Maybe we could launch a starship to Alpha Centauri in 100 years for a journey of 1000 years. Would "The Gold At The Starbow's End" (Frederick Pohl) be found?

We could terraform Mars - over thousands of years!

Or perhaps build great sun orbiting man made planetoids. The economics of moving mass means the resources to build these must come from the asteroids. Stop an asteroid from spinning, move it to a Lagrange point and then refine it's entire mass (because the minerals are diffuse rather than concentrated as on Earth) - then we'll know when it can be done.

Although some of these scenarios are perhaps in our future they are not solutions to immediate problems due to the simple time they will take to implement. In fact humans are far more imaginative and capable of solving Earth problems - right here on Earth.

How many people a hundred years from now, in 1907, would have believed humans would have walked on the Moon in 1969? Your numbers on the time it could take is derived from what we know now, but who knows what we know and can do in 2069?

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President Josiah Bartlet: Sweden has a 100% literacy rate. 100%! How do they do that?
Leo McGarry: Maybe they don't and they can't add.

From the time of Newton we knew it was physically possible to go to the moon. (note that it still makes no sense to go to the moon or any other planet in our solar system for anything other than scientific discovery for its own sake, we are still at the whim of the earth and its limits)

Traveling to the stars in any span of time that would make any practical economic sense goes beyond the laws of physics. The distance required to travel is ridiculously massive.

Big difference.

Andrew

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Ethanol is a fabulous solution to our energy dilemma because it will provide more fuel for us to drive around and look for food.

-- Unknown

When Casey Jones drove a steam locomotive to his death in 1900 he was travelling at 50mph. The moon was about 239,000 miles away as it is today. To get there at Casey's speed would therefore take 200 days. In 1907 we had enough solid physics to predict such a flight as probable assuming we had the the energy source (Tsiolkovsky rocket equation, 1903).

The fastest man made object to date is the Helios 2, 150,000 mph. Alpha Centauri is about 26,000,000,000,000 miles away. That's 19,786 years away.

If we assume we can create a craft in another 100 years 3,000 times faster than we can today ('2007 at 150,000 mph' divided by '1900 at 50 mph') we'd get there in a nice comfortable 8 months. This is a speed of 4,500,000,000 mph. 670,615,200 mph is the speed of light and our physics today says we cannot go beyond that (with some exceptions of which we are uncertain and barely beyond science fiction). Half light speed? Matter-antimatter annihilation requires fuel at twice the mass of the ship.

Wormholes - I have seen estimates ranging from 100 to 300 yrs away - and these are pretty wild indeed.

See the difference?

But I repeat, this is not to say it can't happen - just that it is thin hope to rely on it for Earth's solutions.

Now a planet converted entirely to oatmeal - that I can believe.

Note: Please correct me if my numbers are wrong and I will gladly await your arrival here on Apha Centauri 3.

I would also note that it makes far more sense for us to figure out how to live on this planet without destroying it, before we plan on going out there to destroy everything else. Lets get it 'right' here, and if and when we get 'out there' we will be that much farther ahead in all aspects of human existence.

Andrew

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Ethanol is a fabulous solution to our energy dilemma because it will provide more fuel for us to drive around and look for food.

-- Unknown

I do know the stars are far away and it would take ges to go ther with present day technology. Still, science is developing with an ever increasing speed. What I say is not because I am naive (I believe), but because I try to be optimistic.

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President Josiah Bartlet: Sweden has a 100% literacy rate. 100%! How do they do that?
Leo McGarry: Maybe they don't and they can't add.

Yes indeed.

However I do think we should strive for the stars only because it is an important journey rather than destination.

In fact solving our Earth problems first is a necessary condition for success due to the level of cooperation and the amount of energy required.

The stars aren't far away - they are unreachable now and in the foreseeable future. No amount of optimism or understanding will overcome physics - we must work with what we have.

Absolutely.

Andrew

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Ethanol is a fabulous solution to our energy dilemma because it will provide more fuel for us to drive around and look for food.

-- Unknown

For now, yes, but our understanding of physics is constantly changing.

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President Josiah Bartlet: Sweden has a 100% literacy rate. 100%! How do they do that?
Leo McGarry: Maybe they don't and they can't add.

I don't think your getting it - experimentally verified physics says it cannot be done and there is no physics to say it may be doable. Furthermore, world changing scientific discoveries do not happen suddenly and by chance but rather by steady incremental (increments being almost indiscernable except to the specialist) developments and many, many, many false starts. This makes chance discovery of FTL travel or man made wormholes improbable.

This is not to say we shouldn't work towards travel to the stars, but your optimism would be better placed in recognising that we have the abilities now to solve our resource problems right where we are.

Not even Arthur C Clarke could see man's way to the stars in 3001. The stars had to come to man and gift us with Lucifer so that we may learn the error of our ways and the insignificance of our being first.

Just look at things that are already possible within physics and the likelihood of implemeting them anytime soon. I.e., A space elevator made from carbon nanotubes. This is techniclally possible and we currently have the ability to build it. I guarantee it will be decades after it is decided to go ahead and build one before it is actually built. I.e., Fusion. What is this like a 50-100 year project for a test plant?

We have got immediate problems with resource depletion and ecocide that need to be dealt with right now.

Andrew

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Ethanol is a fabulous solution to our energy dilemma because it will provide more fuel for us to drive around and look for food.

-- Unknown

How did a thread about the most tangible problem that mankind faces get to become a discussion of science fiction? Oh ok, silly question .. humans will be humans

It is somewhat ironic that a poster claims the problem is the threat of socialization. Consider how little control you have over your own food source. This is an advent of urbanization not government control.

More people per square mile means larger but fewer farms controlled by fewer individuals almost entirely dependent upon government funding. That funding is, in turn, dependent on stipulations about what to grow, how much, and at what price. If thats not socialization, I don't know what is. And arrived at quite naturally!

Do you know that your fish isn't full of mercury? Do you know that your beef isn't from dangerously diseased cattle? Do you know that your vegetables aren't riddled with ecoli bacteria? If you buy your food at a "super" market, your answer is necessarily, no. You are at the mercy of the FDA and "super" size farms/ranches. Cattle are fed cattle instead of grain. Our natural waste and consumption poisons the water we drink and feed to our crops.

Malvolio mentions that all the doomsday predictions have been wrong - so far. But the predictions are persistent for a reason - math.

Still, I think the critical point that so often gets lost in the hype of doomsday population predictions is quality of life. Of course we can conceivably continue to live on this earth with ever increasing populations of humans for a very long time but at what point does it stop being fun?

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...the government...is caving in...with their specious arguments couched in the...language of civil rights law, and that the churches ... likewise crumbling to...rhetoric which is nothing but heretical sophistry -- ~F Phelps
Platitudes like the one you offer are no different - and no less incorrect - than the jackass part-time Christian who says, "I'm going to heaven because I'm nice to people." It so misses the point.~Impugn

I do understand what you're saying. I know the stars are far away in space and starships far away in time. Still, I believe it is narrowminded to look only at Earth as mankind's habitat. Even with present day understanding of physics, we can reach most of the Solar System.

I wrote this in the post starting this line of discussion:

Emphasis added.

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President Josiah Bartlet: Sweden has a 100% literacy rate. 100%! How do they do that?
Leo McGarry: Maybe they don't and they can't add.