Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• HARDIN, GARRETT

Titel

INTERSTELLAR MIGRATION AND THE POPULATION PROBLEM

Ist Teil von

• The Journal of heredity, 1959-03, Vol.50 (2), p.68-70

Ort / Verlag

Oxford University Press

Erscheinungsjahr

1959

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Though extraterrestrial migration is not seriously proposed by demographers as a solution to the world's pop problem, its future possibility is sometimes suggested in popular discussions. This article examines briefly the econ & soc implications of such migration on a large scale. If the other planets of our solar system are unsuitable as abodes for man, the destination of emigrants would have to be to the nearest star, 4.3 light yrs away. To reach there at the fastest speeds attained by present rockets would require 129,000 yrs. Optimistic assumptions might reduce the time to 350 yrs. A space ship appropriate for such a trip might cost $3,000,000 per passenger to build. This implies that Americans 'by cutting our standard of living down to 18% of its present level, could in a yr set aside enough capital to finance the exportation of one day's increase in the pop of the entire world.' Individuals undertaking the interstellar journey would have to be willing to live for about 350 yrs in an unchanging soc system, & would have to limit births to a number that would no more than replace those dying. Persons willing would be selected for emigration. The result would be an intensification of the pop problem on the earth & the eventual appearance of the Malthusian checks to pop growth. EQ.