[0mar]

Eventually, yes.

In our lifetimes, not a goddamn chance.

[The_Virginian]

Maybe more of us can colonize the grey matter between our shoulders first.

Then worry about other empty spaces.

[Terran]

Eventually, maybe...

Assuming if the decline of fossil fuel energy dosn't crash civilization, and society remains somewhat intact. We will be able to build up from there. Otherwise our species burned ourselves out before we had the chance to get into space.

We went to the moon using technology thats 30 years old. We are so much more advanced than we were 30 years ago, yet we havn't even gotton a man on Mars yet.

We would had gotten out into space even before that only if man didn't wage wars constantly. Think about all of the knowledge that was lost, then had to be rediscovered when the great libaries in ancient societies such as Romans, had been burned down. Alot of this knowledge has been lost forever. We may get another chance somewhere in the future, it would be sad for humanity to be stuck on this planet living in the stone age until the sun finally burns itself out.

[smallpoxgirl]

Not a chance.

The Apollo missions were as far out of our petri dish as we will ever crawl. Really it was the pinacle of human hubris. 5.6 million pounds of fuel to send three testosterone junkies on a sight seeing expedition to the next rock over. We will never be that wasteful again. JFK proved that his penis was bigger than Khrushchev's, and that really was what it was all about wasn't it?

[sol]

Not likely without help You know Planet X, Niburu, the Sumerians, Egyptians, Mayans, Incas, Aztecs, American Indians, Australian Aboriginals etc... the list goes on they all seem to have a common theme with "star people" visiting here and giving us technology.

But I think we, at the moment, are little more than spoilt brats that can have anything we want if we bully hard enough and until we "learn" our lesson then nothing "from the stars" will help us. We need to pull our socks up and get over this childish tantrum throwing i.e. that’s mine not yours, you can't use that and the best, lets base our "civilization" on something that will one day run out with no thought for our children or the planet as a whole.

There is some interesting facts out there that can help explain the what, when and where we came from and were we are going.

That probe they smashed in the comet last year was a good example, why wont NASA tell us the whole story?

[Omnitir]

We will never be that wasteful again.

Apollo cost around $135 Billion U.S. in year 2005 adjusted dollars.

Comparatively, each year drug abuse costs the U.S. economy around $246 billion – each year

Obesity costs the U.S. economy around $92 billon per year

Iraq has cost an estimated $200 billion to date.

I’m sure if you consider non-essential driving as wasteful then cars would also cost billions each year.


Compared to what is truly wasteful, space is cheap. And unlike the selfish waste we constantly engage in, space development is for the benefit of our entire species. Wasteful? Space is a bargain. What’s a waste is that we don’t spend a lot more effort on space missions.

JFK proved that his penis was bigger than Khrushchev's, and that really was what it was all about wasn't it?

Regardless of what it was about, what matters is what it achieved. And it achieved a great deal more then most people realise.

[Omnitir]

That probe they smashed in the comet last year was a good example, why wont NASA tell us the whole story?

Possibly because they learnt crucial information about resources in space? Perhaps they are trying to avoid the same kind of responses that space enthusiasts/futurists get when they mention plans for capturing near Earth objects. Such responses could potentially harm any plans to actually save our collective butts with a fledgling space resource industry.

NASA has a habit of not sharing information that it believes others may profit from.

[MicroHydro]

I have spent four decades thinking about this, since Dad got a NASA job in 1965. I kept up with Dyson, Sagan, Drake, and so on.

In brief, the physics don't entirely prevent interstellar migration, but human biology and human nature does.

It is indisputable that the next generation of telescopes will be able to detect earthlike extrasolar planets - if any exist, if we don't blow ourselves up first.

In theory, one could build space elevators from nanotubes and go to orbit on electric power (Bradley Edwards). In theory, one could make solar sails of doped carbon nanotubes, and leave the solar system at 1% of lightspeed on light pressure alone (Bob Zubrin). In theory, human embryos could be frozen for thousands of years, thawed, developed in artificial wombs, and raised by robot nannies(MicroHydro). In theory, radioisotope decay could provide reliable onboard power for cruises measured in millenia (any physics textbook).

In practice, there is no way that the vast expense of such projects will be borne by those who will derive no benefit from the activity. It won't happen. Not with H. sapiens, not ever. If our species would not even rise to the challenge of planning beyond the fossil fuel age, it is constitutionally incapable of collective thinking on astronomical time scales.

Agree with smallpoxgirl.

PS: If H. sapiens is replaced by a sucessor species that is more mentally suited to such long term cooperation, that species will be greatly handicapped by the global resource depletion from the brief industrial explosion of H. sapiens (Originally pointed out by Sir Fred Hoyle). It will take roughly 100 million years to replace the oil. The ore concentrations will never be replaced.

[Omnitir]

In practice, there is no way that the vast expense of such projects will be borne by those who will derive no benefit from the activity.

But what if such projects aren’t attempted by some massive effort to achieve some unrealistic goal like you seem to envision, but rather by small steps for financial gain that over many decades leads to something more permanent?

Maybe the first step isn’t to go build some inter-solar travelling spacecraft, but simply starting basic processes and businesses that will lead to ever-greater possibilities? Perhaps industrial processes in space should first be established so that later efforts in space arn't a "vast expense", but profitable.

Incidentally, interstellar migration isn't a necessary part of colonising space.

[mercury121]

The key to accelerating the space race I believe is to find and utilize a better way to get into space than rockets. Chemical rockets are extremely inefficient, only five percent of the weight of the rocket is payload. To get around this you either need a much higher exhaust speed (fusion or antimatter/matter) or not carry your fuel with you (laser proplusion). Well actually with laser proplusion you are carrying a bit of fuel -- ice -- but the energy comes from the ground via very high powered lasers. The ice is superheated by the lasers and creates very high thrust.

Getting the payload to 50% of weight of the spacecraft is essential if space travel is ever going to take off. That way it becomes possible to an ordinary citizen to get into space using saved collected energy from solar, wind or other renewable power source. Otherwise space will remain hopelessly expensive.

Once we are in space we are not going to be heading off to another solar system -- not for centuries possibly not even for millennial. Our solar system is where the action will be. Most of the attention will be focused on the asteroid belt -- as a source of raw material and thousands of worlds to colonize. (I wonder how much fossil fuel energy exists in the asteroids?) The planets and moons will be a part -- they can support billions of people but the asteroids can potentially support trillions of people. Trillions!! The Kuiper Belt will be utilized last because although it has more resources than even the asteroid belt it is a lot colder there.

After our solar system is filled to capacity then we might start colonize other solar systems seriously.

[smallpoxgirl]

Apollo cost around $135 Billion U.S. in year 2005 adjusted dollars.

Comparatively, each year drug abuse costs the U.S. economy around $246 billion – each year

Iraq has cost an estimated $200 billion to date.

You are missing the one key ingredient. Energy. Apollo was cheap because energy was cheap. They could afford to throw it away on silliness like space travel. That situation will never exist again.

Obesity costs the U.S. economy around $92 billon per year

I’m sure if you consider non-essential driving as wasteful then cars would also cost billions each year.

If you think you are going to get a hundred million people to loose weight or stop driving so you can play out some Star Trek fantasy, you are seriously baked.

Whitey on the Moon
A rat done bit my sister Nell.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Her face and arms began to swell.
(and Whitey's on the moon)
I can't pay no doctor bill.
(but Whitey's on the moon)
Ten years from now I'll be payin' still.
(while Whitey's on the moon)
The man jus' upped my rent las' night.
('cause Whitey's on the moon)
No hot water, no toilets, no lights.
(but Whitey's on the moon)
I wonder why he's uppi' me?
('cause Whitey's on the moon?)
I wuz already payin' 'im fifty a week.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Taxes takin' my whole damn check,
Junkies makin' me a nervous wreck,
The price of food is goin' up,
An' as if all that shit wuzn't enough:
A rat done bit my sister Nell.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Her face an' arm began to swell.
(but Whitey's on the moon)
Was all that money I made las' year
(for Whitey on the moon?)
How come there ain't no money here?
(Hmm! Whitey's on the moon)
Y'know I jus' 'bout had my fill
(of Whitey on the moon)
I think I'll sen' these doctor bills,
Airmail special
(to Whitey on the moon)

[PenultimateManStanding]

If you think you are going to get a hundred million people to loose weight or stop driving so you can play out some Star Trek fantasy, you are seriously baked.

Whitey on the Moon
A rat done bit my sister Nell.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Her face and arms began to swell.
(and Whitey's on the moon)
I can't pay no doctor bill.
(but Whitey's on the moon)
Ten years from now I'll be payin' still.
(while Whitey's on the moon)
The man jus' upped my rent las' night.
('cause Whitey's on the moon)
No hot water, no toilets, no lights.
(but Whitey's on the moon)
I wonder why he's uppi' me?
('cause Whitey's on the moon?)
I wuz already payin' 'im fifty a week.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Taxes takin' my whole damn check,
Junkies makin' me a nervous wreck,
The price of food is goin' up,
An' as if all that shit wuzn't enough:
A rat done bit my sister Nell.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Her face an' arm began to swell.
(but Whitey's on the moon)
Was all that money I made las' year
(for Whitey on the moon?)
How come there ain't no money here?
(Hmm! Whitey's on the moon)
Y'know I jus' 'bout had my fill
(of Whitey on the moon)
I think I'll sen' these doctor bills,
Airmail special
(to Whitey on the moon)

Star Trek Fantasy, so sad, so true The Whitey's on the Moon poem (pretty good notion, well done) has inspired me to relink this famous poster to commemorate the Great Occasion (enjoy, and if you've seen it already, indulge me):

Link to image

[Omnitir]

Smallpoxgirl, I think you missed my point. You consider space to be a waste of money, but I’m trying to show that there is a hell of a lot more crap in this world that we waste money on. You think spending money on space development is silliness and just trowing money away. Well how do you feel about the considerably larger amount of money that goes into keeping millions of people hooked on drugs (legal and otherwise), or keeping Americans fat on shit food, or keeping millions living an unsustainable life that they don’t even like?

There are vastly greater wastes of money then space. Space is one of the few things of the modern world with the potential to make life better for all, but most people don’t have the ability to conceive of the potential, and consider it the wasteful dreams of the geeks. So instead we are stuck with finite resources and an ever-growing population.

Nice poem.
Some dude complaining about all the problems thinking it’s because whitey’s on the moon, not realising that if the dream was allowed to be followed through most of those problems would be solved.

[PenultimateManStanding]

Nice poem.
Some dude complaining about all the problems thinking it’s because whitey’s on the moon, not realising that if the dream was allowed to be followed through most of those problems would be solved.

It doesn't come across as he's got problems because whitey's on the moon so much as whitey's on the moon but he doesn't give a shit it's nothing to him why should he care etc, perfectly understandable for someone who feels that it is none of his affair, he isn't a member of the proud group represented on the moon, he's an outcast, unaccepted and unappreciated by that group. Essentially an expression of alienation from mainstream "white" society.

[Jenab6]

In practice, there is no way that the vast expense of such projects will be borne by those who will derive no benefit from the activity. It won't happen. Not with H. sapiens, not ever. If our species would not even rise to the challenge of planning beyond the fossil fuel age, it is constitutionally incapable of collective thinking on astronomical time scales...

You mean "Not with democracy, not ever." With an aristocratic social hierarchy led by a King who liked the idea of space colonization, and who was obeyed by peasants content with their lot, it could be done. Aristocracy lets the guy at the top serve his artistic vision about the goals his nation should work for. Democracy is a pack of dogs barking about who should be sacrificed so that others can eat - artistic visions about the distant future don't mean much in such an endless rampage of deception and selfish rapacity.

PS: If H. sapiens is replaced by a sucessor species that is more mentally suited to such long term cooperation, that species will be greatly handicapped by the global resource depletion from the brief industrial explosion of H. sapiens (Originally pointed out by Sir Fred Hoyle). It will take roughly 100 million years to replace the oil. The ore concentrations will never be replaced.

Metallic ores will occasionally appear in meteor craters. Meteoritic metal was known in ancient times. But it won't appear often enough to matter.

There is a way to develop that higher successor species. It's called eugenics. Take the best of the extant hominids and induce them to breed, culling the offspring to remove undesired traits and to emphasize the desired ones. You'll have a purified racial stock in a dozen generations, a higher race in about 2000 years, and a new species in maybe 20,000 years.

The advantage to eugenics is that it has been proven to work in laboratory animals. Not to mention farm animals, show animals, thoroughbred racing animals, etc.

How do you induce people to breed a certain way? I'm sure that there are all kinds of ways. You could pay them. Or you could threaten to shoot them. Or you could employ psychological tricks, like arranging for a pair of young people to be temporarily shipwrecked on a desert island or some similarly romantic scenario - wait a few weeks, then "rescue" them and by coincidence have a priest with you to perform the wedding.

Jerry Abbott

[Carlhole]

PhysOrg

...construction of NASA's next big telescope has been so hurt by delays and cost overruns that even its staunchest champion in Congress reached a breaking point.

In a letter dated June 29, U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., all but ordered NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden to assemble a panel of outside experts to ensure the Webb project doesn't break its latest promise: a 2014 launch on a $5 billion budget.

Unlike Hubble, which orbits 350 miles above Earth, NASA plans to station the Webb telescope about 1 million miles away in what's known as a Lagrange point - a cosmic neutral ground where the tug of the Earth and sun even out so that objects in such a spot stay almost stationary.

That way, scientists can focus the Webb's mirror in one direction - deep space - while employing a shield that can block sunlight and keep its temperature-sensitive instruments from getting too warm.

Getting those pieces to work has been difficult, however,..

I'm just glad I live in a world where these kind of shots are taken. Wow.

[Pretorian]

so what kind of a telescope is this-- same thing , just further away? Or something new?

[Carlhole]

nasa

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a large, infrared-optimized space telescope, scheduled for launch in 2014. JWST will find the first galaxies that formed in the early Universe, connecting the Big Bang to our own Milky Way Galaxy. JWST will peer through dusty clouds to see stars forming planetary systems, connecting the Milky Way to our own Solar System. JWST's instruments will be designed to work primarily in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, with some capability in the visible range.

JWST will have a large mirror, 6.5 meters (21.3 feet) in diameter and a sunshield the size of a tennis court. Both the mirror and sunshade won't fit onto the rocket fully open, so both will fold up and open once JWST is in outer space. JWST will reside in an orbit about 1.5 million km (1 million miles) from the Earth.

I'm impatient that I have to wait until after 2014 to see that far back in time.

[sparky]

.
Wasn't there some project supported by AL Gore to locate an observation satellite in one of the Lagrange points , this one would have observed Earth ,

I guess it's a god idea to park a satellite there , it cut down on maneuver gas ,
the biggest problem with Near Earth orbits is that one need to make correction all the time , when the gas cylinder are empty , the satellite cannot keep the proper orientation , on the other hand , it's so far no servicing flight is possible