Low Earth orbit, or “LEO,” is convenient, but it’s getting crowded with overĀ 9,000 metric tonsĀ of space junk, which raises the risk of a devastating collision that could kill everyone on board an orbital craft.
The moon is close but has no breathable air, hardly any atmosphere to protect against deadly space radiation, and nights there can last up to two Earth weeks.
Mars has a thicker atmosphere than the moon, but it also lacks breathable air and has toxic dirt and harmful dust storms.
“The single thing that differentiates the Earth from every other place in the solar system is that there is free oxygen in the atmosphere,” said Mike Shara, astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History.
“So we can go take a nice breath, and if you were to do that on essentially any other planet, you would die, almost instantly,” he said.
There may be other planets outside our solar system more similar to Earth, but they’re just too far away for current technology.
“We’re talking decades or at least a decade to get to the outer solar system. And 1,000, 2,000, or 10,000 years to get to the nearest star. Not practical,” Shara told BI.
