Well I wouldn't do it on Earth. But planets which don't have a pre-existing eco-system we care about preserving I would do it to. They'll ultimately end up looking pretty alien anyway, but if we can live their reasonably comfortably then mission accomplished.
Oh, okay, not on earth, sure.
Sometimes I wonder when the first accidental terran bacteria contamination of a foreign body is going to be. Like whether we'll go back to the moon and discover that bacteria that hitched along on the first moon landing worked out to somehow work out to survive there. That's incredibly unlikely, I guess, but Mars has atmospheric water vapor and it might be slightly more possible there. Plus there was some thing I read awhile back where like... so these people did a simulation, where they simulated some of the big comet/meteor impacts in earth's history, and calculated how much earth rock would have been ejected into space by those impacts and what would have happened to those rocks. The whole thing was just a simulation, but the simulations did have a few tens of earth boulders smashing into each of the jovian moons with water, and on one of the two the impact would have been relatively soft enough due to atmospheric drag that some extremophile organisms living in or on the rock could have survived.
THE FIRST ASTRONAUT WAS AN ARCHAEA?!?
Well, ostensibly NASA goto great lengths to prevent contamination with their probes. In a practical sense, bacteria are easily hardy enough to survive a trip through space (a bunch hitched a ride in foam on a moon probe, then Apollo cut a sample of the probe, brought it back to Earth and the things came back to life the moment conditions were right).
So, there is every possibility that a fuck up in their decontamination procedures (pretty damn likely since it would seem like a complete waste of time to a lot of people I suppose) has already sent E. Coli or something to Mars.
Which personally, I think would be pretty awesome.
I think the best way might be to make it so that once oxygen levels are high enough it becomes poisonous enough to them to kill them. They'll still be alive in large numbers, but much larger numbers than they were before the atmosphere became poisonous to them.
This is actually what happened to form the Earth's (present) atmosphere. The original anaerobic organisms which exhaled oxygen were killed when the atmosphere became too enriched with the stuff, which was poisonous to them.
That's actually where I got the idea.
The anaerobic organisms are still around, just in much smaller numbers (which is what I meant to say in the above post) than they were before. They mainly exist in areas where A) the atmosphere doesn't really reach or by living in 'colonies' - still not in direct contact with the atmosphere, although close enough to it that exposure is possible or even likey - where the bacteria on the outside essentially shelter the bacteria on the inside from the oxygen.
The problem is that any of these kill switch issues-- engineer them to not be able to survive once the atmosphere reaches the "appropriate" point, contain them in an area, make them dependent on some obscure chemical, insert a "kill switch"-- assumes that evolution stops working and none of your bacteria manage to develop an immunity or workaround to your kill switch/chemical/boundary. The problem is that you've got an entire planet/country/whatever worth of these bacteria, and only one of them has to survive your bacteria holocaust and that will be enough to grow the engineered bacteria anywhere and everywhere back up to the point it was at before you holocausted it, only now every one of the bacteria that exists lacks the kill condition.
That's why I don't like a "kill switch" idea, although what they make in large quantities poisonous to them may keep them in check. If evolution allows them to keep making large quantities of oxygen without being affected by it, then there's a problem. I was assuming they would follow the same evolutionary path they did on Earth, but I guess you're right - that's not necessarily going to happen.
Oxygen kind of works in our favor though since its just about impossible to insulate yourself from it atmospherically, rather then moving to somewhere where you don't.
Evolution will take the simplest path from the available components, which is to just make less oxygen and control how it enters you.
A Mission to Mars is needed more these days for world peace. When the Moon landing happened a lot of shit was brewing in the world, but everyone came together in awe at that one moment.
Plus, when that guy walks out and sets foot on mars and screams 'AHH MARTIANS.... haha got you!' it will be the greatest moment of my life.
Mars will happen in less than 30 years of that I have no doubt.
A Mission to Mars is needed more these days for world peace. When the Moon landing happened a lot of shit was brewing in the world, but everyone came together in awe at that one moment.
Plus, when that guy walks out and sets foot on mars and screams 'AHH MARTIANS.... haha got you!' it will be the greatest moment of my life.
Mars will happen in less than 30 years of that I have no doubt.
i'm glad alot of people here aren't of the typical internet 'durr its totally feasible to colonize mars' star trek sort of mentality. we have this fascination with colonizing other planets but as has been mentioned here the most fucked up earth is going to be more habitable and more plausible for survival than setting up on mars. okay so we have an ice age, then we can easily use the abundant resources and existing infrastructure on earth to go underground, or underwater, or whatever really our options are pretty limitless on earth
whereas mars on the other hand offers nothing more than this 50s space colony allure and mysterious untapped resources. i mean alright when we run out of iron completely then somehow lose all the potential mental we could melt down and recycle then maybe it would become sort of practical. along with having like 15 space elevators kicking around. everyone talks about all the benefits of a space program honestly look up what kind of innovations have come out of the space program over the past forty years. if this was invested into applied research anywhere you would get far more results. just look at shit like the international space station and how much comes out of that place compared with the ridiculous amount spent. i'm all for ion drives but really the amount of time it would take to get us out of the galaxy and into anywhere interesting is clearly not worth the effort right now. other than sending probes to other planets which i think is worthwhile as far as understanding our place in the universe, manned missions are just fancy for the general public..
honestly i blame total recall for all the sci kids being head over heels about ditching earth and what a great idea it would be. even if we were able to create some type of atmosphere there is still the issue of mars having a dead core so no magnetosphere which means the atmosphere is going to be carried away by solar wind anyhow. again that's what a lot of scientists believe happened originally to mars, core eventually died and the atmosphere was effectively vented into space. a dome setup would be the only option but again the benefits of working on infrastructure on earth and trying to save humanity from own shortsightedness make a hundred times more sense..
i love it when you see the posts where people are like 'oh well when the sun burns out we'll have to find a new galaxy anyhow durr durr.' i think our sense of arrogance and entitlement to the earth as well as existing as a species is insane. if you look at how many times we've destroyed and rebuilt ourselves from the neolithic period onward you've got to wonder how many chances we deserve before we kill ourselves off for good.
as i see it if we can't make it on a planet with abundant natural resources, beauty, an absolutely perfect environment for life to grow and prosper, then thinking of infesting other distant galaxies is the least of our worries..
I think you're too big on hating on your own species, because it suits your idea of being personally enlightened about environmental issues.
But hey, maybe that's just my knowledge of entropy talking.
honestly it's hard to not look down on our 'evolution' over the past 8000 years human history is a pretty depressing thing to study as we continue repeating the same mistakes that were made several millenniums ago. only now we have the same primitive mentality but better weapons to do the job. i think looking ten thousand years into the future is arrogant let alone wondering what will happen in a few millions years.
of course i have been reading a fair bit of post-apocolyptic graphic novels lately so maybe that's rubbing off on me
I think you're too big on hating on your own species, because it suits your idea of being personally enlightened about environmental issues.
But hey, maybe that's just my knowledge of entropy talking.
honestly it's hard to not look down on our 'evolution' over the past 8000 years human history is a pretty depressing thing to study as we continue repeating the same mistakes that were made several millenniums ago. only now we have the same primitive mentality but better weapons to do the job. i think looking ten thousand years into the future is arrogant let alone wondering what will happen in a few millions years.
of course i have been reading a fair bit of post-apocolyptic graphic novels lately so maybe that's rubbing off on me
Our evolution, in fact all evolution, has been defined by everything else doing it's damn best to kill us. Most of nature is out to kill just about everyone else. There was a species of sabertooth tiger which was probably actually specializing in killing humans for a while.
Furthermore, you're comparing human history wholesale (which is bullshit without specific references) to - what - exactly? Is there even a single scrap of evidence to suggest that somehow by not being aggressive that our civilization would have developed faster?
Okay, pessimistic or not it's a known FACT that the Earth will not last forever. It's a statistic impossibility. Stephen Hawking is just verbalizing something all geeks, nerds and dorks have known forever. I for one would colonize a planet in a heartbeat just so I could let everyone know that we're not just humans anymore... we're Terrans!
Our evolution, in fact all evolution, has been defined by everything else doing it's damn best to kill us. Most of nature is out to kill just about everyone else. There was a species of sabertooth tiger which was probably actually specializing in killing humans for a while.
Furthermore, you're comparing human history wholesale (which is bullshit without specific references) to - what - exactly? Is there even a single scrap of evidence to suggest that somehow by not being aggressive that our civilization would have developed faster?
it's not about who can develop the biggest baddest civilization man it's about sustainable growth which is kept in check in every other population. we've been able to overcome the systems that normally keep populations in order so we have to be a little fucking responsible in our growth now that nature isn't doing its job for us anymore. the damage each person is currently able to do to the world on their own far outweights that of other organisms. we don't play by nature's rules anymore so you can't use the hey animals do it so can we defense. animals can't extinguish entire species in a few decades, animals aren't able to destroy 80% of the worlds original ancient forests within a few hundred years. look up what america looked like in the 1600s vs today it's completely insane the changes we've brought on our environment. we've been given far more power than any other organism on this planet so you would think we would have a higher standard for ourselves than the raw impulsiveness of wild animals.
again your mentality is a great example of what i was talking about, this sense of entitlement -- that if we don't destroy we will be destroyed. maybe this works when you're wearing a loin cloth in the middle of the forest but in modern society this is hardly the case. then again look at aboriginal civilization in north america or any other sustainable tribal community - these people did not feel the need to tear down forests develop weapon after weapon or perfect killing. they did what was needed to survive and not alot more. they still had a rich culture and enjoyed themselves even without xboxes or hbo. advancing civilization to some 'pinnacle' is an idealistic goal at best and we could all take a cue from civilizations that did not have this drive to continually accumulate land, wealth, goods but believed in the good of the community. a great part of our drive to develop bigger and better things is living in a culture of violence and competition. a great deal of technical innovation comes from the desire to kill people more efficiently, and really if you look at the cold war and the moon landing really that was the main impetus for our current space program.
of course i'm not going to cite you all of history but studying any ancient empire is as good as the next, greed power and insecurity are major themes throughout history. you look at civilizations like the greeks and how after fighting amongst their city states for hundreds of years they eventually fell to the romans, all because people were never happy with what they had and always wanted more land, more power, better technology..
Our evolution, in fact all evolution, has been defined by everything else doing it's damn best to kill us. Most of nature is out to kill just about everyone else. There was a species of sabertooth tiger which was probably actually specializing in killing humans for a while.
Furthermore, you're comparing human history wholesale (which is bullshit without specific references) to - what - exactly? Is there even a single scrap of evidence to suggest that somehow by not being aggressive that our civilization would have developed faster?
it's not about who can develop the biggest baddest civilization man it's about sustainable growth which is kept in check in every other population. we've been able to overcome the systems that normally keep populations in order so we have to be a little fucking responsible in our growth now that nature isn't doing its job for us anymore. the damage each person is currently able to do to the world on their own far outweights that of other organisms. we don't play by nature's rules anymore so you can't use the hey animals do it so can we defense. animals can't extinguish entire species in a few decades, animals aren't able to destroy 80% of the worlds original ancient forests within a few hundred years. look up what america looked like in the 1600s vs today it's completely insane the changes we've brought on our environment. we've been given far more power than any other organism on this planet so you would think we would have a higher standard for ourselves than the raw impulsiveness of wild animals.
What the hell are you talking about? Nature has never been about freakin' sustainable growth, it's been about any growth. That's why we're hear millions of years later losing sight of that fact because eventually some system arose where everything killed each other at the appropriate rates. Humans get to be here because at the time of early survival we actively wiped out anything which was capable of approaching our level of intelligence in the acquisition of survival resources. That being said, your right, there's a responsibility there, but not because we somehow 'owe' something to Earth - it just makes fucking sense not to piss in the water hole you drink from.
again your mentality is a great example of what i was talking about, this sense of entitlement -- that if we don't destroy we will be destroyed. maybe this works when you're wearing a loin cloth in the middle of the forest but in modern society this is hardly the case. then again look at aboriginal civilization in north america or any other sustainable tribal community - these people did not feel the need to tear down forests develop weapon after weapon or perfect killing. they did what was needed to survive and not alot more. they still had a rich culture and enjoyed themselves even without xboxes or hbo. advancing civilization to some 'pinnacle' is an idealistic goal at best and we could all take a cue from civilizations that did not have this drive to continually accumulate land, wealth, goods but believed in the good of the community. a great part of our drive to develop bigger and better things is living in a culture of violence and competition. a great deal of technical innovation comes from the desire to kill people more efficiently, and really if you look at the cold war and the moon landing really that was the main impetus for our current space program.
When have I actually argued we should destroy things? You just want to believe that. You have no idea what it means while you type on a modern computer, enjoy hot showers and probably own an iPod. You're a god-damn hypocrite by your own argument.
What you're incapable of dealing with is the idea that mankind has any sort of power at all, or in fact that we are a part of nature and our duty is to ourselves first and foremost otherwise we'd die. You deride mankind and you deride technology while not understanding a damn thing about it. You try and make out Ancient civilizations to have fallen for terrible reasons and maybe you're right, but you conveniently gloss over all the great things they accomplished in the same process.
Let me summarize: if people like you were in charge, we'd still be in fucking caves. Fortunately you'd die pretty quick there so we're not.
Axiumxp has some good points and I would like to give my views on human society now.
Human beings are hard-wired to overcome adversity. It's our most active evolutionary trait. Back in the dawn of mankind we were surrounded by adversity, but with our intelligence we could use our limited, yet varied gifts of communication, travel (over land, water and hills) and invention (farming, tool-making, housing and weaponry for defense and hunting) to survive against much more aggressive predators. This is how we topped the food chain, tamed our environment and became kings of the proverbial hill.
This is when our real problems began. Where 'primitive yet peaceful' societies in places like the Americas created great works and were generally far less imperialist than their distant, European cousins, this may have been because they were still competing against nature. The western cultures had taken the scientific route and eliminated most of their competition, leading to a dominant human society but also into a stagnation of our evolutionary instincts.
Anybody that studies group psychology (such as politics or religion) will tell you that the best way to get humans to group together is if you create a common enemy. Humans need a villain, a malevolent force that threatens their way of life. In the past it was lions, tigers and bears. Nowadays we don't fear nature like we once did, so humans have begun labeling other human societies as the enemy. It seems horrible but it's ingrained in us. Something in our DNA says "Fight for Survival" and now that we no longer have to fight for survival we're confused and just fighting all over the place.
If we begin to colonize outer-space, I predict our in-fighting as humans will significantly decrease. We will have a new goal, a new frontier on which to focus. What's even better is that this is a new, potentially hostile frontier! That might not seem a good thing but it will let us act as nature intended once more and our society, having a new and more dangerous adversary, our environment (once more) we will be less restless and itching for a fight. This is just my take on it and I formulated it on my second cup of coffee this morning, so it might be fatally flawed or just bunk, but right now this seems a serious consideration.
This is when our real problems began. Where 'primitive yet peaceful' societies in places like the Americas created great works and were generally far less imperialist than their distant, European cousins, this may have been because they were still competing against nature. The western cultures had taken the scientific route and eliminated most of their competition, leading to a dominant human society but also into a stagnation of our evolutionary instincts.
I think you're approaching the question wrong. America and Africa are two places on Earth where survival is comparatively easy compared to Europe. This is because winter is not nearly so harsh. As a result of this, you get societies which develop culturally because they can interact more easily and earlier, without the need to compete against nature. Power is thus based on luxury demand, not survival ability.
Incidentally, they were far from peaceful however, so I don't think art = peace. It's more what the currency of power and the common denominator of survival were. If individuals can survive then artistic works become more important. If groups can survive, then it's more likely they have some common survival device that must be shared.
If we begin to colonize outer-space, I predict our in-fighting as humans will significantly decrease. We will have a new goal, a new frontier on which to focus. What's even better is that this is a new, potentially hostile frontier! That might not seem a good thing but it will let us act as nature intended once more and our society, having a new and more dangerous adversary, our environment (once more) we will be less restless and itching for a fight. This is just my take on it and I formulated it on my second cup of coffee this morning, so it might be fatally flawed or just bunk, but right now this seems a serious consideration.
This fails if you consider my take on the situation.
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DynagripBreak me a million heartsHoustonRegistered User, ClubPAregular
edited December 2006
I am almost positive you'd just have people fighting in space and on earth before too long.
I am almost positive you'd just have people fighting in space and on earth before too long.
Nominally yes...practically it's less certain. Space is a very different environment to Earth and the economics of it are very different. It depends on the level of technology involved.
I am almost positive you'd just have people fighting in space and on earth before too long.
Nominally yes...practically it's less certain. Space is a very different environment to Earth and the economics of it are very different. It depends on the level of technology involved.
based on your extensive experience playing eve online?
I am almost positive you'd just have people fighting in space and on earth before too long.
Nominally yes...practically it's less certain. Space is a very different environment to Earth and the economics of it are very different. It depends on the level of technology involved.
based on your extensive experience playing eve online?
Unless you want to make a practical contribution or ask a question you care about the answer to, shut the hell up and get to work defending your damn position above.
EDIT: I also find it entertaining to try and make a quip about war in space related to EVE when my above statement is actually talking about the lack thereof.
Space is pretty dark and confusing and silent. Actual outer-space naval battles wouldn't be anywhere near what you see in Science-fiction, especially shows like "Firefly" where any ragtag group can build a space ship as easily as one can own a car.
EDIT: Of course this does not make the life of a space-pirate seem any less alluring.
everyone looks at mars, which is a reasonable Idea, but what about Jupitiers moons? Ive heard some of them have water and atmoshperes? Just a question...
Also is there any theries as to how to get a planetary bodies core roatating so that it would generate a magnetic field?
And wouldnt it be alot easier, to say instead of letting satillites burn up in the atmoshpere, using some of the common space missions to send them to a common location to be used as materials for possibly moon bases. (Ie just crash all the extra fuel things from the space shuttles, old satillites, etc into the moon after taking stock and inventroy of it.) Then plan a viable manned station using the available materials?
Has the laws governing resources from space been settled, I remeber my dad studying space law in his astronomy courses (yes hes a 45 year old programmer and amatuer astronomer with a masters in math going for another degree in Astronomy) and I vaugly remeber him saying something about there being no laws to govern this, and that current laws prohibit weapons based in space. (I could be very wrong as this was awhile ago and I was kinda half/listening)
Okay, pessimistic or not it's a known FACT that the Earth will not last forever. It's a statistic impossibility. Stephen Hawking is just verbalizing something all geeks, nerds and dorks have known forever. I for one would colonize a planet in a heartbeat just so I could let everyone know that we're not just humans anymore... we're Terrans!
Nothing will last forever. Which is why I have no moral qualms about mining and industrializing planets to the advantage of humanity. I believe that is why they are there. These planets might be beautiful to a naturalist or preservationist, but most of them are likely dead heaps of resources floating through a void with noone to appreciate them.
Dreamerdown on
Not all vampires suck blood.
Not all of them die for love.
I am almost positive you'd just have people fighting in space and on earth before too long.
Nominally yes...practically it's less certain. Space is a very different environment to Earth and the economics of it are very different. It depends on the level of technology involved.
based on your extensive experience playing eve online?
Unless you want to make a practical contribution or ask a question you care about the answer to, shut the hell up and get to work defending your damn position above.
EDIT: I also find it entertaining to try and make a quip about war in space related to EVE when my above statement is actually talking about the lack thereof.
no i was just calling you out on a pretty bullshit answer for why space would suddenly reverse 8000 years of barbarism on a whim.
maybe once we got a breath of that fresh space air we would all realize that we'd been a bunch of assholes all these centuries and start working together to farm crystals from asteroid belts in alpha centauri
I think you're approaching the question wrong. America and Africa are two places on Earth where survival is comparatively easy compared to Europe. This is because winter is not nearly so harsh. As a result of this, you get societies which develop culturally because they can interact more easily and earlier, without the need to compete against nature.
man ancient babylonians and egyptians were the most advanced civilizations in their time and i'd say their winters were pretty alright. or that inuit natives in upper canada had the luxary of having winter all the time yet didn't turn into a war mongering ice sculpture building empire. you can't box human cultural evolution into simple categories, there are just too many factors in our development left to question.
personally i see our 'evolution' into modern society as more of a series of choices that snowball after centuries of life in various environments. so we have:
1) nomadic tribes, no possessions nothing to fight over
2) small settlements still using nomadic values very community based/altruistic
3) larger settlements begin farming to overcome food shortages or disaster - still community oriented
4) even larger communities emerge prompting trade networks etc and leaving choices in a) grouping large communities together for common benefit b) becoming independent communities still having a small-scale focus
5) once there is sufficient size and complexity in these trade networks a need for bureaucracy emerges and with it elevated status and potential for corruption. still can be mitigated using a community-based governing board or elders representative of the population
6) lifestyle becomes less dangerous, larger community contributing food and resources and building structures, ownership becomes a larger concern, push to increase productivity by creating systems that make things easier (emphasis on farming, irrigation, more efficient ways of killing predators etc)
it goes on from there, again it is a culmination of countless choices groups of people are forced to make as they increase in number. the sheer amount of people in most modern cities force more of a competitive attitude and since you become lost in the sheer numbers there becomes an inevitable disregard for life. combine this with the increased disease you see in urban centers esp before modern medicine and this disregard and bitterness becomes even greater. having something to blame (devil) and thank for fortune (god) becomes more necessary and these concepts can be very successful in isolating and persecuting groups or as kantankeris mentioned, creating an 'other' to blame for hardships.
kantankeris also mentioned that we seem to require some force that challenges our existence. hg well time machine poses that question in his vision of humanity regressing to nymph-like creatures that just romp around and have sex all day since they no longer have serious predators and a desire to kill to survive. but i think the one given with humans is that there are no rules. we are born with very little knowledge and compared with other animals the vast majority of what we know and how we act is taught to us through experience and imitation.
some cultures have just happened to increase their numbers to a point where certain behavioral trends, whether environmentally induced or not, became prominent and a shared culture was formed. some moved in the direction of expansionism and others in peaceful subsistence and really it all could have come down to a few key leaders who could push their fellow people in a single direction. to generate a momentum.
in the end believing that we cannot change, that it is only natural for us to behave this way is only as true as your own ethnocentric views. if you look outside of how you have been socialized and examine how other cultures succeed without destroying themselves and their environment, then people might realize that all we have are options, many of which preclude jumping in a spaceship and digging a hole out in the dirt of some dead planet.
Also is there any theries as to how to get a planetary bodies core roatating so that it would generate a magnetic field?
ahh back on topic
there's a few ideas but its basically 'launch 15 nuclear warheads into the planet hope the energy is enough to return to core to liquid metal
which is about as ridiculous as the movie 'the core' itself
on top of the fact that there's no guarantee that doing this would restart the motion of the core that results in the magnetic dynamo effect.
really if anything i could see us building a colony in a space station sort of deal before something like mars became practical. at least then we could orbit earth and still be shielded by it's field. i think research into gravity and electromagnetics is the big ticket, if would could ever create artifical gravity that would be absolutely huge..
Also is there any theries as to how to get a planetary bodies core roatating so that it would generate a magnetic field?
ahh back on topic
there's a few ideas but its basically 'launch 15 nuclear warheads into the planet hope the energy is enough to return to core to liquid metal
which is about as ridiculous as the movie 'the core' itself
on top of the fact that there's no guarantee that doing this would restart the motion of the core that results in the magnetic dynamo effect.
really if anything i could see us building a colony in a space station sort of deal before something like mars became practical. at least then we could orbit earth and still be shielded by it's field. i think research into gravity and electromagnetics is the big ticket, if would could ever create artifical gravity that would be absolutely huge..
If I remeber right isnt Anti-gravity theroized to be a solution to problems with light speed travel and something crazy envolving black holes? God I wish I could remeber this stuff acuratly enough to post a cohierent argument/ statement.
ya i'm pretty sure mass increases as velocity increases which means the faster you go the more energy is required to accelerate. but there's theories about using creating a gravity field as a buffer in front of the craft or crazy not going to happen for 1000 years shit that looks at compressing space ahead of the craft so that the effective speed would be increased. i took a philosophy of physics course a year ago but most of it is fuzzy, some pretty insane stuff in there
Everyone keep in mind that due to the relatively little friction one has in space due to the lack of gravity, building ships or merely refueling them in outer-space will give them a phenomenally-greater range to travel. Unfortunately the primary problem of speed still exists and we're a long way from being able to harness antimatter to power some kind of sub-light drive.
I think there needs to be a new method to transportation before we can get any traveling done. Dumping "more coal on the fire" won't work, there's only so far that anti-matter/nuclear engines can take us. We'd need to find out how to warp space somehow and get a worm hole, or simmilar, going.
Otherwise we'd be drifting thorugh space for ages.
I think there needs to be a new method to transportation before we can get any traveling done. Dumping "more coal on the fire" won't work, there's only so far that anti-matter/nuclear engines can take us. We'd need to find out how to warp space somehow and get a worm hole, or simmilar, going.
Otherwise we'd be drifting thorugh space for ages.
That is what I always think of with space travel, create an engine that pulls its self along the universe instead of pushing it.
Think of it this way, you on roller blades, there is a long rope in front of you, you could push with your legs and go fast for a short distance and use more energy or pull your self slower but for a longer distance with less energy to use.
But then your going slower, so up the strength of your arms, same amount of energy but you travel faster and longer.
I think the movie Lost in space made good use of this type of engine. it created a worm hole infront of the ship and allowed it to pass through space instantly or a form of subspace, because honestly who the hell knows whats on the inside of a black hole.
who the hell knows whats on the inside of a black hole
?
flame me but i believe 'popular' scientific speculation is viewing them as a sort of intersection between the universe we know and a 'dark' universe, which coexist, and between which matter shifts constantly. rather that the universe just expanding and compacting back and forth between 'big bangs' it may sort of 'yin yang' around as well....
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ElJeffeNot actually a mod.Roaming the streets, waving his gun around.Moderator, ClubPAMod Emeritus
who the hell knows whats on the inside of a black hole
?
flame me but i believe 'popular' scientific speculation is viewing them as a sort of intersection between the universe we know and a 'dark' universe, which coexist, and between which matter shifts constantly. rather that the universe just expanding and compacting back and forth between 'big bangs' it may sort of 'yin yang' around as well....
Man, what?
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
I think there needs to be a new method to transportation before we can get any traveling done. Dumping "more coal on the fire" won't work, there's only so far that anti-matter/nuclear engines can take us. We'd need to find out how to warp space somehow and get a worm hole, or simmilar, going.
Otherwise we'd be drifting thorugh space for ages.
That is what I always think of with space travel, create an engine that pulls its self along the universe instead of pushing it.
Think of it this way, you on roller blades, there is a long rope in front of you, you could push with your legs and go fast for a short distance and use more energy or pull your self slower but for a longer distance with less energy to use.
But then your going slower, so up the strength of your arms, same amount of energy but you travel faster and longer.
I think the movie Lost in space made good use of this type of engine. it created a worm hole infront of the ship and allowed it to pass through space instantly or a form of subspace, because honestly who the hell knows whats on the inside of a black hole.
well i mean.. both take the same amount of energy, whether you're pulling or pushing its the same difference. the whole 'move the universe around the spacecraft' is a cool sounding idea but nothing scientific to back it up. same with the event horizon sort of 'fold the universe in half and poke a hole through the paper' type of concept.
and wormholes would be sweet but again its just too sci fi i mean black holes are never going to help us because obviously to reach one we would need to already have a ridiculous method of interstellar travel. and even then there's aboslutely no way you're getting close to that.. hey let's accelerate into infinite mass and turned a fragment of a speck of dust
in the short term we'll be relying on nuclear power i think once they are confident enough to fly a reactor up into space for usage. even then there's issues of the sheer weight of shielding required to protect those travelling. i hate to be a bummer but the whole endeavour is so far fetched. like trying to make a vr system in the early 80s. we have to wait for the technology to be invented before we can even seriously theorize about travel outside this solar system let alone colonizing other planets
who the hell knows whats on the inside of a black hole
?
flame me but i believe 'popular' scientific speculation is viewing them as a sort of intersection between the universe we know and a 'dark' universe, which coexist, and between which matter shifts constantly. rather that the universe just expanding and compacting back and forth between 'big bangs' it may sort of 'yin yang' around as well....
uhhh it helps to realize that we have never observed a black hole it's all theory based on observing the orbital decay of planets around the phenomenon, so again we're steeped so deeply in speculation at this point i think it's dumb to even guess at it
i mean, in theory, when a star collapses you have the mass of say a couple of our suns suddenly compacted to the size of a city like toronto, since this creates an unbelievable density of matter. this insane amount of gravity causes it to constantly absorb matter around it. i don't understand why there has to be all this mysterious bullshit around it, really you'd think its quite possible that it is like a giant trash compacter just compacting matter so densely that there is barely any size accumulation so things appear to be 'sucked into another spoooky dimension'
everyone looks at mars, which is a reasonable Idea, but what about Jupitiers moons? Ive heard some of them have water and atmoshperes? Just a question...
Less sunlight means colder temperatures and less availble power sources. Also, the areas around Jupiter have much higer radiation, than say, Mars so you'd need greater protection from that to survive there.
SiliconStew on
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
Isn't outer space supposed to be some sort of crazy curved 4 dimensional construct? And since we are only 3 dimensional creatures we merely percieve the shadow of the 4 dimensional universe being projected?
I seem to remember seeing a video about that in my astronomy class, then again, it could have just been crazy theory.
I guess my main point is that we know very little about outerspace and alot of things that exist in it. Most of our theories are based off of indirect observations and conjecture. I think we'll need some more concrete knowledge before we can really attempt long distance space travel.
Though if we ever colonize a hoth like planet, I am so there.
Okay, after having read everything up to this point, I think it's only been mentioned once or twice: gravitational fields are good. The Earth's magnetic field prevents a staggering amount of solar radiation from penetrating our atmosphere and either cooking the planet like a convection oven or bombarding us with enough radiation to mutate every generation of every species. Having said that, colonization of a distant planet with a mangetic field would require, what, a craft with lead shielding surrounding it? Launching that fucker into space would require that it be assembled in space for lack of a power source strong enough to get that ship off the ground (just a guess about the thickness of the lead shielding).
Now, here's the even bigger problem: How do you get it down to the ground without wrecking it? You'd have to land it on something like the Salt Flats in Nevada and naturally occuring flat-as-a-board areas that large are rare. I can appreciate the higher level thinking going on about how to get through space, but what happens when we get there?
tl;dr How do you land a ship on a planet that's large enough to sustain life (onboard and in a colony) for multiple years?
edit: axiumxp beat me to a portion of my point while I was typing.
Darth Waiter on
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So, there is every possibility that a fuck up in their decontamination procedures (pretty damn likely since it would seem like a complete waste of time to a lot of people I suppose) has already sent E. Coli or something to Mars.
Which personally, I think would be pretty awesome.
The anaerobic organisms are still around, just in much smaller numbers (which is what I meant to say in the above post) than they were before. They mainly exist in areas where A) the atmosphere doesn't really reach or
Evolution will take the simplest path from the available components, which is to just make less oxygen and control how it enters you.
Plus, when that guy walks out and sets foot on mars and screams 'AHH MARTIANS.... haha got you!' it will be the greatest moment of my life.
Mars will happen in less than 30 years of that I have no doubt.
How do you figure?
whereas mars on the other hand offers nothing more than this 50s space colony allure and mysterious untapped resources. i mean alright when we run out of iron completely then somehow lose all the potential mental we could melt down and recycle then maybe it would become sort of practical. along with having like 15 space elevators kicking around. everyone talks about all the benefits of a space program honestly look up what kind of innovations have come out of the space program over the past forty years. if this was invested into applied research anywhere you would get far more results. just look at shit like the international space station and how much comes out of that place compared with the ridiculous amount spent. i'm all for ion drives but really the amount of time it would take to get us out of the galaxy and into anywhere interesting is clearly not worth the effort right now. other than sending probes to other planets which i think is worthwhile as far as understanding our place in the universe, manned missions are just fancy for the general public..
honestly i blame total recall for all the sci kids being head over heels about ditching earth and what a great idea it would be. even if we were able to create some type of atmosphere there is still the issue of mars having a dead core so no magnetosphere which means the atmosphere is going to be carried away by solar wind anyhow. again that's what a lot of scientists believe happened originally to mars, core eventually died and the atmosphere was effectively vented into space. a dome setup would be the only option but again the benefits of working on infrastructure on earth and trying to save humanity from own shortsightedness make a hundred times more sense..
i love it when you see the posts where people are like 'oh well when the sun burns out we'll have to find a new galaxy anyhow durr durr.' i think our sense of arrogance and entitlement to the earth as well as existing as a species is insane. if you look at how many times we've destroyed and rebuilt ourselves from the neolithic period onward you've got to wonder how many chances we deserve before we kill ourselves off for good.
as i see it if we can't make it on a planet with abundant natural resources, beauty, an absolutely perfect environment for life to grow and prosper, then thinking of infesting other distant galaxies is the least of our worries..
edit - tacked in a few things
But hey, maybe that's just my knowledge of entropy talking.
of course i have been reading a fair bit of post-apocolyptic graphic novels lately so maybe that's rubbing off on me
Furthermore, you're comparing human history wholesale (which is bullshit without specific references) to - what - exactly? Is there even a single scrap of evidence to suggest that somehow by not being aggressive that our civilization would have developed faster?
Just need to be aware of the Invid, facehuggers, mynocks, and tribbles.
again your mentality is a great example of what i was talking about, this sense of entitlement -- that if we don't destroy we will be destroyed. maybe this works when you're wearing a loin cloth in the middle of the forest but in modern society this is hardly the case. then again look at aboriginal civilization in north america or any other sustainable tribal community - these people did not feel the need to tear down forests develop weapon after weapon or perfect killing. they did what was needed to survive and not alot more. they still had a rich culture and enjoyed themselves even without xboxes or hbo. advancing civilization to some 'pinnacle' is an idealistic goal at best and we could all take a cue from civilizations that did not have this drive to continually accumulate land, wealth, goods but believed in the good of the community. a great part of our drive to develop bigger and better things is living in a culture of violence and competition. a great deal of technical innovation comes from the desire to kill people more efficiently, and really if you look at the cold war and the moon landing really that was the main impetus for our current space program.
of course i'm not going to cite you all of history but studying any ancient empire is as good as the next, greed power and insecurity are major themes throughout history. you look at civilizations like the greeks and how after fighting amongst their city states for hundreds of years they eventually fell to the romans, all because people were never happy with what they had and always wanted more land, more power, better technology..
When have I actually argued we should destroy things? You just want to believe that. You have no idea what it means while you type on a modern computer, enjoy hot showers and probably own an iPod. You're a god-damn hypocrite by your own argument.
What you're incapable of dealing with is the idea that mankind has any sort of power at all, or in fact that we are a part of nature and our duty is to ourselves first and foremost otherwise we'd die. You deride mankind and you deride technology while not understanding a damn thing about it. You try and make out Ancient civilizations to have fallen for terrible reasons and maybe you're right, but you conveniently gloss over all the great things they accomplished in the same process.
Let me summarize: if people like you were in charge, we'd still be in fucking caves. Fortunately you'd die pretty quick there so we're not.
Human beings are hard-wired to overcome adversity. It's our most active evolutionary trait. Back in the dawn of mankind we were surrounded by adversity, but with our intelligence we could use our limited, yet varied gifts of communication, travel (over land, water and hills) and invention (farming, tool-making, housing and weaponry for defense and hunting) to survive against much more aggressive predators. This is how we topped the food chain, tamed our environment and became kings of the proverbial hill.
This is when our real problems began. Where 'primitive yet peaceful' societies in places like the Americas created great works and were generally far less imperialist than their distant, European cousins, this may have been because they were still competing against nature. The western cultures had taken the scientific route and eliminated most of their competition, leading to a dominant human society but also into a stagnation of our evolutionary instincts.
Anybody that studies group psychology (such as politics or religion) will tell you that the best way to get humans to group together is if you create a common enemy. Humans need a villain, a malevolent force that threatens their way of life. In the past it was lions, tigers and bears. Nowadays we don't fear nature like we once did, so humans have begun labeling other human societies as the enemy. It seems horrible but it's ingrained in us. Something in our DNA says "Fight for Survival" and now that we no longer have to fight for survival we're confused and just fighting all over the place.
If we begin to colonize outer-space, I predict our in-fighting as humans will significantly decrease. We will have a new goal, a new frontier on which to focus. What's even better is that this is a new, potentially hostile frontier! That might not seem a good thing but it will let us act as nature intended once more and our society, having a new and more dangerous adversary, our environment (once more) we will be less restless and itching for a fight. This is just my take on it and I formulated it on my second cup of coffee this morning, so it might be fatally flawed or just bunk, but right now this seems a serious consideration.
Incidentally, they were far from peaceful however, so I don't think art = peace. It's more what the currency of power and the common denominator of survival were. If individuals can survive then artistic works become more important. If groups can survive, then it's more likely they have some common survival device that must be shared.
This fails if you consider my take on the situation.
EDIT: I also find it entertaining to try and make a quip about war in space related to EVE when my above statement is actually talking about the lack thereof.
EDIT: Of course this does not make the life of a space-pirate seem any less alluring.
everyone looks at mars, which is a reasonable Idea, but what about Jupitiers moons? Ive heard some of them have water and atmoshperes? Just a question...
Also is there any theries as to how to get a planetary bodies core roatating so that it would generate a magnetic field?
And wouldnt it be alot easier, to say instead of letting satillites burn up in the atmoshpere, using some of the common space missions to send them to a common location to be used as materials for possibly moon bases. (Ie just crash all the extra fuel things from the space shuttles, old satillites, etc into the moon after taking stock and inventroy of it.) Then plan a viable manned station using the available materials?
Has the laws governing resources from space been settled, I remeber my dad studying space law in his astronomy courses (yes hes a 45 year old programmer and amatuer astronomer with a masters in math going for another degree in Astronomy) and I vaugly remeber him saying something about there being no laws to govern this, and that current laws prohibit weapons based in space. (I could be very wrong as this was awhile ago and I was kinda half/listening)
Nothing will last forever. Which is why I have no moral qualms about mining and industrializing planets to the advantage of humanity. I believe that is why they are there. These planets might be beautiful to a naturalist or preservationist, but most of them are likely dead heaps of resources floating through a void with noone to appreciate them.
Not all vampires suck blood.
Not all of them die for love.
maybe once we got a breath of that fresh space air we would all realize that we'd been a bunch of assholes all these centuries and start working together to farm crystals from asteroid belts in alpha centauri
man ancient babylonians and egyptians were the most advanced civilizations in their time and i'd say their winters were pretty alright. or that inuit natives in upper canada had the luxary of having winter all the time yet didn't turn into a war mongering ice sculpture building empire. you can't box human cultural evolution into simple categories, there are just too many factors in our development left to question.
personally i see our 'evolution' into modern society as more of a series of choices that snowball after centuries of life in various environments. so we have:
1) nomadic tribes, no possessions nothing to fight over
2) small settlements still using nomadic values very community based/altruistic
3) larger settlements begin farming to overcome food shortages or disaster - still community oriented
4) even larger communities emerge prompting trade networks etc and leaving choices in a) grouping large communities together for common benefit b) becoming independent communities still having a small-scale focus
5) once there is sufficient size and complexity in these trade networks a need for bureaucracy emerges and with it elevated status and potential for corruption. still can be mitigated using a community-based governing board or elders representative of the population
6) lifestyle becomes less dangerous, larger community contributing food and resources and building structures, ownership becomes a larger concern, push to increase productivity by creating systems that make things easier (emphasis on farming, irrigation, more efficient ways of killing predators etc)
it goes on from there, again it is a culmination of countless choices groups of people are forced to make as they increase in number. the sheer amount of people in most modern cities force more of a competitive attitude and since you become lost in the sheer numbers there becomes an inevitable disregard for life. combine this with the increased disease you see in urban centers esp before modern medicine and this disregard and bitterness becomes even greater. having something to blame (devil) and thank for fortune (god) becomes more necessary and these concepts can be very successful in isolating and persecuting groups or as kantankeris mentioned, creating an 'other' to blame for hardships.
kantankeris also mentioned that we seem to require some force that challenges our existence. hg well time machine poses that question in his vision of humanity regressing to nymph-like creatures that just romp around and have sex all day since they no longer have serious predators and a desire to kill to survive. but i think the one given with humans is that there are no rules. we are born with very little knowledge and compared with other animals the vast majority of what we know and how we act is taught to us through experience and imitation.
some cultures have just happened to increase their numbers to a point where certain behavioral trends, whether environmentally induced or not, became prominent and a shared culture was formed. some moved in the direction of expansionism and others in peaceful subsistence and really it all could have come down to a few key leaders who could push their fellow people in a single direction. to generate a momentum.
in the end believing that we cannot change, that it is only natural for us to behave this way is only as true as your own ethnocentric views. if you look outside of how you have been socialized and examine how other cultures succeed without destroying themselves and their environment, then people might realize that all we have are options, many of which preclude jumping in a spaceship and digging a hole out in the dirt of some dead planet.
there's a few ideas but its basically 'launch 15 nuclear warheads into the planet hope the energy is enough to return to core to liquid metal
which is about as ridiculous as the movie 'the core' itself
on top of the fact that there's no guarantee that doing this would restart the motion of the core that results in the magnetic dynamo effect.
really if anything i could see us building a colony in a space station sort of deal before something like mars became practical. at least then we could orbit earth and still be shielded by it's field. i think research into gravity and electromagnetics is the big ticket, if would could ever create artifical gravity that would be absolutely huge..
If I remeber right isnt Anti-gravity theroized to be a solution to problems with light speed travel and something crazy envolving black holes? God I wish I could remeber this stuff acuratly enough to post a cohierent argument/ statement.
Otherwise we'd be drifting thorugh space for ages.
The REAL question is, could we tap into that pain, suffering, agony and demons as a renewable resource?
You know, power space ships, colonies and the Galactiweb using the tormented cries of the damned?
That is what I always think of with space travel, create an engine that pulls its self along the universe instead of pushing it.
Think of it this way, you on roller blades, there is a long rope in front of you, you could push with your legs and go fast for a short distance and use more energy or pull your self slower but for a longer distance with less energy to use.
But then your going slower, so up the strength of your arms, same amount of energy but you travel faster and longer.
I think the movie Lost in space made good use of this type of engine. it created a worm hole infront of the ship and allowed it to pass through space instantly or a form of subspace, because honestly who the hell knows whats on the inside of a black hole.
flame me but i believe 'popular' scientific speculation is viewing them as a sort of intersection between the universe we know and a 'dark' universe, which coexist, and between which matter shifts constantly. rather that the universe just expanding and compacting back and forth between 'big bangs' it may sort of 'yin yang' around as well....
Man, what?
and wormholes would be sweet but again its just too sci fi i mean black holes are never going to help us because obviously to reach one we would need to already have a ridiculous method of interstellar travel. and even then there's aboslutely no way you're getting close to that.. hey let's accelerate into infinite mass and turned a fragment of a speck of dust
in the short term we'll be relying on nuclear power i think once they are confident enough to fly a reactor up into space for usage. even then there's issues of the sheer weight of shielding required to protect those travelling. i hate to be a bummer but the whole endeavour is so far fetched. like trying to make a vr system in the early 80s. we have to wait for the technology to be invented before we can even seriously theorize about travel outside this solar system let alone colonizing other planets
i mean, in theory, when a star collapses you have the mass of say a couple of our suns suddenly compacted to the size of a city like toronto, since this creates an unbelievable density of matter. this insane amount of gravity causes it to constantly absorb matter around it. i don't understand why there has to be all this mysterious bullshit around it, really you'd think its quite possible that it is like a giant trash compacter just compacting matter so densely that there is barely any size accumulation so things appear to be 'sucked into another spoooky dimension'
I seem to remember seeing a video about that in my astronomy class, then again, it could have just been crazy theory.
I guess my main point is that we know very little about outerspace and alot of things that exist in it. Most of our theories are based off of indirect observations and conjecture. I think we'll need some more concrete knowledge before we can really attempt long distance space travel.
Though if we ever colonize a hoth like planet, I am so there.
Now, here's the even bigger problem: How do you get it down to the ground without wrecking it? You'd have to land it on something like the Salt Flats in Nevada and naturally occuring flat-as-a-board areas that large are rare. I can appreciate the higher level thinking going on about how to get through space, but what happens when we get there?
tl;dr How do you land a ship on a planet that's large enough to sustain life (onboard and in a colony) for multiple years?
edit: axiumxp beat me to a portion of my point while I was typing.