Mit der Geburtenrate, die sinkt, ist der Raum möglicherweise unsere beste Hoffnung auf ein Heilmittel

***The Telegraph’s Sam Ashworth-Hayes reports:***

It’s a simple plan: rewire the planet’s transport system to shift towards sustainability, use the revenue to develop superintelligent machines, keep humanity relevant with brain-machine interfaces, colonise space, secure humanity’s future as a multi-planetary species and preserve the light of consciousness.

Elon Musk can be [faulted for many things](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025/01/21/elon-musk-accused-nazi-fascist-roman-salute-trump-speech/), but lacking ambition is not one of them. The [successful launch of Starship](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/08/27/spacex-falcon-rocket-launches/) — the world’s most powerful rocket — takes his projects a little closer to step four. But there’s still a lot of progress to go.

In the short run, if Starship works out, getting material into space will become dramatically cheaper. The Falcon Heavy shifts material from Earth’s surface into orbit at a cost of about $1,500 (£1,110) per kg; Starship, when fully operational, aims to get this down to $100-$200 per kg, with launches on a three-day cadence. For context, the Space Shuttle managed a low of $72,000 per kg.

These lower costs have already opened up interesting demonstration projects.

Starlink now [provides high-speed internet from space to Earth](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/05/27/elon-musks-starlink-get-bigger-slice-uk-broadband-network/). If costs fall further, we might find self-funding use cases for low-earth orbit manufacturing at scale, or get closer to making use of the mineral resources of the solar system. And, of course, shift a lot of material from Earth to the Moon or Mars for a mission, and eventually a base.

Even if realised, a “colony” would be a long way from being self-sustaining for an extremely long time – dependent on resources from Earth, and accordingly of no use in de-risking human survival. But the ambition of the project could buy us more time to try by giving society a mission – and helping to arrest the slow demographic collapse of the developed world.

[Britain’s birth rate is now the lowest on record](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/08/27/fertility-rate-drops-to-record-low/); while South Korea’s is in freefall. Hungary has managed to improve slightly since its nadir, but is otherwise on the same trajectory as the rest of the modern world. Birth rates are dwindling far below replacement levels, triggering a rapid decline in population unless large scale migration is able to replace losses.

Some of this decline is driven by economic factors: [expensive childcare](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/care/childcare/can-you-really-afford-to-have-children/), high rent, unstable work, better options for investment and consumption. Pick your poison. But as Ron J. Lesthaeghe, a professor of sociology and demography at the Vrije Universiteit of Brussels, has argued some of it is cultural, with differences between subcultures on sharp display.

In America, the groups maintaining higher birth rates are religious and conservative, with the two categories overlapping. There is some evidence in Britain of some faith groups having higher birth rates than their irreligious peers.

**Read more:** [**https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/08/28/birth-rates-plummeting-space-might-be-best-hope-cure/**](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/08/28/birth-rates-plummeting-space-might-be-best-hope-cure/)

The article on its surface is absolutely nonsensical. It is most likely speaking symbolically, conveying some message to those in the know. 

Many spurious articles about space, which this one qualifies as, fit this use case. I’ll be glad to provide past examples.