Space and Humankind! - why we HAVE to go into space Big Time

Andy Kerr · 2002-06-26 10:25:07

Human Beings are a very young species, it thinks that it is grown up, as do all young primates, but it is not.
We still squabble over the Planet Earth, who has the right to live where, we draw lines on maps and and insist that certain Human Beings must live within the confines and only move to another part of the Planet with permission. Earth is an Island, we have no where else to go at this time, it is our nest.
If we do not progress as a species, not as individual Nations, but as a species, we will die along with Earth when, for what ever reason, beit today or in several hundred million years hence, it is destroyed.
This is as sure as life itself, everything dies including Planets and Stars. The Universe is is far more violent than we could ever imagine. We actually know very little about it, much is suposition, what we think is fact will be overidden in the future with new fact
We must colonise, not just Mars (although this is a begining) but our own Galaxy and the Universe.
If we do not make great effort to pull together, we will die like the fledglings in the nest.
Our destiny is out there, not on earth, our womb of our life. We must emerge from this womb and seek our destiny, which, as a species, were created for. If we are the most advanced inteligent life there is out there, then if we did become extinct the Universe would have come into exsistance for nothing, what a waste of a Universe.

Lets go for it, starting with Mars. The time is now!

Palomar · 2002-06-26 15:21:27

This is as sure as life itself, everything dies including Planets and Stars. The Universe is is far more violent than we could ever imagine. We actually know very little about it, much is suposition, what we think is fact will be overidden in the future with new fact
We must colonise, not just Mars (although this is a begining) but our own Galaxy and the Universe.
If we do not make great effort to pull together, we will die like the fledglings in the nest.

*Well, I think this brings it down to three points: Do we Mars enthusiasts want humans to get to Mars simply for the sake of adventure and the challenge ::or:: do we see it as a way to preserve homo sapiens in the event some nutcase here on Earth finally does "push the button" and provoke a nuclear catastrophe ::or:: a combination of both?

Even if humans do successfully settle and/or colonize Mars, eventually our sun [Sol] will go into its Red Giant phase. It'll balloon into such a massive fireball that it'll consume Earth...and probably Mars as well. Antares, alpha Scorpii, is a Red Giant, and its circumference is larger than that of Mars' orbit around our sun. In other words, Sol is [currently] to Antares what Earth is to Sol. The sun will then either explode or implode. Any life in the solar system as we know it today will be el-extincto.

I like to maintain a level of optimism, but getting out of our solar system alone will be a feat of Herculean proportions. It will require that technological know-how will continue, that Earthlings haven't blown themselves to smithereens in the meantime ::or:: that Marsians can continue space-flight and space-immigration plans even if Earth goes ka-boom thanks to religious or political fanatics and nuclear war...etc., etc.

Even if humans [however they have have mutated] were to eventually reach and settle/colonize another star system in another part of our galaxy [the enormity of that feat staggers me; I cannot comprehend it], there is no assurance that the star of that system might remain stable.

Cutting to the chase here: I think humankind should push itself to whatever limits it can reach -- even if it means someday manned ships make it to the Andromeda Galaxy via a wormhole. I'm for human exploration and extra-terrestrial settling/colonization for the two above reasons I gave [both for the adventure and challenge of it, and also to help maintain the species]. However, what if the universe itself collapses upon itself in the very far future...and mankind is still thriving here and there?

Fact is, everything dies; at least it does in how we understand the term "death".

There are so many "if's" to space exploration and settling/colonization. There are still some pretty big "if's" to getting to Mars, seeing if people can thrive there, if terraforming [to some degree at least] is possible, if people will want to remain, etc., etc.

I like your enthusiasm; however, I prefer to take it one step at a time. Yes, we are cosmic infants. And though we cannot stay in the cradle forever, we must also remember that human babies learn first to roll over, then to scoot along, then to wobble up on their feet, then cruise around furniture -- then they take that first step. We took a tentative first step in 1969. We have other "first steps" facing us now, and IMO will have to focus on the immediate, reachable goals first. I like to think of all this as stepping stones across a creek; the moon was our first stepping stone across the cosmic creek...let's focus on getting our foot solidly on the second stepping stone named Mars.

--Cindy

Phobos · 2002-06-26 18:06:00

Even if humans do successfully settle and/or colonize Mars, eventually our sun [Sol] will go into its Red Giant phase. It'll balloon into such a massive fireball that it'll consume Earth...and probably Mars as well. Antares, alpha Scorpii, is a Red Giant, and its circumference is larger than that of Mars' orbit around our sun. In other words, Sol is [currently] to Antares what Earth is to Sol. The sun will then either explode or implode. Any life in the solar system as we know it today will be el-extincto.

Actually, Earth could lose most of its advanced life long before the sun swallows the inner-planets in five billion years. Since the sun will be gradually increasing in brightness as it ages, it'll eventually get to the point in about a billion years where it could cause massive evaporation of the oceans and the resulting moisture trapped in the atmosphere could cause a greenhouse effect that could literally turn Earth into a planet more like Venus. Hopefully by then we'll have engines that can achieve a good percentage of the speed of light or utilize some exotic properties that are unknown to us to get out of the Solar System. With time dilation, it's possible you could visit several stars in your lifetime. Of course, once the Sun does get bright enough to turn Earth into hell, Mars will probably be a nice giant Hawaii.

We still squabble over the Planet Earth, who has the right to live where, we draw lines on maps and and insist that certain Human Beings must live within the confines and only move to another part of the Planet with permission. Earth is an Island, we have no where else to go at this time, it is our nest.

Just out of curiosity Andy Kerr, are you an anarchist (sounds like you are?) If your not and you believe in using a government to unite all of humanity, I think that could end up worse then having multiple nations. The only way you could unify the entire planet under one government, at least right now, would be to have some kind of dictatorship that would ruthelessly stamp out dissent and try to reform everyone to its way of thinking. You can argue that this is happening with "Globalist Capitalism" right now, and there's plenty of dissent against that. On the flip side, I'm not sure I'd want to live under a globalist command economy either. Such a regime would be very inimical to personal freedom. But then again maybe you were just speaking of humanity uniting in a more metaphorical, non-governmental fashion.

Phobos · 2002-06-27 23:08:00

1G years ago, there was no fossilized life: life on Earth existed only under the form of unicellular organisms; sexuated reproduction had just been invented; life existed only in water! Considering all the changes life has been through the last billion years, we may be too hasty when saying humanity will have to migrate when our sun explodes. The homo sapiens appeared only some 200,000 years ago and historical record dates back only to some few millenia. Even if Man doesn't exterminates himself, how long will the human race will exist? Even 1 million years is too much for one existence to grasp. Say 50 million years, all possible evolution of Mankind into its descendants taken into account. That's still 100 times less from the time it will take for the Sun to dissapear.

If we force ourselves to stay on this planet, I think it's safe to assume that humanity will die off long before the sun even becomes a danger to Earth. If we want to do our part to keep advanced intelligence alive in the universe I think its pretty much mandatory that we spread ourselves as far and wide into the cosmos as possible. I think once you have huge populations spread out into the cosmos there's a good chance that intelligence will continue to thrive for eons if not millions or billions of years. Some populations will get wiped out by natural or artificial disasters but others will be able to carry on.

Shaun Barrett · 2002-07-01 06:29:12

Andy Kerr suggests that if we're the only intelligent life in the universe, and we die out, then the universe will have existed for nothing. ".... what a waste of a Universe."
Let's not forget that beetles are not normally regarded as intelligent and yet there are about 300,000 species of them. There is only one species of Homo Sapiens Sapiens. This led one of the great philosophers (whose name regrettably escapes me) to conclude that "God is inordinately fond of beetles".
Perhaps God's only concern is that beetles should survive. Maybe the demise of the human species would not be of the slightest consequence to Her. And the universe, full of the creatures God loves best, would carry on happily many billions of years after Homo Sapiens Sapiens is no more than a vague memory!
In any event, the average species lasts from 4 to 10 million years, less than 1% of the time interval between now and when Earth becomes uninhabitable. Whatever life forms may be witness to the boiling of Earth's oceans, none will be anything like what we would describe today as human.
Let's not worry about all that. Let's just go to Mars because, whatever else God may have intended when She made us, She obviously meant us to be curious. And that may be the only area in which we haven't let Her down ...... at least so far!!

Palomar · 2002-07-01 16:47:48

That's assuming the rest of the universe considers Humans an "advanced intelligence" species.

*And that's assuming there are other intelligent entities "out there" who can -- and just may -- judge whether or not homo sapiens is an "advanced-intelligence" species.

--Cindy

Phobos · 2002-07-02 16:14:59

That's assuming the rest of the universe considers Humans an "advanced intelligence" species. If we do force ourselves to stay on Earth and we die a horrible death from something other than Sol... we deserve the fate for being so stupid we didn't leave when we had the chance.

Actually I'd like to modify your words to say that the schmucks in power who prevented humanity from spreading out to the stars deserve a horrible fate.

Let's not forget that beetles are not normally regarded as intelligent and yet there are about 300,000 species of them. There is only one species of Homo Sapiens Sapiens. This led one of the great philosophers (whose name regrettably escapes me) to conclude that "God is inordinately fond of beetles".

If God loves beetles so much I definately don't want to go to heaven! Especially if there's a lot of cockroaches. I'll choose to roast in Hell instead.

Terraformer · 2008-04-14 09:39:11

Just ressurecting this thread because there seems to be some good points in it. I espeically like Andy Kerrs First, Last, and Only post on the Forum.

Gregori · 2008-04-14 20:09:28

Lets face it, the real reason we are here on this forum and want to go to Mars is because It's cool!!

The facade of pseudo-intellectual justification for going there is just pure bullshit!

Don't get me wrong, I totally approve of space exploration, because it's cool! New places, possibilities, groovy technology, advancing scientific knowledge etc etc

Grypd · 2008-04-15 06:40:47

Lets face it, the real reason we are here on this forum and want to go to Mars is because It's cool!!
The facade of pseudo-intellectual justification for going there is just pure bullshit!
Don't get me wrong, I totally approve of space exploration, because it's cool! New places, possibilities, groovy technology, advancing scientific knowledge etc etc

The Human race have always been wanderers going from place to place just to see what is out there. A lot of this is down to our desire to go carve a piece out of somewhere and say that this is mine, I made this, is it not great.

We have done all we can on this planet and it really is time we used our greatest asset intelligence and moved to other worlds.

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#1 2002-06-26 10:25:07

Re: Space and Humankind! - why we HAVE to go into space Big Time

#2 2002-06-26 15:21:27

Re: Space and Humankind! - why we HAVE to go into space Big Time

#3 2002-06-26 18:06:00

Re: Space and Humankind! - why we HAVE to go into space Big Time

#4 2002-06-27 23:08:00

Re: Space and Humankind! - why we HAVE to go into space Big Time

#5 2002-07-01 06:29:12

Re: Space and Humankind! - why we HAVE to go into space Big Time

#6 2002-07-01 16:47:48

Re: Space and Humankind! - why we HAVE to go into space Big Time

#7 2002-07-02 16:14:59

Re: Space and Humankind! - why we HAVE to go into space Big Time

#8 2008-04-14 09:39:11

Re: Space and Humankind! - why we HAVE to go into space Big Time

#9 2008-04-14 20:09:28

Re: Space and Humankind! - why we HAVE to go into space Big Time

#10 2008-04-15 06:40:47

Re: Space and Humankind! - why we HAVE to go into space Big Time

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