Greetings and Felicitations,

I believe it is the destiny of humanity to expand into space. I have my ideas about what needs to change in human outlook and society to make this possible. I would like to get the input of those forum members interested in space colonization.

My considerations include:

1. The development of a philosophical outlook that includes the right to individuality and considers the health of the group as well. A space ship requires the respect for the individual while considering the health of the colony as paramount.

2. I think that the current fascination with profit and money needs to go before we can effectively expand. If the only consideration for space travel is cost then it will never be considered efficient to move out.

3. Even though this is a longshot I think that a level of world peace and cooperation is necessary. I don't think that total peace is necessary but I think that a more cooperative effort among humanity is.

While I appreciate your responses to the above criteria I would like to have other ideas proposed for discusion.

Sincerely Yours,
C. David Neely

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It sounds like you recognize that humanity has much more "evolution" to pass through before such a task will even be worth considering.

Short and simple, but I think that's what we have right now. Where we're at right now. We're not ready.

I'd imagine that the advent of nanotechnology in the biomedical sciences is going to play the biggest role of all. If it becomes possible to slow/stop cellular aging, you will remove the single biggest barrier to interstellar exploration. I'd imagine that, within the next 200 years, the lifespan of humans is going to increase astronomically, and then you will see this sort of thing being taken seriously.

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

Maybe.

If we stop finding reasons to kill each other

I don't see that happening for a very long time.

Irrelevant. If we had, say ~225 year lifespans instead of ~75, we'd probably still have Einstien around to help develop proper propulsion. Even without that, we'd have more people willing to look into a trip to Mars, since it wouldn't require one spend a full 10% of their life in a tin can, with a good chance of dying a radiation before you even get there. Wars and other 'reasons to kill each other' would certainly hinder such efforts, but wouldn't preclude them.

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Today's forecast: Government corruption.

Tomorrow's forecast: 100% chance of more 'politics as usual'

Maybe it's finally time to vote Libertarian

Interesting how you say "irrrelevant" to begin with to seem like you've made a clever dismissal of what I said and THEN go on to state;

"Wars and other 'reasons to kill each other' would certainly hinder such efforts, but wouldn't preclude them."

So it's NOT "irrelevant" as you initially said.

These "Wars and other 'reasons to kill each other'" have been hindering us in many many ways for a very long time.

So, you've impressed yourself by using the word "irrelevant" at least. I GUESS

I'm not impressed with it though. your usage of it made no sense. You even tore down your own use of it

Well, it is basically irrelevant. The human proclivity for violence hasn't stopped any of our technological progress so far and, if anything, it's helped our exploration progress. For all we know, in 100 years, instead of incarcerating violent criminals, we may stick them in tubes and shoot them off to Alpha Centauri.

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

Maybe thats how WE started.

It's NOT "irrelevant." It's "relevant" in that it has slowed and hindered things. Quite relevant.

Study history.

It's what is hindering things today.


Quite relevant.

You're making a case that violence has hindered technological process? Perhaps you should take your own advice about studying history. I think Medieval Europe and perhaps metallurgy in general would be a good place to start.

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

Ok, this is the one you can say "my eyes glazed over" and move on.

In post # 2 I said; ....humanity has much more "evolution" to pass through before such a task will even be worth considering.

Short and simple, but I think that's what we have right now. Where we're at right now. We're not ready.

Further on in the discussion (post 4), I said; If we stop finding reasons to kill each other.

In response to your comment:

I'd imagine that, within the next 200 years, the lifespan of humans is going to increase astronomically, and then you will see this sort of thing being taken seriously.

That humans are still a basically violent, hedonistic, nasty, territorial being has everything to do with what I'm saying when I say;

If we stop finding reasons to kill each other.

In otherwords, claiming that it is "irrelevant" is silly as hell

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Sure, violence has played a part in motivating EVERYTHING we do. It's currently part of our nature. However, the project being brought up in the OP isn't the kind of project that can ever occur while the beings proposing it are fighting, killing and disagreeing with each other about MUCH more minor ideas and projects.

That's all.

You seem to be arguing that what you said is relevant to something else that you said. Fine, whatever. But humans killing each other isn't relevant to what I posted, which is what you responded to. Your argument above is similar to saying that trans-Atlantic sea voyages wouldn't have been possible hundreds of years ago unless European monarchies put aside their differences and hugged. It's silly.

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

I do not think the world is ready for now to co-operate on a large scale for such a massive extra terrestrial exploration Negotiations, i believe, are the only way to come out of the turmoil that is posed over the world with terror threats allover.
The ISS (International Space Station) is the best example of what could be achieved if there is a large scale of co-operation. This case should be taken into account and the leaders of the world should try to identify and phase out their differences, so that they get the best of all

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Jack Sparrow
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Aye. That whole "large scale of cooperation" thing.

We have far to go before that is possible.

Maybe, maybe not. Space exploration technology can advance by the R & D done and sponsored by private individuals and corporations.

Global cooperation and government sponsorship is nice to have but not needed.

IMHO, I don't believe FTL (faster-than-light) travel is as difficult as we've been led to believe. All you need to do is warp space in such a way that creates a metric for a warp bubble in which a ship can travel (a la Alcubierre drive), and to be honest, I think all that's needed for that, at minimum, is antimatter.

And I don't mean annihilating antimatter w/matter in some big tube a la Star Trek--that's pure science fiction, IMHO.

All that is probably needed is to have antimatter stored aboard the ship (in a magnetic containment field, of course).

You see I genuinely believe (even though it's never been proven) that antimatter actually has an innate negative gravitational field (even though it's energy and inertial mass is positive). The creation of such a field w/sufficient magnitude is likely all it takes it to create the Alcubierre metric which makes FTL travel possible.

And I reiterate my konspiracy theory--I think there are people/beings from the future who are actively thwarting R&D efforts for warp drive. They don't want humanity to know about it even though I suspect there are/were physicists have already figured it out (and have simply been told not to tell).

Yeah, call me crazy . I can take it. Always have

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-- S

good topic thx....

1. okay like the star trek prime directive, just forget about adding libs to the crew, I am sure they will have better ways for Tralfamadore to mange their economy and social circumstances...

2. I disagree, from where we are now money or profit may be the prime motivator or block. The cash prize for a space shuttle seems to have done well, yet the space station is lagging.......but I agree an altruistic concept is necessary, but it takes gobs of money from a movement to make it efficacious to carry on.......

3. I’d say cooperative efforts as to the materials and money to make it happen.



Overall, I think we have reached a dead end for now. Time, must be mastered, be it by wormhole exploitation or a new drive that will propel us. The speed of light supposedly being 186.000 a second is a hard stop right now.
The nearest star, Alpha Centauri C ( proxima) of the Centauri system is 4.2 light years…..and may have planets but the time it takes to get there presently would preclude such.

A Light year is a measurement of distance not time, so- one light year is 186000 X 60 X 60 X 24 X 365 miles there -ore, Proxima is 23,462,748,000,000 miles away.....if say we have a rocket that can travel at 1000 miles per hour, thats 3.6 million miles per hour....we can I think be reasonably sure of a speed right now of 30,000mps...so you can extrapolate from there if you wish as to relative times in transit.


We need a breakthrough.

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