[Chinalurker]

Sending mankind outerspace as in sending out the whole world population any soon is indeed impossible. It's also totally unnecessary and irrelevant.

We are living for a purpose. One of which we have not yet revealed. The only long term option available for us is to expand and develop further. To stay on earth and pray for better times is of course also an option. Along with all other options available around here. But sooner or later we will encounter problems that we cannot escape from. By then, if we are still bound to this earth, it will be too late.

However, that's not the case right now. Now we still have plenty of time and energy to focus on creating our ways out of here. Cheaper ways, better ways. Solve all the problems with travelling and living outside this place. It may seem like too late when facing phenomenons like PO and others, but it's not. Fear is in our mind. Creativity is in our mind. We can all choose what to do.

[kambei]

Assuming that it's possible to colonise space, do we really want to do it? Will it benefit us? Will it make us more happy? I really really doubt it.

People seem to assume that progress, i.e. more wealth, more gadgets etc., brings happiness. This is nonsense when you realise that throughout the industrial world, rates of suicides, depression, anxiety, stress and so on are on the rise and have been for decades.
It seems the more we progress, the worse our quality of life becomes.

I think we should just give up on "progress" and concentrate on the things that really make people happy: friends, freedom, goals and a generally fulfilling life. We don't need to colonise Mars or wherever for that. I fear that such unnatural surroundings and pressures will make us even more miserable than we are today.
I doubt our cavemen ancestors were more miserable, soulless and stressed out than we are.

[UncoveringTruths]

Houston replies: So just solve it! No option. No excuse.

Houston: We'll I guess your gonna have to come up here and spank our dead asses.

For space to be feasible we will have to find a planet hospitable for life period. There hasn't been one discovered yet.

When you see the enormous vapor trails of a large space vehicle taking off, where do you think the energy came from? Furthermore who gets to go or who chooses? Man in space is a waste given our current energy dilemma. I would however continue with R&D satellites and space probes.

[stu]

Call me a pessimist but all of this talk about colonising other planets and being able to achieve it just by uniting together and solving our problems just seems too far fetched for me.

To begin with the problem with PO would have to be dealt with and the reaction of the human race to PO is one that is likely to involve fighting. The planet currently thinks in a capitalist way and this system is based around the individual being able to achieve happiness for himself through financial success and the pursuit of his own individual success. Most peoples career goals involve getting a job, having a family and settling down in the suburbs all nice and secure.

There is nothing wrong with that in terms of survival but I believe that it does not involve a strong sense of community spirit which is what is going to be needed when PO kicks in. People are used to supporting themselves and their immediate families and I think this attitude will be in most people when PO happens.

On top of that you will have resource wars being fought all around the globe and at present I cannot see this being avoided given the current attitude of world leaders.

There's nothing wrong with being optimistic but if you look at world events over the last 4 years you should believe that the world is becoming more dangerous (threat of terrorism, Climate change, dollar decline, PO of course, creeping fascism in US government, avian bird flu, SARS).

It will take a revolutionary step in human thinking to overcome these obstacles let alone even believe we can live on Mars.

Until that happens I'm going to pack my shotgun, my tent and my canned soup and head for the hills.

[UncoveringTruths]

628,540 gallons (372,800 pounds) are used in all during
Shuttle vehicle loading. Before final loading begins, some
liquid hydrogen is used to pre-chill fuel lines and the hydrogen
compartment of the tank; additionally, during fueling,
some boils off as a gas.
The Power Reactant Storage and Distribution System
(PRSDS) also uses liquid hydrogen. About 2,000 gallons
are used in all for PRSDS loading because of pre-chill operations,
boil-off and ground storage tank dumping.
Gaseous hydrogen is used for fuel cell purging during
operations in the Orbiter Processing Facility and while the
orbiter is on the launch pad.
The hydrogen used at KSC is produced from natural
gas by a steam-reforming process in New Orleans, La. It is
shipped in 13,000-gallon mobile tankers.
The current price of hydrogen is 98 cents a gallon.

Space Shuttle Use of Propellants and Fluids

[nocar]

Sometimes I think you are serious in this thread, but how is that possible? Look, to survive on Earth by growing your own food is not easy, in most parts of the earth. I try to grow food at the 59 parallell (Stockholm, about the same latitude as Anchorage, Alaska) and manage to get calories enough to feed one person for three weeks by spending lots of time on 30 sq meters, abut 300 sq feet, I guess. There is plenty of water etc, but sunshine enough for only half the year, and then part of that is too cold. Four growing months is what I get.

There certainly exists NO planet in the solar system that can support human life, other than earth of course, and lots of places on earth are impossible too.

It is very very far away to the next planet system, we do not even know where it is. You have to find a planet that is exactly like Earth in gravity, temperature, atmospheric composition, water, soil. You need earth's microscopic life to turn waste into nutrients for plants to grow in.

If you want to live and leave descendents, staying on earth is your only option.

[Guest]

If you believe that there is enough good in the species to make it worthwhile to save, then yes, it will benefit us. Let's say we knew the date of the end of the world and it's next year(comet impact or whatever). Wouldn't you be happy and proud if it was your kids that were the ones being sent out to colonize space?

The odds of that happening are pretty much zero. Also, how many people could you save? Certainly not billions. Or even millions.
In addition, to colonise space you'd need to be a rich, advanced, enormous energy consuming industrial nation, with all the misery that brings. It's just not worth it. Not to mention the fact that in the light of peak oil, such nations in the future seem impossible.

I'd wager that if you polled NASA employees and astronauts, you'd find a very high degree of happiness and motivation. I'd say that the people that have been working with lunar missions, Mars rovers and the hubble telescope(when they are working) are the most satisfied people on the planet.

I was talking about the "emigrants", not the scientists. I'm sure the scientists are happy - we can only wonder about the colonisers though.

My point is is: why can't we just scale everything down and return to a simpler more happy way of life, on Earth? If some comet comes, at least we'd die happy.
The choices, peak oil or no peak oil, are either a simpler more natural way of life on Earth, or being part of an enormous industrial machine struggling to survive on some far away hostile planet. I know what I'd prefer.

[kambei]

That was me. ^

[Guest]

It's more important that we colonize other planets in our solar system and beyond, than that a majority of our present world population survives PO.

Your call to self sacrifice, work, and dedication to an idea (space colonization) seems like a voice from another time. Americans did that to get to the Moon. Once we got there we grabbed some rocks, hit some golf balls, and rode around in in dune buggy. The only drama to come out of it was the foul up of Apollo 13. After that we started to run out of oil (peak production from '70 to '71) When I was a boy in the 1960's it was assumed that by 2000 we would have colonies on Mars. Many of us have wondered through the years, perhaps, whatever happened to those dreams? The reality of diminishing energy supplies is what happened to them (I am refering of course to American domestic supplies). As I said, your voice seems to come from long ago and far away and sadly now evokes only laughter.


By the way, the quote "That's one small step for Man, one giant leap forward for Mankind" was puke prose - inane crap. I knew right when I first heard it, and I was only 15, that something was wrong.

[PenultimateManStanding]

For you see, Chinalurker, Peak Oil = Peak Achievement. If the coming generations can preserve technological civilization at all it will be a miracle. They aren't going to care about these puerile space fantasies that you dress up with such earnestness and "steely purpose." Let it go, dude, its just Hollywood.

[Chinalurker]

It's understandable that during the circumstances many of us have lost some of our spirit. I see fellow Americans, friends from Europe and even Swedish representatives sharing concerns about the future we are confronting. I will speak for Asia, although I am originally from Stockholm. It really doesn't matter anyway as we are all the same and in the same boat.

Here for some feedback:

Life about Happiness..!

Happiness indeed is an important aspect of human life. Although I would caution about making it the main purpose of living. Stimulation however is different, along with development. Sense of achievement and Survival are more basic needs. Try to live a happy life without fulfillment. You'll know by your death bed if you've been doing the right things or not.

I fear that such unnatural surroundings and pressures will make us even more miserable than we are today..!

Some exchange students also feel homesick when they arrive in foreign countries. Then they get used to the new lifestyle after a few weeks and everything is fine. Who said moving out would be easy..?

I doubt our cavemen ancestors were more miserable, soulless and stressed out than we are..!

They simply didn't know the whole picture. As with the Dinosaurs. The dinosaurs also died you know.

For space to be feasible we will have to find a planet hospitable for life. There hasn't been one discovered yet..!

We make it hospitable. As there are Eskimos in the north of Sweden. Do you think it's comfortable there?

Man in space is a waste given our current energy dilemma. I would however continue with R&D satellites and space probes..!

Dinosaurs were waste. They died. What are we going to do with only more space probes..? Analyze ourselves to death

We're also preparing for peak because we want to survive and we want our kids to survive. Isn't that what colonizing space is also attempting to do..?

Yes. Think about it. Think about it just a little further. Who would be happy by the day the next giant meteorite comes falling down the sky (or whatever major global disaster). Oh, I'm so happy, and I've been living happily all my life, and now I'm going to die together with my family and everything, hurray~ And all the millions of years of development we've gone through is going to be wiped away, hurray~ Cause life ain't worth a sh*t and I don't care cause I'm just happy and happy~. We have a word for that here in China. It's called "Shenjingbing". A rough translation would be equal to - Nutcase.

The planet currently thinks in a capitalist way and this system is based around the individual being able to achieve happiness for himself through financial success and the pursuit of his own individual success. Most peoples career goals involve getting a job, having a family and settling down in the suburbs all nice and secure..!

Well, isn't that just nice. Isn't that just such a comfort~ Let's do what most people do. Let's consume some more then shall we. Why don't we just do like the rabbits! Multiply ourselves until there's nothing more to support us and then just die out. Brilliant! What was that thing called brain again..? I don't know, looks delicious, why don't we just eat it.

It will take a revolutionary step in human thinking to overcome these obstacles let alone even believe we can live on Mars..!

Yes for some people. No for most. Some people do the thinking, the rest just adjust and do the job.

Until that happens I'm going to pack my shotgun, my tent and my canned soup and head for the hills..!

Very creative. Good luck and best wishes. May my kids visit your grave some years later? I'll write a note saying "Here's what happened to the survivalist who gave up his brain for a shotgun"

628,540 gallons of propellants & fluids..!

I'm sitting and writing here on the toilet connected to this site using CDMA wireless on an IBM X40. Was that possible ten years ago? When did you say those Apollo sputnik fuel monsters were created again..? The true revolutionary solutions to space travel will not happen until more people start to actually think about and solve the problems involved. That's why I'm writing here to put some more minds in action.

There certainly exists NO planet in the solar system that can support human life, other than earth of course, and lots of places on earth are impossible too..!

What..? Do you expect driving around with a SUV, having Mac Donald's and Cola on Mars as well..? For Christ sake.
Adaptation. New Technology. Smart solutions. Etc etc. Moving to a new city is troublesome. Moving to a new country is really troublesome (Trust me, I know). Moving to another planet is, yet some more trouble. Preparation is the key. Can be made through simple step by step.

How many people could you save? Certainly not billions. Or even millions..!

With the present technology, not many. If we upgrade the technology, many more. If more people put their minds to it, more ideas will come up. It really doesn't have to take 628,540 gallons of propellants to go to space. It's just that we haven't been thinking enough about it.

To colonise space you'd need to be a rich, advanced, enormous energy consuming industrial nation..!

I don't agree at all. To colonize space we need some guts, a whole bunch of great ideas, and lot's of action. Cooperation, can make it happen very fast.

Why can't we just scale everything down and return to a simpler more happy way of life, on Earth? If some comet comes, at least we'd die happy..!

Yes, do that. Go ahead. You are free to die any way you want.

Americans did that to get to the Moon..!

Americans made a great effort. Americans conducted a lot of valuable research and gained lot's of valuable experience. Now we need to continue what was started and bring it to the new level. Switch in the second gear if you prefer. It's not about dune buggies and hitting golf balls this time. It's about having a lot of fun, doing something that makes sense, thinking, discussing, solving, acting, cooperating, achieving.. And Surviving. Oh, did I miss something? Happiness..! Yes, and with a sense of fulfillment.

The reality of diminishing energy supplies is what happened..!

Stay home and sh*t in your pants if you want, cause it ain't getting any better.

Taikonauts & Astronauts shaking hands..!

Yepp, this is what we're talking. But not only Taikonauts, Astronauts and Kosmonauts as in only representing different continents. But corporations, companies and down to private investors. Cause when we get our heads on it, it's going to get easier, cheaper and more accessible. It may take a while until our garage turn into where we store our custom made millennium falcons, but that's the direction. That's freedom. That's social security long term. That's worth making unselfish efforts and cooperate for.

Ever heard of the X-price..? Find out some more about it. Or find some similar intentions close to where you're at. Do some research about the actual obstacles and dive in to a topic where you feel you could contribute. It's not any harder than that. Contributions can be made via ideas, action, studies, communication, financial support, motivation etc. Anyone is qualified to add to the puzzle.

Session over for today.
Questions, concerns and communication welcome anytime.

BR/Chinalurker

[PenultimateManStanding]

Yor're unflappable. God bless you and your goofy spirit

[PenultimateManStanding]

That was a tour de force par excellence to use my monoligual bastard french. But you still started out with foolishness about space coloniztion which isn't going to happen dipshit.

[stu]

Man... If there was an award for most bizarre thread this would have to be a strong contender.

Chinalurker- your eternal optimism is great and I salute you for it but unfortunately I, like most other people on this website, cannot buy into your "we are the world" mindset.

There is nothing wrong with being happy and telling other people to be happy but I'm a realist.

If we want to change humanity for the better we have to start from the bottom up. Unfortunately it is against all the odds that this is going to happen.

You seem to be a big believer in the human spirit and all the wonders that it can achieve but humans are imperfect and prone to weaknesses such as greed, vanity, and all the other seven sins and no amount of Buddhism, magic mushrooms or tree hugging is going to change all that.

[Chinalurker]

Seriously, me too. Let's get serious. I'm being very realistic in my reasoning. Now I'll share my point of view regarding the situation we're in.

1.) Yes, resources are diminishing rapidly.

2.) Yes, it's gonna be a hell of a lot of changes for most people in a not too distant future.

3.) Yes, it's good to be aware of and prepared for the tough future in front of us.

4.) There is plenty we can do about the situation, about our individual chances of survival, about how our children will survive, and about how we will survive in an even longer perspective.

5.) We still have PLENTY of time and resources to make many things happen. By plenty however, I don't mean decades and centuries. Efficiency is one key. If You have time to watch TV... You have time to create wonders.

Being overly optimistic isn't going to help much. Being overly pessimistic is I am afraid self-destructive.

I have a lot to do. I'm not gonna sit around trying to convince anyone into anything. My points are very clear already.

I'll be available at: maoboneatyahoo.com

Cheers!
Chinalurker

[gg3]

Eventually a meteorite will strike the earth and cause another mass extinction, and some time beyond that, the Sun will go nova and wipe out the inner planets entirely. We don't know how long, but we think we have a few tens of thousands of years before the meteorite, and millions of years before the solar nova.

Where will our descendants be at that point? Will they be sitting in front of their televisions "being happy"? Will they be living in the caves because we gave up on progress? Will a few of them be eking out a meagre existence in some kind of tribal units?

Will they face death knowing that, somewhere else in our galaxy, human knowledge is being preserved, and civilizations are continuing? Or will they face death knowing that that they are the last ones, and after them, nothing?

Some of us here intend to survive the near-term crisis and preserve whatever of civilization and its values are within our means. Some of us here intend to survive by devolving into predatory barbarians. Some of us seek the former, fear the latter, and focus on defense.

In the meantime, to the extent we don't challenge the political and economic power structure, we're letting our species spiral down the path of squander toward collapse: a one-way street for all we know. Past some critical juncture it may become impossible to mount a campaign to reach the stars. We don't know where that critical juncture is, but it is certainly closer than the approach of large meteorites.

For those who wish to give up on progress, consider if you had said that in 1850, when sewage routinely got into drinking water, and typhoid, cholera, and dysentery ran rampant, and the accepted explanation was "Providence," meaning that we were powerless against fate.

Now go get a glass of water and drink it, and contemplate your rear-end, your nice comfortable buttocks that are not raw and chapped from chronic diarrhea. Contemplate your clean clothes that are not matted with grease and grime on the inside as well as the outside. Your warm comfortable bed, with clean sheets and blankets, that is not infested with bedbugs and fleas that bite you all night and carry bubonic plague. Think of the feeling of the fabric on your skin, warm and soft and clean, rather than clammy and sticky and stiff with dirt. Take a deep breath through your nose, and consider what you can smell, or more specifically what you don't smell.

Do you still want to tell your ancestors in the 1850s that they should give up on progress?

I often refer to Aldous Huxley's quote, "Nothing less than Everything is truly sufficient." He was referring to matters religious; prayer, meditation, and good works, all necessary to achieve God's grace or Buddhist enlightenment. But I quote him in these forums in the context of preparing for global crisis. Survivalism (in the civilized sense), and preparedness, and conservation, and new energy sources, are all necessary; together they add up to a sufficient number of strategies to give our species overall a better chance than if every human put his/her eggs in the same basket.

Civilization is worth preserving, not only because it gave you a clean glass of water and clean comfortable buttocks, clean clothes and clean bed, and freedom from the pervasive smells of putrefaction. Civilization also protects you from random violence, preserves your liberties, assures equal respect for faith and reason, and gives you the accumulated knowledge of all of humanity's ancestors as far as possible.

The question is, do you want to give your distant descendants the same chance you've had, on other worlds long after life on Earth has been erased? Or do you want to be lazy or selfish (like those who presently burn dinosaurs for amusement), by dropping the torch and letting your descendants watch the meteorite impact from their miserable caves, knowing that after them there are none...?

As a practical matter, few humans will go into the initial space voyages. Those who do will not be your offspring but they will still be the best chance your genes have of escaping extinction.

We start with a base on the Moon, and then go to Mars, and terraform Mars into a tolerably habitable planet (i.e. one where taking a breath outside will not kill you immediately). This probably takes a couple thousand years.

The accumulated knowlege from that process will be used to develop space transport ecosystems to get to the stars. The crews will be chosen to maximize genetic diversity at the destination for obvious Darwinian reasons. They will land on marginally habitable rocks and repeat the terraforming experiment. They will do this on numerous planets throughout the nearest available solar systems, and from there, spread to further solar systems. They will progress outward in such a manner that the human instinct for geometric growth will finally, at long last, be put to good use.

Eventually they will probably encounter another species doing likewise, and thus will begin the most fruitful exchanges of knowledge in our history. (By the way, we won't have to worry about space wars, any species that manages to pull this off will have overcome its aggressive tendencies far enough to reduce violence to the level needed to allow the large-scale scientific & engineering enterprises to proceed toward success. They will be interested in our ideas.)

Over the span of cosmic time, cooperating civilizations will occupy every planet that has sufficient light from its home star to grow food and provide energy for infrastructure. They will spread to other galaxies and meet their counterparts there.

Meteorites may come and our sun may go nova. Our descendants may mourn as they hear our last radio transmissions. But we will know as we speak, and they will know when they listen, that the family started by humanity will continue.

Or you can go back to thinking only of yourself.

[PenultimateManStanding]

TREKKIES, TREKKIES! I'm surrounded by TREKKIES. AAAARRRRRRGGGGGG!

[gg3]

Who are you calling a trekkie?

I liked the show, but IMHO, Babylon 5 was one of the most intelligent series ever shown on television.

[PenultimateManStanding]

Who are you calling a trekkie?

Sorry, gg3. I just think that if we were off to space it would have happened long ago. My idea of a trekkie is someone who still imagines that we could 'terraform' Mars.

[ZPF4TF]

Chinalurker,

I used to be a space nut. Hell, I even have two degrees in physics and aerospace engineering to prove I was devoted to it (and I am not trying to show off in anyway about this)...Startrek is my favourite show by the way!

But then one day I heard about peak-oil.

Sometimes you need to hear about a crisis (which is primed and ready to explode in your face) to make one think about what the true priorities in life are. Firstly, we need to survive on this precious wet dirtball that we call Earth and then worry about getting into space. Lets fix our own house up before we go somewhere else.

Chinalurker, I agree with you, but let our children or our children's children figure out how to get into space...it is our job to ensure that they can get to think about such things intact and in one piece. Maybe you can develop aspects of the future space program for future generations to implement. But just survive and stay in one piece for now, because if the crazies who rule the US/UK/Israel/Russia/China and a host of other nations have their way, then the safeties on the nukes and gene-specific bioweapons are going to come off and we will be literally living in a hell on earth of our own making.

But I salute your optimism!

Cheers mate!