Is Man’s future amongst the stars??
Is earth just a starting point for the human race, is man’s future out amongst the stars living in self sustainable colonies??? According to a study published in September, the earth can support life for another 1.75 billion years providing nuclear holocaust,an asteroid ,or some other disaster doesn’t intervene.
Stephen Hawkins(a noted theoretical physicist) said in a a lecture on black holes for BBC such a disaster is imminent ,that it is but a matter of time and we must tread lightly for it will be at least a hundred years before we have advanced to such capabilities technologically. Even if there appears no disasters the earth will in the next 1.75 -3.25 billion years travel out of the solar systems habitable zone into the hot zone.
peace
I’ve been studying reality and conciousness for many years. Quantum physics is showing that the reality you percieve is not the true reality. About 68% of the Universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 27%. The rest, matter, adds up to less than 5% of the Universe. Then take up “matter”. 99.9999% of the “matter” you experience is made up of energy and empty space. There is very little mass.
Many quantum experiments show that our reality is “created” as we consiously make observation. The mystery is how to connect those observations to what we percieve as reality. What I am saying is that the universe exists in us. Just an opinion from an old man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9KnrVlpqoM
This is interesting ,but I admit as in an earlier response to another thread, I probably am not the right person to respond, but of course I will try.Quantum physics as well as consciousness/ relativity are purely theoretical fields and thus subject to the perception of the individual. Every bit of evidence is pure theory. One may argue what we are seeing is not real, but then how does one prove that which is unprovable and must be accepted on scientific theory. What then is reality and are we in reality experiencing an illusional existence??? If so what difference does it make how we conduct our lives because it’s not real???
tis but one’s opinion
peace
The difference is that we are human. We want to understand. That is the point of our existence, to understand each other, ourselves and our world. We conduct our lives within the context of our understanding of the world, of our understanding of reality.
Years ago we had daily and nightly celebrations. We celebrated the observance of the moon, the rising of the sun, the movement of the stars. We thought they were gods and beyond our reality. Our reality was the village we lived in. We conducted our lives in accordance.
Now, we don’t have those celebrations because we have an understanding of what those celestial objects are. We spend years in scholastic achievment to better understand how to get to those celestial objects. We land on the moon, kick some moon dust around and bring back some moon rocks. We land on Mars and “rove” around on machines that are extensions of ourselves. We land on comets for gods sakes!
Where once we thought celestial objects were beyond our reality, now they are part of our reality. Human nature demands that we constantly expand our horizons. Our dreams will soon be our reality.
You say our dreams will soon be reality Redshift?….Well…There,s this bird at the gym I go to..Talk about stacked in all the right places !!…..Oh ! Erm..Carry on !
This is also interesting and relates to my reply to you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uhvpCBlCSs
I am not sure what you said but as I understand it we could last .l75 billion years or a hundred years or just go poof when we are hit with some space debris or something. Not a happy thought and there is not anything we can do about it, so I will try to forget about it.
Throughout life one makes it’s biggest advancements when faced with tragedy and/or disaster. These events force change and fortunately for man he has constantly risen to the occasion, persevered and over came it. These events have forced man to grow intellectually and technology and his destiny may well lie beyond the stars. As in most things in life, this is purely theoretical, but I believe man(with all his flaws)has a purpose and again will rise to the occasion.
tis but one’s opinion
peace
Looking at the mess we’ve made of this beautiful planet we live on, I really hope the contagion that is humankind is confined here and is never permitted to wander the galaxy causing further destruction.
History has shown that you are probably right in your thoughts. But there may be a chance that we can evolve. There’s a couple billion years left to this middle aged earth. We’ve only been here less then 100,000 years. I’m crossing my fingers for change.
Here’s another thought albeit on a tangent. Should man commit mass suicide or be wiped out by some natural disaster then there is plenty of time for life to evolve again from another species, attain intelligence, become as advanced as we ar,e and call the earth their home. They may never know of our existence unless fossil remains tell our story. There’s plenty of time left for life on earth but there’s no guarantee that humans will be the sole intelligent species that it spawns.
Having said all that I actually believe that we will make it to the stars someday and spread across our part of the galaxy – but how long that might take is conjecture. Star exploration may be centuries away from now.
I think we may closer then you think. In one lifetime we’ve gone from riding horses to walking on the moon. In that single lifetime, science has taken us from being able to calculate the trajetory of a cannon ball to calculating the mysteries of reality. Using Pythagorean’s theorem, a 600 BC mathmatician, and a little bit of algebra I can take you to a hairsbreath reach of a universe where we all coexist. A singularity if you will. Where time and space does not exist. We use this math to coordinate our GPS and satellites to our communications centers here on earth. Technically, those satellites are in a different space and time that we are in.
It’s an amazing world and going to the stars will be utterly fantastic. We’ve already gone to one star, our Sun. We’ve gone to most of the planets in our Solar System. And we’ve successfully sent an emissary beyond our known solar system.
We have indeed come a long way in an astonishingly short space of time Red but is there not a ceiling, at present, to what we can achieve? Faster than light travel is thought to be impossible, at least in theory, and space-folding or portals are still in the realms of science-fiction. I suppose we need to throw up another Einstein who will radically accelerate our progress, or maybe quantum computers may play a part. I still see it as a race between engineering our own demise and finding a way to spread out to the stars – it will be a close one I think.
Just an add-on to that thought. Some scientists (in Australia I think) have put forward the proposition that whilst there may be a lot of inhabitable planets out there the chance of life taking a hold is quite rare – so we may have a lot of vacant planets to settle on.
Only one issue stops us. That’s gravity. We need to solve how gravity works and how to create it. Man can’t live without gravity. Once done, it’s baby steps. First our moon, then Mars, then the moons of Jupiter. Then goodbye Solar System!
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/49360/20150428/nasa-may-have-accidentally-discovered-faster-than-light-travel.htm
Here’s an interesting note on faster then light travel:
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/49360/20150428/nasa-may-have-accidentally-discovered-faster-than-light-travel.htm
Interesting article Red – but doesn’t traveling at (or in excess of) light speed create time-dilation issues? I feel that some other method of transportation will be required that doesn’t involve linear travel at all (whatever that might be).
Another question here – if the observable universe is actually light from events millions of years ago how will we know, when traveling to a particular star, where that star actually is in the present universe – or even if it’s still there?
Or is that a dumb question?
The north Koreans are way ahead of us…They say they sent a man to the sun and back….bought back a sample of a sunspot an, all….course,it was done at night so he didnt get singed….clever little bugga,s Eh ?
Lol!
Leaving for North Korea now. I wasn’t aware of their advances. I would like to be in one of those Sun exploration expeditions!
My question; what in the fell are humans do in the cosmic space? Haven’t we splenty of problems here on earth which need to be solved?
Lots of problems vonMichael, but maybe quite a few would be solved if we started colonising space, for example:
Overpopulation: more room for people to spread out
Resource depletion: Lots of metal, gases, minerals, and water out there – we would be able to stop (or greatly reduce) plundering our own planet
Political division – endless wars over territory and\or religious dominance might be overcome if countries and faiths could find a home of their own without competition
Wildlife and environmental destruction: With fewer people requiring room to live on Earth the natural habitat and environment might be left alone to recover
There’s a plenty more and of course we may just shift our problems elsewhere but at least there would be firebreak in place to let us mature a little as a species.
The problem with dilation of space and time can be solved with the current formulas that we use with our satellites and space vehicles. Even though they are some distance away from us and are at a different velocity, we make adjustments for the subsequent dialtion of space and time that occurs. Same for a distant star. However, there may be an issue where we calculate that a star will be at a partiular location, but it no longer exists. So we show up next to a black hole. Very disconcerting.
GPS satellites are a matter of sub-seconds out of sync and are relatively close, which is easy enough to adjust for, but surely sustained light-speed travel across vast distances would mean the difference between the travelers and those left on Earth would become years, even centuries. We can’t adjust for that amount of relative time difference can we?
True, once you left earth those you left behind will age much faster then you because of your acceleration. Time and space dialates for you the traveler. So it may be centuries for those on earth but only a fraction of that time for you. Our only hope for the stars is to travel faster than the speed of light or take a shortcut and travel through a wormhole. Both cases are highly theoretical at this point. So for now, travel to the stars can be done, but you are right, it will take centuries to get there.
Sorry darkfarmowl I can’t agree with you at all. As you say, the key factor are is the growth in population.
In previous centuries families used to have many more children than 1 or 2 as it is usual today. The reason for this, children were the social security for their parents.
Governments in the less developed countries should find ways to stop that negative development by strategies used in our countries. people never pay any tax to stabilize national grow.
Resource depletion; 50% of the recources go into the research and developement of new wappons. Why do people need new handys every 3 month?? Just one thought.
What kind of animals could be found in the universe. Our cookery books would need to be revised which means 1000 nd 1000 of trees need to chop down?
No, by my means I would say humans all over this world need a rethink in the way of living. To fix the problems on earth first before starting an orbit adventure.
There’s no indication that human population increase will slow down any time soon – and it’s not a safe assumption that it ever will, which is why I said that a possible solution would be to take us off world in order to expand, which ties in with your question about what business we have going out into the universe.
I’m not sure how much natural resource goes into the arms race as I’ve not seen the published figures anywhere but I do know a lot of natural resources are used to expand and maintain our current infrastructure, devise new gadgets, and run our transport systems. Nobody is going to take a backward step from technical advancement, so we will continue to need natural resources at the expense of depleting what this planet has left. Again, the business we may have by exploring other worlds is to find new supplies of these resources in order to progress as a species. You might not like the way the world is going, but it’s not going to change. The governments of the developed world aren’t going to stop developing weapons and it’s citizens won’t accept any measures to ‘do without’ their gadgets in order to make the world a more ecologically sound place to live in. The third world population will still continue to rise because of the high infant mortality rate and a poor approach to birth control. Unfortunately these things are with us to stay for the foreseeable future and therefore we need to accommodate them somehow.
I’m sorry, I don’t understand your reference to cook books and chopping down trees. Could you clarify?
A good example is electricity. “What the hell are we doing experimenting with frigging electricity. If we were meant to electricute ourselves God would have given us wires coming out our ears.”, was a common saying.
The problems of communicating with an alien race ,out there among the stars are staggering….We of course would speak out native tongues, (Gawd help us if the Scots get there first)….maybe the aliens would be used to communicating by tap dancing and farting at the same time.
Just a thought !
True, very true. When an English sailors approached natives in one of the Pacific islands, a sailer blew his trumpet to send a big “Hello” to the natives. The natives took the blare of the horn to be a attack signal, so they attacked and killed the approaching sailors. An unfortunate language mistake.
Maybe we’d first use basic things like mathematics to communicate (assuming they had a concept of mathematics as we understand it – depends on how many digits they possess) – or the musical scale (One Direction??? Perhaps not).
So far we haven’t ‘heard’ of any signal from space. It may be that there is life, but not intelligent enough to send a signal. Or there was life and now they are extinct. Or they are so intelligent we don’t understand their signals. Or they are hiding from us. It’s all conjecture at this point.
Of course it’s all conjecture – that’s why we are blue-skying ideas in this thread. But going back to the original question raised about colonising other worlds: That’s not merely conjecture – it’s probably going to become a necessity.
I understand your way of seeing or judging the situation at present or the near future darkfarmowl.
Can you imagine a life in a space suite? There is no air for plants to grow nor animal to live!
No, our future is on earth. We are not born to ruin it. Your arguments lead me back to the gold digger time in the USA. Why? Cos when one claim was empty the digger went of to find another one.
No here on earth we have to use our brain, our intelligence and the experiences of time.
Re to the books I mentioned. Do you have any idea of the lifestock that could live on another planet? Will Dinosaurs rule the planet and if yes how are going to eat them.
We need new cookery book with new recipes and who is going to slaughter them.
No, I think will have to face a super tsunamy which has its birth near the Canary Islands. Second the world will have to face new epidemics much, much harder then Ebola was.
On top of it, the climate will heat so much no one can live in Arab countries, Africa and South-East Asia perhaps. See Somalia as an example.
No its up to us to cut down on our stupid consumption habbids. I remember quite vividly the time when a broken TV got repaired and year later the interior life was used
for new purposes.
And to finish my considerations can you imagine that is necessary to bring up people from earth into the orbit?
It’s been discussed that going to the stars requires 2 things, gravity and faster then light speed. Assuming, a big assumption, that those are solved then living on a spacecraft would be no different then Magellan’s voyage around the world. It took him 3 years to circle the globe. Started with 5 ships and 270 men. Ended up with 1 ship and 18 men left. So there were a lot of problems. But it was done.
So, a spaceship going to our nearest will probably have the same problems. Starvation would be a problem, much like what happened with Magellan’s voyage.
Our nearest stars are Alpha Centauri, about 4.7 light years away. At twice the speed of light we could make it in less then 3 years. Assuming it would still be there and not be a black hole. And assuming we can go twice the speed of light.
Faster than light speed may have been found. We may be closing in on the stars sooner than you think. Just have to fix that pesky problem with gravity. Don’t want to be invading another planet and taking all their resources with weakling humans.
If you read the book “Rendevous with Rama”, by Arthur C Clark,you will find he solved the problem of interstellar travel without “Warp drives” or “Wormholes”……..Even if you dont agree with him…its a bluddy good read.
There may be plenty of life-supporting but lifeLESS worlds waiting to be discovered, in which case we wouldn’t need to invade or destroy the eco-systems of alien worlds. I’d like to think we’d respect any planets w discovered that harboured life and leave well-alone.
As for resources, raw metals minerals and gases – formed from elements – must be plentiful out there. There’s no need to plunder an inhabited planet when you can mine an asteroid for its gold or a syphon a gas giant planet for its methane.
I think we have reached the conclusion here vonMicheal that BOTH approaches are going to be necessary for the future of humanity. Yes we really do need to sort out our problems here on Earth and there will be some hard lessons to learn along the way. At the same time we are an overcrowded house and some of the children will need to fly the nest if we want a long term future.
If mankind lives on several worlds rather than one then we reduce the risk of total wipe-out from an asteroid strike or some as yet unknown disease. The two approaches run hand-in-hand yes?
Yes I agree with you, but!
But shouldn’t we get our tasks on earth done first?? I don’t know if you know Stanislaw Lem, who is a well known science fiction author?
He once produced a film in with people have only got to live for 33 years and than they had to died. The death bodies were processed to bisquits so the survivors got fed with.
The reason for this procedure was the overcrowded world which couldn’t produce enough food for all the people who lived in it.
When was the film produced? I think it was in the early 50ths of the last century?
I don’t think the politicians are aware of the dangerous situation our globe is in, except the Chinese perhaps??
Yes I remember the film – it was called Soylent(?) Green and did indeed deliver a powerful message.
Given that interstellar space travel isn’t possible today and may not be for many decades I do think we should start addressing the world’s problems now – but I’m not sure we have the will at the moment. Governments (even the Chinese) have the attitude that it will be somebody elses problem for the future and it isn’t theirs for today. I think this is partly due to the very unpopular steps they would have to take in order to set the solutions in place and they want to stay in power. I really hope that this attitude changes soon but I’m not holding my breath.
Just think our journey to the stars will be hampered until we start to expand on quantum theory and discover that our hampering conception of a mere 3 dimensions expounded over a time and space limitation using a linear conception of quantifying is finite.We need to advance beyond that or the rock thrown by our caveman ancestors with muscle power will continue to be chemically self propelled as it is today.
I’m with you on this one sylvestercat. I’m not sure light speed travel will ever be the answer to cosmic travel because it has too many issues -I’ve already talked about time dilation which would mean (at best) that colonists would be on a one-way trip because the minute they leave earth they are consigned to history. There’s also the issue of gravity as mentioned by Redshift. Humans can’t remain weightless for years at a time – it’s not how we are designed. Red believes that gravity is our biggest challenge on long-haul space journeys but there are other logistical problems like food, water, and living space. Even if we found a way of travelling at twice light-speed the nearest star is still a round trip of four years (relative to the travellers). It all seems too impractical. We must find a way of circumventing the vast distances between objects in the universe without the traditional linear A to B way we imagine crossing distances today.
We may never find that way of course. But perhaps the little insights we are now gaining into the quantum world may open up whole new fields of science in time to come.
We may have to look to our “inner” selves for an answer. I mentioned this earlier, there is a 1% DNA difference between ourselves and a monkey. That 1% difference is the difference between a monkey using a stick to collect ants to eat and humans landing on Mars with our robotic emissaries.
We now have the capability to modify our DNA. I’m wondering what another 1% intellectual boost will give us? Our “boosted” selves will look at us and chuckle at our chemical rockets. Might even put us in a “zoo” so their children can have a look at the us playing with our chemical rockets and robotic toys. Not unlike what we do to the chimpanzees has we watch them play with sticks.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/01/health/genetically-modified-embryos-dna-uk-scientists/
I hope we will eventually colonize mars. However whether or not we do, I agree with many top astrophysicists who feel fairly certain an NEO will obliterate this planet at some point.