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Having a bit of existential angst and it got me thinking: How the hell will the human race get off this damned planet if / when it does? Traveling at the speed of light, from everything I've gathered, is near impossible for us to do. Even if we travel near the speed of light, the place we decide to try to go to could be gone by the time we even got there. The only way I can imagine the human race ever getting out of here is through advanced medical technology - whereby we extend our lives to the point that time becomes basically meaningless. Even so, with such a break through, we'd need some sort of near infinite energy source to be able to get us where we'd want to go. So my questions are: 1) Do you believe there is a way to prolong our lives in such a way? 2) What kind of energy source do you think could be used to sustain REALLY long flights? Nuclear? 3) How do you think we will take the human race to another planet, or do you think we will go extinct long before we could ever establish a colony on another world?
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Apr 20, 2014 12:58
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I'd say we should probably try at least a colony or two in this solar system before we start getting sad about c cockblocking our interstellar ambitions.
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Apr 20, 2014 13:47
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Runefaust posted:Having a bit of existential angst and it got me thinking: Well, a nice first step would be to get our poo poo together here on Earth. Because if we don't we'll be busy pissing away far too much time and money on new ways to gently caress each other over to be able to spare the absurdly massive resources that setting up an actually sustanable space colony would require.
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Apr 20, 2014 13:54
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My understanding is that the nearest stars could be reached in a human lifetime: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion) Having said that, it's quite difficult to answer a question about getting to a habitable planet when we don't actually know where the nearest one is.
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Apr 20, 2014 14:11
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Solar sails are a really energy-cheap way (they only use sunlight) of getting near the speed of light, but require sails that are in the range of hundreds of meters across. Warp drives are also a thing but still largely theoretical.
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Apr 20, 2014 15:25
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Cerebral Bore posted:Well, a nice first step would be to get our poo poo together here on Earth. Because if we don't we'll be busy pissing away far too much time and money on new ways to gently caress each other over to be able to spare the absurdly massive resources that setting up an actually sustanable space colony would require. That's never been a first step for colonization ever.
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Apr 20, 2014 15:26
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Cerebral Bore posted:Well, a nice first step would be to get our poo poo together here on Earth. Because if we don't we'll be busy pissing away far too much time and money on new ways to gently caress each other over to be able to spare the absurdly massive resources that setting up an actually sustanable space colony would require. Between getting Earth's poo poo together and starting a sustainable space colony, I'm going to say the latter is much more realistic and far cheaper. Not that I'm saying it wouldn't be nice to get our poo poo together here on Earth, but I've always found it baffling when people use that argument against space stuff. Yeah, we were doing so damned great keeping it all together until we started wasting our time with all that space nonsense, lemme tell you!
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Apr 20, 2014 15:27
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Send tiny namotech based probes that can build a machine capable of building human bodies plus a complete colony download the colonists personalities into those bodies, destroy the original bodies here on earth.
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Apr 20, 2014 15:51
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You should ask the spaceflight megathread in the science subforum op. Should civilization survive this century I think that we will begin to colonize space as we are finally beginning to make better rockets that will open up the inner solar system to more human activity. There are still many challenges though like how to deal with radiation and to stop people from going crazy on long flights but I think they will be solved. 
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Apr 20, 2014 15:53
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I would think the Moon is probably the "easiest" place to put colonies, followed by space station style ones. Although it won't ever turn out to be anything more than rats fleeing a sinking ship, unless some sort of really valuable material on the Moon/Mars is needed and poors are shipped out to do the hard labour to dig it up
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Apr 20, 2014 16:00
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First, you'd have to outline some candidates for colonization. Health problems are a tremendous hurdle for colonizing planets with too different a gravitational force from that of Earth's.
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Apr 20, 2014 16:03
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Seed every candidate world with machines that hold fertilized ovum in cold storage, then gestate it in artificial wombs if/when conditions are right. I guess include plants and animals too. Include AI to teach language, science, history, etc.
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Apr 20, 2014 16:09
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Well, actually, if we're going to colonize anything off-world at all, we're not going to be doing it on planets, we'll be doing it in artificial space colonies. This is because it's very expensive, energetically, to lift things up and down a planetary gravity well. Furthermore, unless the planet were extremely extremely similar to Earth, we'd need to build the same sort of life-support systems and airlocks and seals and whatnot that we'd end up doing in space anyway. So if the future is indeed space colonization -- which is not entirely assured given the sorry state of current geopolitics and economics -- we'll be looking at O'Neill Cylinders in our own solar system. Zorak actually started an Ask/Tell thread about this a while back, but it seems to have been archived. Pity. 
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Apr 20, 2014 16:10
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DrSunshine posted:Well, actually, if we're going to colonize anything off-world at all, we're not going to be doing it on planets, we'll be doing it in artificial space colonies. This is because it's very expensive, energetically, to lift things up and down a planetary gravity well. Furthermore, unless the planet were extremely extremely similar to Earth, we'd need to build the same sort of life-support systems and airlocks and seals and whatnot that we'd end up doing in space anyway. Came here to post this! Colonizing planets is dumb, the gravity will never be quite right. An O'Neal cylinder has the advantage of being in space so you can rotate it and create earth normal gravity. This also creates a natural day/night cycle for growing crops and an unlimited amount of solar power for electricity. 
Rutibex fucked around with this message at 16:24 on Apr 20, 2014 |
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Apr 20, 2014 16:21
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Haha, sillies. The human race will be extinct within 200 years, except for a few leftover billionaires whose implants are still functioning. Nobody's going anywhere. Conceited little monkeys think because they can kill each other with missiles that they can ride them to the stars.
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Apr 20, 2014 16:27
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SedanChair posted:Haha, sillies. The human race will be extinct within 200 years, except for a few leftover billionaires whose implants are still functioning. Nobody's going anywhere. Preposterous. As a species, we've survived Supervolcanoes and Ice Ages, we're not going to be wiped out anytime soon. Even if we were reduced, by some tremendous global catastrophe such as abrupt climate change or nuclear war, to only a few thousand hunter-gatherer bands, the human race will find a way to survive and persist somewhere, if only for the mere fact of our advanced and adaptable brains. I think that it would take a disaster on par with a collision with a Mars-sized planetary body to destroy the human race.
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Apr 20, 2014 16:35
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DrSunshine posted:Preposterous. As a species, we've survived Supervolcanoes and Ice Ages, we're not going to be wiped out anytime soon. Even if we were reduced, by some tremendous global catastrophe such as abrupt climate change or nuclear war, to only a few thousand hunter-gatherer bands, the human race will find a way to survive and persist somewhere, if only for the mere fact of our advanced and adaptable brains. I think that it would take a disaster on par with a collision with a Mars-sized planetary body to destroy the human race. Right because theres no example of humans becoming extinct in history.. like neanderthals or something.
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Apr 20, 2014 16:37
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RBC posted:Right because theres no example of humans becoming extinct in history.. like neanderthals or something. The other hominid species where almost certainly killed by modern humans not natural circumstances. If we never showed up they would still be an apex predator.
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Apr 20, 2014 16:40
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computer parts posted:That's never been a first step for colonization ever. Are you seriously equating colonization back here on Earth with space colonization? Because here's a hint: Space is a bit more inhospitable. Also it's a little bit harder to get there. TerminalBlue posted:Between getting Earth's poo poo together and starting a sustainable space colony, I'm going to say the latter is much more realistic and far cheaper. There is a slght difference between sending some dudes up in a rocket and starting up what would be the overwhelmingly most challenging and expensive project of engineering in human history. Nobody would do that while there's still a better RoI for the equivalent amount of resources back on earth unless we're talking some kinda Space Race-esque prestige project. Also you shouldn't jump to the conclusion that someone is anti-any space exploration ever just because I'm calling out the idea of extraterrestial colonies as the pie-in-the-sky boondoggle that it is. Cerebral Bore fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Apr 20, 2014 |
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Apr 20, 2014 16:45
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Cerebral Bore posted:Are you seriously equating colonization back here on Earth with space colonization? Because here's a hint: Space is a bit more inhospitable. Unless you're making the argument of "X is incomparable with anything we've ever seen before therefore I can make up bullshit without backing it up" then there's nothing better to compare it to.
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Apr 20, 2014 16:48
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Are we even able to mitigate the deleterious effects space has on the human body yet? That's another issue to be addressed before warp drive.
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Apr 20, 2014 17:12
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computer parts posted:Unless you're making the argument of "X is incomparable with anything we've ever seen before therefore I can make up bullshit without backing it up" then there's nothing better to compare it to. You're the one making the positive claim, bub. It's up to you to show how comparing space colonization with regular ol' colonization is meaningful in any sense.
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Apr 20, 2014 17:22
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DrSunshine posted:Preposterous. As a species, we've survived Supervolcanoes and Ice Ages, we're not going to be wiped out anytime soon. Even if we were reduced, by some tremendous global catastrophe such as abrupt climate change or nuclear war, to only a few thousand hunter-gatherer bands, the human race will find a way to survive and persist somewhere, if only for the mere fact of our advanced and adaptable brains. I think that it would take a disaster on par with a collision with a Mars-sized planetary body to destroy the human race.  "This half-million year side trip into having gigantic brains is bound to pay off! It's got to!"
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Apr 20, 2014 17:24
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SombreroAgnew posted:Are we even able to mitigate the deleterious effects space has on the human body yet? That's another issue to be addressed before warp drive. With enough mass we can shield people from cosmic radiation, and rotating the ship can produce gravity. The only reason we don't do that now is because we use poo poo chemical rockets to bring materials up and they can't afford the weight. We also would not need warp drive to reach other solar systems. By traveling close to the speed of light the passengers could arrive at distant stars in a relatively reasonable time frame. They would just never be able to return to the Earth they knew; so no Galactic Empires as we know it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgpcqiiTM8A
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Apr 20, 2014 17:24
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Cerebral Bore posted:You're the one making the positive claim, bub. Uh, no, that was you: Cerebral Bore posted:Well, a nice first step would be to get our poo poo together here on Earth. Because if we don't we'll be busy pissing away far too much time and money on new ways to gently caress each other over to be able to spare the absurdly massive resources that setting up an actually sustanable space colony would require. How is "we have to do x in order to do y" not a positive claim?
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Apr 20, 2014 17:26
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DrSunshine posted:Preposterous. As a species, we've survived Supervolcanoes and Ice Ages, we're not going to be wiped out anytime soon. Even if we were reduced, by some tremendous global catastrophe such as abrupt climate change or nuclear war, to only a few thousand hunter-gatherer bands, the human race will find a way to survive and persist somewhere, if only for the mere fact of our advanced and adaptable brains. I think that it would take a disaster on par with a collision with a Mars-sized planetary body to destroy the human race. More or less all the species alive today survived those things too, though, and most of them did it with adaptations rather less novel than crazy-big brains. I'm not convinced innovation is enough to survive in a post-civilisation world long-term. I suppose one thing that might work to our advantage in at least some parts of the world is that there aren't a lot of apex predators left. I can see humanity eking out an existence at low levels for a while because of that, but not really as a long term thing. vegetables fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Apr 20, 2014 |
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Apr 20, 2014 17:28
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We will build the rockets out of Socialism and fuel them with the broken promises of Barack Hussein Obama. However, they will inevitably blow up on the launchpad, because everyone preferred to watch American Idol, and we didn't invest in Western Poland. Death is certain. e: It will also be inevitable and come from things currently facing us today. In the climate-changed hellscape of mass resource depletion, a thousand clones of Rand Paul will stalk the Earth for innocent and/or queer blood; fortunately for the remnants of humanity and their future Pain Extraction, a thousand clones of Paul Ryan will have been created by a parallel clone facility.
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Apr 20, 2014 17:43
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Nessus posted:We will build the rockets out of Socialism and fuel them with the broken promises of Barack Hussein Obama. 
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Apr 20, 2014 17:46
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You only really need FTL if the goal is space colonization within a single lifetime. I'd wager it's far easier* to solve the problem of birthing multiple generations of humanity in space than trying to break known laws of physics. * Easier is a relative term in this case
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Apr 20, 2014 18:13
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Serious question - why do people speculate on this stuff as if no new scientific discoveries will be made? It currently seems like an almost impossible problem to solve with our resources but we hardly know all there is to know, or even a tiny fraction of what there is to know, about dealing with said problem.
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Apr 20, 2014 18:18
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DrSunshine posted:Preposterous. As a species, we've survived Supervolcanoes and Ice Ages, we're not going to be wiped out anytime soon. Even if we were reduced, by some tremendous global catastrophe such as abrupt climate change or nuclear war, to only a few thousand hunter-gatherer bands, the human race will find a way to survive and persist somewhere, if only for the mere fact of our advanced and adaptable brains. I think that it would take a disaster on par with a collision with a Mars-sized planetary body to destroy the human race. Realistically, we're already skirting the line of resource depletion. If we suffer a global catastrophe we won't be able to bootstrap ourselves back to the technological level capable of developing a space-based economy. There would still be some form of humans, but such aspirations would be forever beyond their reach. edit: Also, it wouldn't take Mars (or more realistically, the Moon as it's the same size) to destroy the Earth - an asteroid only a mile-wide would probably destroy all life if it impacted, while one that was only a couple dozen miles wide and travelling at speed could easily burn off the atmosphere and crack the Earth's mantle. Kaal fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Apr 20, 2014 |
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Apr 20, 2014 18:20
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Tolth posted:Serious question - why do people speculate on this stuff as if no new scientific discoveries will be made? It currently seems like an almost impossible problem to solve with our resources but we hardly know all there is to know, or even a tiny fraction of what there is to know, about dealing with said problem. Also, people like the cold, crisp taste of nihilistic cynicism. As for resource depletion I'm kind of skeptical, since I think there'd still be at least a little oil here and there - certainly coal - and assuming they remembered what nuclear power was, they might be a lot less gun-shy about it. However this risks splitting the atom of nuclear power chat!
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Apr 20, 2014 18:25
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Kaal posted:Realistically, we're already skirting the line of resource depletion. If we suffer a global catastrophe we won't be able to bootstrap ourselves back to the technological level capable of developing a space-based economy. There would still be some form of humans, but such aspirations would be forever beyond their reach. I don't see why? It's not like they would need to extract all the metals again; they would already be sitting there in the ruins of cities. You can make rocket fuel from electrolyzing water and that isn't going anywhere. It's also unlikely every single book in the world would be destroyed even if we go through another dark age.
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Apr 20, 2014 18:31
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Realistically we'd have to find some place that can sustain life. Even Mars, the closest place people might consider would be completely unable to sustain life better than even the worst, most inhospitable place on this planet. Not to mention the huge barriers in terms of cost, basic physics and logistics. We wouldn't even be able to get a single person on Mars without them suffering huge, debilitating problems like lack of bone mass and other more horrible scenarios. We cannot get poo poo sorted on a planet that is capable and tailor made for our existence, what hope do we have somewhere where even the gravity is against us?
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Apr 20, 2014 18:31
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RBC posted:Right because theres no example of humans becoming extinct in history.. like neanderthals or something. Neanderthals didn't exactly go extinct. Homo sapiens and homo neanderthalensis were genetically compatible enough to create viable offspring and the genome of most Europeans is theorized to be a single digit (I forget the range so I won't post it) percentage neanderthal. Yeah you don't see pure neanderthals walking around anywhere but their genes are still hanging around. We're the apes, Jeje.
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Apr 20, 2014 18:41
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computer parts posted:Uh, no, that was you: No, you dolt. I'm saying that it can't be done with the political situation we have now and will have for the foreseeable future, you're the one saying that space colonisation apparently in the same ballapark as sailing some ships over the atlantic and setting up shop. Now kindly back up your asanine claim. Tolth posted:Serious question - why do people speculate on this stuff as if no new scientific discoveries will be made? It currently seems like an almost impossible problem to solve with our resources but we hardly know all there is to know, or even a tiny fraction of what there is to know, about dealing with said problem. Because we don't know what we will come up with, and you can't make realistic estimates about the future based on wishful thinking about some hypothetical superscience.
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Apr 20, 2014 18:45
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Rutibex posted:I don't see why? It's not like they would need to extract all the metals again; they would already be sitting there in the ruins of cities. You can make rocket fuel from electrolyzing water and that isn't going anywhere. It's also unlikely every single book in the world would be destroyed even if we go through another dark age. All those easily accessible remnants of our society would be used just in the process of rebuilding the society, as I don't think that space colonies is going to be high on the list of priorities for the immediate survivors. It would take many generations to recover, depending on the extent of the catastrophe. If humanity was reduced in population to only a few thousand people around the world, they'd have to go back through an equivalent of the medieval ages, the renaissance, the industrial age, the space age, and then develop that into an even higher level than what we've yet to achieve. All without the untouched stocks of game animals, fishing, wood timber, fresh water, accessible fossil fuels, surface minerals, etc. that have played such a key role in allowing us to get where we are. Recycling simply can't replace that.
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Apr 20, 2014 18:48
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Cerebral Bore posted:No, you dolt. I'm saying that it can't be done with the political situation we have now. And by association, you're saying that it must be done with a different political situation. You have to prove that. Especially given that your idea of the "current political situation" is "people doing the things they've been doing forever". You're saying "The world is too lovely to do anything and if you disagree you have to prove it's not". That's asking to prove a negative. computer parts fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Apr 20, 2014 |
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Apr 20, 2014 18:50
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Kaal posted:edit: Also, it wouldn't take Mars (or more realistically, the Moon as it's the same size) to destroy the Earth - an asteroid only a mile-wide would probably destroy all life if it impacted, while one that was only a couple dozen miles wide and travelling at speed could easily burn off the atmosphere and crack the Earth's mantle. Wasn't the Chicxulub asteroid something like six miles wide? I don't think a mile-wide one would come close to ending life. While I'm generally glum about humanity's future, I'm quite upbeat about life on Earth's; there's some insanely hardy unicellular stuff that could probably withstand even an atmosphere destroying, mantle-cracking event. Actually wiping out all life would take a surprisingly large amount of energy, I think. Also, regarding rebuilding civilisation, isn't it lack of extractable oil that's the biggest hurdle to overcome? That's not a resource that just comes back.
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Apr 20, 2014 19:00
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Kaal posted:All those easily accessible remnants of our society would be used just in the process of rebuilding the society, as I don't think that space colonies is going to be high on the list of priorities for the immediate survivors. It would take many generations to recover, depending on the extent of the catastrophe. If humanity was reduced in population to only a few thousand people around the world, they'd have to go back through an equivalent of the medieval ages, the renaissance, the industrial age, the space age, and then develop that into an even higher level than what we've yet to achieve. All without the untouched stocks of game animals, fishing, wood timber, fresh water, accessible fossil fuels, surface minerals, etc. that have played such a key role in allowing us to get where we are. Recycling simply can't replace that.
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Apr 20, 2014 19:04
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