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Hawking: It's outer space or die for humans

Dittohead not! said:
In that case, we would go the way of the dinosaurs, no doubt arguing and finger pointing all the way.

Of course, if we did have outposts on Mars or in space cities, then we could repopulate. Were we truly a rational species, we would have built such outposts, or be in the process of building them already. We would, in fact, be able to detect the giant asteroid and blow it out of the sky before it hits us.

If we were a truly rational species, that is .

We went from Sputnik to landing men on the moon and bringing them back in twelve years. Since that time, we really haven't done very much. Why is that? I submit that the spark for the conquest of space was rivalry between the US and the Soviets. Once the contest was over, we lost interest.
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It appears that it's scientists and researchers...along with a small percentage of general population completely seperate from the political structure and religion are the rational ones.

Didn't mean to offend any religious people because Physics cannot explain what put all the energy and matter into the singularity that created our Universe....which leaves still a possibility of there being a God in some form in relativity to us.

Physics also cannot yet explain what happens to all the matter and energy lost in the singularity of a black hole....perhaps I'm going off on a tangent here...lol


Anyways I see your point and agree....the only thing that would bring all humans together as a species, and be rational in terms of how we should work together for our survival and existence, would be to suddenly have to defend against a common enemy not from Earth...
 
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creativedreams said:
It appears that it's scientists and researchers...along with a small percentage of general population completely seperate from the political structure and religion are the rational ones.

Didn't mean to offend any religious people because Physics cannot explain what put all the energy and matter into the singularity that created our Universe....which leaves still a possibility of there being a God in some form in relativity to us.

Physics also cannot yet explain what happens to all the matter and energy lost in the singularity of a black hole....perhaps I'm going off on a tangent here...lol


Anyways I see your point and agree....the only thing that would bring all humans together as a species, and be rational in terms of how we should work together for our survival and existence, would be to suddenly have to defend against a common enemy not from Earth...
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That could be the best thing an alien civilization could do for us: Appear near Earth and pose a credible threat. Even if it were a sham, it could unite humanity in the face of a common enemy, and spur us to make some real progress, both technological and social. We could really use come progress in the latter.
 
Dittohead not! said:
That could be the best thing an alien civilization could do for us: Appear near Earth and pose a credible threat. Even if it were a sham, it could unite humanity in the face of a common enemy, and spur us to make some real progress, both technological and social. We could really use come progress in the latter.
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This was done on an old episode of The Outer Limits. A man was deliberately transformed into an alien-looking creature and sent out to scare the separate nations into a period of cooperation.
 
tryreading said:
This was done on an old episode of The Outer Limits. A man was deliberately transformed into an alien-looking creature and sent out to scare the separate nations into a period of cooperation.
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So, I'm not the first one to have thought of it? That's not too surprising.

There is nothing new under the sun.
 
Dittohead not! said:
That could be the best thing an alien civilization could do for us: Appear near Earth and pose a credible threat. Even if it were a sham, it could unite humanity in the face of a common enemy, and spur us to make some real progress, both technological and social. We could really use come progress in the latter.
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Perhaps a country should stage a false flag opperation to make this happen?...:mrgreen:
 
 
Cyberhwk said:
1908 - Ford Model T
1969 - Humans walk on the moon.

In 61 years we went from a primitive AUTOMOBILE, to blasting off from the Earth's surface to space, achieving escape velocity, traveling to another celestial body, achieving lunar orbit, LANDING, TAKING OFF AGAIN, and returning our human (and lunar) cargo safely back to the Earth's surface. In 61 years.

Short of interstellar travel, we could probably do just about anything physics allows in 200 years. Only think stopping us is apathy.
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and between 1969 and now, 41 years, what advances in space travel have been accomplished
 
justabubba said:
and between 1969 and now, 41 years, what advances in space travel have been accomplished
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Very little because of corporate corruption and the almost complete takover of the U.S. government by corporations....
 
Opteron said:
I'm not against colonizing space, in favor of staying on Earth, but the thing is traveling to other stars looks very difficult and not probable right now. If it was easy to go to other stars, I would say no problem, go to other stars and live there, but other stars are light-years away. Light travels awfully fast and it takes a whole four years for it to travel just to the nearest star system. Probably twenty light-years as an estimate to the nearest potentially habitable planet. Inter-solar travel is no problem, but inter-stellar travel seems much more difficult.

Learning to live on one planet is not impossible, even over the long term. Recycling will be especially important as well as population control. Metals, along with most elements, will not be destroyed so we can recycle them. We can use the Sun as our source of energy for most purposes. We can also use the other planets in our solar system for resources if we need too. If it comes to it, we can also give up resource consuming technology and live simply, or strike some sort of balance. The Earth has so far supported significant life for 400 million years already, its shown that it can support life on the million and billion year timescale. We just need to learn how to live responsibly and coexist with the planet and not destroy ourselves first.

For asteroids, I think if we had the technology to travel to other stellar systems, we certainly would have the technology to handle any asteroid that heads our way.

Again, I don't think the laws of physics can be broken and I don't think the laws of Relativity can be broken as well. Millions of years from now we will probably still have the same periodic table and elements, and we will probably still have most of the same laws of physics, maybe with some additional theories. Even with nuclear or fusion propulsion, traveling near light speed still seems very difficult. It takes mass to accelerate and it would take an awfully lot of mass to accelerate to near light speeds, and we would also have to decelerate as well. I'm not ruling anything out, perhaps in the distant future we could find a way, but with current laws of physics and technology it seems very difficult to travel to other stellar systems right now.
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Here's my problem with your position. There is no way we can get to the point of heading to other systems unless we work towards it. I don't think that the laws of physics or general relativity can be broken either, but neither of those are real barriers. There are potential engines that could accelerate us at a decent rate for long periods that don't break the laws of physics. As previously explained, we don't actually need to go faster than light for interstellar travel to be viable (just for return trips to be viable).

Furthermore, we don't even need to go interstellar for space to pay off. Yes, we could buckle down and work with efficient recycling and sustainability on this one planet, but only at the cost of major decreases in the standard of living for people in the developed world. If we develop space resources then we can have the standard of living of the developed world for everyone on the planet. Being satisfied with one planet when an array of resources within this system are available seems short-sighted and completely unnecessary to me.

Finally, regarding asteroids, we're not going to develop defenses against them unless we maintain a significant space presence. If we're going to be in space anyways just for simple survival, we should take the chance to develop the resources and potential out there.
 
World News Net, January 5, 2405

The first faster than light spacecraft, the Hawking, has now been assembled in high Earth orbit, stocked, and ready for an adventure to colonize other planets. This is a giant step for mankind! Our civilization will soon be spread throughout the universe.

WNN, January 6, 2405

The launch of the Hawking is being delayed due to unforeseen circumstances. Stand by for further developments.

WNN, January 7, 2405

It seems that there is a second faster than light craft in orbit next to the Hawking. Its captain has a message to us:

"Greetings, people of the third rock from the minor star at the edge of Galaxy 456dfg1. We have been watching with interest your slow climb from savagery and war to this crowning achievement of your race. At this time, we must advise you that there are no planets left to colonize. All are already inhabited by natives in one stage of development or another. The Universal Government has, of course, banned any advanced civilization from trying to colonize the planet of one less advanced.

If you will review your ancient history, going back to the era you refer to as the colonial period, you will understand why. Contact of a less advanced civilization by a more advanced one, even when both are still exceedingly primitive, results in disaster for the former.

Since you have now been beyond tribal warfare for nearly two hundred revolutions of your planet, and since you have at long last achieved a modicum of technological advancement, we can now welcome you to the league of advanced civilizations. We congratulate you on this achievement.

Now, I have a debt to pay. I bet Oorg, of planet 345ert that you would destroy yourselves before you got to this point."
 
Should we remain here for another million years we will be able to solve the survival problem. Artificial intellegence will rule. Computers will solve nearly everything that dare be a challenge to man. We may travel through worm holes to the other parallel unverses. Physics as we know it will be totally different in one million years.
 
Dittohead not! said:
If the human race were to disappear, who would be around to care?
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When the sun dies evaporating earth and explorers from distant galaxies far, far away find proof of life no where else in the univereses they will rejoice in knowing Jesus's father created their planet in six days. Halleluya!!!
 
molten_dragon said:
While I don't agree that the timeline is as short as 200 years, I agree with Hawking that eventually, we will need to leave the earth and begin to inhabit other planets/moons/asteroids/whatever. In the extremely long term (billion-year timeframe) it is absolutely certain that the earth will become uninhabitable. Even discussing a timeframe in the millions of years it is quite likely that we will be struck by another dinosaur killer that we may or may not have the capability to deflect before it hits us (actually, this could happen much, much sooner than that). In an even shorter timespan, there could be nuclear wars, runaway global warming, or simple overpopulation that could seriously damage the planet's ability to sustain life. The point is, at some point in the future, we will either need to live somewhere else, or die off.

Inhabiting other parts of our solar system would be difficult, but could be done. A self-sustaining colony on mars could arguably be built (at enormous cost) with today's technology. Colonizing planets around other stars is also not as far out of reach as you seem to think, and certainly wouldn't require faster-than-light travel (which may be well and truly impossible). Due to the time-dilation effects of relativistic velocities, the crew of a ship which could reach a large percentage of lightspeed (say 99.9 percent) would experience significantly less time during a trip to another star than would pass on earth during the same trip. Creating such a vessel is beyond our abilities at the moment, but will likely be doable within just a few hundred years. Generation ships are another option, and would require even less advanced technology.

Regardless of the method, we're going to need to leave the earth eventually, which is a damn good reason to keep spending money on the space program. The future of the entire human race is quite literally at stake.
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Well, since Obama killed the NASA space mission, you can forget it.
 
American said:
Well, since Obama killed the NASA space mission, you can forget it.
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yep.... soon as i found out that this happened i was upset. because i know one of you kats can back up my next statemen, OBAMA CLEARLY SAID that he wanted to proceed with NASA's future space explorations and help increase the space program fundings by giving them more money still..... and now he pulls this fast one?

now i know every candidate makes promises and sometimes cant keep them, but this is just an outrage how do make a promise to give more fundings and instead yuo pull out a chunk of the percentage fundings.... to me this has to be a first time this has ever happend .-.
 
Everyone and I mean everyone on this thread sees pilots piloting space ships like Flash Gordon. You are all naive and downright stupid. The "FUTURE" consists of intelligence not matter. With a high enough intelligence a means of transport, not necissarily physical will take intelligence to wherever time will allow and time is a very long time. This "intelligence" will arrive somewhere and recreate life. It is as simle as the pimple on your nose.
 
rhinefire said:
Everyone and I mean everyone on this thread sees pilots piloting space ships like Flash Gordon. You are all naive and downright stupid. The "FUTURE" consists of intelligence not matter. With a high enough intelligence a means of transport, not necissarily physical will take intelligence to wherever time will allow and time is a very long time. This "intelligence" will arrive somewhere and recreate life. It is as simle as the pimple on your nose.
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well thank you for that brilliant insight [/s]
any chance that you actually have sources which would support your conclusion?
for extra points, tell us how you avoid nose bleeds while sitting on that high horse
 
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