Honestly, science moves as fast as the money does.
We have the technology to start colonising mars now. It's just that no-one wants to foot the bill, either in sheer money (the single most expensive project in the history of mankind to date) or the inevitable high-profile loss of life that comes with all high-risk exploration.
It’s interesting as with all things economics. I once read that the US economy returned an order of magnitude in profit on its returns from its space program investment. I have no idea whether or not this is true but many of the technologies we now take for granted can be directly traced back to that investment.
Earth has a second moon?
Also, who will be the ones to set foot on Mars or one of the other planet's moons?
Also, who will be the ones to set foot on Mars or one of the other planet's moons?
Who? Robots (as you well know) and in due time, androids with A.I. I doubt any humans will set foot on any moons in our solar system unless there is some over-riding reason for a person to land there. By the time we have the ability to land [humans] on another moon, the technology of A.I. and robotics will have been so advanced that we won't have to. It will be so much cheaper to send androids who have no need for our clumsy environmental needs, who don't get sick, who don't need to eat, etc.
Naw, it won't happen I'm afraid.
Yea, colonize Mars if you want to, but going beyond that, as far as any foreseeable future, I don't think humans will be out there. Star Trek is fun science fiction but it's just imagination. Just because we can imagine it doesn't mean it will happen that way. I'm going to make a bold prediction that I'm sure will be shot down in this thread, but I do not think humans will explore the galaxy beyond this planetary system. Our species will certainly explore it, but not by sending people out.
Go ahead and shoot me down now ...
OK I'll give you this then - Yea perhaps someday, perhaps, but not the foreseeable future. 50,000 years, 250,000 years? Maybe. Maybe ... but by that time humans will be a totally obsolete anachronism. Most likely we'll be long gone in favor of the next evolutionary step - machines.
Also, who will be the ones to set foot on Mars or one of the other planet's moons?
Who? Robots (as you well know) and in due time, androids with A.I. I doubt any humans will set foot on any moons in our solar system unless there is some over-riding reason for a person to land there. By the time we have the ability to land [humans] on another moon, the technology of A.I. and robotics will have been so advanced that we won't have to. It will be so much cheaper to send androids who have no need for our clumsy environmental needs, who don't get sick, who don't need to eat, etc.
Naw, it won't happen I'm afraid.
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I think there are many explorer minded people out there that would strongly disagree that ONLY robots will set foot on those worlds.
Robots have already been on Mars and on Saturn's moon by Huygens probe on Titan.
There are so many things to do on earth, why would we spend all the resources to go somewhere else? If we leave our planet with the current way of thinking, we end up in a universe, which is a dystopia. Imagine the world of Dune if religions stay. Or space battles, between nations, if the Earth is not united. The only economically feasible space war is nuclear war, because it has the best weight to destruction ratio.
First we need to clean up, and then it is time to go. Even in star trek, earth was united, before the events of any of the series. Money was unnecessary, hunger was gone, gene manipulation was abolished, and the WW3 was cleaned up. I'm afraid, I will be long gone before any of this happens.
blah blah blah blah. I'm a computer scientist, not a teleporter science, so I could be just coughing up shit.
blah blah blah blah. I'm a computer scientist, not a teleporter science, so I could be just coughing up shit.
You are, really? At fifteen?
blah blah blah blah. I'm a computer scientist, not a teleporter science, so I could be just coughing up shit.
You are, really? At fifteen?
You got a problem with that?
There are so many things to do on earth, why would we spend all the resources to go somewhere else? If we leave our planet with the current way of thinking, we end up in a universe, which is a dystopia. Imagine the world of Dune if religions stay. Or space battles, between nations, if the Earth is not united. The only economically feasible space war is nuclear war, because it has the best weight to destruction ratio.
First we need to clean up, and then it is time to go. Even in star trek, earth was united, before the events of any of the series. Money was unnecessary, hunger was gone, gene manipulation was abolished, and the WW3 was cleaned up. I'm afraid, I will be long gone before any of this happens.
Why indeed. That's a good question. The fact that there are 7 billion people on earth and growing. The need will be there to find new places to live, such as happened when the new world of the Americas was discovered. If there hadn't been someone with Christopher Columbus drive to create a new trade route to India, the Americas would still be a vast untamed land and Europe would be over crowded.
Also, the technology needs to be there in the event that a catastrophic event happens, such as a large asteroid heading toward the planet. If we all sit by and try to clean up the planet, that technology will be lost with that line of thinking. I agree that the planet needs work, but lets not throw out the technology that we already have started. Let those who want to clean up and save the world do that, but also let space exploration technology grow as well.
Belts and suspenders.
There is a plateau, which is pretty much already reached in Europe. Europe has some 0.25% growth. That is 10% over 40 years.
If a large asteroid comes, we just send Bruce Willis to blow it up. No really, what is the chance of that happening over the next hundred years? How would you build self sustaining economies anywhere in that timeframe? You know, not only growing Budweiser crops and sugar, but also IC manufacturing, chemical plants, or all the machinery you need to survive on an alien planet?
In the meantime:
"In 2012 it is estimated that, given a poverty line of $1.25 a day 1.2 billion people lived in poverty."
Oh yea! The new Star Trek series. Hopefully it won't be like the shitshow that was the J.J. Abrams movies.