This is why we need another "space race", not more arms races

[Dogmeat]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/20/global.trends.report/index.html

That article is pretty scary. Probably because it's pretty realistic to assume this is how the world will be the next 15 years.

The earth's population is spiraling out of control at an exponentially increasing rate.

The ____ONLY____ way to sustain a decent quality of life for the members of the human race, quite frankly.... is to get off this rock and spread ourselves out across the galaxy.

Everyone thinks I'm insane for saying this, but it's absolutley true.

The entire goal of humanity as a species should be space exploration ....

 

[Ex-Member]

heh, i love how it features a pic of the new guy.

Srsly though, nations rise and fall, and USA has already seen its day. Look to history; greeks, romans, middle east...

 

[Dogmeat]

heh, i love how it features a pic of the new guy.

Srsly though, nations rise and fall, and USA has already seen its day. Look to history; greeks, romans, middle east...

Yeah, all that is true and whatnot ... but that has nothing to do with the fact that the population of the earth as a whole is getting to where the planet can't sustain it regardless of who is the most powerful nation.

Too many people = horrid quality of life for all no matter "who" is in charge.

 

[Wade]

Getting off this rock is tricky. You need a way to get somewhere fast enough to make it worth the trouble. Mars isn't much of an option. Horrible conditions. The Moon's worse long term. A sizable population living in a vacuum is nearly impossible to fathom. Imagine generating air to compensate for the eventual degradation of the containment vessel. A public works nightmare. So, you need to get extrasystem, to another star, fast. And, the star would need a have a planet suitable for us. Problem is the type of drive system necessary to do it. It's gonna be hard to dump money into a drive system, when all the libs can think about is world welfare.

There's also some other problems. You think a nuke is bad, wait till some "group" gets into space, and decides to nudge a rock into the planet. Funny as it seems, there's plenty of wack jobs that would love to do it.

What we need is a faster than light speed engine. But, something tells me that unless ET gifts us one, we won't be developing our own any time soon.

 

[shortstop20]

I agree we should be exploring space, not continually cutting the NASA budget like we have been. Our goal should be to colonize another planet.

By the time we're ready to colonize other planets the world will probably be in a nuclear war, which makes the project useless if there's nobody to go. Civilizations and humans have always destroyed themselves and others, that's not going to change. Hopefully the nuke drops after my days here.

 

[Supplicate]

But, something tells me that unless ET gifts us one, we won't be developing our own any time soon.

I've got a feeling in the deepest, darkest basement of MIT there is some guy that has read far too many SciFi books and has a far too large grant that is plugging away trying to do something about near C velocity, or even greater then C velocity travel.

 

[XXL]

We need to fire all those left wing science guys from NASA and put them to work on important stuff that we really need badly................like making it snow tomorrow!

 

[x-guy]

I've got a feeling in the deepest, darkest basement of MIT there is some guy that has read far too many SciFi books and has a far too large grant that is plugging away trying to do something about near C velocity, or even greater then C velocity travel.

From what I have read, to go faster than the speed of light is impossible from a physics standpoint. However this is based on the physics of the leading theories regaring universe creation, and movement, not fact. With the haldron collider experiment that is due to start up again anytime soon, how they theorize the universe works may go up in smoke, and may lead to the development of such speeds. I think it will be a means of not so much travel, but cell manipulation that gets us to these great distances in space. They already have the capacity to teleport single cells a distance of 18 feet, it may not seem like much, but its a start to a technology that has unreal benefits, whether its viable or not remains to be seen. One of the main things that is being worked on currently with teleportation is how to teleport multi cells, and have them put back together in the correct structure on the other side, and not end up a pile of steming goo.

 

[Supplicate]

From what I have read, to go faster than the speed of light is impossible from a physics standpoint. However this is based on the physics of the leading theories regaring universe creation, and movement, not fact.

that is why it was tacked onto the end of my statement. Near C velocities are a much closer reality then greater than C velocities. If Einstein was right, the closer to C you get the more mass you gain IIRC. This would mean you would be infinitely heavy and would need infinite energy to surpass C velocities.

With the haldron collider experiment that is due to start up again anytime soon

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/080910-collider-success.html
Don't know where you were when this happened...

 

[Ex-Member]

i has a higgs boson!

noooooo they be stealin' my higgs boson!

 

[Ollie]

Read an article a while back.
Made a lot of sence.
Use the moon as a staging base. Getting into and out of the Earths atmosphere is difficult and take a LOT of energy. However, docking a deep space vessel in space or on the moon is much easier and would allow for much simpler construction.

Still leaves how to get anywhere fast a problem, the difficult we do today, the impossible we do tomorrow. Unless your a liberal. Then it's the easy we make difficult and the difficult we just tax out of existance.

 

[dog breath]

Too much dang money to colonize space. Govt already is spending trillions on keeping incompetent business people around. Of course, who do we have to thank for that - incompetent govt officials. Now if only the public would realize the problem and start doing something about it.

 

[RMK7SledHead]

From what I have read, to go faster than the speed of light is impossible from a physics standpoint. However this is based on the physics of the leading theories regaring universe creation, and movement, not fact. With the haldron collider experiment that is due to start up again anytime soon, how they theorize the universe works may go up in smoke, and may lead to the development of such speeds. I think it will be a means of not so much travel, but cell manipulation that gets us to these great distances in space. They already have the capacity to teleport single cells a distance of 18 feet, it may not seem like much, but its a start to a technology that has unreal benefits, whether its viable or not remains to be seen. One of the main things that is being worked on currently with teleportation is how to teleport multi cells, and have them put back together in the correct structure on the other side, and not end up a pile of steming goo.

Good post.

And just to beat the drum: remember that there was a time when manned flight was thought impossible...then there was the thought that the sound barrier could never be broken...then we needed to go to the moon, and critics said it couldn't be done...just the other day a FEMALE astronaut lost her tool bag while doing an EVA at over 17,000 mph circling the earth. look how far we've come in 105 years.

traveling at the speed of light may currently look like an impossibility, but don't rule it out completely. Just cause somebody hasn't figured the physics out yet, doesn't mean they won't.

btw, I'll ride an electric sled on the moon for you guys in 2020. Should be just about the right time for me to be in the loop for a mission.

 

[x-guy]

that is why it was tacked onto the end of my statement. Near C velocities are a much closer reality then greater than C velocities. If Einstein was right, the closer to C you get the more mass you gain IIRC. This would mean you would be infinitely heavy and would need infinite energy to surpass C velocities.



http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/080910-collider-success.html
Don't know where you were when this happened...

actually, it had to be shut down due to one bad solder, don't know where you were when this happened... Its due to start back up again in a few months

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7626944.stm

I don't know too much about physics, thanks for pointing that out, but just and FYI, I was not disagreeing with you, most people including myself dont know about this C and such, so I guess I was simply putting it into more understandable termanology.

 

[x-guy]

Good post.

And just to beat the drum: remember that there was a time when manned flight was thought impossible...then there was the thought that the sound barrier could never be broken...then we needed to go to the moon, and critics said it couldn't be done...just the other day a FEMALE astronaut lost her tool bag while doing an EVA at over 17,000 mph circling the earth. look how far we've come in 105 years.

traveling at the speed of light may currently look like an impossibility, but don't rule it out completely. Just cause somebody hasn't figured the physics out yet, doesn't mean they won't.

btw, I'll ride an electric sled on the moon for you guys in 2020. Should be just about the right time for me to be in the loop for a mission.

I agree, never rule anything out as an impossibility, except ofcourse the toronto maple leafs winning a stanley cup (I kid, I kid) So thats gonna be one awfully long extension cord to the moon eh? but all kidding aside, I read a while ago about a space elevator, which would deliver supplies to the moon without needing to have a costly space launch from earth, this may very well go along with what Ollie was mentioning. I don't have any idea personally how they could make such a thing work however, but it makes sense, taking off from the moon would be alot more cost effective than taking off from earth I would think just from the difference in gravity alone.