yenom
Alexander the Terrible
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2008
- Messages
- 1,755
It's certainly achievable. In fact, the sooner humans get out there colonizing other planets, the better. I find it hilarious that some as big and important for human advancement is being stunted by their primitive attitudes to the concept of money, which is in itself very mundane in the large scheme of things.
For future travel though, technology would have to advance to quite an extent to decrease time. Hopefully a fully-functional warp drive engine will be the eventual outcome, though this is very far on the horizon at this stage.
It's certainly achievable. In fact, the sooner humans get out there colonizing other planets, the better..
Much needed research is being conducted as we speak. I believe the human race has a little bit of pulling together to do, on top of that.
Soon![]()
I used to think so, but now I think we should be contained. We can't take care of our own planet, nor our own societies, nor other creatures on the planet, and not even our own bodies. Not that all of those have to be perfect, but we're beyond retarded. Space exploration is getting ahead of ourselves.
I used to think so, but now I think we should be contained. We can't take care of our own planet, nor our own societies, nor other creatures on the planet, and not even our own bodies. Not that all of those have to be perfect, but we're beyond retarded. Space exploration is getting ahead of ourselves.
Is there any reason to be contained?.
I hate to be a bit circular here, but I don't even think we'll advance much without being contained and working out a lot of shit here first (and working together). Humanity needs to adopt a friendly environment and/or culture of science, in order to make real strides in science. We live in a world that uses science, but doesn't know shit about it. That can't work out for long. The more this improves, the more manpower, political will, and flourishing of ideas.
Don't worry about being circular around me, circular reasoning is something I excel at. You say we need to be contained to work out our problems (I believe Gene Roddenberry had a similar view) rather than venturing off into space but I do not believe that is possible with the limited resources or possible in humanity's nature. Humanity has always moved to new environments when the old ones do not meet their needs rather than going into deep introspection and living without these needs in the pursuit of overcoming whichever problems plague their society. The question I have: What if the new environment and the new resources are the only solution? I am unsure how much science can be advanced from Earth, for one we had to build the Hubble Telescope in space so we can get a better view of the universe. We can conduct tests but tests are limited in their scope here, you need sufficient resources to create lab conditions. If we were in space we would have the entire resources of the solar system to develop new proto-type technology. We would have the space between stars if we wanted to experiment on creating our own star or planet in order to fully understand our own.
You do have a good point however, I see the strength in creating a bottom-up system which loves science but then I would argue an interstellar society would also require a bottom-up appreciation of science (if not more as an earthbound society really only needs to know how utilise technology and not the laws of gravity and propulsion for instance.) The people and their civilisations would need to be geared towards the appreciation of space-flight implications, ways of minimising radiation risks, innovating increasingly inexpensive ways of surface-to-orbit transfer of materials and the issues of delay times in long-distance communication and the effects on maintaining contact with loved ones. It would run quite extensively through a united and connected society across planets or star systems. As it would be doubly-vital to a civilisation's existence (not just to ensure technology continually runs but so trade routes between planetary bodies can be continually used) I can very likely see astrophysics being taught to children at a young age and it would be appreciated at the very least because it directly influences everyday life.
It's a good question.. Tbh, I haven't really thought about the underlying reason why I'm for "containment". I'm just focusing on the cause/effect of what it'd take to even advance space exploration in the first place. Putting that aside, I guess my motivation is ethical. Maybe that's an irrational basis to stop "space exploration". To me though, it's even more irrational to perpetuate a culture heavily dependent on scientific discoveries and inventions, without adopting the scientific mindset. And if it ever got to the point that this got off the planet, then you'll never be able to rope anyone in again. You'll have entire clusters of humanity in space who are akin to Homer Simpson working at a nuclear plant or Afghans with stinger missles. At least here, there's a better chance of educating them. Or at least, their descendents.
You make it sound like they cannot be educated. What makes you think they could be educated here any more than out in space? The only advantage I can think of is if you were trying to make sure the population went through a rigorous school system to ensure they are educated more along your guidelines, mass-implement a method of modifying their DNA, or killing them off in mass population culls they would be far easier to capture and round up if trapped on a single planet.
Anyways, I'm about to go on rant, so I'll stop. I guess I could just say "Fuck it". Lets see where that takes us. If society ends up worse off for it, I know there's going to be survivors too.
I just heard about it and am excited beyond words! Ever since childhood I dreamed of the possibility of humanity settling on Mars. That's how my brother, sister, and I played - we would design spaceships, settlements, working out how to terraform the planet using arctic lichens and mosses, etc. I think it is feasible. We landed on the moon using slide rules. Have you ever seen the old footage of NASA control center? It is shocking to see what they accomplished with such ancient technology. Our technology has advanced much faster than our space exploration, so our capabilities are beyond what we have seen.