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Re: Where to next in Earth's dying days?
Posted:
Wed 30 Sep 2009, 19:43:00by americandream
Us humans can't even get the toilet paper we wipe our butts with, environmentally right, and we wanta colonise other moons or planets.
Cid_Yama wrote:Earth is now so dangerous that humans must find a new home if the species is to survive. That was Stephen Hawking's message last week. But where should we go? Alok Jha weighs up the options, from the mountains of Mars to the acid clouds of Venus.
link
Re: Where to next in Earth's dying days?
Posted:
Wed 30 Sep 2009, 20:10:43by DrGray
NASA can't even afford to make another moon landing within the next ten years, if ever. Colonization is and always will be science fiction. We don't have the resources to do it. We are stuck here, which is why global climate change is such a grave issue.
Entertaining piece, though. Thanks Cid. I presume part of your intent was to reveal Hawking's heavy message...
Re: Where to next in Earth's dying days?
Posted:
Wed 30 Sep 2009, 20:15:11by PrestonSturges
Meet me down by the methane sea
My arrows are made of desires from far away
as Jupiter sulphur mines.
I said, my arrows are made of desires from far away
as Jupiter sulphur mines.
Way down by the methane sea.
I have a humming bird that hums so loud,
you think you were losing your mind.
Well, I float in liquid gardens in Arizona's new red sands.
Well, I float in liquid gardens way down in Arizona's new red sands.
I taste the honey from a flower name Blue, way down in California,
and New York drowns as we held hands.
'Cause I'm a voodoo chile,
Lord knows, I'm a voodoo chile, babe.
Jimi Hendrix
Re: Where to next in Earth's dying days?
Posted:
Wed 30 Sep 2009, 20:25:54by Daniel_Plainview
Why does Mercury get such a bad rap?
■ Like the moon, Mercury is a desert pockmarked with craters. The temperature ranges from -180 degrees at the poles to 400 degrees on the side facing the sun. The average is about 180 degrees.
■ The lack of magnetic field (about 1 per cent as strong as Earth's) means the high-energy radiation streaming from the sun would make life unbearable and the lack of any real atmosphere would restrict people to tiny shelters.
Re: Where to next in Earth's dying days?
Posted:
Wed 30 Sep 2009, 21:10:15by thylacine
Or maybe it's more like: Humans are now so dangerous that the Earth must find a way of getting rid of us if the planet is to survive? The final solution is in progress!
Re: Where to next in Earth's dying days?
Posted:
Wed 30 Sep 2009, 21:20:05by PrestonSturges
DoomWarrior wrote:Why does Mercury get such a bad rap?
■ Like the moon, Mercury is a desert pockmarked with craters. The temperature ranges from -180 degrees at the poles to 400 degrees on the side facing the sun. The average is about 180 degrees.
■ The lack of magnetic field (about 1 per cent as strong as Earth's) means the high-energy radiation streaming from the sun would make life unbearable and the lack of any real atmosphere would restrict people to tiny shelters.
Nobody's flocking to Uranus either
Re: Where to next in Earth's dying days?
Posted:
Wed 30 Sep 2009, 21:29:17by SheikYarbhouti
Nobody's flocking to Uranus either
Hey, speak for yourself..
Re: Where to next in Earth's dying days?
Posted:
Wed 30 Sep 2009, 22:18:28by timmac
Here we go again Cid, the earth is dieing and so will every one on it again, I know take all those that beleave this get on 10,000 rockets and leave this dieing planet to us denialers of Global Warming and we will be just fine while the rest of you are lost in space looking for another planet to populate..
I am going to fire up my RV this weekend and get her ready for some fall camping, 8 miles to the gal and 10,000lbs of carbon out my tail pipe, yea baby all in the name of global warming...
Re: Where to next in Earth's dying days?
Posted:
Wed 30 Sep 2009, 22:41:26by Lore
“Centuries ago, sailors on long voyages used to leave a pair of pigs on every deserted island. Or they'd leave a pair of goats. Either way, on any future visit, the island would be a source of meat. These islands, they were pristine. These were home to breeds of birds with no natural predators. Breeds of birds that lived nowhere else on earth. The plants there, without enemies they evolved without thorns or poisons. Without predators and enemies, these islands, they were paradise. The sailors, the next time they visited these islands, the only things still there would be herds of goats or pigs. .... Does this remind you of anything? Maybe the ol' Adam and Eve story? .... You ever wonder when God's coming back with a lot of barbecue sauce?”
Chuck Palahniuk
Re: Where to next in Earth's dying days?
Posted:
Wed 30 Sep 2009, 22:57:22by seldom_seen
We need to hook up Hawking with that Ray Kurzweil guy. Then we can download our brains to outer space and live forever as interstellar nano-robots.
Re: Where to next in Earth's dying days?
Posted:
Wed 30 Sep 2009, 23:03:12by hillsidedigger
" No one gets out of here alive" eventhough all get out of here or do we?
Re: Where to next in Earth's dying days?
Posted:
Thu 01 Oct 2009, 00:30:07by DefiledEngine
That is just silly, the humans are going to be around for a long time to come, even if an extreme clathrate gun goes off.
Re: Where to next in Earth's dying days?
Posted:
Thu 01 Oct 2009, 00:40:59by eastbay
DefiledEngine wrote:That is just silly, the humans are going to be around for a long time to come, even if an extreme clathrate gun goes off.
No doubt. But it won't be a very large number of us. Maybe a few thousand.... but I'm now reading Earth Abides (again) so my opinion may be tainted somewhat.
Re: Where to next in Earth's dying days?
Posted:
Thu 01 Oct 2009, 09:35:55by mos6507
Maybe Hawking should direct his intellect at the problem of how we'll generate the energy required to populate a small colony on the Moon or Mars in the midst of energy descent.
Re: Where to next in Earth's dying days?
Posted:
Thu 01 Oct 2009, 09:40:23by SeaGypsy
For someone so smart Hawking is an idiot.
Re: Where to next in Earth's dying days?
Posted:
Thu 01 Oct 2009, 10:43:28by evilgenius
It makes a big difference if we can reach the asteroid belt within the next hundred years. It's going to take a lot to get on and off of Mars without the resources in the belt. The rate that things are progressing and the direction of the philosophy behind the progression suggests that unmanned missions will do the job. Even with that (never mind what the world will have to become politically in order for us to succeed), there is a good chance that we will have to do a thorough mapping of the belt first, and strike successfully to begin with, or space will be over for us except for the immediate region surrounding us. I am being generous, of course, because I would like it to happen. Chances are there won't be enough surplus going forward amongst the broad array of things that have to go right.
Re: Where to next in Earth's dying days?
Posted:
Thu 01 Oct 2009, 10:53:05by Lore
Sorry my friends, the StarTrek generation will only live on in TV reruns.
Re: Where to next in Earth's dying days?
Posted:
Thu 01 Oct 2009, 11:00:46by efarmer
Humans, even awesomely brilliant humans like Hawking, often tilt toward an escape scenario when confronted with severe challenges. But things are what they are and I imagine we are going to have to stay put and scratch it out and take the blows along with any potential kisses that are in the mix.
We are going to live the laws of thermodynamics, slang version, I believe.
You cannot win.
You cannot break even.
You cannot get out of the game.
(I wonder if the old trick of having an ace or two in one's boot will still work...)
Re: Where to next in Earth's dying days?
Posted:
Thu 01 Oct 2009, 16:43:09by SoothSayer
The cool side of Mercury could be ... err ... cool.
Lots of energy streaming past ... but 3000 miles of radiation shield under your feet.
Your cities etc would however have to be mobile ... or in deep shaded craters.
Re: Where to next in Earth's dying days?
Posted:
Thu 01 Oct 2009, 17:39:15by Shar_Lamagne
What about permanent underground cities? Would it be possible to construct underground self-sustaining biospheres?
I wouldn't want to live in one, but if there are no other choices....