Posted on 05/07/2017 5:13:22 AM PDT by brucedickinson
In an upcoming BBC program, Stephen Hawking has a new message for humanity: Get off Earth within the next 100 years or perish. In order to survive as a species, humans must colonize other planets.
But Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield has previously said that humans just aren't ready to live on other worlds. In 2015, he visited Business Insider to discuss his thoughts on where humans will go next and why.
Hadfield became a mainstream figure thanks to his YouTube videos from space and wide social media presence. Now retired, Hadfield is the best-selling author of "An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth."
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
Presidents love to come out and say we're going to Mars. Bush was going to take us to Mars. President Trump is taking us to Mars. Hillary was going to take us to Mars. I'm sure they would all love to be at the helm when we finally get to Mars, but as of yet, no Mars. President Kennedy took "Great America" to the Moon, but I wouldn't place good money on "Not Great so Much America" Getting off the planet again any time soon.
Call me cynical.
Hogwash.
I wonder who types the words that comes out of the Stephen Hawking Fake Voice Synthesizer?
I think that for Western civilization to survive, other planets must be colonized. Without a frontier, we start to get stupid as a species.
He’s the “Smartest Man in the world” because liberals feel guilty he’s in a wheelchair, and crippled. Someone please name one Hawking accomplishment. (Crickets)
Unless those guys at the bottom are our current Astronauts i have NO IDEA what you’re trying to convey.
Show four of the nastiest gang members the year we went to the moon. We still got there.
Your negativeness is a constant through your posts and you need to get rid of that :)
Smile sometimes!
Although America still possesses the technologies necessary for mega space projects, there is no overt Cold War providing a collective impetus to go forth. The question becomes will low orbit and the moon be dominated by Elon Musk or the Chinese.
David Bowie himself was extremely impressed.
Theoretical physicists live in their own thought experiment
We may be sending the wrong people into outer space! ;)
I’m on a board in a contest with Forf motors to think of ways to improve traffic.
i am in the top 10.
But the THOUSANDS of kids in their teens and 20s who came up with GREAT ideas that were sharp and different impressed me immensely was great.
MANY have their own businesses and they are from all different backgrounds.
It was great to see America is still producing many, many young bright kids.
You are negative and you’re not ahead of any curve except the negative miserable curve.
Good luck in life with that
As a lifelong science fiction reader, I think there are a lot of interesting possibilities. However, I don’t think panicky end-of-us-all speculation is necessary or helpful. We survived the Black Death. We’re a tough species.
I remember when the oceans were going to be the next great frontier for centuries to come. Well, they’re still there.
:)
I’ve never seen a ore absurd non comparison.
How about the current astronauts in the bottom picture.
WTH does MS13 have to do with Astronauts.
Someone needs to be taking an SSRI :)
Heh, interesting question.
Hawking has let his Star Trek, Big Bang Theory appearances go to his head. Outer Space reality is different from Star Trek where every planet they visit is just like earth.
The Chicken Little Crowd weighs in.
The only thing that could destroy life as we know it is government.
ML/NJ
And that's my point, it is very difficult to look at our numbers, and not become a realist. I wish I could poop gumdrops, I wish America could be great again. I don't see how. Well, I do see how, but the American public would not be keen on the surgery needed to make us well. Surgery is very bloody, it hurts, and you have to lose all sorts of things. Scalpels, radiation, caustic chemicals. Nasty stuff. Slowing immigration isn't going to do it. Reversing it, by deporting millions, and building a wall would have done it. It doesn't seem like we're going to get that.
America is a huge machine, and when you turn off a huge machine it still runs for a while. The cogs spin, the levers chug along and everything looks quite lively although it is dead. Our power was removed a while ago. All civilizations have a limited span, and we, unfortunately hit our peak with the moon landings.
No matter what the former Canadian astronaut’s reasons are - I didn’t even read what they are - Mars should not be our next major off world exploration by living humans - robotic rovers, yes, humans no.
Our next major off world exploration by living humans should be a moon base.
It can be like a “boot camp” for how best to make a “human habitat” camp, off world, and how to make it work. There is all sorts of things that can get “field tested” on the moon.
Meanwhile, by continuing to use robotic rovers on mars we can add to what knowledge of Mars we have, which will make for better exploration of Mars by living humans when we are ready.
We can also begin building a space platform. It would fist be used as a travelers station for the trips back and forth to & from the moon. Reusable space vehicles for going back and forth to and from the moon would be docked there. Humans going to the moon would only need vehicles to get them to the space platform, not vehicles that would take them all the way to them moon. They would have their own “shuttle craft” for the moon landing & returning to the orbiting vehicle that took them to the moon; when it was time to return to the space platform orbiting earth. From the platform, they would take another kind of “shuttle” to return to earth.
It would be the “boot camp” for those things a space platform can do for us too.
Together the moon base experience and and space platform experience will prepare us for major explorations of Mars by living humans.
At some point it might be understood to work best constructing in earth orbit - in modules that get put together - the long range space vehicles, and as reusable vehicles. The heavy-lifting from earth’s surface (energy resource wise) would only be done in stages building the vehicles, and then not again. Leaving high earth orbit has a lower energy requirement, and doing so leaves a payload ability for the fuel-energy for the long distance travel.
We learn to walk before we learn to run.
There was a professor Frank Brown from Northwestern University who during the 1970’s wanted to send potatoes into space. He had previously observed that potatoes have metabolic rates that were in sync with the moon. If you moved potatoes from the east coast to the west coast those potatoes would retain the metabolic cycle for their old location and only gradually change to the new. Changes in latitude; changes in attitude.
It was his speculation that Humans were similarly in sync with the sun and moon and moving out of range of the moon may have profoundly negative effects on our bodies. Humans quite possibly will wither and die if moved too far from our homes. Dr. Hawking’s conclusions may be based on incomplete data...
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