Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.
Posted on 08/25/2010 9:06:20 AM PDT by LibWhacker
Humans have always been fascinated by the idea of space travel. Some even believe that colonizing new planets is man’s best hope for the future. The popular idea is that we’ll eventually need some fresh, unexploited new worlds to inhabit -a real-world Pandora.
In an earlier Galaxy post we wrote that Stephen Hawking, world-celebrated expert on the cosmological theories of gravity and black holes who held Issac Newton's Lucasian Chair at Cambridge University until his recent retirement, believes that traveling into space is the only way humans will be able to survive in the long-term, while warning about the potential threat of actual alien contact with Earth.
"Life on Earth," Hawking has said, "is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers ... I think the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space."
Another of his famous quotes reiterates his position that we need to get off the planet relatively soon. "I don't think the human race will survive the next 1,000 years unless we spread into space."
The problems with Hawking’s solution is that while it may save a “seed” of human life- a few lucky specimens- it won’t save Earth’s inhabitants. The majority of Earthlings would surely be left behind on a planet increasingly unfit for life.
In a futuristic mode similar to Hawking, both Steven Dick, chief NASA historian and Carnegie-Mellon robotics pundit, Hans Moravec, believe that human biological evolution is but a passing phase: the future of mankind will be as vastly evolved sentient machines capable of self-replicating and exploring the farthest reaches of the Universe programmed with instructions on how to recreate earth life and humans to target stars.
Dick believes that if there is a flaw in the logic of the Fermi Paradox, and extraterrestrials are a natural outcome of cosmic evolution, then cultural evolution may have resulted in a post-biological universe in which machines are the predominant intelligence.
Renowned science-fiction writer, Charlie Stross, argued last week in his High Frontier Redux blog that space colonization is not in our future, not because it's impossible, but because to do so effectively you need either outrageous amounts of cheap energy, highly efficient robot probes, or "a magic wand."
"I'm going to take it as read that the idea of space colonization isn't unfamiliar," Stross opens his post, "domed cities on Mars, orbiting cylindrical space habitats a la J. D. Bernal or Gerard K. O'Neill, that sort of thing. Generation ships that take hundreds of years to ferry colonists out to other star systems where — as we are now discovering — there are profusions of planets to explore."
"The obstacles facing us are immense distance and time -the scale factor involved in space travel is strongly counter-intuitive."
Stross adds that "Planets that are already habitable insofar as they orbit inside the habitable zone of their star, possess free oxygen in their atmosphere, and have a mass, surface gravity and escape velocity that are not too forbidding, are likely to be somewhat rarer. (And if there is free oxygen in the atmosphere on a planet, that implies something else — the presence of pre-existing photosynthetic life, a carbon cycle, and a bunch of other stuff that could well unleash a big can of whoop-ass on an unprimed human immune system."
Stross sums up by saying that while "I won't rule out the possibility of such seemingly-magical technology appearing at some time in the future in the absence of technology indistinguishable from magic that, interstellar travel for human beings even in the comfort of our own Solar System is near-as-dammit a non-starter."
Stross's blog received over 450 comments as of this writing. The most prescient follows:
"First, Stross's analysis fails to take into account future civilization types; I get the sense that he takes a normative view of today's technological and economic realities and projects them into the future. This is surprising, not only because he's an outstanding science fiction visionary, but also because he's a transhumanist who has a very good grasp on what awaits humanity in the future. Specifically, he should be taking into account the possibility of post-Singularity, Drexlerian, Kardashev Type II civilizations. Essentially, we're talking about post-scarcity civilizations with access to molecular assembling nanotechnology, radically advanced materials, artificial superintelligence, and access to most of the energy available in the solar system.
"Stross also too easily dismisses how machine intelligences, uploaded entities and AGI will impact on how space could be colonized. He speculates about biological humans being sent from solar system to solar system, and complains of the psychological and social hardships that could be inflicted on an individual or crew. He even speculates about the presence of extraterrestrial pathogens that undoubtedly awaits our daring explorers. This is a highly unlikely scenario. Biological humans will have no role to play in space. Instead, this work will be done by robots and quite possibly cyborgs (which is how the term 'cyborg' came to exist in the first place)."
Beyond even that, it is highly doubtful humans can withstand lightspeed travel. At that velocity atomic and even subatomic particles would damage flesh as it passes through it.
Exactly. This guy is revered as being smart, yet thinks the universe and all its laws etc just popped into being...or is simply one of an infinite number of universes or whatever other lies these athiest wackos tell themselves to deny the existence of God.
Yes, speeds high enough to make interstellar travel even faintly practical would require some sort of Star Trek-like shields to protect against high-speed collisions.
I’ve seen a photo of a small divot out of a space shuttle windshield that was determined to have been produced by a high-speed speck of paint.
Yes, speeds high enough to make interstellar travel even faintly practical would require some sort of Star Trek-like shields to protect against high-speed collisions.
I’ve seen a photo of a small divot out of a space shuttle windshield that was determined to have been produced by a high-speed speck of paint.
The New World was discovered several times by Vikings, the Irish, and perhaps the Egyptians, but all of them lacked the technology and low cost transport to take advantage of the discovered lands. At the time of Columbus, technology of ships and navigation had matured sufficiently for the profitable exploitation of the New World.
Space is the same, except without the pesky natives. The resources of just the near Earth asteroids is incredibly vast. The asteroid, Eros, contains more nickel and platinum group metals than all of the Earth’s easily exploitable reserves. The first space colonists will be mining and manufacturing entrepreneurs who will ship their ingots back to Earth like the Spanish treasure galleons hauled gold except that they will simply push the cargo into a ballistic reentry orbit.
Outer space has unlimited resources, unlimited 24X365 solar energy, unlimited room to expand, no “environment” to pollute, and THE FIRST ONE THERE CAN CLAIM THE RESOURCES.
In 100 years the Land Rush to space will be underway. Robert Forward’s Space Elevator built with carbon nanotubes will provide transport to orbit at costs 1000 times lower than today.
Ad astra!
Yes, but your talking about mining asteroids, planets, moons, etc., etc. for the resources.
Hawkings is going way farther than that. He’s talking about colonization, which means humans would live and procreate on some foreign chunk of real-estate.
Not as simple as transporting minerals.
**************
Because...
(1) The means of navigation, propulsion, & travel to/from those great distances,
(2) The ultimate effects on the human form (and mind),
... AND
(3) Implementing a liveable environment/domicile once translocated...
... Are ALL THREE ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL--- yet these conecpts are much more unknown... than known to us
--AND/OR--
... Colonization scenarios provide interlocking sets of enroute / arrival / mission maintenance / escape & return variables that make predictable mission outcomes impossible--several times over...
--AND-- finally...
There are no "ooops"..... or "do-overs"...
Recent studies tell us that a 10-month trip to Mars would leave the space travelers as weak as 80 year olds when they arrived.... They would arrive -- essentially disabled.
Common sense -- and what we DO know....
Can be a real party pooper...
Knock yourself out.... enjoy the ride... send a postcard.
**************
This lump of rock can’t sustain humanity forever.
Guess that depends on what one really believes about the future of the human race... and eternity.
Hawking's worldview... is plainly in view.
He and I -- have an honest disagreement.
That's all...
O’Neill outlined in his book 40 years ago how to survive in free space. We don’t need to live on a planet’s surface. Within a rotating torus we can grow plants, farm, live, and work. Zero-G and vacuum have unique advantages for smelting, manufacturing, etc.
The lunar surface would be fine, but 1/6 gravity is too low for long term. Rotating habitats solve that problem.
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Nuclear rockets, if we didn’t have that dumb UN treaty, could push the trip to mars back to 3-4months.
Yes, but none of this has been built yet, and who knows when it will.
I’m not really disputing the science of a mother ship that could be self-sustaining, I’m fairly confident that we already have the technology.
But it’s much more than that. It’s the human factor. Look at what zerobozo has done to NASA. Their new mission is to improve our relations with Islam by making them “feel important”. No moon missions, no really clear space exploration plans at all, other than what’s already started.
So with myopic administrations, we may never get off this planet. In that case, we should figure out how we’re going to survive here.
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