted each other, their "handshake in space" served to
symbolize the gradual improvement of U.S.-Soviet relations in the late Cold War-era.
The Space Race is over- US and Russia cooperating on space.
WSJ 10 (Wall Street Journal, “Russia Seeks Cooperation With U.S. in Space Effort, 5-19-10,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704912004575252842393481092.html) OP
WASHINGTON—Russian leaders are trying to use the current thaw in relations with the U.S. to
enhance cooperation in space, pushing for joint exploration efforts extending past the life of the
international space station. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov spoke over the weekend with
Charles Bolden, head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and gave the Kremlin's
strongest indication to date that it wants to team with the U.S. to explore more deeply into the solar
system. View Full Image Reuters U.S. astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson and Russia's Mikhail Kornienko in
March at a space center near Moscow. In a speech and brief interview Monday, Mr. Ivanov said the time is
right for the two countries to share financial and engineering resources on possible ventures that would be
launched past 2020 and travel beyond low-earth orbit. The two countries already collaborate extensively
on the space station, an international consortium that includes Russia, the U.S. and several other
countries. The station, which operates in low-earth orbit, is slated to continue for at least another
decade.
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US and China Relations Good
US and China relations are resilient
Harding ‘9 (Professor Harry, Professor in Department of Politics and Public Administration, The U.S. – China
Relationship: From Fragility to Resilience http://www.hku.hk/press/news_detail_5930.html) ED
Back in the early 1990s, at the beginning of the Clinton Administration, it seemed appropriate to describe U.S. China relations as a "fragile relationship". But today, the relationship appears far more resilient,
describing as containing a complex blend of competition and cooperation . How can we understand these
changes? Why was the relationship relatively fragile then and more resilient today? What are the remaining unstable factors that could
generate a crisis in the relationship, and how likely is such a crisis to occur? Professor Harry Harding, currently a Visiting Professor in
the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Hong Kong, one of the most prominent American scholars in
the field of China studies and US-China relations, will give a public lecture on Sino-American relations. Professor Harding will discuss
the development of Sino-America relationship.
Us-China relations show growing stability
Wines 2011(Michael, is the China bureau chief for The New York Times, Subtle Signs of Progress in U.S.-China
Relations, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/20/world/asia/20assess.html)ED
After a 2010 notable mostly for Chinese acrimony toward the United States and its policies, Mr. Hu came to
the White House not only saying that constructive relations between the two powers were essential, but
also offering some modest concessions to demonstrate it. In a joint statement issued Wednesday, the
Chinese for the first time expressed public concern over North Korea’s recent disclosure of a modern
uranium-enrichment plant, a small but ardently sought step in American efforts to press Kim Jong-il to roll
back his nuclear weapons program. More surprising, perhaps, Mr. Hu said at a White House news
conference that “a lot still needs to be done in China in terms of human rights,” an unusual admission
for a government that recently called the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to one of its dissidents a
Western plot to embarrass Beijing.
U.S. China relations are steadily improving
Wines 2011(Michael, is the China bureau chief for The New York Times, Subtle Signs of Progress in U.S.-China
Relations, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/20/world/asia/20assess.html)ED
Still, each side came away from the meeting with something it could point to as an accomplishment,
however modest. The White House had set out to keep relations from sliding even further downhill, and to
establish a more personal relationship with Mr. Hu that could sustain ties during the next two years,
when the political realities of choosing leaders in both countries will work against any significant
improvement. Mr. Obama appears to have gotten that. For his part, Mr. Hu was, by American accounts,
fixated on engineering a state visit that would portray China as an equal partner with the United
States, and China’s president as a successful, internationally recognized statesman. He got that, too. Both
leaders should also reap domestic political benefits from their meeting. Mr. Hu’s enhanced stature,
American analysts say, should help him tamp down political forces that have driven a more aggressive
foreign policy and hamstrung relations with the United States and China’s Pacific neighbors in the last
year.
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*** Colonization ADV***
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A2: Super Volcanoes
Yellowstone Volcano Observatory 05 (YVO is an instrument-based monitoring facility
designed for observing volcanic, hydrothermal, and earthquake activity in the Yellowstone
National Park region, http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/yvo/publications/2005/docudrama.php) OP
Although it is possible, scientists are not convinced that there will ever be another catastrophic eruption
at Yellowstone. Given Yellowstone's past history, the yearly probability of another caldera—forming
eruption could be calculated as 1 in 730,000 or 0.00014%. However, this number is based simply on
averaging the two intervals between the three major past eruptions at Yellowstone — this is hardly enough to
make a critical judgement. This probability is roughly similar to that of a large (1 kilometer) asteroid
hitting the Earth. Moreover, catastrophic geologic events are neither regular nor predictable.
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A2: Overpopulation
Current recession prevents curbs fertility rates- preventing overpopulation.
Connor 11 (Steve, Science Editor for The London Independence, “Fertility drops in global recession”, 6-29-11,
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/fertility-drops-in-global-recession2304079.html) OP
The global economic recession has curbed the general rise in fertility seen in many developed
countries over recent decades, with some nations experiencing a significant decline in birthrates since
the downturn of 2008, a study has found. Scientists said the recession has brought to an end the first
concerted rise in fertility rates across the industrialised world since the 1960s, as young, professional women
in particular feared for their financial future if they became pregnant. England and Wales were among
several European countries to experience an interruption in the recent steady rise in fertility rates,
while the United States, Spain and Latvia all experienced a dramatic reversal after the 2008 financial shock
that still reverberates around the world, the scientists said. The study found that people's reactions to the
global economic downturn in terms of willingness to have children varied depending on their age, gender,
educational status, how many children they already had and their migrant status. "The young and the
childless, for example, are less likely to have children during recessions," said Tomas Sobotka of the
Vienna Institute of Demography in Austria, who led the study. "Highly educated women react to
employment uncertainty by adopting a postponement strategy, especially if they are childless. In
contrast, less-educated women often maintain or increase their fertility under economic uncertainty," he said.
The scientists said previous recessions have been too short-lived to have a serious impact on fertility but the
current economic downturn is bad enough to have long-lasting effects. "Massive cuts in public spending in
many developed countries, including Spain and the UK, aimed at reducing the budget deficit, will
affect social and family-related expenditures and potentially also fertility," the scientists write. "The
consequences of the recession could affect fertility in two stages; first, directly through rising
unemployment and economic uncertainty and later through a decline in monetary support to families
with children," they said. The study, carried out in collaboration with the International Institute for Applied
Systems and published in the journal Population and Development Review, found that fertility rates in 26 of
the 27 EU countries were steadily rising until 2008, when they began to either decline or remain stable in 17
nations.
Horlacher ‘9 (Dr. David E., Hepburn Professor of Economics Middlebury College, “World Population Will
Decrease”, http://www.theledger.com/article/20090519/NEWS/905199966?tc=ar) ED
According to the U.N. Population Division, the average number of births per woman (the total fertility
rate) worldwide is already declining by about 1 percent per year and, by the 2050, the average number of
lifetime births per woman will be 2.02. Because some little girls do not reach adulthood, a total fertility rate of 2.02 children per
woman is less than replacement fertility. In other words, the typical couple will not be replacing itself and, in time,
the world's population will begin to fall - slowly at first and then more and more rapidly. In 2050, world
population will be about 9 billion and the median age will be about 38 years. Assuming that trends continue over the following century,
world population likely will be smaller than it is today, most couples will have only one child and the
median age will be approaching 60 years. Will all that be good for the planet? The answer will depend crucially on the
environmental policies that future generations choose to adopt. At that future time, people will probably be much better
educated and much richer than we are today. Will they use their education and wealth to clean up the
planet or simply to enjoy even more opulent life styles? Let us hope that it is the former.
Population rate slowing and expected to peak in less than 100 years.
Singer 99 (Max, independent consultant on public policy and a Senior Fellow at Hudson
Institute, http://nj.npri.org/nj97/07/myths1.htm#op) OP
World population grew at the rate of about 2 percent a year during the 1960s, the fastest in recorded
history. Simple arithmetic (performed by Paul Ehrlich in 1968) showed that if this rate continued for 900
years, there would be 60 billion people on the Earth, or 100 persons for each square yard of the Earth's
surface, both land and sea—creating major problems in lack of food, water and natural resources. But the
growth rate slowed to 1.75 percent per year during the 1980s and is now expected to drop to 1 percent
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by the year 2025. A 1 percent growth rate means the Earth's population would double every 70 years.
The United Nations, the World Bank, the U.S. Bureau of the Census and the Population Reference
Bureau all now predict that world population will stop growing altogether in about 100 years. World
population would peak at between 10 and 12 billion around 2100.
Horlacher ‘9 (Dr. David E., Hepburn Professor of Economics Middlebury College, “World Population Will
Decrease”, http://www.theledger.com/article/20090519/NEWS/905199966?tc=ar)ED
According to the U.N. Population Division, the average number of births per woman (the total fertility
rate) worldwide is already declining by about 1 percent per year and, by the 2050, the average number of
lifetime births per woman will be 2.02. Because some little girls do not reach adulthood, a total fertility rate of 2.02 children per
woman is less than replacement fertility. In other words, the typical couple will not be replacing itself and, in time,
the world's population will begin to fall - slowly at first and then more and more rapidly. In 2050, world
population will be about 9 billion and the median age will be about 38 years. Assuming that trends continue over the following century,
world population likely will be smaller than it is today, most couples will have only one child and the
median age will be approaching 60 years. Will all that be good for the planet? The answer will depend crucially on the
environmental policies that future generations choose to adopt. At that future time, people will probably be much better
educated and much richer than we are today. Will they use their education and wealth to clean up the
planet or simply to enjoy even more opulent life styles? Let us hope that it is the former.
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A2: NASA funding would be “all purpose”
They say the funding the plan gives to NASA would be used to create new technology to
solve the obstacles of colonizing space, but NASA is funneling all of its funds into putting
astronauts on an asteroid- not going back to the moon anymore.
Boyle 11 (Alan, Science Director at MSNBC, “What’s NASA doing these days?”, 5-11-11,
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/whats-nasa-doing-these-days/) OP
A NASA team is going underwater this week in the Florida Keys to lay the groundwork for the space
agency's first simulated journey to an asteroid. Sending astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid ranks as one
of the top goals for NASA's retooled vision for space exploration. A year ago, President Barack Obama
told NASA to gear up to take on such a mission by the year 2025. Up to that time, NASA had been
focusing on a return to the moon — which means that the agency had to retool its mission plans. This
week's engineering tests, organized by NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations, or NEEMO, will
help NASA get ready to set off for its new target. "Even experts don't know what the surface of an asteroid
is going to be like," NEEMO project manager Bill Todd said today in a news release. "There may be
asteroids that we don't even know about that we'll be visiting. So we're figuring out the best way to do
that."
NASA always wastes money on fruitless projects.
Florida Today 11 (posted in the space news and analysis from Kennedy Space Center and Cape
Canaveral special section, “Auditor says NASA wasting money”,1-13-11,
http://space.flatoday.net/2011/01/auditor-says-nasa-wasting-money.html#top) OP
NASA is wasting $215 million on a canceled rocket program, and that could more than double this
year unless Congress acts, the agency's inspector general warned lawmakers Thursday. NASA will have
spent that much by the end of February on aspects of the Constellation program that President Barack
Obama and Congress agreed to cancel. But Obama has signed only one NASA bill into law for fiscal
2011, and that bill sets general policy guidelines without appropriating any money. The agency
continues to be guided in spending decisions by the continuing resolution approved by the lame duck
Congress. As a result, NASA continues to spend money on projects that are set to be canceled or scaled
back. That will continue until that stop-gap spending bill for government agencies expires on March 4. But
if that stopgap measure is extended for the rest of the fiscal year, through Sept. 30, the wasted spending will
reach $575 million, according to Inspector General Paul Martin. "As a result, NASA is in the difficult
position of having to fund elements of a program that have been canceled," Martin wrote in a seven-page
letter to lawmakers. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Orlando tried unsuccessfully to fix the problem before Congress
adjourned in December. He said Thursday he'll introduce legislation to fix it. "Given that every dime
counts in our space program right now, we can't afford to be wasting money," Nelson said. Reports of
the wasted spending come as NASA struggles to fund three more shuttle flights —instead of two, as
originally planned — before the shuttle program ends. The agency also is boosting funding for an
effort to work with private companies to develop rockets to ferry people to the International Space
Station, while continuing to build its own heavy-lift rocket for deep-space missions. Constellation was
proposed by President George W. Bush to send astronauts back to the moon. NASA will try to salvage parts
of the program’s Ares rocket and Orion capsule to create a rocket that could reach asteroids and Mars.
Martin found that NASA tried to avoid wasting money by developing parts of the Ares rocket and Orion
capsule that could still be used. But he said the agency still wasted money in October and November.
Martin’s letter quoted one NASA official as saying: “There’s a point coming up soon where we would
just be spending money to spend money.”
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***He3 Advantage***
AT: He3 key
Abundant solar energy is available on earth, a moon expedition to find He3 would be
pointless
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Bearden ‘9 (http://www.altenergy.org/renewables/solar.html Thomas Lieutenant Colonel U.S. Army (Retired).
President and Chief Executive Officer, CTEC, Inc. MS Nuclear Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology) ED
The Earth receives an incredible supply of solar energy. The sun, an average star, is a fusion reactor that has been burning
over 4 billion years. It provides enough energy in one minute to supply the world's energy needs for one year. In
one day, it provides more energy than our current population would consume in 27 years. In fact, "The
amount of solar radiation striking the earth over a three-day period is equivalent to the energy stored in all fossil energy
sources." Solar energy is a free, inexhaustible resource, yet harnessing it is a relatively new idea. The ability to use solar
power for heat was the first discovery. A Swiss scientist, Horace de Saussure, built the first thermal solar collector in 1767, which was
later used to heat water and cook food. The first commercial patent for a solar water heater went to Clarence Kemp of the US in 1891.
This system was bought by two California executives and installed in one-third of the homes in Pasadena by 1897. Producing electricity
from solar energy was the second discovery. In 1839 a French physicist named Edmund Becquerel realized that the sun's energy could
produce a "photovoltaic effect" (photo = light, voltaic = electrical potential). In the 1880s, selenium photovoltaic (PV) cells were
developed that could convert light into electricity with 1-2% efficiency ("the efficiency of a solar cell is the percentage of available
sunlight converted by the photovoltaic cell into electricity"), but how the conversion happened was not understood. Photovoltaic power
therefore "remained a curiosity for many years, since it was very inefficient at turning sunlight into electricity." It was not until Albert
Einstein proposed an explanation for the "photoelectric effect" in the early 1900s, for which he won a Nobel Prize, that people began to
understand the related photovoltaic effect.
We should implement easy, feasible, low cost clean energy plans, rather than the high cost
of mining He3
Bearden ‘9 (http://www.altenergy.org/renewables/solar.html Thomas Lieutenant Colonel U.S. Army (Retired).
President and Chief Executive Officer, CTEC, Inc. MS Nuclear Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology) ED
There are several advantages of photovoltaic solar power that make it "one of the most promising
renewable energy sources in the world." It is non-polluting, has no moving parts that could break down,
requires little maintenance and no supervision, and has a life of 20-30 years with low running costs. It
is especially unique because no large-scale installation is required. Remote areas can easily produce their
own supply of electricity by constructing as small or as large of a system as needed. Solar power generators
are simply distributed to homes, schools, or businesses, where their assembly requires no extra development
or land area and their function is safe and quiet. As communities grow, more solar energy capacity can
be added, "thereby allowing power generation to keep in step with growing needs without having to
overbuild generation capacity as is often the case with conventional large scale power systems." Compare
those characteristics to those of coal, oil, gas, or nuclear power, and the choice is easy. Solar energy
technologies offer a clean, renewable and domestic energy source.
He3 mining is too expensive to be feasible
Morrow ’11 (John A, worked in the Army Defense Appellate Division in Virginia, http://www.quora.com/Justhow-feasible-is-to-mine-Helium-3-on-the-Moon “Just how feasible is to mine Helium-3 on the Moon?”) ED
Economically feasible? Absolutely not. The cost of constructing and maintaining a moon base, plus the
astronomical (pun intended) cost of actually transporting materials to and from the moon would render it
utterly pointless. Current costs (depends on who you ask) are something like $5000-$10,000 per pound to put
something into low earth orbit - nowhere near the moon. Efforts are underway to lower that (some cool stuff being
done in the private sector) but there is no conceivable way that you could do this economically anytime in the
next several decades.
A2: Resource wars
Their resource wars arguments are wrong, scarcity makes diplomacy
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DALBY 2006 (Simon, Dept. Of Geography, Carleton University, "Security and environment linkages revisited"
in Globalisation and Environmental Challenges: Reconceptualising Security in the 21st Century,
www.ntu.edu.sg/idss/publications/SSIS/SSIS001.pdf) ED
In parallel with the focus on human security as a necessity in the face of both natural and artificial forms of vulnerability, recent
literature has emphasised the opportunities that environmental management presents for political cooperation between states and other
political actors, on both largescale infrastructure projects as well as more traditional matters of wildlife and new concerns with
biodiversity preservation (Matthew/Halle/Switzer 2002). Simultaneously, the discussion on water wars, and in
particular the key finding the shared resources frequently stimulate cooperation rather than conflict ,
shifted focus from conflict to the possibilities of environmental action as a mode of peacemaking . Both
at the international level in terms of environmental diplomacy and institution building, there is
considerable evidence of cooperative action on the part of many states (Conca/Dabelko 2002). Case studies from many
parts of the world suggest that cooperation and diplomatic arrangements can facilitate peaceful responses to the environmental
difficulties in contrast to the pessimism of the 1990’s where the focus was on the potential for conflicts. One recent example of the
attempts to resolve difficulties in the case of Lake Victoria suggests a dramatic alternative to the resource war scenarios. The need to
curtail over-fishing in the lake and the importance of remediation has encouraged cooperation; scarcities leading to conflict
arguments have not been common in the region, and they have not influenced policy prescriptions
(Canter/Ndegwa 2002). Many conflicts over the allocations of water use rights continue around the world
but most of them are within states and international disputes simply do not have a history of leading
to wars.
Resource scarcity doesn’t cause wars-- laundry list
DEUDNEY 1999 (Daniel, Asst Prof of Poli Sci at Johns Hopkins, Contested Grounds: Security and Conflict in
the New Environmental Politics ) ED
Another major limitation of most studies on environmental conflict is that they rarely consider the character of the overall international
system in assessing the prospects for conflict and violence. Of course, it is impossible to analyze everything at once, but conclusions
about conflictual outcomes are premature until the main features of the world political system are factored in. The frequency with which
environmental scarcity and conflict will produce violent conflict, particularly interstate wars, is profoundly shaped by six features of
contemporary world politics: (1) the prevalance of capitalism and the extent of international trade; (2) the
existence of numerous functional international organizations, nongovernmental organizations and
epistemic communities; (3) highly developed state-system institutions; and (4) the existence of nuclear
weapons; (5) the widespread diffusion of conventional weaponry; and (6) the influence of a hegemonic
coalition of liberal constitutional democracies. These deeply rooted material and institutional features
of the contemporary world order greatly reduce the likelihood that environmental scarcities and
change will lead to interstate violence (see figure 8.1).
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***Space Based Solar Power Advantage***
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A2: Space Based Solar Power
Space based solar power isn’t possible- too expensive, satellite traffic, and atmosphere
damage.
Bansal 11 (Gaurav, assistant professor of management information systems at UW-Green Bay,
Ph.D. in Management Information Systems from University of Wisconsin, “The Good, the bad
and the ugly: Space based solar energy”, 5-23-11, http://www.ecofriend.com/entry/the-good-thebad-and-the-ugly-space-based-solar-energy/) OP
The Bad 1.High costs and long gestation period: Development cost for solar panels of that magnitude
would be very large and will also take long time to manufacture as even the first space-based solar
project passed California State also has gestation period of 7 long years. Similarly, costs to operationalize
even a single large panel is very high, which makes it even more difficult for poor nations to do so. such
pilot project by Japan also even runs into more than 20 billions of dollars even before operationalization.2.
Satellite traffic will increase: A large number of such projects can lead to overcrowding of space in the
geosynchronous orbit. This may lead to a mishap like the one collision that happened between the
Iridium Satellite LLC-operated satellite and the Russian Cosmos-2251 military satellite occurred at about
485 miles above the Russian Arctic on Feb, 2009. The Ugly 1.Potential damage to Atmosphere: Till now
microwave and other transmission methods that are adopted for all over the world are for
communication and broadcast purposes only. However, for energy transmission, the wavelength has to
very high which can be potentially dangerous to our atmosphere and will increase the risk of leukemia
and cancer among humans. Suggested concentration and intensity of such microwaves at their center would
be of 23 mW/cm2 and at periphery would be 1 mW/cm2 , which compares to the current United States
Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) workplace exposure limits for microwaves. Similarly very high
frequency used for such long distance propagation can be very dangerous and may lead to increase in
radioactivity in earth’s environment. 2.Laser beam penetration: Transmission of energy through
atmosphere has not yet been done at a large scale and its successful commercial utilization is still under
question. The ionosphere, the electrically charged portion of the atmosphere, will be a significant barrier to
transmission.
The tech for space based solar power does not exist.
Day 08 (Dwayne A., senior program officer with the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board
at the National Research Council, he has directed numerous studies for NASA, " Knights in
shining armor”, 6-9-08, http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1147/1) OP
You may not have noticed, but the space activist community is all worked up about space solar power
(see “A renaissance for space solar power?”, The Space Review, August 13, 2007). It is now the topic of
much conversation whenever a group of space enthusiasts get together. It was recently on the cover of the
National Space Society’s magazine Ad Astra. The upcoming NewSpace 2008 conference will feature a panel
on it. The International Space Development Conference in Washington, DC featured no less than three—yes,
three—sessions on space solar power, or SSP, to use the shorthand term, plus a dinner speaker who
addressed the same subject. With all of this attention, one would suspect that there has been a
fundamental technological breakthrough that now makes SSP possible, or a major private or government
initiative to begin at least preliminary work on a demonstration project. But there has been none of this. In
fact, from a technological standpoint, we are not much closer to space solar power today than we were
when NASA conducted a big study of it in the 1970s.
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No space based solar power- no cheap way to access space, no robotic tech, and a billion
dollar bill.
CNN 08 (“How to harvest solar power? Beam it down from space!”,
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/05/30/space.solar/index.html?iref=allsearch) OP
But a number of obstacles still remain before solar satellites actually get off the ground, said Jeff
Keuter, president of the George C. Marshall Institute, a Washington-based research organization. "Like
any activity in space, there are enormous engineering challenges," he said. One major barrier is a lack
of cheap and reliable access to space, a necessity for launching hundreds of components to build what
will be miles-long platforms. Developing robotic technology to piece the structures together high above
Earth will also be a challenge. Then there is the issue of finding someone to foot what will be at least a
billion-dollar bill.
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***Overview Effect***
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A2: Overview Effect
Only a few astronauts have felt this type of unity the aff talks about making it impossible to
completely solve war.
Beaver modified 7/1/11 (David, founder and director of the World Space Center, “Perception and The
Overview Effect”, 7-1-11, http://www.starportcafe.com/space-background/perception-and-the-overview-effect) OP
It is widely assumed that traveling into space is a unique and remarkable experience. The fact that it has a
lasting impact on astronauts is easy for most people to accept. The actual nature of the experience, however,
is less well understood. The result is that the space experience is widely misunderstood by the general public
and even many of the leaders and advocates of the New Space industry and larger space community. The rapid rise
and sophistication of cognitive science provides us with a wealth of research and models for gaining a greater
understanding of this experience, which is soon to affect our entire civilization. Since the publication of Frank
White’s The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution, the term “overview effect” has become the
most frequently used term to refer to these experiences in the space community and industry. However neither the
book nor the term is widely known to the general public. And even in the space community, few have read or
studied the astronaut interviews and quotes very well. The result is that even when the term is used, it is
often misinterpreted as referring to a few of the more “exotic” of the experiences that have been widely
rumored. Hence, many refer to the overview effect as a spiritual or metaphysical epiphany, often expressed as
a sense of oneness with all mankind or with the universe itself. While there are several dramatic astronaut
accounts of this nature, it is clear that the vast majority of astronauts do not, and likely would not, describe
their experiences with these terms. A second and perhaps more widely held misinterpretation is that of “space
euphoria”. This term was apparently first coined by NASA psychologists who became aware that fascination with
the view of the Earth and the stars induced an emotional impact among many astronauts. These psychologists were
concerned that such fascination could hinder the astronauts’ ability to stay focused on their mission and actively
tried to help them avoid it. They likened it to “Rapture of the Deep” which some deep sea divers experience and
the “Breakaway Effect”, which affects some pilots in extended high-altitude flights. The widely consulted on-line
database, Wikipedia, merges these two in its definition of the Overview Effect in calling it a “transcendental
euphoric feeling of universal connection”. It is clear from numerous astronaut interviews that only a small
minority of astronauts would describe their experiences in this way. And while some degree of “euphoria”
alone would probably be an aspect of space flight acceptable to a majority of astronauts -- one said that “if
you’re not euphoric, you’re not paying attention” --, euphoria alone does not account for the fact that a majority
report that many of the effects of their space experiences were life-long. It is clear that White meant to
document the nature of the space experience in its widest sense rather than these specific minority aspects.
Thus, the widespread understanding of it in these more limited terms obscures the actual nature of the
experience. This is particularly significant at a time when commercial space travel is about to begin and will
expose large numbers of private citizens to the experience. And, in addition to these more limited and exotic
interpretations limiting a truer awareness, it has become clear to those of us who study the overview effect, that the
very “exotic” nature of these descriptions have inhibited leaders of the New Space Industry and larger space
community from using the term overview effect more publicly. This is a field that has struggled since its
inception with what is widely called the “Giggle Factor” when attempting to describe efforts to establish a “SpaceFaring Civilization”. This inhibition is doubly in force when attempting to get government funding, support or
regulations
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AT: Moon Colonization
Can’t colonize moon-water impossible for use
Williams 2010. (Lynda Williams is a professor at Santa Rosa Junior College. “Irrational Dreams of Space
Colonization” Peace Review, a Journal of Social Justice The New Arms Race in Outer Space (22.1, Spring
2010) http://www.scientainment.com/lwilliams_peacereview.pdf) ED
Although evidence of water has been discovered on both bodies, it exists in a form that is trapped in
minerals, which would require huge amounts of energy to access. Water can be converted into fuel either
as hydrogen or oxygen, which would eliminate the need to transport vast amounts of fuel from Earth.
However, according to Britain's leading spaceflight expert, Professor Colin Pillinger, "You would need
to heat up a lot of lunar soil to 200C to get yourself a glass of water." The promise of helium as an energy
source on the moon to is mostly hype. Helium-3 could be used in the production of nuclear fusion energy, a
process we have yet to prove viable or efficient on Earth.
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AT: Artificial Gravity makes procreation feasible
There are too many problems in space besides to procreate, artificial gravity does not solve
Impact lab 2011 (Impact Lab was rated by Popular Science Magazine as one of the Top Five Science Blogs in
the Known Universe, Sexual Reproduction in Space Will Likely be Impossible Says Nasa,
http://www.impactlab.net/2011/02/14/sexual-reproduction-in-space-will-likely-be-impossible-says-nasa/)ED
Researchers at the agency’s Ames Research Centre in California found that without effective shielding on spacecraft,
powerful proton particles would probably sterilize any female embryo conceived in deep space. They also
concluded that male fertility was likely to be negatively affected , with the particles damaging the sperm
count. Given that travel to distant planets is likely to take decades, centuries or longer, this could make any mission to colonise
other environments a non-starter. The scientists noted that space shield technology is currently not sufficiently advanced to offer enough
protection from this type of radiation. Dr Tore Straume, a radiation biophysicist at the centre, said: “The present shielding capabilities
would probably preclude having a pregnancy transited to Mars.” The DNA which manages the development of all the cells in the body
is particularly susceptible to the kinds of radiation found in space. Studies on animals have shown that exposure to
ionising radiation can kills egg cells in a female fetus as far on as the second or third trimester. Dr
Straume added: “One would have to be very protective of those cells during gestation, during pregnancy, to make sure that the female
didn’t become sterile so they could continue the colony.” Nasa has a strict code of conduct on sexual relations, stating that “relationships
of trust” among astronauts are to be maintained at all times. The research was published in the Journal of Cosmology.
Strong radiation, like in space, can kill sperm and cause infertility
Hummelen ‘3, Marvin L. Meistrich, et al. “NOVP Chemotherapy for Hodgkin's Disease Transiently Induces
Sperm Aneuploidies associated with the Major Clinical Aneuploidy Syndromes Involving Chromosomes X, Y, 18,
and 21.” Cancer Research 63: 44-51.ED
Radiation therapy can slow down or stop sperm cell production if the testicle is in or near the target area for the
radiation. A lead shield can help protect the testicles during radiation aimed at a nearby organ such as the prostate. Total body irradiation
used before some bone marrow transplants often causes permanent infertility. If the testicles get a mild dose of radiation, a man's fertility
may drop but can then recover over the next one to four years. If the radiation dose to the testicles is high, sperm
production may stop forever. This happens because the spermatogonia are destroyed. These are the stem cells in
the testicles that divide and grow to produce mature sperm. Radiation damage to the part of the brain that controls
hormone production can sometimes prevent the hormone messages from getting to the testicles.
Nuclear War Impact
Nuclear weapons cause mass destruction, there are so many warheads that our whole
world could be obliterated
Sagan, 83 (Carl, Ph.D. in astronomy and astro-physics, Taught Astronomy at Harvard and Cornell, “Nuclear
Winter”, http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/sagan_nuclear_winter.html)ED
Except for fools and madmen, everyone knows that nuclear war would he an unprecedented human
catastrophe. A more or less typical strategic warhead has a yield of 2 megatons, the explosive equivalent
of 2 million tons of TNT. But 2 million tons of TNT is about the same as all the bombs exploded in
World War II -- a single bomb with the explosive power of the entire Second World War but
compressed into a few seconds of time and an area 30 or 40 miles across … In a 2-megaton explosion
over a fairly large city, buildings would be vaporized, people reduced to atoms and shadows, outlying
structures blown down like matchsticks and raging fires ignited. And if the bomb were exploded on the
ground, an enormous crater, like those that can be seen through a telescope on the surface of the Moon,
would be all that remained where midtown once had been. There are now more than 50,000 nuclear
weapons, more than 13,000 megatons of yield, deployed in the arsenals of the United States and the Soviet
Union -- enough to obliterate a million Hiroshimas. But there are fewer than 3000 cities on the Earth with
populations of 100,000 or more. You cannot find anything like a million Hiroshimas to obliterate. Prime
military and industrial targets that are far from cities are comparatively rare. Thus, there are vastly more
nuclear weapons than are needed for any plausible deterrence of a potential adversary.
Nuclear war eliminates ozone
Sagan, 83 (Carl, Ph.D. in astronomy and astro-physics, Taught Astronomy at Harvard and Cornell, “Nuclear
Winter”, http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/sagan_nuclear_winter.html)ED
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Likewise, in 1973, it was discovered that high-yield airbursts will chemically burn the nitrogen in the
upper air, converting it into oxides of nitrogen; these, in turn, combine with and destroy the protective
ozone in the Earth's stratosphere. The surface of the Earth is shielded from deadly solar ultraviolet
radiation by a layer of ozone so tenuous that, were it brought down to sea level, it would be only 3
millimeters thick. Partial destruction of this ozone layer can have serious consequences for the biology of
the entire planet. These discoveries, and others like them, were made by chance. They were largely
unexpected. And now another consequence -- by far the most dire -- has been uncovered, again more or less
by accident.
Nuclear war causes winter and mass death
Sagan, 83 (Carl, Ph.D. in astronomy and astro-physics, Taught Astronomy at Harvard and Cornell, “Nuclear
Winter”, http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/sagan_nuclear_winter.html)ED
Some of what I am about to describe is horrifying. I know, because it horrifies me. There is a tendency -psychiatrists call it "denial" -- to put it out of our minds, not to think about it. But if we are to deal
intelligently, wisely, with the nuclear arms race, then we must steel ourselves to contemplate the
horrors of nuclear war. The results of our calculations astonished us. In the baseline case, the amount of
sunlight at the ground was reduced to a few percent of normal-much darker, in daylight, than in a
heavy overcast and too dark for plants to make a living from photosynthesis. At least in the Northern
Hemisphere, where the great preponderance of strategic targets lies, an unbroken and deadly gloom would
persist for weeks. Even more unexpected were the temperatures calculated. In the baseline case, land
temperatures, except for narrow strips of coastline, dropped to minus 25 Celsius (minus 13 degrees
Fahrenheit) and stayed below freezing for months -- even for a summer war. (Because the atmospheric
structure becomes much more stable as the upper atmosphere is heated and the low air is cooled, we may
have severely underestimated how long the cold and the dark would last.) The oceans, a significant heat
reservoir, would not freeze, however, and a major ice age would probably not be triggered. But because the
temperatures would drop so catastrophically, virtually all crops and farm animals, at least in the Northern
Hemisphere, would be destroyed, as would most varieties of uncultivated or domesticated food supplies.
Most of the human survivors would starve.
High radiation will cause extiction
Sagan, 83 (Carl, Ph.D. in astronomy and astro-physics, Taught Astronomy at Harvard and Cornell, “Nuclear
Winter”, http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/sagan_nuclear_winter.html)ED
In addition, the amount of radioactive fallout is much more than expected. Many previous calculations
simply ignored the intermediate time-scale fallout. That is, calculations were made for the prompt fallout - the plumes of radioactive debris blown downwind from each target-and for the long-term fallout, the
fine radioactive particles lofted into the stratosphere that would descend about a year later, after most
of the radioactivity had decayed. However, the radioactivity carried into the upper atmosphere (but not
as high as the stratosphere) seems to have been largely forgotten. We found for the baseline case that roughly
30 percent of the land at northern midlatitudes could receive a radioactive dose greater than 250 rads, and
that about 50 percent of northern midlatitudes could receive a dose greater than 100 rads. A 100-rad
dose is the equivalent of about 1000 medical X-rays. A 400-rad dose will, more likely than not, kill you.
The cold, the dark and the intense radioactivity, together lasting for months, represent a severe assault
on our civilization and our species. Civil and sanitary services would be wiped out. Medical facilities,
drugs, the most rudimentary means for relieving the vast human suffering, would be unavailable. Any
but the most elaborate shelters would be useless, quite apart from the question of what good it might be to
emerge a few months later. Synthetics burned in the destruction of the cities would produce a wide variety of
toxic gases, including carbon monoxide, cyanides, dioxins and furans. After the dust and soot settled out,
the solar ultraviolet flux would be much larger than its present value. Immunity to disease would
decline. Epidemics and pandemics would be rampant, especially after the billion or so unburied bodies
began to thaw. Moreover, the combined influence of these severe and simultaneous stresses on life are likely
to produce even more adverse consequences -- biologists call them synergisms -- that we are not yet wise
enough to foresee.
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