The billionare class. I believe that greed is one of the great filters. The main obstacle to reducing the harm that we do to our own planet, is the interests of greedy rich people. Although a greedy schmuck of a billionare is currently helping to advance space exploration technologies, I think his kind will slow us down in the long run.

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A generous interpretation of your question might be the Apollo 12 3rd stage which orbited the sun for a bit before coming back to orbit the earth. This was all by accident though 😂

The SS Hillencotter has gone to other star systems , for one.

True. I don't know which is further either, although I should. I spent an entire summer mapping rocks on Bennu as part of CosmoQuest's citizen science team.

That and soon OSIRIS-REx’s sample from Bennu (though that won’t land for a few months). I don’t know which was further.

In your estimation. Is it off the cuff, where you actually look at psychology, have you looked at medicine, have you looked at making it possible instead of saying it isn't? Have you looked at any numbers? Have you looked at methodologies? Have you looked at the parenting problem?. All of these things are actually solvable. You want to know what's not solvable? Violence-based capitalism.

EDIT: the short hand is you believe humans are too stupid to grow up, so it's not possible. Would that be a fair assessment?

Hmm, I swore I remember reading that, but I agree It’s definitely still a significant danger.

It would be nice if we could work together, but the nature of human progress isn’t in cooperation to the contrary of how every wishes it was.

I never said trap us here on Earth, I'm saying that it's still a significant, indiscriminant danger. And I can agree with the conflict driving progress part, but I'd rather humanity as a whole move past needing conflict to get shit done. Not saying it's likely, just preferable

Along the lower left hand side of the article it presents a number of download options:

• Full Res (For Display), 17644 X 13422, PNG (186.09 MB)

• Full Res (For Print), 17644 X 13422, TIF (170.23 MB)

• 2000 X 1521, PNG (3.50 MB)

The amount of debris needed to trap us here on earth is a very large amount, plus, the usefulness of space will drive solutions to orbital debris which could be very useful in the future.

Also, that assumes that smashing satellites is only option used, even when other countries have considered pushing satellites out of orbit or using lasers.

The reality is that progress is derived from conflict. Without conflict, there is no progress.

I remember more conservative and bumpkin types were worried about this, and their concerns were dismissed as something almost hysterical. And only after it was shot down was it okay for everyone to be upset about a spy vehicle above us and over US territory.

A ton of people in this country *suck* when it comes to the concept of security. They seem to believe perceiving a threat from afar is more of a problem than the fact that a threat exists.

My guess would be Hayabusa II (sp?). Although the only part to return to terra firma was the sample container.

Not sure, but if you can track down that giant infographic of every probe ever launched it shows all their courses and should probably be easy to identify all with return trips

The Orion capsule from Artemis 1 a few months ago

The stardust spacecraft travelled farther, but only a return capsule came back.

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I feel like Apollo 13 has a fair shot since it was the furthest manned mission. But no idea about probes that have been further than the moon and returned.

Having territorial interests in space will inevitably lead to conflicts in space. Whatever form that may take, it'll invariably lead to immense consequences since things like conflict debris are a much greater concern in space than on Earth.

If, for example, a military vehicle is destroyed on Earth, it's highly unlikely that debris will cause damage to civilians (assuming it's not in civilian areas). That debris will eventually be consumed by the Earth and not be of significant note to anyone. But that same vehicle sending shrapnel and orbital debris around a planet creates a minefield for anything entering or exitting it, regardless of affiliation or alliance.

At the end of the day, you want to avoid armed conflict in space as much as possible. It's why countries shouldn't shoot down each other's satellites, it fucks ALL of them up.

I see gravity and it's impact on human body as the main issue. Can we even have kids in Martian gravity?

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Sort of like writing an article, "what does 'invasion' really mean anyway? Doesn't Earth belong to us all?" A week after Putin invades Ukraine.

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Maybe stop destroying the homeworld and get it fixed up before taking the same destructive behaviour out into the wider solar system

Sounds good on paper but that just means wars go from being international fighting to partisan fighting. Humans just simply aren't evolved enough yet in my estimation to make that work.

Playing devil’s advocate here— wouldn’t more competition between countries drive more exploration? Teamwork would likely just cause stagnation of progress.