colonising another planet or star

Stephen Hawking (apparently) thinks we should make moves to save the human species by colonising either another planet or a distant star. He apparently believes the human species will be wiped out sooner rather than later and this is our best way forward.

Personally, I think the idea of being welcomed with open arms by other life forms is a tad arrogant. Most of us are fairly intolerant about economic migrants; surely we would be the same?

As for preserving the human culture, maybe another star or dimension might have a better one?

 

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Typical of that atheist to suggest to move away from planet Earth. As is known by everybody you can only go to heaven if you die on earth.

 

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Did he mention other life forms?

 

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Although I love Science Fiction, the more I think about it, the more I realize that it is probably bullshit that we'll ever get to another planet and colonize it. However, we should at least try, as eventually we have to consider where we're going to be in 10 or 20 thousand years.

 

Assuming such an extraordinary enterprise will be possible and people will pack their worldly goods and dump everything in cramped quarters, who do you think will make it on the passenger list? I'm guessing it'll be a short list. One page.

 

The list will consist out of mostly fertile women and a few guys to donate sperm. As a backup because frozen sperm is taken along.

 

The less than 1 percent wealthiest will without a doubt have a vital say in this matter. They'll argue: viagra, clones, artificial semination. And in preparation for the event they would have already sent their sons and daughters to the finest schools (no longer affordable to the general public) for promising careers as doctors, engineers, architects, computer techs, etc.

 

Ah -- frozen sperm. Good one, Spurious.

 

Which planet did have in mind? Mars? To colonize Mars would take another century or two. Travel to another star system would take centuries. I guess we better get started now before the Republications take over again.

 

Not necessarily true.

There is also 'limbo'. Maybe having to spend time on a distant planet might be someone's limbo?

 

Not in the article I read, but he might well have done.

 

According to one article I read, unless they were put into 'cold storage' (cryo-something) any astronauts would be dead by the time they got to anywhere suitable for human habitation.

The suggestion was that DNA could be stored/sent and then built/rebuilt. However, whose DNA would be chosen was not mentioned!

 

Mars was mentioned as being the 'easiest' to adapt to... but the view was that it would most likely be something out of our galaxy. Hence the distant planet or star...

 

I emailed the vatican about this because I was not quite sure myself. However, they replied that only those who live on Earth can go to heaven. For hell you can live anywhere apparently.

 

A book I mentioned to you earlier [minor spoiler alert: Pandora's Star] begins with the first manned mars landing interupted by a couple of guys who built a wormhole generator and were sitting there waiting for the astronauts!!!

The mars mission was abandoned, and the galaxy was soon opened for exploration and colonization. The point is, who knows what technological breakthrus might occur. FTL, Wormholes, whatever. If no such breakthru ever occurs, colonization of space will be a slow business.

My favorite story in this vein was a short story by Harry Turtledove. A fleet of ships is seen entering our solar system. They ignore all attempts at communication and land en mass in the US. Not knowing what to expect, the US military has the ships surrounded. The doors on the ships open, an army of aliens advances, raises their muskets, and fires. The US soldiers respond, utterly destroying the aliens. It turns out that FTL and antigravity are simple to achieve but that their discovery perverts the development of science. {that's why they didn't respond to our communications, they hadn't discovered radio!} Earth quickly figures out FTL, and goes on to conquor the galaxy with our ultra high tech electronics and weaponry.

 

I've read or heard of the second story. -Quite- a funny one, I must add.

 

All suns will burn out.

 

We're about to wipe ourselves out.
It'd be much cheaper to invest in fixing our problems than trying to flee. Flee to what? Barren rocks, incapable of supporting any life? Gee, that sounds like a great back up plan!

 

Going to Mars and then colonizing it in the next 50 to one hundred years will not change anything here on Earth. We would just be bringing our dirty clothes to another planet to contaminate. I think it's important to limit the number of colonists that want to live there and just use Mars as a scientific base to do study and research, just like in Anartica.