Must We Leave Earth to Save Ourselves?

http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/1062382.html ^

[Filo]

Must We Leave Earth to Save Ourselves?

Yes.

[thoughtomator]

While we're here, in a world of global communications, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and WMDs, we're all hostages to any madman who can execute a doomsday plan (e.g. Al Gore). So the sooner we diversify our portfolio of habitable rocks the better!

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

Hey, if those creatures in those UFO's can get here, then we can also go find another planet!

[Turbopilot]

The point of leaving Earth isn't to establish a single alternative location for humanity; it's to colonize the solar system, and eventually the galaxy and beyond, such that a planetary-scale catastrophe at any given location wipes out only a fraction of the total population of humans.

Even if no single alternate location is "safer" than Earth from such a destructive event, humanity's survival can be ensured by spreading far and wide enough that nothing can get everyone at once.

[Candor7]

Everybody leaves the earth sooner or later, when we die.

But if any of y'all want to leave soon, all the more room for me! Good luck!

I would give priority to all the Liberal Socialist Moonbats , so they can go and start their Utopian Hive World on another planet.

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

Maybe we could Terra form Mars and Venus for starters?

[Tarantulas]

Unless we want to die out like the dinosaurs did when the next big asteroid comes along, the answer is YES. Just one self-sustaining offworld colony will do very nicely.

[theDentist]

And Al Gore shall lead us...

[RightWhale]

The human species will not thrive anyplace but earth. Colonies may be successful for a while, but as soon as the next generation forgets how to refuel the power plant they will all get some kind of fungus and that is what future explorers will find: colonies of fungus.

[sgtbono2002]

You folks go on ahead , I will stay here. Take the Islamics with you.

[MortMan]

Answer for liberals: Yes.

Answer for conservatives: Only if you want to.

[CremeSaver]

Actually, I think only Conservatives should move out into space. Leave the liberals here to sing Kum-by-ya in their liberal pc paradise.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Unless we want to die out like the dinosaurs did when the next big asteroid comes along, the answer is YES.

Exactly. There can be legitimate doubts about the threats posed by global warming, etc., but there can be no doubt that somewhere out there in the asteroid belt or the Oort Cloud is a huge rock which will be making the Earth's acquaintance sooner or later.

[calex59]

I'm with you. I think we should give all the socialist, progressives, communist, democrats, etc. the opportunity to colonize the moon and start their own socialist utopia. They can go there and implement any type of government they want and as soon as a socialist raises his/her head on earth we will immediately send them to the moon to enjoy the socialist heaven being created there. What do you think?

[Billthedrill]

Yeah, I'm sticking around too. If the Mariners haven't won the World Series by the time the sun goes nova I'll think about leaving then...

[JamesP81]

I, personally, find the thought of space exploration really interesting and worth doing for its own merits, not to mention the benefits of the research that would go into the project.

The bottom line, however, is if we realistically want to travel to other solar systems someone is either going to have to figure out a way to exceed lightspeed (probably impossible) or bypass space (wormhole kind of thing, which is probably not a real phenomenon anyway), as the distances between stars are so great any conventional spacecraft would spend multiple lifetimes traversing interstellar space.

[steve-b]

Dave Rogstad, another RTB astronomer, says, "We have discovered enough extra-solar planets to know there is no site sufficiently close that could serve as a sustainable human habitat with anything remotely approaching the quality of life and safety humans currently enjoy on Earth. We would be better off trying to build our own planet!" Rogstad speaks from his experience as a project leader at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in southern California.

Evidently, project leaders at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in southern California have "experience" with trying to build their own planets. That's quite a tall order for someone so ignorant of basic astronomy as to believe that currently-known extrasolar planets may be treated as a representative sample.

Who writes this kind of idiotic gibberish?

[BadAndy]

"While we're here, in a world of global communications, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and WMDs, we're all hostages to any madman who can execute a doomsday plan (e.g. Al Gore). So the sooner we diversify our portfolio of habitable rocks the better!"

Which is easier, finding habitable rocks in space or eliminating the madmen?

[DBrow]

In Larry Niven's Known Space series of stories, the Puppeteers felt that it was pretty risky living close to a star. They took five planets, put them into a sun-less stable orbit called a Kemplerere Rosette, and left their initial solar system. They made their own planetary system without the risk of that unstable nuclear furnace.

Then there was Ringworld, his take on a scaled-down Dyson Sphere....